Question: Why does an option lose time value faster as it approaches expiry

If you think about it, the value of an option comes from the chance that the price at the expiration date can exceed the strike price. As it gets closer to the expiration date, the chance is getting smaller, because there is simply not enough time for an out-of-money option to hit that strike. Therefore, the value of an option decays.

It isn't that good for EU banks either, but ultimately, it will be easier for them. The splitting of entities will be a common problem and not just in banking. However there can be no joint organisations without a joint regulatory mechanism and the British government have rejected that.

Eh. It's what Walmart will do. The real question is, will they do it quietly or make a splash about it? Because the last thing anyone wants is Walmart butting heads with its employees in an election year, but those crazy bastards running the show in Bentonville aren't above being confrontational when everyone thinks/believes/prays they'll just back down and wait for a saner time to drop rocks on people's heads.   That's what the source of entertainment is going to be here; how will Walmart handle this and will the politicians stick their noses in it too? And is this a union-organised thing or an informal affiliation of employees that covertly agreed to do this? Also, will it spread?   That's about the sum-total of stuff we have to think about, since they don't actually change any unemployment numbers around by firing experienced employees and hiring people they have to train up and deploy again. Hell, they do it so often it probably doesn't really cost them any extra either.

"This reminds me of philosopher John Rawls' ""difference principle"", which states that growing inequality is acceptable as long as the people at the bottom of the income scale are better off than they were before.   Edit: Low income people are surely better off in some ways; notably, they can afford to buy consumer goods that they couldn't before. But it is harder for them to achieve upward social mobility."

It appears that hashes starting with 00000 are password already 'reversed' (I don't know the correct word for it).  So if you want to test if your password is in the file, you'll have to look for your original hash and 00000restofyouroriginalhash  Example for 'linkedin':  * 7728240c80b6bfd450849405e8500d6d207783b6 is not present * 0000040c80b6bfd450849405e8500d6d207783b6 is present  Python script to do it quickly if you are interested :      from hashlib import sha1     def check_pass(plaintext, offset=5):         hashed = sha1(plaintext).hexdigest()         return (hashed, '0' * offset + hashed[offset:])

Yes did this. Had 5 years management experience at a state level with industry specific qualifications (financial services). Interview with the dean, written request and I was in on the basis that after the first 4 terms they could either give me a graduate diploma and send me on my way OR let me finish the MBA.   Now I have an MBA.

if employees are difficult to fire, it make it difficult to hire to begin with. It is well proven phenomenon in South European countries. Making union powerful simply create two tire system whereby the system only protect those who are already employed.   North European countries, instead, adopt flexible system whereby business is free to fire but redundancy pay increase by the number of years of employment. Also, this is backed by robust unemployment benefit.

The point is, genuine users are catching on and Instagram has to give the appearance of doing something about it or lose their user base in boycotts.  This is about the time when the next big thing starts to emerge and the company releasing updates like this starts circling the drain.


Question: Why do banks require small businesses to open a business bank account instead of a cheaper personal one?

The bank won't let you because: Differences in required account features — Business accounts have different features (many of them legal features) that are required by businesses. For instances: Do you want to be able to deposit cheques that are written out to your business name? You need a business account for that. Your business could be sold. Then it wouldn't be your business, so it wouldn't make sense to put the business account under your personal name. The bank account and the cash it holds is a business asset and should be owned by the business, so when the business is sold the account goes with it. This is especially the case for a corporation that has shareholders, and not a sole proprietorship. For a business, you could also, in theory, assign other people as signing authorities on the business account (e.g. your corporate treasurer), and the individuals performing that role could change over time. Business accounts allow for this kind of use. Market segmentation — The bank has consciously undertaken to segment their product offerings in order to maximize their profit. Market segmentation helps the bottom line. Even if there were zero legal reasons to have separate personal vs. business accounts, banks would still make it their policy to sell different account types according to use because they can make more money that way. Consider an example in another industry: The plain-old telephone company also practices segmentation w.r.t. personal/business. Do you want a telephone line for a business and listed as such in the phone book? You need a business line. Do you want a phone line hooked up at a non-residential address? You need a business line. Here it's clear it is less of a legal issue than with the bank account, and it doesn't matter that the technical features of the phone line may be identical for the basic product offerings within each segment. The phone company has chosen to segment and price their product offerings this way. Q. Why do companies choose to charge some kinds of customers more than others for essentially the same underlying service? A. Because they can.

"One thing I've run into (working for a smaller MSO/Cable Company) is that when we started offering TiVo to our customers directly, we ran into all kinds of restrictions. Some examples - since we carries Starz/Encore, the TiVos we provided customers had to have the Netflix app disabled. More recently, I've seen more apps like Amazon Movies, the music video on-demand service, and more removed due to FCC restrictions on cable operators. Meanwhile, customers who pickup their TiVo from Best Buy or retail get the full experience. Now, one would think ""Yay! It's better for the customer to go buy the unit"". However, when they get it from us, they never have to worry about repairs (I went through two Series 2 units personally years ago - usually was the HDD) and we also take care of the programming guide cost so the customer doesn't have to worry about the monthly charge to TiVo or choosing a lifetime sub that's locked to one unit. It just really frustrates me because I prefer the TiVo over our standard Motorola HD DVRs but these regulations have made them (the ones we provide/rent to the customer) no better than the regular DVRs."

Best banquet halls in Kolkata will have a wedding authority on work force. Invest energy auditing your goals and let the master manage you through the system. The wedding coordinator will enable you to distinguish the measure of the lobby you need, and exercise a nourishment determination. You will wish to consider the extent of the move floor, stage, and head table while deciding wedding halls in south Kolkata.

"Economists actually hate the interest deduction, especially for mortgages. From The Economist:   ""Allowing interest payments, but not dividends, to be deducted from corporate profits before tax is paid is a huge distortion to the system. It is a perk worth around 11% of the value of corporate assets. It has tended to encourage companies to take on more debt. By doing so, it may make the economy more risky at the margin: in a recession, highly-indebted companies are likely to go bust more quickly, whereas companies with lots of equity capital can ride out the storm. As a result, this newspaper has favoured the abolition of the deductibility rule.""  http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21716050-would-be-risky-time-fiddle-tax-code-what-if-interest-expenses  More from 538  https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-tax-deductions-economists-hate/"

You need a find a financial planner that will create a plan for you for a fixed fee. They will help you determine the best course of action taking into account the pension, the 403B, and any other sources of income you have, or will have. They will know how to address the risk that you have that that particular pension.  They will help you determine how to invest your money to produce the type of retirement you want, while making sure you are likely to not outlive your portfolio.

Unions are a joke. They were created originally with good intentions, to protect workers interests. Now, it's all corruption and overpaid high school dropouts making $40/hour for holding a stop sign.   You barely graduated high school. In no situation is your hourly rate worth $150 to me.  Unions need to be put in their place.

"Even if the price of your home did match inflation or better — and that's a question I'll let the other answers address — I propose that owning a home, by itself, is not a sufficient hedge against inflation. Consider: Inflation will inflate your living expenses. If you're lucky, they'll inflate at the average. If you're unlucky, a change in your spending patterns (perhaps age-related) could result in your expenses rising faster than inflation. (Look at the sub-indexes of the CPI.) Without income also rising with inflation (or better), how will you cope with rising living expenses? Each passing year, advancing living expenses risk eclipsing a static income. Your home is an illiquid asset. Generally speaking, it neither generates income for you, nor can you sell only a portion. At best, owning your principal residence helps you avoid a rent expense and inflation in rents — but rent is only one of many living expenses. Some consider a reverse-mortgage an option to tap home equity, but it has a high cost. In other words: If you don't want to be forced to liquidate [sell] your home, you'll also need to look at ways to ensure your income sources rise with inflation. i.e. look at your cash flow, not just your net worth. Hence: investing in housing, as in your own principal residence, is not an adequate hedge against inflation. If you owned additional properties to generate rental income, and you retained pricing power so you could increase the rent charged at least in line with inflation, your situation would be somewhat improved — except you would, perhaps, be adopting another problem: Too high a concentration in a single asset class. Consequently, I would look at ways other than housing to hedge against inflation. Consider other kinds of investments. ""Safe as houses"" may be a cliché, but it is no guarantee."

Basically the banks (Countrywide was the worst about this) failed to uphold lending standards when they were giving out mortgages because it wasn't in their self-interest-- after the banks would give someone a mortgage the banks would make their fees off the mortgage and then bundle these mortgages into securities. The banks then had these sub-prime mortgages that are now bundled together as securities, then Moody's/S&P and other ratings agencies gave them AAA ratings despite nearly everyone in the industry knowing they were time-bombs waiting to go off. Goldman Sachs and everyone else knew what was going on, but they didn't want to get stuck holding the bag, per se, so they committed fraud by knowingly misleading their clients to buy these securities.  The problem isn't that we need more regulations-- it's that the regulations we have aren't even being enforced. Obama has prosecuted 1/3 as many financial crimes at Bush/Clinton/Reagan.


Question: Is UK house price spiral connected to debt based monetary system?

"There are a few factors at work here, supply and demand being the main one. The Office for National Statistics has some good information: http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/ Supply has historically struggled to compete with demand in the UK and this situation has been exacerpated since the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.  She set up a variety of schemes to encourage people to own their own home, such as tax relief (MIRAS) and since then home ownership in the UK has increased dramatically. The then conservative government also set up the ""right to buy"" scheme (in 1980) that allowed council tenants to purchase their council houses at a discounted rate.  The effect of this was to increase the number of home owners whilst reducing the amount of housing available for councils to rent to new tenants.  Anecdotal evidence (I can't find a documented source to back this up) suggests that councils did not build sufficient new homes to replace those purchased by their ex-tenants. The population of the UK has also increased, by around 10 million since 1980 (around 20%) and this has pushed up demand for housing.  House building in the UK has not kept pace with these factors that has led to a shortage of supply that has pushed up prices. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pop-estimate/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland/2013/sty-population-changes.html There's another factor at play here as well.  If you go back to the 1970s around 53% of women would go out to work but in 2013 this figure increased to 67% as it became more common for households to have double incomes.  This extra supply of cash also pushed up house prices. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_328352.pdf Your question regards a debt based monetary system is not entirely clear, but there are limitations put onto how much money people can borrow that are potentially limiting how much house prices can rise by.  Today most lenders are more conservative in how much they will lend but this wasn't the case in the mid 2000s when house prices rose very quickly.   Lenders are more cautious today after the crash of the late 2000s, but things are begining to relax again and they are starting to lend more which could in turn lead to further house price rises in line with what was seen in the 2000s. Recessions have coincided with house prices falling back or at least being stable.  In the 1980s house prices trebled from 1980 to 1988 but then fell back a little as the recession hit, before starting to rise again in 1997.  This rise was sustained until 2008 during which time prices trebled again.  Based on this you could assume prices will treble again as we come out of the recession, as long as this is sustained for 8 years or so. However, as the potential for more households to become double income is reduced (high female employment already) and wages are unlikely to raise that quickly, this may not be realistic, unless the mortgage lenders become extremely lax, to the point of reckless! To answer your other question, about the affordability of housing, this will be based on the level of wages in the UK and how strict or lax the lenders are, also taking into effect the availability of housing for purchase.  If wages rise, house prices will rise, if lenders are willing to lend more money, house prices will rise and if demand continues to outrstip supply, prices will rise. None of the major UK political parties are likely to solve the problems of population growth and not enough houses being built so it is likely prices will rise but you could argue that they are not far off a peak based on current wages and lenders attitudes.  If the UK economy continues to recover from the recession, it is possible they will fuel another housing boom by lending ever increasing salary multiples as happened in the 2000s, unless there is government intervention, ie regulation of the lenders."

That is where I think Walmart comes in to buy up a business like this. With their network of stores and the insane buying power they have the can push a good solid quality that the middle class American wants and do it very cheaply. I feel this will be their main combat against Amazon buying whole foods. Currently Walmart makes more on grocery sales than anything else as a hole and will continue to do so because of what and how they are doing it. Walmart is sneaky as fuck when it comes to what they can do and how they can do it. Even Walmart buying up Advanced Auto Parts is a solid counter move to Amazon buying Whole Foods...the next step is buying a Blue Apron type business... and with how Blue Apron is doing financially and given their name they are entering buy off territory.  In my humble albeit non pro status in the stock market my 3 buys are Snap Chat, GoPro, and Walmart for long term retire and never have to worry about money again companies. I am by no means an expert but I have never come close to losing money in the stock market and do a good amount of research before I invest. Snapchat is my top 1 tbh. Sorry for going on a tangent lol

"not sure how you could be more wrong.  my favorite part by far was the fedora worthy ""nonsense, and unworthy of further comment."" definitely followed by a little tip, wasn't it?  you've missed every single point i bought up. i'm not acting like investors are fat cats - you're borderline illiterate, and spend too much time on r/libertarian or watching fox news, so you jumped at the opportunity to straw man ""a dang pretentious librul."" what i said was ""relatively elite,"" exactly because i'm not saying they're cigar chomping pigs- they have a lot of money relative to most of the population.  i simply don't care enough to try to go point by point. my whole point was that the comment i was replying to represents the style of mainstream economics that misrepresents basic phenomena, and your reply was just a doubling down.  ""they are rational"" - lol literally choke on your MLP figurine. you've no idea what you're talking about. your other posts indicate a greater ignorance - you don't know how to watch the vix, or why your options move the way they do? really shocking /s"

It has been hinted at in some other answers, but I want to say it explicitly: Volatility is not risk. Volatility is how much an investment goes up and down, risk is the chance that you will lose money. For example, stocks have relatively high volatility, but the risk that you will lose money over a 40 year period is virtually zero (in particular if you invest in index funds). Bonds, on the other hand, have basically no volatility (their cash flow is totally predictable if you trust the future of your government), but there is a significant risk that they will perform worse than stocks over a longer period. So, volatility equals risk only if you are day trading. A 401(k) is literally the opposite of that. For further reading: Never confuse risk and volatility Also, investing is not gambling. Gambling is bad because the odds are stacked against you. You need more than average luck to actually win and the longer you play, the more you will lose. Investing means buying productive capital that will produce further value. The odds are in your favor. Even if you do a moderately bad job at investing, the longer you stay, the more you will win.

I don't think BB sells $300 suits. I think they're going to be more like +$800, but it has been awhile since I've looked.   As far as shoes, yeah, I meant Allen Edmonds for AE. They're like the entry level for nice shoes. They're not cheap tho. The benefit to them is that they look a little nicer, and should last much longer if you take care of them. AE sells their factory seconds at:   https://shoebank.com/  Ive gotten two pair from there and haven't been able to find the defect. As far as which black shoe, that's up to you. You cannot go wrong with their park ave's, but they might be a bit formal. I have the Mora's, but I wouldn't recommend monk straps for your first pair.  Maybe consider a dark brown shoe. It will look a little more natural with the Navy suit, and is arguably a bit more versatile. The stand is always a good option.

Its only a matter of time before Governments worldwide crack down on Bitcoin. Apart from using it for illicit purchases, money laundering or speculation based on its hard limited supply, what use does it have?   The transaction fees are much greater than other methods for small transactions, and its store of wealth is questionable given the vulnerability to hacking and volatility.

Yes, you do.  You also need to file a tax return every year, and if you have more than $50k of total savings you need to declare this every year.

"Even if you reject the premise of the article (which I imagine many in this sub would), how can you see capitalism as an entirely faultless system? What do you mean by ""people have the choice to fix things""? How can people fix an issue like, say, inequality without reforming capitalism itself?"


Question: What does it mean when someone says “FTSE closed at xxx today”

FTSE is an index catering to the London stock exchange. It is a  Capitalization-Weighted Index  of 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalization . When somebody says FTSE closed at 6440, it basically means at the end of the day, the index calculated using the day end market capitalization of the companies, included in the index, is 6440.

Despite my previous claim to not respond to crank messages, no, you are also spectacularly ignorant of the basics about how inflation is calculated.  The Department of Labor Statistics has an army of people going into retail each month to evaluate comparables.  Heads of lettuce, gallons of milk and twinkies are not, in fact, 4x smaller than they were in 2007 and even if they were, DLS corrects for it.

They are advertising the echo so people will start ordering their groceries (and everything else on amazon) via the echo. They aren't adding a best buy into whole foods. Just showing people the future is here. Order your groceries with your voice while you head is in the refrigerator looking for things you need.

A debt is created when the service is rendered or the goods are sold to you.  The bill is simply a way of recording the debt and alerting you to it.

Since you ask.... How do I do it? My frugality doesn't come from budgeting or even half so much from keeping money away from myself (though mostly-one-way retirement accounts help). It's a matter of world-view. Spending and shopping for things you don't need is a vice. Limit your indulgence in it. I've also made wasteful purchases in my life. When I find myself considering buying something that I don't really need, I ask myself whether it will end up like... like the stupid eyeglass cleaner gadget from the Sharper Image that I used twice. Or the Bluetooth earpiece that spent 98% of its time lost and .02% of its time in my ear. Or the little Sony VAIO laptop which was great on the train, but probably cost 8 times as much as an EeePC and didn't do way too much more. (In my defense on that one, it was just before netbooks were really taking off... but I still felt bad about it the next year). I've also got two savings goals. The first is responsible and very big (financial stability: a year's expenses plus money for a down payment on a house. a California house. in a good neighborhood.) The second is personal and just medium-big (a large musical instrument). I've decided not to spend money on the second until I'm financially stable and I have enough money to take care of the first... so that makes me more willing to scrimp and save to pursue the first than I would be otherwise. Advice for others? Ask yourself: Why are you buying that thing? You can survive without it, can't you? You didn't need it a week ago, did you? Does the old one have holes in it or something? Or will you at least use it regularly, for years? Why aren't you buying the cheaper kind? Or buying it used?

As JB hints, it is likely due to superior or improving, fundamentals. If the fundamentals of a company improve then its ability to repay loans improves. If its ability to repay improves then more sources of cash become willing to lend to the company. Also if fundamentals are improving then more sources are willing to buy and/or hold the stock.

If you don't want to pay much attention to your investments, target date funds -- assuming you find one (like Vanguard's) with no management fees beyond those acquired from the underlying funds -- are usually a great choice: when the target date is far off, they invest almost entirely (usually 90% or so) in (mutual funds that in turn consist of many) stocks, with the remainder in bonds; as the date gets closer, the mix is automatically shifted to more bonds and less stocks (i.e. less risk, but less potential return too).

When the first gas cars were made 100 years ago, they were toys for the rich  You can't go from zero to cheap mass market instantly  It's not a conspiracy, it's the nature of the business  The only way to introduce a new product like an electric car is to target the buyer who is not primarily concerned with cost  Later, as experience is gained, costs will come down  I remember the first CD recorder  It cost $15,000 and the disks were $30 each  Now, you can get a CD/DVD recorder for $30


Question: Issuing bonds at discount - computing effective interest rate

In this case the market interest rate is the discount rate that sets equal the market price (current value) of the bond to its present value. To find the market interest rate which is also referred to as promised yield YTM you would have solve for the interest rate in the bond price formula A market price of bond is the sum of discounted coupons and the terminal value of the bond. Most spreadsheet programs and calculators have a RATE function that makes possible finding this market interest rate. First see this for finding a coupon paying bond price The coupon payments are discounted so is the par value of the bond and sum of such discounts is the market price of the bond. The TVM functions in Excel and calculators make this possible using the following equation Let us take your data, 9% $100,000 coupon with 5 years remaining to maturity with market interest rate of 10%. Bonds issued in the US mostly pay two coupons per year. Thus we are finding the present value of 10 coupons each worth $4500 and par value of $100,000. The semi-annual market interest rate is 10%/2 or 5% The negative sign indicate money going out of hand Now solving for RATE is only possible using numerical methods and the RATE function is programmed using Newton-Raphson method to find one of the roots of the bond price equation. This rate will be the periodic rate in this case semi-annual rate which you have to multiply by 2 to get the annual rate. Do remember there is a difference between annual nominal rate and an annualized effective rate. To find the market interest rate  If you don't have Excel or a financial calculator then you may opt to use my version of these financial functions in this JavaScript library tadJS

Not even an LA thing. There are three in Orange County, and one in Downey — in the entire state.  A small number of store is very likely going to skew the data. It should have been limited to chains with a minimum of say 25 stores in a state.  But BI and Forequare knew that going into their report because there was so much drama over the one they produced last year.   And there seems to be even more outrage this year, with numerous articles on the report.

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

Didn't people say this the last election cycle?  Has America ended yet?  We're still here.  But, really, why blame the President?  He's not a dictator.  He can only pass laws that get through house and senate.  This kind of fear mongering is stupid.

The literal answer to your question is that a number of different types of mutual funds did not have significant downturns in 2008. Money Market Funds are intended to always preserve capital. VMMXX made 2.77% in 2008. It was a major scandal broke the buck, that its holders took a 3% loss. Inverse funds, which go up when the market goes down, obviously did well that year (RYARX), but if you have a low risk tolerance, that's obviously not what you're looking for. (and they have other problems as well when held long-term) But you're a 24-year-old talking about your retirement funds, you should have a much longer time horizon, at least 30 years. Over a period that long, stocks have never had negative real (inflation-adjusted) returns, dating back at least to the civil war. If you look at the charts here or here, you can see that despite the risk in any individual year, as the period grows longer, the average return for the period gets tighter and tighter. If you look at the second graph here, you see that 2011 was the first time since the civil war that the trailing 30-year return on t-bills exceeded that for stocks, and 1981-2011 was period that saw bond yields drop almost continuously, leading to steady rise in bond prices. Although past performance is no guarantee of future results, everything we've seen historically suggests that the risk of a broad stock-market portfolio held for 30 years is not that large, and it should make up the bulk of your holdings. For example, Vanguard's Target retirement 2055 fund is 90% in stocks (US + international), and only 10% in bonds.

Surely there's more to the picture than this.  Breaking the borrowing limit by going to 3.5% multiple times is surely no where near as bad as going to 18% once.  On top of this there was a fundamental difference in the use of capital.  Borrowing to invest (as Germany did) has been ridiculously beneficial for them.

You probably won't get a mortgage. UDSA has a 41% ratio of monthly debt to monthly income limit, and a score of 660 or better. A 250,000 mortgage at current rates for 30 year mortgage is about $1560/mo. (included in this figure is the 1% mortgage insurance premium, the .4% annual fee, the current rate for a 660 credit rating, the 2% points fee added at the front of the mortgage, typical closing cost added to transaction, and the .5% fee for over-mortgage insurance for the first 3 years since your mortgage will be higher than the value of the house due to these additional fees) Credit card payments = $120 ($60 times 2) Car payments = $542 ($271 for your car, $271 for the car you will be getting) Student loan = $50/month Child Support = $500/month Total = $2772/month Your income per month is 82000/12 = $6833/month $2772/$6833 = 40.6%...  This is awfully close to the limit, so they likely would also look at your ability to save.  Not seeing savings in the above example, I assume it is low.  USDA site One mortgage help site breaks down some of the requirements into layman's language. Not knowing your exact location (county/state) and how many children you have, it is hard to be sure whether you make too much to qualify.  This link shows the income limits by number of people in the house and the county/state.  There are few places in which you could be living that would qualify you to any of their programs unless you have a several children. As others have posted, I suggest you get your debt down.

I question the reliability of the information you received.  Of course, it's possible the former 401(k) provider happened to charge lower expense ratios on its index funds than other available funds and lower the new provider's fees.  There are many many many financial institutions and fees are not fixed between them.  I think the information you received is simply an assumptive justification for the difference in fees.


Question: Understanding stock market terminology

Opening - is the price at which the first trade gets executed at the start of the trading day (or trading period). High - is the highest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Low - is the lowest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Closing - is the price at which the last trade gets executed at the end of the trading day (or trading period). Volume - is the amount of shares that get traded during the trading day (or trading period). For example, if you bought 1000 shares during the day and another 9 people also bought 1000 shares each, then the trading volume for the day would be 10 x 1000 = 10,000.

No, there is no advantage.  There may be some peace of mind at no cost if you are already in the lowest tax bracket.  Otherwise, it is actually disadvantageous. Consider the following scenario: RRSP HBP withdrawal $15000 ($1000/y repayment), You are required to pay back $1000 a year with no tax advantage. Any additional RRSP payments can be designated as HBP (no tax advantage) or as a regular RRSP contribution Tax = (Taxable Income - contributions) * rate. So, you are forgoing the tax benefit for no advantage.

No, it is not. If that were the case, you would have no such thing as a growth stock. Dividends and dividend policies can change at any time.  The primary reason for investment in a company is access to a firm's earnings, hence the idea of P/E. Dividends are factored in with capital appreciation, but studies have shown that dividends are actually detrimental to future growth.   They tend to allow easier access to shareholders because of the payouts, reducing the cost of equity. But, if you reduce the growth rate as well, sensitivity tables can demonstrate deterioration or stagnation over time.   Some good examples are GE and Microsoft.

This podcast really opened my eye to Netflix's toxic culture.  Netflix can still continue to get away with this short term thinking culture because it's still growing. Once growth stopped, I don't think current culture is sustainable.  They'll have to reinvent themselves again or die.    It made me question the value of unlimited vacation and one year maternity Netflix so proudly advertised. I suspect any Netflix employee  who plan to take those benefits will find themselves unemployed very quickly.

I didn't realize the min wage in NYC was higher than the rest of NY state.  WOUld $11.50 change much, in NYC?  Childcare at $400?  I live in a pretty rural area where you can get an acre of land and a decent house for under $100K.  To get daycare under $1000 a month you have to find someone working under the table, not registered and not paying taxes.  Even then, it is $800 a month for two kids.

NAV is  how much is the stuff of the company worth divided by the number of shares. This total is also called book value. The market cap is share price times number of shares. For Amazon  today people are willing to pay 290 a share for a company with a NAV of 22 a share. If of nav and price were equal the P/B (price to book ratio) would be 1, but for Amazon it is 13.  Why? Because investors believe Amazon is worth a lot more than a money losing company with a NAV of 22.

"The basic theoretical reason for a company to return money to shareholders is that the company doesn't need the money for its own purposes (e.g. investment or working capital). So instead of the company just keeping it in the bank, it hands it back so that shareholders can do what they think fit, e.g. investing it elsewhere. In some cases, particularly ""private equity"" deals, you see companies actively borrowing money to payout to shareholders, on the grounds that they can do so cheaply enough that it will improve overall shareholder returns. The trade-off with this kind of ""leveraging up"" is that it usually makes the business more risky and every so often you see it go wrong, e.g. after an economic downturn. It may still be a rational thing to do, but I'd look at that kind of proposal very carefully. In this case I think things are quite different: the company has sold a valuable asset and has spare cash. It's already going to use some of the money to reduce debt so it doesn't seem like the company is becoming more risky. Overall if the management is recommending it, I would support it. As you say, the share consolidation seems like just a technical measure and you might as well also support that. I think they want to make their share price seem stable over time to people who are looking at it casually and won't be aware of the payout - otherwise it'd suddenly drop by 60p and might give the impression the company had some bad news. The plan is to essentially cancel one share worth ~960p for every payout they make on 16 shares - since 16x60p = 960p payout this should leave the share price broadly unchanged."

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


Question: Taking partial capital loss purely for tax purposes

Note that the rules around wash sales vary depending on where you live. For the U.S., the wash sale rules say that you cannot buy a substantially identical stock or security within 30 days (before or after) your sale. So, you could sell your stock today to lock in the capital losses. However, you would then have to wait at least 30 days before purchasing it back. If you bought it back within 30 days, you would disqualify the capital loss event. The risk, of course, is that the stock's price goes up substantially while you are waiting for the wash sale period. It's up to you to determine if the risk outweighs the benefit of locking in your capital losses. Note that this applies regardless of whether you sell SOME or ALL of the stock. Or indeed, if we are talking about securities other than stocks.

I got an idea, lets keep doing this every 50 years or so. Fuck remembering that a living wage is key to the economy, we can just keep booming and busting BECAUSE ITS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN.  Write a cocksucking social contract and stick to it fucking fucking idiots.

A pattern of high level people buying or selling is a sign, positive or negative. An individual, not so much. He can be selling to diversify, trying to keep his investments from being all in the company. He can be selling to pay his large bills. Same reasons any of us might be selling an investment to have cash to use.

FRED isn't recording people, it's recording households.  A household can hold any number of people.  When your person moves from a rental back in to their family's house, the number of separate households goes down to 9; and home ownership shoots up to 55.5% according to FRED.

Facebook is currently the most often visited site on the web. So it only follows that we as marketers should take full advantage of all the promotional possibilities it offers.  Facebook adder software makes it super simple to market to whatever demographic you’re marketing to as well as whatever niche you’re tapping into.  Currently you’ll find that there are several tools out there that are used for sending out multiple friend requests at a time. Yet although, there are a relatively large number that will actually get the job done, only smaller fraction of these types of programs can perform this action without getting your account banned.  Facebook is fairly vigilant with respect to their methods of detecting spam. Therefore, if you decide to use an automated process to build your fan page, you must be somewhat strategic in your methodology. The application you use, must allow you to easily set things such as how many friend request you can make and over what period of time you can make them. You should try to keep the number of friend request per day under 50, because  sending out 100′s of request per day will surely get you banned.

Some proportion of the costs of a policy have little to no relationship to miles driven.  Think of costs of underwriting, and more especially sales/marketing/client acquisition costs (auto insurance isn't in the same league as non-term life insurance (where the commissions and other selling expenses typically exceed the first year's worth of premiums), but the funny TV ads and/or agent commissions aren't free), as well as general business overhead. Also, as noted by quid, some proportion of claim risk isn't correlated to distance covered (think theft, flood, fire, etc.). There are also differences in the miles that are likely to be driven by a non-commercial/vehicle-for-hire driver who puts 25k miles a year vs. one who puts 7k per year.  The former is generally going to be doing more driving at higher speeds on less-congested freeways while the latter will be doing more of their driving on crowded urban roads.  The former pattern generally has a lower expected value of claims both due to having fewer cars per road-mile, fewer intersections and driveways, and also having any given collision be more likely to result in a fatality (paralysis or other lifetime disability claims are generally going to exceed what the insurer would pay out on a fatality).

"Note that these used to be a single ""common"" share that has ""split"" (actually a ""special dividend"" but effectively a split). If you owned one share of Google before the split, you had one share giving you X worth of equity in the company and 1 vote. After the split you have two shares giving you the same X worth of equity and 1 vote. In other words, zero change. Buy or sell either depending on how much you value the vote and how much you think others will pay (or not) for that vote in the future.  As Google issues new shares, it'll likely issue more of the new non-voting shares meaning dilution of equity but not dilution of voting power. For most of us, our few votes count for nothing so evaluate this as you will.  Google's founders believe they can do a better job running the company long-term when there are fewer pressures from outside holders who may have only short-term interests in mind. If you disagree, or if you are only interested in the short-term, you probably shouldn't be an owner of Google. As always, evaluate the facts for yourself, your situation, and your beliefs."

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-cba-moneylaundering-idUSKCN1B70XL?il=0) reduced by 78%. (I'm a bot) ***** > SYDNEY - Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation&#039;s biggest lender, has been hit with a public inquiry into its governance and culture - the second regulatory probe to be launched this month after it was accused of massive breaches of money-laundering rules.  > CBA was sued this month by financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC which alleges that criminals and terror financiers laundered millions of dollars through CBA accounts - the first lawsuit of it kind against a major Australian bank and exposing CBA to a fine potentially amounting to billions of dollars.  > Last year, CBA admitted to using unscrupulous practices that cheated people out of life insurance payments, and in 2014 Narev publicly apologized after CBA advisors were found to have given customers poor financial advice.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6whxsk/australias_prudential_regulator_launches_inquiry/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~199698 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*: **Bank**^#1 **CBA**^#2 **Commission**^#3 **Royal**^#4 **probe**^#5"


Question: operating income

Sedar is I guess the Canadian equivalent of EDGAR. You can find the company's filings there.  Here's a picture from their filings. Can't post the link, if you go and find the filing through Sedar you'll know why (it's not as nice a site as EDGAR). The 4.8 million is from unrealized gain on biological assets. So that's what it is. The reason, I think, as to why Operating Income is a positive 2.67 even though Operating Expense and Gross Profit are both negative is because Google Finance backed into Operating Expense. Operating Income is the same between the two sources, it's just the unrealized gain that moves.

Zoopla may not always accurately reflect the market price. Your best bet is to get a quote for local registered) letting agents. That way you know you are close to the real market value. Also, these quotes may come into handy if you have a mortgage on the property. Since most banks will require you to provide proof of rent figures you are projecting by sending in official quotes. Hope this helps..

Satya has amazingly turned MS around. They were the laughing stock of most developers for many years but have picked up a number of big name developers, released a lot of great developer tools and are starting to be relevant again. It's an amazing transformation and for the first time in my life I'm looking forward to what they do next.

"I have heard that investing more money into an investment which has   gone down is generally a bad idea*. ""Throwing good money after bad"" so   to speak. Is investing more money into a stock, you already have a stake in,   which has gone up in price; a good idea? Other things being equal, deciding whether to buy more stocks or shares in a company you're already invested in should be made in the same way you would evaluate any investment decision and -- broadly speaking -- should not be influenced by whether an existing holding has gone up or down in value. For instance, given the current price of the stock, prevailing market conditions, and knowledge about the company, if you think there is a reasonable chance that the price will rise in the time-period you are interested in, then you may want to buy (more) stock. If you think there is a reasonable chance the price will fall, then you probably won't want to buy (more) stock. Note: it may be that the past performance of a company is factored into your decision to buy (e.g was a recent downturn merely a ""blip"", and long-term prospects remain good; or have recent steady rises exhausted the potential for growth for the time being). And while this past performance will have played a part in whether any existing holding went up or down in value, it should only be the past performance -- not whether or not you've gained or lost money -- that affects the new decision. For instance: let us suppose (for reasons that seemed valid at the time) you bought your original holding at £10/share, the price has dropped to £2/share, but you (now) believe both prices were/are ""wrong"" and that the ""true price"" should be around £5/share. If you feel there is a good chance of this being achieved then buying shares at £2, anticipating they'll rally to £5, may be sound. But you should be doing this because you think the price will rise to £5, and not because it will offset the loses in your original holding. (You may also want to take stock and evaluate why you thought it a good idea to buy at £10... if you were overly optimistic then, you should probably be asking yourself whether your current decisions (in this or any share) are ""sound""). There is one area where an existing holding does come into play: as both jamesqf and Victor rightly point out, keeping a ""balanced"" portfolio -- without putting ""all your eggs in one basket"" -- is generally sound advice. So when considering the purchase of additional stock in a company you are already invested in, remember to look at the combined total (old and new) when evaluating how the (potential) purchase will affect your overall portfolio."

First, to answer the question.  The benefit of a 401k is that you don't have to pay income tax on the money contributed nor do you pay capital gains tax on the money that accumulates.  You get that with the restriction that you can't willy nilly remove and contribute money to the account (and you are taxed on withdrawals, more severely if you do it before you are 65).  Similar sorts of restrictions apply to all retirement accounts which give tax benefits.  Now, for the 7000 not providing benefit.  Assuming a very modest 4% growth, over 40 years 7000 becomes 34,671. Not something to sneeze at (inflation, risk reward, blah, blah, blah, it is less than it looks, but 4% is really pretty low, the stock market averages anywhere from 7->10% and IIRC the bond market is somewhere around 5%).  Now, certainly, to avoid bankruptcy you should withdraw.  However, if it is possible, you will be best served by keeping the money in your 401k account.  The penalties and lost earning opportunities are pretty significant.  /u/BeatArmy99 [has the numbers](http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/2ct0qy/why_cant_i_access_my_401k_if_its_my_money/cjiorl7) for how much you lose by doing an early withdraw.  Don't do this lightly and I would suggest avoiding cashing out the whole thing if you can.

Is there an indicator about what percentage must be paid when?  Where does economics end and finance start?  I feel quite geeky, but I have been studying a bit of finance, and listening to bloomberg while I work (I am software dev) and want to understand everything :D  edit: just found about this [https://www.google.com/publicdata](https://www.google.co.uk/publicdata/explore?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&met_y=gd_pc_gdp&idim=country:pt:es:el&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gd_mio_eur&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country:pt:es:el:de:fr:uk&idim=country_group:eu&ifdim=country_group&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

Banks buy up, because they get free money at 0.1% interest or so. It does not mean that anybody will afford the houses at those prices in the future. The price will not go up to infinity, unless there is a major inflation round, in which case you will have to wait a decade to sell the house at nominal price after the central bankers let you to do so.   But then again. it is better to own a house in that case, than not having one.

I don't understand why these things are always either/or. It's not just lucky circumstances and it's not just hard work that makes someone successful. Example abound of rich kids who don't pan out and poor kids who make it.   Personally, I had access to a good education growing up and I pushed myself hard to capitalize on it. Luck is the access, but hard work was necessary to convert. I've had success in my career. Part of it is that I had opportunities to tackle tough challenges, but I also pushed to convert on those opportunities.


Question: How does Robinhood stock broker make money?

Robinhood seems interesting. Some say it's a gimmicky site with a nice UI not an investing or trading platform. From investopedia: 1. For now, the app stays afloat for mainly two reasons. First, the business itself is extremely lean: no physical locations, a small   staff, no massive public relations campaigns and only one operating   system platform to maintain. Robinhood also generates interest off of   unused cash deposits from user accounts according to the Federal Funds   rate. 2. Second, venture capitalists such as Index Ventures, Ribbit Capital,   Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Social Leverage,and “many   others” have invested more than $16 million in the app. 3. According to Barron’s, Robinhood plans to implement margin trading in   2015, eventually charging 3.5% interest for the service. E*Trade   charges 8.44% for accounts under $25,000. Phone assisted trading will   also be available at $10 per trade in the future. 4. Originally, Robinhood planned to make money off of order flows – a   common tactic used by discount brokerages in the 1990s to generate   revenue. According to the company's FAQ, Robinhood backpedaled on the   idea because it executes orders through a clearing partner and, as a   result, receives little to no payment for order flow. The company is   willing to return to its original plan in the future if it receives   order flows directly or begins to generate a lot of revenue from them.

Brokers will have transaction fees in addition to the find management fees, but they should be very transparent. Brokering is a very competitive business.  Any broker that added hidden fees to their transactions would lose customers very quickly to other brokers than can offer the same services. Hedge funds are a very different animal, with less regulation, less transparency,  and less competition. Their fees are tolerated because the leveraged returns are usually much higher. When times are bad, though,  those fees might drive investors elsewhere.

I'm fairly intelligent, and I'm willing to work my ass off. But I only have a high school degree and no real marketable skills. I don't drink or get high, I'm not even looking to become wealthy as I'm not very materialistic, I just want to earn enough to pay for the basics, save up, and room to grow in case I ever want a family

Creative workshop leaders aren’t just chirpy, arty people with a head full of ideas. It’s a lucrative business where they need to constantly innovate and manage people, time and resources. Here are simple tips to make the most of it all.

Risk and return always go hand by hand.*  Risk is a measure of expected return volatility. The best investment at this stage is a good, easy to understand but thorough book on finance. *Applies to efficient markets only.

Direct answers to your questions: contribute 6%, and put it in the Target Date Fund (probably Target Date Fund 2050).

>  Did you tell your wireless router to stay only on channel 11 or did Apple finally fix that?  Had to tie down the router to channel 11.  My only hesitation is that I'll miss the Del key, and I'm scared about all the emacs shortcuts, but others have done it, so I'll live.

Unfortunately, sex is such an important and intimate part of our human mind.It is hardly surprising that it generates so many problems for so many people. In the world all men want girls to fuck for her level.Do not be afraid to say what is on your mind, just as long as you are not making it sound like you are acting out a part of a porn movie. For instance, when you tell your partner how good his or her skin feels on yours, it shows that the slow, close and passionate moment of love.


Question: Is building a corporation a good option?

Creating a corporation is not necessarily less taxes. In fact, you'll face the problem of double taxation, and since you must pay yourself a reasonable salary, if your corporation doesn't earn much to give you as dividend after the salary, and/or your tax bracket is low, you'll in fact may end up paying more taxes. Also there's a lot of bureaucracy involved in managing a corporation. Liability on the other hand is important, and what's more important - is asset separation and limiting the liability to the corporation assets, keeping your personal assets safe. To achieve that, you don't have to create a corporation, but you can create a Limited Liability Company (LLC). LLC are disregarded entities for tax purposes (i.e.: you won't have to pay taxes twice, only once as a sole proprietor/partner), but provide the liability limitation and asset separation. LLC's are much less formal, and require much less paperwork reducing the risk of corporate veil piercing because of non-compliance. I myself decided to manage my investments through LLC's for that very reason (asset separation).

"You owe only $38,860 to pay off your loan now, possibly less.   From what you say about your loan, tell me if I got this right: 30 year loan $75,780 original loan amount 9% annual interest rate $609.74 monthly payment You have made 272 payments Payment number 273 is not due until late 2019, possibly early 2020 If I have correctly figured out what you have done, you have been making monthly payments early by pulling out payment coupons before they are due and sending them in with payment.  You are about 4 years ahead on your payments.   If I have this correct, if you called the bank and asked ""what is my payoff amount if I want to pay this loan off tomorrow"" they would answer something like $38,860.  When you pay a loan off early, you don't just owe the sum of the coupons still remaining.  In your case, you owe at least $16,000 less! Indeed, if there is some way to convert your 4 years of pre-payments into an early payment, you would owe even less than $38,860.  I don't know banking law well enough to know if that is possible.   You should stop pulling coupons out of your book and paying them early.  Any payments you make between now and when your next payment is actually due (late 2019 sometime?) you should tell the bank you want applied as an early payment.  This will bring your total owed amount down much faster than pulling coupons out of your book and making payments years early.   If there is someone in your family who understands banking pretty well, maybe they can help you sort this out.  I don't know who to refer you to for more personal help, but I really do think you have more than $16,000 to gain by changing how you are paying your mortgage.   Good luck!"

One such strategy I have heard for those who have this opportunity is to purchase the maximum allowed. When the window to sell opens, sell all of your shares and repurchase the most you can with the amount you gained (or keep an equivalent to avoid another transaction fee). This allows you to buy at a discount, and spread out the risk by investing elsewhere.  This way you are really only exposing yourself to lose money which you wouldn't have had access to without the stock discount.

(disclaimer: I don't answer specifically about Australia) As long as people don't question car usage and urban sprawl, and thus are willing to pay a premium for being stuck in traffic jams every working day, I don't see any reason why fuel producers wouldn't increase their prices. Given increasing demand from China and other rapidly growing countries, given state of remaining world resources, I think that fuel is a bargain nowadays.

I would read any and all of the John Bogle books.  Essentially:  We know the market will rise and fall.  We just don't know when specifically.   For the most part it is impossible to time the market. He would advocate an asset allocation approach to investing.  So much to bonds, tbills, S&P500 index, NASDAQ index.  In your case you could start out with 10% of your portfolio each in S&P500 and NASDAQ.  Had you done that, you would have achieved growth of 17% and 27% respectively.  The growth on either one of those funds would have probably dwarfed the growth on the entire rest of your portfolio.  BTW 2013 and 2014 were also very good years, with 2015 being mostly flat. In the past you have avoided risk in the market to achieve the detrimental effects of inflation and stagnant money.  Don't make the same mistakes going forward.

It was interesting to read the data regarding student loans, and the type of impact it has had to borrowers. The Fed did not necessarily signal the economy is in trouble, but a great deal of households don't have adequate savings to sustain against a moderate financial shock.

...a marketing guy who as a teenager invented a color cathode ray tube design that almost beat Sony to a patent on the Trinitron display. He also did a pretty good job foreseeing the mobile & Internet revolution (in hindsight it doesn't seem impressive, but when you compare to what most other tech CEO's were thinking at the time, he was way ahead of most of them).  These notions we get about people we've never met....

"If you have a business web site, using firstname.lastname@businessdomain.*x* would be the best choice. Using an @gmail address should be a second choice.  If gmail is your only option, though, I would strongly recommend avoiding the aka.username portion. If firstname.lastname@gmail.com isn't available (and, for most people, it no longer is), using something such as FirstinitialLastname.businessname@gmail.com would be a much better option (for example, John Smith with Example Enterprises would be JSmith.ExampleEnterprises@gmail.com).  If you're looking for an email address to use for purposes such as a resume / CV or similar documents, then I would suggest to try to find a variation that includes your first name and last name on gmail. You can use your middle initial, as well, if necessary.  John Curtis Smith could have any combination such as jcsmith, john.c.smith, johnathan.smith, johnathan.c.smith, j.curtis.smith (though that last one will imply that John prefers to be called Curtis), and similar.  Also, and I say this as honest advice from someone who has been in charge of hiring people in the past, if you're concerned about professionalism, you'll want to ensure your grammar and spelling are impeccable. A quick glance at your posting history makes me think you're a Brit, or are currently living in England, so working on your English skills will be important. People will find it difficult to take someone seriously, otherwise, and a poor first impression via text or email can easily cost you whatever it is you're trying to establish, *especially* if you aren't the only person attempting to establish yourself for that position.  You have several errors in your post (""I just a question,"" ""approriate,"" ""buisness,"" and a lack of sentence structure and punctuation in general).  It may seem silly to concern yourself with typing properly in a post on Reddit, but think of it as practice in a medium (text and typing) where repetition is key. If you're used to typing poorly, it'll take a lot more effort to type well when it counts, and you're more likely to miss an error that could cost you a job or client.  Good luck to you!  ^^^In ^^^before ^^^mentioning ^^^spelling ^^^/ ^^^grammar ^^^and ^^^missing ^^^something ^^^in ^^^my ^^^own ^^^text."


Question: I have made all the payments on a car I cosigned. Do I have to fight for possession of the vehicle?

Ordinarily a cosigner does not appear on the car's title (thus, no ownership at all in the vehicle), but they are guaranteeing payment of the loan if the primary borrower does not make the payment. You have essentially two options: Stop making payments for him.  If he does not make them, the car will be repossessed and the default will appear on both his and your credit.  You will have a credit ding to live with, but he will to and he won't have the car. Continue to make payments if he does not, to preserve your credit, and sue him for the money you have paid.  In your suit you could request repayment of the money or have him sign over the title (ownership) to you, if you would be happy with either option.  I suspect that he will object to both, so the judge is going to have to decide if he finds your case has merit. If you go with option 1 and he picks up the payments so the car isn't repossessed, you can then still take option 2 to recover the money you have paid.  Be prepared to provide documentation to the court of the payments you have made (bank statements showing the out-go, or other form of evidence you made the payment - the finance company's statements aren't going to show who made them).

How about a slightly different approach. Invest in a duplex or trip/quadplex. Live in one unit, rent out the rest. Chances are you'll end up either paying nothing in total, or even making money as your tenants pay your bills for you. Depends a lot on your area and your willingness to deal with the crap of tenants, but have a look into it. You'll be surprised what you can buy in your area and the types of people you might end up living with you...

Angels are different from venture capitalists because they use their own personal money to invest in a business. Venture capitalists invest from a fund which they manage on behalf of those who invest in the fund. If you are interested in connecting with an angel investor right now, you can find one using Angel Investment Network.

Fuck that. Let the market do its work.  I'm telling you now, I simply refuse to eat manufactured meat in its entirety. I am a hunter I eat meat that I harvest in the wild it allows me to provide healthy, free range meat to my family and take part in not only nature but a cultural tradition that is older than humankind.   Sorry but whilst factory meat might make up some of my diet at some stage in the future it will not account for the majority of my meat consumption.

"I think all transportation uses only 1/3 of oil produced at best.  That includes many things that won't be electrifed soon, like planes and ships.  Don't forget how much oil agriculture uses in both fertilizer, pesticides and the least in running the equipment itself.  So while demand may soften over time, it's not like will suddenly glut.  Peak Oil (which we reached with ""conventional oil"" vs fracked) kinda says that each subsequent barrel will get more and more expensive to pump out (rather the popular perception we will suddenly run out).  That basically has been a truism since over a century, because ERoEI on oil has declined.  At peak return, iirc in the 1930s or so, we were getting something like 300 barrels of oil out for every barrel of energy invested on some fields in Saudi Arabia, now the overall average is down to around 10 or less?  Point is, oil won't go to $10.  Oil industry could not survive on it and they know we don't have alternatives for many oil uses (it's the most easily portable liquid with the highest energy concentration), so why price it as such?  If people really wanted to reduce their carbon/oil footprint, they'd stop pining for electric cars and switch to a plantbased diet - which will have a far greater impact for much less investment.  On top of all the health benefits they accumulate."

The government has expenditures, part of which includes interest expense on debt.  The government first pays with your taxes, the remainder, which varies between a few billion to tens of billions to sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars, is called the deficit.  The government takes out loans, called US Treasury Bonds, to pay the deficiet.  The interest payments on this new debt is added to the interest expenditure the government pays every year.

I'm assuming you're in Germany or Europe based on your question, but here's an American's perspective that should pertain you you as well: Once you have a steady income and an emergency fund large enough to keep you from going bankrupt, then start learning about retirement and investment options.

"Institutional investors are the ""elephant"" in the room. When they ""sneeze,"" everyone else ""catches cold."" They're fine, if they're buying after YOU do. They're not bad, if you want to buy after they sell en masse. But when you read about moves of 10 percent, 15 percent or more in a single day, it's because a bunch of institutional investors all decided to do the same thing on the same day.  That's more volatility than most people can stomach. Fewer institutional investors in a stock mean fewer chances of those things happening."


Question: Multiple accounts stagnant after quitting job.

Adapted from an answer to a somewhat different question. Generally, 401k plans have larger annual expenses and provide for poorer investment choices than are available to you if you roll over your 401k investments into an IRA. So, unless you have specific reasons for wanting to continue to leave your money in the 401k plan (e.g. you have access to investments that are not available to nonparticipants and you think those investments are where you want your money to be), roll over your 401k assets into an IRA. But I don't think that is the case here.  If you had a Traditional 401k, the assets will roll over into a Traditional IRA; if it was a Roth 401k, into a Roth IRA. If you had started a little earlier, you could have considered considered converting part or all of your Traditional IRA into a Roth IRA (assuming that your 2012 taxable income will be smaller this year because you have quit your job). Of course, this may still hold true in 2013 as well.  As to which custodian to choose for your Rollover IRA, I recommend investing in a low-cost index  mutual fund such as VFINX which tracks the S&P 500 Index. Then, do not look at how that fund is doing for the next thirty years.  This will save you from the common error made by many investors when they pull out at the first downturn and thus end up buying high and selling low. Also, do not chase after exchange-traded mutual funds or ETFs (as many will likely recommend) until you have acquired more savvy or interest in investing than you are currently exhibiting. Not knowing which company stock you have, it is hard to make a recommendation about selling or holding on. But since you are glad to have quit your job, you might want to consider making a clean break and selling the shares that you own in your ex-employer's company. Keep the $35K (less the $12K that you will use to pay off the student loan) as your emergency fund. Pay off your student loan right away since you have the cash to do it.

What is it that you think he is producing? He sells timeshares. If he quit selling timeshares someone else would. Maybe someone who thinks making 25% is good enough. That's how business works. It is why when you arrest one drug king pin 3 more pop up. Maybe even an employee at the current company.

"It is called ""Opportunity Cost.""   Opportunity cost is the value you lose because of a decision you made.   This is the book definition from Investopedia. The difference in return between a chosen investment and one that is necessarily passed up. Say you invest in a stock and it returns a paltry 2% over the year. In placing your money in the stock, you gave up the opportunity of another investment - say, a risk-free government bond yielding 6%. In this situation, your opportunity costs are 4% (6% - 2%)."

"Oh the classic ""much human nature"" argument which ignored capitalism had existed for less than tree centuries as and there are still several tribes where people hunt and share their hunt without even telling who hunted the animal or where.people eat whatever they hunted after everybody else has eaten first  But people are naturally selfish, surely it's not cultural or due to an economic system"

It take 10 years or more to build a nuclear plant then 20 - 30 years after that to break even on cost. By that time, 2047, solar *(+ storage) will be so cheap  the plant would have gone bankrupt a decade earlier. The right time to build more nuclear power plants was 20 years ago.

Personally, I started renting out because I couldn't afford to buy a place but now I'm quite comfortably past that point.  My three main issues are: These views aren't for everyone but I find it hard to seriously contemplate dealing with 2 while 1 and 3 are issues.   To be honest, I found that I learned a lot sharing a place for the first few years and still enjoying it now.  I don't really think you should bring it down to a financial issue unless your decision is already made.

Why are self checkout lanes always available? Because people don't want the do extra work.  Sure this is coupd be a good idea in a small convenience store setting, but not a large grocery store.  It just seems like a complete logistical nightmare, especially with produce.  With massive upfront construction costs or refit costs, and then add in the new maintenence, preventative maintenance, and monitoring costs.  Do you truly see savings when cashiers are cheap?  On top of everything, you are still going to have lines.  A week''s worth of groceries doesn't bag itself.

Germany is substantially cheaper than the London . You would need at least double your current income to maintain the same lifestyle in London.  Even then, you will likely have to settle for a cramped housing or a long commute. Java developers are largely contractors in the UK.  Typical wages and rates can be found at www.itjobswatch.co.UK Wages go up and down depending on supply and demand. Don't quit till you have another offer.


Question: How do markets “factor in” a future event?

"At the most fundamental level, every market is comprised of buyers and selling trading securities. These buyers and sellers decide what and how to trade based on the probability of future events, as they see it. That's a simple statement, but an example demonstrates how complicated it can be. Picture a company that's about to announce earnings. Some investors/traders (from here on, ""agents"") will have purchased the company's stock a while ago, with the expectation that the company will have strong earnings and grow going forward. Other agents will have sold the stock short, bought put options, etc. with the expectation that the company won't do as well in the future. Still others may be unsure about the future of the company, but still expecting a lot of volatility around the earnings announcement, so they'll have bought/sold the stock, options, futures, etc. to take advantage of that volatility.  All of these various predictions, expectations, etc. factor into what agents are bidding and asking for the stock, its associated derivatives, and other securities, which in turn determines its price (along with overall economic factors, like the sector's performance, interest rates, etc.) It can be very difficult to determine exactly how markets are factoring in information about an event, though. Take the example in your question. The article states that if market expectations of higher interest rates tightened credit conditions... In this case, lenders could expect higher interest rates in the future, so they may be less willing to lend money now because they expect to earn a higher interest rate in the future. You could also see this reflected in bond prices, because since interest rates are inversely related to bond prices, higher interest rates could decrease the value of bond portfolios. This could lead agents to sell bonds now in order to lock in their profits, while other agents could wait to buy bonds because they expect to be able to purchase bonds with a higher rate in the future.  Furthermore, higher interest rates make taking out loans more expensive for individuals and businesses. This potential decline in investment could lead to decreased revenue/profits for businesses, which could in turn cause declines in the stock market. Agents expecting these declines could sell now in order to lock in their profits, buy derivatives to hedge against or ride out possible declines, etc. However, the current low interest rate environment makes it cheaper for businesses to obtain loans, which can in turn drive investment and lead to increases in the stock market. This is one criticism of the easy money/quantitative easing policies of the US Federal Reserve, i.e. the low interest rates are driving a bubble in the stock market. One quick example of how tricky this can be. The usual assumption is that positive economic news, e.g. low unemployment numbers, strong business/residential investment, etc. will lead to price increases in the stock market as more agents see growth in the future and buy accordingly. However, in the US, positive economic news has recently led to declines in the market because agents are worried that positive news will lead the Federal Reserve to taper/stop quantitative easing sooner rather than later, thus ending the low interest rate environment and possibly tampering growth.  Summary: In short, markets incorporate information about an event because the buyers and sellers trade securities based on the likelihood of that event, its possible effects, and the behavior of other buyers and sellers as they react to the same information. Information may lead agents to buy and sell in multiple markets, e.g. equity and fixed-income, different types of derivatives, etc. which can in turn affect prices and yields throughout numerous markets."

The only advantage of changing all your money now to the new currency is that you might get a better conversion rate now than later, so you get more of the new currency and you may pay a lower percentage fee for changing a larger sum of money. However, regarding the better conversion rate - you will not know this except with hindsight. The disadvantage of changing all at once is that if you have changed too much and need to change back to your own currency or a third currency, you will be charged fees and lose on the conversion rate twice. If you know how long you are going to be in the new country, say 12 months, maybe start by converting an amount you think you will be spending in a month. If you spend more then you can change a bit more the next month, or if you spend less change less the next month. If you find you are spending similar amounts for the next month or so, then you can budget on the amount you may be spending for the remainder of your stay and then convert this amount over. If you have a little left over at the end of your stay maybe reward yourself with something or buy a present for someone special back at home. If you need a little more, just convert this amount in the last month or so.

"Definitely depends on the field. I work in derivatives (but not on the pure quant side, though), and that's one of the fields that tends to hire the most mathsy guys. Basically involves applying a lot of stochastic calculus and probabilistic concepts to practical pricing problems.   If you want a nice little application from a math perspective (but not necessarily practical), check out ""A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility"" by Heston (1992). Should give a decent idea of how typically the problem solving process works in derivative-land: start with a practical problem relating to a probabilistic/modelling concept (eg implied distribution of expected returns) -> apply some math -> come up with some sort of solution.  *edit: clarification 1st paragraph"

What source said the Fed considers them retired? And you know $2 trillion of that is mortgage backed securities. No one seems to have told the homeowners their mortgages are forgiven as I haven't seen the block parties for that.

Not to overkill the theres a few more I can think of right now

"First, your professor should learn proper grammar. Should be, ""Why **do**....""  Second, it looks like you're dealing with synthetic securities. You can create a synthetic T-Bill by doing a combination of long/short calls/puts.  But ignore all that. Just think about this without the technical jargon. We know that the risk free rate is typically what T-Bills are yielding right? And we know that since options are inherently more risky than US government debt, investors will demand a higher interest rate to compensate them for the risk. So, as the risk free rate increases, the value of a call will move the same direction, otherwise investors would stop dealing with call options and would instead buy safer, less-risky ""riskless"" investments.  It's not really an options question, just one of basic finance, risk, understanding of interest rates, etc."

"In other words, does the market have control over sale numbers or do I? You both do, just like for the bike.  You have control over the price you ask, and the buyer has control over the price they pay.  If the two do not align, no sale takes place. Your question uses the words ""sell"" and ""sale"" ambiguously.  You can decide to ask for any price you want.  You cannot actually sell anything until someone agrees to buy what you are offering."

>Man is a social animal.  He generally is; but he doesn't *have* to be.  Not in anything like way that the aforementioned bees are.  >The survival of our species has been only made possible by our acceptance of our co-dependency.   Au contraire. The social co-dependency (within limits) has served to both allow the species to thrive, AND at the same time, has often severely limited and constrained us.  The vast majority of human history has essentially been one of cyclical feudal-fascistic/crony-capitalistic -- monarchical governments in collusion with an elite of rentier-landowners who together control commerce -- growth during the early post anarchy stages, and then followed by later implosion as the system ossifies (with socialistic aspects implemented in an attempt to maintain power in the face of a growing mob).


Question: Can the purchaser of a stock call option cancel the contract?

You bought the right – but not the obligation – to buy a certain number of shares at $15 from  whomsoever sold you the option, and you paid a premium for it.  You can choose whether you want to buy the shares at $15 during the period agreed upon. If you call for the shares, the other guy has to sell the shares to you for $15 each, even if the market price is higher. You can then turn around and promptly resell the purchased shares at the higher market price. If the market price never rises above $15 at any time while the option is open, you still have the right to buy the shares for $15 if you choose to do so. Most rational people would let the option expire without exercising it, but this is not a legal requirement.  Doing things like buying shares at $15 when the market price is below $15 is perfectly legal; just not very savvy.  You cannot cancel the option in the sense of going to the seller of the option and demanding your premium money back because you don't  intend to exercise the option because the market price is below $15.  Of course, if the market price is above $15 and you tell the seller to cancel the contract, they will be happy to do so, since it lets them off the hook. They may or may not give you the premium back in this case.

">When I was a student, back in the early nineties, I had a holiday job at the frozen-food supermarket chain, Iceland.  One morning, presumably fresh from a leadership course at Frosty HQ, our manager called all the staff together to admonish us for our apparent lack of enthusiasm for the sale of turkey nuggets.  “Sometimes I feel that some of you are only in this for the  money” she hissed.  She was cut off by incredulous laughter.  After all, what other motivation could there be for spending one’s weekend restocking a giant fridge freezer?  This is ironically (ROTFLMAO) hilarious.    After all what exactly is the underlying motivation of the ""company"" itself?  The good of all little children of the world... hence the dispensing of ""turkey nuggets"" for FREE???  Oh wait, the goal is to make money.  Herp Derp.    ---  >Innocuous as this may sound, it’s a cultural shift that poisonously favours the employer over the worker.  For as long as companies are able to offer their staff these intangible psychological carrots, they are able to get away with not paying them in full for the work they do. > >[...] > >For companies, it’s a perfect ruse.  Like faith healers, the more evangelical fervour they can fire up in their staff, the more they can squeeze out of them, and the less they ask in return.   I heard this kind of BS (along with the Soviet-style ""banners"" and ""mission statements"" and ""5 year plans"") well over a decade ago.  My response then to it -- (from a friend/CEO who was trying to ""entice"" me into working for his company, and tried this schtick because he'd recently been indoctrinated into the BS via Harvard's OPM/MBA program) -- was simple, I said ""Sorry guy, cut the BS, I'm basically prostituting my mind/skills/time & labor -- make me a better offer in terms of $$ or STFU."" He started to take umbrage at the ""prostitute"" concept, and I replied that I wasn't born yesterday, I knew that he had inherited the company, that he himself really didn't give a rats arse about making & selling the products that he did, and that the whole enterprise was (as essentially all enterprises are) ALL ABOUT making money -- so if he wanted me on his team, he would need to PAY. (And besides, his entire reason for wanting to hire me was that he KNEW I would be able to help make his operation significantly more efficient and therefore more profitable.)  Sometimes you just need to clock these jackasses over the head with a baseball bat -- they get so caught-up and habituated in using the buzzwords and euphemisms that they delude themselves into thinking that they *really ARE* ""doing God's work"". (The irony is that those same ""delusions"" and buzzwords tend to make them easy marks for scamming ""con-men"" consultants; something that I have seen happen several times, often almost hilariously.)  And I also see that this is the influence of ""creeping socialism"" -- as if there is something inherently ""wrong"" with making a profit and it has to be ""justified"" with something more noble -- which is total delusional *ballocks*. The only reason to plant a seed is to reap the harvest; and thus feed yourself (and incidentally, others, from whom you are entitled to expect something in return/exchange)."

Fair point.  I think malpractice insurance is more to protect the patient than the doctor, even though the doctor pays the premiums   The government requires it so they can't kill or injury a patient and then just declare bankruptcy without paying damages.  If claims were allowed for negligence that insurer would be creating what's known as a moral hazard issue and there would essentially be nothing stopping corporations/executives from constantly screwing over the public.  That insurer would be bankrupt in no time.

"Donbey since you mention your expenses are very low, I'm going to assume that social security will cover your expenses once you qualify for it.  Since you have no savings currently the first and most important job for this money is to make sure that you can live comfortably until social security kicks in.  Social security could start for you as early as 62 so you need to set aside at least two years worth of money plus another chunk as a safety measure. Also, if you don't have health insurance please look to get a plan through your local ACA exchange as not having health insurance is by far the most common way someone your age ends up bankrupt.  Insurance will eat up a good chunk of the money, but will be much cheaper after the first year if you continue to have no income. Now, if your expenses are low enough, you can look to use this money to delay when you start taking social security as long as possible as the longer you delay social security the more money you get.  The AARP has a calculator where you can see how much more per year you will get from social security if you delay taking it as long as you can.  This is a great way to insure you live as comfortably as possible even if you live to 120.  Assuming you are reasonably healthy, this is a very secure and very meaningful way to ""invest"" this windfall. Once you have set aside the money for your expenses, emergencies, health care and delaying social security in a combination of checking and high-yielding savings accounts, yhen it can be in your interest to invest any remaining amount.  Common, solid, low-risk investments for a 10+ year time frame would be either: While Glen is correct that it is possible for even the best bond fund to lose money it is rather unlikely that you will end up losing money over a period of 10 years.  The nice thing about the bond fund is that most funds (find the right one) don't charge a fee if you need to need to take your money out early.  CDs guarantee that you won't lose your money, but if you have to take the money out in an emergency the fees will eat up way more money than a bond fund would normally lose.  Also, a good bond fund will generally yield a bit more than a CD. Investing in stock is generally much too risky for this sort of time frame without large savings to back it up."

It depends on what you paid for, but usually audit support is an unrelated engagement to the return preparation. If the accountant made a professional mistake, you can request correction and compensation from that accountant, other than that any accountant can help you with audit regardless of who prepared the return. The original accountant would probably be better informed about why you reported each number on the return and how it was calculated, but if you kept all the docs, it can be recalculated again. That's what happens in the audit anyway.

Thanks for that. After a while I was just writing for the enjoyment of writing (and because my wife is out of town) but it's cool that you followed it all the way and compliments are always appreciated! I long ago learned that the art of successful debate is at least 50% the ability to refrain from name calling.

Atlanta, and I hate it. I'm really not a city person - I like mountains and trees and streams. I'm not trying to hate on city people, I was just hating on this dude for hating things he hasn't experienced.  Like I said, I like the state of Nevada - the parks and stuff are awesome, I just hate Las Vegas like I hate NYC and LA and SF and every other big city.   But anyway, going back to the GP, he said he has never visited Las Vegas and he hates it. That's lame. You should experience something before you hate it.

Both of you sit down with a lawyer who practices in real estate and foreclosures, and hash out every single possibility of what could conceivably go wrong, with nothing out of bounds.  Come up with a reasonable and fair plan for resolving each situation, that you are willing to commit to, life and breath, for real, no exit.  Put all of it into a legal commitment between you two.  However this is a fearless, searching and even ruthless contemplation, requiring a level of intimacy and personal responsibility you may not be comfortable with. and there's absolutely no room for dancing around unspoken questions.  So in essence, it puts the hardest stuff up-front.  If you put that much thought and honesty into it, you'll probably be OK. But you probably won't want to be that honest, or won't want to do the deal after you do.


Question: How can banks afford to offer credit card rewards?

There are 3 entities in a credit card transaction; Typically when you swipe for 100, the merchant only gets around 97.5. The 2.5 is divided amongst the 3 entities, roughly around 0.5 for the Merchant Bank, around 0.5 for the Card Network and a lions share to Issuing Bank of around 1.5 The reason Issuing Bank gets large share is because they take the risk and provide the credit to customer. Typically the Issuing Bank would pay the Merchant bank via the Card Network the money in couple of days. So the Merchant Bank is not out of funds. The Issuing Bank on the other hand would have given you a credit of say 10 to 50 days depending on when you made the transaction and when the payment is due. On an average 30 days of credit. So roughly the Acquiring Bank is lending money at the rate of 18%. It is from this money the Issuing Bank would give out rewards, which is typically less than 1%. Also in cases where say Merchant Bank and the Issuing Bank are same, Bank would make money on both the legs of transaction and hence launch co-branded cards with better rewards. The above numbers are illustrative and actual practices vary from Bank to Bank to card Network to Country Related question at How do credit card companies make profit?

Quick, move to the state where the ticket was bought.  Set up a resident and then claim the prize.  Then, move back home, if you want. IMO But both states will still try to make a claim for the tax money, if you give them a reason to try.   They have nothing else to do, but look for revenue.

"Yea, but the market has almost built up an immunity to the ""back and forth"" of this thought over the past couple months. There's essentially too much talk and not enough action. BUT, It will be interesting to see the effect this Mueller investigation news has over the next couple days, cause I'm assuming the media will push the story. Although the Dow broke new highs today it was essentially flat.   Personally I think the markets being propped up. Also, The dollar is being artificially pushed down (because the fed needs it weak for inflation rises). But who knows, it's just a thought and I will keep trading with the trends!!"

Depends on when you are seeing these bids & asks-- off hours, many market makers pull their bid & ask prices entirely.  In a lightly traded stock there may just be no market except during the regular trading day.

An example, where I live. When you buy a house, the seller wants 'black' money. This is because that way the seller pays less taxes. However, it's not smart for the buyer to pay in black, as the tax reductions are lower. Eventually, when the buyer tries to sell the house, he has to declare the difference, so a higher buy price should not have affected... apart from the notary minutes.

You will have to rebalance every time your Boolean Buy flag is true. You buy 20% of each fund then next week you have to sell down to 10% of your first 5 funds and buy 10% of the second 5.

I think the personal information part of this is key. Anyone that's tried to operate a home business understands the catch-22 of advertising your home address. My home phone rings all the time with salesman trying to lease me copiers and sell health insurance plans. I also don't want the damn FedEx man at my front door at 8:00 am with a priority package. I'm also an attorney and I don't want needy clients showing up at my house. My point is, Facebook sells my personal information and I prefer they wouldn't. LinkedIn sells my commercial information ad I prefer they would.

There's no reason why you couldn't have your work withhold the money for you, but you have to keep a close eye on it an file paperwork causing extra work for yourself and the payroll department. You also have that money withheld weekly instead of keeping access to the money until the end of the quarter if you paid directly to the treasury.