Question: How do government bond yields work?

Why does the rising price of a bond pushes it's yield down? The bond price and its yield are linked; if one goes up, the other must go down. This is because the cash flows from the bond are fixed, predetermined. The market price of the bond fluctuates. Now what if people are suddenly willing to pay more for the same fixed payments? It must mean that the return, i.e. the yield, will be lower. Here we see that risk associated with the bonds in question has   skyrocketed, and thus bonds' returns has skyrocketed, too. Am I right? The default risk has increased, yes. Now, I assume that bonds' price is determined by the market (issued by   a state, traded at the market). Is that correct? Correct, as long as you are talking about the market price. Then who determines bonds' yields? I mean, isn't it fixed? Or - in the   FT quote above - they are talking about the yields for the new bonds   issued that particular month? The yield is not fixed - the cash flows are. Yield is the internal rate of return. See my answer above to your first question.

">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.  No data. Have you been to China? Do you speak Chinese?  ""I’d shut the fuck up about things I don’t understand"""

"I'm not sure how legitimate this idea is, but when I see something like Airbnb coming into play in hospitality I think it opens a lot of potential doors.  You need to realize the full scope of staying at a hotel. Its not just the room you sleep in. There are toiletries, concierge services, taxi/rides if they flew to the area, theres a lot out there when you think about it.  Now imagine you book a place with airbnb.  If i go there will they have toothpaste? Imagine just some kind of company that provides basic toiletries for a fair price for someone who is managing a listing and provides travel items etc whether the person wants to buy in bulk expecting a steady flow to save money, or buy in set packages in smaller sets. create some kind of ""basic bundle"" including necessities etc.  This is just an example."

A central bank typically introduces new money into the system by printing new money to purchase items from member banks.  The central bank can purchase whatever it chooses.  It typically purchases government bonds but the Federal Reserve purchased mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) during the 2008 panic since the FED was the only one willing to pay full price for MBS after the crash of 2008. The bank, upon receipt of the new money, can loan the money out.  A minimum reserve ratio specifies how much money the bank has to keep on hand.  A reserve ratio of 10% means the bank must have $10 for every $100 in loans. As an example, let's say the FED prints up some new money to purchase some office desks from a member bank.  It prints $10,000 to purchase some desks.  The bank receives $10,000.  It can create up to $100,000 in loans without exceeding the 10% minimum reserve ratio requirement.   How would it do so?  A customer would come to the bank asking for a $100,000 loan.  The bank would create an account for the customer and credit $100,000 to the customer's account.  There is a problem, however.  The customer borrowed the money to buy a boat so the customer writes a check for $100,000 to the boat company.  The boat company attempts to deposit the $100,000 check into the boat company's bank.  The boat company's bank will ask the originating bank for $100,000 in cash.  The originating bank only has $10,000 in cash on hand so this demand will immediately bankrupt the originating bank. So what actually happens?  The originating bank actually only loans out reserves * (1 - minimum reserve ratio) so it can meet demands for the loans it originates.   In our example the bank that received the initial $10,000 from the FED will only loan out $10,000 * (1-0.1) = $9,000.  This allows the bank to cover checks written by the person who borrowed the $9,000.  The reserve ratio for the bank is now $1,000/$9,000 which is 11% and is over the minimum reserve requirement.  The borrower makes a purchase with the borrowed $9,000 and the seller deposits the $9,000 in his bank.  The bank that receives that $9,000 now has an additional $9,000 in reserves which it will use to create loans of $9,000 * (1 - 0.1) = $8100.   This continual fractional reserve money creation process will continue across the entire banking system resulting in $100,000 of new money created from $10,000. This process is explained very well here.

The short answer is that you can use student loans for living expenses.  Joe provides a nice taxonomy of loans.  I would just add that some loans are not only guaranteed, but also subsidized.  Essentially the Government buys down the rate of the loan. The mechanics are that a financial aid package might consist of grants, work study (job), subsidized, and guaranteed loans.  One can turn down one or more of the elements of the package.  All will be limited in some form. The work study will have a maximum number of hours and generally has low pay.  Many find better deals working in the businesses surrounding the college or starting their own services type business.  The grants rarely cover the full cost of tuition and books.  The loans will both be limited in amount.  It mainly depends on what you qualify for, and generally speaking the lower the income the more aid one qualifies for. Now some students use all their grant, all their loan money and buy things that are not necessary.  For example are you going to live in the $450/month dorm, or the new fancy apartments that are running $800/month?  Are you going to use the student loan money to buy a car?  Will it be a new BMW or a 8 year old Camary? I see this first hand as I live near a large university.  The pubs are filled with college students, not working, but drinking and eating every night.  Many of them drive very fancy cars. The most onerous example of this is students at the military academies.  Attendees have their books and tuition completely paid for.  They also receive a stipend, and more money can be earned over the summer.  They also all qualify for a 35K student loan in their junior year.  Just about every kid, takes this loan.  Most of those use the money to buy a car.  I know a young lady who did exactly that, and so did many of her friends. So kids with a starting pay of 45K also start life with a 35K.  Buying a nice car in the military is especially silly as they cannot drive it while deployed and they are very likely to be deployed.  At least, however, they are guaranteed a starting job with a nice starting pay, and upward potential. College kids who behave similarly might not have it as good.  Will they even find work?  Will the job have the ability to move up?  How much security is in the job?  One might say that this does not apply to engineers and such, but I am working with a fellow with a computer science degree who cannot find a job and has not worked in the past 6 months.  This even though the market is super hot right now for computer engineers. So, in a word, be very careful what you borrow.

Your question is missing too much to be answered directly. Instead - here are some points to consider. Short term gains taxed at your marginal rates, whereas long term gains have preferable capital gains rates (up to 20% tax rate, instead of your marginal rate). So if you're selling at gain, you might want to consider to sell FIFO and pay lower capital gains tax rate instead of the short term marginal rate. If you're selling at loss and have other short term gains, you would probably be better selling LIFO, so that the loss could offset other short term gains that you might have.  If you're selling at loss and don't have short term gains to offset, you can still offset your long term gains with short term losses, but the tax benefit will be lower. In this case - FIFO might be a better choice again. If you're selling at loss, beware of the wash sale rules, as you might not be able to deduct the loss if you buy/sell within too short a window.

"Based on what you asked and your various comments on other answers, this is the first time that you will be making an offer to buy a house, and it seems that the seller is not using a real-estate agent to sell the house, that is, it is what is called a FSBO (for sale by owner) property (and you can learn a lot of about the seller's perspective by visiting fsbo.com). On the other hand, you are a FTB (first-time buyer) and I strongly recommend that you find out about the purchase process by Googling for ""first-time home buyer"" and reading some of the articles there. But most important, I urge you DO NOT make a written offer to purchase the property until you understand a lot more than you currently do, and a lot more than all the answers here are telling you about making an offer to buy this property.  Even when you feel absolutely confident that you understand everything, hire a real-estate lawyer or a real-estate agent to write the actual offer itself (the agent might well use a standard purchase offer form that his company uses, or the State mandates, and just fill in the blanks). Yes, you will need to pay a fee to these people but it is very important for your own protection, and so don't just wing it when making an offer to purchase. As to how much you should offer, it depends on how much you can afford to pay. I will ignore the possibility that you are rich enough that you can pay cash for the purchase and assume that you will, like most people, be needing to get a mortgage loan to buy the house. Most banks prefer not to lend more than 80% of the appraised value of the house, with the balance of the purchase price coming from your personal funds. They will in some cases, loan more than 80% but will usually charge higher interest rate on the loan, require you to pay mortgage insurance, etc. Now, the appraised value is not determined until the bank sends its own appraiser to look at the property, and this does not happen until your bid has been accepted by the seller. What if your bid (say $500K) is much larger than the appraised value $400K on which the bank is willing to lend you only $320K ? Well, you can still proceed with the deal if you have $180K available to make the pay the rest. Or, you can let the deal fall apart if you have made a properly written offer that contains the usual contingency clause that you will be applying for a mortgage of $400K at rate not to exceed x% and that if you can't get a mortgage commitment within y days, the deal is off. Absent such a clause, you will lose the earnest money that you put into escrow for failure to follow through with the contract to purchase for $500K.  Making an offer in the same ballpark as the market value lessens the chances of having the deal fall through. Note also that even if the appraised value is $500K, the bank might refuse to lend you $400K if your loan application and credit report suggest that you will have difficulty making the payments on a $400K mortgage.  It is a good idea to get a pre-approval from a lender saying that based on the financial information that you have provided, you will likely be approved for a mortgage of $Z (that is, the bank thinks that you can afford the payments on a mortgage of as much as $Z). That way, you have some feel for how much house you can afford, and that should affect what kinds of property you should be bidding on."

You can evaluate portfolio raw returns or risk adjusted returns. To evaluate raw returns, I would personally compute the total returns over the time period in question for both portfolios.  To compute total returns, split the time into a bunch of subperiods by the dates at which you contributed money.  Compute each subperiod return by dividing the value of the portfolio at the end of the subperiod (but before adding additional cash on that day) by the value at the beginning of the subperiod (after adding cash on that day).  Then multiply all these returns together.  Finally, subtract 1.  That's your total return. For the portfolio where you didn't add any money it's easy: just divide the end value by the beginning and subtract 1. Whichever has a higher return performed better. To compute risk adjusted returns, get the portfolio returns from both portfolios (daily or monthly) and use OLS to regress on a benchmark portfolio return (something like the S&P500).  The intercept of the regression is a measure of the risk-adjusted peformance of your portfolio.  Higher the better.  More sophisticated models will do multiple regression using a few benchmark portfolios at the same time.


Question: At what point does it become worth it to file an insurance claim?

An article linked from cnn.com has some great advice, which I think are good rules of thumb. Also, at least my insurance gives a premium price for those who haven't filed a claim in 5 or more years for homeowners or rental insurance. See if you have a similar discount, will loose it, and guess how much that will cost you over 5 years. My rule of thumb: Your premium might go up quite a bit, possibly as much as triple, especially for a large claim. But, it is certainly worth it if you are going to get more than triple your premium through your claim. The worst case: Mortgage mandated insurance, which will be about triple your current cost.

>You assume that the government is a god and all things exist only because of it. You are the zealot here fighting against a competing option and opinion. Every church wants to believe it is the one true church and non believers should be punished for their non belief. Statism truly has become the next wave religion.    No, I assume that government is an institution that keeps getting recreated for any society larger than a hunter-gatherer tribe because of how useful it is.  If anyone is approaching cultbait status, it would be anti-government believers, who blindly believe that all the benefits of a first-world society somehow magically have nothing to do with the forms of the government selected by that society.

I can see three possibilities:  * The money was illegally transferred and used for operating costs when they started having trouble.  * The company was playing Enron-like accounting games, and were reporting imaginary profits and gains.  In that case, the money never really existed.  * The money was outright stolen, and is in somebody's offshore bank accounts.  Or some combination of these.

You can find both here: http://www.bde.es/tipos/tipose.htm

"I think one major point you're missing here is the decreased interest rates following the 9/11 attacks.  After rates were dropped in late 2001 many less fortunate people could ""afford"" mortgages on large houses, especially when using variable rate mortgages. This was the root cause of the bubble that was not taken into account by the bank's and rating agencies models."

Yes, I think this is the general idea. We're going through a deleveraging. On the one hand, this isn't entirely a bad thing because the financial crisis showed some people were lending irresponsibly. A lot of bad loans were made and bad loans that don't get repaid cause a lot of havoc.  One the down side, like the original poster said this makes it seem like money is drying up. This has been a bigger problem in some places than other. A lot would argue, myself included, that the US has deleveraged relatively--and key word is relatively--smoothly. Other places, like Europe have not been so lucky.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/philip-morris-ordered-to-pay-australia-millions-in-costs-for-plain-packaging-case-20170709-gx7mv5.html) reduced by 85%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Tobacco giant Philip Morris has been ordered to pay the Australian government millions of dollars in legal costs after its failed bid to kill off plain packaging laws.  > Two years later, the court now says Philip Morris must cover Australia&#039;s legal costs, plus an undisclosed percentage of the arbitration costs.  > &quot;It&#039;s good to see that Australia&#039;s world-leading legislation was upheld and that the abuse of process by Philip Morris has now resulted in costs going to the Australian government,&quot; Mr Swan said on Sunday.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6mef7p/philip_morris_ordered_to_pay_australian/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~163662 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*: **cost**^#1 **Australia**^#2 **Court**^#3 **government**^#4 **legal**^#5"

It's amateurish to expect Facebook to do anything other than what Zuckerberg wants. His shares give him control over the company. This was known before the IPO. People that thought he would change and take actions that would benefit them, instead of himself are learning an expensive lesson.


Question: Why are taxes on actively managed funds higher than those on index funds?

This depends on the particular index, of course. Capital gains taxes occur when stock is sold (for a profit). This occurs less frequently in an index fund: Where an active manager frequently buys and sells stocks (after all, he wants to be active :-) ), the index fund only sells stocks when the particular stock leaves the index. For an index such as the S&P 500 this does not happen that often.  The more specific the criteria of the index fund, the more often the selling of stock and thus the need to pay capital gains taxes occurs.

"Will the bank be taxed on the $x received through selling the   collateral? Why do you care? They will, of course, although their basis will be different. It is of no concern for you. What is your concern is that the write-off of the loan is taxed as ordinary income (as opposed to capital gains when you sell the stocks) for you. So when the bank seizes the stocks, they will also report to the IRS that they gave you the amount of money that you owed them (which they will ""give you"" and then put it on the account of the loan). So you get taxed on that amount as income. In addition, you will be taxed on the gains on the stocks, as giving them to the bank is considered a sale. So you may actually find yourself in a situation where you'd be paying taxes twice, once capital gains, and once as ordinary income, on the same money. I would strongly advise against this. If it is a real situation and not a hypothetical question - get a professional tax advice. I'm not a professional, talk to a CPA/EA licensed in your state."

I filed all my tax returns when I was abroad so they know how much I   made (just not how much I saved). I smell problems here. If you were compliant wrt to your filings, you must have filed FBAR forms and form 8938. Even if you were below the threshold for form 8938, you will probably be above it when you move back to the US - the threshold for people living in the US is much lower. Do I still need to declare it, even though I might not intend to use   this money to help my kids through college? I believe so. Here's what they want: Nothing there suggests that it is only limited to the accounts in the US or to the money you intend to use to help your kids through college.

An inherited Roth has no tax due at withdrawal. This doesn't change in the case of an inherited Roth received through a spouse as a result of a QDRO. So no tax for you.  To be clear, for an inherited Roth, there's an RMD each year (even though one may be under 59-1/2, e.g. a 5 yr old beneficiary will have an RMD) but there is no penalty for taking more than the RMD or cashing the full value.  Is there more to your question? Why are you taking on debt?

What's interesting is the fox article they are citing talks about the impact on home owners and business not the benefit to labor. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯   >[Just how bad is it? According to the National Association of Home Builders, more than 56 percent of developers nationwide are reporting labor shortages. ](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/02/texas-home-builders-relying-on-immigrant-labor-feel-effects-immigrant-crackdown.html)

Food is almost never a valid expense. Reason for it is simple - if you were not conducting business you would have to eat too. Ad 1. I don't see why travel in that case would not be a valid expense, as the only reason for you to travel there is for business reasons. Ad 2. Unlikely as there is a duality of purpose. So while part of it may be business, you are also getting personal benefit from the visit (coffee/cakes etc) so that generally is a no. Ad 3. No, while you can claim for entertainment of employees (to sensible extends), that doesn't work when entertaining clients. Ad 4. If any part of the trip is for leisure then you cannot claim it as business expense, sorry! If there is any duality of use then it's not a business expense. And food, as always, is a no go.

"I've had an echo (well, now three of them) for more than two years.  It starts out as a novelty.  Then you find the things that are useful, which is mostly just kitchen timers, quick math &amp; conversion questions, music &amp; radio &amp; podcasts, and trivia questions to settle an argument.  Sometimes I ask about the weather, something in the news, etc.  And then, occasionally I'll order something or add something to a shopping list.  The only home automation device I control with the echo is the thermostat (""Alexa, make it cooler"").  The latest development is our acquisition of the Echo Show, which just adds a touch screen.  That has added the ability to   a. Shop visually, which I still don't do often;  b. Entertain/distract my toddler for a few minutes in the kitchen (""Alexa, play Daniel Tiger""); and  b. Video chat with my mom, for whom I also bought one (again, for keeping the kid occupied while we're cooking).  So, all in all, I don't think I'm really using it the way Amazon wants (i.e., voice purchases, and buying more Alexa-connected devices because i have this hub), but I'm still happy with it and use it every day.  And as you might gather, i am neither single nor old nor affluent.  So that's my story."

You will almost certainly be paying taxes in Czech Republic, short of being American of Eritrean, citizenship has little to no bearing on tax. If you are working from home, you will probably be a contractor. In Romania you would work through either an SRL or you would set up a PFA. Essentially a limited company or a sole trader. You will need to find the Czech equivalents. I would advise finding a small business accountant. They will be able to advise what is the most cost effective solution, in some countries (like my one) you can save considerable amounts of tax by working through a company. There is a link with some information.


Question: How to understand expenses matter relative to investment type for mutual funds?

The net return reported to you (as a percentage) by a mutual fund is the gross return minus the expense ratio.  So, if the gross return is X% and the expense ratio is Y%, your account will show a return of (X-Y)%.  Be aware that X could be negative too. So, with Y = 1, If X = 10 (as you might get from a stock fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 9% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 10% of the gross return. If X = 8 (as you might get from a bond fund if you believe historical averages will continue), then the net return is 7% and you have lost (Y/X) times 100% = 12.5% of the gross return. and so on and so forth.  The numbers used are merely examples of the returns that have been obtained historically, though it is worth emphasizing that 10% is an average return, averaged over many decades, from investments in stocks, and to believe that one will get a 10% return year after year is to mislead oneself very badly. I think the point of the illustrations is that expense ratios are important, and should matter a lot to you, but that their impact is proportionately somewhat less if the gross return  is high, but very significant if the gross return is low, as  in money-market funds.  In fact, some money market funds which  found that X < Y have even foregone charging the expense ratio  fee so as to maintain a fixed $1 per share price.  Personally,  I would need a lot of persuading to invest in even a stock fund with 1% expense ratio.

If the Democrats controlled the House the legislation would be equally as crony, bullshit, and corrupt. We just went through the entire ordeal in preventing SOPA from passing, which had explicit support from Democrats. So don't tell me  with a straight face that the parties are any different.   Obama is no different than Romney, the only issue is that Romney is in election mode and Obama has a Congress unwilling to pass any of his laws. If the situation was reversed (Rep white house, Dem congress) it would be equally as fucked up.

"You're entirely correct.  It's one of those ""broken window"" fallacies.   Have you ever witnessed the anger of   the good shopkeeper, James B., when   his careless son happened to break a   square of glass? If you have been   present at such a scene, you will most   assuredly bear witness to the fact,   that every one of the spectators, were   there even thirty of them, by common   consent apparently, offered the   unfortunate owner this invariable   consolation - ""It is an ill wind that   blows nobody good. Everybody must   live, and what would become of the   glaziers if panes of glass were never   broken?"" Frederic Bastiat's 1850 essay, ""That which is seen and that which is not seen"" is still the best and most beautifully-written of such explanations.   As you point out, a gain for the construction companies is more than offset by the loss of life and financial expenditure of the insurance companies.  Plus, it is never possible to quantify the entirety of the loss in terms of opportunities foregone (""that which is not seen"").  People who were about to do incredible things but now gone.  Property, of any nature, no longer of use to build on or perform service. Any replacement comes at the expense of other opportunities."

Cato is hardly an unbiased source, as they are a libertarian think-tank. They pretend a whole list of other important differences don't exist, and conveniently ignore the fact that Kansas switched to the Texas model and then experienced steep economic slowdown and budget shortfalls. Setting taxes is a process of balancing competing interests. High taxes can absolutely be damaging, but so can taxing too little. Both the libertarian and statist ideologies tend to lead to ruin.

I definitely want it, all of my cash that i've accumulated goes into my brokerage but I just wanted to check that in can be done.  I just wanted to see if anyone knew anyone personally or anything like that because most of the time it's people e-bragging or bullshitting to make them seem like something.  I also wanted to see if it is still feasible with all of the algo trading and stuff that has been dominating the market versus an individual trader.  Thanks for your reply though, I like the analogy a lot.

I think this article explains it pretty well: Contributions to a SEP are limited to   20% of your business  income (which is   business income minus half of your   self-employment tax), up to a maximum   of $45,000. With a solo 401(k), on the   other hand, you can contribute up to   $15,500 plus 20% of your business   income (defined the same way as   above), with a maximum contribution of   $45,000 in 2007. You can make an extra   $5,000 catch-up contribution if you're   50 or older

Well the stated intended goal for the organization is to change the car market and they seem to have been very successful at that so far. I see where you're coming from, but I think you're using a different measuring stick than what is intended for their strategy.   They released all their patents. That should be a great indicator of what success means for them.

"Get him the book ""Total Money Makeover"" (http://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448904191&sr=8-1&keywords=total+money+makeover) and tell him to follow the baby steps. If he comes to you again or doesn't follow your advice, remind him to follow the baby steps. Repeat as needed."


Question: Credit Card Approval

Banks use quite a few parameters to arrive at the decision for card approval. The credit score is just one input. There are multiple other inputs it would source, for example total years in job, the number of years in current job, income streams, etc ... the exact formula is a trade secret and varies from Bank to Bank

The stock had quite a run-up, so it was do to fall anyway. I would want it to fall further before I start buying shares. Best Buy will be around for the long term because people still need to see and feel the merchandise as well as get some good advice from the tech nerds in the store.  Circuit City got crushed, but Best Buy is the leader and will remain so. Online Commerce is growing like crazy, but the correctly-run brick and mortar stores will always be around.

"I'd be curious to understand where you live, with a condo costing nearly 3X the average home price in the US.  That said, if you are hell bent on this, money is loosening up. I am a real estate agent, and part of my distaste for the industry is the fact that it is the near opposite of financial fiduciary. I am responsible to be truthful and act in the best interest of my client. I am specifically not allowed to offer tax or financial advice. A client that told me she had a prequalification, only later shared that she's using a 3% down, FHA mortgage, and from what I see, getting in over her head.  In your case, look at the requirements for an FHA loan. I recommend 20% down, and the payment be less than 28% (Principal, interest, property tax) of monthly gross. The FHA allows as little as 3% down, with payment as high as 31%. In your case, $15K is 3%, and, depending on the other expenses for the house, the payment should be manageable.  If your 401(k) accounts offer matching, I'd deposit the amount to capture the match, no more, no less. Let me illustrate the power of matching - say the match is on your first $10,000 total, between the 2 of you. $10,000 deposited, is $20,000 in your retirement account, and you are just out of pocket $7500, as that's your net after tax. Now, the $20K in the account allows you to borrow half, $10,000 at a favorable rate for a 10 year payback. So, to your question of raiding your retirement accounts, I'd advise the opposite. A $10K withdrawal will cost $2500 in tax and $1000 penalty. Net $6500. Better to take the IRA, transfer it to the 401(k), and borrow 50%. Your $40K across the accounts will let you borrow $20K and keep the retirement savings going.  Last - I respect the answers that say ""don't,"" they are actually the right answers. Mine only applies if you won't listen to them. In effect, you've asked where to buy rope, and I'm just letting you know where the store is. It's the banks who are happy to sell you the rope to hang yourself."

I like how companies' solution is basically to just have us work the damn register ourselves for free. Gas stations used to have people come out and pump your gas. Now that would just seem creepy and unnecessary. In 20 years, kids will think the same thing of cashiers.

Let's have a look at Who must send a tax return: You’ll need to send a tax return if, in the last tax year: And we're done. It doesn't matter that your tax will come out to zero - you still need to TELL them this, otherwise how are they going to know? 'Person liable for zero tax who doesn't send their tax return' and 'Person liable for a million quid of tax who doesn't send their tax return' look the same...

"I think you have to go back to [this HBR article](https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity) to really understand:  TLDR: Buybacks boost CEO pay and hurt the long term value of companies. But I'm not convinced that they're ""the root of inequality""   ""Consider the 449 companies in the S&P 500 index that were publicly listed from 2003 through 2012. During that period those companies used 54% of their earnings—a total of $2.4 trillion—to buy back their own stock, almost all through purchases on the open market. Dividends absorbed an additional 37% of their earnings. That left very little for investments in productive capabilities or higher incomes for employees.""  ""Why are such massive resources being devoted to stock repurchases? Corporate executives give several reasons, which I will discuss later. But none of them has close to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority of their pay, and in the short term buybacks drive up stock prices. ""  ""Trillions of dollars that could have been spent on innovation and job creation in the U.S. economy over the past three decades have instead been used to buy back shares for what is effectively stock-price manipulation.""  "" Most are now done on the open market, and my research shows that they often come at the expense of investment in productive capabilities and, consequently, aren’t great for long-term shareholders.""  ""Research by the Academic-Industry Research Network, a nonprofit I cofounded and lead, shows that companies that do buybacks never resell the shares at higher prices.""  ""Many academics have warned that if U.S. companies don’t start investing much more in research and manufacturing capabilities, they cannot expect to remain competitive in a range of advanced technology industries. ""  Specific examples:  ""Pharmaceutical drugs.  In response to complaints that U.S. drug prices are at least twice those in any other country, Pfizer and other U.S. pharmaceutical companies have argued that the profits from these high prices—enabled by a generous intellectual-property regime and lax price regulation—permit more R&D to be done in the United States than elsewhere. Yet from 2003 through 2012, Pfizer funneled an amount equal to 71% of its profits into buybacks, and an amount equal to 75% of its profits into dividends. In other words, it spent more on buybacks and dividends than it earned and tapped its capital reserves to help fund them. The reality is, Americans pay high drug prices so that major pharmaceutical companies can boost their stock prices and pad executive pay.""  ""Nanotechnology.  Intel executives have long lobbied the U.S. government to increase spending on nanotechnology research. In 2005, Intel’s then-CEO, Craig R. Barrett, argued that “it will take a massive, coordinated U.S. research effort involving academia, industry, and state and federal governments to ensure that America continues to be the world leader in information technology.” Yet from 2001, when the U.S. government launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), through 2013 Intel’s expenditures on buybacks were almost four times the total NNI budget."""

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.recode.net/2017/7/14/15968746/artificial-intelligence-ai-federal-government-public-sector) reduced by 85%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., just drafted forward-looking legislation that aims to establish a select committee of experts to advise agencies across the government on the economic impact of federal artificial intelligence.  > Other than a few economic impact and policy reports conducted by the Obama Administration - led by former U.S. Chief Data Scientist DJ Patil and other tech-minded government leaders - this is the first policy effort toward moving the U.S. public sector past acknowledging its significance, and toward fully embracing AI technology.  > AI meant for U.S. government use should be defined as a network of complementary technologies built with the ability to autonomously conduct, support or manage public sector activity across disciplines.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6n8qmp/artificial_intelligence_can_make_americas_public/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~166623 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*: **government**^#1 **technology**^#2 **sector**^#3 **U.S.**^#4 **people**^#5"

Security Analysis(very difficult for beginners )& Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. All about(book series by McGraw) on Stocks,Derivatives,Options,Futures,Market Timings. Reminiscence of a Stock Operator (Life of jesse Livermore). Memoirs , Popular Delusions and Madness of the Crowds by Charles Mackay. Basics of Technical analysis includig Trading Strategies via Youtube videos & Google. Also opt for Seeking alpha free version to learn about portfolio allocation under current scenario there will be few articles as it will ask for premium version if you love it then opt for it. But still these books will do.


Question: How does one typically exit (close out) a large, in-the-money long put option position?

"The question is, how do I exit? I can't really sell the puts because there isn't   enough open interest in them now that they are so far out of the money. I have about $150K of funds outside of this position that I could use, but I'm   confused by the rules of exercising a put. Do I have to start shorting the stock? You certainly don't want to give your broker any instructions to short the stock! Shorting the stock at this point would actually be increasing your bet that the stock is going to go down more. Worse, a short position in the stock also puts you in a situation of unlimited risk on the stock's upside – a risk you avoided in the first place by using puts. The puts limited your potential loss to only your cost for the options. There is a scenario where a short position could come into play indirectly, if you aren't careful.  If your broker were to permit you to exercise your puts without you having first bought enough underlying shares, then yes, you would end up with a short position in the stock. I say ""permit you"" because most brokers don't allow clients to take on short positions unless they've applied and been approved for short positions in their account. In any case, since you are interested in closing out your position and taking your profit, exercising only and thus ending up with a resulting open short position in the underlying is not the right approach. It's not really a correct intermediate step, either. Rather, you have two typical ways out: Sell the puts.  @quantycuenta has pointed out in his answer that you should be able to sell for no less than the intrinsic value, although you may be leaving a small amount of time value on the table if you aren't careful.  My suggestion is to consider using limit orders and test various prices approaching the intrinsic value of the put.  Don't use market orders where you'll take any price offered, or you might be sorry. If you have multiple put contracts, you don't need to sell them all at once. With the kind of profit you're talking about, don't sweat paying a few extra transactions worth of commission. Exercise the puts.  Remember that at the other end of your long put position is one (or more) trader who wrote (created) the put contract in the first place. This trader is obligated to buy your stock from you at the contract price should you choose to exercise your option.  But, in order for you to fulfill your end of the contract when you choose to exercise, you're obligated to deliver the underlying shares in exchange for receiving the option strike price. So, you would first need to buy underlying shares sufficient to exercise at least one of the contracts.  Again, you don't need to do this all at once.  @PeterGum's answer has described an approach. (Note that you'll lose any remaining time value in the option if you choose to exercise.) Finally, I'll suggest that you ought to discuss the timing and apportioning of closing out your position with a qualified tax professional. There are tax implications and, being near the end of the year, there may be an opportunity* to shift some/all of the income into the following tax year to minimize and defer tax due. * Be careful if your options are near expiry!  Options typically expire on the 3rd Friday of the month."

Does your company offer matching on 401(k) deposits? Are you depositing at least to the match? If not, that should be priority one.  Kill the card, never pay that kind of interest. Ever. Why are you paying 5%? The 30 year rate is 4% right now, and even if you pay some closing costs, you'll recoup the money quickly.  In general, borrowing to invest is a losing game. I agree, get rid of the HELOC as well. If you refine to 15 years, you can get 3.5%, and in 16 years won't regret the decision.

You can explore the scenarios in which it is better to rent or to buy using this application: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/BuyOrRentInvestmentReturnCalculator/ In the possibly unlikely scenario shown below, at the term of the mortgage (20 years) the tenant and the buyer have practically the same return on investment.  At this point the tenant's savings would be sufficient to buy a house equivalent to the buyer's, and this would be the advisable course of action (based on the figures alone).

Vikram was protecting American’s interest from European/British suckers, now the stocks will have a roller cost ride. American Investors be careful in investing in this stock, Europeans CEO will fund bad assets in Europe and suck up American investors money out of our economy. Why always innocent American have to lose because of corrupt FDIC suckers. I am sure they are colluded with European bad assets owners and cheaters. GOD bless CitiBank, it is on the path to bankruptcy.

I came to US as an international student several years ago, and I have also experienced the same situation like most of the international students in finding ways to build credit history. Below I list out some possible approaches you may want to consider: I. Get a student job at campus (recommended) I think the best way is to get a student job in university, say a teaching assistant or student helper. In this case, you can be provided with a social security number and start to build your own credit history. II. Get credit card You can also consider to apply for a credit card. There are indeed some financial institutions that can provide credit cards for international students with no or limited credit scores requirement, say Discover and Bank of America. However, it is relatively hard to get approved, simply because hey may put more restriction in other aspects. For example, you may be required to keep sufficient bank balance above several thousand dollars during a period of time, or you should prove that you have relatives with citizenship in US who can provide your financial aid if needed. III. Apply for a loan (recommended) Getting a loan product is another alternative to get out of this difficult situation, but most of people don’t realize that. There are some FinTech start-ups in United States that specifically focus on international students’ loan financing. One representative example is Westbon (Westbon ), an online lending company that specializes in providing car loan for international students with no SSN or credit history. I once used their loan product to finance a Honda Accord, and Westbon reported my loan transaction records to US credit bureau during my repayment process. Later when I officially got my SSN number, I found my credit history has been automatically synchronized and I don’t have to start from all over again. It never be an easy journey for international students to build credit history in United States. What approach you should make really depends on you own situation. I hope the information above can be useful and good luck for your credit journey!

Russia was the sole country to mention in Inartificial words that terrorists came from Pakistan. Kadakin aforementioned, asking national capital to place a halt to cross-border terror. Russia is the 1st major great power to use the term of “Surgical Tears”. It was more horrible than the killings in James Wan’s SAW, yet everyone stood to watch, some in excitement and others in tears but all with cameras capturing the images from several angles to upload on social media.

All of the most successful people I know work more than they need to, and either their employers reward them properly, or their businesses flourish. I'm pursuing my finance degree, and I expect 70-80+ hour weeks, because it's more or less required to move up in a company.   I'll save my 9-5 days for after I have kids.

I have had my card blocked at home only rarely. One occasion comes to mind - I had bought something fairly large online late at night. No sooner had I clicked Purchase than my phone rang - the bank was asking had I actually just spent [$amount] at [$online store]? I said yes and that was that. A little later I made another purchase late at night on a different card. It went through, but when I tried to use the card the next day for something small in a store, it was declined. Embarrassed, I used a different card then called the bank. They said they had put the card on hold because of the online purchase for a large amount, even though they had let the purchase go through. They hadn't called me because it was late at night, and they hadn't given themselves any reasonable mechanisms to compensate for that (like calling me the next morning, emailing me, or the like) they'd just blocked the card. We had what you might call a frank and open exchange of views on the matter.  Not all banks use the same strategies or software. I suggest: Far and away the simplest thing is just to have more than one card so that these declines are a momentary hiccup you might forget by the time you and your Rolex are out of the store.


Question: Bank denying loan after “subject-to” appraisal: What to do?

I'm not sure about your first two options.  But given your situation, a variant of option three seems possible.   That way you don't have to throw away your appraisal, although it's possible that you'll need to get some kind of addendum related to the repairs.   You also don't have your liquid money tied up long term.  You just need to float it for a month or two while the repairs are being done.  The bank should be able to preapprove you for the loan.   Note that you might be better off without the loan.  You'll have to pay interest on the loan and there's extra red tape.   I'd just prefer not to tie up so much money in this property.   I don't understand this.  With a loan, you are even more tied up.  Anything you do, you have to work with the bank.  Sure, you have $80k more cash available with the loan, but it doesn't sound like you need it.  With the loan, the bank makes the profit.  If you buy in cash, you lose your interest from the cash, but you save paying the interest on the loan.  In general, the interest rate on the loan will be higher than the return on the cash equivalent.   A fourth option would be to pay the $15k up front as earnest money.  The seller does the repairs through your chosen contractor.  You pay the remaining $12.5k for the downpayment and buy the house with the loan.  This is a more complicated purchase contract though, so cash might be a better option.   You can easily evaluate the difficulty of the second option.  Call a different bank and ask.  If you explain the situation, they'll let you know if they can use the existing appraisal or not.  Also consider asking the appraiser if there are specific banks that will accept the appraisal.  That might be quicker than randomly choosing banks.   It may be that your current bank just isn't used to investment properties.  Requiring the previous owner to do repairs prior to sale is very common in residential properties.  It sounds like the loan officer is trying to use the rules for residential for your investment purchase.  A different bank may be more inclined to work with you for your actual purchase.

no offense, but clicking through to that guys blog and fund page he seems like a charlatan and a snake oil salesman. It's not surprising that he doesn't like asset manager software because he himself is an asset manager. the software is trying to replace him.  He doesn't make money by beating the market... he makes money by convincing others that he can... he is exactly the type of person that the original article is warning against investing with.

Another route if IB becomes a fleeting career for you would be to go into M&A/Advisory at an accounting shop and steer towards the PE side of the business. Then when you are sick of grinding it out or you get a sweetheart offer (plenty of friends have gotten them) from a PE shop do that. You could also stay at a B4 or national and stay on partner track. You might not become a millionaire in the first couple of years, but you'll be a multi by the time you're done.  Also, as others have said, skip B-school for now. You will get nothing out of it without prior experience, and if you stay in Chicago finance you'll need to attend an M7 MBA program to go anywhere. B-school is more about the networking relationships you'll get out of it more than anything you will learn in a book.

I don't carry cash at all unless I know I'm going somewhere which requires it - this includes going to the corner shop for some milk or going to other countries for a week. Cards are easier for me - if a merchant wants my business they will take my money through whatever means they can. I don't think etiquette comes into it.

First, currencies are not an investment; they are a medium of exchange; that is, you use currency to buy goods and services and/or investments. The goods and services you intend to buy in your retirement are presumably going to be bought in your country; to buy these you will need your country's currency. The investments you intend to buy now require the currency of whatever country they are located in. If you want to buy shares in Microsoft you need USD; if you want shares in BHP-Billiton you need AUD or GBP (It is traded on two exchanges), if you want property in Kuwait you need KWD and if you want bonds in your country you need IDR. When you sell these later to buy the goods and services you were saving for you need to convert from whatever currency you get for selling them into whatever currency you need to buy. When you invest you are taking on risk for which you expect to be compensated for - the higher the risk you take the better the returns had better be because there is always the chance that they will be negative, right down to losing it all if you are unlucky. There is no 100% safe investment; if you want to make sure you get full value for your money spend it all right now! If you invest overseas then, in addition to all the other investment risks, you are adding currency risk as well. That is, the risk that when you redeem your investments the overseas currency will have fallen relative you your currency. One of the best ways of mitigating risk is diversification; which allows the same return at a lower risk (or a higher return at the same risk). A pure equity portfolio is not diversified across asset classes (hopefully it is diversified across the equities). Equities are a high risk-high yield class; particularly in a developing economy like Indonesia. If you are very young with a decades long investment horizon this may be OK but even then, a diversified portfolio will probably offer better rewards at the same risk. Diversifying into local cash, bonds and property with a little foreign equities, bonds and property will serve you better than worrying about the strength of the IDR. Oh, and pay a professional for some real advice rather than listening to strangers on the internet.

FICO is a financial services company, whose customers are financial services companies.  Their products are for the benefit of their customers, not consumers. The purpose of the credit score system is two-fold.  First, the credit score is intended to make it easy for lending institutions (FICO's customers) to assess the risk of loans that they make.  This is probably based on science, although the FICO studies and even the FICO score formula are proprietary secrets. The second purpose of the credit score is to incentivize consumers into borrowing money.  And they have done a great job of that.  If you think you might need a loan in the future, perhaps a mortgage or a car loan, you need a credit score.  And the only way to get a credit score is to start borrowing money now that you don't need.   Yes, someone with a good income and a long history of paying utility bills on time would be a great credit risk for a mortgage.  However, that person will have no credit score, and therefore be declared by FICO as a bad credit risk.  On the other hand, someone with a low income, who struggles, but succeeds, to make the minimum payment on their credit card, would have a better credit score.  The advice offered to the first person is start borrowing money now, even though you don't need it. I'm not anti-credit card.  I use a credit card responsibly, paying it off in full every month.  I use it for the convenience.  I don't worry at all about my credit score, but I've been told it is great.  However, there are some people that cannot use a credit card responsibly.  The temptation is too great.  Perhaps they are like problem gamblers, I don't know.  But FICO and the financial services industry have created a system that makes a credit card a necessity in many ways.  These are the people that get hurt in the current system.

Are you saying none of the gas tax goes to reduce emissions.  Gas tax supplement trains, buses and other low emission transportation.  I know there isn't a tax on how much emissions you emit depending on how you burn the gas.  Since there are more and less efficient ways of burning gas.

Let's drive worker wages down farther by only using the cheapest labor worldwide.  Don't worry!  This is a natural part of a healthy economy!  /s  Our view of a healthy economy needs to change to include the health of the people in that economy.


Question: Will getting a new credit card and closing another affect my credit?

"Several events will always result in a reduction of your score, including: These will show up in the short term, but I don't think it's worth $40 per year in perpetuity to avoid this. These aren't serious ""black marks"" in the same category as missing payments, carrying too much debt, or foreclosures/evictions, etc. These effects are designed to signal issuers when someone acquires a large amount of credit in a very short period of time, which may indicate a greater risk. If your credit is good and you are using your other cards responsibly, closing the card (given the annual fee) would not cause me great concern if it were me. Since you are so much better of a risk than you likely were in college, you can also call Capital One, ask to speak with a supervisor, and ask them to drop the fee and increase your credit limit. They should be able to easily verify that you meet the requirements for other types of preferred cards they offer, and they should be willing to offer you improved terms rather than losing your business. It is very possible they simply haven't re-evaluated your risk since you initially applied. Also, remember that these types of effects determine only a portion of your overall score. Activity is also a major component. Rather than leaving an unused card open for history and debt-to-limit purposes only, I would also recommend having some minimum level of activity, such as an automatic bill payment, on each card you carry. The effect of using your cards over time will have a significant positive effect on your score. Best of luck!"

i would check out why other people make good money on the market when they invest but when i do it the economy goes into a recession. am i the only real person in the world and everyone is a simulation? is it black magic? is it the universe telling me to earn my money in other ways?

A lot of jobs, if not most, just don't require any meaningful education or training.  They just need somebody to show up and do something that takes 15 minutes to learn.  Anywhere from picking fruit, retail, or feeding a machine.  What do you do with those jobs?  Just because a person is educated or trained, doesn't mean those jobs don't need to be performed or will magically pay more.

"My revised, bottom-line advice: offer to send a 2nd payment (preferably in the form of money order or cashier's check) for the difference you are agreeing to pay. I cannot imagine any reason why they would object to this - there is no fee to cash a check, there's less risk of error, and less work involved. Alternatively, offer to send a new check only once the other has been returned. Don't issue one more full-amount check while the other is still outstanding. There is a good reason not to accept partial payment by them, which is that accepting a partial payment of a debt comes with a varieties of strings attached depending on the nature of the debt (such as with evictions, court processes may need to be restarted, etc). They likely want to avoid such a situation - but this does not provide any support for why they can't just take a second payment and then cash it all at once as a single, full settlement of the debt. In a perfect world, you could skip all the non-sense by simply having your bank put a stop-payment on the old check before sending a new one. Unfortunately, this might not work with 100% accuracy - but in your case if the ""partial payment"" is a significant amount of money to you, I'd go ahead and spend the $20-40 to put in the order now as an extra safety on them not doing what they claim, if for some incredibly stupid reason you can't handle this with a 2nd payment instead of one single full one. It turns out banks have lots of surprising and stupid rules, like stop payments on a check expiring in 6 months (and they may even cash stale checks over a year old), no guarantee of a stop being successful, etc. The real rule is: they might cash the check unless you close the account. Sigh - this is one of many reasons I never, ever use checks. I am not aware of any law that requires a check to be physically returned if requested, or proof or destruction provided, or anything like that. It's a large part of the reason why we have the ability to stop payment on a check, and so void it through the bank without having any physical access to the check - but this process is spotty and imperfect, and cannot be relied upon. You can request them to do whatever you like, like void it and send it back, or destroy it, and they can just refuse - or say they'll do it and then just not do it, and you have no real useful recourse. The main goal should be to avoid losing money if someone ""accidentally"" (or intentionally) cashes both checks. So you can ask, or demand (refuse to pay until they return the check), etc - and they can respond more or less any way they want. As a final piece of future advice, consider no longer using checks for purposes like this. Switch to using something like a cashier's check or money order offered by your bank, which (by their very nature) takes the money out of your account immediately, severs all ongoing connection to your bank account, and is effectively like cash with the added benefit of a paper trail. Keep the stub and and receipt from the cashier's check/money order, in case it is lost or they claim they didn't get the money."

Defined benefit pension funds will typically target treasuries + a spread that depends on how well funded the plan is and the duration of the liabilities. So for example, if a DB fund is 90% funded (meaning assets are 90% of liabilities) and the liabilities have a duration of 20 years, they will target the 20 year treasury rate + a spread that will bring the plan to just over 100% funded in around 20 years. This spread will usually be much lower than 8% p.a. Obviously it's much more complicated than this, but hopefully this gives a general idea.

Au début, vous allez acquérir un salaire organisé. De toute évidence, offrir un Rachat Vehicule En Panne à des mains changées pourrait présenter une procédure au sujet de laquelle vous ne recevriez pas d'argent pendant un temps formidable. Il est particulièrement standard que le nouvel acheteur vous demandera de remettre le bit ou si rien d'autre ne tente de le mordre en morceaux

Well, this is going to be a highly subjective point and thus rather sterile, so I won't expend much time or effort as this is rather silly. I should also clarify my prior post to refer to both product and service quality.  Anyways, my picks are:  * 11. AT&T   * 15. Verizon Communications   * 20. Citigroup * 40. Pfizer * 53. Best Buy    Anyways, I'm finished arguing for the sake of arguing.

Your role sounds like accounting/bookkeeping. I worked in fp&a for a REIT and my job was to forecast cash flows and support development managers who wanted to pitch projects to senior management. Occasionally, I helped analyze new acquisitions and every quarter we had to do valuations for covenant compliance on our loans.  Was a cool job but eventually left for capital markets role.


Question: Does Technical Analysis work or is it just a pointless attempt to “time the market”?

Technical Analysis in general is something to be cognizant of, I don't use a majority of studies and consider them a waste of time.  I also use quantitative analysis more so than technical analysis, and prefer the insight it gives into the market. The markets are more about predicting other people's behavior, psychology. So if you are trading an equity that you know retail traders love, retail traders use technical analysis and you can use their fabled channel reversals and support levels against them, as examples. Technical analysis is an extremely broad subject. So I suggest getting familiar, but if your historical pricing charts are covered in various studies, I would say you are doing it wrong. A more objective criticism of technical analysis is that many of the studies were created in the 1980s or earlier. Edges in the market do not typically last more than a few weeks. On the other side of that realization, some technical analysis works if everyone also thinks it will work, if everyone's charts say buy when the stock reaches the $90 price level and everyone does, the then stock will go higher. But the market makers and the actions of the futures markets and the actions of options traders, can undermine the collective decisions of retail traders using technical analysis.

Sorry, this is sensationalist bullshit. Escrow payments have been around forever - they're not specific to BofA or the mortgage bubble, they've probably been common practice for decades. It's a much easier way for many people to pay their taxes and insurance, and banks don't net any profit for doing this*. Rather, it's an easy way for them to keep tabs on whether homeowners have insurance or not - if a home is uninsured by the owner the bank will have to insure it on its own.   (* banks are entitled to collect some escrow overage - I think it's 8% - in the event that taxes or insurance are higher than expected, but that is still the homeowners money, and would be cashed out in a payoff.)

Half of working age men out of the workforce aren't taking it for pain. They are taking it to catch a buzz. I STRONGLY believe that cannabis is a better answer. The amount you would have to smoke to lead to emphysema is ridiculous. That's what chain smokers get.

"MD-Tech answered: The answer is in your question: derivatives are contracts so are enforced in the same way as any other contract.  If the counterparty refuses to pay immediately they will, in the first instance be billed by any intermediary (Prime Broker etc.) that facilitated the contract. If they still refuse to pay the contract may stipulate that a broker can ""net off"" any outstanding payments against it or pay out using deposited cash or posted margins. The contract will usually include the broker as an interested party and so they can, but don't need to, report a default (such that this is) to credit agencies (in some jurisdictions they are required to by law). Any parties to the trade and the courts may use a debt collection agency to collect payments or seize assets to cover payment. If there is no broker or the counterparty still has not paid the bill then the parties involved (the party to the trade and any intermediaries) can sue for breach of contract. If they win (which would be expected) the counterparty will be made to pay by the legal system including, but not limited to, seizure of assets, enforced bankruptcy, and prison terms for any contempts of court rulings. All of this holds for governments who refuse to pay derivatives losses (as Argentina did in the early 20th century) but in that case it may escalate as far as war. It has never done so for derivatives contracts as far as I know but other breaches of contract between countries have resulted in armed conflict. As well as the ""hard"" results of failing to pay there are soft implications including a guaranteed fall in credit ratings that will result in parties refusing to do business with the counterparty and a separate loss of reputation that will reduce business even further. Potential employees and funders will be unwilling to become involved with such a party and suppliers will be unwilling to supply on credit. The end result in almost every way would be bankruptcy and prison sentences for the party or their senior employees. Most jurisdictions allow for board members at companies in material breach of contract to be banned from running any company for a set period as well. edit: netting off cash flows netting off is a process whereby all of a party's cash flows, positive and negative, are used to pay each other off so that only the net change is reflected in account balances, for example: company 1 cash flows netting off the total outgoings are 3M + 500k = 3.5M and total incomings are 1.2M + 1.1M + 1.2M = 3.5M so the incoming cash flows can be used to pay the outgoing cash flows leaving a net payment into company1's account of 0."

"Especially when the anti-piracy campaigns try to guilt folks about ""stealing money from the artists"" - ads run by the folks who are far more guilty of doing exactly that.   Even the huge name bands make most of their money from concerts (though Ticketmaster is working on that). Why do you think the average multi-platinum career path includes ""create own record label""?"

"Wait, so if you have more money you get to follow ""unpopular rules""? That sounds even worse than what we have today.  And you didn't answer my question about how private courts and private security companies would be held accountable."

It matters because that is the requirement for the 83(b) selection to be valid. Since the context is 83(b) election, I assume you got stocks/options as compensation and didn't pay for them the FMV, thus it should have been included in your income for that year. If you didn't include the election letter - I can only guess that you also didn't include the income. Hence - you lost your election. If you did include the income and paid the tax accordingly, or if no tax was due (you actually paid the FMV), you may try amending the return and attaching the letter, but I'd suggest talking to a professional before doing it on your own. Make sure to keep a proof (USPS certified mailing receipt) of mailing the letter within the 30 days window.

Most cooperative banks are insured upto Rs 1,00,000/- .  It depends on what is the current status of the Bank and withdrawal of the funds would be based on the decision taken by the administrator. There maybe no interest payable, it would again be decided by the administrator.


Question: New company doesn't allow 401k deposits for 6 months, what to do with money I used to deposit?

$9000 over 6 months is great, I'd use it for long term savings regardless of the 401(k) situation. There's nothing wrong with a mix of pre and post tax money for retirement. In fact, it's a great way to avoid paying too much tax should your 401(k) withdrawals in retirement push you into a higher bracket. Just invest this as you would your other long term money.

Những nữ tiếp viên này bắt đầu công việc của họ bằng cách chờ đợi trong một phòng đặc biệt. Khi khách hàng cần, “má mì” sẽ đưa khách vào phòng đặc biệt này và bắt các “em út” đứng thẳng, xếp thành hai hàng cho khách thỏa mắt chọn lựa.

I think increasing funding to public colleges are an -okay- thing to do.  Certainly it is better than the current system which guarantees student loans to benefit the bankers.  So, we're talking about two different kinds of subsidies: one directly for schools and one for bankers.  While ideally, I'd like to see no government involvement whatsoever, I can compromise as long as bankers are bearing the full risk of their student loans.  The student loan system is what is bubbling up tuition prices, very similar to what happened in housing.

There was a market in medieval life but there were so many restrictions on it plus there were a lot of elements that undermined the market.  For one thing you were not free to pursue any line of work.  The Surfs were tied to the land and bound to surrender their work to the lords.  In the cities the guilds controlled who could work doing what.  So there was no free market for labor.  The Guilds also controlled prices so I wouldn't call it a free market in any sense.

STEM activities which mean Science Technology Engineering and Math are the entire buzz in education. Kids enjoy finding out how things work out through hands-on projects, fun and educators love knowing that they are also preparing their students for their tech future. In this program, participants of STEM For Kids program will learn and know how to make a basic computer programs & codes for games etc. Get more details on hands-on projects on STEM For Kids at: https://gamedesignsummitforkids.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/hands-on-projects-on-stem-for-kids-2/

"I read an account of why the U.K. didn't end up with the euro as its currency in David M. Smick's great book The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy. Chapter 6 of the book is titled ""Nothing Stays the Same: The 1992 Sterling Crisis.""  Here's a very brief excerpt; emphasis mine: [...] As this story shows, such   blindness to the realities of a   changing world can be very dangerous.   In this case, the result was the   brutal collapse of the British pound,   which explains why the British people still use their own currency, the   pound or sterling, and not the euro.   The events that unfolded in the autumn   of 1992 were totally unforeseen, yet   they reshaped the European monetary   world and represent a phenomenon that   continues to impact global economies. [...] Smick's account of the events around 1992 runs about 28 pages.  Here's my version, in a nutshell: At the time, Britain was part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, or ERM. The belief in Europe was that by uniting currencies under a common mechanism, Europe could gain influence in international financial policy largely dominated by the United States.  The ERM was a precursor to monetary union.  The Maastricht Treaty would eventually create the European Union and the euro. Britain joined the ERM later than other nations, in 1990, and after some controversy. Being part of the ERM required member nations to agree to expand and contract their currencies only within certain agreed upon limits called currency bands. Due to the way this had been structured, Germany's strong position placed it at the top of the system. At some point in 1992, Germany had raised interest rates to curb future inflation.  However, Britain wanted Germany to cut rates – Britain was not in as enviable a position, economically speaking, and its currency was under pressure.  The currency band system would put Britain in a tighter spot with Germany raising rates. Enter George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire, a.k.a. ""the man who broke the Bank of England.""  Soros took a huge short position against the Sterling. He believed the Sterling was overvalued relative to the German deutsche mark, and Britain would be forced to devalue its currency and realign with respect to the ERM.  Other traders followed and also sold the Sterling short. With much pressure on the currency, the Bank of England had to buy up Sterling in order to maintain its agreement under the ERM.  Of course, they needed to borrow other currencies to do this.  Soon the BoE was in over its head defending the Sterling, realizing the exchange rate it needed to maintain under the ERM simply wasn't sustainable. Britain was forced to withdraw from the ERM on Black Wednesday, September 16th, 1992. And so, Britain does not use the euro today – and any talk of doing so is politically controversial.  Therefore I wouldn't bet on Britain adopting the euro any time soon – too many of the players are still in politics and remember 1992 well.  I think if Britain adopting the euro is ever to happen, it will be when the memory of 1992 has faded away. BTW, George Soros made off with more than US$1 billion.  Soros is a very smart guy."

It sucks for them, but it sounds like they brought it on themselves. They didn't hire an attorney to correct their entirely misguided non-response to the problem, then proceeded to make every mistake in the noob book.  I 'kinda' feel sorry for them, even though they seemed to run their business in a completely unprofessional manner. If there's any truth in that rambling story, it sounds like they've managed to work themselves into an 'impossible to win' position.

Paying on time is the most critical factor. Paying ahead on the loan will not help you from a credit score POV, but it will not hurt you either. In general, to maintain a good credit history, don't bother focusing on credit scores. Frankly, there is very little reason for you to even know what your score is. Just do the following: Lenders want to deal with people with long histories of paying debts back on time.


Question: Will a Barclaycard Visa help me in building up credit score?

Payment history is probably the most significant contributor to your credit score.  Having a solid history of making, at least the minimum, payments on time will have a positive impact on your credit score.  Whether or not this specific transaction means anything to that equation is up for debate.   If you have no credit lines now and 0% for 18 months on a computer makes sense to you, then yes, making this purchase this way and paying on time will have a positive impact on your credit score.  Paying interest doesn't help your credit score.  Repay this computer before the 18 month period ends, then be sure to pay your balance in full every month thereafter.

I have read this at least a dozen times, and watched several documentaries on it, but this is the clearest explanation yet. Thank you.  I had not really considered the possibility that the fed is not the evil monster it's usually frame as before. Now I'm not sure how bad it is due to these conflicting viewpoints. The worst case I have heard against it (repeatedly) is that it's a privately owned corporation. And that it's for-profit. What is that about?

Please post your comment to my blog's comment section where it is more accessible to those who are interested in this specific topic and our discussion.  I will respond over there later today when I am finished work. Thanks!

Are you just turning in applications? Are you cold calling/emailing and trying to get a hold of managers and finding out about positions? Have you sent any cover letters to people?   Also, does your resume look aesthetically pleasing and is well organized? Are your skills highlighted well?  I feel like it can be pretty tough to get a job if you didn't get one right out of school.

"As an investor, I try to interpret the suits as an attempt to in some way influence the actions of the company - and not, usually, as a serious legal threat (or as likely to lead to serious legal consequences). My (shallow) understanding (as a non-lawyer) is that the requirements for a lawsuit to be filed as class-action suit are (relatively speaking) easier to meet when the company is publicly traded - the shareholders are more easily described as a ""class"". So it's more common for lawsuits that involve stock holders for large, publicly traded companies to be registered as class action suits. Class action suits include a requirement for some advertising and notifications (so all members of the class become aware of the suit, and can decide whether to participate). So, these types of suits can be started with various goals in mind, goals which might be achieved without the suit ever going anywhere - including to gain some publicity for a particular point of view, or to put pressure on the company to perform particular actions. In most cases, though, they are the result of misunderstandings between the various parties with an interest in how the company is run - shareholders, directors and/or executive officers. For most cases, the result of the suit is a more in depth sharing of information between the parties involved, and possibly a change in the plans/actions of the company; the legal technicalities differ from case to case, and, often, the legal consequences are minor."

Check your calculation of A**. I was able to duplicate their calculations using excel. Make you sure have accounted for all the terms, it can be easy to be one off. They are making a guess at the interest rate which will be wrong, then they are adjusting it to see how wrong it is, then making another adjustment. They will repeat until they see no movement in the guesses.

"no, good questions my friend.  when did you do this rollover? if it was this year, your firm should have forms that you can fill out to ""undo"" the roth conversion - only earnings on your investments will be taxed, and everything gets rolled over to a traditional IRA. not fun for tax filing but...  you can also leave them as is and pay the taxes (usually only a good option if it's a low income year for the filer).  i would consult your tax advisor regardless in this situation."

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Question: Merchant dispute with airline over missed flight, and which credit cards offer protection?

You have no grounds for a refund. The flight took off on time, and you chose not to be on board. The fact that the airline could not guarantee ahead of time that the flight would leave on time is not relevant. You can certainly try to dispute the charge with the airline, and it sounds like you have done so. The airline correctly indicates that your dispute is unfounded. You can call up your credit card company and explain the situation, and they may accept your dispute. However, I am not aware of any credit card that would reimburse you (that is, issue a chargeback) in this situation. I'm not trying to be unsympathetic. It sucks that you felt you could not rely on the airline, and are now out some money. Fundamentally, though, this was your choice. The airline would be obligated to reimburse you the cost of your flight, or book you on another flight, if the flight was cancelled due to bad weather or other issues, but they owe you nothing if the flight took off on schedule.

I know this can be confusing because you tend to think of money being worth the face value. So let's eliminate that for the sake of an example that will be easier to understand. Let's say your friend loaned you rock worth $10 today. He expects you to pay him back an identical rock whenever you can. Now let's also assume that historically the price of rocks tends to go down every year. At some point you will need to buy a rock to pay your friend back. Because they keep getting cheaper, it costs less to buy the payback rock the longer you wait. Replace a dollar with a rock in the example and you have your answer. This is known as the time value of money. In reality, this is priced into the loan (via the interest rate) because the lender very much understands the math going on here. Also, it is more complicated because the longer you delay payment the more interest you pay (pebbles if you will) so it doesn't usually work to your advantage unless they underpriced the loan's interest rate.

Yes, orders like this are very possible.  There are nearly endless possibilities for structuring a trade.  It all comes down to whether you have the money to make the trade at the find you find a counterparty.  If you don't, the order is cancelled. Trades like this happen all day long at Goldman, BAML, Merril, UBS, etc.  And on eBay.

You can either write it off or pursue it. If you write it off I wouldn't do business with the client again, until they bring their balance owed to you back to zero.  If you pursue it, try to reach out to the client and find out why they are not paying what they owe you and try to work out a deal with them if they seem negotiable. If they aren't negotiable then you could take the issue to court, but you'll only be proving a point by then.

In Singapore, this is sufficiently common that the Singapore IRS has a page on their website dedicated to informing employers of how to properly pay this under Responsibilites of an Employer.   Specifically, tax paid by employer is taxable income for the employee (as it's really the employee's responsibility), so they must pay tax for that tax.  A tax-on-tax is computed for the tax paid, which also would be owed by the employer if they were paying the full tax rate for the employee. As a clarification, this is not the employer being truly responsible for the employee's income; this is the employer compensating the employee further to offset their taxable income.  This is effectively a fringe benefit, although it may be particularly useful in countries where either tax evasion is common (and thus an employer must compete with employers willing to pay under the table) or where employers are competing with others in nearby countries with lower tax rates.  It is not the same thing as the employer making your income nontaxable, though, and has implications for your tax filing. Significantly, it is likely that if you have additional income beyond income from that employer, it is likely to be taxed at your highest tax rate, as the employer will likely calculate the tax due based on their income being the only income you have in that year. *Edit based on emphasis in question: I'm not from Singapore nor am I a lawyer, but based on my reading of the IRAS website, it looks like you do not have to file if you have no other source of income, because they have a No-Filing Service which takes income information from your employer automatically and generates a tax bill, which presumably would be fully paid in your case.  This only aplies if you have no other sources of income, however; you still have to file if you have other sources of income since your employer would not know about them. If you are eligible for this service, you should get a letter informing you as such.  They also have a tool to check your filing status on their website.

"Pay it off. If necessary, get a loan so you can pay it off; that's what refinancing is all about and your favorite bank or credit union would be happy to help you with this. If that isn't sufficient to make the car affordable you may need to sell it, take the loss, and learn from the experience. Sorry, but you made an agreement and it's up to you to find a way to meet your end of the bargain. (If you had decided you didn't like this loan within a few days of signing, you might have been able to back out under ""cooling off period"" laws. But those only allow a very limited time for reconsideration.)"

Because it's the longest running bull market in history. And the recent surge is based on speculation that taxes will be lowered and regulations will be lifted. I don't think either will happen. The republican agenda is basically done until 2018. They've wasted all their political capital on the healthcare debacle and the Russia investigation.

">""You didn't lose your job, you just had temporary employment.""  Same as back in the late 1990's (when unemployment was really low) -- a lot of people got jobs they really weren't qualified for; and were paid far more (at least on a scale relative to their co-workers) than they were really worth.  The sad thing about that is that they came to *believe* they were truly worth that amount of money.  The same with houses.  My home (bought in late 2000) increased in ""estimated market value"" by 75% (i.e. to 175% of it's previous sale price when I bought it) -- and the ""bubble"" around here wasn't anything like it was in other regions of the US; and of course, now it has (ostensibly) sunk back down to very nearly the price I paid for it.  The problem (for a LOT of people) with that is that -- even if they didn't buy during the peak bubble years -- they refinanced or HELOC'd based on that higher estimated value, and so ended up basically removing (and then spending) the lion's share of equity that they had built up in their house.  For others, it was much the same as the late 90's employment -- they came to ""believe"" that their house was worth XX% more -- and they have difficulty ""letting go"" of that illusory estimated market price.  So they are experiencing the ""wealth LOSS effect"" just as they once experienced a ""wealth effect"".  I was saved from those things because:   a) I realized that the price of houses is always ""at the margin"", and is never guaranteed by what the place cost, or what you have invested in it, or even what the owner or mortgage company *thought* it was worth; rather (when you go to sell) it will be determined by what the buyer(s) want/are capable of paying;   b) I was far more concerned with what my ""total cost of buying"" would be (including all of the interest paid on the mortgage) -- this led me to first of all only buy what I ""needed"" in a house (i.e. single guy = small place) and secondly to pay the whole thing off ASAP (which I did, *dramatically* lowering the total lifetime cost of the place);   And finally and probably MOST IMPORTANTLY (though in part due to ""b"" above):  c) It doesn't really matter to me whether the price goes up or down -- because I know that I will always need a place to live and that (generally speaking, due to overall market conditions) the prices of ALL houses will tend to go up/down together -- and though not necessarily in ""lock-step"" (there are always factors of neighborhood, local economy, housing trends, etc.); but still, should I desire to move, I will essentially be able to ""trade"" my house for a similar one in a similar market with only a small (6% to 10%) cost.  d) But I also know that if I move ""up market"" (attempt to move to an area/house that has a relatively higher demand/higher price) that I will then have to pay more or get an even smaller place (smaller home, less land, no garage/shop, etc); yet conversely if I for some reason decide to move ""down market"" (to an area/house with a relatively lower demand/price) I may be able to either pay less, or to get slightly *more* ""house"" (additional land, outbuildings, etc).  Note: I also took into account ""demographic changes"" when I bought -- and think I made the right choice (even though it hasn't ""played out"" yet) -- with the typical household actually becoming *smaller* (divorces, single parents, fewer kids, more retirees wanting to downsize, etc) I figured way back in 2000 that in 15-20-30 years (circa 2015..2045) the big ""McMansions"" would be aging and in huge oversupply, whereas smaller homes would be in relatively higher demand (and given things like ""smart growth planning"") probably in lesser supply... and so would be more likely to retain value.  Again, this hasn't ""played out"" yet (though there definitely ARE signs that it is starting), but I am also really not interested in selling... so it's a moot point at present. (And even if I am proved wrong, it will probably merely prove to be the loss of an ""upside"" and not an actual loss per se.)"


Question: Why does it take 3 days to do electronic transfers between banks? [duplicate]

"I was perplexed by this until a few days ago when it finally clicked in a meeting with our fraud and money laundering teams in work (I work on trading surveillance). Apparently fraud detection and prevention of money laundering are currently the biggest delayers when it comes to electronic transfer of funds, checking that the transferring party has the funds to transfer etc. takes no time at all. It takes some time for a bank user to ""release"" a funds transfer; once it has been initiated it is put into a queue to be reviewed as potentially fraudulent or money laundering activity. Almost every transaction has to be monitored for this from a legal standpoint. The compliance process can take multiple days. Once the process is complete the request also has to go through ""settling"" which is an end of day process whereby banks ""net off"" their customers' transactions with other banks and only pass the net value between them. This is an end of day process by nature so only happens once a day meaning that once all of the checks have occurred any transaction will take until the end of the day to crystallise for the bank and so get credited to their customers' accounts. Incidentally in the UK and Europe banks are moving to streamline this process through ""faster payment"" systems (that is the industry term for the technology) so that customers see the effect within a few hours (2 in the UK currently) and then the banks net off at the end of day as usual. This means reducing the time it takes to do the checks that have to be done using specialist software to flag transfers as potentially fraudulent or not and making banks' processes much clearer and faster."

You're certainly still responsible to pay what you owe the company given that: 1. for whatever reason, the recipient never received the checks. and 2. the money was credited back to you, albeit in a less than timely manner. However, if you take the time to explain the situation to the business, and show them proof that you sent the payments I would guess they would probably be willing to work with you on removing any late fees you have been assessed or possibly setting up a payment plan. Also, if you have been charged any overdraft or minimum balance fees by your bank while they held your money for the payments that was eventually credited back to your account, you might be able to get them to refund those if you explain what has happened. This is really a perfect example though of why balancing your checking account is as important today as it ever was.

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The mechanism is allowing insertion of 3 butyl rubber seals in the window between the frame and the opening sash. It has an external seal, mid window, and inner seal. Due to its constructional make-up many non-tilt turn manufacturers are limited to one or two seals.

Washington State doesn't have a state income tax for individuals, so unless you've got a business there's nothing to file. Find out more on their website.

What will this mean for of Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile USA which are prepaid MVOs that Sprint now owns?  I love my current setup and would hate to have to leave if prices keep going up or (cellular\data) service keeps going down.

Okay. Think this through. There's an average of 4 people working in a  McDonalds kitchen at one time. How many burgers would they have to sell every hour in order to (a) pay for the ingredients, power and rent on the building and (b) pay 60 (15*4 workers) dollars per hour?

"Here's what's going to happen: At the last minute, he's going to ""discover"" that for some reason first you must send him $10,000.  He'll tell you not to worry, as he's still going to send you $40,000... now $50,000. In fact, he's going to tell you that he'll send you $60,000 and tell you to keep the $10,000 as a ""finders fee"". Then you will send him, $10,000 and he will walk away with your $10,000.  You'll never hear from him again. This is a very common scam. The best way to avoid it is not to tell him you won't do it for IRS reasons. The best thing to do is to stop accepting email from him and (optionally) report him to law enforcement."


Question: Why most of apple stock price since 10years have been gained overnight?

"I'll answer this question: ""Why do intraday traders close their position at then end of day while most gains can be done overnight (buy just before the market close and sell just after it opens). Is this observation true for other companies or is it specific to apple ?"" Intraday traders often trade shares of a company using intraday leverage provided by their firm. For every $5000 dollars they actually have, they may be trading with $100,000, 20:1 leverage as an example. Since a stock can also decrease in value, substantially, while the markets are closed, intraday traders are not allowed to keep their highly leveraged positions opened. Probabilities fail in a random walk scenario, and only one failure can bankrupt you and the firm."

Name one country that spend that much money in such short period to get out of recession.  You have to find some sub-saharan despot to match the number.  (no. japan ain't it. considering the massive surplus current account and trade balance.)  https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/current-account  https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/current-account

I'm not an extremist, I have rational normal delusional thoughts with no basis in reality that has me do things like cut off the tip of my sons penis at birth because I dont know why LOL, I'm normal!

One of the most time-consuming activities performed in the Finance function involves the processing, categorisation and cost allocations of expenditure items. In a larger department this is a regular process requiring dedicated staff, and increases in intensity at period end, when it can often absorb additional resource.  The key objective of this process for the business is a fair and correct distribution of expense allocations for each business unit, so that true costs may be recorded and profitability accurately assessed. It is also important to be able to compare actual expense allocations with budgeted values, on a monthly and year-to-date basis, in order to spot issues and trends early and to support efficient cost control. https://www.accountagility.com/solutions/cost-allocation-and-expense-allocation/

A single percentage figure makes little sense here as you are asking for a bunch of different things:

There was a study last year -- it was all over the news -- that concluded that experiences, not stuff, is what makes people happy. The satisfaction from going on vacation lasts even after the holiday is long over. That new gadget only gives fleeting satisfaction. To that end, I recommend splurging on the affordable luxuries that give you a better experience. For example, I'm a big believer in paying the skycap a few dollars to check my bags at the curb rather than wait in line at the airport because I HATE airports. Valet parking is another affordable luxury when the alternative is circling a busy parking lot for 15 minutes. Pay for the better seats at the show. Get a room at the nicer hotel. Eat out a bit more often. I can't imagine willingly spending hours with customer support, though. They can have my $5.

The Medicare deduction you see is a tax, not a monthly premium you are paying for your own Medicare coverage.

Does any investor seek a specific short investing strategy? I think most people who fork their money over to money managers don't understand a whole lot about markets.  The S&P is a good bench because it shows how you could just shove your money into an ETF for 6.96% real gains/annually. It's a great comparison.