Question: When's 0% financing the least costly (best) option?

A Lease is an entirely different way of getting a car. In two situations it makes sense, in all other scenarios it generally doesn't make sense to lease. In the case of always wanting a new car every 2 or 3 years it can make sense to lease. Of course if you drive more the allowed miles you will pay extra at the end of the lease. If you can take the monthly lease as a business expense leasing makes sense. Otherwise you want to pay cash, or get financing. Does zero percent make sense? Sometimes. The only way to make sense of the numbers is to start with your bank, have them approve of the loan first. Then armed with the maximum loan amount they will give you and the rate and the length of the loan, then visit the dealer. You have to run the numbers for your situation. It depends on your income, your other expenses, your credit score, your bank, what deal the dealership is running, how much you have for a down payment. Here is an example. For a recent loan situation I saw: 36 months, 1.49% rate, 20K loan, total interest paid: ~$466. Armed with that information can the person get a better deal at the dealership? There was only one way to find out. In that case the credit union was better. The rebate was larger than the interest paid.

"Simplistic yes, but are you seriously saying ""plenty of bankers were laid off"", even comes close to comparing percentage wise to the percent layoffs of the general workforce?  I would not say that, and that is my simplistic view."

You could rent it out to hunters, or a charge a fee for camping on it. If you log it, you can often get Federal assistance in paying for replanting. You can also get certifications that your timber is being grown and harvested sustainably, making future timber more valuable, while minimizing the environmental impacts of harvesting on the property.  You also may be able to get mitigation credits for restoring and maintaining the land. The credits can be sold to developers in the same watershed to cover the taxes.

blockchain technology does not seem to be the focal point in their startup, which usually should be when there is an ICO. A lot of the things that they say blockchain could enable them to do, could be done with a centralised database. They have a pretty experienced team in real estate though , it looks like they are using the ICO simply as an easy method of raising capital than having an innovative use of the blockchain token

Is the growth sustainable at the company you're currently at?  Did you have a hand in driving a success metric at your company (either by bringing in more clients, or bigger clients than the other guy)? If so, point it out and ask for a raise before you leave.  If you leave would you be able to mimic the success you've had direct contribution to at your current position to success at the other one? If so, leverage that and the raise you asked for into higher pay at the next stop.

Well I found out the hard way one way Best Buy might not be getting enough business:  they don't open until 1000.  Other stores in my area open either 0800 or 0900.  Granted Best Buy may have other problems, but now I don't even think of them when I need an item that morning for a job (electronic installations) because of those hours.

"If you were making that large of a payment (via a cashiers check or other   withdrawal means from a cash account)   to a credit card, would the payment   generate a Cash Transaction Report? Probably, yes. If it does require the bank to make a CTR, then is there any harm in   that or anything to be concerned about   (like that transaction appearing   suspicious, personal reporting   implications, etc.)? Are there any   other reasons why one might want to   make sure payments to a credit card   are broken up made* in amounts smaller   than $10K? You should be concerned if you cannot explain the source of the money (legally...). If you withdrew cash from your own account and paid your credit card with it, in case of questions asked you can show the account statement with the matching withdrawal, and you're done. The point in this report is to point at people who move around large amounts of cash. Usually, people pay credit cards with checks or ACH transactions, but if you want cash - it's your right, as long as the cash was obtained legally. But if you're paying your credit cards off with the cash you got as a bribe or by selling cocaine on the streets, then you should be worried. By the way, breaking into smaller payments may not save you from being reported to the money laundering detection agencies. The report is per transaction, not per payment, so if the credit card statement is $11K and you pay $5K and $6K - the transaction is still $11K. Also, the bank can file a report even if it is not required (it was clarified in the other answer to the same question you're referring to), if the clerk thinks the transaction is suspicious. This leaves the decision on filing a report solely on the banks ""common sense"" and internal policies which you don't know. So even paying $10 in cash may trigger a report if the bank suspects wrongdoing."

"not all employers went through that. much of that is often inherited. and otherwise, thats a terrible way of reasoning, you should seek to make the path of those who follow you easier than it was when you had the same. the ""i got mine"" mentality is a plague."


Question: Is it smarter to buy a small amount of an ETF every 2 or 3 months, instead of monthly?

I personally invest in 4 different ETFs.  I have $1000 to invest every month.  To save on transaction costs, I invest that sum in only one ETF each month, the one that is most underweight at the time. For example, I invest in XIC (30%), VTI (30%), VEA (30%), and VWO (10%).  One month, I'll buy XIC, next month VTA, next month, VEA, then XIC again.  Eventually I'll buy VWO when it's $1000 underweight.  If one ETF tanks, I may buy it twice in a row to reach my target allocation, or if it shoots up, I may skip buying it for a while.  My actual asset allocation never ends up looking exactly like the target, but it trends towards it.  And I only pay one commission a month. If this is in a tax-sheltered account (main TFSA or RRSP), another option is to invest in no-load index mutual funds that match the ETFs each month (assuming there's no commission to buy them).  Once they reach a certain amount, sell and buy the equivalent ETFs.  This is not a good approach in a non-registered account because you will have to pay tax on any capital gains when selling the mutual funds.

Whenever you put less than 20% down, you are usually required to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI) to protect the lender in case you default on your loan.  You pay this until you reach 20% equity in your home.  Check out an amortization calculator to see how long that would take you.  Most schedules have you paying more interest at the start of your loan and less principal.  PMI gets you nothing - no interest or principal paid - it's throwing money away in a very real sense (more in this answer).  Still, if you want to do it, make sure to add PMI to the cost per month. It is also possible to get two mortgages, one for your 20% down payment and one for the 80%, and avoid PMI.  Lenders are fairly cautious about doing that right now given the housing crash, but you may be able to find one who will let you do the two mortgages.  This will raise your monthly payment in its own way, of course. Also remember to factor in the costs of home ownership into your calculations.  Check the county or city website to figure out the property tax on that home, divide by twelve, and add that number to your payment.  Estimate your homeowners insurance (of course you get to drop renters insurance, so make sure to calculate that on the renting side of the costs) and divide the yearly cost by 12 and add that in.  Most importantly, add 1-2% of the value of the house yearly for maintenance and repair costs to your budget.  All those costs are going to eat away at your 3-400 a little bit.  So you've got to save about $70 a month towards repairs, etc. for the case of every 10-50 years when you need a new roof and so on. Many experts suggest having the maintenance money in savings on top of your emergency fund from day one of ownership in case your water heater suddenly dies or your roof starts leaking.  Make sure you've also estimated closing costs on this house, or that the seller will pay your costs.  Otherwise you loose part of that from your down payment or other savings. Once you add up all those numbers you can figure out if buying is a good proposition.  With the plan to stay put for five years, it sounds like it truly might be.  I'm not arguing against it, just laying out all the factors for you. The NYT Rent Versus Buy calculator lays out most of these items in terms of renting or buying, and might help you make that decision. EDIT: As Tim noted in the comments below, real monthly cost should take into account deductions from mortgage interest and property tax paid.  This calculator can help you figure that out.  This question will be one to watch for answers on how to calculate cost and return on home buying, with the answer by mbhunter being an important qualification

"I have a client who is a janitor, makes over 100k. This is a fact. NYC not being ""typical"" is the whole point. Cost of living is much higher but still get lumped in with everyone else when they make these arbitrary income cutoffs for things."

True. Pat Quinn tried hard and got no where....and Rauner is having the same issue. This isn't going to be fixed by a governor, it needs proper leadership within the ILGA. Or, stating as a Democratic voter myself, there needs to be more Republicans in the ILGA.

> The simple undeniable truth is that the Jews are at the root cause of all strife and misery and terrorism in the world today.  Never mind terrorism by Jews, it's much worse them using blood from gentile children for their rituals.

Yes, it's completely normal to buy (and sell) puts and other options without holding the underlying.  However, every (US) brokerage I know of only permits this within a margin account.  I don't know why...probably a legal reason.  You don't actually have to use the margin in a margin account.  If you want to trade options, though, you will need a margin account.

Productivity *can* increase, but it doesn't have to. Productivity can remain the same but if you've got two people competing for one job they bid wages lower since even a lower wage is better (up to a point in welfare state) to no wage at all. It's why so many jobs went to southeast Asia, they bid a wage lower than their competitors on the international market and the jobs migrated to them. Now that they're bidding their wages up that no longer applies to the same extent it once did (and it's why, for example, [Google built their new manufacturing plant in the US](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give-manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)).

"The new Tesla car with exchangeable battery means that the battery is not owned by you. How can the batteries owned (and paid) by you if every time you exchange them with batteries of unknown past, owners and quality?  If you want to insist to own your batteries and charge them at home, then, yes, you will have to pay for your set of batteries, but then why would you exchange YOUR batteries for another set with unknown past and owners?  Let me explain it in a different way: Nobody pays their share of the cost of the expensive Electric infrastructure needed to supply their home with electricity. You just pay as you consume. Yes, part of what you pay is to cover the costs of the infrastructure, but big consumers of electricity (factories and businesses) covered much more of that than the individual home owner.  Yes, electric car batteries are expensive but you don't need to pay for them if the arrangement is ""pay as you go"".  With conventional car, would you like to pay $1000s of Dollars for huge tank and fill it with gas, so you don't have to ""pay as you go""?  Also, if we exchange batteries as we go, we don't need such expensive batteries. They can be cheaper (not cheapest) batteries that have less range."


Question: Can the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) itself go bankrupt?

"SIPC is a corporation - a legal entity separate from its owners. In the case of SIPC, it is funded through the fees paid by its members. All the US brokers are required to be members and to contribute to SIPC funds. Can it go bankrupt? Of course. Any legal entity can go bankrupt. A person can go bankrupt. A country can go bankrupt. And so can anything in between. However, looking at the history of things, there are certain assumptions that can be made. These are mere guesses, as there's no law about any of these things (to the best of my knowledge), but seeing how things were - we can try and guess that they will also be like this in the future. I would guess, that in case of a problem for the SIPC to meet its obligation, any of the following would happen (or combinations): Too big to fail - large insurance companies had been bailed out before by the governments since it was considered that their failure would be more destructive to the economy than the bailout. AIG as an example in the US. SIPC is in essence is an insurance company. So is Lloyd's of London. Breach of trust of the individual investors that can lead to a significant market crash. That's what happened in the US to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They're now ""officially"" backed by the US government. If SIPC is incapable of meeting its obligation, I would definitely expect the US government to step in, even though there's no such obligation. Raising funds through charging other members. If the actuary calculations were incorrect, the insurance companies adjust them and raise premiums. That is what should happen in this case as well. While may not necessarily solve a cashflow issue, in the long term it will allow SIPC to balance, so that bridge loans (from the US government/Feds/public bonds) could be used in between. Not meeting obligations, i.e.: bankruptcy. That is an option, and insurance companies have gone bankrupt before. Not unheard of, but from the past experience - again, I'd expect the US government to step in. In general, I don't see any significant difference between SIPC in the US and a ""generic"" insurance coverage elsewhere. Except that in the US SIPC is mandatory, well regulated, and the coverage is uniform across brokerages, which is a benefit to the consumer."

the spite machine thinks capitalism determines the best price for society or whatever people think society should be.  People seem to be confused, without regulatory authority, if there's an extra dollar to be made, capitalism will go for it.  The same can be said of things such as letting 1000 people die or getting tax breaks. If they're economically equivelent choices, capitalism will just flip a coin.

Questions regarding loans, refinancing, mortgages, credit cards, investing and anything else that may be related to personal finance should be directed towards the subreddit r/personalfinance. We have provided the link to that subreddit below.   [---->  Over there on the sidebar.](http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/) Jus' say'in.

"You make it look like the US is the leader in import taxes on vehicles. According to this [source](http://www.caranddriver.com/features/free-trade-cars-why-a-useurope-free-trade-agreement-is-a-good-idea-feature), ""The standard tariff for importing cars to the U.S. is 2.5 percent of their value. For pickup trucks and commercial vans, the tariff is a whopping 25 percent. Individual European countries don’t charge import duties, but the European Union charges a flat rate of 10 percent on imported automobiles.""  When Trump says the US has been screwed over in their trade deals, he's not (always) talking out of his ass."

Yup. I know a lot of people who said they'd vote for Sanders, but then didn't vote Democrat when Clinton won the primary (whether than meant voting third party, voting Trump or not voting at all). It was not some last minute impulse by these people to do this as Clinton seems to be making it out to be, it was a long held belief.

I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:  - [/r/talkbusiness] [How much of an equity gap should Co-founders starting at same time have? (If any gap at all).](https://np.reddit.com/r/talkbusiness/comments/7897ih/how_much_of_an_equity_gap_should_cofounders/)  [](#footer)*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*  [](#bot)

Frederic Mishkin wrote a few text books on financial concepts that are widely used in colleges.  If you're not looking for a textbook - I'd really recommend Khan Academy on YouTube.  He's got some great videos on supply and demand - bonds, exchange rates - monetary policy by the federal reserve. All academically sound. They're very easy to digest and watch over again for reference.

There is more than a single reason why TVIX loses value over time. Futures curve. VIX is always expected to trend up when under 20(although this could change in the future). This means 1 month away futures contracts are bought at a premium closer to 20. If the .VIX stayed flat at 15, by the end of the month, that contract is only worth about 15. meaning you lost 25%. This affects all VIX ETFs and makes inverse VIX ETFs attractive to hold(if you don't mind your account blowing up periodically). Leverage decay. if VIX goes down 25% two consecutive days, your x2 ETF(TVIX, UVXY) goes down 75%. Even if it doubled back to yesterday's value next day, you'd still be 25% down. ETF funding costs. The fund managers take some money from the pot every day.


Question: Forex vs day trading for beginner investor

Forex vs Day Trading: These can be one and the same, as most people who trade forex do it as day trading. Forex is the instrument you are trading and day trading is the time frame you are doing it in. If your meaning from your question was comparing trading forex vs stocks, then it depends on a number of things. Forex is more liquid so most professional traders prefer it as it can be easier to get in and out without being gapped. However, if you are not trading large amounts of money and you stay away from more volatile stocks, this should not matter too much. It may also depend on what you understand more and prefer to trade. You need to be comfortable with what you are trading. If on the other hand you are referring to day trading vs longer term trading and/or investing, then this can depend largely on the instrument you are trading and the time frame you are more comfortable with. Forex is used more for shorter term trading, from day trading to having a position open for a couple of days. Stocks on the other hand can be day traded to traded over days, weeks, months or years. It is much more common to have positions open for longer periods with stocks. Other instruments like commodities, can also be traded over different time frames. The shorter the time frame you trade the higher risk involved as you have to make quick decisions and be happy with making a lot of smaller gains with the potential to make a large loss if things go wrong. It is best once again to chose a time frame you are comfortable with. I tend to trade Australian stocks as I know them well and am comfortable with them. I usually trade in the medium to long term, however I let the market decide how long I am in a position and when I get out of it. I try to follow the trend and stay in a position as long as the trend continues. I put automatic stop losses on all my positions, so if the market turns against me I am automatically taken out. I can be in a position for as little as a day (can happen if I buy one day and the next day the stock falls by 15% or more) to over a year (as long as the trend continues). By doing this I avoid the daily market noise and let my profits run and keep my losses small. No matter what instrument you end up trading and the time frame you choose to trade in, you should always have a tested trading plan and a risk management strategy in place. These are the areas you should first gain knowledge in to further your pursuits in trading.

"Articles like this are the reason why nothing will ever change. Accusing Walmart of ""refusing"" to raise wages and ""abusing"" its employees is what you say when you're a small time blogger that just wants hits."

Sorry, I don't think a bounty is the issue here. You seem to understand LTV means the bank you are talking to will lend you 60% of the value of the home you wish to purchase. You can't take the dollars calculated and simply buy a smaller house.  To keep the numbers simple, you can get a $600K mortgage on a $1M house. That's it. You can get a $540K mortgage on a $900K house, etc.  Now, 60% LTV is pretty low. It might be what I'd expect for rental property or for someone with bad or very young credit history. The question and path you're on need to change. You should understand that the 'normal' LTV is 80%, and for extra cost, in the form of PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) you can even go higher. As an agent, I just sold a home to a buyer who paid 3% down.  The way you originally asked the question has a simple answer. You can't do what you're asking.

I stock is only worth what someone will pay for it.  If you want to sell it you will get market price which is the bid.

I wouldn't use it to take leverage unless you don't mind loosing your entire investment (this is a possibility as shares are already quite volatile). However, you don't have to take leverage and still trade CFDs. Benefits of doing so: Disadvantages:

Most UK stock brokers don't require or allow margin trading.  A quick web search for 'UK share dealing comparison' shows entries from money.co.uk and moneysupermarket.com who both provide lists of different brokers, e.g. Barclays, Hargraves Lansdown, IG Share Dealing, The Share Centre, TD Direct, Interactive Investor, YouInvest, etc. Some of the UK banks also provide a share dealing service, from quickly looking at their websites, Barclays, HSBC and Halifax all appear to provide share dealing services.

It would make their garbage look better as compared to other sovereigns, they will re-bundle the toxic assets it into some crap alphabets and try to make them look as good as Treasuries and sell them. Hence the synchronous downgrades of China, Hongkong, Britain

Unless this would have resulted in hurting other people (eg toxic spills) y'all should have called in sick. Fuck the company that allowed thus to happen. Care to tell Ys which one is it so those who want can boycott its products if possible?


Question: How do I screen for stocks that are near to their 52 weeks low

There is a great 3rd party application out there that I use (I am a broker) along with my internal analysts and other 3rd party sources.  VectorVest has a LOT of technical information, but is very easy to use.  It will run any kind of screen you like, including low 52 week numbers.  (No, I don't get anything for recommending them.)

Well, I can tell you that most of the executive staff at GoDaddy don't even live in Phoenix where HQ is.  They fly in sometime on Monday (some on Sunday, to be fair) and then work until sometime late Thursday and fly home.  Long weekends, every weekend.  The rest of us (when I worked there) enjoyed our quiet Mondays and Fridays.

"I signed the checks ""JoeTaxpayer, parent"" and never had an issue with my bank. Note, I am in the US, and my experience may just be with my particular bank."

How about a serious update, the place hasnt changed much since I was in 2nd grade and I'm 34 now. With global warming and the way our oceans are threatened you could see the highest yoy growth ever. C'mon get with the times, tell us about the sea!

I have about $1K in savings, and have been told that you should get into investment and saving for retirement early. I make around $200 per week, which about $150 goes into savings. That's $10k per year.  The general rule of thumb is that you should have six months income as an emergency fund.  So your savings should be around $5k.  Build that first.   Some argue that the standard should be six months of living expenses rather than income.  Personally, I think that this example is exactly why it is income rather than living expenses.  Six months of living expenses in this case would only be $1250, which won't pay for much.  And note that living expenses can only be calculated after the fact.  If your estimate of $50 a week is overly optimistic, you might not notice for months (until some large living expense pops up).   Another problem with using living expenses as the measure is that if you hold down your living expenses to maximize your savings, this helps both measures.  Then you hit your savings target, and your living expenses increase.  So you need more savings.  By contrast, if your income increases but your living expenses do not, you still need more savings but you can also save more money.  Doesn't really change the basic analysis though.  Either way you have an emergency savings target that you should hit before starting your retirement savings.   If you save $150 per week, then you should have around $4k in savings at the beginning of next year.  That's still low for an emergency fund by the income standard.  So you probably shouldn't invest next year.  With a living expenses standard, you could have $6250 in savings by April 15th (deadline for an IRA contribution that appears in the previous tax year).  That's $5000 more than the $1250 emergency fund, so you could afford an IRA (probably a Roth) that year.   If you save $7500 next year and start with $4k in savings (under the income standard for emergency savings), that would leave you with $11,500.  Take $5500 of that and invest in an IRA, probably a Roth.  After that, you could make a $100 deposit per week for the next year.  Or just wait until the end.   If you invested in an IRA the previous year because you decided use the living expenses standard, you would only have $6500 at the end of the year.  If you wait until you have $6750, you could max out your IRA contribution.  At that point, your excess income for each year would be larger than the maximum IRA contribution, so you could max it out until your circumstances change.   If you don't actually save $3k this year and $7500 next year, don't sweat it.  A college education is enough of an investment at your age.  Do that first, then emergency savings, then retirement.   That will flip around once you get a better paying, long term job.  Then you should include retirement savings as an expected cost.  So you'd pay the minimum required for your education loans and other required living expenses, then dedicate an amount for retirement savings, then build your emergency savings, then pay off your education loans (above the minimum payment).  This is where it can pay to use the more aggressive living expenses standard, as that allows you to pay off your education loans faster.   I would invest retirement savings in a nice, diversified index fund (or two since maintaining the correct stock/bond mix of 70%-75% stocks is less risky than investing in just bonds much less just stocks).  Investing in individual stocks is something you should do with excess money that you can afford to lose.  Secure your retirement first.  Then stock investments are gravy if they pan out.  If they don't, you're still all right.  But if they do, you can make bigger decisions, e.g. buying a house.   Realize that buying individual stocks is about more than just buying an app.  You have to both check the fundamentals (which the app can help you do) and find other reasons to buy a stock.  If you rely on an app, then you're essentially joining everyone else using that app.  You'll make the same profit as everyone else, which won't be much because you all share the profit opportunities with the app's system.  If you want to use someone else's system, stick with mutual funds.  The app system is actually more dangerous in the long term.   Early in the app's life cycle, its system can produce positive returns because a small number of people are sharing the benefits of that system.  As more people adopt it though, the total possible returns stay the same.  At some point, users saturate the app.  All the possible returns are realized.  Then users are competing with each other for returns.  The per user returns will shrink as usage grows.   If you have your own system, then you are competing with fewer people for the returns from it.  Share the fundamental analysis, but pick your stocks based on other criteria.  Fundamental analysis will tell you if a stock is overvalued.  The other criteria will tell you which undervalued stock to buy.

Almost every company carries massive debt. From a financial standpoint a company that has less than 70% of it's capital in debt is not utilizing it's growth potential.   There are a few companies that buck this trend but the vast majority of corporations carry absolutely massive debt at all time. Yes even the profitable ones. As long as they pay according to the plan all is well.

Two weeks ago I used Megabus to get from Central PA to NYC (4 hour trip).  It's cheaper, less stressful, and the WIFI did work most of the trip there and back.  It was slow at times, but good enough to get some work done & surf reddit.

At your young age, the most of your wealth is your future labor income (unless you are already rich). Your most profitable investment at this time is most likely to be investment in your human capital (your professional skills, career opportunities).  Depending on how you plan to earn your money, invest time and effort to enable you to earn better wages in that activity. So focus on education or professional training. Also, consider that it is probably your total lifetime utility/welfare you should maximize (but you decide!). I suggest you do not focus narrowly on earning as much money as possible. Consider what sort of life you want and what you need to do to enable it. Best of luck!


Question: Can GoogleFinance access total return data?

"This is the same answer as for your other question, but you can easily do this yourself: ( initial adjusted close / final adjusted close ) ^ ( 1 / ( # of years sampled) ) Note: ""# of years sampled"" can be a fraction, so the one week # of years sampled would be 1/52. Crazy to say, but yahoo finance is better at quick, easy, and free data.  Just pick a security, go to historical prices, and use the ""adjusted close"". money.msn's best at presenting finances quick, easy, and cheap."

As long as you paid 90% of the taxes you owed, you are good, and there will be no negative consequences. These calculations are supposed to help you find the right amount, not to bind you to it, so you don't need to worry too much about exactness. The most common problem is that people underpay, and not come up to the 90% limit (and don't have the cash to pay when tax-day comes). If you happen to come in under 90% (which will come out when you file taxes), you will owe interest for the underpayment (as you should have paid it some time ago); typically 0.5% per month; also up to 10% in addition, depending on the situation. This is expensive, so you should avoid it; and playing to hit 90.01% is dangerous - better try to hit about 100% and use the 90% limit as safety margin, as intended.

So no single bank is willing to underwrite the whole issuance, and the amount each wants is only roughly a sixth of the total each? Or did Greece limit the amount of the issuance that could be underwritten by one bidder? Just trying to understand.

Yep, I agree, and that has basically been my point in this thread.  Without the Orca shows there just isn't a real point to SeaWorld.  People that say they'd go there more if not for the moral quandary are full of crap - without the Orca shows, no one is going to go out of their way for SeaWorld.  Just like Ringling Brothers without elephants, they're a dead idea.

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The only time borrowing instead of paying from cash would make sense is if you have (or think you might run into) opportunities to put that cash to work for you earning more than the interest you're paying. For instance, you might run into investment opportunities where having the cash to jump in would let you get into them.   Beyond something like this, it'd be foolish to pay interest just so you can have a bigger bank balance and feel like you're somehow better off! I hope this helps. Good luck!

"I strongly doubt your numbers, but lets switch the question around anyway.   Would you borrow 10k on your house to buy stocks on leverage?  That's putting your house at risk to have the chance of a gain in the stock market (and nothing in the market is sure, especially in the short term), and I would really advise against it.  The decision you're considering making resolves down to this one. Note: It is always better to make any additional checks out as ""for principal only"", unless you will be missing a future payment."

I remember walking into Sears with every intention of buying an expensive TV.  I waited for 15 minutes for an employee to notice me and come help.  Nothin'.  I kept catching their eye and giving the eyebrows-raised, hey-can-you-help-me smile.  Nothin'.  I ended up walking out and going to London Drugs, of all places, where the staff was super helpful.


Question: Can I buy put options on an ADR?

Some ADRs have standardized options that trade on US exchanges.  If your stock/ADR is one of those, then you find the put option through most brokerages that deal with stock options and trade the option like you would on a regular stock.  If your ADR does not have standardized options, then your options will depend on where the ADR trades.  If it's OTC, you might not even be able to short it.  If it trades on a major exchange, the shorting the ADR may be a viable choice.

"In truth there is no such thing as a risk-free asset.  That is why your textbook feels the need to add the qualifier ""for practical purposes,"" meaning that the risk of a money market account is so much lower than virtually any other asset class that it can reasonably be approximated as risk free. The main risk of any bond, short-term or long-term, is that its price may change before the maturity date.  This could happen for one of many reasons, such as interest rate changes, creditworthiness, market risk tolerance, and so on.  Thus you may lose money if you need to redeem your investment ahead of the scheduled maturity."

Nope pay the employer back the due does not involve any tax. Just keep a record of the transaction so that its available as reference.

"And every one of those thousand person companies started with one guy.  And that one guy delegated to hundreds or thousands of other guys and is now sitting on the yacht that his ""cut"" made him.  Do you honestly think that businesses just because thousand person operations over night?  So yeah, that's exactly the point."

I can't immediately think of a reason to keep your paycheck and spending account separate, unless it be because you want to keep your savings in a money market or savings account and you deposit your paycheck into a checking account. However, I do have one reason from my experience to keep the bulk of your savings away from accounts that you transfer stuff out of.  I used to keep all my cash savings in an account from which I transferred money into my brokerage account (my paycheck was also deposited there).  A couple of years back a state that I haven't lived in since I was a child took $40,000 out of my account.  The broker mistakenly told the state I lived there and the state made some mistakes about how much tax I would owe.  Without either one telling me, the state helped themselves to my checking account to cover the bill.  When I called, both acknowledged that they were wrong, but it still took a long time (many months) and lots of letters and threats (I was close to paying a lawyer) before they returned my money.  It was worse because this was my savings for a down payment on a home and having it taken and not returned affected my ability to buy the house I wanted. If I hadn't had my money in that account, they would have tried to garnish my wages, and would have immediately stopped their attempt once they found out they were in the wrong. Now I keep cash savings in an account that I never pay taxes out of and do not use to transfer money directly to any broker or anyone who might give my account number to an inept government.

Technically, yes, you can do this. It's a form of arbitrage: you're taking advantage of a small price difference between two markets. But is it worth the hassle of keeping on top of the overdraft and making sure you don't incur any accidental penalties or fees? Interest rates are super low, and floating £1000 or £2000, you're only going to generate £10-20 per year in a basic savings account.

">I, for one, look forward to being able to sue the state.  You don't know what investor state is.   Are you [one of these 75,000 corporations](http://www.citizen.org/TAFTA-investment-map) or are you a country?   If you're not, you don't exist to the FTAs.   They were designed to make swift work of your ""rights""."

This place in Dallas makes an absolute *killing* - http://www.bowlandbarrel.com/  You have to call ahead to schedule a lane and it's not cheap, it's pretty easy to spend a few hundred bucks on an evening of bowling and drinking with your friends.


Question: How much is one “lot” of EUR/USD?

"A lot (sometimes called a round lot) always refers to the quantity of physical good that you're getting, like a carton of eggs or a barrel of oil.  The tricky thing in the case of forex is that the physical good also happens to be a currency. A spot currency product trades in the denomination on the right-hand side (RHS) of the product name.  So if you're buying EUR/USD you are paying USD currency to get EUR ""units"", and if you're selling EUR/USD you are receiving USD by giving away EUR ""units"".  The EUR is the ""physical good"" in this case. The way I remember it is to think of all products (not just currencies) as trading pairs.  So AAPL in my mind is AAPL/USD.  When I buy AAPL/USD I am paying USD to get AAPL units.  When I sell AAPL/USD I am receiving USD by giving away AAPL units. The thing on the left is the physical good (even if it happens to be money) that you are exchanging, and the thing on the right is the money that you are exchanging. So, when I buy a lot of AAPL, I am buying 100 shares at their current price in dollars. Similarly, when I buy a lot of EUR/USD, I am buying 100K Euros at their current price in dollars."

"None taken. Good thoughts: it would be making the same mistake to blindly accept my criticism as many will make blindly accepting this journalist's graphs. Let's see if I can address your concerns.  The reason the scale is problematic to me is exactly what you said  > I hope people would be looking at more than just a convex line  And I don't think that they do. The scales were adjusted so that the lines were nearly identical on someone's computer screen, but that implies a false equivalency between the debts of households, corporations, state and local gov, and the fed. I think the author has left leaning sympathies (read the accompanied article that outlines ""who you will vote for"", link on the last slide). Not necessarily a bad thing, but he frames all of this from the idea that his *statistics cannot be skewed, and he is therefore presenting fact*. Central to the left's argument is that the Federal Government's size is not of the biggest concern, and if you got the average American thinking that 15 trillion is no big deal because households have a huge debt too, or corporations do too, or states do too, I believe that to be dangerous. I think I identified his bias, and that his graphs are slightly manipulated to coerce less discerning individuals to his side. Happens all the time, but all of those facts are dead on in regards to the data. Again, trying to keep my politics out of this, simply criticizing the graphs and the subtle message they are sending under the guise of being neutral.  I would agree with your point *normally*: since contractors are temporary and often, as you pointed out, cost efficient from a benefits standpoint. They also tend to be more efficient, but this is not central to our point. The problem is that the government has the longest war in our history going, but we aren't really fighting anyone for the scale of our spending. Trillions of dollars have gone into this effort, and one of the results has been *the development of a quasi-economy in Iraq, and now Afghanistan*. The numbers are staggering of how many of these people are employed, or make a living, off of this war effort. But this is not like most contractors: where you would add them to the DOD's budget, as you astutely pointed out. And the difference, I would purport, is the permanent status of the ""employment"". After what length of time would you say a contractor for the DOD working on computer programs in the Pentagon is the equivalent of an employee (and therefore must be counted in statistics such as the one the graph in question purports to depict)? 2 years? 5 Years? Certainly after a decade, right? Remember, the graph is trying to show that the number of government employees *is not a problem, or at least not a significant one*. But calling an apple a banana doesn't make it yellow; I think political slight in hand with statistics as important as these should be criminal.  Sorry I got long winded, but I hope I addressed your concerns. It sounds like you are one of the few people who thinks critically when presented with data such as that which is in these 64 slides. But remember: for every one of you there may be a thousand people who are brainwashed by any ""data"" you put in front of them."

Isn't it clear to everyone that something that isn't measured by economists yet is going horribly wrong in the US since they started with the debt bing? I know so many people with no savings whatsoever and just hanging on.

"The above answers are great. I would only add to the ""rainy day"" part, that even though the cash provides a good cushion, ""a stormy day"" could mean even losing those emergency savings to the unignorable randomness that governs the world economy. Though unlikely, what happened to the russian ruble and the latest decision of the swiss cental bank are just two recent reminders that uncertainty must be treated as a constant. I would therefore advise you to invest some of the money in land capable of agriculture. How expensive is land over there in the UK?"

"Assuming this is real, the Q's (QQQ) is an ETF that tracks the Nasdaq-100. It would be the approximate equivalent of saying ""Just put your money in SPY"" or any other ETF.  I didn't see the thread in question (looks like it was in /r/personalfinance not /r/finance; so, not the ""rules"" here), but my guess is people down voted you (and you were eventually removed by the mod) for ""low effort"", which simply stating ""Put your money in an ETF"" could possibly be construed as.  That said, the top rated comment in that thread *did* suggest putting some portion of the funds in an ETF, it's just rarely an appropriate answer for *all* of someone's investment capital."

While it is a true loss, as you've determined, is not a cash cost, per se. A cash cost would be a decrease in cash holdings.  Inflation does not take your cash balance; it devalues it, so it is an accrued loss. Central banks are extremely lazy in determining inflation, so the highest resolution available at a public level is monthly.  In the United States, there is a small project that tries to calculate daily inflation rates and seems to do a decent job, but unless if you are a customer of a particular financial institution, you will suffer a lag.  The small project refuses to make the data public in real time or even allow outside analysis. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics is responsible for consumer inflation statistics.  The methodology is not readily available, but considering the name, it is most likely an inferior Laspeyres index instead of the optimal Fisher index as it is in the US. To calculate the accrued cost due to inflation, simply multiply the amount of money held by the price index value at the beginning of the time held and divide by the price index value at the end of the time held. For example, to determine the amount of value lost since March 2014, multiply the money held by the price index value for March 2014 and divide by June 2014.

It looks awesome and I wish that I had one.  There's the risk that they're losing money on the product, hoping to make it up when they sell enough units due to economies of scale. CNC units without touch screens and fancy alignment cameras cost 2k. If they don't sell enough units in time, maybe they'll have to close shop?  I worry that businesses that go to Kickstarter to get money might be doing it because everyone else that looked at their business plan turned them down. That's not always the case, of course.

It's really not. You have to realize that current rates are an outlier. The average on the 10yr since 1960 is 6.7%. Even on the 1yr it's still 5.7%. The average on the 30Yr from '77-present is 7.6%. You can use your own discretion about the length of time to consider for the average, but you don't just take the current rate as the risk free rate.


Question: Should I buy a home or rent in my situation?

"If I were you, I would rent.  Wait to buy a home.  Here is why: When you say that renting is equal in cost to a 30-year mortgage, you are failing to consider several aspects.  See this recent answer for a list of things that need to be considered when comparing buying and renting. You have no down payment.  Between the two of you, you have $14,000, but this money is needed for both your emergency fund and your fiancée's schooling. In your words: ""we can’t reeaallllly afford a home.""  A home is a big financial commitment.  If you buy a home before you are financially ready, it will be continuous trouble.   If you need a cosigner, you aren't ready to buy a home.  I would absolutely advise whoever you are thinking about cosigning for you not to do so.  It puts them legally on the hook for a house that you can't yet afford. You aren't married yet.  You should never buy something as big as a home with someone you aren't married to; there are just too many things that can go wrong.  (See comments for more explanation.)  Wait until you are married before you buy. Your income is low right now.  And that is okay for now; you've been able to avoid the credit card debt that so many people fall into. However, you do have student loans to pay, and taking on a huge new debt right now would be potentially disastrous for you.  Your family income will eventually increase when your fiancée gets her degree and gets a job, and at that time, you will be in a much better situation to consider buying a house. You need to move ""ASAP."" Buying a house when you are in a hurry is a generally a bad idea. When you look for a home, you need to take some time looking so you aren't rushed into a bad deal that you will regret. Even if you decide you want to buy, you should first find a place to rent; then you can take your time finding the right house.  To answer your question about escrow: When you own a house, two of the required expenses that you will have besides the mortgage payment are property taxes and homeowner's insurance.  These are large payments that are only due once a year.  The bank holding the mortgage wants to make sure that they get paid.  So to help you budget for these expenses and to ensure that these expenses are paid, the bank will add these to your monthly mortgage payment, and set them aside in a savings account (called an escrow account).  Then when these bills come due once a year, they are paid for out of the escrow account."

Something else is going on here. Rates are high for a specific reason, possible due to the house being non-conforming (ie, trailer/pre fab housing?)  Higher downpayment won't help.  Go to LendingTree.com and have a ton of offers spammed at you. With 20% down + conforming you should be around 4.5%.

To start with the Express diet, the first thing you have to do is to radically reduce your energy intake. To do this, you must select the foods to be able to surprise the body and cause a loss of weight of between 2 or 3 kilos, without losing muscle mass. On the other hand, you must limit the consumption of carbohydrates to force the body to pull its reserves and take advantage of Plant Based Weight Loss Protein, as they satiate and nourish muscle mass. Recommended foods during the first phase are vegetables, water, fish, seafood, shellfish, soy, beef, beef steak but nothing, skinless poultry, eggs without fat, light ham, dairy 0% vegetables. And best of all is that we can consume them in the quantities we want.

"I'm assuming that you're in the US.  In that case, the answer is that it depends on how your company set up its reimbursement plan.  The IRS recognizes ""accountable"" and ""nonaccountable"" plans.  Accountable plans have to meet certain requirements.  Anything else is nonaccountable.  If you are reimbursed according to an accountable plan, this is not income and should not be reported to the IRS at all.  If you are reimbursed under a nonaccountable plan, then this is income but you might be able to get a deduction on your tax return if you itemize. Most established companies have accountable plans for normal business expenses. More detail from IRS: http://www.tax.gov/TaxabilityCertainFringeBenefits/pdf/Accountable_v_Nonaccountable_Plans_Methods_of_Reimbursing_Employees_for_Expense.pdf"

Just playing devil's avocado here, but if you can't stop smoking weed long enough to find a job then it's really your problem. Almost every job I've applied to has had a drug test, including office jobs. If you can't lay off the devil's lettuce for 2 goddamn weeks and maybe drink some fucking water then what do you expect?              This is coming from a chronic weed smoker.

If I recall correctly, the pay schedule is such that you initially pay mostly interest.  As James Roth suggests, look at the terms of the loan, specifically the payment schedule.  It should detail how much is being applied to interest and how much to the actual balance.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to buy a house/condo and rent it out now. On the other hand, I think finishing your basement and then renting it out is an excellent idea.  The ROR is excellent as long as you can deal with the ""strangers"" in the basement, have the extra driveway space and negative association with renting out your basement. HTH"

The thing people don't get is that it's not only the poor who are in danger anymore, but former middle class as well, who has shrunk into poverty. The health of society is measured by the size and prosperity of the middle class, and whether it moves up or down.  In this case, I fear them leading the social unrest.


Question: Should I consolidate loans and cards, or just cards, leaving multiple loans?

"My answer is similar to Ben Miller's, but let me make some slightly different points: There is one excellent reason to get a consolidation loan: You can often get a lower interest rate. If you are presently paying 19% on a credit card and you can roll that into a personal loan at 13.89%, you'll be saving over 5%, which can add up. I would definitely not consolidate a loan at 12.99% into a loan at 13.89%. Then you're just adding 1% to your interest rate. What's the benefit in this? Another good reasons for a consolidation loan is psychological. A consolidation loan with fixed payments forces you to pay that amount every month. You say you have trouble with credit cards. It's very easy to say to yourself, ""Oh, just this month I'm going to pay just the minimum so I can use my cash for this other Very Important Thing that I need to buy."" And then next month you find something else that you just absolutely have to buy. And again the next month, and the next, and your determination to seriously pay down your debt keeps getting pushed off. If you have a fixed monthly payment, you can't. You're committed. Also, if you have many credit cards, juggling payments on all of them can get complex and confusing. It's easy to lose track of how much you owe and to budget for payments. At worst, when there are many bills to pay you may forget one. (Personally I now have 3 bank cards, an airline card, and 2 store cards, and managing them is getting out of hand. I have good reasons for having so many cards: the airline card and the store cards give me special discounts. But it's confusing to keep track of.) As to adding $3,000 to the consolidation loan: Very, very bad idea. You are basically saying, ""I have to start seriously paying down my debt ... tomorrow. Today I need a some extra cash so I'm going to borrow just a little bit more, but I'm going to get started paying it off next month."" This is a trap, and the sort of trap that leads people into spiraling debt. Start paying off debt NOW, not at some vague time in the future that never seems to come."

"Theoretically, it shouldn't matter which one you use.  Your return should only depend on the stock returns in SGD and the ATS/SGD exchange rate (Austrian Schillings? is this an question from a textbook?).  Whether you do the purchase ""through"" EUR or USD shouldn't matter as the fluctuations in either currency ""cancel"" when you do the two part exchange SGD/XXX then XXX/ATS. Now, in practice, the cost of exchanging currencies might be higher in one currency or the other.  Likely a tiny, tiny amount higher in EUR.  There is some risk as well as you will likely have to exchange the money and then wait a day or two to buy the stock, but the risk should be broadly similar between USD and EUR."

Just find a low cost S&P 500 index fund, and spend your time reading The Great Mutual Fund Trap instead of wasting your time and money picking actively managed funds.

The typical structure of an HFT group is very small and flat. A few dozen people (maybe). The firm's capital is at risk, so the principals are usually very involved in what everyone is doing. I haven't seen any of these guys take up the title CEO.

Clutch Bags is a world-class handbags provider company in New York city. We are the best manufacturer, wholesaler and exporter of handbags in the world. A Hands free travel bags with wheels can be perfect when you need large luggage capacity, but there is not much space to store it between one trip and the next since many of these bags are reduced to half their normal size when folded.

"For a job doing that kind of stuff, what is PREFERRED is 4 year undergrad at ivy league school + 2 year MBA at ivy league school, and then several more years of experience, which you can sort of get by interning while in school this will of course saddle you with debt, which is counterintuitive to your plans basically, the easy way up is percentage based compensation. without knowing the right people, you will get a piss poor salary regardless of what you do, in the beginning. so portfolio managers earn money by percentage based fees, and can manage millions and billions. real estate agents can earn money by percentage based commissions if they close a property and other business venture/owners can do the same thing. the problem with ""how to trade"" books is that they are outdated by the time they are published. so you should just stick with literature that teaches a fundamental knowledge of the products you want to trade/make money from. ultimately regardless of how you get/earn your initial capital, you will still need to be an individual investor to grow your own capital. this has nothing to do with being a portfolio manager, even highly paid individuals on wall street are in debt to lavish expenditures and have zero capital for their own investments. hope this helps, you really need to be thinking in a certain way to just quickly deduce good ideas from bad ideas"

Well, let me take your question for baremetal, and aknowledge you did not asked about the difference between daytrading and investing which is obviously leverage. I would not consider daytrading more risky as long as you keep leverageout of the equation.  Daytrading can be turbolent and confusing, where things unfold in a very short amount of time, (let trade nfp payroll or some breaking event, yay), eventually the risk is more overseeable in long term trading, as soon as you put leverage into the equation things look vary different, indeed.

"To Many question and they are all treated differently. I was wondering how the logistics of interest and dividend payments are handled on assets , such as mortgages, bonds, stocks,   What if the owner is some high-frequency algorithm that buys and sells bonds and stocks in fractions of a second? When the company decides to pay dividends, does it literally track   down every single owner of that stock and deposit x cents per share in   that person's bank account? (This sounds absolutely absurd and seems   like it would be a logistical nightmare). In Stocks, the dividends are issued periodically. The dividend date is declared well in advance. As on end of the day on Dividend date, the list of individuals [or entities] who own the stock is available with the Stock-Exchange / Registrar of the companies. To this list the dividends are credited in next few days / weeks via banking channel. Most of this is automated. What if the owner is some high-frequency algorithm that buys and sells bonds and stocks in fractions of a second? On bonds, things work slightly differently. An Bond is initially issued for say 95 [discount of 5%] and payment of 100 after say 5 years. So when the person sells it after an year, he would logically look to get a price of 96. Of course there are other factors that could fetch him a price of 94.50 or 95.50. So every change in ownership factors in the logical rate of interest. The person who submits in on maturity gets 100.  For the homeowner, I'm assuming he / she still makes mortgage payments to the initial bank they got the mortgage from, even if the bank no longer ""owns"" the mortgage. In this case, does the trader on the secondary market who owns the mortgage also come back to that bank to collect his interest payment? This depends on how the original financial institution sells the mortgage to new institutions. Generally the homeowner would keep paying initial financial institution and they would then take a margin and pay the secondary investor. If this was collateral-ized as Mortgage backed security, it is a very different story."


Question: How many warrants do I need to exercise to get a stock?

No, you trade the warrant and the warrant price of $11.50 for one stock. The warrant is a little like an option, but with a longer term. If you buy a IPOA.WS warrant then that warrant gives you the option to buy one share of class A stock at $11.50 at a future date.  If in the future, the stock is worth $20, then you make $20 - $11.50 -  per share.  If you buy one IPOA.U, then you get 1/3 of a warrant and 1 share of stock, the warrants will be useless unless you buy in groups of 3 for the IPOA.U.  I didn't see the timeframe of the warrant, they're usually good for 10+ years, and they're currently trading in the $1.5-1.8 range. To confirm, here's a decent article about how warrants work: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/021704.asp

All else being equal I wouldn't object to zero capital gains tax. Except not all else is equal. The differential between earned income and capital gains is enormous. This is more than enough to drive huge sums of money out of incomes and into capital gains. Private equity funds provides the simplest and most legal means of accomplishing this. There are more legally questionable methods, though not challenged at this time, involving carried interest.  Let's say an employer has $1 they can choose to pay an employee or divert it into capital gains. If the effective tax rate that employee pays is 40% that leaves 60 cents going to that employee and doesn't even count the other cost of that employee through unemployment insurance, etc. If they divert it then at the top rate it becomes 85%. So, even without other cost considerations that becomes a 25% surcharge on treating it as wages. More than enough incentive freezing out wages as much as possible in favor of capital gains. Which is occurring on a large scale.   So let's get back to the issues faced by granny selling her house. You say it's unfair for granny to pay 35% as opposed to 15% on the capital gains. Yet is it any more unfair than granny paying 35% on her earned income all those years she paid for the house? Wouldn't she be much better off if all those years she paid less on her earned income, at the expense of paying more on her capital gains, all with essentially the same overall federal tax receipts? So in essence you are arguing that she should be screwed less on her one time capital gains in favor of screwing her many many times that amount over the years leading up to that sale. Ouch.  So let's look at the difference between capital gains and income at the investor level. You have a wage earner that gets out of bed every morning and works at the beckoning of someone else daily. We'll suppose they are it the 35% tax bracket, under $400k. Is it more fair to charge them 35% than it it the person who invested their money and gets their paycheck while watching I Love Lucy reruns? I know it's almost never that easy but really, if working 40 or 80 or even 100 hours per week doesn't deserve the same break how do you justify it for the person who simply purchased their future income? Labor is after all hired to help produce capital goods. How is their contribution to those capital goods not part and parcel to the capital gains?  Even with these issues I still wouldn't have such a problem if markets, including wage and capital ratios, acted independently of these effective tax rates. But that notion is absurd, even if doing so require some illegal maneuvers. Which in many cases do not.   So yeah, I find your argument to be specious and quiet arbitrary at every level.

We earn so much money when we produce 5,10,20... dollars ! It does't matter if we loose a few money to produce a penny, we have to let money to satisfy its 3 fonctions. One of them is : to be the more precise possible unit of count !

Simple rule for UK student loans. Never repay early. (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-repay) They are not real debt: only payable over threshold and wiped after 30 years (ish).  They do not appear as debt with Credit Agencies. If you have other debt, it is almost certainly at a higher rate or worse terms and should be paid off first If you don't have debt, then you can put the cash to better use: whether saving, mortgage deposit or avoiding worse debt in the future.

Not just jobs, entire companies were created. It opened up a whole new market. Then, with the iPhone coming out - competitors came out with their versions (Android, which distribution came out around 2007), which did the same thing except in a different market I'd like to attribute to Apple's iPhone.

Are the amounts in those boxes taxes that have already been removed? Yes. If they are, how do I report these totals? When I entered the information from the 1099-MISC, it only asked for the total, and didn't ask for (what I thought were) the taxes already taken out. It should appear on your 1040 line 64 (and similar line on your State tax return). If the program doesn't ask for all the 1099 fields (which is stupid), you can add it as additional taxes paid in the Credits section, somewhere in the area where they ask about estimated payments etc.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-08/yellen-bet-on-pulling-workers-back-to-labor-force-is-paying-off) reduced by 88%. (I'm a bot) ***** > Even as U.S. unemployment crept lower in recent years, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen stuck with a glacial pace of policy tightening that she justified with a powerful message: there were still millions of potential workers to pull in from the labor market&#039;s sidelines.  > If workers hadn&#039;t come back, the strategy could have spurred an overly-tight labor market that sent wages and inflation up too quickly.  > The surge of job holders coming from outside the labor force &quot;Speaks to the reduction in slack in the labor force,&quot; said Tom Simons, a senior economist at Jefferies LLC in New York.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6m5f49/yellen_bet_on_pulling_workers_back_to_labor_force/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~162709 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*: **labor**^#1 **works**^#2 **rate**^#3 **market**^#4 **force**^#5"

Man... I feel like this is a messed up world where your comment is downvoted and the guy who added the 100k in loans is upvoted. I didn't get into the engineering program at the school I wanted to go to so I went to community college for a year got good grades and transferred into the college I wanted to get my degree from. Spent 3 years working part time while getting my degree and graduated with 16k in loans and a job waiting for me. I don't know why this can't be normal. I'm obviously not some genius, I couldn't even get into the school originally... I just worked a little harder than I was working before because that's what it took.


Question: Why do some services list an IPO date that is well after historical price data you can find elsewhere?

"The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company was established in 1902 as a private company.  It first raised public funds around 1903 but had a limited shareholder base.  By around 1929, it was reported as being tradeable as an OTC (over-the-counter) stock but it's likely that shares were traded well before this.  On 14 Jan 1946, the stock was listed on NYSE.  On 26 Sep 1962 it became a constituent of the the S&P 500 index.  On 9 Aug 1976 it became a constituent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In 2002, the company's name changed to 3M Co. It appears that the data on Crunchbase's ""IPO Date"" is wrong on this one. However, there are several companies that appear to do an ""IPO"" and have trading prices prior.  This is quite typical of early-stage biotech companies that trade OTC prior to a major exchange listing and ""IPO"". An example of an IPO happening after a company became publicly tradeable is NASDAQ:IMRN (Immuron). They had an ""IPO"" on Nasdaq on 9 Jun 2017, yet they had been trading as an OTC/Pink Sheet stock for months prior. They also have been listed in Australia since 30 Apr 1999. http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/activity.aspx?tab=pricings&month=2017-06 Another example is NASDAQ:GNTY (Guaranty Banchshares Inc) which had an ""IPO"" and NASDAQ listing in May 2017. This was a Nasdaq stock in 1998, went OTC/pink sheet stock in 2005. It has been paying regular dividends since that time. Clearly the word ""Initial"" is subjective!  http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/activity.aspx?tab=pricings&month=2017-05"

Now a days, your stocks can be seen virtually through a brokerage account. Back in the days, a stock certificate was the only way to authenticate stock ownership. You can still request them though from the corporation you have shares in or your brokerage. It will have your name, corporation name and number of shares you have. You have to buy shares of a stock either through a brokerage or the corporation itself. Most stock brokerages are legit and are FDIC or SIPC insured. But your risks are your own loses. The $10 you are referring to is the trade commission fee the brokerage charges. When you place an order to buy or sell a stock the brokerage will charge you $10. So for example if you bought 1 share of a $20 stock. The total transaction cost will be $30. Depending on the state you live in, you can basically starting trading stocks at either 18 or 21. You can donate/gift your shares to virtually anyone. When you sell a stock and experience a profit, you will be charged a capital gains tax. If you buy a stock and sell it for a gain within 1 year, you will taxed up to 35% or your tax bracket but if you hold it for more than a year, you will taxed only 15% or your tax bracket.

For a cheaper hedge , you can try a call spread. e.g if you shorted a stock at 40 but are worried that it can get bought out for 60. then buy a 50-60 bull call spread with appropriate number of contracts or even 50-55. this is better than just buying a 50 call as it will be expensive. Also the other option is not to short but buy a debit bear put spread 40-30 near the money and then buy an out of money call spread ( 55-60).

That's another model doomed to failure. Truth is people do care about their privacy. They don't seem to right now because they don't really understand how completely it's being invaded. But give it time, there's going to be a privacy rebellion on the internet, and all these companies who have built their revenue models around stealing people's personal information are going to be f***ed.

"Which is the ""shouldn't ever expect to do better than their competitors employees"". The ""sit down and shut up"" is towards the bottom  >Second, everyone needs to understand that it’s management’s job to identify and weigh alternatives, and to recommend a course of action.  In the world as it is, management is getting lots of help – from the Board, the Court, and the Creditors. Since the decisions being made are very important, and will impact every employee, their opinions should be given careful consideration. There are many forums – including participation in the court process — in which employee views can and should be taken into account.  Management should listen carefully, but employees need to understand that it’s management’s job to decide and that acting in ways intended to undercut management’s role can only be counter-productive.  >While the decision process is underway, everyone at American should be doing everything possible to improve performance, so that the post-bankruptcy company – whether American as it is or American combined with other entities – will have the broadest possible base of customer support from which to launch the renaissance every employee should be hoping for.  His entire spiel is so heavily sided towards management it's almost farcical. He's doing exactly what the airline pilot was complaining AA management is doing (treating the workers like faceless, interchangeable, and disposable cogs in the assembly line) while saying they shouldn't try to flex any negotiating power that management doesn't see fit to give them. And god forbid they have the gall to question the wisdom of their benevolent leaders (management is the thinkers, workers should just be the mindless doers).  I'm not a ""rah rah unions"" or ""boo business/management"" type of person. I just hate blatant bullshit. AA's workers have a legitimate gripe, that AA the company would almost certainly be better off merging with another airline but AA's management is better off going it alone and is asking the rest of the company to sacrifice to make that happen. Until that fundamental disconnect is reconciled, patronizing paeans to the wisdom of the company's leadership and knowing your place aren't helpful."

"If the service was being used as intended by their customers though, they would be able to swallow losses for the occasional short ride in order to make the over-all service pleasant. I'm guessing that it is pretty uncommon for riders to take a ride for a few blocks say. But it also depends on how long a ride a ""short ride"" is."

"You're talking about money in a savings account, and avoiding the risks posed by an ongoing crisis, and avoiding risk. If you are risk-averse, and likely to need your money in the short term, you should not put your money in the stock market, even in ""safe"" stocks like P&G/Coca-Cola/etc. Even these safe stocks are at risk of wild price swings in the short- to intermediate-term, especially in the event of international crises such as major European debt defaults and the like. These stocks are suitable for long-term growth objectives, but they are not as a replacement for a savings account. Coca-Cola lost a third of its value between 2007 and 2009. (It's recovered, and is currently doing better than ever.) P&G went from $74/share to $46/share. (It's partially recovered and back at $63). On the other hand, these stocks may indeed be suitable as long-term investments to protect you against local currency inflation. And yes, they even pay dividends. If you're after this investment, a good option is probably a sector-specific exchange-traded fund, such as a consumer-staples ETF. It will likely be more diversified and safer than anything you could come up with using a list of individual stocks. You can also investigate recommendations that show up when you search for a ""defensive ETF"". If you do not wish to buy the ETF directly, you can also look at listings of the ETF's holdings. Read the prospectus for an idea of the risks associated with these funds. You can buy these funds with any brokerage that gives you access to US stock exchanges."

"Your son is in the right. But he broke the ""unwritten"" rules, which is why the car dealer is upset. Basically, cars are sold in the United States at a breakeven price. The car company makes ALL its money on the financing. If everyone bought ""all cash,"" the car companies would not be profitable. No one expected anyone, least of all your son, a ""young person,"" to pay ""all cash."" When he did, they lost all the profit on the deal. On the other hand, they signed a contract, your son met all the FORMAL requirements, and if there was an ""understanding"" (an assumption, actually), that the car was supposed to be financed, your son was not part of it.  Good for him. And if necessary, you should be prepared to back him up on court."


Question: Clarification on options jargon regarding spreads

Yes. It seems to me you got it right.  On my site, Stock Options Cafe, my last post was an illustration of a bullish call spread. In this case, I bought a 50 call, and sold the 60 call. This is a debit order as I was paying money, not collecting a new premium.

Yes, all of that is possible with google sheets...

Why wouldn't one of the existing crowdsourcing systems meet your needs? Yes, they charge a commission, but they have already addressed the issues you raise and specifically they provide the third-party accounting you want.

First of all, Dilip's answer explains well how the business deductions generally work. For most (big) expenses you depreciate it. However, in some cases you need to capitalize it, which is another accounting method. When you capitalize your expense, it becomes part of the basis of the product you're creating. Since you're an engineer, this might be relevant for you. Talk to your tax adviser. How exactly you deduct/depreciate/capitalize things, and what expense goes which way depends greatly on the laws and jurisdictions. Even in the US, different states have different laws, and the IRS and State laws don't have to conform (unfortunately). For example, the limitations on Sec. 179 deduction in 2010-2011 were 20 times higher on Federal level than in the State of California. This could have lead to cases where you fully deducted your expense on your Federal tax return, but need to continue and depreciate it on your State return (or vice versa). Good tax adviser is crucial to avoid or manage these cases.

Assuming the United States. This is a loan and not an investment.  You report this as income and will pay your tax rate on the 18% of the money that the borrower pays you (any money paid above what was originally lent) for the year in which it was received. You owe taxes on the income even if the borrower does not send you a Form 1099-INT showing the interest you received. For example: If you loan $10,000 and receive $1,800 in interest, and your tax bracket is 25%, then you will owe $450 in tax.

You're not responsible for the mortgages on the property - those are agreements between the lender and the borrower. The risk you have is that the title search missed something.  If the seller (i.e., the bank or banks who foreclosed) did not have full rights to sell the property, and there was another party who had a lien on the property or had an interest in it in some fashion, that party could make a claim that would interfere with your purchase.  You wouldn't be responsible for the loan, but you might not end up with the title to the property if that happened.

Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks:

Businesses have been using immigrants (illegal and legal) to screw labor in this country. Flooding the market with foreign labor [drives up supply and drives down wages.](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/) Maybe if we let the wages rise over the years, Americans would be willing to pay more because they would be making more.   I think so many people are hostile towards labor and defend corporations so much is that corporations can afford PR and labor cannot.


Question: Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF?

"First, it's an exaggeration to say ""every"" dollar. Traditional mutual funds, including money-market funds, keep a small fraction of their assets in cash for day-to-day transactions, maybe 1%. If you invest $1, they put that in the cash bucket and issue you a share. If you and 999 other people invest $100 each,  not offset by people redeeming, they take the aggregated $100,000 and buy a bond or two. Conversely, if you redeem one share it comes out of cash, but if lots of people redeem  they sell some bond(s) to cover those redemptions -- which works as long as the bond(s) can in fact be sold for close enough to their recorded value. And this doesn't mean they ""can't fail"". Even though they are (almost totally) invested in securities  that are thought to be among the safest and most liquid available,  in sufficiently extreme circumstances those investments can fall in market value,  or they can become illiquid and unavailable to cover ""withdrawals"" (redemptions). ETFs are also fully invested, but the process is less direct. You don't just send money to the fund company. Instead: Thus as long as the underlyings for your ETF hold their value, which for a money market they are designed to, and the markets are open and the market maker firms are operating, your ETF shares are well backed. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund for more."

Thanks for the extra info on the property tax. So it sounds like it's going to be $1500 for a $150k house. I'm sure even if it's sold for $150 the state might still value it at $15k and you'll end up with $150 in property taxes which is basically nothing.

>How do we know that's the reason? There's also more used cars in the wild now, and cars tend to last a lot longer than they used to.  Average age of cars on the road also went from 3-5 years to 8-12 years now.  People don't own cars longer because they last longer, they own cars longer because they are not as easily able to afford another.  THAT is the main issue.    GDP has gone up (although this statement is suspicious when you factor in inflation), but median income has actually gone down adjusted for the 1960s/1970s projected rates.  People with more disposable income buy more cars, when there is more $$$ available to the average person they are not frugal and fix up their old car, they go out and buy a new one.  So what we have seen are not only fewer cars being sold every years since 1969 but also that people are forced to own cars longer to save $$.

"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1AD0DU) reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot) ***** > WASHINGTON/LONDON. WASHINGTON/LONDON - U.S. coal exports have jumped more than 60 percent this year due to soaring demand from Europe and Asia, according to a Reuters review of government data, allowing President Donald Trump&#039;s administration to claim that efforts to revive the battered industry are working.  > &quot;If Europe wants to lecture Trump on climate then EU member states need transition plans to phase out polluting coal,&quot; said Laurence Watson, a data scientist working on coal at independent think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative in London.  > TAKING CREDIT. Both the coal industry and the Trump administration said the rising exports of both steam coal, used to generate electricity, and metallurgical coal, used in heavy industry, were evidence that Trump&#039;s agenda was having a positive impact.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6q2vq7/us_coal_exports_soar_in_boost_to_trump_energy/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~177666 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*: **coal**^#1 **U.S.**^#2 **Trump**^#3 **administration**^#4 **Energy**^#5"

Some Walmart stores have a surcharge-free ATM in their Money Center. If that doesn't work, look for the logo of the interbank network on the back of your card that your bank uses (e.g. Star, Cirrus, Allpoint, MoneyPass) and Google them. If you're lucky, they'll have a surcharge-free ATM locator (e.g. https://www.star.com/locator/).

"> ""Taxation is theft"" is an empirically true statement. It is not an opinion.  Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt after that one. You do realize that  citizenship *implies* agreeing to abide by the countries laws - one of the biggest of which is taxation? This is true in the same way that receiving a driver's license implies a willingness to abide by road laws and regulations.   Pay them or not pay them. No soon off my back. Obviously I highly disagree with you. However, if you really think it is theft, then what does that make you that you stand by and allow it to happen *every* year..."

">>Did he ACT to make it so [cave in to drug companies]? Maybe, as usual, he's playing business chess...  >That argument cuts both ways. Maybe this is part of his master plan to get  So with all those ""maybe""(s), and since Trump did not Act on the subject, for God sake, why is that the FIRST thing you could say against Trump?  >> President Trump is not against any method or measure to reduce pollution or emission.  >Global warming is a serious risk to this country.  Absolutely not!  Boy I wish you lived 10,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. You would be screaming ""End of the world!!!! The world is warming up to the point of no return!"".  The Earth will do extremely well with slightly high temperatures, like it did many times in the past. It's just ""nice"" to have the same weather patterns every year, but that never ever happened on earth.  Scare tactics work on you, but not on me. Most scare tactics are for pure political reasons.  And here, as an example, you really really really believe that Trump has anything to do with global warming or against addressing it.  **So, please, tell me one substantial reason why you are against Trump?**  Also, let's go the other way: do you really think that if Hillary was in charge it would be better? I'd like to hear your answer to this one."

"Who are ""they"" who should be ""respectful""?   The liberal professors, or the students?  And if the students are ""respectful"", does that means that can stand up to their opinions? Are they going to pass the classes if they express or write their true opinions (i.e. being not ""respectful"")?"


Question: Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation?

Yes, in 2 ways: As you mention, the price of a home generally grows with inflation - along with other factors (supply and demand in local markets, etc.). Through financing. If you finance 80% of your purchase today, in 2014 dollars, you will pay back in future dollars. Those future dollars are worth less, because of inflation.

No. At least not in my case. Without divulging too much information. I don't tell any of my distributors how to sell my company's products our engage their customer base, but due to the nature of my business, I am frequently called on for product selection, marketing, quality, etc. Distributors often utilize their account reps and managers to help them push products on their customer base. The only way this could be seen as truthful, in my opion, is direct retail distribution. Because how are you going to track the product after it has been purchased by a consumer.

The SWIFT format has multiple place holders. The Beneficiary Bank and Account can be specified using Local Sort Codes [ABA number in this example]. However you would still need to specify the Correspondent Bank and its BIC.

Showz Store is an online toy store that is located in China. We have the full exhibition reflected, so you can see all toys display on our official site. No short of what one report from the event noted booing from the gathering of spectators toward the completion of the presentation. If you are searching Mastermind Creations for your kids, then you can visit our website. Here you can get a lot of toys in best variety. Our online stores are open 24*7 days. We accept all major credit cards.

The key question is whether this number includes taxes and insurance. When you get a mortgage in the U.S., the bank wants to be sure that you are paying your property taxes and that you have homeowners insurance. The mortgage is guaranteed by a lien on the house -- if you don't pay, the bank can take your house -- and the bank doesn't want to find out that your house burned down and you didn't bother to get insurance so now they have nothing. So for most mortgages, the bank collects money from the borrower for the taxes and insurance, and then they pay these things. This can also be convenient for the borrower as you are then paying a fixed amount every month rather than being hit with sizeable tax and insurance bills two or three times a year. So to run the numbers: As others point out, mortgage rates in the US today are running 3% to 4%. I just found something that said the average rate today is 3.6%. At that rate, your actual mortgage payment should be about $1,364. Say $1,400 as we're taking approximate numbers. So if the $2,000 per month does NOT include taxes and insurance, it's a bad deal. If it does, then not so bad. You don't say where you live. But in my home town, property taxes on a $300,000 house would be about $4,500 per year. Insurance is probably another $1000 a year. And if you have to get PMI, add another 1/2% to 3/4%, or $1500 to $2250 per year. Add those up and divide by 12 and you get about $600. Note my numbers here are all highly approximate, will vary widely depending on where the house is, so this is just a general ballpark. $1400 + $600 = $2000, just what you were quoted. So if the number is PITI -- principle, interest, taxes, and insurance -- it's about what I'd expect.

Save enough to build an emergency cushion of 4-6 months total expenses. After that, invest everything you can in areas where you are well researched and have carefully formed your own opinion on the subject. Those who save do not reach financial freedom, those who learn to invest and make their money work for them do. Invest in learning how to invest.

As someone who works with LBOs and a decent number of M&A deals, I find the biggest issue is that managers don't understand the competitive advantages of their company. They try to pivot into higher margin processes and products because they see other companies who are doing well there. The companies who succeed target niches in the market and make acquisitions that complement their skills. The other issue is that the market is too hot right now and when a good company comes up, you have PE firms and strategics bidding against each other, typically leaving a winner who bid too high.

If the base rate is USD LIBOR, you can compute this data directly on my website, which uses futures contracts and historical data to create interest rates scenarios for the calculations: http://www.mortgagecalculator3.com/ If your rate index is different, you can still create your own scenarios and check what would happen to your payments.


Question: Judge market efficiency from raw price action

The shortest-hand yet most reliable metric is daily volume / total shares outstanding.  A security with a high turnover rate will be more efficient than a lower one, ceteris paribus. The practical impacts are tighter spread and lower average percentage change between trades.  A security with a spread of 0% and an average change of 0% between trades is perfectly efficient.

It's the physiological impact it has. If you took a loan to buy a home for $500k and you recently had it appraised for $450k you are more inclined to skip out on any home remodeling projects.   Also as ShakeyBobWillis pointed out it can be to your financial benefit to just walk away from an underwater mortgage. This creates even more glut in the marketplace.

Some have suggested you can put the money in the 401k then take a loan to pay off the student loan debt.  Some things to consider before doing that: Check your 401k plan first.  Some plans allow you to continue paying on a loan if you leave the company, some do not.  If you have to change jobs before you pay back the 401k loan, you may only have 90 days to completely pay the loan or the IRS will treat this as an early withdrawal, which means taxes and penalties.  If you don't have another job lined up, this is going to make things much worse since you will have lost your income and may owe even more to the government (depending on your state, it may be up to 50% of the remaining amount).  There are ways to work with some student debt loans to defer or adjust payments.  There is no such option with a 401k plan. This may change your taxes at the end of the year.  Most people can deduct student loan interest payments.  You cannot deduct interest paid to your 401k loan.  You are paying the interest to yourself though.   It may hurt your long term growth potential.  Currently loans on 401k loans are in the 4% range.  If you are able to make more than 4% inside of your 401k, you will be losing out on that growth since that money will only be earning the interest you pay back. It may limit flexibility for a few years.  When people fall on hard times, their 401k is their last resort.  Some plans have a limit on the number of loans you can have at one time.  You may need a loan or a withdrawal in the future.  Once you take the money out for a loan, you can't access it again.  See the first bullet about working with student loan vendors, they typically have ways to work with you under hard circumstances.  401k loans don't. Amortization schedule.  Many 401k loans can only be amortized for a max of 5 years, if you currently have 10 year loans, can you afford to pay the same debt back in 1/2 the time at a lower rate?  You will have to do the math. When considering debt other than student loans (such as credit cards), if you fall on hard times, you can always negotiate to reduce the amount you owe, or the debt can be discharged (with tax penalties of course).  They can't make you take money out.  Once it is out, it is fair game. Just to clarify, the above isn't saying you shouldn't do it under any circumstances, it is a few things you need to evaluate before making that choice.  The 401k is supposed to be used to help secure your financial future when you can't work.  The numbers may work out in the short term, but do they still work out in the long term?  Most credit cards require minimum payments high enough to pay back in 7-10 years, so does shortening that to 5 (or less) make up for the (probably early) years of compounding interest for your retirement?  I think others have addressed some of this so I won't do the math. I can tell you that I have a 401k loan, and when things got iffy at my job for, it was a very bad feeling to have that over my head because, unlike other debts, there isn't much you can do about it.

Generally, I would say that you should pay it off if you have the money available. Why pay interest if you have the money? That is, of course, if your money can earn you more than the interest you pay (which can happen if you got a very low APR for your car loan, but then you probably have excellent credit already and shouldn't care about the history of the loan on your report). Re the 7 years vs 2 years - to the best of my knowledge its not true, it will stay 7 years even if its closed during the first year.

Last time something like this happened we (eventually) created the New Deal, which greatly mitigated the problem..for a while at least, until the elite reclaimed power.   I agree with you, but I don't think we're doomed. Things will have to get a lot worse until people see the problems though, but still then I wouldn't expect a socialist uprising, but just another new deal to buy off the non-elite.

"The US government requires corporations to follow certain accounting standards, while exempting itself. For example, companies financial reports must reflect the future costs of things like employee pensions, healthcare and other liabilities. So if you own a company and have an obligation to pay someone $100 in ten years, that obligation must be reflected on your current financial statements. Most US governments operate under a cash accounting scheme that don't necessarily recognize the current costs of big future promises. At the State and Local levels, politicians actively and openly flaunt this -- Governors, mayors, etc routinely do things like give employees enhanced benefits (whose costs kick in the down line) or unlimited sick/vacation time accruals with payouts to employees to avoid impacting the short-term fiscal picture.  As an example, a New York City tabloid ran a big story a few years ago about certain transit authorities -- the standards for disability pensions were so low that 95% of employees were categorized as ""disabled"" and were receiving pensions that were in many cases greater than the employees salary while working."

There is a system in place called parenthood. However, many of the problems in the USA are because of lack of good parents assuming they are even around.  I went to a juvenile detention center to attend one of their lectures, and one thing they expounded was the disproportionate number of kids in there who either don't have at least one parent in their house or parents who didn't care about them. Unless we go North Korean style brain washing authoritarianism, no nanny state attempt will fix this. The problem, responsibility and solution lies with the people.

Opening up a new bank account and converting all your Euro's to USD is not a bad idea in the slightest.  It is certainly possible to do, however you most likely won't be able to get the spot rate for USD/EUR (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=USDEUR=X).  Even though you will get a worse rate, I would be much more comfortable with this than holding Euro's in the coming months.