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Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Do performers pay taxes on comped meals and hotels? | "My number one piece of advice is to see a tax professional who can guide you through the process, especially if you're new to the process. Second, keep detailed records. That being said, I found two articles, [1] and [2] that give some relevant details that you might find helpful. The articles state that: Many artists... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What should I do with the change in my change-jar? | Every now and then I fill a pocket with a handful of coins and spend it on a very small shop on my way home, i.e. a loaf of bread (£1.50), a pint of milk (50p) by using the self-check out (Tesco/Sainsbury's) which has a coin slot or even better the little bowl where you put coins down. I find this pretty straightforwar... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro “Social Trading Network” using a “CFD”? | Concerning the Broker: eToro is authorized and registered in Cyprus by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC). Although they are regulated by Cyprus law, many malicious online brokers have opened shop there because they seem to get along with the law while they rip off customers. Maybe this has changed in th... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Negative Balance from Automatic Options Exercise. What to do? | Automatic exercisions can be extremely risky, and the closer to the money the options are, the riskier their exercisions are. It is unlikely that the entire account has negative equity since a responsible broker would forcibly close all positions and pursue the holder for the balance of the debt to reduce solvency risk... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | When does giving a gift “count” for tax year? | Generally it goes by when they receive the check, not when they cash the check. Though if the check was received prior to midnight on December 31st, but after the bank closes, they would probably let the tax payer decide to count it for the next year. Of course if the check is from person A to person B then the only is... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Selling property outside the US - gains are taxable, but how do they convert? | "Since you did not treat the house as a QBU, you have to use USD as your functional currency. To calculate capital gains, you need to calculate the USD value at the time of purchase using the exchange rate at the time of purchase and the USD value at the time of sale using the exchange rate at the time of sale. The c... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Employer skipped payments, should I allow them to defer payment until Jan 2017? | "First, let's look at the tax brackets for single taxpayers in 2016: The cutoff between the 25% and 28% tax bracket is $91,150. You said that your gross is $87,780. This will be reduced by deductions and exemptions (at least $10,350). Your rental income will increase your income, but it is offset in part by your ren... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Tax implications of diversification | Yes, to change which stocks you owe you need to sell one and buy the other, which for tax purposes means taking the profit or loss accrued up to then. On the other hand this establishes a new baseline, so you will not be double-faced on those gains. It just makes a mess of this year's tax return, and forced you to set ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Recognizing the revenue on when virtual 'credits' are purchased as opposed to used | "I'll assume United States as the country; the answer may (probably does) vary somewhat if this is not correct. Also, I preface this with the caveat that I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant. However, this is my understanding: You must recognize the revenue at the time the credits are purchased (when money changes... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | End of financial year: closing transactions | "I'm not sure there's a good reason to do a ""closing the books"" ceremony for personal finance accounting. (And you're not only wanting to do that, but have a fiscal year that's different from the calendar year? Yikes!) My understanding is that usually this process is done for businesses to be able to account for what... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex? | When you buy a futures contract you are entering into an agreement to buy gold, in the future (usually a 3 month settlement date). this is not an OPTION, but a contract, so each party is taking risk, the seller that the price will rise, the buyer that the price will fall. Unlike an option which you can simply choose ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | what is difference between stock and dividend? | stocks represent ownership in a company. their price can go up or down depending on how much profit the company makes (or is expected to make). stocks owners are sometimes paid money by the company if the company has extra cash. these payments are called dividends. bonds represent a debt that a company owes. when yo... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Is it possible to improve stock purchase with limit orders accounting for volatility? | If you can afford the cost and risk of 100 shares of stock, then just sell a put option. If you can only afford a few shares, you can still use the information the options market is trying to give you -- see below. A standing limit order to buy a stock is essentially a synthetic short put option position. [1] So deci... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Given current market conditions, how / when should I invest a $200k inheritance? | "E) Spend a small amount of that money on getting advice from a paid financial planner. (Not a broker or someone offering you ""free"" advice; their recommendations may be biased toward what makes them the most money). A good financial planner will talk to you about your plans and expectations both short and long term... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Setting up auto-pay. Should I use my bank that holds mortage or my personal bank? | "One factor to consider is timing. If you set up the automatic payments through the bank that holds the mortgage (I'll call them the ""receiving"" bank), they will typically record the transactions as occurring on the actual dates you've set up the automatic payments to occur on, which generally eliminates e.g. the ris... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Real estate agent best practice | This question is a bit off-topic, might be better moved to another SE site. But I'll answer anyway: Sounds like the problem is that your wife is potentially being taken advantage of by people who may not really be prospects. Keep in mind no one can take advantage of you without your permission. There are also some thin... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What is a better way for an American resident in a foreign country to file tax? | "If you live outside the US, then you probably need to deal with foreign tax credits, foreign income exclusions, FBAR forms (you probably have bank account balances enough for the 10K threshold) , various monsters the Congress enacted against you like form 8939 (if you have enough banking and investment accounts), form... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Selling equities for real-estate down payment | "My suggestion would be to do the math. That is the best advice you can get when considering any investment. There are other factors you haven't considered, too... like the fact that interest rates are at extremely low levels right now, so borrowing money is relatively cheap. If you're outside the US though, that may ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Working Capital Definition | As you say, if you delay paying your bills, your liabilities will increase. Like say your bills total $10,000 per month. If you normally pay after 30 days, then your short-term liabilities will be $10,000. If you stretch that out to pay after 60 days, then you will be carrying two months worth of bills as a short-term ... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | "Several, actually: Maintenance costs. As landlord, you are liable for maintaining the basic systems of the dwelling - structure, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. On top of that, you typically also have to maintain anything that comes with the space, so if you're including appliances like a W/D or fridge, if they crap out y... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | How is it possible that a preauth sticks to a credit card for 30 days, even though the goods have already been delivered? | It is barely possible that this is Citi's fault, but it sounds more like it is on the Costco end. The way that this is supposed to work is that they preauthorize your card for the necessary amount. That reserves the payment, removing the money from your credit line. On delivery, they are supposed to capture the pre... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Do I need to report to FInCEN if I had greater than $10,000 worth of bitcoin in a foreign bitcoin exchange? | Yes, I'd say you do. This is similar to reporting a brokerage account. Also, don't forget the requirements for form 8938. |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | How to get started with savings, paying off debt, and retirement? | "The word you are looking for is ""budget"" You can't pay off debt if you are spending more than you earn. Therefore, start a budget that you both work on at the same time, and both agree 100% with. Evaluate your progress on that budget on a regular basis. From your question, you understand what your obligations are ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Why do new car loans, used car loans, and refinanced loans have different rates and terms? | "New car loans, used car loans, and refinances have different rates because they have different risks associated with them, different levels of ability to recoup losses if there is a default, and different customer profiles. (I'm assuming third party lender for all of these questions, not financing the dealer arranges... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different'? | "Essentially, he means ""one ignores history at their own peril"". We often hear people arguing that ""the old rules no longer apply"". Whether it be to valuations, borrowing, or any of the other common metrics, to ignore the lessons of the past is to invite disaster. History shows us that major crises in the market... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Are there any risks from using mint.com? | "Mint.com uses something called OFX (Open Financial Exchange) to get the information in your bank account. If someone accessed your mint account they would not be able to perform any transactions with your bank. All they would be able to do is view the same information you do, which some of it could be personal <- that... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Is www.onetwotrade.com a scam? | "OneTwoTrade is a binary option seller, and they are officially licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority. They are not in any way licensed or regulated as an investment, because they don't do actual investing. Is your money safe? If you mean will they take your money and run off with it, then no they probably won't just ... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | What prices are compared to decide a security is over-valued, fairly valued or under-valued? | "I was wondering how ""future cash flows of the asset"" are predicted? Are they also predicted using fundamental and/or technical analysis? There are a many ways to forecast the future cash flows of assets. For example, for companies: It seems like calculating expected/required rate using CAPM does not belong to either... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Am I exposed to currency risk when I invest in shares of a foreign company that are listed domestically? | "Yes, you're still exposed to currency risk when you purchase the stock on company B's exchange. I'm assuming you're buying the shares on B's stock exchange through an ADR, GDR, or similar instrument. The risk occurs as a result of the process through which the ADR is created. In its simplest form, the process works li... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What kind news or information would make the price of a stock go up? | There is a highly related question which is much easier to answer: what normally value-increasing news about a company would cause that company to fall in value in the public stock market? By answering that, we can answer your question by proxy. The answer to that question being: anything that makes investors believe t... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Weekly budgets based on (a variable) monthly budget | "I think the real problem here is dealing with the variable income. The envelope solution suggests the problem is that your brother doesn't have the discipline to avoid spending all his money immediately, but maybe that's not it. Maybe he could regulate his expenses just fine, but with such a variable income, he can't ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | 1.4 million cash. What do I do? | For now, park it in a mix of cash and short term bond funds like the Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade fund. The short term fund will help with the inflation issue. Make sure the cash positions are FDIC insured. Then either educate yourself about investing or start interviewing potential advisors. Look for referrals... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What effect would currency devaluation have on my investments? | Stocks, gold, commodities, and physical real estate will not be affected by currency changes, regardless of whether those changes are fast or slow. All bonds except those that are indexed to inflation will be demolished by sudden, unexpected devaluation. Notice: The above is true if devaluation is the only thing going... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Can expense ratios on investment options in a 401(k) plan contain part of the overall 401(k) plan fees? | There are several things being mixed up in the questions being asked. The expense ratio charged by the mutual fund is built into the NAV per share of the fund, and you do not see the charge explicitly mentioned as a deduction on your 401k statement (or in the statement received from the mutual fund in a non-401k situ... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback? | "In some sense, the share repurchasing program is better if the company does not foresee the same profit levels down the road. Paying a dividend for several years and then suddenly not paying or reducing a dividend is viewed as a ""slap in the face"" by investors. Executing a share repurchase program one year and the... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Does the sale of personal items need to be declared as income on my income taxes? | "Books would be considered Personal-Use Property according to Canada's income tax laws. The most detailed IT I was able to find is IT-332R, which says: GAINS AND LOSSES 3. A gain on the disposition of personal-use property is normally a capital gain within the meaning of paragraph 39(1)(a). Where the property is a pri... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | In the UK what are citizens legally obliged to do (in order to not be fined) | Edited to add an important one that I forgot, because I don't have a TV myself. You need to: That's really about it, unless you're employing people or running a business turning over more than £81,000 per year (or doing one of a number of relatively unlikely things that require specific paperwork, such as owning a hors... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Why are Rausch Coleman houses so cheap? Is it because they don't have gas? | "In northwest Arkansas, most of the houses this company offers do cost about 90 - 110 dollars per square foot. The exceptions use the Whitney plan, which has the following design features (and/or problems) which happen to save the builder a lot of money: One very nice feature is the U-shaped stairway in the center of ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What determines the price of fixed income ETFs? | The literal answer to your question 'what determines the price of an ETF' is 'the market'; it is whatever price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. But if the market price of an ETF share deviates significantly from its NAV, the per-share market value of the securities in its portfolio, then an... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | 401(k) Investment stategies | "You could end up with nothing, yes. I imagine those that worked at Enron years ago if their 401(k) was all in company stock would have ended up with nothing to give an example here. However, more likely is for you to end up with less than you thought as you see other choices as being better that with the benefit of ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What happens to 401(k) money that isn't used by the time the account holder dies? | A 401k plan will ask you to name a beneficiary who will receive the funds if you don't withdraw them all before death. Usually, a primary beneficiary and a secondary beneficiary is requested. If you don't specify a beneficiary, your estate is the beneficiary by default. Note that the name supplied to the 401k plan is ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | How to calculate how much house I can afford? | There is no simple way to calculate how much house any given person can afford. In the answer keshlam gave, several handy rules of thumb are mentioned that are used as common screening devices to reject loans, but in every case further review is required to approve any loan. The 28% rule is the gold standard for estim... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What is a normal amount of money to spend per week on food/entertainment/clothing? | "I'll start with a question... Is the 63K before or after taxes? The short answer to your question on how much is reasonable is: ""It depends."" It depends on a lot more than where you live, it depends on what you want... do you want to pay down debt? Do you want to save? Are you trying to buy a house? Those will infl... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How to get into real estate with a limited budget | You are neglecting a few very important things around real estate transactions in Belgium So in the end a 300K building may cost you more than 340K, let's take some unexpected costs into account and use 350K for remainder of calculation. Even worse if it's newly built (which I doubt) the first percentage is 21% (VAT) i... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | How can one relatively easily show that low expense ratio funds outperform high expense ratio funds? | "I hope a wall of text with citations qualifies as ""relatively easy."" Many of these studies are worth quoting at length. Long story short, a great deal of research has found that actively-managed funds underperform market indexes and passively-managed funds because of their high turnover and higher fees, among other ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Withdraw funds with penalty or bear high management fees for 10 years? | I think the main question is whether the 1.5% quarterly fee is so bad that it warrants losing $60,000 immediately. Suppose they pull it out now, so they have 220000 - 60000 = $160,000. They then invest this in a low-cost index fund, earning say 6% per year on average over 10 years. The result: Alternatively, they lea... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How will the New credit reporting rules affect people who are already struggling financially? | From my understanding by paying your bills more than 5 days late will not lead you into bankruptcy or stop you from getting a new loan in the future, however it may mean that lenders offer you credit at a higher interest rate. This of course would not help you as you are already struggling with your finances. However, ... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | How do I know when I am financially stable/ready to move out on my own? | One big deciding factor will be what standard of living you want to maintain once you move out. Your parents have had years to get raises, accumulate savings, and establish the standard of living you are used to. Regardless of how much you save up now, you'll still have to be living at or below your means once you m... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Bank denying loan after “subject-to” appraisal: What to do? | I'm not sure about your first two options. But given your situation, a variant of option three seems possible. That way you don't have to throw away your appraisal, although it's possible that you'll need to get some kind of addendum related to the repairs. You also don't have your liquid money tied up long term. ... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Why do P/E ratios for a particular industry tend to cluster around particular values? | "This falls under value investing, and value investing has only recently picked up study by academia, say, at the turn of the millennium; therefore, there isn't much rigorous on value investing in academia, but it has started. However, we can describe valuations: In short, valuations are randomly distributed in a log-V... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house? | "The general answer is: ""it depends on how long you want to live there"". Here is a good calculator to figure it out: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html Basically, if you plan to move in a few years, then renting makes more sense. It is a lot easier to move from an apartment when you... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Why do employers require you to spread your 401(k) contributions throughout the year to get the maximum match? | If one makes say, $10K/mo, and the company will match the first 5% dollar for dollar, a 10%/mo deposit of $1K/mo will see a $500/mo match. If the employee manages to request 90% get put into the 401(k), after 2 months, he's done. If the company wished, they could continue the $500/mo match, I agree. They typically don... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Why don't market indexes use aggregate market capitalization? | "They do but you're missing some calculations needed to gain an understanding. Intro To Stock Index Weighting Methods notes in part: Market cap is the most common weighting method used by an index. Market cap or market capitalization is the standard way to measure the size of the company. You might have heard of la... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? | I think this question is very nearly off-topic for this site, but I also believe that a basic understanding of the why the tax structure is what it is can help someone new to investing to understand their actual tax liability. The attempt at an answer I provide below is from a Canadian & US context, but should be simil... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person? | There is no benefit in life insurance as such (ie, death insurance.) There is a great deal of value in other types though: total and permanent disability insurance, trauma insurance (a lump sum for a major medical event), and income protection insurance (cover against a temporary but disabling medical condition). If y... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | How does end-of-year interact with mutual fund prices (if it does)? | "This answer is applicable to the US. Similar rules may hold in some other countries as well. The shares in an open-ended (non-exchange-traded) mutual fund are not traded on stock exchanges and the ""market"" does not determine the share price the way it does for shares in companies as brokers make offers to buy and... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How Warren Buffett made his money | "Despite Buffett's nearly perfect consistent advice over the past few decades, they don't reflect his earliest days. His modern philosophy seemed to solidify in the 1970s. You can see that Buffett's earliest days grew faster, at 29.5 % for those partners willing to take on leverage with Buffett, than the last half cen... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Can my employer limit my maximum 401k contribution amount (below the IRS limit)? | Congratulations on your raise! Is my employer allowed to impose their own limit on my contributions that's different from the IRS limit? No. Is it something they can limit at will, or are they required to allow me to contribute up to the IRS limit? The employer cannot limit you, you can contribute up to the IRS lim... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Why do people buy new cars they can not afford? | There are many reasons for buying new versus used vehicles. Price is not the only factor. This is an individual decision. Although interesting to examine from a macro perspective, each vehicle purchase is made by an individual, weighing many factors that vary in importance by that individual, based upon their specific... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Do I still need to file taxes with the Canadian government if I am working in the U.S. on a TN visa for a few years? | "You are considered a Canadian resident if you have ""significant residential ties to Canada"". Because your wife lives in Canada, you therefore are a resident. Even by working temporarily in the US, you are still considered a ""factual resident"" of Canada. Due to that, your second question is irrelevant." |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | I was given a 1099-misc instead of a w-2 what are my next steps? | "I agree that you should have received both a 1099 and a W2 from your employer. They may be reluctant to do that because some people believe that could trigger an IRS audit. The reason is that independent contractor vs employee is supposed to be defined by your job function, not by your choice. If you were a contractor... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Why do interest rates increase or decrease? | "My answer is specific to the US because you mentioned the Federal Reserve, but a similar system is in place in most countries. Do interest rates increase based on what the market is doing, or do they solely increase based on what the Federal Reserve sets them at? There are actually two rates in question here; the Wiki... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance? | "Yes, and the math that tells you when is called the Kelly Criterion. The Kelly Criterion is on its face about how much you should bet on a positive-sum game. Imagine you have a game where you flip a coin, and if heads you are given 3 times your bet, and if tails you lose your bet. Naively you'd think ""great, I shoul... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | At tax time, what is the proper way to report cryptocurrency earnings and fiat income when you've started with “nothing”? | "In 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. In that notice, the answer to the first question describes the general tax treatment of virtual currency: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transa... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Relative worth of investment versus spending for the economy | I don't think that there's a specific number or index that gives you what you're looking for. I think the closest thing to it would be the velocity of money, which is a measure of how often money changes hands. Also, for what it's worth, I believe that this concept is controversial in some circles. |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Which % of the global economy is considered “emerging”? | The company that runs the fund (Vanguard) on their website has the information on the general breakdown of their investments of that fund. They tell you that as of July 31st 2016 it is 8.7% emerging markets. They even specifically list the 7000+ companies they have purchased stocks in. Of course the actual investment a... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Recommended finance & economy book/blog for a Software Engineer? | Start at Investopedia. Get basic clarification on all financial terms and in some cases in detail. But get a book. One recommendation would be Hull. It is a basic book, but quite informative. Likewise you can get loads of material targeted at programmers. Wilmott's Forum is a fine place to find coders as well as financ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How does the debt:GDP ratio affect the country's economy? | "Is it not that bad? Depends how bad is bad. The problems causes by a government having large debt are similar to those caused by an individual having large debt. The big issue is: More and more of your income goes to paying interest on the debt, and is thus not available for spending on goods and services. If it gets ... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | What is the effect of a high dollar on the Canadian economy, investors, and consumers? | It depends primarily on how the Canadian economy is designed i.e export oriented or import oriented. If you look at this, it shows more or less equal amount of exports and imports. For the specific case of Canada, the exports would become costlier, because of a costlier dollar, but at the same time imports would become... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable/uncertain economy? | "IRAs have huge tax-advantages. You'll pay taxes when you liquidate gold and silver. While volatile, ""the stock market has never produced a loss during any rolling 15-year period (1926-2009)"" [PDF]. This is perhaps the most convincing article for retirement accounts over at I Will Teach You To Be Rich. An IRA is just... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money “in this economy”? | "You ask a few different, though not unrelated, questions. Everywhere you turn today, you hear people talk about how much they need to save or how important it is to find a good deal on things ""in this economy"". They use phrases like ""now more than ever"" and ""in these uncertain times"". It seems to be ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Investment / Savings advice in uncertain economy | $23,000 Student Loans at 4% This represents guaranteed loss. Paying this off quickly is a conservative move, while your other investments may easily surpass 4% return, they are not guaranteed. Should I just keep my money in my savings account since I want to keep my money available? Or are there other options I have... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation? | "For diversification against local currency's inflation, you have fundamentally 3 options: Depending on how sure you are on your prediction, and what amount of money you're willing to bet to ""short the country"", you might also consider a mix of approaches from the above. Good luck." |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | How is gold shared in worldwide economies? | Money is no longer backed by gold. It's backed by the faith and credit of the issuing government. A new country,say, will first trade goods for dollars or other currency, so its ownership of gold is irrelevant. Its currency will trade at a value based on supply/demand for that currency. If it's an unstable currency, in... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Totally new to finance, economy, where should I start? | A couple of good books I enjoyed and found very understandable (regarding the stock market): As for investment information you can get lost for days in Investopedia. Start in the stock section and click around. The tutorials here (free) give a good introduction to different financial topics. Regarding theoretical know... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Entering the stock market in a poor economy | "Forecasts of stock market direction are not reliable, so you shouldn't be putting much weight on them. Long term, you can expect to do better in stocks, but obtaining this better expected return has the danger of ""buying in"" to the market at a particularly bad moment, leading to a substantially lower return. So mi... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | How should residents of smaller economies allocate their portfolio between domestic and foreign assets? | why should I have any bias in favour of my local economy? The main reason is because your expenses are in the local currency. If you are planning on spending most of your money on foreign travel, that's one thing. But for most of us, the bulk of our expenses are incurred locally. So it makes sense for us to invest ... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How can a 'saver' maintain or increase wealth in low interest rate economy? | "Since the other answers have covered mutual funds/ETFs/stocks/combination, some other alternatives I like - though like everything else, they involve risk: Example of how these other ""saving methods"" can be quite effective: about ten years ago, I bought a 25lb bag of quinoa at $19 a bag. At the same company, quinoa... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Why are some countries' currencies “weaker”? | 1:30 is not stronger than 1:79. These are just numbers. Trading 1:120 in 2008 and 1:79 now vs. trading 1:31 in 2008 vs 1:30 now is much better criteria to look at to evaluate the strength of the currency, and if you look at that you can see that the Japanese Yen is significantly stronger than the Bhat. While Yen gained... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Why is economic growth so important? | "One of the best answers to this question that I've ever read is in a paper published by Robert Lucas in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. That journal is meant to a be a place for experts to write about their area of expertise (in economics) for a general but still technically-minded audience. They recently opened... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | What is the main purpose of FED increase and decrease interest rate? | When inflation is high or is rising generally interest rates will be raised to reduce people spending their money and slow down the rate of inflation. As interest rates rise people will be less willing to borrow money and more willing to keep their money earning a good interest rate in the bank. People will reduce thei... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | what's the best option to save money on everyday expenses? | "There is a saying in business: what gets measured gets done. Track every expense you make. Later, look over what you have learned. If 5% of your total budget is going to something frivolous, maybe you could halve it? If 1% or 0.1% is going to that frivolous expense, there's not much to be gained even by eliminating it... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What implications does having the highest household debt to disposable income ratio have on Australia? | Stock market Tends to follow the DJIA and FTSE, so unlikely to see an Australia-only crash, especially while resources are doing so well. If China's growth slows before other ailing sectors improve, a downturn becomes more likely and the potential severity of the downturn increases. Economy A huge question to which I w... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What economic growth rate is required to halve U.S. unemployment? | Two points. |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Will the stock market continue to grow forever? | "The stock market may not grow ""forever"". There will be growth in the stock market, though. The stock market is a positive-sum game, since it is driven in large part by the profits earned by the companies. This doesn't mean that any individual stock will go up forever, it doesn't mean that any given index will go up ... |
Utilize your financial knowledge, give your answer or opinion to the input question or subject. | Why can't poor countries just print more money? | Printing money doesn't mean that their wealth increases. It just devalues the money they already have. So it will just take more money to buy goods from another country. Printing money will also lead to over inflation which has its own set of problems such as: |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Is it normal that US Treasury bills(0.07%) yield smaller than interest rate(0.25%)? | Maybe someone will have more details, but a couple of things come to mind immediately: |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity? | If you're referring to investment hedging, then you should diversify into things that would profit if expected event hit. For example alternative energy sources would benefit greatly from increased evidence of global warming, or the onset of peak oil. Preparing for calamities that would render the stock market inaccess... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Explain the HSI - why do markets sometimes appear in sync and other times not? | Contributing factors to the diversion were that: A) China's currency does not float like other major countries' currencies B) China's real estate market didn't have the same lending criteria leading to the level of speculation seen in USA, at the time. |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | What happens if someone destroy money? | Depending on the country, nothing. For example, the US has about $1.3 trillion dollars of cash in circulation. Which means that if you were to burn a million dollars of it, that would be 0.000077% of the circulating cash. But cash is a small portion of the actual money in the US. Only about 8% of all money is in c... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | how derivatives transfer risk from one entity to another | By buying the call option, you are getting the benefit of purchasing the underlying shares (that is, if the shares go up in value, you make money), but transferring the risk of the shares reducing in value. This is more apparent when you are using the option to offset an explicit risk that you hold. For example, if you... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum? | "Platinum use is pretty heavily overweight in industrial areas; according to the linked Wikipedia article, 239 tonnes of platinum was sold in 2006, of which 130 tonnes went to vehicles emissions control devices and another 13.3 tonnes to electronics. Gold sees substantial use as an investment as well as to hedge agains... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | How fast does the available amount of gold in the world increase due to mining? | For the last few years around 2,500 metric tonnes of gold have been produced each year. This is on top of existing supply of 160,000 metric tonnes. Existing yearly production is around 1.5% of the existing supply. Charts from here. |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | Should I switch/rollover my IRA to a Gold IRA at Regal Assets? | "The link you originally included had an affiliate code included (now removed). It is likely that your ""friend"" suggested the site to you because there is something in it for your ""friend"" if you sign up with their link. Seek independent financial advice, not from somebody trying to earn a commission off you. Don't... |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | How do you find reasonably priced, quality, long lasting clothing? | On the quality angle a big part of it is experience, but the biggest thing is careful observation. You have to take a close, critical look at any article of clothing. (This holds true for just about any purchase.) As far as finding them for reasonable prices it's the usual thing: sales and buying them second-hand. Fi... |
Offer your insights or judgment on the input financial query or topic using your financial expertise. | Are Shiller real-estate futures and options catching on with investors? | "The Case-Schiller macro derivatives market has seen very minimal activity. For example, in the three regional markets of San Diego (SDG), Boston (BOS) and Los Angeles (LAX) on 28 November 2011, there was zero trading volume, no trades settled, no open interest. * Source: CME Futures and options activity[PDF] for al... |
Share your insights or perspective on the financial matter presented in the input. | How to hedge against specific asset classes at low cost | "The essence of hedging is to find an investment that performs well under the conditions that you're concerned about. If you're concerned about China stock dropping, then find something that goes up in value if that asset class goes down. Maybe put options on a Chinese index fund, or selling short one of those funds? ... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Demurrage vs inflation | Yes, there's a difference. If you've borrowed $100, then under inflation your salary will (presumably) increase, and tomorrow your debt will only be worth $99. But under demurrage, you'll still owe $100. |
Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. | Exposure to Irish Housing Market | There contracts called an FX Forwards where you can get a feel for what the market thinks an exchange rate will be in the future. Now exchange rates are notoriously uncertain, but it is worth noting that at current prices market believes your Krona will be worth only 0.0003 Euro less three years from now than it is wo... |
Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background. | Could one person with a card with no spending limit pay off everyone's debt? | The problem would not only be that of Kyle but also that of American Express. When Kyle pays by credit card, American Express pays the bills out of their pockets on his behalf and then forwards the bill to Kyle. The issuer of a credit card takes the risk that the holder of the card won't pay the credit card bill. In pr... |
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