Question: Is there a mathematical formula to determine a stock's price at a given time?

A stock market is just that, a market place where buyers and sellers come together to buy and sell shares in companies listed on that stock market. There is no global stock price, the price relates to the last price a stock was traded at on a particular stock market. However, a company can be listed on more than one stock exchange. For example, some Australian companies are listed both on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and the NYSE, and they usually trade at different prices on the different exchanges. Also, there is no formula to determine a stock price. In your example where C wants to buy at 110 and B wants to sell at 120, there will be no sale until one or both of them decides to change their bid or offer to match the opposite, or until new buyers and/or sellers come into the market closing the gap between the buy and sell prices and creating more liquidity. It is all to do with supply and demand and peoples' emotions.

You can take a queue from any sales opportunity and position it in ways that will still appeal to someone who intends to continue working perpetually. Here are some of the points I would make: 401k matching funds are free money that you will have access to in ~20 years whether you retire or not. Long-term savings that grow in the stock market turn into residual income that will add to your standard of living whether you retire or not. There are tax advantages to deferring income if you are in a high tax bracket now. You will have flexibility to withdraw that money in future years where you might have lower earnings. (For example, in a future year, you could take a sabbatical trip to Europe for a few months without pay and draw on your savings during that time that you are not making money.) Even if you don't invest in a 401k, you and max out HSA accounts if you are eligible, and position that as money for medical expenses. If you never have medical reasons to spend that money, you can still withdraw at retirement age like a 401k or IRA. (Though it gets taxed as income if not used for qualified medical purposes at retirement time.) With an unwilling partner, it's difficult to make a lot of progress, but if you have matching funds from your employer, do make sure that you are getting at least those for yourself. Ultimately if he doesn't want to save for himself, you should for yourself. There are no guarantees in life. If he dies or leaves, you must be prepared to take care of your own needs.

"While that may be true,  it's a shame. Morality has to come before profit or the game is already lost. Profit without social progress is meaningless. The use of ""shareholder value"" as a justification for a lack of corporate ethics is disgusting. Our CEOs shouldn't have to be told that it's wrong to pray on their customers. It's fucked up.  It's a huge glaring flaw in society.  Have you listened to any of the interviews with Bernie Madoff or the Enron guys?  They don't feel like they did anything wrong. No shame at all.  Maybe it's because they're sociopaths,  but maybe it's because we're all still irrational animals obsessed with having more than the next guy,  even if we hurt everyone in the process /rant"

There are, of course, many possible financial emergencies. They range from large medical expenses to losing your job to being sued to major home or car repairs to who-knows-what. I suppose some people are in a position where the chances that they will face any sort of financial emergency are remote. If you live in a country with national health insurance and there is near-zero chance that you will have any need to go outside this system, you are living with your parents and they are equipped to handle any home repairs, you ride the bus or subway and don't own a car so that's not an issue, etc etc, maybe there just isn't any likely scenario where you'd suddenly need cash. I can think of all sorts of scenarios that might affect me. I'm trying to put my kids through college, so if I lost my job, even if unemployment benefits were adequate to live on, they wouldn't pay for college. I have terrible health insurance so big medical bills could cost me a lot. I have an old car so it could break down any time and need expensive repairs, or even have to be replaced. I might suddenly be charged with a crime that I didn't commit and need a lawyer to defend me. Etc. So in a very real sense, everyone's situation is different. On the other hand, no matter how carefully you think it out, it's always possible that you will get bitten by something that you didn't think of. By definition, you can't make a list of unforeseen problems that might affect you! So no matter how safe you think you are, it's always good to have some emergency fund, just in case. How much is very hard to say.

">Why do so many ventures fail? They are allegedly started by smart, capable people and funded by people with ""experience.""  Marketing. It sucks but it is true. You can start a company as an engineer and make the greatest piece of software since sliced bread, but unless you can sell it you're fucked. This is why I avoid investing in startups. Some of the greatest startups fail and some of the horrendous ones succeed; life is unfair."

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

I'm doing my part. I never eat the calorie, salt, and fat loaded crap that chain restaurants offer. Would rather go buy fresh ingredients from the store and make a meal at home that actually tastes good and won't take years off my life. Buy a nice bottle liquor and make a few cocktails cocktail or a six pack of beer and I'm having a much better meal and experience for a fraction of the price at home.

"BoA used to do this too (probably still do). I opened an account at BoA and got low one month, and then a friend of mine cashed a $50 check that I'd given him months prior (that he said he would never cash because ""your money is no good here""). That freaking $50 check cost me hundreds of dollars. They charged me the overdraft fee, a bounced check fee, and then ran the fucking thing through again to see if it would cash when they knew it wouldn't, so I ended up with all the fees doubled!   I closed my account after that, and 2 months later, I got a notice that my account had a negative balance of more than $100 because they had charged me the monthly fee for the checking account after I closed it, and since the account was empty... buttfuckbybankapalooza."


Question: moving family deposits away from Greece (possibly in UK)

I can't comment about your tax liability in Greece. You will have to pay tax on interest in the UK. If you are earning massive amounts of interest, unlikely with the current interest policies from Merv, then you might be bumped up a tier. The receiving bank may ask for proof of the source of the funds, particularly if it is a fair chunk of change.

Yeah, glass toys made by companies like pipedream and gläs seem to retail for around $50 and up, so I'd expect something made of rose quartz to sell for considerably more, and that I have no qualms with. All the chakra and energy and healing talk, however, do irk me a little. But hey, if people are into it, they're into it.

"Do social workers need Master's degrees? It may not all be from undergrad.  Alternately, if she had her loans in forbearance while job searching or something, interest would capitalize when she took them out of forbearance. She could also have been on a plan that had lower monthly payments earlier and scales up to higher ones and now she's in a higher part.  That said, did you not come from the generation of ""get a degree at all costs, it doesn't matter in what, companies won't hire you without a degree?""  Yeah, it's on the borrowers to repay and they could have chosen not to listen to that, but I think it's also somewhat irresponsible of us to expect 18 year olds (many of whom have never really handled their finances) to make smart choices about loans. Which is why every teacher, parent, guidance counselor, etc. isn't exactly innocent in this whole mess."

"Your are mixing multiple questions with assertions which may or may not be true. So I'll take a stab at this, comment if it doesn't make sense to you. To answer the question in the title, you invest in an IRA because you want to save money to allow you to retire. The government provides you with tax incentives that make an IRA an excellent vehicle to do this. The rules regarding IRA tax treatment provide disincentives, through tax penalties, for withdrawing money before retirement. This topic is covered dozens of times, so search around for more detail. Regarding your desire to invest in items with high ""intrinsic"" value, I would argue that gold and silver are not good vehicles for doing this. Intrinsic value doesn't mean what you want it to mean in this context -- gold and silver are commodities, whose prices fluctuate dramatically.  If you want to grow money for retirement over a long period, of time, you should be invested in diversified collection of investments, and precious metals should be a relatively small part of your portfolio."

"You can accept almost anything mutually agreeable to you and the other party as payment. That's the definition of ""barter"". If you agree to trade manufactured goods for livestock, as long as both parties agree on the terms, I'm not aware of any law that would prohibit it. I hedged with ""almost"" because of course you can't accept something that is explicitly illegal. Like you can't say you'll accept cocaine as payment. Less obviously, there are laws regulating the sale of guns, nuclear fuel, agricultural products, etc. You'd still have to pay taxes, and it can get complicated to determine the taxable value of the transaction. Sorry, but you can't avoid taxes by getting your income in something other than cash."

For a real estate transaction there are multiple stages: From the sellers viewpoint: From the buyers viewpoint: If both parties are comfortable skipping some of the steps the role of the agent can be minimized. How will a fair price be determined? Some realism might be needed, to make sure that the loan appraisal will not be a problem. Will an inspection still be needed? What warranty will exist if the A/C dies this summer?  If you still want help from an agent one should be able to help for far less than the normal commission. The seller normally interviews three agents before selecting one, do the same in this situation. Ask how much they would charge for a sale between friends. They can complete their task in just a couple of hours. If the home inspection comes back relatively clean, the transaction should be very easy. The paperwork is the biggest hurdle. You should jointly identify a local settlement company. They will be the ones actually filing the paperwork. They have lawyers. They will check the county records office for existing liens, plats, mortgages and address all the issues. They can send the proper paperwork to the existing mortgage companies and arrange for mortgage insurance. The cost will be the same regardless of the presence of real estate agents and other lawyers.  When they say a lawyer is required, it is only because of the paperwork.

"This answer is provided mostly to answer your question ""what is it?"" A variable annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company. The insurance company takes a bunch of money up front as a lump sum, and will pay you some money yearly - like earning interest. (In this case, they will probably be paying you the money into the account itself). How much they return is, as the name suggests, variable. It can be anything, depending on what the contract says. Mostly, there will be some formula based on the stock market - frequently, the performance of the Standard & Poors 500 Index. There will typically be some minimum returns and maximum returns - if the stock market tanks, your annuity will not lose a ton of value, but if the stock market goes up a lot in one year (as it frequently does), you will not gain a lot of value either. If you are going to be in the market for a long amount of time (decades, e.g. ""a few years out of college"" and then a little), it makes a lot more sense to invest in the stock market directly. This is essentially what the insurance company is going to do, except you can cut out the middleman. You can get a lot more money that way. You are essentially paying the insurance company to take on some stock market risk for you - you are buying some safety. Buying safety like this is expensive.  Variable annuities are the right investment for a few people in a few circumstances - mostly, if you're near retirement, it's one way to have an option for a ""safe"" investment, for a portion (but not all) of your portfolio. Maybe. Depending on the specifics, a lot. If you are under, like, 50 or so? Almost certainly a terrible investment which will gradually waste your money (by not growing it as fast as it deserves to be grown). Since you want to transfer it to Vanguard, you can probably call Vanguard, ask to open a Roth IRA, and request assistance rolling it over from the place it is held now. There should be no legal restrictions or tax consequences from transferring the money from one Roth IRA account to another."

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/gdp) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found &quot;Little evidence that immigration significantly affects the overall employment levels of native-born workers.&quot; While not all people are affected by immigration the same way many studies have concluded the same thing: that immigrants by and large don&#039;t displace native-born Americans, and in fact sometimes actually create more jobs for the people already in this country.  > Even during periods of extremely high immigration such as during the late 1990&#039;s and early 2000&#039;s, and including estimates of unauthorized immigrants, the U.S. only took in around 2 million immigrants per year.  > It&#039;s Not Only About GDP. Of course, the question of how immigration impacts GDP is a small slice of a much broader question of how immigrants and immigration policies affect our economy.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6oe39h/the_immigration_effect_theres_a_way_for_president/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~171199 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*: **immigrant**^#1 **Immigration**^#2 **work**^#3 **percent**^#4 **growth**^#5"


Question: How do I determine if sale proceeds from an asset are taxable?

"If it's fully expensed, it has zero basis. Any sale is taxable, 100%. To the ordinary income / cap gain issue raised in comment - It's a cap gain, but I believe, as with real estate, special rates apply. This is where I am out of my area of expertise, and as they say - ""Consult a professional."""

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/28/14359140/chetty-friedman-college-mobility) reduced by 95%. (I'm a bot) ***** > There are the highly effective schools that barely enroll any poor kids but do tons for the few they do have, and the highly ineffective schools that enroll a lot of poor kids but offer them little.  > That&#039;s part of what makes this research so exciting: It lets us distinguish between high-performing and low-performing schools, but it also creates an agenda for follow-up research seeking to identify what makes, say, the Technical Career Institutes in New York so much more effective than Moultrie Technical College at making poor students substantially better off.  > The authors examined schools where the share of poor kids enrolled rose over time, and checked to see if they became less successful at elevating those kids economically.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6yzw3z/these_colleges_are_better_than_harvard_at_making/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~206881 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*: **school**^#1 **student**^#2 **percent**^#3 **top**^#4 **poor**^#5"

That's unlikely to be a good move.  After the penalties, you would have roughly $40k-$45k to apply to your debt.  But then what?  You'd still have $100k of debt, with no change in your income situation.  You would be sacrificing half of your retirement fund to reduce your debt by only a third. Two points from your question are notable.  First, you say your current job makes you eligible for loan forgiveness.  Second, you say you love what you do.  Given that, it sounds like it's likely you'll remain in your current job long enough to have your loan forgiven.  I would see this as a major reason to stick it out until that time.  It won't be painful from a work perspective, since you like the work (in contrast to someone who grinds through a job they dislike just to have their loan forgiven), but only from a budget perspective.  Also, since your income is less than $75k, you may be able to deduct the interest on a student loan payment on your taxes (see Publication 970), softening the blow somewhat. According to your numbers, your loan payment is a bit over 10% of your income.  That is not pleasant, but it doesn't seem out of the question that you could make it work through judicious budgeting.  It would depend on other aspects of your lifestyle and expenses (which you don't mention in the question, and which might go in a separate question if you start wondering how to do that budgeting).

Yes, Lending Club is the biggest of the bunch, which to date have helped originate $1B of loans. LC just raised more money (bringing total to $100M) and Mary Meeker joined the board. There's a novelty aspect to it b/c it's new but it's just the beginning of parts of the banking industry/process/institutions being disintermediated.   Low vol is an easy sell, actually. If investors aren't being paid for risk, why assume it?

"VIV.PA - is Vivendi listed on a stock exchange in Paris VIVEF - is Vivendi listed on the OTC Other Exchange. VIVHY - is Listed on the OTC:Pink Sheets.  A company can be listed on multiple exchanges, they are known as a dual-listed company. It's a corporate structure in which two corporations function as a single operating business through a legal equalization agreement, but retain separate legal identities and stock exchange listings. Pretty much all DLCs are cross-border, and have tax advantages for the corporations and their stockholders. When a DLC is created, in essence two companies are created and have two separate bodies of shareholders, but they agree to share all the risks and rewards of the ownership of all their operating businesses in a fixed proportion, laid out in a contract called an ""equalization agreement"". The shares of a DLC parents have claim to the exact same underlying cash flows. So in theory the stock prices of these companies should move exactly the same. However in practice there can be differences between these prices. More info on OTC exchanges can be found here - keep in mind this info is from the company that runs these listings. Over the counter stocks are held to a FAR lesser regulation standard. I would recommend doing further interdependent research before pursuing any action."

Its very silly of you to have house savings while you have these debts.  Your total (listed) debt is 1657, with a savings of 2000, and a tax refund of 985.   I'd be done with the Apple loan and CC tomorrow.  Does that accomplish the goal of making a significant difference in your debt?  Yes it does. This will leave you with 1328.  I'd keep 500 or so in an emergency fund, and put the rest to the car.  Although 828 will not help much with the car it would probably knock a month off.   Next work like crazy to pay off the car.  Get a second job or work overtime. Then save a emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses as if you already owned the house.  I would tend to go on the high side as I suspect you are single. Only then does it makes sense to save for a down payment.   Although it is an American institution, the book The Millionaire Next Door might be helpful for you.  Your most powerful wealth building tool is your income.  When one handicaps that tool with payments and exorbitant lifestyle choices you greatly reduce your ability to become wealthy. These amounts are so small, you should just knock them out.

"While I agree with this, I also think a tiny fraction of that mentality comes from the simple notion that: you can find a desk job that pays great, so why work a hard manual job that also pays great?   Take the average worker, and tell them ""You can do manual labor for $xx,000/yr, or you can do a desk job for $xx,000/yr"". Most people will pick the desk job for obvious reasons. So it's not just the belief that certain jobs are below them (although that IS most of it), but the simple notion that we were sold over the last 30 years that desk workers in cubicle farms can make as much money as someone working a labor/manual job, so go for the desk job."

Did you go to bschool? You actually do learn a lot. There are a lot of things that I do know that some of my fellow BA's in Business don't know. (business plan writing, how to properly read a financial statement, promotional strategy creation). Also, I got hooked up with a really cool internship that got me in front of some big VC's. There is value, is it worth the results? No.   But let's be honest here, neither is law school (unless you go to a T14). Have you seen the job market? Brutal.


Question: Explain the HSI - why do markets sometimes appear in sync and other times not?

Contributing factors to the diversion were that: A) China's currency does not float like other major countries' currencies  B) China's real estate market didn't have the same lending criteria leading to the level of speculation seen in USA, at the time.

Purchase loans tend to be more challenging to get the best possible rate, because you have to balance closing the loan and getting the contract. So there isn't as much time to shop around as when you do a refinance.  I disagree with the sentiment to go with your local bank. Nothing wrong with asking at your local bank and using their numbers as a baseline, but chances are they won't be competitive. There are many reputable online mortgage originators that will show accurate fees and rates upfront assuming you provide accurate information.  In the past there were a lot of issue with Good Faith Estimates being pretty much worthless. There were a fair number of horror stories about people showing up to closing and finding out fee or rates had increased dramatically. There was a law passed after the housing debacle that severely limits the shenanigans that lenders can do at closing and so there is less risk when going with a lesser known lender. In fact I would say the only real risk with a lender now days is choosing one that happens to be overloaded and or just has poor customer service in general. Personally I have found the most competitive rates from Zillow's mortgage service and the now defunct Google mortgage. The lenders tend to be smaller, but highly efficient. They are very much dependent on their online reputations. I have heard good things about a number of larger online lenders, but I don't have personal experience so I will leave them off. I personally wouldn't worry much about whether the loan is sold or not. Outside of refinancing I don't think I have ever talked to the bank servicing my mortgage about my mortgage. There just isn't much need to talk to them.

"Would not be shocking. Amazon already has massive ""fullfillment"" centers here which I know they have all over but that area is prime for something like we are talking about to happen. The land is crazy cheap and the areas around Hamilton County are technically the ""richer"" more high end areas around Indianapolis. Growing up in Indiana and seeing the amount of farm land for sale and how cheap it is seemingly going does make me a bit sad though."

"You seem to have a little confusion over terminology that should be cleared up: You are calling this ""day-trading"" Day-trading is the term for performing multiple trading actions in a single day. While it appears that the COO has performed a buy and a sell on the same day, most people would consider this a 'single trade'. In reality, it seems that the COO had 'stock options' [a contract providing the option for the holder to buy stock at a specific price, at some point in the future], provided as part of his compensation package. He decided or was required to 'exercise' those options today. This means he bought the shares using his special 'option price'. It is extremely common for employees who exercise stock options, to sell all of the resulting stock immediately. This is very different from usual day-trading, which implies that he would have bought stock in the morning at a low price, and then sold it later at a high price. You are calling this 'insider trading'. That term specifically often implies some level of unethical behavior. In general, stock options offered to executive employees are strictly limited in how they can be exercised. For example, most stock option plans require employees to wait x number of years before they can exercise them. This gives the employee incentive to stay longer, and for a high-level executive with the ability to strongly impact company performance, it gives incentive to do well. Technically you are correct, this is likely considered an 'insider trade', but given that it seems to have been a stock option exercise, it does not necessarily imply that there was any special reasoning for why he did the trade today. It could simply be that today was the first day the stock option rules allowed him to exercise. As to your final question - no, these profits are the COO's, to do with as he likes."

Diversification is a good method of risk management. Different types of investments do better in different situations and economic climates. Invest all your money at the wrong time in a single product and you could lose everything. You could also technically make a great deal of money, but actions such as these are the actions of speculators, not investors.  Spreading your investments appropriately lets you maximize your growth opportunities while limiting your risk.

Since I'm missing the shortest and simplest answer, I'll add it: A car also doesn't offer dividends, yet it's still worth money. A $100 bill doesn't offer dividends, yet people are willing to offer services, or goods, or other currencies, to own that $100 bill. It's the same with a stock. If other people are willing to buy it off you for a price X, it's worth at least close to price X to you. In theory the price X depends on the value of the assets of the company, including unknown values like expected future profits or losses. Speaking from experience as a trader, in practice it's very often really just price X because others pay price X.

Anecdotal evidence, but my company is trying to fill four electronic assembly positions in North East Ohio. We are literally in the backyard of Delphi and GM. We are paying 18-25 dollars an hour with only minimal experience required, full benefits, full time with overtime available.  We cannot fill them, plenty of interviews, plenty of people we make contingent offers to, but they all no show or fail the pee test. Its insanity.

"A few years ago, there was a TV special with a celebrity chef (I think Tyler Florence) that was trying to get a small town to eat healthier. In one segment, he showed kids how processed chicken nuggets were made, which was some chicken trimmings and the leftover carcass (bones and all), mixed with bread crumbs and seasonings, pureed, strained and molded. This was supposedly supposed to be disgusting, especially to kids. Didn't work, they still wanted chicken nuggets.  In the end, there's nothing wrong with using the 'gross' parts of an animal, nor is there any thing wrong with some of the processing techniques. Mostly they're used to get the most out of the animal, which is what we should be doing. Americans especially are incredibly turned off by any meat that isn't pure white, which is ridiculous. Dark meat and offal are used around the world and are seen as delicacies. ""Chemicals"" are used to scare people, but there's nothing inherently wrong with them. Heck, modernist cooking developed as a way to find more interesting uses for chemicals and additives.  You'll find no bigger supporter of home-cooking and eating whole foods than I am, but there is way too much fear mongering and squeamishness that's based only on arbitrary perceptions of what's acceptable and what isn't. You could probable start a campaign of outrage against tortillas for using lime, or bacon for using nitrites, or fish for being frozen, all because people are gullible and ignorant on where their food comes from."


Question: How much cash on hand should one have?

You seem to have a grasp of the basic principles involved, but your estimation of the risk you are taking seems a bit low. Your non-investment reserves are unlikely to cover your expenses for more than a month, so the chance that you would need to sell investments to cover additional expenses is high. You mention that I am flexible with the 'cash on hand' amount. For instance, for about three months I put a very tight spending/investing freeze on my life because I knew I'd be leaving jobs and moving (I already had the other job lined up). Those savings presumably went toward moving expenses, as your usual savings were insufficient. In the event that you are laid off suddenly, you might find yourself in the same position again, with added unplanned expenses like fees for breaking a lease. Your current plan involves selling investments to cover the gap. Based on your age you have probably only invested in a predominantly positive market, so the chance that you might need to sell investments for cash seems like a reasonable trade-off for the added potential gains. Your perception might change if the markets go south and you are forced to sell into a down market, possibly at a significant loss. You also don't indicate if your investments are currently sufficient to cover an extended period of unemployment. You are taking on a lot of risk under your current plan. Essentially you are trading possible investment gains for flexibility and time. By making small changes like saving at least enough to move as you did previously, you can give yourself time to react to job loss or other unexpected financial need. Rather than give the traditional emergency funds advice, I suggest you look at the broader picture. The total amount of savings/risk is up to you, but you should consider your current savings as insufficient to rely on as a safety net.

Have you considered investing in real estate? Property is cheap now and you have enough money for several properties. The income from tenants could be very helpful. If you find it's not for you, you can also sell your property and recover your initial investment, assuming house prices go up in the next few years.

Tesla is going to zero and will be bankrupt in 3-4 years.  This is just one more of their big media pronouncements to suck in investors.  Yes I know I will be downvoted for this.  Think about it:  what kind of company seeks 22 year old cult fans?  The answer:  one that loses money hand over fist with no prospect of that changing.

You'd likely be subject to a lock-up period before you could sell the shares along with possibly having other rules about how you could sell your shares as you'd likely be seen as an insider that may have information that gives you an unfair advantage for selling the stock possibly. Depending on how far in advance you hold the shares, you may or may not have adjustments in the valuation and number of shares as some companies may do a split or reverse split when preparing for an IPO. A company I worked for in the late 1990s had an IPO and my stock options had a revised strike price because of a reverse stock split that was done prior to the IPO.

If a high mileage car has been thoroughly maintained with a credible service history, there is no reason to discard the vehicle because of a hypothetical future expense.  Considering the low value of the vehicle, it would be prudent to also lower the cost of the repairs.  U.S. car dealerships have a well-known reputation for charging significantly higher repair rates than independent repair shops. Lower the cost of the repairs: brakes can be done at independent shops for half what the dealer quoted.  Sears can install a set of 4 tires on an '04 Accord for $331 out the door.  It makes no financial sense to purchase costly repairs for a low-cost automobile when economical alternatives are available.

"I agree. This article doesn't even consider the fact that we may be adding different types of jobs, and ones in different industries than those that were lost during the recession.   Instead, it seems to assume that all jobs are uniform and that when the economy adds jobs after a recession that they are replacing the old jobs that we lost. That is simply not so. Nothing is that simple.  There aren't just ""jobs"" and ""CEO jobs."" The economy is more complex than that.  We lost a lot of high-paying jobs in the recession that just won't ever come back--especially jobs at financial institutions that were dependent on mortgage backed securities, a part of that industry that has since shrunk permanently. Losing those jobs were necessary and good for the economy. The fact that the jobs we are adding now happen to be at a lower wage are basically happenstance as I see it.  I'm just happy that we're adding jobs. The inequality thing will always be an issue and I hope it gets better, but this article is pretty elementary when it comes to economic truth."

I'm aware of that. My point is that if higher skill jobs like IT are being outsourced for the sake of saving money, you can bet your ass that the lowly unskilled labor positions will be the first to go.

I want to say those are safe beause of SSL.  However I know that isn't true because someone got caught issuing a master SSL certificate that let a company forge any other SSL certificate. It only worked within that company, but it proves that it is possible.


Question: How to choose a good 401(k) investment option?

There are not as many options here as you fear. If you have no other investments outside this 401K it is even easier. Outside accounts include IRA, Roth IRA, taxable investments (mutual funds, ETF, individual stocks), Employee stock purchase plans. Amount: make sure you put enough in to get all the company match. I assume that in your case the 9% will do so, but check your documents. The company match will be with pre-tax funds.  Roth vs Regular 401K? Most people in their lifetime will need a mix of Roth and Regular retirement accounts. You need to determine if it is better for you to pay the tax on your contributions now or later. Which accounts? If you are going to invest in a target date fund, you can ignore the rest of the options. The target date fund is a mixture of investments that will change over the decades. Calculate which one fits your expected retirement date and go with it. If you want to be able to control the mix, then you will need to pick several funds. The selection depends on what non-401K investments you have. Now here is what I considered the best advice.  Decide Roth or regular, and just put the money into the most appropriate target date fund with the Roth/regular split you want. Then after the money starts flowing into your account, research the funds involved, the fees for those funds, and how you want to invest. Then move the money into the funds you want. Don't waste another day deciding how to invest. Just get started. The best part of a 401K, besides the match, is that you can move money between funds without worrying about taxes. If you realize that you want to put extra emphasis on the foreign stocks, or Mid-cap; just move the funds and redirect future contributions.

This just happened to me with a Wells Fargo Bill Pay check.  WF put a stop payment on the check. The money was taken out of my account immediately yet it is going to take 3-5 days to reappear in the account.  I question these banking practices.  Georgia Bank and Trust Company of GA does not do this.  The Bill Pay check is processed just like a hand written check; when the check clears the bank your account is debited. If it is an Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) then the money does come out of your account immediately, of course. These are acceptable banking practices to me.  I will be closing the Wells Fargo account.

Ballmer didn't personally lose those.   Microsoft had a ridiculously talented team back in the 80s and 90s. They developed a shit ton of futuristic stuff. It was all shot down back then or executed or managed poorly.   It takes years to fuck up that royally.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/book-review-after-piketty/) reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality, editors Heather Boushey, J. Bradford DeLong and Marshall Steinbaum bring together contributors to reflect on the influence of Thomas Piketty&#039;s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and to draw attention to topics less explored in Piketty&#039;s analysis.  > After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality, edited by Heather Boushey, J. Bradford De Long and Marshall Steinbaum, further explores the &#039;process by which wealth is accumulated&#039; and the &#039;powerful forces&#039; that shape the divergence.  > Even if, as described by Piketty, the process of accumulation and the forces of power that render wealth inequality prove correct - that is, r &gt; g - even then, for Branko Milanovic, high inequality is avoidable.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/758ftg/after_piketty_the_agenda_for_economics_and/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~224779 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*: **Piketty**^#1 **Capital**^#2 **Inequality**^#3 **wealth**^#4 **work**^#5"

Yes, you idiots, keep clicking on those ad-filled blogs that cater to the ridiculous fear in you. There are some that have no problem making money in the fear-mongering industry and would love to see it grow--without a care of what damage it could cause.

This is probably a good time to note that credit is not a liquid asset, and not an emergency fund. Credit can be revoked or denied at any time, and Murphy's law states that you may have issues with credit when everything else goes wrong too.

yes.   you can take out 500,000 form your paid of house.  you pay back 500,000 at 3.5. percent.       you do get a tax break for not owning your house.  it is less then 3.5 you are paying back the back. about one forth of that, BUT you take the 500,000 in invest.   Now cd low 1 percent,  stock is risky.    You can do REIT, with are about 8 to 12  every year. so even at 8 - tax 1.5 is 6.5 - 3.5 bank loan.  that   3 percent on your 500,000 thousand, plus tax break, but that only at 8 percent.      or 500,000 and buy a apartment building, again about 7 to 10 percent,   so that 2 to 3 percent profit, but the building goes up over years.

Both. It's a hell of a bargain. $4bn for a franchise that will run for decades, every film nigh on guaranteed to bring in $500m+ in theatrical PLUS merchandishing, plus all the other stuff they bought? (all catalogue, ILM, etc etc etc).


Question: Do US banks exchange info with countries abroad?

Banks do not report transactions within accounts except as required by law, usually as part of anti-money-laundering efforts. Generally those involve tracking large cash transactions. As far as large payments go, there are two reasons they might be reported to the government: taxes, and criminal investigations. For tax purposes, if the payment is considered a salary or wage (that is, you are an employee of the company and the payment is for your time working there), then the company paying you is responsible for reporting the wage and withholding applicable taxes from your salary. If you are considered an independent contract employee, then you yourself will be responsible for reporting the income to the IRS and paying the applicable taxes yourself. In the second case, unless you are already under investigation, I wouldn't worry about it. Banks are very touchy about financial records being kept private, and won't release them without a subpoena. One caveat is that this is under US law. Banks which maintain branches in multiple countries must, of course, comply with all local laws in the jurisdiction where they do business. The take away from this is that Bank of America is unlikely to report a single deposit of $75,000 into your account to anyone on their own. If it is a paper check being deposited they will probably place a hold on it to make sure it clears, but that is all.

"This is a bit pornographic, isn't it, in that we're looking at something we'd like to do (namely, ""win the big lottery!"") but probably won't ever have this happen to us. :) Anyway. Ignoring the fact that this is kind of a hypothetical question... Gotta go with The Straight Dope on this one, when deciding whether to take an annuity or a lump sum: What assumed interest rate is underlying the calculations? Do you think you can earn significantly more than that rate on your own? If so, take the lump sum cash value. If not, go with the annuity. What are your financial needs, both immediate and over the next twenty years? Do you need a steady flow of income? If you take the lump sum and invest it poorly or lose it, how much will it hurt you? If you give up your job to enjoy your wealth, what will happen if you're still alive when the annuity payments stop? You don't want to blow it all in a spree and then find yourself in poverty in your old age. What happens if you die before the annuity has been fully paid? As noted, there's the question of whether to ask in advance for an annuity - the tax treatment alone could overwhelm any other considerations."

"True, absolutely safe are only death and taxes.  Apparently [US treasuries](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield) yield far less than 3,5-4%, but I guess that's as ""100% safe"" as it gets.  However, best I could find while talking to various banks was a reverse convertible bond that yields 3,5% per year, tax excluded. Worst case scenario: 1) I got all my money back and gained 3,5% for one year. 2) after a few years, I find myself with pretty valuable shares and still cashed in the yearly 3,5%.  I was wondering if I got lucky with that, or if there are better things out there and if yes, where I should look. Honestly, in the age of negative interests, I'm more than happy to get enough interest to counter inflation."

"How should I allocate short-term assets in a rising-interest rate   environment? Assuming that the last part is correct, there could be bear bond funds that short bonds that could work well as a way to invest. However, bear in that the the ""rising-interest rate environment"" is part of the basis that may or may not be true in the end as I'm not sure I've seen anything to tell me why rates couldn't stay where they are for another couple of years or more. Long-Term Capital Management would be a cautionary tale before about bonds that had assumptions that backfired when something that wasn't supposed to happen, happened. Thus, while you can say there is ""rising-interest rate environment"" what else are you prepared to assume and how certain are you of that happening? An alternate theory here would be that ""junk bonds"" may do well because the economy has to be heating up for rates to rise and thus the bonds that are priced down so much because of default risk may turn out to not go bust and thus could do well. Course this would carry the ""Your mileage may vary"" and without a working time machine I couldn't say which funds will be good and which would suck. As for what I would do if I was dealing with my own money: Money market funds and CDs would likely be my suggestion for the short-term where I want to prevent principal risk. This is likely what I would do if I believed the rising rate environment is here."

An education. A new car. Houses are made bigger so that's not really fair. An article on here previously mentioned someone paying for a dependable car and a small apartment, along with school tuition working part time as a dishwasher.  Tuition at my closest state school (in state cost) is just under $9k per year. If you could only work 20 hours per week, amortized the school loan, payed $250 a month for an apartment with a roommate, $100 a month for utilities, $150 a month for groceries (all very difficult to achive and be healthy), you would have to make $15.35 an hour after taxes to do it without debt. This is assuming you don't have a car.

LoL, maybe they should focus on the crappy food.  Subway is getting killed on taste and value by all the Shawarma joints where we live.  For $6 i can get a shawarma packed with actual chicken and veggies that aren't processed to oblivion.

I wouldn't say this is a lie.  Person 2 just made themselves the offer of 38k.  If it sells then they were outbid.  If it doesn't sell then they're stuck with the asset as if they had bid themselves.  They're paying themselves, or they're representing a party that is paying themselves.  That balances out to a $0 profit/loss + ownership of the asset.   I think something like this would be unethical:   Person 1: I'll buy your car for 30k  Person 2: Okay  Person 3:That's my car!

"Another important commodity necessary to life is money, which is why when vast sums of it go missing or get locked into long-term investments into which one was grossly misled, it's very upsetting.  One such long-term investment is Zurich Vista, which the OP is intimately familiar with. Another type of fund into which money can strangely disappear, is the now ubiquitous ""off-shore fund"". One should also be very wary of land-banking schemes that boast of high rates of return (15%-20%) and short maturation dates (4-5 years)."


Question: 18 year old making $60k a year; how should I invest? Traditional or Roth IRA?

"1) Usually, the choice between Traditional vs. Roth is whether you believe that your tax rate will be higher or lower in the future than it is now. Your income is probably in the 25% bracket now. It's hard to say whether that should be considered ""high"" or ""low"". Some people advocate Roth only for 15% bracket; but your income would probably go into higher brackets in the future, so Roth may be preferable from this point of view. Roth IRA also has another advantage that the principal of contributions can be taken out at any time without tax or penalty, so it can serve as an emergency fund just as well as money in taxable accounts. Given that you may not have a lot of money saved up right now, this is useful. 2) In a sense, it's nice to have a mix of Traditional and Roth when you withdraw to hedge against uncertainty in future tax rates and have the option of choosing whichever one is advantageous to withdraw when you need to withdraw. That said, you will likely have many years of access to a 401k and high income in your future working years, in which you can contribute to a Traditional 401k (or if no access to 401k, then Traditional IRA), so a mix will almost certainly happen even if you go all Roth IRA now. 3) I think that depends on you, whether you are a hands-on or hands-off kind of investor."

The private company that handles the quotes probably does know.     It's just that the government would have to do paperwork!  And those firms probably could throw way too many lawyers (not to mention government lackeys) to make them go away.  Plus, there's the whole fact that 3/4 of congress and every semi-relevant regulatory agency is captured.

>How does a median salary affect me if I'm making X?  Everything isn't about you? Do statistics only matter when they correlate directly to you?  The reason that we have statistics is to give us a better picture of the overall situation using data, rather than anecdotes. You're being very reductive, which is fine, but I'm not sure what the point is in the Economics subreddit (which is primarily about statistical measurements of ecnoomic policies)

That's not entirely true for Oregon. It's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon so every gas station has to employ at least one attendant. Don't think it amounts to $0.30 per gallon but it definitely raises the price of gas being forced to pay an adult to complete a task simple enough for a child.

You're situation is actually pretty solid except for the job part. I definitely understand the existential meltdown in your 30s. Luckily you're in web design and have an in-demand job. Maybe go to a code school/design immersive to add some new skills and reinvigorate yourself. If mental health needs to be addressed above all, then definitely make that a priority.  Avoid credit card debt like the plague. If you think you're stressed now, just wait.

Seems to have a major draw for people anyway. Though to be honest, even though I've probably been to the US 15 to 20 times, never been to NYC yet. Though might in the next 18 months, dear friend / ex has been talking about it, so thinking of taking him there.

You had to lie because you wanted to keep more of it. As the person in the article said a good server at a good restaurant should make at least $20 an hour on top of the minimum wage. Plus I never claimed any tips besides credit card tips. All the cash tips went unreported.

One way to think of net worth is to think if you sold everything you owned, how big of a pile of money would be standing next to you (assuming your net worth is positive). If you started with $100K and then bought a house worth $100K you would have $0 in the bank and a house.   If you sold that house for $100K you would pay the realtor 6% (typically) or $6K leaving you with $94K.    This means the act of buying your house has reduced your net worth by $6K. I asked a related question about how to value your home in your net worth.


Question: Ghana scam and direct deposit scam?

Of course, it is a scam.  Regardless of how the scam might work, you already know that the person on the other end is lying, and you also know that people in trouble don't contact perfect strangers out of the blue by e-mail for help, nor do they call up random phone numbers looking for help. Scammers prey on the gullibility, greed, and sometimes generosity of the victims. As to how this scam works, the money that the scammer would be depositing into your father's account is not real.  However, it will take the bank a few days to figure that out.  In the mean time, your father will be sending out real money back to the scammer.  When the bank figures out what is going on, they will want your father to pay back this money.

Not sure if serious or not, but i'll bite. First of all the service you are purchasing is the access to credit card, which runs on a network supplied by financial institutions. Secondly credit card is an optional fee, taxes are mandatory (unless you are a crook).

">The Port Authority operates New York City's airports, its seaports, a train system, and several bridges and tunnels.  Newark Airport and Port Elizabeth/Newark are in NJ, not NY. And the ""train"" system, the PATH is half in NJ, as are all of the bridges and tunnels. Interesting why the article is so NY-centric."

"I'm going to give a simpler answer than some of the others, although somewhat more limited: the complicated loan parameters you describe benefit the lender.  I'll focus on this part of your question: You should be able to pay back whenever; what's the point of an arbitrary timeline? Here ""you"" refers to the borrower.  Sure, yes, it would be great for the borrower to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, increasing or decreasing the loan balance by paying or not paying arbitrary amounts at their whim.  But it doesn't benefit the lender to let the borrower do this.  Adding various kinds of restrictions and extra conditions to the loan reduces the lender's uncertainty about when they'll be receiving money, and also gives them a greater range of legal recourse to get it sooner (since they can pursue the borrower right away if they violate any of the conditions, rather than having the wait until they die without having paid their debt). Then you say: And if you want, you can set a legal deadline. But the mere deadline in the contract doesn't affect how much interest is paid—the interest is only affected by how much money is borrowed and how long has passed. I think in many cases that is in fact how it works, or at least it is more how it works than you seem to think.  For instance, you can take out a 30-year loan but pay it off in less than 30 years, and the amount you pay will be less if you pay it off sooner.  However, in some cases the lender will charge you a penalty for doing so.  The reason is the same as above: if you pay off the loan sooner, you are paying less interest, which is worse for the lender.  Again, it would be nice for the borrower if they could just pay it off sooner with no penalty, but the lender has no reason to let them do so. I think there are in fact other explanations for these more complicated loan terms that do benefit the borrower.  For instance, an amortization schedule with clearly defined monthly payments and proportions going to interest and principal also reduces the borrower's uncertainty, and makes them less likely to do risky things like skip lots of payments intending to make it up later.  It gives them a clear number to budget from.  But even aside from all that, I think the clearest answer to your question is what I said above: in general, it benefits the lender to attach conditions and parameters to loans in order to have many opportunities to penalize the borrower for making it hard for the lender to predict their cash flow."

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Ditto @MichaelBorgwardt Just to get concrete: I just checked one bank in India and they say they are paying 4% on savings accounts. I don't know what you're getting or if 4% is typical in India, but it's at least an example. So if the bank pays interest based on average daily balance, and you left the money in the bank for a week, you'd get 4%/52 = .077%. So on Rs 95,000 that would be Rs 73. I live in the US where typical interest on a savings account today is about 1%. So an equivalent amount of money -- I think that would be about $1,500 -- would get 1/52 of 1%, or 29 cents.  Don't leave the lights turned on while you do the calculations -- you'll spend more on the electricity than you make on the interest. :-) ** Addendum ** This suddenly reminds me ... I read a news story a few years ago about a man who was expecting a tax refund check from the IRS of a few hundred dollars, and when the check arrived it was for several million. Well obviously it was a mistake. But he came up with the clever idea: Deposit the check in an interest-bearing account. Promptly contact the IRS, inform them of the mistake, and ask how and where to go about returning the money. Hope that it takes at least a few days for them to figure everything out. Then keep the interest accumulated on the several-million dollars for the time that he had the money. And as he contacted them immediately about the error, they can't say he was trying to hide anything. It was a nice try, but it didn't work. They demanded he send them the interest as well as the principle.

I have worked for companies that have done this. One did have a match and the other did not. When they figured their profit at the end of the year a portion was given to the employees as a 401K deposit.  retirement-topics-401k-and-profit-sharing-plan-contribution-limits Total annual contributions (annual additions) to all of your accounts   in plans maintained by one employer (and any related employer) are   limited. The limit applies to the total of: elective deferrals employer matching contributions employer nonelective contributions allocations of forfeitures The annual additions paid to a participant’s account cannot exceed the   lesser of: 100% of the participant's compensation, or $54,000 ($60,000 including catch-up contributions) for 2017;  $53,000   ($59,000 including catch-up contributions) for 2016. So as long as everything stays below that $54,000 limit you are good. In one case the decision was made by the company for the employee, the other company gave us the option of bonus check or 401K. I heard that most of the employees wanted the money in the 401K.

In all transitions, real people actually did suffer.  In the large view, new markets were created and new jobs appeared.  But the people who got those new jobs were not the same people who originally lost them.  When the pace of such disruption is relatively slow, those pain points are manageable.  When the disruptions start coming one after another in rapid fire, the managing of problems of that many real, suffering, jobless or under-employed people becomes a disruptive problem in and of itself.


Question: Would it ever be a bad idea to convert a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA with the following assumptions?

Taking all your assumptions: With Roth, you take $6112 from work, (let's call you tax rate 10%) pay $612 in taxes, and contribute $5500 (the max if you are younger than 50).  This $5500 will grow to $21,283 in 20 years at 7% annual growth ($5500*(1.07^20)), and you will pay no additional taxes on it. With the traditional IRA, you take $6112 from work, pay $612 in taxes, and contribute $5500.  You will receive a tax deduction at tax time of $612 for the contribution.  This money will also grow to $21,283.  This will be taxed at your ordinary income rate (which we're calling 10%), costing you $2123 at the time of withdrawal.  You will have $19,155 left over. EDIT: If you invest your tax savings from every contribution to the Traditional IRA, then the numbers wash out.  Perhaps a pivotal question is whether you believe you will have greater taxable earnings from your investments in retirement than you have in taxable earnings today -- affecting the rate at which you are taxed.

There is no advantage to using one type of account or the other if you are in the same tax bracket at retirement that you are in during your working years. However, for tax planning reasons, it is good to have some money in both a Roth and a traditional IRA plan.  JoeTaxpayer has often advocated a good rule of thumb to use a Roth when your tax bracket is 15% or lower, and use a traditional account when in the 25% bracket or above. The reason for this rule of thumb is that you are less likely to be in the higher tax bracket when you are living off retirement savings unless you put away an awful lot of money between now and then. If you are making enough money to be paying a 25% marginal rate on some of the money you would be putting away for retirement, then by all means, put all of that money in a traditional 401k. If after contributing that portion of your savings taxed at the higher rate, you still have money to put away for retirement, put the rest in a Roth and pay the 15% taxes on it. When you are younger, it is likely that you are making less than you will a few years hence, and it is also likely that a larger portion of your income will be paying tax deductible interest on a mortgage. If those are true for you, then by all means, use the Roth. That was true of me when I was single and just getting started. When you do finally retire, it is possible that the tax brackets will be increased to match inflation, and if so, then there is no benefit to having tax free money at retirement vs. paying taxes on deferred accounts, but there is also usually more flexibility in when to spend money. You may find that you have a year where you have to spend a lot, so it is good to be able to pull money out without it increasing your marginal rate for that year, and other years where you spend relatively smaller amounts, and you can withdraw taxable money and pay a lower rate on that money. No one knows what the tax code will look like in 40 years, but having some money in each type of account will give you flexibility to minimize your tax bill at retirement.

In this time of relentless competition where a number of organizations are attempting to make their presence and quality felt, having an edge over your rivals is tremendously basic for survival. Business visionaries are very much aware of the cost ramifications of maintaining a business. For them who are hoping to take their new business to the market, the most extreme cost is the underlying set up. Besides this there are other running costs that can really make them insane

I don't know why Boeing tried this for the 787. The whole Airbus A3XX was a similar fiasco, and its part production was only spread around europe! Why boeing thought they could pull off development of a large plane while spreading it around the globe, I just don't get it.

Yep. Definitely troll.   Deregulation made it possible for anyone to start an airline and then airlines without unions kicked the snot out of unionized airlines. Same plane, same airports, and the flight costs $350 to fly on an airline with unionized employees or $300 to fly on an airline without the unions.   Guess which one the public picked?

"While I agree with this, I also think a tiny fraction of that mentality comes from the simple notion that: you can find a desk job that pays great, so why work a hard manual job that also pays great?   Take the average worker, and tell them ""You can do manual labor for $xx,000/yr, or you can do a desk job for $xx,000/yr"". Most people will pick the desk job for obvious reasons. So it's not just the belief that certain jobs are below them (although that IS most of it), but the simple notion that we were sold over the last 30 years that desk workers in cubicle farms can make as much money as someone working a labor/manual job, so go for the desk job."

"So your whole approach, and the attempt to scale this is flawed.  You will alienate roomates, provoke arguments, and make everyone's life more difficult.  There are too many variables and unforeseen possibilities.  For instance: ""Why should I have to pay for Joe to go buy the expensive organic milk when I'm fine with the cheap stuff?"" ""I planned on being here for 20 days, but was gone that long weekend, recalculate everything please."" ""I already paid for this month, but now you're asking for more because James wanted to recalculate for a long weekend?"" The right way to do this is to set up loose, reasonable agreement among the participants and treat that as a contract, but with some flexibility/mercy on small dollar amount items. For instance: There are 5 of us, so everyone provides food (and shops/cooks) one night a week.  We're solo on Friday and Saturday (people eat out more then anyway), and everyone puts in $10/week (or whatever) for breakfast cereal, snacks, etc.  If you can't be here on your night, work out to trade with someone.  If you miss out on a meal... oh well. As long as people feel like they have a say in the discussion generating this and it's not dictated to them, then most of the time this is far superior.  If people need this level of detail, then perhaps those people should live alone or move in with Sheldon Cooper from ""The Big Bang Theory""."

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Question: What is an effective way to convert large sums of US based investments to foreign currencies?

A stock, bond or ETF is basically a commodity. Where you bought it does not really matter, and it has a value in USD only inasmuch as there is a current market price quoted at an American exchange. But nothing prevents you from turning around and selling it on a European exchange where it is also listed for an equivalent amount of EUR (arbitrage activities of investment banks ensure that the price will be equivalent in regard to the current exchange rate). In fact, this can be used as a cheap form of currency conversion. For blue chips at least this is trivial; exotic securities might not be listed in Europe. All you need is a broker who allows you to trade on European exchanges and hold an account denominated in EUR. If necessary, transfer your securities to a broker who does, which should not cost more than a nominal fee. Mutual funds are a different beast though; it might be possible to sell shares on an exchange anyway, or sell them back to the issuer for EUR. It depends. In any case, however, transferring 7 figure sums internationally can trigger all kinds of tax events and money laundering investigations. You really need to hire a financial advisor who has international investment experience for this kind of thing, not ask a web forum!

"This is called propaganda. This is a freaking bot that keeps posting anti-trump threads.   Take a look, the ""user"" has over 7,000 karma and 0 comment karma. They don't even try!  It has posted over 500 different threads in the 2 months it has been active, without making a single comment. Take a look at what all the threads are about, I'm sure you will be shocked. its probably a bot for /u/postnationalism"

"LOL!!!!!   No matter what Trump will do, even if he lowers the prices of drugs, you will be against him.  Even after what Trump just said, ""time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"" (the bold letters and exclamation mark are Trump's), you still think that Trump does not want lower drug prices.   Clear tribalism on your side."

See, I agree with all of that!  However, I think Clinton is exactly the same personality, underneath a thin veneer. The only real difference is that she is slightly better at hiding her sociopathy. This actually makes her more dangerous.

"The real betrayal is that the so-called education system can't be bothered to teach people anything useful.   I had a ""bank book"" (savings account) in *fifth grade*. We learned to operate checking accounts in sixth, and compound interest the next year.   What happened?"

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"[Netflix is targeting 50% in-house content ""within the next few years.""](http://variety.com/2016/digital/news/netflix-50-percent-content-original-programming-cfo-1201865902/)  It says right now it is about 1/3 of the way there which - to me - works out to about 16.5%.  So maybe ""rarely"" wasn't the right word, but a large majority of the content it streams is not in-house."

The Sharpe ratio is, perhaps, the method you are looking for.  That said, not really sure beta is a meaningful metric, as there are plenty of safe bets to be made on volatile stocks (and, conversely, unsafe bets to be made on non-volatile ones).


Question: Which US market indexes (Dow/DJIA, S&P500, NASDAQ) include reinvested dividends?

.INX (the S&P 500 index itself) does not include reinvested dividens.  You can figure total return by going to Yahoo finance, historical data. Choose the start year, and end year. You should find that data for SPY (going back to 1993) will show an adjusted close, and takes dividends into account. This isn't perfect as SPY has a .09% expense ratio, but it's better than just the S&P index. One of the more popular Dow ETF is DIA, this will let you similarly track the Dow while accounting for dividends.

Tourism is down and we’re slated to lose 2 billion in the industry overall this year thanks to Trumps travel ban.  We don’t have many tourists from those countries either, but the rest of the world looks at us, sees what we’re doing and is freaked the fuck out.    Canada has universities that are hugely benefitting.  Students don’t want to go to a country where they think they will be unwelcome.  Smart people from India and China look at Trump and they make the decision that serves their interests the best.  Canada is more welcoming and it doesn’t have nearly the same level racial discomfort that Trump has brought.  We also get people from Japan and Korea and they hate Trump because of the tensions he has created in the region.  They feel like pawns.  We also get a lot of smart people from Latin America and it goes without saying that Latinos are scared of the atmosphere he has created.  He is fucking shit up big time when it comes to immigration.  He is making the U.S. a less desirable place to go, and it’s impacting our ability to recruit talent from around the world.  That doesn’t even begin to delve into his overall anti science policies.  He’s an epic disaster.

By buying the call option, you are getting the benefit of purchasing the underlying shares (that is, if the shares go up in value, you make money), but transferring the risk of the shares reducing in value. This is more apparent when you are using the option to offset an explicit risk that you hold. For example, if you have a short position, you are at unlimited risk of the position going up in value. You could decide you only want to take the risk that it might rise to $X. In that case, you could buy a call option with $X strike price. Then you have transferred the risk that the position goes over $X to the counterpart, since, even if the shares are trading at $X+$Y you can close out the short position by purchasing the shares at $X, while the option counterpart will lose $Y.

I think people are worried that this woman is going to become the sole scapegoat for the whole fiasco and the rest of the Equifax leadership is going to walk away scot-free. The CEO won't face any penalties for selling his shares after the incident, the board won't be held to task for waiting six weeks to reveal the hack, and any legislation that could prevent such incidents from occurring again will be nipped in the bud.

"There is no ""golden rule"" on how high of a credit limit an individual should have. There are 22 year olds that have $100,000 credit limits and 40 year olds that have $1000. The most important thing is to not over spend and pay your balance(s) in full every month. Seeing as you are doing that now, there is no downside to getting an increase."

Having functional storage spaces in your office, including lockers, are a must, especially when you are working with many employees. Here at Prodigy Office Furniture, we have the highest quality bookcases, filing cabinets, storage cupboards and lockers Melbourne has to offer.

quid's answer explains the settlement period well. However, it should be noted that you can avoid the settlement period by opening a margin account. Any specific broker like Schwab may or may not offer margin accounts. Margin accounts allow you to borrow money to avoid the settlement period or to buy more securities than you can actually afford. Note that if you buy more securities than you can afford using margin, you expose yourself to losses potentially larger than your initial investment. If you fund your account with $50,000 and use margin to purchase $80,000 of stock which then drops in value by 80% you will have lost $64,000 and owe the broker $14,000 plus fees.

It's not about who would win a conflict. It's about how easy to control they are.  The entire might of the american military can't defeat a third world, sub 85 IQ militia given 15 years. Why do you think it would be easier to defeat a civil insurrection?


Question: what if a former employer contributes to my 401k in the year following my exit?

The vast majority of individual taxpayers in the United States operate on a cash basis of accounting. This means that the assignment of deductions or income to tax year is based on the date of the paycheck.  So the money in that early January 2016 paycheck has been correctly assigned to the 2016 tax year. This is unfortunate for you because you will receive a W-2 for 2016 showing that you had a retirement account. Knowing exactly how many paychecks there are in a year can be very import to know when trying the reach or avoid some thresholds. Even quitting the previous pay period might not have helped. I have seen some companies payout unused vacation, sick and severance over several paychecks. They didn't give you it all in one lump sum, they did it 80 hours a paycheck until the balance owed to the employee was zero.

"In the United States, with an S-Corp, you pay yourself a salary from company earnings.   That portion is taxed at an individual rate.  The rest of the company earnings are taxed as a corporation, which often have great tax benefits.  If you are making over $80K/year, the difference can be substantial.  A con is that there is more paperwork and you have to create a ""board"" of advisors."

If I remember correctly, the Netflix settlement was rejected under similar circumstances.  The court ended up agreeing that offering free advertising was not a /punishment/ to Netflix.  The same should hold here, too.  Sooo...  Now we just need a convenient way to object...

"The profits that the corporation had to earn to be able to pay you ""eligible"" dividends for the dividend tax credit were already taxed, and at a somewhat high corporate rate, in the case of large public companies with big profits. The dividend tax credit, which permits an individual to earn a lot from dividends and not pay any personal income tax, essentially recognizes that the profit making up the dividend was already highly taxed to begin with via corporate income tax.  It aims to eliminate double-taxation. FWIW, if you own and run a small private business in Canada and pay yourself a dividend, such dividends are considered ""non-eligible"", i.e. you don't get as much a benefit from the dividend tax credit, since small business corporate income tax rates are much lower."

I first must commend you for finding the article considering it was 2004.  (Nice find!).  Also, I'm guessing you are going to be dead right with the feelings towards Facebook.  The success or failure will be pretty polarizing because I either see them having a $150 billion market cap at the end of 8 years or we will have conversation about Facebook as we do with Myspace.  Thanks again for posting the article!

Whoever told you to make major purchases in physical cash should probably be audited because the only real reason someone would be doing something so goofy would be to avoid digital records or maybe taxes somehow.  ... or worse, they listen to Dave Ramsey.

Some Canadian banks (RBC for instance), will accept the format  No spaces, no slashes. Transit number must be five digits, if it's not add a 0 to the front. Just had a situation where the European-based system would not accept anything but an IBAN, so I called my bank and that's what they confirmed.  I know this is super late, but thought I would leave it here for future generations to discover. Edit: See comments for an example.

It really is confusing.  Buffalo Wild Wings is shitty food for too much money in a setting that's uncomfortable to be in (loud open space with too many TV screens) with horrible service.  Are you supposed to be stupid and want that or are you stupid for not wanting that?


Question: Do US mutual funds and ETFs pay taxes on dividends?

"Mutual funds don't pay taxes themselves, they distribute any dividends or capital gains to the shareholders. Thus, if you hold a mutual fund in a tax-advantaged account like a 401k or IRA then the distribution isn't a taxable event while in a regular taxable account you would have to pay taxes on the distributions. From Forbes: There can be foreign companies on US stock exchanges that would still work the same way. Unilever for example is an Anglo-Dutch multinational listed on the NYSE as ""UN."""

"What in the world to shareholders have to do with it?  Nowadays, the vast majority of the shares in most big corporations are ""owned"" via intermediaries (i.e. mutual funds and 401K's, IRA's and Pension Funds) that do not ALLOW the actual end owners to have any say whatsoever.  All those investment vehicles *allow* people to care about ... is the share price."

Putting the money in a bank savings account is a reasonably safe investment. Anything other than that will come with additional risk of various kinds. (That's right; not even a bank account is completely free of risk. Neither is withdrawing cash and storing it somewhere yourself.) And I don't know which country you are from, but you will certainly have access to your country's government bonds and the likes. You may also have access to mutual funds which invest in other countries' government bonds (bond or money-market funds). The question you need to ask yourself really is twofold. One, for how long do you intend to keep the money invested? (Shorter term investing should involve lower risk.) Two, what amount of risk (specifically, price volatility) are you willing to accept? The answers to those questions will determine which asset class(es) are appropriate in your particular case. Beyond that, you need to make a personal call: which asset class(es) do you believe are likely to do better or less bad than others? Low risk usually comes at the price of a lower return. Higher return usually involves taking more risk (specifically price volatility in the investment vehicle) but more risk does not necessarily guarantee a higher return - you may also lose a large fraction of or even the entire capital amount. In extreme cases (leveraged investments) you might even lose more than the capital amount. Gold may be a component of a well-diversified portfolio but I certainly would not recommend putting all of one's money in it. (The same goes for any asset class; a portfolio composed exclusively of stocks is no more well-diversified than a portfolio composed exclusively of precious metals, or government bonds.) For some specifics about investing in precious metals, you may want to see Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum?.

This post has been wrote in 2014, so if you read this text be aware. At the time, and since France does tax a lot investment, I'd suggest you start a PEA and filling in using the lazy investment portfolio. That means buying European and/or French ETFs & index, and hold them as long as you can. You can fill your PEA (Plan d'Epargne en Action) up to 150.000€ for a period of at least 8 years as long as you fill it with European and French stocks. After the period of 8 years your profit is taxed at only mere 15%, instead of the 33% you see in a raw broker account. Since you are young, I think a 100% stocks is something you can hold on. If you can't sleep at night with 100% stocks, take some bonds up to 25%, even more. Anyway, the younger you start investing, the more ahead you may eventually go.

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Who would lose their jobs?  Sure some jobs that can only exist at $7 an hour would disappear, but when the lower and middle class hav emore disposable income, consumer spending would go up, creating jobs in other areas.    Basically you would take money from the rich to put it in the hands of people who spend the money, stimulating the economy.  This increases the prosperity of the nation.

If you're under audit - you should get a proper representation. I.e.: EA or CPA licensed in California and experienced with the FTB audit representation. There's a penalty on failure to file form 1099, but it is with the IRS, not the FTB. If I remember correctly, it's something like $50 or $100 per instance. Technically they can disqualify deductions claiming you paid under the table and no taxes were paid on the other side, however I doubt they'd do it in a case of simple omission of filing 1099 forms. Check with your licensed tax adviser. Keep in mind that for the IRS 2011 is now closed, since the 3-year statute of limitations has passed. For California the statute is 4 years, and you're almost at the end of it. However since you're already under audit they may ask you to agree to extend it.

You need to look at all your investment as a whole. The 401K, IRA, and any taxable account need to be a part of the diversification and re-balancing. The fact you have regular deposits into the 401K needs to also be a part of your strategy.  Regardless of how much specific investments have gone up this year, you need to first determine how you want to be invested in large cap stock, small cap stock, bond, international, emerging markets... Then you need to see where you are today compared to those investment percentages. You then move the money in the retirement accounts to get to your desired percentage. And set the 401K deposits to be consistent with your goals. Many times the deposits are allocated the same way the balances are, but that is more complex if one of the sectors you are investing in exists completely outside the 401K.  When you re-balance in the future you will be selling sectors that grew the most and buying those that grew the least compared to their planned percentages. If all the moves are within the 401K and IRA then capital gains are not a concern. Don't think of the different accounts as separate baskets, but think of them as a whole investment strategy.


Question: What is the psychology behind the Dead Cat Bounce Pattern and how can it be traded?

You are correct, a possible Dead Cat Bounce is forming on the stock markets. If it does form it will mean that prices have not reached their bottom, as this pattern is a bearish continuation pattern. For a Dead Cat Bounce to form prices will need to break through support formed by the lows last week. If prices bounce off the support and go back up it could become a double bottom pattern, which is a reversal pattern. The double bottom would be confirmed if prices break above the recent high a couple of days ago. Regarding the psychology of the dead cat bounce pattern, is that after a distinct and quick reversal of prices from recent highs you have 2 groups of market participants who create demand in the market. Firstly you have those who were short covering their short positions to take profits, and secondly you have those who are looking for a bargain buying at what they think is the low. So for a few days you have the bulls taking over the bears.  Then as more less positive news comes in, the bears hit the market again. These are more participants opening short positions, but more so those who missed out in selling previously because prices fell too quickly, seeing another opportunity to sell at a better price. So the bears take over again.  Unless there is very good news around the corner it is likely that the bears will stay in control and prices will fall further. How to trade a dead cat bounce (assuming you have been stopped out of your long possistions already)? If you are aggressive you can go short as prices start reversing from the top of the bounce (with your stop loss just above the top of the bounce). If you are more conservative you would place your entry for a short position just below the support at the start of the bounce (with your stop above the top of the bounce). You could also place an order for a long position above the top of the bounce if a double bottom eventuated. A One Cancels the Other (OCO) would be an appropriate order for such a situation.

Yes, this is a scam. Tell your dad not to pay any money.  There will likely be a large deposit in his account, but if he withdraws the money from his account, the bank will come after him looking for the money when the transfer to his account is reversed.

"The muni bond business .  Are you really too dumb to understand that's how he's referencing it in the article? He's not talking about a specific company or companies numbnuts he's talking about ""The business of muni bonds...i.e the total outstanding municipal bond market."". Try some reading comprehension on for size.        To walk you through it there are multiple uses of the word 'business'.  Among them are the two you're having a real problem with in your reading comprehension.    1.  Business = Company:  I run a dry cleaning business.   2.  Business = Industry:  I am in the dry cleaning business.          What he is (clearly) referring to when he says ""a business worth $3.7 trillion""  is ""business = industry"" in the second manner listed above. You're interpreting it as if he's claiming the first manner.  That's incorrect. Factually and grammatically incorrect.   Yours is the type of ignorance that morons on Reddit rely on to make their arguments work.  I'm done here with you since you don't seem to be able to parse out rudimentary information from an article."

The word bespoke means made to order. Bespoke insurance means non-cookie cutter. That mean the thing your are trying to protect, or the risk to that item is not normally covered; so you need a non-standard type of policy. Your neighborhood insurance company doesn't handle a bespoke policy. There are companies that do.  Reinsurance is insurance on insurance. Company X has a risk they want to insure, so they go to insurance company A. After a while insurance company A realizes that they have sold a few of these policies and they have a risk if they guessed wrong. So they take out a policy with insurance company B to protect themselves if more than some percentage of their policies go bad. That policy takes bespoke reinsurance.

"Contribute as much as you can.  When do you want to retire and how much income do you think you'll need? A $1M portfolio yielding 5% will yield $50,000/year. Do some research about how to build a portfolio... this site is a good start, but check out books on retirement planning and magazines like Money and Kiplinger. If you don't speak ""money"" or are intimidated by investing, look for a fee-based financial advisor whom you are comfortable with."

>Can't be that much more sustainable, isn't China also building ghost cities at break neck speeds here?  Most ghost cities fill up eventually. There are some major fuckups, but that's always been the case with urbanization, and China still has a shitton of peasants tied to the land its trying to slowly get into the cities. Cf many other urbanization processes which resulted in huge numbers of people living in hastily built structures unsuitable for human health, and then dying in a fire / plague.

Age old rules about money scams: If a person A wants to send money to person B, they do the following: Person A sends money to person B. Neither of them sends money to you, and you don't send money to either of them. It doesn't make sense! If you give someone money, be prepared that you might not receive that money back. If someone gives you money, be prepared that they can get that money back. Illegal money laundering can put you in jail, even if you pretend to be a blameless victim of a scammer.

How to start is pretty simple.   With your next pay check set aside an amount and open a separate savings account.  Since this is an emergency fund - you want it someplace where you can get to the money quickly (so a CD or mutual fund is not good), but you want it in a separate account so that you don't accidentally use it.    Once the account is opened I'd recommend setting up an automatic transfer, or make it part of the direct deposit if you do that, so that you put in some money regularly (every pay check).  By adding to it regularly and not using it, you'll more quickly achieve your goal.   I'd recommend stopping, or slowing any retirement savings or other investing, until you get the emergency fund in place.  If you have an emergency, the money in the retirement fund isn't going to do you much good as it costs too much to do an early withdrawal.  The whole point of the emergency fund is to have liquidity when you need it so that you don't incur the costs of unplugging your longer term investments. Also don't worry overly much about making money on this money.  This isn't an investment it is there for emergencies.


Question: Is there a simple strategy of selling stock over a period of time?

"The best strategy for RSU's, specifically, is to sell them as they vest. Usually, vesting is not all in one day, but rather spread over a period of time, which assures that you won't sell in one extremely unfortunate day when the stock dipped. For regular investments, there are two strategies I personally would follow: Sell when you need. If you need to cash out - cash out. Rebalance - if you need to rebalance your portfolio (i.e.: not cash out, but reallocate investments or move investment from one company to another) - do it periodically on schedule. For example, every 13 months (in the US, where the long term cap. gains tax rates kick in after 1 year of holding) - rebalance. You wouldn't care about specific price drops on that day, because they also affect the new investments. Speculative strategies trying to ""sell high buy low"" usually bring to the opposite results: you end up selling low and buying high. But if you want to try and do that - you'll have to get way more technical than just ""dollar cost averaging"" or similar strategies. Most people don't have neither time nor the knowledge for that, and even those who do rarely can beat the market (and never can, in the long run)."

Real estate investment is a proven creator of wealth.  Check into the history of the rich and you will find real estate investment. Starting your investment in multi-family is a great idea.  It is a good way to gain experience in real estate while exponentially increasing cash flow. If you turn the properties over to a reputable property management company, your cash flow will be a little less but so will your headaches. (Expect to pay 8 - 10% of gross income.) You could start investing now by looking into discounted real estate such as foreclosures, tax sales, short sales etc while the market is still depressed.  This way your return on investment should be higher. From there you could expand into land development (i.e. subdivision) or commercial investments. Commercial properties with triple net leases can be a great low-stress investment opportunity (but they take more cash upfront). Attending some local real estate investment classes would be a great idea for starters.

>Now a crucial thing here is that while the 20-24 cohort is the largest now, in a few years, the largest group will be those of prime-age workers: 25-29, the age when people really begin to earn better money and buy homes and cars.  Unless-   1) Those jobs are still being done by baby boomers, or have sent offshore/ eliminated by robots, google, etc   2) That extra money goes to paying down student loans instead of consumer purchases.    3) Interest rates rise. At all. Pushing monthly costs for homeownership from unjustifyable to truly unaffordable.

"New York State is one of a few states that will go after telecommuter taxes (such that some people may end up paying double tax even if they don't live in NY).  There are a few ways that you can avoid this. If you NEVER come to NY for work, and your employer can stipulate that your position is only available to be filled remotely, you will likely be covered. But there are a myriad of factors relating to this such as whether the employer reimburses you for your home office and whether you keep ""business records"" at your office.  Provided you can easily document the the factors in TSB-M-06(5)I, you shouldn't have to pay NYS taxes.  (source: I've worked with a NYS tax attorney as an employer to deal with this exact scenario)."

Here you go, as promised - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/sports/cycling/armstrong-stripped-of-his-7-tour-de-france-titles.html?hp  Of course, we can side with one man who has refused to provide any proof, other than his word. Or we can look at all the evidence provided by his teammates, spouses and others in the retinue.

"Yes and no, go look up how much AT&T (didn't) spend on infrastructure right about the time they locked in the (then) exclusive iPhone deal. They were making money hand over fist due to the deal and spending at a record low on building out infrastructure to support the new users, and the new demand for mobile data. They went to far as to get the app review team to look for apps that used ""too much"" (but they would never say how much was too much) data over the cell network and reject them."

"As a former regional airline pilot, I don't know of any commerical airliners that takeoff automatically.  Although, it's something that I'm sure could be implemented pretty easily.  However, autoland is a feature used very frequently on many commercial aircraft.  As the top-voted comment said, ""not in your lifetime."""

"Yeah, I'm actually working on such a web server... And you're right, it's really an entire platform more than it is a web server (though you can certainly use it as ""just a web server"").  Also, I did loads of testing to see what it takes to prevent adblock from working properly. Avoid the obvious stuff like using standard banner sizes and serving images from a directory called ""ads"" (hehe).  I don't want to give away my secrets just yet but if you too make it your goal to work around adblock you'll find nearly impenetrable solutions in no time :)"