Question: Why do deep in the money options trade below their intrinsic value?

You made 94$ on an investment of 554.80 *100 = 55480$ for an approx holding period of 1 year. So the % return is ~0.16%, which is not much better than the short term us treasury rate. The current 1 year treasury rate is 0.27%: http://ycharts.com/indicators/1_year_treasury_rate So yes, you have a risk free portfolio, so you make the risk free rate. Remember this is an European option, so you are stuck for 1 year. if you found the same mispricing in an American option, then you found an arbitrage.

You could also switch to CreditKarma to file taxes, it's 100% free and just launched. I'm not affiliated with them, just bringing up an alternative.

Firstly if you've formed a limited company you don't need to register as self-employed.  You're an employee and shareholder of the company and your taxes will be handled that way. Registering as self-employed is only necessary if you're operating as a sole trader (i.e. without a company). Secondly you absolutely do want to get set-up correctly with HMRC as soon as possible, whether you're a company or a sole trader.  Ignoring the legal question your worry about paying taxes when you have no income is groundless - if you're not making any money there won't be any tax to pay.  Furthermore it seems likely that the business is currently losing money.  Those losses, if correctly recorded, can be carried forward and offset against future profits so not only do you not have to pay tax now, but you can reduce the tax you pay later when the money does start rolling in.

> Taking rough rice as an example, there are millions (if not billions) of people who eat rice to survive. People will always need oil to fuel their cars. People will always need electricity.  Commodity values are unlikely to go to 0, I agree. The fact you think this is super-relevant suggests to me you have not fully grasped the nature of the commodities futures markets.  > I don't like to be too risky  You are looking at getting into extremely risky securities.  > I guess what I am trying to do is look into things that allow me to profit, regardless of where equities are going.  Many men have died searching for the holy grail. Speculating in these markets is not for the faint of hearts, let alone for the risk-averse.  > I have gone as far as to look through OTC ADRs to find some foreign value, and I found nothing.  There are plenty of funds offering lots of exposure to international equities, which seem well-geared toward the individual investor.

The US requires its (tax) residents to report foreign accounts if the balances (on all the accounts together) are $10K or more at any given day during the year. This is done through the FBAR system. In addition, you obviously need to report this income on your US tax return and pay taxes. If the balances on your foreign accounts exceed specific threshold, your tax return should also include form 8938. If you report everything and pay the taxes due - you can keep the money wherever you want and transfer it between your accounts as you may see fit. If you don't - the US government may come after you with huge penalties, and the Dubai bank may freeze your account. Its easy to become US tax resident. Stay in the US for more than half a year in a row - and here you are. Subject to the US taxation. Even if you're not a US citizen or green card holder, or at all illegal. Some immigration statuses may grant you an exemption, but none that allows you working for your Dubai employer, so I'm assuming you're a US tax resident.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/540975904/senate-republicans-dont-seem-too-worried-about-trumps-subsidy-threat) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Senate Republicans don&#039;t appear to be too worried about President Trump&#039;s latest round of threats.  > Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions would begin holding health care hearings in September.  > The Trump administration could order the Office of Personnel Management to reverse that ruling, and leave lawmakers and staffers to fully fund their health insurance costs themselves.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6r43zh/trump_threatens_congress_health_care/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~181295 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*: **Insurance**^#1 **Trump**^#2 **health**^#3 **Senate**^#4 **bailout**^#5"

No one at my firm uses python, but we have both long-term algo-managed portfolios as well as very successful day trading strategies. I've worked a bit with both, so if you have any questions I'd be happy to try and answer them and if I can't I'll ask at work next week.

You have several sources of money: Scholarships not directly from the university. Some organizations have scholarships based on your area of study, your nationality, or your industry. Some require you to show that you need the money, others are based on your grades. The university can help you find these scholarship, or at least point you towards reliable listings. Don't pay somebody/some company to help you find them. Your employer. Some companies will pay for some classes. They may limit the types of the classes, and the amount of money. They may also require you to stay as an employee for a specific number of years in return for the money. If you quit before that time,they can ask you to refund the money. loans. I don't know what loan programs are available for international students.


Question: Deducting SEP-IRA contributions as a sole proprietor with no employees

SEP IRA deduction goes to line 28 of your 1040, which is above the line (i.e.: pre-AGI). It should not be included in your taxable income (AGI) for Federal purposes.

"I love how you're being downvoted even though you're providing a very basic answer that is easy to look up and see that you are correct, no the majority of people Linhares just listed aren't ""economists"" - but then again redditors vote based on they feel, irregardless of the facts. I also love how everyone now feels as though the financial crisis was easy to spot - I bet if we went back and asked them in 2007 they would have all foreseen it as well. Yes, a few exceptionally intelligent people (Roubini, Shiller, Grantham etc.) foresaw it, but then again thousands of intelligent people make forecasts on financial markets every day and the majority fail to outperform it. The survivor bias in action I guess."

I'm interning right now for the state and it gets boring but I like to ask around for work. I tend to be a multi-tasker and take on several projects at once to keep me sane. They even recruit me to work for other departments outside of mine. The more stuff I do, the better it looks on my resume even if this isn't what I want to do. It benefits all parties to take on more work and responsibilities. If it's engineering, just work your tail off where you are right now and apply for other positions for the school you're in. Network with professors and such to see if they can help you out or with your career service center to see if there are some positions in other places. Best thing you can do is always keep your feet moving. It keeps depression away and benefits you in the long run.

Costs for home / small business equipment under US$10,000 don't have to  be capitalized. They can be expensed (that is, claimed as an expense all in one year.)  Unless this printer is one of those behemoths that collates, folds, staples, and mails medium-sized booklets, it cost less than that. Keep track of your costs. Ask the charity to pay you those costs for the product you generate, and then donate that amount of money back to them. This will be good for the charity because they'll correctly account for the cost of printing.

"As you said, in the US LLC is (usually, unless you elect otherwise) not a separate tax entity. As such, the question ""Does a US LLC owned by a non-resident alien have to pay US taxes"" has no meaning. A US LLC, regardless of who owns it, doesn't pay US income taxes. States are different. Some States do tax LLCs (for example, California), so if you intend to operate in such a State - you need to verify that the extra tax the LLC would pay on top of your personal tax is worth it for you. As I mentioned in the comment, you need to check your decision making very carefully. LLC you create in the US may or may not be recognized as a separate legal/tax entity in your home country. So while you neither gain nor lose anything in the US (since the LLC is transparent tax wise), you may get hit by extra taxes at home if they see the LLC as a non-transparent corporate entity. Also, keep in mind that the liability protection by the LLC usually doesn't cover your own misdeeds. So if you sell products of your own work, the LLC may end up being completely worthless and will only add complexity to your business. I suggest you check all these with a reputable attorney. Not one whose business is to set up LLCs, these are going to tell you anything you want to hear as long as you hire them to do their thing. Talk to one who will not benefit from your decision either way and can provide an unbiased advice."

"You say ""it's expensive"".  I'm going to interpret this as ""the monthly payments are too high"". Basically, you need to get your old loan paid off, presumably by selling the car you have now.  This is the tough part.  If you sold the car now, how much would you get for it?  You can use Kelley Blue Book to figure out what the car is roughly worth.  That's not a guarantee that it will actually sell for that much.  Look in your local classifieds to see what similar cars are selling for.  (Keep in mind that you will usually get less for your old car if you trade it in versus sell it yourself.) Now, if you owe more than your car is worth, you're in a really tight spot.  If you don't get enough money when you sell it, you are still stuck with the remainder of the loan.  In that case, it is usually best to just stick with the car you have, and be more cautious about payments and loan length the next time you finance a car. Penalties:  Most car loans don't have any kind of early repayment penalty.  However, you should check your loan paperwork just to make sure."

Mervis Diamond hosted a Spring Bling wedding band trunk show at all of its locations and   emphasized the fact that the event caters to all kinds of couples, straight and same-sex. A lot of members of the gay community attended that event. Some couples bought rings but more importantly, people remembered it for years. In Spring Bling show many guests were welcomed to attend and shop for any occasion-a birthday, anniversary or graduation.

As mbhunter said, extra payments of principal don't affect your taxes (except to the extent that you'll pay less interest, because the amount you owe interest on - the total balance/principal - is smaller).  If you want to reduce your taxes, you might pay into an IRA instead.


Question: how late can i put money into an IRA and still have it count for 2015?

The IRA contribution for the year are allowed until the tax day of that year. I.e.: you can contribute for 2015 until April 15th, 2016 (or whatever the first business day is after that, if the 15th is a holiday). You'll have to explicitly designate your contribution for 2015, since some of the IRA providers may automatically designate the current year unless you explicitly say otherwise. If that happens - it will be very hard to fix later, so pay attention when you're making the contribution. You get a couple of things from your IRA provider: Form 5498 - details your contributions for the year, account FMV, and RMD details. You can see the actual form here. You don't always get this form, if you didn't contribute anything and no RMD is required for you. Since the last day to contribute is April 15th, these forms are usually being sent out around mid-May. But you should know how much you've contributed by the tax day without it, obviously, so this is only for the IRS matching and your record-tracking.  Form 1099-R includes information about distributions (including withdrawals and roll-overs). You may not get this form if you didn't take any money out of your IRA. These come out around end of January.

"Wow. It's clear I'm outnumbered.  When I'm approached with the question (and keep in mind, it's usually a couple data points and little else) ""I am getting started, with no other money do I fund a retirement or emergency account?"" I often suggest they put the funds into a Roth, in a money market fund, and treat it like an emergency account. If there's in fact an emergency, there's no penalty to withdraw the deposit and we're talking peanuts for interest today.  With no emergency, two things could happen: A) As the account grows beyond what's needed for emergencies, the excess can be invested long term. B) As the investor earns more money and saves up enough to have a true emergency account separate from the IRA, the Roth can be fully invested long term. The 'Bad idea' stems from the view that one is using their Roth as an emergency account, which of course is bad. The subtle difference is one has no retirement savings and puts their Emergency account into the otherwise unused Roth. As time passes, they've protected more funds to grow tax free.  In the end, the most important thing is whether the person is saving and not tapping for simple non-emergency things. I'd rather see a guy with $25K in his Roth and no other funds than to have $5000 in his bank account because every time it gets larger he feels compelled to spend it.  My answer to Matt is to treat it for now as you intended, low risk, CD or cash (money market)."

Agreed. An easy way to practice selling is by joining a direct sales company. Just make sure they are legitimate and require no money to start. It gives you a product to sell (even if its from a catalog) and many times they have online resources that help train you.    Sales is a mental game imo. Getting past personal barriers and facing fears is a major huddle in sales.

Lets imagine two scenarios: 1) You make 10.4k (40% of total income) yearly contributions to a savings account that earns 1% interest for 10 years. In this scenario, you put in 104k and earned 5.89k in interest, for a total of 109.9k. 2) You make the same 10.4k yearly contribution to an index fund that earns 7% on average for 10 years. In this scenario you put in the same 104k, but earned 49.7k in interest*, for a total of 153.7k. The main advantage is option 1) has more liquidity -- you can get the money out faster. Option 2) requires time to divest any stocks / bonds. So you need enough savings to get you through that divestment period. Imagine another two scenarios where you stop earning income: 1-b) You stop working and have only your 109.9k principal amount in a 1% savings account. If you withdraw 15.6k yearly for your current cost of living, you will run through your savings in 7 years. 2-b) You stop working and have only 20k (2 years of savings) in savings that earns 1% with 153.7k in stocks that earns 7%. If you withdraw your cost of living currently at 15.6k, you will run through your investments in 15 years and your savings in 2 years, for a total of 17 years. The two years of income in savings is extremely generous for how long it starts the divestment process.  In summary, invest your money. It wasn't specified what currency we are talking about, but you can easily find access to an investment company no matter where you are in the world. Keep a small amount for a rainy day.

JohnFx is more experienced than I am but I have paid off friends cards before. It was as simple as asking them the routing number of the bank that gave them the card and setting up an ACH with their card number. I guess this might be against some banks T&C but the CU I used to carry out the ACH gave me the go ahead as long as I did not dispute the payment later.

I work for an investment group in Central Asia in private equity/project investment. We use SPV and collateralized convertible loans to enter a project, we issue the loan at our own commercial bank. For each industry, the exact mechanisms vary. In most outcomes, we end up in control of some very important part of the business, and even if we have minority shares on paper, no decision is made w/o our approval.  For example, we enter cosntruction projects via aquisiton of land and pledging the land as equity for an SPV, then renting it to the project operator.   Basically, when you enter a business, be in control of the decisions there, or have significant leverage on the operations. Have your own operating professionals to run it. Profit.

"Legal tender is by law any denominations of money printed by the Bank of Canada.  There is an exclusion to this in that it must also be acceptable to both parties of the transaction.  See the following link from the Bank of Canada on Legal Tender and look at the answer to the question of What is ""legal tender""? The reason retailers may refuse the ""legal tender"" is in the case of counterfeit prevention.  The stores that purchase the scanning machines are trying to be accommodating by deferring the decision to refuse the ""legal tender"" after verifying it (checking if it is acceptable)."

I agree that voicing your concerns can help change policy, but there is a degree of tact required. There are designated channels for complaints and concerns. Sending an email rant to coworkers is not the right way.  Edit: He posted it on an internal social network, not an email.


Question: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles question

You recognize expense when you sell the hot dog. When you pay for the buns you have inventory, which is an asset. When you sell the hot dog - you have cost of goods sold, which is the expense. Expense principle says that you recognize expense when you use the product. You use the buns when you actually sell the hot dog, not before. The matching principle is also honored because you recognize expense of the buns at the time of recognizing revenue of the hot dog.

"I've been in a very similar situation to yours in the past.  Since the company is reimbursing you at a flat rate (I assume you don't need to provide documentation/receipts in order to be paid the per diem), it's not directly connected to the $90 in expenses that you mention.  Unless they were taking taxes out that would need to be reimbursed, the separate category for Assets:Reimbursable:Gotham City serves no real purpose, other than to categorize the expenses. Since there is no direct relationship between your expenses and the reimbursement, I would list them as completely separate transactions: Later, if you needed to locate all of the associated expenses with the Gotham trip, gnucash lets you search on memo text for ""Gotham"" and will display all of the related transactions.  This is a lot cleaner than having to determine what piece of the per diem goes to which expenses, or having to create a new Asset account every time you go on a trip."

Simply, you should put your money into whatever has the higher interest rate, savings or repayment of debt. Let's say at the beginning of month A you put $1000 into each account. In the case of the savings, at the end of month A you will have $1001.6 ($1000 + 1000 x 2% annual interest / 12) In the case of a loan, at the end of month A you will have $1005.7. ($17000 plus 6.8 interest for one month is 17096.3. On $16000, the new value is 16090.6.  The difference between these is $1005.7. 5.7 / 1.6 = 3.56 Therefore, using your money to repay your loan nets you a return about 3.5 times greater.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/sm0132.aspx) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Washington - Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury&#039;s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated 13 current or former senior officials of the Venezuelan Government pursuant to Executive Order 13692, which authorizes sanctions against officials of the Government of Venezuela and others undermining democracy there.  > Today&#039;s designations focus on current and former officials of Venezuelan Government agencies associated with the elections or the undermining of democracy, as well as the government&#039;s rampant violence against opposition protesters and its corruption.  > The Government&#039;s undermining of democracy in Venezuela has driven the people of Venezuela into the streets in protest, and the Maduro government has responded with repression and violence.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6pqzi8/treasury_sanctions_13_current_and_former_senior/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~176339 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*: **Venezuelan**^#1 **Venezuela**^#2 **Government**^#3 **former**^#4 **National**^#5"

The true answer is it depends because  it is up to the credit card issuer to follow the right path when issuing a replacement credit card. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/will-replacement-card-hurt-my-score.aspx Typically, issuers will transfer the account history to the new trade line, says Barry Paperno, the consumer operations manager at FICO, the creator of the FICO scoring formula. The new account should have the old open date, so you should retain your payment history, he says. The credit limit and balance should also stay the same. http://blog.credit.com/2014/02/lost-or-stolen-credit-card-hurt-your-credit-scores-76724/ How Issuers Report Replacement Cards We asked the major card issuers how they report replacement cards to credit reporting agencies: American Express: The new card has the same open date and “Member Since” year as the previous card. The balance on the old account number is transferred to the new account number. All payment history transfers over. Bank of America: All transactions and account history are transferred to the new account number when there is a card replacement or renewal. Capital One: The new account number with all the original account data (original open date, etc.) is reported along with a notification to the bureaus that the new account number is replacing the old.  The two tradelines can then be ‘merged’ into one, so that all the applicable payment history, balance, etc. is now under the new account number. Chase: The original tradeline does not change. The history on the account remains, just the account number field is updated with the new account number. There is no “new” tradeline in this scenario.

I think it's very interesting to see these concepts play out (albeit simply) in an economy with a complete data set (as opposed to the never-perfect data we have about real systems). I'm also impressed that Valve hired an economist to help manage their economies, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

oh Yay!!!  Tax cuts for the rich, just in time to maximize their profits from the Feds garage sale of goodies . . .  Ahh .  . . .its a good thing all the Goyim are paying attention to the foot ball thing or they just might wake and start to ask stupid questions and we will have to explain to them why low taxes for the rich is good for the poor.

This is supposed to be a comment, as this is anecdotal, but I can't post comments.  Also, this information relates to the UK.  I used to work in a Licensed Betting Office, or a bookies to use the informal word for it, and we had to deal with this issue all the time.   The pens didn't really work all that well as the forgers found out that dipping forged notes in fabric softener nullified the effects of the pens, and some of the copies were incredibly good. Generally, we would take two or three notes per week.


Question: What is the rate of return for a security when there is no risk-free rate (CAPM)?

"For starters, the risk-free rate has nothing to do with stocks.  It would be independent of anything.  It pays out the same return in all states of nature.  The definition of a risk-free asset is that regardless of how the universe turns out, including a meteor striking the Earth killing everyone but the recipient, then the payout would happen exactly as planned.  One could imagine a computer still being on, connected to a power supply and printing a check.  Most people use the 90-day t-bill as the risk-free rate.  A beta greater than one implies it is more volatile than the market, not that it moves more perfectly. The CAPM should not be used for this.  Cryptocurrencies should not be used with this model because they have valuation dynamics related to the new issue of coins.  In other words, they have non-market price movements as well as market price movements. In general, you should not use the CAPM because it doesn't work empirically.  It is famous, but it is also wrong.  A scientific hypothesis that is not supported by the data is a bad idea.  My strong recommendation is that you read ""The Intelligent Investor,"" by Benjamin Graham.  It was last published in 1972, and it is still being printed.  I believe Warren Buffett wrote the current forward for it.  Always go where the data supports you and never anywhere else, no matter how elegant. Finally, unless you are doing this like a trip to Vegas, for fun and willing to take the losses, I would avoid cryptocurrencies because you don't know what you are doing yet.  It is obvious from the posting.  I have multiple decades working in every type of financial institution and at every level, bottom to top.  I also have a doctorate, and I am an incredible researcher.  I am professionally qualified in three different disciplines. If you want to learn how to do this, start with the ""Intelligent Investor.""  Get a basic book on accounting and learn basic accounting.  Pick up economics textbooks at least through ""Intermediate"" for both microeconomics and macroeconomics.  Get William Bolstad's book ""Introduction to Bayesian Statistics.""  You will need them for reasons that go very far beyond this post.  Trust me; you want to master that book.  Find a statistician and ask them to teach it to you as a special topics course.  It will help you as both either a Marine officer or a Naval officer.  Then after that pick up a copy of ""Security Analysis.""  Either the 1943 copy (yes it is in print) by Benjamin Graham if you feel good about accounting, or the 1987 copy by Cottle under the Graham/Dodd imprimatur.  Then, if you are still interested in cryptocurrencies and they will be blasé by then, then pick up an economics textbook on money.  If I were you, I would learn about Yap money, commodity money, and prison money first, then you might understand why a cryptocurrency may not be an investment for you."

I have money withdrawn near when the bill is due (not early at all) and my credit score is top-notch.  It's far, far more important that you don't pay late.  I don't think paying early earns you brownie points with FICO. Now, if you have an interest-bearing checking account, and if you pay your balance in full each month, and are very, very organized, then paying at the last minute, but on time, lets you take full advantage of the free float that the credit card issuer gives you. If you have trouble rubbing two brain cells together when it comes to bills (like I do sometimes) then either set up auto-deduct from your checking account or pay the bill as soon as it comes in.

LOL. The DNC is literally bankrupt and in debt. You won't hear such truths uttered in the mainstream media, but suffice to say that a party that can't even manage it's own internal bookkeeping isn't going to fix the economy.  http://observer.com/2017/07/democratic-national-committee-failing-unpopular-debt/  Libs are lost and delusional.

When I work hard people say “You Should Do That Anyways”, not acknowledging the fact that 9/10 people slack.  I think most people who work hard don’t get the credit they deserve. Usually people who are wealthy are born into it, lucky or know the right people and have the right ideas. Hard working people make it too but significantly less people make it from just “hard work”.  It all depends on your work ethic and what you’re willing to do in order to achieve your goals and reach your next step. Nice post op.

The alternatives are practically perpetual with linen suits, the search is ideal for summer, pushing it flawlessly amongst shrewd and easygoing and offering so much adaptability. In case you're hoping to keep the look keen, then match your suit with a shirt and tie mix.

"If you find your local Verizon store ""seedy"", you might want to either bring your expectations about a place you'll spend about an hour in every couple years back in line with reality or just try shopping in a more upscale neighborhood.   Yes, really, Staples & Bestbuy electronics salesmen make commissions. Believe it or not, their actually is a consumer electronics market beyond Apple."

"You're forgetting the fundamental issue, that you never have to actually exercise the options you buy.  You can either sell them to someone else or, if they're out of the money, let them expire and take the loss. It isn't uncommon at all for people to buy both a put and call option (this is a ""straddle"" when the strike price of both the put and call are the same). From Investopedia.com: A straddle is an options strategy in which the investor holds a position in both a call and put with the same strike price and expiration date, paying both premiums. This strategy allows the investor to make a profit regardless of whether the price of the security goes up or down, assuming the stock price changes somewhat significantly.   Read more: Straddle http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/straddle.asp#ixzz4ZYytV0pT"

If you are calculating simple ROI, the answer is straightforward math.  See This Answer for some examples, but yes, with more leverage you will always see better ROI on a property IF you can maintain a positive cash flow.  The most complete answer is to factor in your total risk. That high ROI of a leveraged property is far more volatile and sensitive to any unexpected expenses. Additionally, a loss of equity in the property (or an upside-down mortgage) will further impact your long term position. To put this more simply (as noted in the comments below), your losses will be amplified. You cannot say a leveraged property will always give you a better ROI because you cannot predict your losses.


Question: Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income?

No.  In good years, the income seems free. In a down year, particularly a bad one, the investor will be subject to large losses that will prove the strategy a bad one.  On the other hand, one often hears of the strategy of selling puts on stock you would like to own. If the stock rises, you keep the premium, if it drops, you own it at a bit of a discount from that starting point.

My current strategy is long equity in blue chips with limited growth but large profits... Some call that value investing.  GM, AAPL, BRK.B have done very well for me. VZ is a notable straggler. Regardless, my overall positions have grown considerably :)  Not a fan of shorting... but TSLA would be my short of choice since it is very expensive to short SHLD.

If you want to invest in the stock market, whether over a shorter period of 1 to 2 years or over a longer period of 10 or 20 years or longer you need to take some precautions and have a written investment plan with a risk management strategy incorporated in your plan. Others have said that 1 to 2 years is too short to invest in the stock market as the stock market can have a correction and fall by 50%. But it doesn't matter if you invest for 1 year or if you invest for 50 years, the stock market can still fall by 50% just before you plan to withdraw your funds. What you need to figure out is a way to get out before the market falls by 40% to 50%. A simple way to do this is to use technical indicators to warn you when a market trend is starting to change and that it is time to get out of the market. Two simple indicators you can use on a market index are the Rate of Change (ROC) indicator and the 100 week Moving Average (MA). Below is a 10 year weekly chart of the S&P500 with these two indicators charted. They show good times to get into the market and good times to get out.  If you are using the 100 week MA you would buy in when the price crosses above the MA line and sell when the price crosses below the MA line. If you are using the ROC indicator you would buy in when the ROC indicator crosses above the zero line and sell when the ROC indicator crosses below the zero line. So your investment plan could be to buy an Index ETF representing the S&P500 when the ROC moves above zero and sell when it crosses below zero. You can also place a trailing stop loss of 10% to protect you in case of a sudden fall over a couple of days. You can manage your investments in as little as 10 minutes per week by checking the chart once per week and adjusting your stop loss order.  If you want to progressively add to your investment each month you could check the charts and only add any new funds if both the ROC is above zero and sloping upwards. Another option for adding new funds could be if the price is above the MA and moving further away from the MA. All these rules should be incorporated into your investment plan so that you are not basing your decisions based on emotions. There are many other Technical Analysis Indicators you could also learn about to make better educated decisions about your stock market investments. However, what I have provided here is enough for anyone to test over different indexes and time frames and do their own paper trading on to gain some confidence before placing any real money on the table.

Recommended? There's really no perfect answer. You need to know the motivations of the participants in the markets that you will be participating in. For instance, the stock market's purpose is to raise capital (make as much money as possible), whereas the commodities-futures market's purpose is to hedge against producing actual goods. The participants in both markets have different reactions to changes in price.

There are two reasons for incorporating a business in Canada - limiting liability and providing some freedom in structuring your taxes. Since you are asking about taxes, I will restrict myself to that topic. First of all, remember that if you don't make much money, there isn't much tax to save by clever structuring of your affairs. And if you do incorporate, you will pay taxes as a corporation, and pay taxes again on your salary paid from that corporation. It can still be advantageous, because the small business tax rate is less that the higher tax brackets of personal taxes, and you don't have to pay out all of the profit as salary. If you don't incorporate, you still must pay taxes on your net income from the business. (See brian's answer.) Definitely keep track of your income and expenses, even if you don't plan on making money, in case you get audited. If the CRA wants to call your hobby a business, you will need to show that you haven't made any profit. I am just giving you a few bits of advice because this subject is complicated. Too complicated for an answer on this site. If you are still interested, go to your local library and get some books on the subject.

"This is the sad state of US stock markets and Regulation T. Yes, while options have cleared & settled for t+1 (trade +1 day) for years and now actually clear ""instantly"" on some exchanges, stocks still clear & settle in t+3.  There really is no excuse for it. If you are in a margin account, regulations permit the trading of unsettled funds without affecting margin requirements, so your funds in effect are available immediately after trading but aren't considered margin loans.  Some strict brokers will even restrict the amount of uncleared margin funds you can trade with (Scottrade used to be hyper safe and was the only online discount broker that did this years ago); others will allow you to withdraw a large percentage of your funds immediately (I think E*Trade lets you withdraw up to 90% of unsettled funds immediately). If you are in a cash account, you are authorized to buy with unsettled funds, but you can't sell purchases made on unsettled funds until such funds clear, or you'll be barred for 90 days from trading as your letter threatened; besides, most brokers don't allow this.  You certainly aren't allowed to withdraw unsettled funds (by your broker) in such an account as it would technically constitute a loan for which you aren't even liable since you've agreed to no loan contract, a margin agreement.  I can't be sure if that actually violates Reg T, but when I am, I'll edit. While it is true that all marketable options are cleared through one central entity, the Options Clearing Corporation, with stocks, clearing & settling still occurs between brokers, netting their transactions between each other electronically. All financial products could clear & settle immediately imo, and I'd rather not start a firestorm by giving my opinion why not. Don't even get me started on the bond market... As to the actual process, it's called ""clearing & settling"". The general process (which can generally be applied to all financial instruments from cash deposits to derivatives trading) is: The reason why all of the old financial companies were grouped on Wall St. is because they'd have runners physically carting all of the certificates from building to building.  Then, they discovered netting so slowed down the process to balance the accounts and only cart the net amounts of certificates they owed each other.  This is how we get the term ""bankers hours"" where financial firms would close to the public early to account for the days trading.  While this is all really done instantly behind your back at your broker, they've conveniently kept the short hours."

If I understand you correctly, you are noticing that a stock's price can change drastically when the time changes from pre-market trading hours to open market hours. This could occur because a much smaller pool of investors make trades during pre-market and after-market hours. When the regular market opens there is a large influx of trades, causing the prices to jump.

Everything is down, when measured in the US Dollar because there was a flight to Dollars recently when everyone got the crap scared out of them with the Euro drama...  Remember, the thing you're measuring against is highly volatile at the moment - to get a better idea measure Amazon against something like a basket of commodities, or metals, or oil, or a currency basket (or better yet, all of these).


Question: Should I invest in my house, when it's in my wife's name?

The best answer to this question will depend on you and your wife. What is 'fair' for some may not be 'fair' for others. Some couples split expenses 50:50. Some split proportionately based on income. Some pool everything together. What works best for you will depend on your relative incomes, your financial goals, living standards, and most importantly, your personal beliefs. Here is a great question with various viewpoints: How to organize bank accounts with wife. It doesn't touch heavily on home ownership / pre-nuptial agreements, but might be a good starting point to getting you to think about your options. Consider providing another loan to your wife for additional investments in the home. It seems you are both comfortable with the realities of the pre-nuptial agreement; one of those realities seems to be that in the event of divorce you would lose access to the house. Loaning money has the benefit of allowing for the improvements to be done immediately, while clearly delineating what you have spent on the home from what she has spent on the home. However, this may not be 'fair', depending on how you both define the term. Have you discussed how expenses and savings would be split between you? Since there is no mortgage on the house, she has effectively contributed her pre-marital assets towards paying substantially all of your housing costs. It may be 'fair' for you to contribute to housing costs by at least splitting maintenance 50:50, or it may not be. Hopefully you talked about finances before you got married, and if not, now would be the best time to start. I personally would hate to have an 'uneasy' feeling about a relationship because I failed to openly communicate about finances.

"I think you're really underestimating the degree of ageism that occurs in hiring and just how much youth is favoured in the job markets. Experience costs more and it depreciates quickly. In most case employers  will prefer someone less experienced who comes across as mature and less expensive than someone who is more experienced but has been our of the industry for a year or more. The attitude of ""you can't teach an old job new tricks"" rules. Your 30s represent the ideal sweet spot: you are still young and you have some experience. If you're not in full preparing for retirement mode by 40 or 45, you're going to have a bad time. GenXers have lost most of their sweet spot and if the recovery doesn't happen, they will have lost all of it.   Yes, Millenials have it pretty bad too -- no one is disputing that -- but GenX was screwed from the start. We have larger generations on either side of us. We are a transitional generation that started out before computers went mainstream but ended after, so we have a hard time competing with Millenials who have lived with technology all their life. The whole structure of the world changed right under us, i.e., the end of the cold war. And this change significantly increased available labour. Even before 2008 the talk was all about how screwed the GenXers where because of the power of Boomers and the dominance of the Millenials. We already had our backs up against the wall then 2008 struck.  Also, I'd much rather be 28 and looking for a job than 40+ and looking for one. It's so much easier to jump industries or cites or countries when younger and you don't have children to look after. The 28 year old is not locked a career path and has lost a ton of political capital and credibility for having lost their job. The 40+ year old will always have to face questions: why wasn't he/she one of the one the company kept during the layoffs? will he/she be able to learn and adapt to the new job? will he/she be comfortable reporting to someone younger? will he/she be will to sacrifice time away from kids to work longer hours to compete with younger employees?"

"The risk of any investment is measured by its incremental effect on the volatility of your overall personal wealth, including your other investments.  The usual example is that adding a volatile stock to your portfolio may actually reduce the risk of your portfolio if it is negatively correlated with the other stuff in your portfolio. Common measures of risk, such as beta, assume that you have whole-market diversified portfolio. In the case of an investment that may or may not be hedged against currency movements, we can't say whether the hedge adds or removes risk for you without knowing what else is in your portfolio.  If you are an EU citizen with nominally delimited savings or otherwise stand to lose buying power if the Euro depreciates relative to the dollar, than the ""hedged"" ETF is less risky than the ""unhedged"" version.  On the other hand, if your background risk is such that you benefit from that depreciation, then the reverse is true. ""Hedging"" means reducing the risk already present in your portfolio.  In this case it does not refer to reducing the individual volatility of the ETF.  It may or may not do that but individual asset volatility and risk are two very different things."

For the first part of your question, I think the answer is a combination of three things:  (1) Bigger companies have leverage to negotiate better deals due to volume.  (2) Some of these companies are also taking bookings from outside the US for people traveling to the US (either directly or through affiliates).  This means that they also have income in other currencies, so they may not actually be making as many wire transfers as you think.  They simply keep a bank account in Europe, for example, in Euros to receive and send money in the Eurozone as needed.  They balance the exchange on their books internally in this case, without actually sending funds through the international banking system.  Similarly in other parts of the world. (3) These companies are not going to make a wire transfer for every transaction, in any case.  They are going to transfer big sums of money to an account abroad to balance things on a longer-term basis (weekly, month, etc.)  Then they will make individual payments to service providers out of the overseas account in between these larger, international transfers. For the second part of your question, I think there's probably no way for a new business to get the advantages of scale unless you've got significant capital backing your endeavor that would make it plausible that you'll be transferring in scale.  I don't see any reason in principle that the new company could not establish bank accounts abroad and try to execute the plan outlined in #2 above except that it would require some set-up costs to do the proper paperwork in each country, probably to travel, and to initially fund the various accounts.

It is unlikely that buying 100 shares will have any effect on a stock's price, unless the stock's average trading volume is incredibly low.  That being said, no matter how many share you buy, there's no way to know what the impact on the price will be, because that's only one factor in how shares are priced.  If anyone could figure out the answer to your question then they'd be extremely rich, because they'd simply watch for big share trades and then buy those stocks on the way up. The market makers who actually execute the trades are the ones who set the prices, and most stocks have multiple market makers trading the stock, so the bid/ask you see is the highest bid and lowest ask.  The market makers set the price based on what the trend of the stock is.  If, for instance, there's a large number of sell orders against a stock, the market makers will start dropping the bid prices as they fill execution orders, and as they see buy orders increase, they'll raise ask prices as they fill execution orders.  The market makers earn the difference between what they paid to buy someone's stock who was selling and what they get from someone else who buys it. This is a simplified explanation, so pro traders, don't beat me up! (grin) So, basically, it takes quite a bit of share volume in one direction or another to affect a stock's price.  I can guarantee a 100-share trade wouldn't even be noticed by market makers. I hope this helps. Good luck!

While open interest usually correlates to volume, the mark of liquidity is the bid ask spread. Even when trading options with spreads as large as an ask 2x the bid, a more realistic price that traders are willing to accept lies somewhere in the middle. Any option can easily be exited at intrinsic value: underlying price - exercise price for calls, exercise price - underlying price for puts.  For illiquid options, this will be the best price obtained.  For longer term options, something closer to the theoretical price is still possible. If an underlying is extremely liquid, yet the options aren't quite then options traders will be much more ready to trade at the theoretical price. For exiting illiquid options, small, < 4 contracts, and infrequent, > 30 minute intervals, orders are more likely to be filled closer to the theoretical price; however, if one's sells are the only trades, traders on the other side will take note and accept ever lowering implied volatilities. With knowledge of what traders will accept, it is always more optimal to trade out of options rather than exercise because of the added costs and uncertainty involved with exercising and liquidating.

He actually cared about his people and let them know it by showing it.  Some of the stories that have come out about his actions are incredible.  He's sent people to college, helped sick kids and just all manner of random and very human interaction with people.

">HOWEVER, any close to normal person can see that there are a whole lot of people with serious issues that nobody mentions to them (or they themselves are afraid to acknowledge) because they don't want to deal with all of the drama.   Doesn't mean they are caused by a ""mental illness"".  >And, just to be clear, the term ""Mental Illness"" in this case(according to the above studies) is really anything from anxiety, to depression, to schizophrenia, personality disorders, and even more social things like compulsive lying. Obviously, the definition is very broad and that is precisely why the statistic(25%) is so shocking.   Just to be clear... that is basically the definition of a ""con operation"".  The term ""mental illness"" (as it is used by the industry) is simply a fraud."


Question: Is Cost of Living overstated?

New York City is high cost-of-living, and I have absolutely no clue why people live there.  It's a tough place, and the taxes are oppressive.  People buy a studio apartment for $150,000 that has 175 square feet (that's not a typo) plus a $700/month maintenance fee that continues after the mortgage is paid off.  And that's just what the fee is now. Our rental house (which used to be our primary residence) at 1,300 square feet has a (15-year) mortgage payment of about $800, and $1,000 per year in property taxes.  And my area isn't particularly low cost-of-living. High cost-of-living is just that.  More money flies out the door just for the privilege of living there.  You make good investments with real estate by buying property at a good price in a good location.  Those deals are everywhere, but in high CoL locations you're probably more susceptible to price fluctuations which will trap you in your property if your mortgage goes underwater. Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I don't buy your recommendation to get property in high CoL areas.  There are desirable low CoL places to live, too.

> current mayor, Bill de Blasio, has committed to the creation of 30,000 supportive units over the next 10 years  so, almost 60,000 need shelter and the mayor plans for HALF that number over TEN YEARS.  yup, you can count on government to protect the weak

"But you aren't driving between your two jobs, you're driving for your job. The better analogy would be ""If I didn't buy commercial insurance, but was hiring myself out to do deliveried then my personal insurance better cover me if I hit someone between deliveries"" It doesn't work that way. There is a reason commercial insurance costs a lot more - when your job is to drive, your risk profile increases significantly. There are specific clauses in personal insurance that they aren't going to cover you if something happens while you are using your car for commercial purposes."

Shipping boxes are most ideal if you tend to move goods from one place to another on regular intervals. These boxes offer easy and better packaging and moving and protect your goods from any harm during transit. However, do ensure that you buy shipping boxes from a good and reliable company as boxes made out of poor quality can easily give way and they may not be able to take up the load.  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7302491

Worked for a SaaS based company that married data sources to existing IP and analog video feeds.  E.g. for an ATM you'd match transactions against the PinHole And/or overhead cameras and run analytics over that data.    Edit for clarity. You either MITM it if it's insecure for 'live' data or you parse it centrally and pull data in batches each night.

You are planning on buying a car that is 50% of your salary. Add your student debt to that and your total debt is >50% of your salary. I would suggest getting a few credit cards to build up credit, but can you manage that? Buying a 25k car with 55k salary is overspending. Get a second-hand car for 7k or so. Plus, buying a new car is not smart either, from a pricing standpoint, if you really want a new car, buy one that is 1 to 2 years old.

Yes, but most/many people will not realize how small hardcover books sales are in proportion. Then they throw in some hype about how this is a landmark in ebook sales etc.. and there you go.   The article has a clear agenda. There has been a lot of focus on ebook vs print and this tries to pull the wool over your eyes by leaving out relevant information.

Both states will want to tax you. Your tax home is where you maintain a domicile, are registered to vote, etc. and you will probably want to keep this as MA since you state that MA is your permanent residence and you are staying in a rented place in PA. But be careful about voter registration; that is one of the items that can be used to determine your state of residence.  OK, so if you and your spouse are MA residents,  you should file jointly as residents in MA and as nonresidents in PA. Do the calculations on the nonresident return first, and then the calculations on the resident  return. Typically, on a nonresident tax return, the calculations are effectively the following: Report all your income (usually AGI from the Federal return).  Call this $X. Compute the PA state tax due on $X.  Note that you follow the rules for nonresidents in doing this, not the calculations used by PA residents. Call the amount of tax you computed as $Y. What part of the total income $X is attributable to PA sources? If this amount is $Z, then you owe PA $Y times (Z/X). On the resident return in MA, you will likely get some credit for the taxes paid to PA, and this will reduce your MA tax burden. Usually the maximum credit is limited to the lesser of actual tax paid to PA and what you would have had to pay MA for the same income. As far as withholding is concerned, your employer in PA will withhold PA taxes as if you are a PA resident, but you can adjust the amount via the PA equivalent of IRS Form W4 so as to account for any additional  tax that might be due because you will be filing as a nonresident.  Else you can pay estimated taxes via the PA equivalent of IRS Form 1040ES. Similarly, your wife can adjust her withholding to account for the MA taxes that you will owe on the joint income, or you can pay estimated taxes to MA too. Note that it is unlikely that your employer in Pennsylvania will withhold  Massachusetts taxes (and send them to Massachusetts) for you, e.g. if it is a ma-and-pa store, but there may be special deals available if  your employer does business in both states, i.e. is a MA-and-PA store.


Question: What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent?

"Several, actually: Maintenance costs. As landlord, you are liable for maintaining the basic systems of the dwelling - structure, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. On top of that, you typically also have to maintain anything that comes with the space, so if you're including appliances like a W/D or fridge, if they crap out you could spend a months' rent or more replacing them. You are also required to keep the property up to city codes as far as groundskeeping unless you specifically assign those responsibilities to your tenant (and in some states you are not allowed to do so, and in many cases renters expect groundskeeping to come out of their rent one way or the other). Failure to do these things can put you in danger of giving your tenant a free out on the lease contract, and even expose you to civil and criminal penalties if you're running a real slum. Escrow payments. The combination of property tax and homeowner's insurance usually doubles the monthly housing payment over principal and interest, and that's if you got a mortgage for 20% down. Also, because this is not your primary residence, it's ineligible for Homestead Act exemptions (where available; states like Texas are considering extending Homestead exemptions to landlords, with the expectation it will trickle down to renters), however mortgage interest and state taxes do count as ""rental expenses"" and can be deducted on Schedule C as ordinary business expenses offsetting revenues. Income tax. The money you make in rent on this property is taxable as self-employment income tax; you're effectively running a sole proprietorship real-estate management company, so not only does any profit (you are allowed to deduct maintenance and administrative costs from the rent revenues) get added to whatever you make in salary at your day job, you're also liable for the full employee and employer portions of Medicare/Medicaid/SS taxes. You are, however, also allowed to depreciate the property over its expected life and deduct depreciation; the life of a house is pretty long, and if you depreciate more than the house's actual loss of value, you take a huge hit if/when you sell because any amount of the sale price above the depreciated price of the house is a capital gain (though, it can work to your advantage by depreciating the maximum allowable to reduce ordinary income, then paying lower capital gains rates on the sale).  Legal costs. The rental agreement typically has to be drafted by a lawyer in order to avoid things that can cause the entire contract to be thrown out (though there are boilerplate contracts available from state landlords' associations). This will cost you a few hundred dollars up front and to update it every few years. It is deductible as an ordinary expense. Advertising. Putting up a ""For Rent"" sign out front is typically just the tip of the iceberg. Online and print ads, an ad agency, these things cost money. It's deductible as an ordinary expense. Add this all up and you may end up losing money in the first year you rent the property, when legal, advertising, initial maintenance/purchases to get the place tenant-ready, etc are first spent; deduct it properly and it'll save you some taxes, but you better have the nest egg to cover these things on top of everything your lender will expect you to bring to closing (assuming you don't have $100k+ lying around to buy the house in cash)."

Or because you know about them from the ads. Commercials are not sole intended to make you get off the couch and go to the store buy a product you've just seen an ad for, it attempts to familiarize you with the product and let you know about its existence. First time costumer likely to buy a brand that they heard of.

">but don't leave out the democrats as your article does  I really think that saying the Democrats are somehow ""equally"" to blame would be ignoring [research](http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/15/frustration-with-congress-could-hurt-republican-incumbents/) that suggests that the public assigns a greater responsiility to Republicans than Democrats. I have heard *no* meaningful discussions about problems facing us from Republicans.   But I have heard how Obama is at fault for everything wrong in this world, while telling us that we need to repeal every drop of Obamacare and financial reform (as if there was never an economics crisis or major problems with health care). All that congress is able to do these days is pander to a two year election cycle."

I would suggest contacting them. If the account has a small amount of followers and seldom active on it, they usually don't mind handing over the account username. If they won't do it from the kindness of their heart, perhaps ask them how much they want for it? Nothing worse than having inconsistent social media account usernames.

Funny all the landlord forums are all giddy about raising rents to eat up that extra income, but Im sure you know better being all what is it you do again arm chair economist?  https://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2015/08/23/the-minimum-wage-in-cities/#11e65f016153  http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-minimum-wage-housing-20150327-story.html  http://www.phillyvoice.com/does-raising-minimum-wage-raise-rents/  https://www.ezlandlordforms.com/articles/news/556/how-does-raising-the-minimum-wage-affect-rents/

Walmart has in store pickup. Also, I recently looked at tablets at Fry's Electronics. They were not powered up, and there were several more times more customers than salesmen. People threatened to shop elsewhere and the salesmen couldn't care less. Similar to a warehouse with cash registers in front.

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In your scenario, I would do the following: If, in the short term, something should happen, you can always tap into a line of credit or even a cash advance on the credit card.  But, you should in no way be paying $70 a month in interest.   Assume you want to pay off the Credit card over 12 payments, you would need to pay about 450 a month, which costs 400 in interest.  At the end of the year, you have $5000 in savings, and $0 debt. The alternative, is to pay off the credit card right now, and put that $450 into savings, you would have $5400 in savings, and $0 debt. I'm usually the last to recommend a $0 safety net, but I make an exception in the case of retirable credit card debt.   In the worst case, you are no worse off than you are now, in the best case, you're up about $400 at the end of the year.


Question: ETF S&P 500 with Reinvested Dividend

The problem there is that there's a tax due on that dividend. So, if you wish, you can buy the ETF and specify to reinvest dividends, but you'll have to pay a bit of tax on them, and keep track of your basis, if the account isn't a retirement account.

Investing in NPS is a good stratergy for long term keeping in mind your retirement plans. However, the amount deposited in NPS gets locked till you are sixty. So, it depends on you wheather you want to pay few bucks to the government to enjoy the remaining money as you wish or you want to save the money till you are in your sixties. I hope the answer is useful.

"You are looking to be made whole, so the requests need to be reasonable.  You need to be clear that you want: You aren't going to 'punish' the dry cleaner or anything else.  You don't want coupons or free service for future work, you want your pants or cash. If you send a letter, send it certified with a return receipt.  You want to be able to show a judge you made efforts outside of the court that you attempted to reconcile the issue.  Sending it certified is also a good way to indicate to the dry cleaner that you aren't going to just go away.  Be clear, firm and very polite.  You cannot blame or criticize the cleaner, simply state ""On YY/YY/YYYY date I didn't get my pants back; I want my pants or I want money by XX/XX/XXXX date."" If you want to picket, contact local law enforcement and find out the rules before picketing.  You can probably picket from a sidewalk, but that doesn't mean the dry cleaner won't approach you and get in your personal space.   If you hand out flyers, stick strictly to provable facts lest you be sued for defamation.  It is smarter to hand out a fact sheet or speak from a rehearsed script so that you don't say something that would be actionable.  Make sure you pick the busiest day of the week for a dry cleaner. (Weekends?) I don't think this is criminal, but you can sue.  Like others said, if you have the cleaning ticket (and the ticket doesn't absolve the dry cleaner of responsibility) you will probably get a judgement.  Be careful what you ask for, make sure you cover all of your costs (the pants, filing fees, time off of work, and collection efforts.)  Itemize all your requested costs and make sure they are reasonable.  You only want to be made whole, and that only means $160 or pants (plus fees) Just because you won in small claims doesn't mean you can collect easily.  Figure in your cost for collecting when you sue.  You might have to hire somebody to collect on your judgement.  If you hire somebody they will want a cut, so you might want to figure that out for your small claims.  I am guessing this is a local business, so it should be pretty easy to collect.  (Unless they go out of business, in which case you will get nothing.)"

Because they believe that negative interest rates will force people to push capital around, and promote investment to avoid the negative interest rates associated with having your cash sitting in an account. Most likely they will be banning cash within the next 10 years anyway which will prevent you from being able to keep it yourself. You will either need to: or

First, gather the information you have on her banking history.  She may have accounted for that money and moved it to a new account or otherwise spent it.  I don't expect you'll have much banking documentation from the 1950s, but if you do, then start there and trace the money. To the extent you can, you may try to contact the banks in question or their successors.  It may be difficult to trace them through mergers or closings.  Again, it's very possible that she spent or transferred those funds and there is nothing to find anyway. There is also a risk that if the money went unclaimed for too long, then the bank was obligated to escheat any remaining balance to the state of Ohio.  You can try contacting Ohio Department of Commerce about unclaimed funds and attempt to locate anything that may have rightly belonged to her.  You will need to gather documentation to do so.  You may be able to receive the funds from the state, if it has received them.

Keep Your Passwords Updated - Passwords are at the core of hacking. Hackers either try to hack your password or exploit some other vulnerability to gain access to passwords, so make sure that all your passwords are completely random and not simple like 123456 or password. Log on http://tellemgrodypr.com/

I buy all my casual shoes off the originals line. I also like options in the color of the shoes. Foot Locker will have max 5 color options, the adidas website has hundreds. No surprise that people are going right to the source.

I do not meet your qualifications but this is what I would do: 1)  Save an amount that can replace your bike and accessories if it is stolen.  Don't touch it for anything but that. 2)  Compute an average monthly cost for maintenance items, double that for a couple of months until you have the account built up, then budget that amount every month. If your bike/headlight/front tire, get stolen or broken beyond repair, take it out of the first account.  Then your savings priority should be to rebuild that account.  I would be a bit alarmed if you have to keep hitting this account for legitimate reasons. When a tire goes flat, or other normal wear and tear item occurs, take it out of the second account.  This account should fluctuate regularly, and it is normal.  During certain months you may want to increase this amount (more glass on the street because of outdoor events means more flat tires). The same kind of thing holds true for a car. Putting numbers to some figures would help. I think the most alarming thing about your post is that a theft is somewhat ordinary.  Yikes!


Question: Is SIPC coverage on cash as strong as FDIC?

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

There's only one thing that will kill Walmart and Target: Walmart and Target.  Like just about every other corporation, they're going to find every way to trim costs to make more profit.  And those ways are going to make people shop elsewhere.  Walmart wasn't always known for hosting the dregs of society, at one point people liked shopping there because of all of the people they had working there, answering questions, helping out, keeping the place tidy & clean.  Now they're often shitholes.  It's like they're taking pages out of the K-Mart playbook.

There are the EDHEC-risk indices based on similar hedge fund types but even then an IR would give you performance relative to the competition, which is not useful for most hf's as investors don't say I want to buy a global macro fund, vs a stat arb fund, investors say I want to pay a guy to give me more money!  Most investors don't care how the OTHER funds did or where the market went, they want that NAV to go always up , which is why a modified sharpe is probably better.

Used car dealers will sometimes deliberately issue high-interest-rate subprime loans to folks who have poor credit. But taking that kind of risk on a mortgage, when you aren't also taking profit out of the sale, really isn't of interest to anyone who cares about making a profit. There might be a nonprofit our there which does so, but I don't know of one. Fix your credit before trying to borrow.

I sell gas to gas stations. Your profit isn't much in gas, it's in the convenience store. So if you're going to do it, focus on your store. Here in the Midwest we have a brand of stations called Quicktrip - everyone loves these gas stations and will go out of their way if they need gas. Because they're very clean and the workers are friendly.  Don't build a branded station. Right now branded gas is cheaper than wholesale in a lot of markets, but that's not usually typical. It's better to have options and not be locked into a BP station where you can only buy their gas no matter the price. Additives are BS - it's a commodity.   Operating capital will be fairly high.  Roughly 7500/gal per truck at say 3.00 cents/gal is about $22,500. In a high traffic area you could be pulling 1 truck per day to keep supply full (this is an assumption based on what we sell to customers). Do some math and that's quite a bit of operating capital, can you finance that? We set credit limits on our customers, but they're not high (think 50-100k for small stations, which is only a couple truck loads).  I don't think it's a terrible business to be in - but I would almost rather own the trucks hauling gas to your station and charging on the gallon. Or on the supply side of the equation where gas is more profitable.

Option 3 is a pretty unique offering. Nationwide offer free withdrawals abroad, but you need to pay £10 per month (you do get very good travel insurance and other services for that fee too). So I like option 3, good for the average tourist, then pay a nominal % as expected.

"Signing bonuses are probably the most variable of all, as there is a general understanding that more personal factors are taken into account. As a result, HR isn't under a huge obligation to explain away the differences. In comparison, for salary there's the wide expectation that same job = same pay. Since there's so variable, but also fairly rare, ""budget"" isn't a main concern for many HR departments. And they certainly won't have a finely grained budget breakdown. ""This year we'll pay $250.000 for headhunters, $50000 for relocation payments, $100,000 for pension transfers, $150.000 for stock option losses..."". It's generally tossed on one big heap, ""cost of hiring"". So, what can you ask for? That's really a market question. What's your value to the company? How much of that is already reflected in salary and other benefits? The main downside to signing bonuses is that a company won't know how long you'd stay. Your value to the company is probably your monthly work. Therefore they cannot amortize that bonus over a fixed amount of months. What if you leave after 3 months? For that reason, a ""conditional"" signing bonus is a reasonable offer from your side. E.g. ask for one month salary, conditional on you staying for 24 months, and otherwise you'll repay them from your last salary."

As far as I know, there is no direct equivalent. An IRA is subject to many rules.  Not only are there early withdrawal penalties, but the ability to deduct contributions to an IRA phases out with one's income level.  Qualified withdrawals from an IRA won't have penalties, but they will be taxed as income.  Contributions to a Roth IRA can be made post-tax and the resulting gains will be tax free, but they cannot be withdrawn early. Another tax-deductable investment is a 529 plan.  These can be withdrawn from at any time, but there is a penalty if the money is not used for educational purposes. A 401K or similar employer-sponsored fund is made with pre-tax dollars unless it is designated as a Roth 401K.  These plans also require money to be withdrawn specifically for retirement, with a 10% penalty for early withdrawal.  Qualifying withdrawals from a regular retirement plan are taxed as income, those from a Roth plan are not (as with an IRA). Money can be made harder to get at by investing in all of the types of funds you can invest in using an IRA through the same brokers under a different type of account, but the contribution will be made with post-tax, non-deductable dollars and the gains will be taxed.


Question: Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers?

What you see on XE, is the rate at which it is being traded in the market. What you receive from a broker is the rate minus a fee, for the service being provided. You can check what rates are available for visa and mastercard on the following websites.  Visa rates Mastercard rates I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any given time. This is a mirage and isn't going to help much. The prices you pay might be reflecting the exchange rates, difference in the product quality and other factors too.  Rates are fixed for a day, so any FX movement you see in the market willn't be reflected in what you pay.

How is Bitcoin silly at all? I don't understand.  Not all cryptocurrency supporters are against regulation. I want regulated cryptocurrencies.  The people who are going to lose here are the ones who invested in 'bad' ICOs. This isn't the first time ICOs have contributed to the fall of the crypto market. Months ago the crowds were screaming the end of crypto with the crash in June. Looking at it now it seems very small. Even with 20% loss the last few days we are still above our previous crash.  And what do you mean the west? We are not the only people developing, contributing, investing, and using crypto. Let's not forget Estonia, Mauritius, Denmark, South Korea... and there's more.

That is the part I like most about SoundCloud, how artists use it as a platform to share their creations. As others have mentioned it's probably just a shit mobile app, which is a pity. Because the app is a means to an end, that is to say.... I use the app to stream soundcloud, which is then transmitted to my Hi-FI setup over Chromecast or bluetooth (preferably the former).

It really depends. I mean, did he *actually* get hundreds of thousands of dollars, or did he go bankrupt? Did the IRS actually come in demanding cash, or was it a scam? Are the funds for the transaction being held in escrow? Were they transferred to the wrong bank? Why isn't your dad lawyering up over this? Etc. etc. etc.

This is typically an issue for local law and regulation.  Once one person moves out, I would recommend one of the following options: Generally speaking, if there are clear records of all of the payments made by both parties, all of the costs associated with the maintenance and who made what use of the place, the final ownership can be resolved fairly even in the absence of a clear agreement. The pain and hassle to do it, though, is generally not worth the effort - even if it's an amicable relationship between the two owners. Your best bet is to agree as early as possible on what you plan to do, and to write it down - if you didn't have a contract before moving in together, write one up now.

Decorative Balustrades are ideally suited for residential buildings where the aesthetics greatly matter.In premises where safety is a concern steel balustrades are better equipped to address these issues. Swimming pool fencing, railings for staircases and balconies can be fabricated out of aluminium. With coloured powder coating to match the building's exterior, aluminium balustrades are the perfect choice for every home.Several service providers offer top quality and low maintenance Balcony Railings.

I have a Albertan corporation and my accountant set up my shares and options for free.   1. Get a NUANS repot.  2. Go to a registry office and get the incorporation paperwork 3. Get an accountant to help you fill out that paperwork for free (they assume you will do your accounting with them after the fact) 4. Go back to a registry office and register the corporation  5. Go have a beer you'  re new company   6. go get a bank account.  7. Get to work

From what I understand, Japan has a great consumer goods industry and a sealed off food industry (they do not import rice and I seriously doubt anyone can supply seafood in their domestic market cheaper than they can) so it could be that they don't even really need to import that much at all. At the end of the day, that stockpiled wealth is still wealth we don't have that the Japanese people can rely upon  I'm not talking about a voluntary financial constraint like the arbitrary 90% debt:gdp policy! I'm saying let's actually figure out a method for determining our constraints scientifically in real time, and adapt our policy accordingly!


Question: How much of my home loan is coming from a bank, how much it goes back?

"Judging from your comments, you seem to be confused about the way banking works.  Banks can only lend out money that they actually have: whether from deposits or investors or loans taken from other banks/government entities.  The rules on how this works varies from country to country, but the principle is always the same.  There is no magic money. Let's imagine a closed system.  There's only one town, and that town only has one bank.  There are 100 people total in town, and each has $10,000.  Everyone deposits all of their money in the bank. The bank now has $1,000,000 in total deposits.  You take a loan for $100,000 and buy a house.  The bank now has $900,000.  You make your payments of $965 per month: $833 of interest and $132 toward principal.  In this ideal world, the bank has no costs associated with doing business.  After one month, the bank has $1,000,000 in deposits, $900,965 in cash on hand, $99,868 in loans, and $833 in profit (from interest). Now here's the confusing part.  You bought a house from someone.  That person also lives in town.  He takes the $100,000 you gave him and... deposits it in the bank.  The bank now has $1,100,000 in deposits, $1,000,965 in cash, $99,868 in loans, and $833 in profit. Assume 10 more people buy houses at $100,000 each, taking loans for that whole amount (for the same terms you did).  Assume those sellers then deposit the money back in the bank.  The bank now has $2,100,000 in deposits, $1,000,965 in cash, $1,099,868 in loans, and $833 in profit.  The bank is taking in $10,615 per month ($965 x 11) in loan payments, making profit of $9,163 ($833 x 11) per month from interest. This process of loans and deposits and payments can go on forever without any outside influence.  This is the primary way money is created.  It's like printing money without the paper. Of course, we're not in a closed system.  Banks are limited in endlessly creating money, primarily by two things: Reserve Requirements are set by government agencies.  They might say banks can lend until their cash on hand (or liquid equivalent) is, at minimum, 35% of total deposits.  So a bank with $1,000,000 in deposits would have to keep $350,000 in cash at any given time. Capital Requirements work largely the same way.  It's more the bank saying, ""What happens if a bunch of people want their deposits back?""  They plan a reasonable amount of cash to have on hand for that scenario."

Payroll is a huge part of any companies costs. I said that it would of course have different consequences for subway than it does for Walmart, but more and more chains are finding that it is feasible to pay people fair wages and still be able to thrive. Starbucks is yet another example of this.  Businesses can't be held responsible to uphold social good on their own. Obviously, Subway has no real incentive to raise their wages. However, the government is responsible for policies that are good for the economy at large, and raising wages is one of the things they can do to stimulate an economy. It is true that typically it results in a small amount of job loss at first, but time and time again has shown net positives. Arguing against minimum wage or labor laws is just outright idiotic.

In the EU, you might be looking for Directive 2000/35/EC (Late Payment Directive). There was a statutory rate, 7% above the European Central Bank main rate. However, this Directive was recently repealed by Directive 2011/7/EU, which sets the statutory rate at ECB + 8%. (Under EU regulations, Directives must be turned into laws by national governments, which often takes several months. So in some EU countries the local laws may still reflect the old Directive. Also, the UK doesn't participate in the Euro, and doesn't follow the ECB rate)

"This is a tough question, because it is something very specific to your situation and finances. I personally started at a young age (17), with US$1,000 in Scottrade. I tried the ""stock market games"" at first, but in retrospect they did nothing for me and turned out to be a waste of time. I really started when I actually opened my brokerage account, so step one would be to choose your discount broker. For example, Scottrade, Ameritrade (my current broker), E-Trade, Charles Schwab, etc. Don't worry about researching them too much as they all offer what you need to start out. You can always switch later (but this can be a little of a hassle). For me, once I opened my brokerage account I became that much more motivated to find a stock to invest in. So the next step and the most important is research! There are many good resources on the Internet (there can also be some pretty bad ones). Here's a few I found useful: Investopedia - They offer many useful, easy-to-understand explanations and definitions. I found myself visiting this site a lot. CNBC - That was my choice for business news. I found them to be the most watchable while being very informative. Fox Business, seems to be more political and just annoying to watch. Bloomberg News was just ZzzzZzzzzz (boring). On CNBC, Jim Cramer was a pretty useful resource. His show Mad Money is entertaining and really does teach you to think like an investor. I want to note though, I don't recommend buying the stocks he recommends, specially the next day after he talks about them. Instead, really pay attention to the reasons he gives for his recommendation. It will teach you to think more like an investor and give you examples of what you should be looking for when you do research. You can also use many online news organizations like MarketWatch, The Motley Fool, Yahoo Finance (has some pretty good resources), and TheStreet. Read editorial (opinions) articles with a grain of salt, but again in each editorial they explain why they think the way they think."

"There are basically two ways to get value out of an appreciating asset such as a home: (a) Sell it and take the profit. In the case of a home, you presumably still have to live somewhere, so unless you buy a cheaper home to replace it, this doesn't get you anywhere. If you can get another house that is just as nice and in just as nice a location -- whatever you consider ""nice"" to be -- than this sounds like a winning option. If it means moving to a less desirable home, then you are getting the cash but losing the nice home. You'll have to decide if it's worth it. (b) Use it as collateral for a loan. In this case, that means a second mortgage, home equity loan, or a home equity line of credit. But this can be dangerous. House prices are very volatile these days. If the value of the house falls, you could be stuck with debts greater than your assets. In my humble opinion, you should be very careful about doing this. Borrowing against your house to send the kids to college or pay for your spouse's life-saving operation may be reasonable. Borrowing against your house to go on a fancy vacation is almost surely a bad idea. The vacation will be over within a couple of weeks, but you could be paying off the debt for decades."

True, but it's still money that (in theory) could be paid to the employee instead, in the same way that the employer's social security contribution could also be paid to the employee.  Note that I'm not saying that if the law were changed, every employer would suddenly increase wages by _x_ percent; merely that these taxes all fit into wage calculations along with perquisites, salaries, overhead, etc.

Really, were only talking about Trumps plan? Cus I was talking about tax reform in general. As my OP mentioned, I think spending across the board needs to be reduced to make lower taxes easier to accomplish. ANYWAY, there's currently trillions in profits overseas that would be taxed at a one time low rate if repatriated. This low rate would probably be between 10-15%. Do the math, it roughly gives you the the 500b you mentioned

You have a standard deduction of $12,600 (Married filing joint, MFJ) plus $8000 in exemptions. A total of $20,600 off the top. In other words, just under $10,000 taxable unless you have other income you haven't disclosed. For MFJ, you are at the 10% bracket up to $18,450 in taxable income.  I would withdraw just enough to 'top off' the 10% bracket each year, whether or not you send it to pay down the card. You don't disclose the rate, but if you are able take a low interest loan to get to a sub 5% interest rate, I'd do that.


Question: Will I be turned down for a car loan?

Considering I'm putting 30% down and having my father cosign is there   any chance I would be turned down for a loan on a $100k car? According to BankRate, the average credit score needed to buy a new car is 714, but they also show average interest rates at 6.39% for new-car loans to people with credit scores in the 601-660 range. High income certainly helps offset credit score to some extent.  Not every bank/dealership does things the same way. Being self-employed you'd most likely be required to show 2 years of tax returns, and they'd use those as a basis for your income rather than whatever you have made recently. If using a co-signer, their income matters. Another key factor is debt to income ratio, if too much of someone's income is already spoken for by other debts a lender will shy away. So, yes, there's a chance, given all the information we don't know and the variability with lender policies, that you could be turned down for a car loan. How should I go about this? If you're set on pursuing the car loan, just go talk to some lenders. You'll want to shop around for a good rate anyway, so no need to speculate just go find out. Include the dealership as a potential financing option, they can have great rates. Personally, I'd get a much cheaper car. Your insurance premium on a 100k car will be quite high due to your age. You might be rightly confident in your earning potential, but nothing is guaranteed, situations can change wildly in short order. A new car is not a good investment or a value-retaining asset, so why bother going into debt for one if you don't have to? If you buy something in cash now, you could upgrade in a few years without financing if your earning prediction holds and would save quite a bit in car insurance and interest over the years between.

Unfortunately, in this market environment your goal is not very realistic. At the moment real interest rates are negative (and have been for some time).  This means if you invest in something that will pay out for sure, you can expect to earn less than you lose through inflation.  In other words, if you save your $50K, when you withdraw it in a few years you will be able to buy less with it then than you can now. You can invest in risky securities like stocks or mutual funds.  These assets can easily generate 10% per year, but they can (and do) also generate negative returns.  This means you can and likely will lose money after investing in them.  There's an even better chance that you will make money, but that varies year by year.  If you invest in something that expects to make 10% per year (meaning it makes that much on average), it will be extremely risky and many years it will lose money, perhaps a lot of it.  That's the way risk is.  Are you comfortable taking on large amounts of risk (good chances of losing a lot of your money)? You could make some kind of real investment.  $50K is a little small to buy real estate, but you may be able to find something like real estate that can generate income, especially if you use it as a down payment to borrow from the bank.  There is risk in being a landlord as well, of course, and a lot of work.  But real investments like that are a reasonable alternative to financial markets for some people. Another possibility is to just keep it in your bank account or something else with no risk and take $5000 out per year.  It will only last you 10 years that way, but if you are not too young, that will be a significant portion of your life.  If you are young, you can work and add to it. Unfortunately, financial markets don't magically make people rich.  If you make a lot of money in the market, it's because you took a risk and got lucky.  If you make a comfortable amount with no risk, it means you invested in a market environment very different from what we see today. --------- EDIT ------------ To get an idea of what risk free investments (after inflation) earn per year at various horizons see this table at the treasury.  At the time of this writing you would have to invest in a security with maturity almost 10 years in order to break even with inflation.  Beating it by 10% or even 3% per year with minimal risk is a pipe dream.

The higher the debt, the higher inflation needs to be to wash the debt away.  This is why the debt and US equities move upward hand in hand. The same goes for US housing. Just as homeowners borrow money through mortgages so that house prices rise, the banks borrow the money for mortgages through the central banks. Thus, the cycle circulates. The more debt, the higher the prices!  Everybody makes money from debt. That is why the US has the highest external debt on the globe, yet they are considered one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Investopedia has one and so does marketwatch    I've always used marketwatch, and I have a few current competitions going on if you want me to send the link    They recently remodeled the website so it works on mobile and not as well on desktop    Don't know anything about the investopedia one though

"There are several ways you can get out of paying your student loans back in the USA: You become disabled and the loan is dismissed once verified by treating doctor or the Social Security Administration. You become a peace officer. You become a teacher; generally K-12, but I have heard from the DOE that teachers at state schools qualify as well. So the ""malicious"" friend B is prescribing to the theory that if one of those conditions becomes true, friend A will not have to pay back the loan. The longer you drag it out, the more chance you have to fulfill a condition. Given that 2 of these methods require a commitment, my guess is that they are thinking more along the lines of the first one, which is horrible. Financially, it makes no sense to delay paying back your loans because deferred loans are only interest-free until you graduate and are past your grace period, after which they will begin accruing interest. Unsubsidized loans accrue interest from the day you get them, only their payback is deferred until you graduate and exhaust your grace period. Anytime you ask for forbearance, you are still accruing interest and it is capitalizing into your principal — you are just given a chance to delay payback due to financial hardship, bad health, or loss of job. Therefore, at no point are you benefiting beyond the time you are in school and getting an education, still looking for a job, or dealing with health issues. In the current market, no CD, no savings account, and no investment will give you substantially more return that will offset the loss of the interest you are accruing. Even those of us in the old days getting 4.X % rates would not do this. There was a conditional consolidation offer the DOE allowed which could bring all your loans under one roof for a competitive 5.x-6.x % rate allowing you a single payment, but even then you would benefit if you had rates that were substantially higher. From a credit worthiness aspect, you are hurt by the outstanding obligation and any default along the way, so you really want to avoid that — paying off or down your loans are a good way to ensure you don't shoot yourself in the foot."

By paying the $11,000 into the 2.54% loan you will save $23.30 in interest every month. By paying the $11,000 into the 3.625% loan you will save $33.20 in interest every month. If your objective is to get rid of one loan quicker so repayments can go to the other loan to pay off sooner, I would put the $11,000 into the 2.54% loan and pay that off as quick as possible, then put any extra payments into the mortgage at 3.625%. Pay only the minimum amounts into the 0% car loan as this is not costing you anything.

I'm all for free enterprise, but I feel like when services like Uber and Lyft get so big it might do them some good to offer disabled services. I mean obviously you can't cater to every single type of rider out there but basic wheelchair service would probably be good.