document,summary
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""Mathematically speaking there would be a point where the  expected value  EV of purchasing every possible ticket would be favorable but only if you take in account both the jackpot payout and the lesser payouts of all the wining tickets  however practically speaking since the powerball has a liability payout limit which means they dont have to pay out more money than they took in you cant beat the house ( or the government)"""
"""Why would someone buy a way out-of-the-money call option that's expiring soon?""","""Perhaps it was to close a short position.  Suppose the seller had written the calls at some time in the past and maybe made a buck or two off of them.  By buying the calls now they can close out the position and go away on vacation, or at least have one less thing they have to pay attention to.  If they were covered calls, perhaps the buyer wants to sell the underlying and in order to do so has to get out of the calls."""
"""How do I find a legitimate, premium credit repair service?""","""If the bad credit items are accurate, disputing the accuracy of the items seems at best, unethical.   If the bad credit items are inaccurate, the resolution process provided by each of the 3 credit bureaus, while time consuming, seems the way to go."""
"""Why does a company's stock price affect its ability to raise debt?""","""As JB hints, it is likely due to superior or improving, fundamentals. If the fundamentals of a company improve then its ability to repay loans improves. If its ability to repay improves then more sources of cash become willing to lend to the company. Also if fundamentals are improving then more sources are willing to buy and\/or hold the stock."""
"""How do you declare an interest free loan?""","""I am neither a lawyer nor a tax accountant, and if you're dealing with serious money I suggest you consult a professional. But my understanding is: If you make a loan at zero interest or at below-market rates, the IRS will consider the difference between the interest that you do charge and the market rate to be a gift. That is, if someone could get a loan from a bank and he'd pay $1000 in interest for the year, but instead you loan him the money as a friend interest free, than as far as the IRS is concerned you have given him a $1000 gift, and you could potentially have to pay gift tax. Or they might \""impute\"" the interest to you and tax you on $1000 of additional income. If you have no agreement on repayment terms, if it's all, \""Hey Joe, just pay me back when you can\"", then the IRS is likely to consider the entire \""loan\"" to be a gift. There's an annual exclusion on gifts -- I think it's now $13,000 -- so if you loan your buddy fifty bucks to tide him over until next pay day, the IRS isn't going to get involved in that. They're worried about more serious money. And yes, the IRS does \""police loan rates\"". The IRS examines exact numbers for all sorts of things. If, say, you go on a 100-mile overnight business trip, and the company gives you $10,000 for travel expenses, the IRS is likely to say that this is not a tax-deductible travel expense at all but a sham to hide part of your salary from taxes. Or if you donate a pair of old socks to charity and declare a $500 charitable contribution deduction, the IRS will say that that is not a realistic value for a pair of old socks and disallow the deduction. Etc. A small discrepancy from market rates can be justified for any number of reasons. If the book value of a used car is $5000 and you sell it to your neighbor for $4900, the IRS is unlikely to question it, there are any number of legitimate business reasons why you had to give a discount to make the sale. But if you sell it to him for $50, they may declare that this is not a sale but a gift. Etc."""
"""What debts are both partners liable for in a 'community property' state?""","""I know one piece of information that can help you (in a macabe sort of way) - from what my wife has told me, if your partner dies, you are not responsible for paying for their debts, especially student loans. I expect the same thing for credit cards - if someone were to happen to charge $2,000 on their credit card and get hit by a bus, the credit card company can cajole and plead for you to pay for it, but you have no legal requirement to do so.  Unfortunately I do not have as much information about as if you spouse is living."""
"""What are the opportunities\/implications of having a designated clearing bank in my home country?""","""For an individual there will not be much impact immediately. This arrangement will help Corporates and Banks settle payments more easily. - It would typically help companies dealing with Yuan [Buying or selling to China or Countries that accept Yuan as payment] to make payments at a cheaper cost & in less time. - In the near future it would make it easier for companies to invest more into China financial markets - It would also open up \/ create new market for derivatives and other allied products - It would also make Singapore a market place for Yuan outside China [and Hong Kong] resulting in more money and related product. In a related move this would make it easy for Singapore Central Bank to invest in China.   Once the markets matures more, there could be some products for Individuals."""
"""Should I collect receipts after paying with a card?""","""It is probably safe to throw away the receipt.  Without a system to process and store receipts, they are of little use. With regards to personal finances I'm guilty of preaching without practicing 100% of the time, but here are some arguments for keeping receipts. To reconcile your statement to receipts before paying the credit card bill  - people make mistakes all the time.  I bet if you have an average volume of transactions, you will find at least one mistake in 12 months. To establish baseline spending and calculate a realistic budget.  So many people will draft  a budget by 'estimating' where their money goes.  When it comes to this chore, I think people are about as honest with themselves as exercise and counting calories.  Receipts are facts. To abide by record keeping requirements for warranty, business, IRS, etc... Personally, the only thing I've caught so far is Bank of America charging me interest when I pay my bill in full every month!"""
"""Does doing your \""research\""\/\""homework\"" on stocks make any sense?""","""Doing your homework means to perform what's more accurately called \""fundamental analysis\"". According to proponents of fundamental analysis (FA), it is possible to accurately determine how much a stock should trade for and then buy or sell the stock based on whether it trades above or below this target price. This target price is based on the discounted anticipated future earnings of your stock, so \""doing your homework\"" means that you figure out how much future earnings you can expect from the stock and then figuring out at what rate you want to discount those future earnings (Are 1000 dollars that you'll earn next year worth $800 today or $900 or only $500? That depends on the overall economic and political climate...) So does this make any sense? Depends. I'm aware that there are a lot of anecdotes of people researching a stock, buying that stock and doing well with that stock. But poor decisions can at times lead to good outcomes... EDIT: Due to some criticism, I want to expand on a few points. So, is homework completely for naught? No!"""
"""In what category would I put a loan I took to pay an expense""","""A loan is most generally a liability, a part of the balance sheet.  Expenses & income are part of the income statement.  Income is the net of revenues after expenses. The interest is an expense on the income statement, but the loan itself does not reside there unless if it is defaulted and forgiven.  Then it would become a revenue or contra-expense, depending on the methodology. The original purpose of the income statement is to show the net inflows of short term operational accruals which would exclude new borrowing and repaid loans. The cash flow statement will better show each cash event such as borrowing debt, repaying debt, or paying off a bill. To show how a loan may have funded a bill, which in theory it directly did not because an entity, be it a person or business, is like a single tank of water with multiple pipes filling and multiple pipes extracting, so it is impossible to know which exact inflow funded which exact outflow unless if there is only one inflow per period and one outflow per the same period. That being said, with a cash flow statement, the new loan will show a cash inflow when booked under the financing portion, and paying a bill will show a cash outflow when booked under the operating portion.  With only those two transactions booked and an empty balance sheet beforehand, it could be determined that a new loan funded a bill payment."""
"""How can I pay for school to finish my degree when I can't get a student loan and have bad credit?""","""Here's what you can do: roll up your sleeves and get to work.  Work 2 or 3 jobs while you take 12 credit hours.  Live in the cheapest available housing (that is reasonably safe).  Have no social life.  Wake up, work, class, eat, work, study, sleep. Every day.  Don't eat at restaurants.  Eat only simple meals at home.   Every meal.  Have a car payment?  Get rid of your car and use public transit or get the cheapest running car possible.   One year of nothing but focused effort on paying for and finishing school.  If you can't earn enough to cover 14K on top of your basic living expenses, then you aren't working hard enough, or you have extenuating circumstances that make finishing your degree at this time infeasible."""
"""Could the loan officer deny me even if I have the money as a first time home buyer?""","""There are loan options for those in your situation.  It is very common.  I am a licensed loan officer nmls 1301324 and have done many loans just like this.  Your schooling is counted as your work history Contrary to popular belief.  We want to write loans and guidelines are easing.  Banks are a different story and their loan officers aren't licensed.  If you talk to a bank you aren't getting an educated loan officer.  They also have what are called overlays that make guidelines stricter."""
"""Mortgage loan plus home loan""","""You can be a co-borrower on the property that your father owns. Some Banks require that you also be part owner of the property, some banks do not require this. You can take a home loan for a new property, normally Banks will ask you of all your current loans [auto\/other home\/personal\/ etc] to determine the amount they will be ready to lend. Edit: The first loan I believe your father already has a property in his name ... your father can apply for Loan against property ... if he does not have sufficient income, then you can guarantee the loan [ie co-sign on the loan, some banks allow this ... however there is no tax benefit on this loan]  .   The second is the Home Loan for the balance amount that you would get it \u2026 Both the loans can be taken from the same Bank, there would be a overall cap as to the amount of loan a Bank would give depending on your income, further the finance for this house will only be to the extent of 80% of the value."""
"""What variety of hedges are there against index funds of U.S. based stocks?""","""Even though \""when the U.S. sneezes Canada catches a cold\"", I would suggest considering a look at Canadian government bonds as both a currency hedge, and for the safety of principal \u2014 of course, in terms of CAD, not USD. We like to boast that Canada fared relatively better (PDF) during the economic crisis than many other advanced economies, and our government debt is often rated higher than U.S. government debt. That being said, as a Canadian, I am biased.  For what it's worth, here's the more general strategy: Recognize that you will be accepting some currency risk (in addition to the sovereign risks) in such an approach. Consistent with your ETF approach, there do exist a class of \""international treasury bond\"" ETFs, holding short-term foreign government bonds, but their holdings won't necessarily match the criteria I laid out \u2013 although they'll have wider diversification than if you invested in specific countries separately."""
"""stock for a particular brand""","""If you want to invest in the Windows Phone, then you go and find out who makes the Windows Phone i.e. Microsoft. Then you go and decide if Windows Phone is successful will the share price of Microsoft go up (own research\/deduction) and if you think that the price of Microsoft has a positive correlation with the Windows Phone, then you could buy shares of Microsoft. There is no way to invest directly in individual products on stock exchanges, you are generally investing in the companies that produce them. You find the ticker of a company by googling. NASDAQ: MSFT"""
"""Methods for forecasting price?""","""well there are many papers on power spot price prediction, for example. It depends on what level of methodology you would like to use. Linear regression is one of the basic steps, then you can continue with more advanced options. I'm a phd student studying modelling the energy price (electricity, gas, oil) as stochastic process. Regarding to your questions: 1. mildly speaking, it's really hard, due to its random nature! (http:\/\/www.dataversity.net\/is-there-such-a-thing-as-predictive-analytics\/)  2. well, i would ask what kind of measure of success you mean? what level of predicted interval one could find successful enough? 3. would you like me to send you some of the math-based papers on? 4. as i know, the method is to fully capture all main characteristics of the price. If it's daily power price, then these are mean-reversion effect, high volatility, spike, seasonality (weekly, monthly, yearly).  Would you tell me what kind of method you're using? Maybe we can discuss some shared ideas? Anna"""
"""Calculation of Loss for GM Bonds and Cost Basis of New Issues""","""I will say in advance this is not a great answer, but I had a similar experience when I owned a CIT bond that defaulted. I ended up getting stock plus 5 newly issued bonds as a replacement for my defaulted bond. My broker had no clue on cost basis and didn't even try for the new securities, I called the \""hotline\"" setup about CIT default and they knew nothing, and finally I read all the paperwork around the restructuring but it was less than transparent. So in the end I ended up claiming everything as a wash, no gain\/no loss - which probably screwed me in the end as I believe I ended up down. It was a very small position for me and was not worth the headache :("""
"""Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro \""Social Trading Network\"" using a \""CFD\""?""","""Is eToro legitimate? If you have any doubts about eToro or other CFD providers (or even Forex providers, which are kind of similar), just type      eToro scam in Google and see the results."""
"""Indian citizen working from India as freelancer for U.S.-based company. How to report the income & pay tax in India?""","""You can receive money directly into your savings bank account. It is perfectly legal. FYI the Bank as part of regulation would report this to RBI. As the funds are received for the services you have rendered, You are liable to pay tax on the income. The income is taxed as professional income similar to the income of Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants etc. If you are paying your colleagues, it would be treated as expense. Not only this, you can also treat any phone calls you make, or equipment your purchase [laptop, desk etc] as expense. The difference become your actual income and you would be taxed as per the rate for individuals. It's advisable you contact an accountant who would advise you better for a nominal fee [few thousand rupees] and help you pay the tax and file the returns. With or without accountant It is very important for you to record all payments and expenses in a book of accounts."""
"""Is a real estate attorney needed for builder deposit contract?""","""You need to let a lawyer look at it.  Concerns you have include:"""
"""Entering the stock market in a poor economy""","""If you have a long enough time horizon, investing in the stock market while in a bad economy can turn out to be a very smart decision. If you need access to your capital in the short-term, 1-2 years, then it is probably a bad decision. If you have the ability to ride out the next few years, then you may be buying securities at an extremely low valuation. Take AAPL and MSFT for example. These are both technology stocks, which is by far the hottest sector in the economy now, and you can buy both of these companies for less than 13x earnings. Historically, you would have had to pay 20x or higher for high tech growth companies, but today you can buy these stocks at discounted valuations. Now AAPL may have a large market capitalization and a high stock price, but the simple fact is they are growing their earnings very quickly, they have best in class management, and they have $100 billion in cash and $50 billion in annual cash flow generation and you can buy the stock for a historically low multiple."""
"""Do I need to write the date on the back of a received check when depositing it?""","""You do not need to write anything on the second line.  There are a variety of helpful things that you can add, e.g.: For Deposit Only.  This tells the bank to deposit the check into your account and ignore other signatures.   Your account number.  Especially useful when added to \""For Deposit Only\"".   A countersignature.  This tells the bank to pay the check to someone other than you.   Countersigned checks used to be much more common than they are now.  Someone who didn't have a bank account might ask someone who did to cash a check for them.   See also:  Four ways to endorse a check which gives the correct format for endorsing a check in these ways."""
"""How can you possibly lose on investments in stocks?""","""In your own example of VW, it dropped from its peak price of $253 to $92. If you had invested $10,000 in VW in April 2015, by September of that year it would have gone down to $3,600. If you held on to your investment, you would now be getting back to $6,700 on that original $10,000 investment. Your own example demonstrates that it is possible to lose. I have a friend who put his fortune into a company called WorldCom (one of the examples D Stanley shared). He actually lost all of his retirement. Luckily he made some money back when the startup we both worked for was sold to a much larger company. Unsophisticated investors lose money all the time by investing in individual companies. Your best bet is to start searching this site for answers on how to invest your money so that you can see actual strategies that reduce your investment risk. Here's a starting point: Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? If you want to better illustrate this principle to yourself, try this stock market simulation game."""
"""Buying a car - advice needed""","""I would actually disagree with MrChrister on this. You can afford yourself the car in this price range paid cash. I don't know how exactly you spend your income, but from my experience, in expensive California, saving $20K a year from $70K income with $800\/mo rent is feasible. Having a loan on your credit report which is paid on time and in full will definitely help you rebuilding your credit. Your calculations re the costs of the loan are based on the assumption that you're going to keep the loan for the whole period. Don't do that. See #1 - you can repay this loan much quicker than the 3 years it should originally have been. 6 months of the loan which is then paid off will do marvels to your credit report and credit score. Yes, it is going to cost you some, but in your particular case I would argue that its worth it. You're an adult now, you need credit cards, you'll need a mortgage at some point, you need to rent a place to live - all these require a good credit report. Just waiting, as MrChrister suggests, will help, but much much slower.  Having said that, a seller that \""cannot discuss the terms over the phone\"" is most likely a dishonest person. Once you're there and in front of him it is harder for you to verify information, resist signing papers, and negotiating."""
"""I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save?""","""House as investment is not a good idea. Besides the obvious calculations don't forget the property tax, home maintenance costs and time, insurance costs, etc. There are a lot of hidden drains on the investment value of the house; most especially the time that you have to invest in maintaining it. On the other hand, if you plan on staying in the area, having children, pets or like do home improvements, landscaping, gardening, auto repair, wood\/metal shopping then a house might be useful to you. Also consider the housing market where you are. This gets a bit more difficult to calculate but if you have a high-demand rental market then the house might make sense as an investment if you can rent it out for more than your monthly cost (including all of those factors above). But being a landlord is not for everyone. Again more of your time invested into the house, you have to be prepared to go months without renting it, you may have to deal with crazy people that will totally trash your house and threaten you if you complain, and you may need to part with some of the rent to a management company if you need their skills or time. It sounds like you are just not that interested right now. That's fine. Don't rush. Invest your money some other way (i.e.: the stock market). More than likely when you are ready for a house, or to bail your family out of trouble (if that's what you choose to do), you'll have even more assets to do either with."""
"""Loan for car buy \""cash\"" (third party) or bank loan""","""The car dealership doesn't care where you get the cash; they care about it becoming their money immediately and with no risk or complications. Any loan or other arrangements you make to raise the cash is Your Problem, not theirs, unless you arrange the loan through them."""
"""Why does it take two weeks (from ex-date) for dividends to pay out?""","""So from Investopedia - Who actually declares a dividend states that the Board of Directors of a company sets the 4 key dates: As these dates are chosen by the Board of Directors, either by internal corporate convention or special situation. Conceivably a Board may choose a Payable Date greater than 2 weeks which may make sense if their accounting partners are unavailable, i.e. extended national holiday. I assume that any period of time longer that what may seem reasonable and customary will be a topic at the next shareholder meeting."""
"""Why is retirement planning so commonly recommended?""","""In addition to what others have said, I think it is important to consider that government retirement assistance (whatever it is called in each instance) is basically a promise that can be revoked. I talked to a retired friend of mine just yesterday and we got onto that subject; she mentioned that when she was young, the promise was for 90% of one's pay, paid by the government after retiring. It is very different today. Yes, you can gamble that you won't need the saved money, and thus decide not to save anything. What then if you do end up needing the money you did not set aside, but rather spent? You are just now graduating college, and assuming of course that you get a decently-paying job, are likely going to have loads more money than you are used to. If you make an agreement with yourself to set aside even just 10-15% of the difference in income right from the start, that is going to grow into a pretty sizable nest egg by the time you approach retirement age. Then, you will have the option of continuing to work (maybe part-time) or quitting in a way you would not have had otherwise. Now I'm going to pull numbers out of thin air, but suppose that you currently have $1000\/month net, before expenses, and can get a job that pays $1800\/month net starting out. 10-15% of the difference means you'll be saving around $100\/month for retirement. In 35 years, assuming no return on investment (pessimistic, but works if returns match inflation) and no pay rises, that will still be over $40K. That's somewhere on the order of $150\/month added to your retirement income for 25 years. Multiply with whatever inflation rate you think is likely if you prefer nominal values. It becomes even more noticable if you save a significant fraction of the additional pay; if you save 1\/3 of the additional money (note that you still effectively get a 50% raise compared to what you have been living on before), that gives you a net income of $1500\/month instead of $1800 ($500\/month more rather than $800\/month more) which grows into about $110K in 35 years assuming no return on investment. Nearly $400 per month for 25 years. $100 per week is hardly chump change in retirement, and it is still quite realistic for most people to save 30% of the money they did not have before."""
"""Can I buy a new house before selling my current house?""","""There's also the option to put most of your stuff into storage and rent an apartment or go to an extended stay hotel.  Some apartments have month-by-month options at a higher rate, though you may need to ask around.   I've known some people to use this as their primary plan because it was easier for them to keep the house clean and ready to show when it's empty.  Basically, this option is to sell your current house then buy the new house with a (hopefully fairly short) transition time in the middle."""
"""How are bonds affected by the Federal Funds Rate?""","""I'll answer your question, but first a comment about your intended strategy.  Buying government bonds in a retirement account is probably not a good idea.  Government bonds (generally) are tax advantaged themselves, so they offer a lower interest rate than other types of bonds.  At no tax or reduced tax, many people will accept the lower interest rate because their effective return may be similar or better depending, for example, on their own marginal tax rate.  In a tax-advantaged retirement account, however, you'll be getting the lower interest without any additional benefit because that account itself is already tax-advantaged. (Buying bonds generally may be a good idea or not - I won't comment on that - but choose a different category of bonds.) For the general question about the relationship between the Fed rate and the bond rate, they are positively correlated.  There's not direct causal relationship in the sense that the Fed is not setting the bond rate directly, but other interest bearing investment options are tied to the Fed rate and many of those interest-bearing options compete for the same investor dollars as the bonds that you're reviewing.  That's at a whole market level.  Individual bonds, however, may not be so tightly coupled since the creditworthiness of the issuing entity matters a lot too, so it could be that \""bond rates\"" generally are going up but some specific bonds are going down based on something happening with the issuer, just like the stock market might be generally going up even as specific stocks are dropping. Also keep in mind that many bonds trade as securities on a secondary market much like stocks.  So I've talked about the bond rate.  The price of the bonds themselves on the secondary market generally move opposite to the rate.  The reason is that, for example, if you buy a bond at less than face value, you're getting an effective interest rate that's higher because you get the same sized incremental payments of interest but put less money into the investment.  And vice versa."""
"""Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank""","""If you budget for cloths and save up the money, you may be able to take advantage of sales when they are on.   However only buy what you will use! You need to ask yourself what value you put on cloths compared to other things you can spend the money on.   Also would you rather have money in the bank encase you need it rather than lots of cloths in the wardrobe?"""
"""How long should I keep my bills?""","""I'd imagine you want to keep the utility bills around to dispute any historical billing errors or anomalies for perhaps 6 months to a year. Beyond that, you always have the financial records of making the payments -- namely, your bank statements. So what benefit is there in keeping the paper receipts for utility payments around for longer than that? I say shred them, with extreme prejudice -- while wearing black Chuck Norris style."""
"""If stock price drops by the amount of dividend paid, what is the use of a dividend""","""Their is no arbitrage opportunity with \""buying dividends.\"" You're buying a taxable event. This is a largely misunderstood topic. The stock always drops by the amount if the dividend on the ex date. The stock opens that day trading \""ex\"" (excluding) the dividend. It then pays out later based in the shareholders on record.  There is a lot of talk about price movement and value here. That can happen but it's from trading not from the dividend per se. Yes sometimes you do see a stock pop the day prior to ex date because people are buying the stock for the dividend but the trading aspect of a stock is determined by supply and demand from people trading the stock.  The dividends are paid out from the owners equity section of the balance sheet. This is a return of equity to shareholders. The idea is to give owners of the company some of their investment back (from when they bought the stock) without having the owners sell the shares of the company. After all if it's a good company you want to keep holding it so it will appreciate.  Another similar way to think of it is like a bonds interest payment.  People sometimes forget when trading that these are actual companies meant to be invested in. Your buying an ownership in the company with your cash.  It really makes no difference to buy the dividend or not, all other things constant. Though market activity can add or lose value from trading as normal."""
"""What will be the long term impact of the newly defined minimum exchange rate target from francs to euro?""","""The Swiss franc has appreciated quite a bit recently against the Euro as the European Central Bank (ECB) continues to print money to buy government bonds issues by Greek, Portugal, Spain and now Italy.  Some euro holders have flocked to the Swiss franc in an effort to preserve the savings from the massive Euro money printing.  This has increased the value of the Swiss franc.  In response, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has tried to intervene multiple times in the currency market to keep the value of the Swiss franc low.  It does this by printing Swiss francs and using the newly printed francs to buy Euros.  The SNB interventions have failed to suppress the Swiss franc and its value has continued to rise.  The SNB has finally said they will print whatever it takes to maintain a desired peg to the Euro.  This had the desired effect of driving down the value of the franc. Which effect will this have long term for the euro zone? It is now clear that all major central bankers are in a currency devaluation war in which they are all trying to outprint each other.  The SNB was the last central bank to join the printing party.  I think this will lead to major inflation in all currencies as we have not seen the end of money printing.  Will this worsen the European financial crisis or is this not an important factor? I'm not sure this will have much affect on the ongoing European crisis since most of the European government debt is in euros. Should this announcement trigger any actions from common European people concerning their wealth? If a European is concerned with preserving their wealth I would think they would begin to start diverting some of their savings into a harder currency.  Europeans have experienced rapidly depreciating currencies more than people on any other continent.  I would think they would be the most experienced at preserving wealth from central bank shenanigans."""
"""Taxes on transactions of services""","""It's called bartering and the IRS has a page titled Four Things to Know About Bartering. The summary is -  The bottom line is this is taxable."""
"""401k vs. real estate for someone who is great at saving?""","""Apples and oranges. The stock market requires a tiny bit of your time. Perhaps a lot if you are interested in individual stocks, and pouring through company annual reports, but close to none if you have a mix of super low cost ETFs or index fund.  The real estate investing you propose is, at some point, a serious time commitment. Unless you use a management company to handle incoming calls and to dispatch repair people. But that's a cost that will eat into your potential profits. If you plan to do this 'for real,' I suggest using the 401(k), but then having the option to take loans from it. The ability to write a check for $50K is pretty valuable when buying real estate. When you run the numbers, this will benefit you long term.  Edit - on re-reading your question Rental Property: What is considered decent cash flow? (with example), I withdraw my answer above. You overestimated the return you will get, the actual return will likely be negative. It doesn't take too many years of your one per year strategy to wipe you out.  Per your comment below, if bought right, rentals can be a great long term investment. Glad you didn't buy the loser."""
"""Should I buy a house with a friend?""","""No.  This amount of money is not appropriate for friends to go in on. Although you could consider buying a house with a business partner, have the contracts drawn up, see an attorney, read up on the penalties if one of the partners doesn't hold up their end from the law's point of view. Also, since this is a business arrangement, write and sign all sorts of details regarding the penalties amongst the partners (not just the law) when one person doesn't hold up. It isn't that you don't have good intentions, or that you couldn't do it just fine if no problems ever happen.  The issue is that over the course of a mortgage, which is at least several years, something is very likely to come up.  If you and your friend aren't prepared to think about all those issues and how to handle them, you will lose a friend, probably a house and your good credit. I wouldn't go into business with my best friend because I want him to stay my best friend."""
"""Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?""","""The answer is no. Paypal will always ask for permission before adding or withdrawing money."""
"""Are there any rules against penalizing consumers for requesting accurate credit reporting?""","""The Fair Credit Reporting Act specifies in some detail on pages 50-54 (as labeled in the footer, 55-59 as pages in pdf) the process that occurs when a consumer initiates a dispute.  The safe outcome for the reporting agency is to remove the information in dispute  from reports within 30 days if the reporting party does not certify the information is complete and accurate (with other statutory timelines for communication to the customer and the reporter).   If you initiate a dispute, then the agency is following the law by deleting the reported information, outside new input from the furnisher.  If this is unsatisfactory, you have the following statutory right within \u00a7\u00a0611. Procedure in case of disputed accuracy [15 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a01681i (d) Notification of deletion of disputed information. Following any deletion of   information which is found to be inaccurate or whose accuracy can no longer   be verified or any notation as to disputed information, the consumer   reporting agency shall, at the request of the consumer, furnish notification   that the item has been deleted or the statement, codification or summary   pursuant to subsection (b) or (c) of this section to any person specifically   designated by the consumer who has within two years prior thereto received   a consumer report for employment purposes, or within six months   prior thereto received a consumer report for any other purpose, which   contained the deleted or disputed information.  The section that binds furnishers of information (\u00a7\u00a0623. Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies [15 U.S.C. \u00a7\u00a01681s-2], starting on page 78 in the footer) places on them the following specific duties: (B) Reporting information after notice and confirmation of errors.   A person shall not furnish information relating to a consumer to   any consumer reporting agency if   (i) the person has been notified by the consumer, at the address   specified by the person for such notices, that specific   information is inaccurate; and   (ii) the information is, in fact, inaccurate. ... (2) Duty to correct and update information. A person who   (A) regularly and in the ordinary course of business furnishes information   to one or more consumer reporting agencies about the   person\u2019s transactions or experiences with any consumer; and   (B) has furnished to a consumer reporting agency information   that the person determines is not complete or accurate, shall   promptly notify the consumer reporting agency of that determination   and provide to the agency any corrections to that information,   or any additional information, that is necessary to make   the information provided by the person to the agency complete   and accurate, and shall not thereafter furnish to the agency any   of the information that remains not complete or accurate. So there you have it: they have to stop reporting inaccurate information, and \""promptly\"" notify the credit agency once they've determined what is incomplete or inaccurate. I note no specific statutory timeline for this investigation."""
"""Ethics and investment""","""There are a number of mutual funds which claim to be 'ethical'. Note that your definition of 'ethical' may not match theirs. This should be made clear in the prospectus of whichever mutual fund you are looking at. You will likely pay for the privilege of investing this way, in higher expenses on the mutual fund. If I may suggest another option, you may want to consider investing in low-fee mutual funds or ETFs and donating some of the profit to offset the moral issues you see."""
"""How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage?""","""Call me old fashioned, but that sounds less like a marriage and more like a business partnership. Maybe there are business tools that would be useful."""
"""Why there's always a very huge volume of trades for AAPL every day before market close?""","""A huge amount of money in all financial markets is from institutional investors, such as mutual funds, government pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, etc.  For various reasons these funds do all of their trading at the end of the day.  They care primarily that their end-of-day balances are in line with their targets and are easy to audit and far less about \""timing the market\"" for the best possible trades. So, if you're looking at a stock that is owned by many institutional investors -- such as a stock (like AAPL) that makes up a significant portion of an index that many funds track -- there will be a huge amount of activity at this time relative to stocks that are less popular among institutions. Even just in its introduction this paper (PDF) gives a fair overview of other reasons why there's a lot of trading at end-of-day in general. (In fact, because of all this closing activity and the reliance on end-of-day prices as signposts for financial calculations, the end-of-day has for decades been the single most fraud-ridden time of the trading day.  Electronic trading has done away with a lot of the straight-up thievery that floor traders and brokers used to get away with at the expense of the public, but it still exists.  See, for example, any explanation of the term banging the close, or the penalties against 6 banks just last month for manipulating the FX market at the close.)"""
"""Over contributing to workplace pension or private pension""","""Firstly (and this part is rather opinion-based) I would absolutely not think of making more pension contributions when you are currently totaling 6% of salary as \""over contributing\"". There are some who argue that you should be putting a minimum of 20% away for retirement throughout your working life; you don't say how old you are \/ how close to retirement you are, but a common rule of thumb is to halve your age and put away that % of your salary into your pension. So I would certainly start with upping those contributions.  I actually don't think it makes much difference whether you go for just your workplace pension versus a separate private one - in general you end up paying management fees that are a % of the value, so whether it is in one place or split doesn't cost any less. The \""all eggs in one basket\"" syndrome is a possible argument but equally if you change jobs a few times and end up with half a dozen pension pots it can be very hard to stay on top of them all. If you end up with everything in one pot and then transfer it when you change jobs, it's easier to manage. Other options:   ISA as you mentioned; on the plus side these are tax free. On the minus side, you can either go for a cash ISA which at the moment has very low rates of return, and\/or a stocks and shares ISA which exposes you to risks in the stock market.   If you have debt, consider paying it off early \/ overpaying. Student loans may or may not be the exception to this depending on your personal situation. Certainly if you have a mortgage you can save a vast amount by overpaying early.   Other investments - stocks and shares, BTL housing, fine wines, Bitcoin, there are almost limitless possibilities. But it makes sense to max out the tax-efficient options before you look into these."""
"""Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index""","""As has been pointed out, one isn't cheaper than the other. One may have a lower price per share than the other, but that's not the same thing. Let's pretend that the total market valuation of all the stocks within the index was $10,000,000. (Look, I said let's pretend.) You want to invest $1,000. For the time being, let's also pretend that your purchasing 0.01% of all the stock won't affect prices anywhere. One company splits the index into 10,000 parts worth $1,000 each. The other splits the same index into 10,000,000 parts worth $1 each. Both track the underlying index perfectly. If you invest $1,000 with the first company, you get one part; if you invest $1,000 with the second, you get 1,000 parts. Ignoring spreads, transaction fees and the like, immediately after the purchase, both are worth exactly $1,000 to you. Now, suppose the index goes up 2%. The first company's shares of the index (of which you would have exactly one) are now worth $1,020 each, and the second company's shares of the index (of which you would have exactly 1,000) are worth $1.02 each. In each case, you now have index shares valued at $1,020 for a 2% increase ($1,020 \/ $1,000 = 1.02 = 102% of your original investment). As you can see, there is no reason to look at the price per share unless you have to buy in terms of whole shares, which is common in the stock market but not necessarily common at all in mutual funds. Because in this case, both funds track the same underlying index, there is no real reason to purchase one rather than the other because you believe they will perform differently. In an ideal world, the two will perform exactly equally. The way to compare the price of mutual funds is to look at the expense ratio. The lower the expense ratio is, the cheaper the fund is, and the less of your money is being eroded every day in fees. Unless you have some very good reason to do differently, that is how you should compare the price of any investment vehicles that track the same underlying commodity (in this case, the S&P 500)."""
"""How do Islamic Banking give loans for housing purposes?""","""As I understand it, if the \""borrower\"" puts a down payment of 20% and the bank puts down 80%, then the bank and the \""borrower\"" own the home jointly as  tenants in common with a 20%-80% split of the asset amongst them. The  \""borrower\"" moves into the home and pays the bank 80% of the fair rental  value of the home each month.  {Material added\/changed in edit: For the purposes of illustration, suppose that the \""borrower\"" and the bank agree that the fair rental per month is 0.5% of the purchase cost. The  \""borrower\"" pays 80% of that amount i.e. 0.4% of the purchase cost  to the bank on a monthly basis.  The \""borrower\"" is not required to do  so but may choose to pay more money than this 0.4% of the purchase cost each month, or pay some amount in a lump sum. If he does so, he will own a larger percentage of the house, and so future monthly payments will be a smaller fraction of the agreed-upon fair rental per month. So there is an incentive to pay off the bank.} If and when the house is sold, the sale price is divided between \""borrower\"" and bank according to the percentage of ownership as of the date of sale. So the bank gets to share in the profits, if any. On the other hand, if the house is sold for less than the original purchase price, then the bank also suffers in the loss. It is not a case of a mortgage being paid off from the proceeds and the home-owner gets whatever is left, or even suffering a loss when the dust has settled; the bank gets only its percentage of the sale price even if this amount is less than what it put up in the first place minus any additional payments made by the \""borrower\"". I have no idea how other costs of home ownership (property taxes, insurance, repair and maintenance) or improvements, additions, etc are handled. Ditto what happens on Schedule A if  such a \""loan\"" is made to a US taxpayer."""
"""How should I prepare for the next financial crisis?""","""Your asset mix should reflect your own risk tolerance.  Whatever the ideal answer to your question, it requires you to have good timing, not once, but twice. Let me offer a personal example. In 2007, the S&P hit its short term peak at 1550 or so. As it tanked in the crisis, a coworker shared with me that he went to cash, on the way down, selling out at about 1100. At the bottom, 670 or so, I congratulated his brilliance (sarcasm here) and as it passed 1300 just 2 years later, again mentions how he must be thrilled he doubled his money. He admitted he was still in cash. Done with stocks. So he was worse off than had he held on to his pre-crash assets. For sake of disclosure, my own mix at the time was 100% stock. That's not a recommendation, just a reflection of how my wife and I were invested.  We retired early, and after the 2013 excellent year, moved to a mix closer to 75\/25. At any time, a crisis hits, and we have 5-6 years spending money to let the market recover. If a Japanesque long term decline occurs, Social Security kicks in for us in 8 years.  If my intent wasn't 100% clear, I'm suggesting your long term investing should always reflect your own risk tolerance, not some short term gut feel that disaster is around the corner."""
"""Books, Videos, Tutorials to learn about different investment options in the financial domain""","""Investopedia does have tutorials about investments in different asset classes. Have you read them ? If you had heard of CFA, you can read their material if you can get hold of it or register for CFA. Their material is quite extensive and primarily designed for newbies.  This  is one helluva book and advice coming from persons who have showed and proved their tricks. And the good part is loads of advice in one single volume. And what they would suggest is probably opposite of what you would be doing in a hedge fund. And you can always trust google to fish out resources at the click of a button."""
"""If stock price drops by the amount of dividend paid, what is the use of a dividend""","""There are many reasons for buying stock for dividends.  You are right in the sense that in theory a stock's price will go down in value by the amount of the dividend. As the amount of dividend was adding to the value of the company, but now has been paid out to shareholder, so now the company is worth less by the value of the dividend. However, in real life this may or may not happen. Sometimes the price will drop by less than the value of the dividend. Sometimes the price will drop by more than the dividend. And other times the price will go up even though the stock has gone ex-dividend. We can say that if the price has dropped by exactly the amount of the dividend then there has been no change in the stockholders value, if the price has dropped by more than the value of the dividend then there has been a drop to the stockholder's value, and if the price has gone up or dropped by less than the value of the dividend then there has been a increase to the stockholder's value. Benefits of Buying Stocks with Good Dividends: What you shouldn't do however, is buy stocks solely due to the dividend. Be aware that if a company starts reducing its dividends, it could be an early warning sign that the company may be heading into financial troubles. That is why holding a stock that is dropping in price purely for its dividend can be a very dangerous practice."""
"""FATCA compliance for small Foreign Company. What do I need to do?""","""Unless you started a bank or other kind of a financial institution (brokerage, merchant processor, etc etc), the page you linked to is irrelevant. That said, there's enough in the US tax code for you to reconsider your decision of not living in the US, or at least of being a shareholder of a foreign company. Your compliance costs are going to go through the roof. If you haven't broken any US tax laws yet (which is very unlikely), you may renounce your citizenship and save yourself a lot of money and trouble. But in the more likely case of you already being a criminal with regards the US tax law, you should probably get a proper tax advice from a US-licensed CPA\/EA who's also proficient in the Japanese-American tax treaty and expats' compliance issues resolution."""
"""Why invest in IRA while a low-cost index fund is much simpler?""","""Here are the few scenarios that may be worth noting in terms of using different types of accounts: Traditional IRA. In this case, the monies would grow tax-deferred and all monies coming out will be taxed as ordinary income. Think of it as everything is in one big black box and the whole thing is coming out to be taxed. Roth IRA. In this case, you could withdraw the contributions anytime without penalty. (Source should one want it for further research.) Past 59.5, the withdrawals are tax-free in my understanding. Thus, one could access some monies earlier than retirement age if one considers all the contributions that are at least 5 years old. Taxable account. In this case, each year there will be distributions to pay taxes as well as anytime one sells shares as that will trigger capital gains. In this case, taxes are worth noting as depending on the index fund one may have various taxes to consider. For example, a bond index fund may have some interest that would be taxed that the IRA could shelter to some extent. While index funds can be a low-cost option, in some cases there may be capital gains each year to keep up with the index. For example, small-cap indices and value indices would have stocks that may \""outgrow\"" the index by either becoming mid-cap or large-cap in the case of small-cap or the value stock's valuation rises enough that it becomes a growth stock that is pulled out of the index. This is why some people may prefer to use tax-advantaged accounts for those funds that may not be as tax-efficient. The Bogleheads have an article on various accounts that can also be useful as dg99's comment referenced. Disclosure: I'm not an accountant or work for the IRS."""
"""Cashing a cheque on behalf of someone else""","""Anyone can walk into a bank, say \""Hi, I'm a messenger, I have an endorsed check and a filled out deposit slip for Joe Blow who has an account here, please deposit this check for him, as he is incapacitated. Straight deposit.\""  They'll fiddle on their computer, to see if they can identify the deposit account definitively, and if they can, and the check looks legit, \""thanks for taking care of our customer sir.\""  Of course, getting a balance or cashback is out of the question since you are not authenticated as the customer. I have done the same with balance transfer paperwork, in that case the bank knew the customer and the balance transfer was his usual. If the friend does not have an account there, then s\/he should maybe open an account at an \""online bank\"" that allows deposit by snapping photos on a phone, or phone up a branch, describe her\/his situation and see if they have any options.  Alternately, s\/he could get a PayPal account.  Or get one of those \""credit card swipe on your phone\"" deals like Square or PayPal Here, which have fees very close to nil, normally cards are swiped but you can hand-enter the numbers.   Those are fairly easy to get even if you have troubles with creditworthiness.  S\/he would need to return the check to the payer and ask the payer to pay her\/him one of those ways.  The payer may not be able to, e.g. if they are a large corporation. A last possibility is if the check is from a large corporation with whom s\/he continues to do business with.  For instance, the electric company cashiers out your account after you terminate service at your old location. But then you provision service at a new location and get a new bill, you can send their check right back to them and say \""Please apply this to my new account\"". If s\/he is unable to get any of those because of more serious problems like being in the country illegally, then, lawful behavior has its privileges, sorry. There are lots of unbanked people, and they pay through the nose for banking services at those ghastly check-cashing places, at least in America.  I don't have a good answer for how to get a check cashed in that situation."""
"""Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?""","""If you get a loan for 80% of the value of your house, that's equivalent to buying a house with a 20% down payment (assuming the appraised value is what you'd buy it for).  That's the minimum down payment for Fannie Mae backed loans without PMI (mortgage insurance).  See this table for more details. Freddie Mac (the other major mortgage backer) has a good fact sheet on cash out loans (which is what this is called) here.  It also specifies: Maximum LTV ratio of 80 percent for 1-unit primary residences  As noted in other answers, the 80% rule is to protect the bank (and ultimately, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who will eventually buy most of these loans) so it is more likely to recoup the total value of the mortgage if they must foreclose on the house."""
"""Can zero-coupon bonds go down in price?""","""Of course it can. This is a time value of money calculation. If I knew the maturity date, or current yield to maturity I'd be able to calculate the other number and advise how much rates need to rise to cause the value to drop from 18 to 17. For a 10 year bond, a rise today of .1% will cause the bond to drop about 1% in value. This is a back of napkin calculation, finance calculators offer precision. edit - when I calculate present value with 34 years to go, and 5.832% yield to maturity, I get $14.55. At 5.932, the value drops to $14.09, a drop of 3.1%.  Edit - Geo asked me to show calculations. Here it goes - A) The simplest way to calculate present value for a zero coupon bond is to take the rate 5.832%, convert it to 1.05832 and divide into the face value, $100. I offer this as the \""four function calculator\"" approach, so one enters $100 divided by 1.05832 and repeat for the number of years left. A bit of precision is lost if there's a fractional year involved, but it's close. The bid\/ask will be wider than this error introduced.  B) Next - If you've never read my open declaration of love for my Texas Instruments BA-35 calculator, here it is, again. One enters N=34 (for the years) FV = 100, Rate = 5.832, and then CPT PV. It will give the result, $14.56.  C) Here is how to do it in Excel -  The numbers in lines 1-3 are self evident, the equation in cell B4 is =-PV(B3\/100,B1,0,B2) - please note there are tiny differences in the way to calculate in excel vs a calculator. Excel wants the rate to be .05832, so I divided by 100 in the equation cell.  That's the best 3 ways I know to calculate present value. Geo, if you've not noticed, the time value of money is near and dear to me. It comes into play for bonds, mortgages, and many aspect of investing. The equations get more complex if there are payments each year, but both the BA-35 and excel are up to it."""
"""Who owned my shares before me?""","""Not sure about US. In India all Demat shares have a unique identity. Incase of splits or merging of shares, new ID's are created maintaining the linking of older ID's. The Demat holding entity would have all the history of a particular stock. It is mandatory to disclose the name of the person \/ entity who has purchased the shares. Of Course if shares are purchased by Fund houses or other aggregators then its the aggregators name that would be available. All this data is confidential and not meant for common consumption."""
"""Who can truly afford luxury cars?""","""Most of the people I know that own them are slightly older, and thus in their prime earning years, and many have paid off their homes. That can free up $1000 a month or more in monthly expenses, which would easily cover a nice luxury car payment.  If you've got it, and are into cars, why not? What's the point in having the biggest tombstone in the graveyard?"""
"""What do I need as documentation in order to pay taxes in the Netherlands?""","""The Dutch tax office is pretty decent, although slightly overburdened. Don't expect a lot of help, but they're not generally known for making a lot of problems. Digital copies are fine, for instance. They will send you your first VAT notice. You probably would have known if your company would have been incorporated, so I'll assume you're just trading as a natural person. That means you still have to file VAT returns, but the business income is just filed annually as \""other income\"".  For the VAT part, you'll need to invoice your customers. Keep a copy of those invoices for your own bookkeeping, and keep track of the matching customer payments. Together these form the chief evidence of your VAT obligation. You also have a VAT deduction from your purchases (it's a Value-Added Tax, after all). Again, keep receipts. The usual VAT period is 3 months, so you'd pay VAT 4 times a year. But if you would pay less than 1883 euro, you might not need to pay at all and just need to file annually The income part is easy with the receipts you had for VAT purposes anyway. Dutch Tax Office, VAT, in English"""
"""If I make over 120k a year, what are my options for retirement plans?""","""There are three common options for you:"""
"""Are these really bond yields?""","""But it also can't be 1.46%, because that would imply that a 30Y US Treasury bond only yields 2.78%, which is nonsensically low. The rates are displayed as of Today. As the footnote suggests these are to be read with Maturities. A Treasury with 1 year Maturity is at 1.162% and a Treasury with 30Y Maturity is at 2.78%. Generally Bonds with longer maturity terms give better yields than bonds of shorter duration. This indicates the belief that in long term the outlook is positive."""
"""Should I talk about my stocks?""","""I like your question and think it is a pretty good one.  Generally speaking I would not suggest talking about your stock picks or wealth.  Here is why: 1)  Most people are broke.  Seventy-eight percent of the US population report living paycheck to paycheck.  More than a majority do not have enough in savings to cover a $500 repair to a car or dryer.   What kind of money advice will you get from broke people (the general population)?  Answer:  Bad. 2)  It targets you for jealousy\/negative feelings.  If you discuss this kind of thing with your broke friends they will have negative feelings toward you.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  If you want to build wealth a aspect of that is having wealthy friends.  They will have the kind of disposable income to do the kinds of things you want to do.  They can alert you to good investment opportunities.  And your income will tend to increase.  Most people's income resides within 10% of their 10 closest friends.   3)  You can be targeted for law suits.  Given that personal injury attorneys work on contingent, they are very good at picking on defendants with deep pockets or really good insurance.  Knowing that you have significant investments will put a bit of a target on your back.  Having said all of that, you could participate in groups with a similar interest in investing.  Back in the late 80's investment clubs were all the rage, and you might be able to find one of those online or at the local library or something.  That would be a far safer."""
"""What is the best credit card for someone with no credit history""","""You have a lack of credit history.  Lending is still tight since the recession and companies aren't as willing to take a gamble on people with no history. The secured credit card is the most direct route to building credit right now. I don't think you're going to be applicable for a department store card (pointless anyways and encourages wasteful spending) nor the gas card. Gas cards are credit cards, funded through a bank just like any ordinary credit card, only you are limited to gas purchases at a particular retailer. Although gas cards, department store cards and other limited usage types of credit cards have less requirements, in this post-financial crisis economy, credit is still stringent and a \""no history\"" file is too risky for banks to take on. Having multiple hard inquiries won't help either. You do have a full-time job that pays well so the $500 deposit shouldn't be a problem for the secured credit card. After 6 months you'll get it back anyways. Just remember to pay off in full every month. After 6 months you'll be upgraded to a regular credit card and you will have established credit history."""
"""Is the financial advice my elderly relative received legal\/ethical?""","""I can't speak about the UK, but here in the US, 1% is on the cheap side for professional management.  For example Fidelity will watch your portfolio for that very amount.  I doubt you could claim that they took advantage of her for charging that kind of fee. Given that this is grandma's money, no consultation with the family is necessary. Perhaps she did have dementia at the time of investment, but she was not diagnosed at the time.  If a short time has past between the investment and the diagnosis, I would contact the investment company with the facts.  I would ask (very nicely) that they refund the fee, however, I doubt they under obligation to do so. While I do encourage you to seek legal council, there does not seem to be much of substance to your claim.  The fees are very ordinary or even cheap, and no diagnosis precluded decision making at the time of investment."""
"""How can I avoid international wire fees or currency transfer fees?""","""I faced something similar for travel or work reasons, and as for me I preferred wire transfer over credit card withdrawals because my bank has huge fees. My thoughts so far are: the fee can vary a lot for credit card. As for me, I can expect 5% fees on foreign withdrawals. But I considered changing bank and I think a Gold (or premium) card might be a good idea as well. The idea is you pay a big subscription (100 euros or so) but have no fee. The total of withdrawal fees could easily (if you stay long abroad) reach this amount. There are also banks like HSBC that offer low fees on withdrawals abroad, you can ask them. The problem is that you cannot really withdraw huge amounts to lower the fee (since you carry this cash in the street). for wire transfers the total fee is usually $50 or more (I had a fee from distant bank, a fee for change and a fee in my home bank). But the amount is unlimited (or high enough to be of little matter) and I needed to do this once per year or so. So I guess it could be interesting if you have enough savings to only transfer money every couple of months or so. I think Western Union is also involved this profitable business. I never used it because the fees are pretty high, but maybe it is useful for not too big amounts frequently transfered. Actually, have you considered a loan? It's a very random idea but maybe you can use a loan as a swap and then transfer money when you have enough to reimburse it all. But the question is very interesting, I think the business is pretty huge due to globalization. It is expensive because some people can make a lot of money out of it."""
"""Selling on eBay without PayPal?""","""It's been a short while since I sold on eBay, but I had a feedback rating of about 4,500 so I've done a lot of transactions. The trump card is, and always will be, the buyer's ability to contact their credit card company and reverse the charges.  PayPal has no policy to stop this even though they claim to \""vigorously defend Sellers from chargebacks\"" on their website.  You will lose this case 100% of the time.  I don't see how that will change if you have your own terminal.  The Buyer can still reverse the charges.  Since you know the card number maybe you can contact his credit card company but it's probably not going to do much. I've found PayPal is more Seller friendly in terms of PayPal claims.  For example, the customer has a duty to pay postage to return the product and that's a cost for him.  You also have things like online tracking which shows delivery and PayPal has an IP log to see where the payments are coming from.  That helped me when a buyer claimed that someone else made the payment.  Because people often break into someone's house and make PayPal payments for them....heh. You really just need to use PayPal.  You'll get more customers and better prices and it will offset the losses from scammers.  Also, about 99% of buyers are honest people.  Consider the scammers a cost of doing business and keep making money off of the good Buyers.  If you're just pissed off that people actually scammed you, get over it.  Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.  It's just part of doing business on eBay."""
"""When to sell stock losers""","""I found the answer I was looking for. Even though I don't have any capital gains to offset, I can deduct up to $3,000 of that loss against other kinds of income, including salary."""
"""Can one get a house mortgage without buying a house?""","""As a legal contract, a mortgage is a form of secured debt. In the case of a mortgage, the debt is secured using the property asset as collateral. So \""no\"", there is no such thing as a mortgage contract without a property to act as collateral. Is it a good idea?  In the current low interest rate environment, people with good income and credit can obtain a creditline from their bank at a rate comparable to current mortgage rates.  However, if you wish to setup a credit line for an amount comparable to a mortgage, then you will need to secure it with some form of collateral."""
"""Can I claim GST\/HST Input Tax Credits (ITCs) on Uber, taxi, or limousine fares?""","""Apparently Canadians have not been paying any tax on Uber rides, and will only begin to do so on July 1, 2017. Source: http:\/\/mobilesyrup.com\/2017\/03\/22\/uber-canada-gst-hst-budget-2017\/"""
"""Any good software for value investment? ""","""As @littleadv and @DumbCoder point out in their comments above, Bloomberg Terminal is expensive for individual investors.  If you are looking for a free solution I would recommend Yahoo and Google Finance. On the other side, if you need more financial metrics regarding historic statements and consensus estimates, you should look at the iPad solution from Worldcap, which is not free, but significantly cheaper then Bloomberg and Reuters. Disclosure: I am affiliated with WorldCap."""
"""How do i get into investing stocks [duplicate]""","""Everything that I'm saying presumes that you're young, and won't need your money back for 20+ years, and that you're going to invest additional money in the future. Your first investments should never be individual stocks. That is far too risky until you have a LOT more experience in the market. (Once you absolutely can't resist, keep it to under 5% of your total investments. That lets you experiment without damaging your returns too much.) Instead you would want to invest in one or more mutual funds of some sort, which spreads out your investment across MANY companies. With only $50, avoiding a trading commission is paramount. If you were in the US, I would recommend opening a free online brokerage account and then purchasing a no-load commission-free mutual fund. TD Ameritrade, for example, publishes a list of the funds that you can purchase without commission. The lists generally include the type of fund (index, growth, value, etc.) and its record of return. I don't know if Europe has the same kind of discount brokerages \/ mutual funds the US has, but I'd be a little surprised if it didn't. You may or may not be able to invest until you first scrape together a $500 minimum, but the brokerages often have special programs\/accounts for people just starting out. It should be possible to ask. One more thing on picking a fund: most charge about a 1% annual expense ratio. (That means that a $100 investment that had a 100% gain after one year would net you $198 instead of $200, because 1% of the value of your asset ($200) is $2. The math is much more complicated, and depends on the value of your investment at every given point during the year, but that's the basic idea.) HOWEVER, there are index funds that track \""the market\"" automatically, and they can have MUCH lower expense fees (0.05%, vs 1%) for the same quality of performance. Over 40 years, the expense ratio can have a surprisingly large impact on your net return, even 20% or more! You'll want to google separately about the right way to pick a low-expense index fund. Your online brokerage may also be able to help. Finally, ask friends or family what mutual funds they've invested in, how they chose those funds, and what their experience has been. The point is not to have them tell you what to do, but for you to learn from the mistakes and successes of other experienced investors with whom you can follow up."""
"""Buying a home - brokerage fee""","""Every situation is possible, it depends on what the contract states. According to Nolo:  Your ability to withdraw from a home purchase depends on two things: 1) the exact point at which you are \""in contract\"" to buy the house,   and  2) after you're in contract, what the contract says about terminating   the transaction. Therefore, you need to be 100% ready for anything to happen. After you sign the contract, it is binding and you must adhere to what the contract states. Buying a home is a big purchase - arguably the biggest of your life - you need to be comfortable with every aspect of this experience."""
"""Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate]""","""If you're truly ready to pay an extra $1000 every month, and are confident you'll likely always be able to, you should refinance to a 15 year mortgage. 15 year mortgages are typically sold at around a half a point lower interest rates, meaning that instead of your 4.375% APR, you'll get something like 3.875% APR.  That's a lot of money over the course of the mortgage.  You'll end up paying around a thousand a month more - so, exactly what you're thinking of doing - and not only save money from that earlier payment, but also have a lower interest rate.  That 0.5% means something like $25k less over the life of the mortgage.  It's also the difference in about $130 or so a month in your required payment. Now of course you'll be locked into making that larger payment - so the difference between what you're suggesting and this is that you're paying an extra $25k in exchange for the ability to pay it off more slowly (in which case you'd also pay more interest, obviously, but in the best case scenario).  In the 15 year scenario you must make those ~$4000 payments.  In the 30 year scenario you can pay ~$2900 for a while if you lose your job or want to go on vacation or ... whatever. Of course, the reverse is also true: you'll have to make the payments, so you will.  Many people find enforced savings to be a good strategy (myself among them); I have a 15 year mortgage and am happy that I have to make the higher payment, because it means I can't spend that extra money frivolously. So what I'd do if I were you is shop around for a 15 year refi.  It'll cost a few grand, so don't take one unless you can save at least half a point, but if you can, do."""
"""Degiro Stocks & Shares Account for Minor""","""Get answers from your equivalent of the IRS, or a local lawyer or accountant who specializes in taxes.  Any other answer you get here would be anectdotal at best.  Never good to rely on legal or medical advice from internet strangers."""
"""Buying Fixed Deposit in India from Europe""","""About the inflation or low interest rates in both the countries is out of the equation especially since rupee is always a low currency compared to Euro. You cannot make profit in Euros using rupee or vice-versa. It all depends on where you want to use the money, in India or Europe? If you want use the money from fixed deposit in Europe, then buy fixed deposit in euros from Europe. If you want to use the money in India, then convert the euros and buy FD in India."""
"""Why is it rational to pay out a dividend?""","""Paying out dividends and financing new projects with debt also lessens the agency problem. The consequences of a failed project are greater when debt is used, so the manager now has a greater incentive to see that the project is a success. This, in addition to the paid divided is a benefit to the shareholder. If equity wasn't paid out and instead used for the project then the manager may not be so interested in its success. And if it's a failure then the shareholders are worse off."""
"""What's a good option for passive income for a college student?""","""As mentioned in the other answer, you can't invest all of your money in one slightly risky place, and to receive a significant return on your investment, you must take on a reasonable amount of risk, and must manage that risk by diversifying your portfolio of investments. Unfortunately, answers to this question will be somewhat opinion and experience-based. I have two suggestions, however both involve risk, which you will likely experience in any situation. Peer to Peer Lending In my own situation, I've placed a large sum of money into peer-to-peer lending sites, such as LendingClub. LendingClub specifically advertises that 98% of its user base that invests in 100 notes or more of relatively equal size receive positive returns, and I'm sure you'll see similar statements in other similarly established vendors in this area. Historical averages in this industry can be between 5-7%, you may be able to perform above or below this average.  The returns on peer to peer lending investments are paid out fairly frequently, as each loan you invest in on the site pays back into your account every time the recipient of the loan makes a payment.  If you invest in small amounts \/ fractions of several hundred loans, you're receiving several small payments throughout the month on various dates. You can withdraw any money you have received back that hasn't been invested, or money you have in the account that hasn't been invested, at any time for personal spending. However, this involves various risks, which have to be considered (Such as someone you've loaned money to on the site defaulting). Rental Property \/ Property itself I'm also considering purchasing a very cheap home, and renting it out to tenants for passive income. This is something I would consider a possibility for you. On this front, you have the savings to do the same. It would be possible for you to afford the 20% downpayment on a very low cost home (Say, $100,000 or less up to $200,000 depending on your area), but you'd need to be able to pay for the monthly mortgage payment until you had a tenant, and would need to be able to afford any on-going maintenance, however ideally you'd factor that into the amount you charged tenants. You could very likely get a mortgage for a place, and have a tenant that pays you rent that exceeds the amount you pay for the mortgage and any maintenance costs, earning you a profit and therefore passive income. However, rental properties involve risks in that you might have trouble finding tenants or keeping tenants or keeping the property in good shape, and it's possible the property value could decrease.  One could also generalize that property is a somewhat 'safe' investment, in that property values tend to increase over time, and while you may not significantly over-run inflation's increase, you may be able to get more value out of the property by renting it out in the mean time. Additional Note on Credit You mention you have a credit card payment that you're making, to build credit. I'd like to place here, for your reference, that you do not need to carry a balance to build credit. Having active accounts and ensuring you don't miss payments builds your history. To be more specific, your history is based off of many different aspects, such as:  I'm sure I missed a couple of things on this front, you should be able to find this information with some research. Wanted to make sure you weren't carrying a balance simply due to the common myth that you must do so to build credit. Summary The items mentioned above are suggestions, but whatever you choose to invest in, you should carefully spread out \/ diversify your portfolio across a variety of different areas.  It would not be advisable to stick to just one investment method (Say, either of the two above) and not also invest in stocks \/ bonds or other types of investments as well.  You can certainly decide what percentage of your portfolio you want to invest in different areas (for instance X% of assets in Stocks\/bonds, Y% in real-estate, etc), but it does make the most sense to not have all of your eggs in one basket."""
"""What is the Difference between Life Insurance and ULIP?""","""I would refer you to this question and answers. Here in the US we have two basic types of life insurance: term and whole life.  Universal life is a marketing response to whole life being such a bad deal, and is whole life just not quite as bad. I am not familiar with the products in India, but given the acronym (ULIP), it is probably universal life, and as you describe is variable universal life.   Likely Description \""Under the hood\"", or in effect, you are purchasing a term life policy and investing excess premiums in a collection of stock mutual funds.  This is a bad deal for a few reasons: A much better option is to buy \""level term insurance\"" and invest on your own. You won't necessarily lose money, but you can make better financial decisions.  It is good to invest, it is good to have life.  A better decision would not to combine the two into a single product."""
"""Stock sale cost basis calculations for 2013, now that rules changed, is FIFO or another method the smartest financially?""","""Once again I offer some sage advice - \""Don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog.\"" Michael offers an excellent method to decide what to do. Note, he doesn't base the decision on the tax implication.  If you are truly indifferent to holding the stock, taxwise, you might consider selling just the profitable shares if that's enough cash. Then sell shares at a loss each year if you have no other gains. That will let you pay the long term gain rate on the shares sold this year, but offset regular income in years to come. But. I'm hard pressed to believe you are indifferent, and I'd use Michel's approach to decide.  Updated - The New Law is simply a rule requiring brokers to track basis. Your situation doesn't change at all. When you sell the shares, you need to identify which shares you want to sell. For older shares, the tracking is your responsibility, that's all."""
"""Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year?""","""I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like ending their year in October or March, in the lull between the summer and winter travel seasons with a large amount of that revenue falling within the company's fiscal Q4. Oil companies sometimes do the same because fuel prices are seasonal for much the same reasons. December is a really bad month to try to close out an entire year's accounting books. Accountants and execs are on vacation for large parts of the month, most retail stores are flooded with revenue (and then contra-revenue as items are returned) that takes time to account at the store level and then filter up to the corporate office, etc etc. It also doesn't tell the whole story for most retail outfits; December sales are usually inflated by purchases that are then returned in January after all the hullaballoo. As a result, a fiscal year end in January or even February keeps the entire season's revenues and expenses in one fiscal year."""
"""Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency?""","""In my experience working at a currency exchange money service business in the US: Flat fees are the \""because we can\"" fee on average. These can be waived on certain dollar values at some banks or MSBs, and sometimes can even be haggled.  If you Google EURUSD, as an example, you also get something like $1.19 at 4pm, 9\/18\/2017. If you look at the actual conversion that you got, you may find your bank hit you with $1.30 or something close to convert from USD to Euro (in other words, you payed 10% more USD per Euro). And, if you sell your Euro directly back, you might find you only make $1.07. This spread is the real \""fee\"" and covers a number of things including risk or liquidity. You'll see that currencies with more volatility or less liquidity have a much wider spread. Some businesses even go as far as to artificially widen the spread for speculators (see IQD, VND, INR, etc.). Typically if you see a 3% surcharge on international ATM or POS transactions, that's the carrier such as Visa or Mastercard taking their cut for processing. Interestingly enough, you also typically get the carrier-set exchange rate overseas when using your card. In other words, your bank has a cash EURUSD of $1.30 but the conversion you get at the ATM is Visa's rate, hence the Visa fee (but it's typically a nicer spread, or it's sometimes the international spot rate depending on the circumstances, due to the overhead of electronic transactions). You also have to consider the ATM charging you a separate fee for it's own operation. In essence, the fees exist to pad every player involved except you. Some cards do you a solid by advertising $0 foreign exchange fees. Unfortunately these cards only insulate you from the processing\/flat fees and you may still fall prey to the fee \""hidden\"" in the spread. In the grander scheme of things, currency exchange is a retail operation. They try to make money on every step that requires them to expend a resource. If you pay 10% on a money transaction, this differs actually very little from the mark-up you pay on your groceries, which varies from 3-5% on dry food, to 20% on alcohol such as wine."""
"""How to represent \""out of pocket\"" purchases in general ledger journal entry?""","""Journal entry into Books of company: 100 dr. expense a\/c 1 200 dr. expense a\/c 2 300 dr. expanse a\/c 3   \/\/   cr. your name 600 Each expense actually could be a total if you don\u00b4t want to itemise, to save time if you totaled them on a paper.  The paper is essentually an invoice. And the recipts are the primary documents. Entry into Your journal: dr. Company name   \/\/ cr. cash or bank You want the company to settle at any time the balce is totaled for your name in the company books and the company name in your books.  They should be equal and the payment reverses it.  Or, just partially pay. Company journal: dr. your name  \/\/  cr. cash or bank your journal: dr. cash or bank  \/\/ cr. company name Look up \""personal accounts\"" for the reasoning. Here is some thing on personal accounts. https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=LhPMCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT4&dq=%22personal+account%22+double+entry&hl=es-419&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22personal%20account%22%20double%20entry&f=false"""
"""Personal finance app where I can mark transactions as \""reviewed\""? ""","""On mint, you can create your own tags for transactions.  So, you could create a tag called \""reviewed\"" and tag each transaction as reviewed once you review it.  I've done something similar to this called \""reimbursable expense\"" to tag which purchases I made on behalf of someone else who is going to pay me back."""
"""Selling on eBay without PayPal?""","""One option might be to set up a separate bank account and a separate credit card account, which you would use only for your ebay transactions.  I have a friend who does a lot of selling on ebay, and this is exactly what she did.   It's reasonable to want to protect your personal finances from any complications that might arise with PayPal and\/or ebay.  But since you definitely have to provide a bank account and c.c. number (there's no way around this), the best solution might be to set up separate \""ebay-only\"" accounts.  And be sure not to link them to any of your personal accounts, for added protection. If you're planning to do a lot of selling, this is probably a good idea anyway just for record-keeping purposes. If you do a lot of selling on ebay, you might consider setting up a \""merchant account\"". There are some limitations on international transactions (currently you can't sell to residents of UK, Australia, or France), and payment processing is a few days slower. But there seem to be fewer fees\/risks\/etc associated with a  merchant account. I don't know much more about it, but here's an article from an ebay seller, including pros and cons of PayPal vs. merchant accounts. http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/gds\/Selling-on-eBay-without-PayPal\/10000000021351301\/g.html"""
"""How to transfer money to yourself internationally? ""","""Hmmm... As far as I know wire transfers are still the best option. If you make sure your US account accepts international wires for free (like TD Bank does) you'll have eliminated most of the costs (assuming your foreign bank doesn't charge too much for wiring the funds in the first place). Also, if your able to, you could consider wiring 6 or so months at the same time. I'm not familiar with XE.com but it seems it's not set up for transferring money so much as for trading currencies. While you could probably use it to transfer funds if you'd link both your accounts it seems a rather complicated way to go about things. Paypal could be an option if they'd allow you to set up an account in each country (or if you have a relative that could help out), but it gets more expensive than wire-transfers quickly. As for getting the best exchange rate... I've given up on that a long time ago and have accepted that as the cost of living internationally :)."""
"""Will my Indian debit card work in the U.S.?""","""You can use the debit card for practically any purchase that you make. You'll have to take the usual precautions and then a few additional ones.   Cards make your life really easy and convenient with some basic precautions.  All the best for your travel and stay in the USA. My two cents."""
"""Plan\/education for someone desiring to achieve financial independence primarily through investing? ""","""Stay in school, learn everything you can, and spend as little money as possible.  And realize that the chances of you dropping out and becoming a millionaire are much lower than the chances of you staying in school and becoming a millionaire.  You're unlikely to be a good investor if you make bets with negative expected payoffs."""
"""Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? ""","""Why must terms must be mutually exclusive?  This (false) dichotomy is what seems to cause the most debate.  It is the SINGLE EVENT OUTCOME that defines gambling. Gambling will involve an aleatory contract. That is, the outcome is specifically tied to a single event that determines profit\/loss. This could be the outcome of a race or the roll of a dice, but should involve chance.  This is why gambling is often in the context of a game, but I would make the argument that some investment tools fall into this category - The price of a stock at a certain date, for example. This may also be called \""betting\"", which opens up a whole other discussion. Investing has no such implication, and as such it is the broader term.  Investing is to put something (money) to work to return a profit. Some forms of gambling could fall under this umbrella. Some would say that is a \""bad investment\"" and even if they are right, it may still be the desire and intent of the investor to make a profit.  Not all gambling falls under investing. You can gamble for pleasure.  The profit\/loss of most investments are not contractually tied to a specific event or outcome (e.g. the price of a stock over 10 years is the result of many events affecting its market value). Such an investment would not be considered gambling."""
"""Can you recommend some good websites\/brokers for buying\/selling stocks in India? ""","""There are quite a few online brokers ... All of these have different pricing structure and the right one would depend on the amount of & type of trading you are doing, for example Reliance Money offer 1 paise brokrage, but with a higer anual fees, so it makes sense if you are doing delivery trades and not IPO or Day trades ... Others changes less of anual fees but more of brokrage."""
"""Stock grant, taxes, and the IRS""","""I went through this too. There's a safe-harbor provision. If you prepay as estimated tax payments, 110% of your previous year's tax liability, there's no penalty for underpayment of the big liquidity-event tax liability.  https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p17\/ch04.html That's with the feds. Your state may have different rules. You would be very wise indeed to hire an accountant to prepare your return this year. If I were you I'd ask your company's CFO or finance chief to suggest somebody.   Congratulations, by the way."""
"""Automatic Extension online filing request gets denied w\/ code R0000-052-01 - why?""","""There are penalties for failure to file and penalties for failure to pay tax.  The penalties for both are based on the amount of tax due.  So you would owe % penalties of zero, otherwise meaning no penalties at all. The IRS on late 1040 penalties: Here are eight important points about penalties for filing or paying late. A failure-to-file penalty may apply if you did not file by the tax filing deadline. A failure-to-pay penalty may apply if you did not pay all of the taxes you owe by the tax filing deadline. The failure-to-file penalty is generally more than the failure-to-pay penalty. You should file your tax return on time each year, even if you\u2019re not able to pay all the taxes you owe by the due date. You can reduce additional interest and penalties by paying as much as you can with your tax return. You should  explore other payment options such as getting a loan or making an installment agreement to make payments. The IRS will work with you. The penalty for filing late is normally 5 percent of the unpaid taxes for each month or part of a month that a tax return is late. That penalty starts accruing the day after the tax filing due date and will not exceed 25 percent of your unpaid taxes. If you do not pay your taxes by the tax deadline, you normally will face a failure-to-pay penalty of \u00bd of 1 percent of your unpaid taxes. That penalty applies for each month or part of a month after the due date and starts accruing the day after the tax-filing due date. If you timely requested an extension of time to file your individual income tax return and paid at least 90 percent of the taxes you owe with your request, you may not face a failure-to-pay penalty. However, you must pay any remaining balance by the extended due date. If both the 5 percent failure-to-file penalty and the \u00bd percent failure-to-pay penalties apply in any month, the maximum penalty that you\u2019ll pay for both is 5 percent. If you file your return more than 60 days after the due date or extended due date, the minimum penalty is the smaller of $135 or 100 percent of the unpaid tax. You will not have to pay a late-filing or late-payment penalty if you can show reasonable cause for not filing or paying on time. If the IRS owes you a refund, April 15 isn't much of a deadline. I suppose the real deadline is April 15, three years later - that's when the IRS keeps your refund and it becomes property of the Treasury.  Of course, there's little reason to wait that long.  Don't let the Treasury get all your interest."""
"""Can I deduct equipment expenses for a job I began overseas?""","""I'm not an expert, but here's my $0.02. Deductions for business expenses are subject to the 2% rule. In other words, you can only deduct that which exceeds 2% of your AGI (Adjusted Gross Income). For example, say you have an AGI of $50,000, and you buy a laptop that costs $800. You won't get a write-off from that, because 2% of $50,000 is $1,000, and you can only deduct business-related expenses in excess of that $1,000. If you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy a $2,000 laptop, you can deduct a maximum of $1,000 ($2,000 minus 2% of $50,000 is $2,000 - $1,000 = $1,000). Additionally, you can write off the laptop only to the extent that you use it for business. So in other words, if you have an AGI of $50,000 and buy that $2,000 laptop, but only use it 50% for business, you can only write off $500. Theoretically, they can ask for verification of the business use of your laptop. A log or a diary would be what I would provide, but I'm not an IRS agent."""
"""Will there always be somebody selling\/buying in every stock?""","""If the stock has low liquidity, yes there could be times when there are no buyers or sellers at a specific price, so if you put a limit order to buy or sell at a price with no other corresponding sellers or buyers, then your order may take a while to get executed or it may not be executed at all. You can usually tell if a stock has low liquidity by the small size of the average daily volume, the lack of order depth and the large size of the gap between bids and offers. So if a stock for example has last sale price of $0.50, has a highest bid price of $0.40 and a lowest offer price of $0.60, and an average daily volume of 10000 share, it is likely to be very illiquid. So if you try to buy or sell at around the $0.50 mark it might take you a long time to buy or sell this stock at this price."""
"""What does the phrase \""To make your first million\"" mean?""","""When people are crowing about their achievements, they often take liberties with those achievements. Vitalik's interpretation -- net worth, is probably what you would naturally come to mind. But when someone is bragging, that could mean anything -- $1M of total revenue."""
"""Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say \""no\"" nicely or politely?""","""I really don't feel co-signing this loan is in the best interests of either of us.  Lets talk about the amount of money you need and perhaps I can assist you in another way. I would be honest and tell them it isn't a good deal for anybody, especially not me.  I would then offer an alternative \""loan\"" of some amount of money to help them get financing on their own.  The key here is the \""loan\"" I offer is really a gift and should it ever be returned I would be floored and overjoyed.  I wouldn't give more than I can afford to not have. Part of why I'd be honest to spread the good word about responsible money handling.  Co-signed loans (and many loans themselves) probably aren't good financial policy if not a life & death or emergency situation.  If they get mad at me it won't matter too much because they are family and that won't change."""
"""Should I stockpile nickels?""","""Trying to engage in arbitrage with the metal in nickels (which was actually worth more than a nickel already, last I checked) is cute but illegal, and would be more effective at an industrial scale anyway (I don't think you could make it cost-effective at an individual level). There are more effective inflation hedges than nickels and booze. Some of them even earn you interest. You could at least consider a more traditional commodities play - it's certainly a popular strategy these days. A lot of people shoot for gold, as it's a traditional hedge in a crisis, but there are concerns that particular market is overheated, so you might consider alternatives to that. Normal equities (i.e. the stock market) usually work out okay in an inflationary environment, and can earn you a return as they're doing so.... and it's not like commodities aren't volatile and subject to the whims of the world economy too. TIPs (inflation-indexed Treasury bonds) are another option with less risk, but also a weaker return (and still have interest rate risks involved, since those aren't directly tied to inflation either)."""
"""Determine share price from S-1 for company that was bought before going public""","""To add to @keshlam's answer slightly a stock's price is made up of several components: the only one of these that is known even remotely accurately at any time is the book value on the day that the accounts are prepared. Even  completed cashflows after the books have been prepared contain some slight unknowns as they may be reversed if stock is returned, for example, or reduced by unforeseen costs.  Future cashflows are based on (amongst other things) how many sales you expect to make in the future for all time. Exercise for the reader: how many iPhone 22s will apple sell in 2029? Even known future cashflows have some risk attached to them; customers may not pay for goods, a supplier may go into liquidation and so need to change its invoicing strategy etc.. Estimating the risk on future cashflows is highly subjective and depends greatly on what the analyst expects the exact economic state of the world will be in the future. Investors have the choice of investing in a risk free instrument (this is usually taken as being modelled by the 10 year US treasury bond) that is guaranteed to give them a return. To invest in anything riskier than the risk free instrument they must be paid a premium over the risk free return that they would get from that. The risk premium is related to how likely they think it is that they will not receive a return higher than that rate. Calculation of that premium is highly subjective; if I know the management of the company well I will be inclined to think that the investment is far less risky (or perhaps riskier...) than someone who does not, for example. Since none of the factors that go into a share price are accurately measurable and many are subjective there is no \""right\"" share price at any time, let alone at time of IPO. Each investor will estimate these values differently and so value the shares differently and their trading, based on their ever changing estimates, will move the share price to an indeterminable level. In comments to @keshlam's answer you ask if there is enough information to work out the share price if a company buys out the company before IPO. Dividing the price that this other company paid by the relative ownership structure of the firm would give you an idea of what that company thought that the company was worth at that moment in time and can be used as a surrogate for market price but it will not and cannot accurately represent the market price as other investors will value the firm differently by estimating the criteria above differently and so will move the share price based on their valuation."""
"""How much money do I need to have saved up for retirement?""","""I wrote a spreadsheet (<< it may not be obvious - this is a link to pull down the spreadsheet) a while back that might help you. You can start by putting your current salary next to your age, adjust the percent of income saved (14% for you) and put in the current total.  The sheet basically shows that if one saves 15% from day one of working and averages an 8% return, they are on track to save over 20X their final income, and at the 4% withdrawal rate, will replace 80% of their income. (Remember, if they save 15% and at retirement the 7.65% FICA \/medicare goes away, so it's 100% of what they had anyway.) For what it's worth, a 10% average return drops what you need to save down to 9%. I say to a young person - try to start at 15%. Better that when you're 40, you realize you're well ahead of schedule and can relax a bit, than to assume that 8-9% is enough to save and find you need a large increase to catch up.  To answer specifically here - there are those who concluded that 4% is a safe withdrawal rate, so by targeting 20X your final income as retirement savings, you'll be able to retire well.  Retirement spending needs are not the same for everyone. When I cite an 80% replacement rate, it's a guess, a rule of thumb that many point out is flawed. The 'real' number is your true spending need, which of course can be far higher or lower. The younger investor is going to have a far tougher time guessing this number than someone a decade away from retiring. The 80% is just a target to get started, it should shift to the real number in your 40s or 50s as that number becomes clear.  Next, I see my original answer didn't address Social Security benefits. The benefit isn't linear, a lower wage earner can see a benefit of as much as 50% of what they earned each year while a very high earner would see far less as the benefit has a maximum. A $90k earner will see 30% or less. The social security site does a great job of giving you your projected benefit, and you can adjust target savings accordingly.  2016 update - the prior 20 years returned 8.18% CAGR. Considering there were 2 crashes one of which was called a mini-depression, 8.18% is pretty remarkable. For what it's worth, my adult investing life started in 1984, and I've seen a CAGR of 10.90%. For forecasting purposes, I think 8% long term is a conservative number.  To answer member \""doobop\"" comment - the 10 years from 2006-2015 had a CAGR of 7.29%. Time has a way of averaging that lost decade, the 00's, to a more reasonable number."""
"""How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house""","""From your profile, I see you are in Israel. The process is probably different from in the US.  In the US, an agent is usually happy to work with a buyer. After all, When I list a house, there are potential buyers all over my state and elsewhere. The best thing you can do is first, have your financing in order. A bank will be able to tell you how much you can afford and how much they'll lend you. If you approach an agent and tell them the exact range of price, area you're interested in, and other specifics such as number of bedrooms, etc, that agent should be happy to find houses to fit your request.  Obviously, an agent listing million dollar homes, busy with those all day, is not going to want to handle a buyer looking for a $200K home. But in the end, the real estate agents aren't all listing high end, and someone is moving the smaller houses as well. Often, an office will have a call center where agents who are less busy will answer the phone hoping to get a client that will bring a sale. That's one way to go. The other is word of mouth. Just ask others who you work with or socialize with if they know a good agent. In my case, I'd be happy to get such a referral."""
"""Why does my car loan interest go up despite making payments on-time?""","""Interest is calculated daily. Doing the math: Between 6-17 and 7-25 are 38 days, 200.29 \/ 38 = 5.27 interest per day. Between 7-25 and 8-17 are 23 days. 120.02 \/ 23 = 5.22 interest per day. The minimal difference is because the principal has already gone down a little bit. So you should expect ~5.20 x number of days for the next interest number coming up; slowly decreasing as the remaining principal debt decreases. Note that this is equivalent of an annual interest rate of over 20 %, which is beyond acceptable. In the current economy, this is ridiculously high. I recommend trying to get a refinancing with another provider; you should be able to get it for a third of that."""
"""Personal Tax Return software for Linux?""","""TurboTax online works via Firefox (i.e. it is a cloud-based service.) I don't think any downloaded software is available directly for Linux."""
"""What are the marks of poor investment advice?""","""Anybody that offers a bigger return than a deposit claiming 100% safe is a fraud.  There is always a risk: Yes, you can gain 30% in a year, but nobody can guarantee that you'll repeat that gain the next. My own experience (and I do take risks), one year I go up, the next year I go down..."""
"""First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house""","""Seriously.  I can't tell you how many times I hear this scenario: Kid graduates college; kid runs out and signs lease on apartment \""because that's what you do\""**; kid complains that he's in financial trouble and can't make ends meet.   Housemate sharing is most famously displayed in hit shows like Big Bang Theory or New Girl.  They get a much nicer place with better furnishings for way less money.  (However don't hook up with close neighbors or friends of other housemates, they do it for awkward laughs but it really results in awkward departure.)  It's more financially responsible.  It means the rest of your financial life will have more slack.  And when you move, obviously, it's no big deal, you just give all the notice you can, and go to the next town and find another housemate share.   ** I suspect a very significant factor is bringing home dates.  Well, there's nothing sexy about taking your date to McDonalds because you can't afford anything more.  See those shows... it works fine, you just have to be sensible about housemate choices.  Pick housemates who view things the same way, and who themselves are invested in making the shared space attractive, and aren't going to mind some ...activities... once in awhile."""
"""Online stock screener to find stocks that are negatively correlated to another stock\/index? ""","""There are lists with Top 1,000 Most and Less correlated stocks for different markets, I think you'll find the solution here:  https:\/\/unicornbay.com\/tools\/most-less-correlated-assets"""
"""Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk?""","""Buying a property and renting it out can be a good investment if it matches your long term goals.  Buying an investment property is a long term investment.  A large chunk of your money will be tied up with the property and difficult to access.  If you put your money into dividend producing stocks you can always sell the stock and have your money back in a matter of days this is not so with a property. (But you can always do a Home equity line of credit (HELOC)) I would also like to point out landlording is not a passive endeavor as JohnFx stated dealing with a tenant can be a lot of work.  This is not work you necessarily have to deal with, it is possible to contract with a property management company that would place tenants and take care of those late night calls.  Property management companies often charge 10% of your monthly rent and will eat a large portion of your profits.  It could be worth the time and headache of tenant relations.  You should build property management into you expenses anyway in case you decide to go that route in the future. There are good things about owning an investment property.  It can produce returns in a couple of ways. If you choose this route it can be lucrative but be sure to do your homework.  You must know the area you are investing very well.  Know the rent, and vacancy rates for Single family homes, look at multifamily homes as a way of mitigating risk(if one unit is vacant the others are still paying)."""
"""I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?""","""If you're asking this question, you probably aren't ready to be buying individual stock shares, and may not be ready to be investing in the market at all.  Short-term in the stock market is GAMBLING, pure and simple, and gambling against professionals at that. You can reduce your risk if you spend the amount of time and effort the pros do on it, but if you aren't ready to accept losses you shouldn't be playing and if you aren't willing to bet it all on a single throw of the dice you should diversify and accept lower potential gain in exchange for lower risk. (Standard advice: Index funds.)  The way an investor, as opposed to a gambler, deals with a stock price dropping -- or surging upward, or not doing anything! -- is to say \""That's interesting. Given where it is NOW, do I expect it to go up or down from here, and do I think I have someplace to put the money that will do better?\"" If you believe the stock will gain value from here, holding it may make more sense than taking your losses.  Specific example: the mortgage-crisis market crash of a few years ago. People who sold because stock prices were dropping and they were scared -- or whose finances forced them to sell during the down period -- were hurt badly. Those of us who were invested for the long term and could afford to leave the money in the market -- or who were brave\/contrarian enough to see it as an opportunity to buy at a better price -- came out relatively unscathed; all I have \""lost\"" was two years of growth. So: You made your bet. Now you have to decide: Do you really want to \""buy high, sell low\"" and take the loss as a learning experience, or do you want to wait and see whether you can sell not-so-low. If you don't know enough about the company to make a fairly rational decision on that front, you probably shouldn't have bought its stock."""
"""Why does the calculation for IRR use revenue, not profit?""","""The short answer is that you would want to use the net inflow or net outflow, aka profit or loss.   In my experience, you've got a couple different uses for IRR and that may be driving the confusion.  Pretty much the same formula, but just coming at it from different angles.   Thinking about a stock or mutual fund investment, you could project a scenario with an up-front investment (net outflow) in the first period and then positive returns (dividends, then final sale proceeds, each a net inflow) in subsequent periods.  This is a model that more closely follows some of the logic you laid out. Thinking about a business project or investment, you tend to see more complicated and less smooth cashflows.  For example, you may have a large up-front capital expenditure in the first period, then have net profit (revenue less ongoing maintenance expense), then another large capital outlay, and so on.   In both cases you would want to base your analysis on the net inflow or net outflow in each period.  It just depends on the complexity of the cashflows trend as to whether you see a straightforward example (initial payment, then ongoing net inflows), or a less straightforward example with both inflows and outflows.   One other thing to note - you would only want to include those costs that are applicable to the project.  So you would not want to include the cost of overhead that would exist even if you did not undertake the project."""
"""What forms of payment am I compelled to accept?""","""I think cash, travelers checks (little iffy about this one: they're legal tender cash equivalents), and money orders are the only ones that you'd be a little weird to not accept. You certainly don't have to accept regular checks, credit cards, or barter. In the end though, you don't HAVE to accept anything. Accept only small bills, accept only checks from certain banks, accept only the diners card.  Your sale, your rules."""
"""Does the USA have a Gold reserve?""","""The US does have a gold reserve. The main reserves are held at Fort Knox but there is even more gold, mostly owned by other countries, stored in the basement of the New York Federal Reserve Bank (Think Die Hard 3). The United States Bullion Depository, often known as Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building located adjacent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, used to store a large portion of United States official gold reserves and occasionally other precious items belonging or entrusted to the federal government. The United States Bullion Depository holds 4,578 metric tons (5046 tons) of gold bullion (147.2 million oz. troy). This is roughly 2.5% of all the gold ever refined throughout human history. Even so, the depository is second in the United States to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault in Manhattan, which holds 7,000 metric tons (7716 tons) of gold bullion (225.1 million oz. troy), some of it in trust for foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations. Source: Wikipedia"""
"""How can I build up my credit history when I have nearly none""","""What's the fastest way I can raise my credit score from nothing? I worked at a bank for almost 6 years and used their secured credit card.  To give you an example of what that did as far as credit was concerned: on Transunion my score increased 200+ points, while on Experian and Equifax, it increased by less than 150.  Most customers who used the card also saw an increase, provided that they paid on time and didn't max out the card. Some strategies I used and I recommended to my customers:"""
"""Mortgage or not?""","""In addition to the other answers, I think you would also need to account for the increased utility and maintenance costs on the more expensive house. Typically it is recommended to budget 1% to 4% the cost of the home per year for routine maintenance. While it likely won't cost that much every year, you will have those expensive items come up (e.g. roof, HVAC) that come up periodically. The larger house will also cost more to heat\/cool. Depending on where you live could also have increased property taxes."""
"""PayPal wants me to \""add a bank account\"", another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why?""","""It's possible the recipient of the payment is not setup to receive funds form PayPal from a credit card, too."""
"""Must ETF companies match an investor's amount invested in an ETF?""","""The point here is actually about banks, or is in reference to banks. They expect you know how a savings account at a bank works, but not mutual funds, and so are trying to dispel an erroneous notion that you might have -- that the CBIC will insure your investment in the fund.  Banks work by taking in deposits and lending that money out via mortgages. The mortgages can last up to 30 years, but the deposits are \""on demand\"". Which means you can pull your money out at any time.  See the problem? They're maintaining a fiction that that money is there, safe and sound in the bank vault, ready to be returned whenever you want it, when in fact it's been loaned out. And can't be called back quickly, either. They know only a little bit of that money will be \""demanded\"" by depositors at any given time, so they keep a percentage called a \""reserve\"" to satisfy that, er, demand.  The rest, again, is loaned out. Gone.  And usually that works out just fine. Except sometimes it doesn't, when people get scared they might not get their money back, and they all go to the bank at the same time to demand their on-demand deposits back. This is called a \""run on the bank\"", and when that happens, the bank \""fails\"". 'Cause it ain't got the money.  What's failing, in fact, is the fiction that your money is there whenever you want it. And that's really bad, because when that happens to you at your bank, your friends the customers of other banks start worrying about their money, and run on their banks, which fail, which cause more people to worry and try to get their cash out, lather, rinse repeat, until the whole economy crashes. See -- The Great Depression.  So, various governments introduced \""Deposit Insurance\"", where the government will step in with the cash, so when you panic and pull all your money out of the bank, you can go home happy, cash in hand, and don't freak all your friends out. Therefore, the fear that your money might not really be there is assuaged, and it doesn't spread like a mental contagion. Everyone can comfortably go back to believing the fiction, and the economy goes back to merrily chugging along.  Meanwhile, with mutual funds & ETFs, everyone understands the money you put in them is invested and not sitting in a gigantic vault, and so there's no need for government insurance to maintain the fiction.  And that's the point they're trying to make.  Poorly, I might add, where their wording is concerned."""
"""I'm thinking of getting a new car \u2026 why shouldn't I LEASE one?""","""I never understood why people lease rather than buy or finance.  I'm financing a new civic 09 @ 0.9%.  At the end of the 5 year terms I will have paid less than $800 in interest."""
"""Are bond ETF capital gains taxed similar to stock or stock funds if held for more than 1 year?""","""Appreciation of a Capital Asset is a Capital Gain.   In the United States, Capital Gains get favorable tax treatment after being held for 12 months. From the IRS newsroom: Capital gains and losses are   classified as long-term or short-term,   depending on how long you hold the   property before you sell it. If you   hold it more than one year, your   capital gain or loss is long-term. If   you hold it one year or less, your   capital gain or loss is short-term. The tax rates that apply to net   capital gain are generally lower than   the tax rates that apply to other   income. For 2009, the maximum capital   gains rate for most people is15%. For   lower-income individuals, the rate may   be 0% on some or all of the net   capital gain. Special types of net   capital gain can be taxed at 25% or   28%. The IRS defines a Capital Asset as \""most property you own\"" with a list of exclusions found in Schedule D Instructions.  None of the exclusions listed relate to Bond ETFs."""
"""Separate bank account for security deposit from tenant""","""Per Md. REAL PROPERTY Code Ann. \u00a7 8-203: (d)      (1)      (i)      The landlord shall maintain all security   deposits in federally insured financial institutions, as defined in \u00a7   1-101 of the Financial Institutions Article, which do business in the   State. (ii)      Security deposit accounts shall be maintained in branches of the financial institutions which are located   within the State and the accounts shall be devoted exclusively to   security deposits and bear interest. (iii)      A security deposit shall be deposited in an account within 30 days after the landlord receives it. (iv)      The aggregate amount of the accounts shall be sufficient in amount to equal all security deposits for which the   landlord is liable. (2)      (i)      In lieu of the accounts described in paragraph (1) of this subsection, the landlord may hold the security   deposits in insured certificates of deposit at branches of federally   insured financial institutions, as defined in \u00a7 1-101 of the Financial   Institutions Article, located in the State or in securities issued by   the federal government or the State of Maryland. (ii)      In the aggregate certificates of deposit or securities shall be sufficient in amount to equal all security   deposits for which the landlord is liable. As such, one or more accounts at your preference; it's up to the bank how to treat the account, so it may be a personal account or it may be a 'commercial' account depending on how they treat it (but it must be separate from your personal funds).  A CD is perhaps the easiest way to go, as it's not a separate account exactly but it's easily separable from your own funds (and has better interest).  You should also note (further down on that page) that you must pay 3% interest, once per six months; so try to get an account that pays as close as possible to that.  You likely won't get 3% right now even in a CD, so consider this as an expense (and you'll probably find many people won't take security deposits in many situations as a result)."""
"""Can a Zelle Bank Transfer be reversed or denied after credit has been added?""","""After collecting information via web searching, the comments above, and a additional call to BOA, i have concluded the following to the best of my knowledge. Zelle Transfers are final. Irreversible. As Jay mentioned above, funds are subtracted from the sending account before the transfer is made, therefore it eliminates sending funds that do not exist. I validated this information with BOA, and the BOA representative said that once a zelle transfer is initiated and the receiving party has received the funds, it can no longer be canceled. Funds received by the receiving party is credited immediately. I will note that the BOA representative was a BOA representative and not a Zelle representative. I say this because the representatives seemed to be slightly weary in answering my questions about Zelle, as if he was looking up the information as we spoke. If someone is reading this and plans to transfer huge amount of cash from a highly likely malicious user, i would recommend contacting Zelle or your personal bank directly to further validate this information. Zelle, from what i can find, is a fairly new technology. I could not find a Zelle contact number via the web for questioning, so i can only rely on the knowledge on my BOA representative."""
"""effect of bond issue on income statement ""","""No, it would not show up on the income statement as it isn't income. It would show up in the cash flow statement as a result of financing activities."""
"""How does one determine the width of a candlestick bar?""","""Very common question. There is no any rule of thumb. This solely depends on your trading strategy. I will share my own experience. My day starts with the daily chart, if I have a signal, either I open my position or I check 30 minute chart to make sure that it won't go too much against my trade. and I open my position. If I am waiting for the signal the minimum timeframe is 4 hours for me. I use 30 minutes to find the best time to enter the market. So, this is totally something special for my trading strategy, that is why those things can change based on the different strategies. I also check weekly and monthly charts to confirm trend. I have been busy with forex since 2007 and I am a verified investor on etoro At the end, I never use 1,5,15,60 minute charts as they are against my strategy."""
"""Are there any e-commerce taxation rules in India?""","""There are no clear guidelines. If you are selling as individual, then what ever profit you make gets added to your overall income as you pay tax accordingly. This is true for sole proprietor or partnership kind of firms. If you are registered as a Company, the profits are taxed as business income. There may be VAT and other taxes. Please consult a CA who can guide you in specifics as for eCommerce, there is no defined law and one has to interpret various other tax laws."""
"""Are tax deductions voluntary?""","""There are many people who have deductions far above the standard deduction, but still don't itemize. That's their option even though it comes at a cost. It may be foolish, but it's not illegal.  If @littleadv citation is correct, the 'under penalty of perjury' type issue, what of those filers who file a Schedule A but purposely leave off their donations? I've seen many people discuss charity, and write that they do not want to benefit in any way from their donation, yet, still Schedule A their mortgage and property tax. Their returns are therefore fraudulent.  I am curious to find a situation in which the taxpayer benefits from such a purposeful oversight, or, better still, a cited case where they were charged with doing so. I've offered advice on filings return that wasn't \""truthful\"". When you own a stock and cannot find cost basis, there are times that you might realize the basis is so low that just entering zero will cost you less than $100 in extra tax. You are not truthful, of course, but this kind of false statement isn't going to lead to any issue. If it gets noticed within an audit, no agent is going to give it more than a moment of time and perhaps suggest, \""you didn't even know the year it was bought?\"" but there would be no consequence.  My answer is for personal returns, I'm sure for business, accuracy to the dollar is actually important."""
"""What is a 10 Year Treasury Note and How Can it be Used to Calculate the Intrinsic Value of a Stock?""","""It's a form of debt issued by the United States Treasury. As the name implies, a 10-year note is held for 10 years (after which you get the face value in cash), and it pays interest twice per year. It's being used in the calculator to stand for a readily available, medium-term, nearly risk-free investment, as a means of \""discounting\"" the value that the company gains. The explanation for why the discounting is done can be found on the page you linked. As a Canadian you could use the yield of comparable Canadian treasury securities as quoted by Bank of Canada (which seem to have had the bottom fall out since the new year), although I don't suppose American notes would be hard for a Canadian investor to come by, so if you wanted to be conservative you could use the US figure as long as it's higher."""
"""Help! I've cancelled their service, but this company continues to bill my credit card an annual fee. What can I do?""","""I'm not a lawyer, and am certainly not familiar with your jurisdiction, but the general guidelines I've seen around this kind of situation are: If all else fails, you could just cancel the card, though I'm not sure what liability you have to honour the contract. I cancelled a card once to stop being charged by a particularly annoying company and had no problems, but I'm not sure if that is a good way to deal with it in general."""
"""gift is taxable but is \""loan\"" or \""debt\"" taxable?""","""If you are looking to transfer money to another person in the US, you can do do with no tax consequence.  The current annual gift limit is $14k per year per person, so for example, my wife and I can gift $56k to another couple with no tax and no forms. For larger amounts, there is a lifetime exclusion that taps into your $5M+ estate tax. It requires submitting a form 709, but just paperwork, no tax would be due. This is the simplest way to gift a large sum and not have any convoluted tracking or structured loan with annual forgiveness. One form and done. (If the sum is well over $5M you should consider a professional to guide you, not a Q&A board)"""
"""How exactly does dealing in stock make me money?""","""If you buy a stock and it goes up, you can sell it and make money. But if you buy a stock and it goes down, you can lose money."""
"""How is someone tax exempt at Walmart in Canada?""","""Note that folks may also be shopping for supplies for a nonprofit tax-exempt organization. I made such a purchase a few weeks ago. Whatever the legal basis of the exception,  you need to be able to prove to the store that you have it. If you can't,  they must collect the tax."""
"""Can one be non-resident alien in the US without being a resident anywhere else?""","""You may be considered a resident for tax purposes. To meet the substantial presence test, you must have been physically present in the United States on at least: 31 days during the current year, and       183 days during the 3 year period that includes the current year and the 2 years immediately before. To satisfy the 183 days requirement, count:           All of the days you were present in the current year, and           One-third of the days you were present in the first year before the current year, and           One-sixth of the days you were present in the second year before the current year. If you are exempt, I'd check that ending your residence in Germany doesn't violate terms of the visa, in which case you'd lose your exempt status. If you are certain that you can maintain your exempt status, then the income would definitively not be taxed by the US as it is not effectively connected income: You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a nonimmigrant on an \""F,\"" \""J,\"" \""M,\"" or \""Q\"" visa. The taxable part of any U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant in \""F,\"" \""J,\"" \""M,\"" or \""Q\"" status is treated as effectively connected with a trade or business in the United States. and your scholarship is sourced from outside the US: Generally, the source of scholarships, fellowship grants, grants, prizes, and awards is the residence of the payer regardless of who actually disburses the funds. I would look into this from a German perspective. If they have a rule similiar to the US for scholarships, then you will still be counted as a resident there."""
"""Can I transfer my West Australian rock lobster quota units into my SMSF?""","""SMSFs are generally prohibited from acquiring assets from related parties (whether it is purchased by the SMSF or contributed into the fund). There are some exceptions to the above rule for acquiring related party assets, including: \u2022 Listed securities (ie shares, units or bonds listed on an approved stock exchange, such as the ASX) acquired at market value. \u2022 Business real property (ie freehold or leasehold interests in real property used exclusively in one or more businesses) acquired at market value. \u2022 An in-house asset where the acquisition would not result in the level of the fund\u2019s in-house assets exceeding 5%. \u2022 Units in a widely held unit trust, such as a retail ,managed fund. In-house asset rules An \u2018in-house asset\u2019 is generally defined as: \u2022 An investment by an SMSF in a related company or trust (ie a fund owns shares in a related company or units in a related trust). \u2022 An asset of an SMSF that is leased to a related party. \u2022 A loan made by an SMSF to a related company or trust. An investment, lease or loan that is an in-house asset is not prohibited, but is limited to 5% of the market value of the fund\u2019s assets. The Answer: If your pre-owned Western Australian Rock Lobster fishery quota units are not included in the exceptions then you cannot transfer them into your SMSF."""
"""How do the wealthy pay for things?""","""I was once the personal assistant to two wealthy NYC sisters. They did not pay for anything. For example, if we were riding the subway, I would pay, and be reimbursed by the Company. They had multiple residences and investment properties. Each property was purchased through a separate Limited Liablity Corporation, and paid for by the Company. When they purchased, donated or sold art, it was through their family Foundation. Their income primarily came from a draw of funds from the family estate, although one of them worked as an architect, which provided further income."""
"""Can compensation income from an employee stock purchase plan be negative?""","""The sentence you quoted does not apply in the case where you sell the stock at a loss. In that case, you recognize zero ordinary income, and a capital loss (opposite of a gain) for the loss. Reference: http:\/\/efs.fidelity.com\/support\/sps\/article\/article2.html"""
"""Difference between a mortgage and buy-to-let in UK""","""Another factor that makes Buy to let more expensive is the risk involved. With a buy to let you are dependent on finding a tenant that will keep regular payments. if the property is left empty you need to finance the mortgage yourself putting you under financial strain and raising risk. Also as Chis mentioned they are regarded as a business enterprise, If the mortgage was to be taken by a business that would be very high risk for a bank as the business could dissolve leaving the bank out of pocket. Because of this it can be very difficult to get a buy to let through a business unless you are moving from a personal portfolio. For a regular mortgage these risks don't exist so this is reflected in lower interest repayments. It's because of these differences in risk that banks created buy to let so they can better manage those risks."""
"""Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?""","""This answer is based on Australian tax, which is significantly different. I only offer it in case others want to compare situations. In Australia, a popular tax reduction technique is \""Negative Gearing\"". Borrow from a bank, buy an investment property. If the income frome the new property is not enough to cover interest payments (plus maintenance etc) then the excess each year is a capital loss - which you claim each year, as an offset to your income (ie. pay less tax). By the time you reach retirement, the idea is to have paid off the mortgage. You then live off the revenue stream in retirement, or sell the property for a (taxed) lump sum."""
"""How accurate is Implied Volatility in predicting future moves?""","""How accurate is Implied Volatility in predicting future moves? How would you measure this?  If the implied volatility says that there's a 1% chance that a stock will double, and it doubles, was it \""right\""?  You could also say that it says there's a 99% change that it doesn't double, so was it \""wrong\""?   What you could measure is the variance of daily returns over a time period, and see how well that compares to implied volatility, but there's no way to compare IV with the absolute price movement.  If a stock goes up 0.01 each day, then the variance is 0 (the daily returns are the same each day), but over 250 the stock would go up $2.50."""
"""How do you get out of a Mutual Fund in your 401(k)?""","""The S&P top 5 - 401(k) usually comply with the DOL's suggestion to offer at least three distinct investment options with substantially different risk\/return objectives. Typically a short term bond fund. Short term is a year or less and it will rarely have a negative year. A large cap fund, often the S&P index. A balanced fund, offering a mix. Last, the company's stock. This is a great way to put all your eggs in one basket, and when the company goes under, you have no job and no savings.  My concern about your Microsoft remark is that you might not have the choice to manage you funds with such granularity. Will you get out of the S&P fund because you think this one stock or even one sector of the S&P is overvalued? And buy into what? The bond fund? If you have the skill to choose individual stocks, and the 401(k) doesn't offer a brokerage window (to trade on your own) then just invest your money outside the 401(k). But. If they offer a matching deposit, don't ignore that."""
"""Long term saving: Shares, Savings Account or Fund""","""There is no rule of thumb (although some may suggest there is). Everybody will have different goals, investment preferences and risk tolerances. You need to figure this out by yourself by either education yourself in the type of investments you are interested in or by engaging (and paying for) a financial advisor. You should not be taking advice from others unless it is specifically geared for your goals, investment DNA and risk tolerance. The only advice I would give you is to have a plan (whether you develop it yourself or pay a financial advisor to develop one). Also, don't have all your savings sitting in cash, as long-term you will fall behind the eight ball in real returns (allowing for inflation)."""
"""Has anyone created a documentary about folks who fail to save enough for retirement?""","""To answer your question, Retirement Revolution may fit the bill to some extent. I'd also like to address some of the indirect assumptions that were made in your bullet points.  I'm convinced that the best way to overcome this is not simply to hold down a good job with COLAs every year, max out your IRA accounts and 401(k)s, invest another 10-20% on top, and live off of the savings and whatever Social Security decides to pay you. Instead, the trick is to not retire -- to make a transition into an income-producing activity that can be done in the typical retirement years, hopefully one that is closer to one's calling (i.e., more fulfilling).  This takes time, not money.  If people just shut off the TV and spent the time building up a side business that has a high passive component, they'd stand a much better chance of not outliving their money."""
"""Repaying Debt and Saving - Difficult Situation""","""Like everybody else I'm picking up on the school loans - you're mother isn't exactly earning a massive amount of money given her cost of living, why is she taking out student loans that benefit you and your sister? I'm not trying to be offensive but it's fairly obvious that she can't afford it. As a first step I think you should at least take over paying your own student loans (you sound like you're out of college already and if you have $8k to \""lend\"" to your mother you probably have enough money to pay the student loans that benefited you, after all) or as someone else also recommended, assume your loans. As to your sister, maybe it's time for her to get (another) job to pay for the tuition so her mother doesn't have to go further into debt. Again, I'm not trying to be mean here but your mother is digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole because of the tuition. Something's gotta give, and delivering pizza or getting a paper round is a small sacrifice here. Next, the car - unless she has a managed to work herself out of some of this mess, I would consider getting a much cheaper car instead. This is provided that she isn't upside down on the loan. Personally I wouldn't trade in a vehicle with an upside down loan, if anything that's another bad financial decision. Assuming that she isn't upside down on the loan and has some equity in the car, I would seriously consider selling the car and using the equity to buy something small and cheap. That should also hopefully reduce the cost of gas and maybe insurance somewhat. I think these points are probably the quickest steps that can be taken towards recovering this situation. You already mentioned the longer term plans like downsizing the apartment, but TBH I'm not sure that this is really necessary. The big elephant in the room are the college costs and removing those from the equation would give her a serious amount of breathing room."""
"""Is it commonly possible to buy an \""Option for a Mortgage at a specific Interest Rate\""?""","""I think the answer to this is just \""no.\""  It's not commonly available to have the option to obtain a mortgage at a fixed amount and fixed rate, especially over a timeframe like the 5 yrs you mentioned in your question.  There would be several practical problems with such a thing, including but not limited to: As was noted in a comment to your question, it is common to be able to \""lock\"" a rate over a period of days to weeks.  This isn't the same as what you asked though, because it's much shorter term and it's typically tied to having an offer accepted on a specific house."""
"""If I exercise underwater ISOs, can I claim a loss?""","""If you do this, you own a stock worth $1, with a basis of $2. The loss doesn't get realized until the shares are sold. Of course, we hope you see the stock increase above that price, else, why do this?"""
"""Selecting between investment vehicles for income""","""You have a comparatively small sum to invest, and since you're presumably expecting to go to college.university soon, where you may well need the money, you also have a short timescale for your investment. I don't think anything stock-related would be good for you -- you need a longer timescale for stock market investments, at least five years and preferably ten or more. I don't know the details of Australian savings, but I'd suggest just finding a bank that is giving a good interest rate for a one-year fixed-term savings account."""
"""When does it make sense for the money paid for equity to go to the corporation?""","""The check is written to BigCo. Jack is being diluted, corporation issues more shares. There's no gain, no change in Jack's equity value. Jack didn't lose or win anything. BigCo was worth $1M before the additional money, it is worth $1.25M after the additional money, with Jack owning the same $1M, but the cake is now bigger (obviously the numbers are wrong in your example, but you get the point)."""
"""Why did the Swiss National Bank fix the EUR\/CHF exchange rate at CHF 1.20?""","""As the European crisis worsened the Swiss Franc (CHF) was seen as a safe currency so Europeans attempted to exchange their Euros for Francs.  This caused the Franc to appreciate in value, against the Euro, through the summer and fall of 2011.  The Swiss government and Swiss Central Bank (SNB) believe mercantilism will create wealth for the citizens of Switzerland.  The Swiss central planners believe that having an abundance of export businesses in Switzerland will create wealth for the citizens of Switzerland as the exporters sell their good and services abroad and pocket a bunch of cash.  Thus, the central planners tend to favor exporters.  From the article: At the start of the year, when exporters urged for government and SNB action, ... The Swiss Central bank continued to intervene in currency markets in 2011 to prevent the CHF from appreciating.  This was done to prevent a decrease in export business.  Finally after many failed attempts they announced the 1.20 peg in September.   The central planners give little consideration to imports, however, since manufacturers in foreign countries don't vote or contribute to the campaign funds of the central planners in Switzerland.  As the CHF strengthened many imported items became very cheap for Swiss citizens.  This was of little concern to the central planners. Currencies are like other goods in a market in that they respond to supply and demand.  Their value can change daily or even hourly based on the continually varying demands of people.  This can cause the exchange rate to rise and fall against other currencies and goods.  Central planners mistakenly believe that the price of certain market items (like currency) should not fluctuate.  The believe there is some magical number that will cause the market to operate \""better\"" or \""more correctly\"". How does the SNB maintain the peg?  They maintain the peg by printing Francs and purchasing euros."""
"""Buying my first car out of college""","""I realize I'm drudging up a somewhat old post here (apologies), but I've found myself in a similar situation recently and thought I would chime in. I was considering buying a car where the loan amount would be right around 25k. I tried justifying this by saying it's ridiculously fast (I'm young and stupid, this is appealing), has AWD (nice for Colorado), and a hatchback with plenty of room for snowboards and whatnot in back. This is in comparison to my Civic which has high mileage, can hardly make it up hills due to the high altitude, sucks in snow, and has little room for anything. You have your reasons, I have mine. The thing is, our reasons are just us trying to rationalize an unwise purchase - just admit it, you know it's true. Just so you can see I'm in a similar financial situation, I'm 22, just graduated, and started a job making well over 80k with salary and signing bonus, plus 20k in RSUs on the side. After budgeting I can still put away over 2k\/month after I've factored in a car payment, insurance, rent, etc etc. Yes, I could \""afford\"" this car... it's just dumb though dude. Don't do it. There are better things we can do with our money. And guess what, I've been drooling over this car since middle school too."""
"""Can everyday people profit from unexpected world events?""","""In the UK there are spread betting firms (essentially financial bookmakers) that will take large bets 24x7. Plus, interbank forex is open 24x7 anyway. And there are a wide array of futures markets in different jurisdictions. There are plenty of ways to find organizations who are willing to take the opposite position that you do, day or night, provided that you qualify."""
"""Should I replace bonds in a passive investment strategy""","""I have had similar thoughts regarding alternative diversifiers for the reasons you mention, but for the most part they don't exist.  Gold is often mentioned, but outside of 1972-1974 when the US went off the gold standard, it hasn't been very effective in the diversification role.  Cash can help a little, but it also fails to effectively protect you in a bear market, as measured by portfolio drawdowns as well as std dev, relative to gov't bonds. There are alternative assets, reverse ETFs, etc which can fulfill a specific short term defensive role in your portfolio, but which can be very dangerous and are especially poor as a long term solution; while some people claim to use them for effective results, I haven't seen anything verifiable. I don't recommend them. Gov't bonds really do have a negative correlation to equities during periods in which equities underperform (timing is often slightly delayed), and that makes them more valuable than any other asset class as a diversifier.  If you are concerned about rate increases, avoid LT gov't bond funds.  Intermediate will work, but will take a few hits... short term bonds will be the safest.  Personally I'm in Intermediates (30%), and willing to take the modest hit, in exchange for the overall portfolio protection they provide against an equity downturn.  If the hit concerns you, Tips may provide some long term help, assuming inflation rises along with rates to some degree. I personally think Tips give up too much return when equity performance is strong, but it's a modest concern - Tips may suit you better than any other option.  In general, I'm less concerned with a single asset class than with the long term performance of my total portfolio."""
"""How to map stock ticker symbols to ISIN (International Securities Identification Number)?""","""It is possible to make a REST API call providing the ISIN to get the ticker in the response:  Python code for getting ticker for ISIN=US4592001014:  import requests  url = 'https:\/\/api.openfigi.com\/v1\/mapping'  headers = {'Content-Type':'text\/json', 'X-OPENFIGI-APIKEY':'myKey' }  payload = '[ {\""idType\"":\""ID_ISIN\"",\""idValue\"":\""US4592001014\""}]'   r = requests.post(url, data=payload, headers=headers)"""
"""Investing money 101""","""The way to invest money in a company is to buy its shares, or derivatives of its shares. However, it seems you're way in over your head. Don't buy what you don't understand.  There is plenty of material to teach you about stock investing on the internet. However, a book may be the fastest way to learn what you need to know. And yes, there is a \""for dummies\"" book about that: Stock Investing ForDummies. I just found it by Googling, I'm sure you can find even more interesting books out there. (Note, the link is to the \""cheat sheet\"" in the back of the book. The full book is worth reading.)"""
"""Do I need a new EIN since I am hiring employees for my LLC?""","""I called the IRS (click here for IRS contact info) and they said I do not need to get a new EIN.  I could have just filed the appropriate employer federal tax return (940\/941) and then the filing requirements would have been updated.  But while I was on the phone, they just updated the filing requirements for my LLC so I am all good now (I still need to file the correct form and make the correct payments, etc. but I can use this same EIN going forward). Disclaimer: Don't trust me (or this answer) for tax advice (your situation may be different).  The IRS person on the phone was very helpful so I recommend calling them if you are in a similar situation.  FYI, I have found calling the IRS to always be very helpful."""
"""Is Investments by Bodie just an expanded version of Essentials of Investments?""","""Reading the descriptions on Amazon.com it appears Investments is a graduate text and Elements of Investments is the undergraduate version of the text."""
"""Why does a long\/purchased call option have a long position in the option itself?""","""Being long the call is being long the option. The call is a type of option. A put is a type of option If you buy a call, you are long an option and long the underlying asset. If you buy a put, you are long an option and short the underlying asset."""
"""Are RSUs ever taxed as long term capital gains?""","""I don't know the legal framework for RSUs, so I'm not sure what is mandatory and what is chosen by the company issuing them. I recently reviewed one companies offering and it basically looked like a flat purchase of stock on the VEST date. So even if I got a zillion shares for $1 GRANTED to me, if it was 100 shares that vested at $100 on the 1st, then I would owe tax on the market value on the day of vest. Further, the company would withhold 25% of the VEST for federal taxes and 10% for state taxes, if I lived in a state with income tax. The withholding rate was flat, regardless of what my actual tax rate was. Capital gains on the change from the market value on the VEST date was calculated as short-term or long-term based on the time since the VEST date. So if my 100 shares went up to $120, I would pay the $20 difference as short term or long term based on how long I had owned them since the VEST. That said, I don't know if this is universal. Your HR folks should be able to help answer at least some of these questions, though I know their favorite response when they don't know is that you should consult a tax professional. Good luck."""
"""Shorting stocks: Indicators that a stock will drop?""","""First, it's much safer to be shorting stocks over $5 than stocks under $5.  I use 3 indicators to show that a stock has topped out and about to drop. Key is the timing cause the initial drop is often the biggest. More close you get in at the top, the higher the risk. Using 1D Charts ONLY:   - MACD Indicator:  I use the histogram, when it reaches a peak height, and the next day it is down 1 \""Step\"". If you wait til the MACD lines cross, you are pretty late IMHO.  Need to get in earlier. Timing is everything.   - RSI(15) - Needs to topped out and above 67 meaning, \""Over bought\""  - Do not buy when RSI is high above 70. Often stocks go on a Run up when RSI is over 70!   - I use Stoch RSI or CCI to confirm my status on RSI. I like to see that all 3 indicators agree. This gives me a 75% chance that the stock will drop. It may take a day or 2.. so you need patience."""
"""Does high frequency trading (HFT) punish long-term investment?""","""Not really. High frequency traders affect mainly short term investors. If everyone invested long-term and traded infrequently, there would be no high frequency trading. For a long term investor, you by at X, hold for several years, and sell at Y. At worst, high frequency trading may affect \""X\"" and \""Y\"" by a few pennies (and the changes may cancel out). For a long term trader that doesn't amount to a \""hill of beans\"" It is other frequent traders that will feel the loss of those \""pennies.\"""""
"""Can I deduct taxes for home office as a freelance computer software developer?""","""You can do it, provided that the bedroom is ONLY set up as an office. That is, no bed, TV or other stuff. You can stretch it a bit, considering a TV is also a monitor, a couch is also a visitor couch. Whatever route you choose you have to be able to justify what everything is doing there in case of a visit from the authorities. I am (was) in exactly the same situation for two years and had no problem deducting ~30% of the housing costs. That is, the usage of bathroom and utilities is calculated as proportional to the surface area given to the office. It might make more sense to move into a larger apartment just so you can have one designated office room. Edit: the above applies in Germany, YMMV, IANAL, etc. EU is pretty consistent though in regulations and as far as I know the above aplies in most EU countries."""
"""Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what?""","""So: What you do:"""
"""Why can we cancel cheques, but not Western Union transfers?""","""You are presuming that after the transfer, the cash is still \""sitting in a Western Union register\"" but no, that cash may have already been taken by the fraudster. To refund the victim, Western Union would have to (1) pay the victim back the amount of money lost, and then (2) pursue the fraudster to reclaim the lost funds. Because the fraudster at the other end can simply show ID to get the money [ie: they do not have an account with Western Union], the cost to pursue that person to reclaim the lost funds would be substantially higher than for your bank, because your bank can simply ding your account. In the event that your account goes into overdraft [because there were insufficient funds to reclaim the full amount], the bank at least has a framework in place to pursue you for penalties."""
"""What is a \""retail revolving account,\"" and does it improve my credit score?""","""To add to what others have said, INSTALLMENT CREDIT is a stronger factor when building credit. An installment credit is essentially a loan with a fixed repay amount such as a student loan and a car loan. Banks (when it comes to buying your first home) want to see that you are financially able to repay a big debt (car loan). But be careful, if you cannot pay cash, you cannot afford it. My rule of thumb is that when I'm charging something to my CC, I MUST pay it off when it posts to my account. I just became debt free (paid off about 15k in CC and student loan debt in 18 months) and I love it."""
"""Why is the total 401(k) contribution limit (employee + employer) so high?""","""Because 401k's are also used by self employed. A person who has a schedule C profitable income can open a 401k and \""match\"" in whatever ratio he wants, up to 25% of the net profits or the limits you stated. This allows self-employed to defer more income taxes to the future. Why only self-employed? Good question. Ask your congressman. My explanation would be that since they're self-employed they're in much more danger of not having income, especially later in life, if their business go south. Thus they need a bigger cushion than an average W2 employee who can just find another job."""
"""As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks?""","""Your questions seek answers to specifics, but I feel that you may need more general help. There are two things, I feel, that you need to learn about in the general category of personal finance.  Your asking questions about investing, but it is not as important, IMHO, as how you manage your day-to-day operations.   For example, you should first learn to budget.  In personal finance often times \""living on a budget\"" equates to poor, or low income.   That is hardly the case.  A budget is a plan on how to spend money.  It should be refreshed each and every month and your income should equal your expenses.  You might have in your budget a $1200 trip into the city to see a concert, hardly what a low income person should have in theirs. Secondly you need to be deliberate about debt management.  For some, they feel that having a car payment and having student loans are a necessary part of life and argue that paying them off is foolish as you can earn more from investments.  Others argue for zero debt.  I fall in the later.  Using and carrying a balance on high interest CCs and having high leases or car payments are just dumb.  They are also easy to wander into unless you are deliberate.   Third you need to prepare for emergencies.  Engineers still get laid off and hurt where they are unable to work.  They get sued.  Having the proper insurance and sufficient reserves in the bank help prevent debt. Now you can start looking into investments.   Start off slow and deliberate with investing.  Put some in your company 401K or open some mutual funds on the side.  You can read about them and talk with advisers, for free, at Fidelity and Vanguard.  Read books from the library. Most of all don't get caught up in too much hype.  Things like Forex, options, life insurance, gold\/silver, are not investments.  They are tools for sales people to make fat commissions off the ignorant.      You are fortunate in that Engineers are very likely to retire wealthy.  They are part of the second largest demographic of first generation rich.  The first is small business owners.   To start out I would read Millionaire Next Door and Stop Acting Rich.  For a debt free approach to life, check out Financial Peace University (FPU) by Dave Ramsey (video course).  His lesson on insurance is excellent.   I am an engineer, and my wife a project manager we found FPU life changing and regretted not getting on board sooner.  Along these lines we have had some turmoil, recently, that became little more than an inconvenience because we were prepared."""
"""Is Bogleheadism (index fund investing) dead?""","""Dogma always disappoints.  The notion that an index fund is the end-all, be-all for investing because the expense ratios are low is a flawed one. I don't concern myself with cost as an independent factor -- I look for the best value.  Bogle's dogma lines up with his business, so you need to factor that in as well. Vendors of any product spend alot of time and money convincing you that unique attributes of their product are the most important thing in the world.  Pre-crash, the dogmatics among us were bleating about how Fixed-date Retirement Funds were the new paradigm. Where did they go?"""
"""Mortgage company withholding insurance proceeds""","""Have you found a general contractor to rebuild your home? I would imagine that someone with a bit of expertise in the area is used to dealing with insurance companies, floating the money for a rebuild, and hitting the gates to receive payment for work accomplished.   Business are used to not receiving payment when work is accomplished and it is part of the risk of being in business.  They have to buy materials and pay employees with the expectation of payment in the future.  Much like workers go to work on a Monday for the work that day, three Friday's later, business often have to float costs but for longer periods of time. If you are looking to be your own general contractor then you will have to float the money on your own. The money should not be used for living expenses or mortgage payments, it should be used for down payments in order to get the work of rebuilding started."""
"""How do you measure the value of gold?""","""Intrinsic value is a myth.  There is no such thing.  Subjective human demand is the only thing that gives anything value.  This subjectivity is different person to person and can change very quickly. Historically there are two main uses for gold: jewelry and money.  How can you tell when a particular type of money is undervalued?  It disappears from circulation since people prefer to use money that is overvalued.  This phenomenon is paraphrased in Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good money. The Coinage Act of 1792 established the US dollar as 371.25 grains of silver or 24.75 grains of gold.  This established a government ratio of 15 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold.  In the late 18th century there was a large production of silver from Mexico and the market ratio of silver to gold increased to 15.75 to 1 by 1805.  The government ratio, however, was still 15 to 1.  This was enough incentive for people to exchange their silver coins for gold coins at the government ratio, melt the gold, and sell the gold bullion overseas at the market value.  Thus, gold coins disappeared from circulation as people either hoarded the gold or sent it abroad.  People used the overvalued silver coins (i.e. the \""bad\"" money) domestically and gold coins disappeared from the market. In an attempt to correct the problem of disappearing gold coins the Coinage Act of 1834 was enacted.  It kept the US dollar at 371.25 grains of silver but changed the definition to 23.2 grains of gold which established a government ratio of 16 to 1.  This was close to the market ratio of gold to silver at the time so both gold and silver coins appeared in circulation again.  The gold rush of 1849 produced a lot of gold and the market ratio of silver to gold became 15.46 to 1.  Now gold was overvalued so people began exchanging their gold coins for silver coins at the government ratio, melt the silver, and sell the silver bullion overseas at the market value.  People used the overvalued gold coins (i.e. the \""bad\"" money) domestically and silver coins disappeared from the market. When you see gold circulating everywhere you will know it is overvalued compared to other types of money.  Paper money always drives gold out of circulation since the market ratio of paper to gold severely under values gold. Source here."""
"""Offshore bank account with online International wire-transfer facility for Indians ""","""India does allow Resident Indians to open USD accounts. Most leading National and Private Banks offer this. You can receive funds and send funds subject to some norms."""
"""Do I even need credit cards?""","""Credits are expensive, so it's a great advantage to pay in cash. Obviously, it's even more an advantage to pay in cash for a house or a car, of course if you can afford it. But, as annoying as it could be, there are some services, where you're out of option to pay in cash, or even to pay by bank transfer. One of the most prominent examples, Google Play (OK, as I've learned, there are prepaid cards. But Groundspeak, for example, has none.). With the further expansion of Internet and E-Economy there will be more cases like that, where paying in cash is no more an option. Booking of hotels or hostels is already mentioned. There are some that provide no other booking option that giving your credit card number. However, even if the do, for example bank transfer of, say, 20% as reservation fee, please note that international money transfer can be very expensive, and credit card is usually given only for security in case you don't come, and if you do come and pay in cash, no money is taken = no expensive fee for international money transfer and\/or disadvantaging currency exchange rate."""
"""Pay for a cheap car or take out a loan?""","""The stupid question nobody asked: how mechanically inclined are you? I buy used cars, but then again I can work on them (I am building a new engine to my specs for one of my cars). Replacing a head gasket in a Subaru would be less than $200 for me, so I would find someone who blew his and offer $1000-1500 for the car if it is one of the models I like. The reality of buying an used car is that you are buying someone's else problems. How much do you know about that specific car model, its quirks, and what usually goes bad on them? For instance, it is a fact most people who buy a BMW 3 series flog them, so expect an used one to have been abused by someone trying to pick up girls by acting like he is a racer. A 5 series, on the other hand, would have a better life. Then some cars tend to rust on certain areas of the body. On the other hand I have seen Hyundai Elantras take a lot of abuse -- no oil change in 3 years -- and keep on ticking. Yes, you need to do some research on new cars, but old ones require even more. If you are going to save money buying used, make sure to spend time and research the options and their hidden costs. And learn how to check a car and have a feel for how much you will spent on repairing\/maintaining it.  And what you are willing to give up on your first car: is having a working AC that important? How about power windows?  If you do buy a used car, try to put $100-200 aside every month, as if you are doing car payments. That will be your emergency and downpayment-for-next-car money. No matter what you buy, remember all you want on a new car is reliability and fuel efficiency. And, how much do you need a car right now? If you have to ride 30minutes to work in pouring rain and then be talking to customers, maybe a car worth having. But, where I live, a lot of people ride bicycles to work and back or use public transportation. I would trust getting into my car right now and drive 5h, and yet I take the bus every day (I like saving money on fuel and parking fees)."""
"""Are there Investable Real Estate Indices which track Geographical Locations?""","""Yes. S&P\/ Case-Shiller real-estate indices are available, as a single national index as well as multiple regional geographic indices. These indices are updated on the last Tuesday of every month. According to the Case-Shiller Index Methodology documentation: Their purpose is to measure the average change in home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas... and three price tiers\u2013 low, middle and high. The regional indices use 3-month moving averages, published with a two-month lag. This helps offset delays due to \""clumping\"" in the flow of sales price data from county deed recorders. It also assures sufficient sample sizes.  Regional Case-Shiller real-estate indices  * Source: Case-Shiller Real-estate Index FAQ. The S&P Case-Shiller webpage has links to historical studies and commentary by Yale University Professor Shiller. Housing Views posts news and analysis for the regional indices. Yes. The CME Group in Chicago runs a real-estate futures market. Regional S&P\/ Case-Schiller index futures and options are   the first [security type] for managing U.S. housing risk. They    provide protection, or profit, in up or down markets. They extend to the   housing industry the same tools, for risk management and investment,    available for agriculture and finance. But would you want to invest? Probably not. This market has minimal activity. For the three markets, San Diego, Boston and Los Angeles on 28 November 2011, there was zero trading volume (prices unchanged), no trades settled, no open interest, see  far right, partially cut off in image below.  * Source: Futures and options activity[PDF] for all 20 regional indices.  I don't know the reason for this situation. A few guesses: Additional reference: CME spec's for index futures and options contracts."""
"""Placing limit order and stop loss on same stock at same time""","""if it opens below my limit order  What exactly are you trying to achieve here? If your limit order is for 100 and the stock opens \""below\"" your limit order, say 99, then it is obviously going to buy it automatically.  also place a stop loss on the same order  Most brokers allow limit + stop loss order at the same time on same order.  What I conclude from your question is that you're with a broker that is using obscure technology. Get a better broker or maybe, retry phrasing your question correctly."""
"""What can I expect to pay when meeting my first financial planner?""","""My suggestion would be to ask the planner as an initial question as there could be a couple possible explanations for a free meeting: Initial consultation - Within some industries there will be that first meeting which is free to see how well do two people work together.  In Canada there are some lawyers that will give a half-hour of their time and I'd imagine some financial planners may have a similar practice.  This would be where that first meeting is a half-hour or hour to see what is your situation and what expertise do you want that the planner would have. Straight commission - There is also the possibility that the planner is compensated by the products you purchase through him.  In this case, the mutual fund companies, insurance companies and other institutions that he recommends will be handling his compensation.  While this does present a conflict of interest, you have to decide whether you want a fee-only planner which wouldn't have this issue though you'd have to pay out of pocket. Something to consider is what are you bringing to this meeting and how long is it intended to be.  If you are bringing a lot of paperwork then it is definitely worth asking upfront while if it is an informal chat for a half hour then things may be different."""
"""What is high trading volume in a stock indicative of? Is high liquidity a good thing or a bad thing?""","""High liquidity doesn't necessarily mean that \""everybody is getting rid of the stock\"", since somebody is obviously buying whatever stock that is being sold. Also, as mentioned, low liquidity may mean that you would have trouble selling the stock in the future."""
"""Are the sellers selling pre-IPO shares over these websites legitimate or fake?""","""You cannot trade in pre-IPO shares of companies like Facebook without being an accredited investor. If a website or company doesn't mention that requirement, they are a scam. A legitimate market for private shares is SecondMarket."""
"""How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks?""","""I've read the answers and respect the thought behind them.  I'd like to focus on (a) the magnitude of the emergency, and (b) the saving rate of the people affected. 3-6 months is interesting. It's enough not just to fix the car, repair the A\/C, etc, but more than enough to lose one's job and recover. (Let's avoid the debate of how long it take to find a job, no amount of 'emergency savings' can solve that.) If one is spending below their means, any unexpected expense that can paid off within, say 3 months, doesn't really need to tap emergency funds (EF). And, at some level of income and retirement savings, one can more easily run a much lower EF.  My own situation - I had 9mo worth of expenses saved as EF. We were living well beneath our means, and I was looking at the difference between our mortgage (6%+) vs bank interest (near 0%). I used the funds to pay down principal, refinanced to a lower rate, and at the same closing got a HELOC. The psychology of this is tough, it then appears that for simple expenses, I'd be borrowing from my HELOC. On the other hand, the choice was between a known cost, the $5K\/year the money was costing by sitting there plus the lower rate by going to a non-jumbo loan at the time, vs the risk of using 3% money from the HELOC. In the end, the HELOC was never tapped for more than a small portion of its line, and I never regretted the decision. Ironically, it's the person who isn't saving much that need the EF most. If you are a saver, you need to judge how long it would take to replace the funds.  I offer the above not as a recommendation, but as devil's advocate to the other excellent advice here. All cash flows are a choice, $100 going here, can't go there. I'd slip in a warning that one should capture matching 401(k) contributions, if offered, before funding the EF. And pay down any high interest debt. After that, the decision of how liquid to be is a personal choice, what worked for my wife and me may not be for everyone."""
"""How can a credit card company make any money off me? I have a no-fee card and pay my balance on time""","""Maybe they don't make much, but they make some for sure.  In addition to what duffbeer703 says, they also have a warm body at the end of the line and will sell your contact info (or at least access to your eyeballs) to marketers.  They stuff advertisements into your bill for example. If nothing else, you are brand value for them as they can convince merchants (who get charged monthly) that X billion people carry their card and that merchant would be missing out on sales by not accepting their product. If you have a rewards card that pays you for using it, the merchant has higher corresponding fees."""
"""why if change manufacturing of a product not change the price for the buyer? ""","""In highly developed and competitive industries companies tread a continuous and very fine line between maximising shareholder profits by keeping prices up while making products as cheaply as possible, vs competitors lowering prices when they work out a way to make equivalents cheaper. In the short run you will quite often see companies hold onto large portions of efficiency savings (particularly if they make a major breakthrough in a specific manufacturing process etc) by holding old prices up, but in the long run competition pretty quickly lowers prices as the companies trying to keep high margins and prices get ruthlessly undercut by smaller competitors happy to make a bit less."""
"""What's my risk of buying a house for a friend and sell back to him?""","""This is fraud, the related legal code is \""11 USC 548 - Fraudulent transfers and obligations\""; also see the wiki page for Fraudulent Conveyance in the United States.  Highly suggest cutting off contact with this person, and speaking with a lawyer as soon as possible to make sure you have not already broken the law."""
"""what if a former employer contributes to my 401k in the year following my exit?""","""Publication 590a covers this in a fairly specific manner. Page 11, section \""Are You Covered by an Employer Plan?\"", specifies: The Form W-2 you receive from your employer has a box   used to indicate whether you were covered for the year.   The \""Retirement Plan\"" box should be checked if you were   covered. So, by default, if that's checked, you're covered.  590 does go into more detail, though. Assuming you're covered under a Defined Contribution plan (a 401k for example): Defined contribution plan. Generally, you are covered   by a defined contribution plan for a tax year if amounts are   contributed or allocated to your account for the plan year   that ends with or within that tax year.  Tax Year: Tax year. Your tax year is the annual accounting period   you use to keep records and report income and expenses   on your income tax return. For almost all people, the tax   year is the calendar year. Further, they cover issues related to an employee leaving Dec. 31 very specifically: A special rule applies to certain plans in which it is not   possible to determine if an amount will be contributed to   your account for a given plan year. If, for a plan year, no   amounts have been allocated to your account that are attributable   to employer contributions, employee contributions,   or forfeitures, by the last day of the plan year, and   contributions are discretionary for the plan year, you are   not covered for the tax year in which the plan year ends. If,   after the plan year ends, the employer makes a contribution   for that plan year, you are covered for the tax year in   which the contribution is made. Example: Example. Mickey was covered by a profit-sharing plan   and left the company on December 31, 2014. The plan   year runs from July 1 to June 30. Under the terms of the   plan, employer contributions do not have to be made, but   if they are made, they are contributed to the plan before   the due date for filing the company's tax return. Such contributions   are allocated as of the last day of the plan year,   and allocations are made to the accounts of individuals   who have any service during the plan year. As of June 30,   2015, no contributions were made that were allocated to   the June 30, 2015, plan year, and no forfeitures had been   allocated within the plan year. In addition, as of that date,   the company was not obligated to make a contribution for   such plan year and it was impossible to determine   whether or not a contribution would be made for the plan   year. On December 31, 2015, the company decided to   contribute to the plan for the plan year ending June 30,   2015. That contribution was made on February 15, 2016.   Mickey is an active participant in the plan for his 2016 tax   year but not for his 2015 tax year. Mickey is in a similar (but different) circumstance, and it's clear from the IRS's treatment of his circumstance that you would be in the same boat (just a year less off) - but be aware given Mickey's situation that it's theoretically possible for them to make another contribution next year, as Mickey had, depending on when their plan year\/etc. ends. So - from the IRS's point of view, everything you said the company did is correct.  They paid you in January, contributed to your 401k as a result of that paycheck, and thus you were officially considered covered for 2015."""
"""Getting over that financial unease? Budgeting advice""","""You sound like you are budgeting too much for food.  Try limiting yourself to $200 a month for food and take that out in cash.  When it's up, it's up.  It's a hard way to learn but if you can tackle that, then budgeting for other things gets easier.   In terms of your fear of doing a financial bellyflop, which is valid, it sounds like you may need to both sit down and learn a little more about personal finance.  Try mrmoneymustache.com or fivecentnickel, or any of the other frugal living blogs that are out there.  There are whole communities that can help you and give you tips to do more with less, and learn budgeting and finance and how to handle your money and your future.  And no worries, the fact you are concerned enough to look for direction now means you may be able to avoid your fear completely."""
"""How does owning a home and paying on a mortgage fit into family savings and investment?""","""Unless you plan to sell your home and live in a box during your retirement I wouldn't consider it an investment that is a viable replacement for a retirement account. Consider this: Even if housing prices DO go way up, you still need a place to live. When you sell that house and try to buy another one to live in, you will find that the other houses went up in price too, negating your gain. The only way this might work is if you buy a much bigger house than you will need later and trade down to pull out some equity, or consider a reverse-mortgage for retirement income."""
"""What's a reliable way for a non-permanent resident alien in the USA to get an auto loan?""","""I took @littleadv 's recommendation that online apps only ask for citizenship due to post-9\/11 legislation.  I applied to 2 banks in person (one big, one small), and at the dealership. None of my in-person applications ever touched on the issue of citizenship.  I even applied in person at the same bank that insta-rejected me online, and told them up front, \""I applied online but you rejected me because I'm not a permanent resident.\""  The banker nodded, said \""that shouldn't matter here\"", and continued processing my application. I did find it very hard to get a loan.  I have a credit score in the \""excellent\"" range, but have only 1 open credit card (for 5 years).  Apparently, most lenders want to see more open credit before writing an auto loan.  The big bank said outright \""We want to see 3-5 credit cards open\"".  However, the dealership did find a bank willing to extend me a loan. So: The most reliable way for a non-permanent resident alien to get an auto loan in the US is to avoid online applications.  Also, if possible, establish a wide credit history before you try."""
"""Calculating profits on a covered call. What method do you use?""","""at $8.50:  total profit = $120.00 *basis of stock, not paid in cash, so not included in \""total paid\"" at $8.50: total profit = $75.00"""
"""How do I report book royalties for tax purposes?""","""(Insert the usual disclaimer that I'm not any sort of tax professional; I'm just a random guy on the Internet who occasionally looks through IRS instructions for fun. Then again, what you're doing here is asking random people on the Internet for help, so here goes.) The gigantic book of \""How to File Your Income Taxes\"" from the IRS is called Publication 17. That's generally where I start to figure out where to report what. The section on Royalties has this to say: Royalties from copyrights, patents, and oil, gas, and mineral properties are taxable as ordinary income. In most cases, you report royalties in Part I of Schedule E (Form 1040). However, if you hold an operating oil, gas, or mineral interest or are in business as a self-employed writer, inventor, artist, etc., report your income and expenses on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040).  It sounds like you are receiving royalties from a copyright, and not as a self-employed writer. That means that you would report the income on Schedule E, Part I. I've not used Schedule E before, but looking at the instructions for it, you enter this as \""Royalty Property\"". For royalty property, enter code \""6\"" on line 1b and leave lines 1a and 2 blank for that property. So, in Line 1b, part A, enter code 6. (It looks like you'll only use section A here as you only have one royalty property.) Then in column A, Line 4, enter the royalties you have received. The instructions confirm that this should be the amount that you received listed on the 1099-MISC. Report on line 4 royalties from oil, gas, or mineral properties (not including operating interests); copyrights; and patents. Use a separate column (A, B, or C) for each royalty property. If you received $10 or more in royalties during 2016, the payer should send you a Form 1099-MISC or similar statement by January 31, 2017, showing the amount you received. Report this amount on line 4.  I don't think that there's any relevant Expenses deductions you could take on the subsequent lines (though like I said, I've not used this form before), but if you had some specific expenses involved in producing this income it might be worth looking into further. On Line 21 you'd subtract the 0 expenses (or subtract any expenses you do manage to list) and put the total. It looks like there are more totals to accumulate on lines 23 and 24, which presumably would be equally easy as you only have the one property. Put the total again on line 26, which says to enter it on the main Form 1040 on line 17 and it thus gets included in your income."""
"""How to record business income tax paid, in QuickBooks?""","""Federal income taxes are indeed expenses, they're just not DEDUCTIBLE expenses on your 1120. Federal Income Tax Expense is usually a subcategory under Taxes. This is one of the items that will be a book-to-tax difference on Schedule M-1. I am presuming you are talking about a C corporation, as an S corporation is not likely to be paying federal taxes itself, but would pass the liability through to the members. If you're paying your personal 1040 taxes out of an S-corporation bank account, that's an owner's draw just like paying any of your personal non-business expenses. I would encourage you to get a tax professional to prepare your corporate tax returns. It's not quite as simple as TurboTax Business makes it out to be. ;) Mariette IRS Circular 230 Notice: Please note that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, by anyone to avoid penalties that may be imposed under federal tax law."""
"""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 a lot   of doom and gloom. Some of this is marketing spiel.  You may notice that when the economy goes south the number of ads for the cheaper alternatives goes north.  (e.g. hair clippers, discount grocery stores, discount just about anything)  Truth is, we should always be looking for ways to save money on goods and services we purchase.  The question is, what is acceptable to you for your desired lifestyle.  (And, is that desired lifestyle reasonable for your income, age and personal situation.)  Generally speaking, the harder times are the more we find discounted\/cheaper alternatives acceptable.   Is there really a good reason that   people should be saving more than   spending right now? How much you are putting away is a personal matter.  I can still remember my dad griping whenever he couldn't save half of his paycheck.  That said, putting away half your paycheck may lead to a rather austere lifestyle.  This, of course, depends on the size of your paycheck and your desired lifestyle.  You could be raking it, living simply and potentially put away more than half your income with relative ease. If you have a stable job, and a decent cash reserve, is it anymore \""dangerous\"" to make a large purchase now than it was seven years ago? Who knows?  Honestly, no one.  Predicting the future is a fool's errand.  (If you are interested in reading more on this view point, I suggest The Black Swan.) You mention the correct approach in this question.  Ensure that you have liquid assets (cash or cash equivalents, i.e. money that you can draw on immediately and isn't credit) which covers at least 3-6 months of your necessary expenses (rent\/mortgage, bills, car payments, food).  (There is no reason that you couldn't try to increase this to 1 year, especially \""in this economy.\"") You should also strive to have money available for emergencies that don't necessarily include loss of income.  Of course, make sure you're putting away for retirement, as appropriate for your retirement goals.  After that should come discretionary items, including investing, entertainment, the large purchase you mentioned, etc.   You should never use money that you may need immediately (5-10 years) for investing.  This doesn't necessarily include the large purchase you are contemplating.  For example, if you are considering purchasing a home, the down-payment may be one of the items for which you need money in the \""immediate\"" future. Is it really only because of unemployment numbers? This is probably the big one that is the focus of everyone's attention.  That said, the human attention span is limited.  We have a natural need to simplify things.  This is one of the reasons that we tend to focus on a few, hopefully important, things.  However, the unemployment numbers are not that the only thing of concern.  Credit is still pretty hard to come by these days.  The overall economy is still hurting, even if we are technically no longer in a recession.  There are also concerns about U.S. government borrowing, consumer spending, recent trucking numbers, etc.  (It may not be obvious, but trucking is used as a barometer of economic activity.  If there aren't as many trucks carting goods across the country, it probably means that there is less economic activity.)  The headline number these days is unemployment, as most census workers have now been returned to the pool. To answer the overall question, we should always be saving money, in good times or in bad.  Be that by squeezing more value out of our purchases or by putting some money away.  We should always try to reduce our risks, by having an emergency \""cash\"" cushion.  We should always be saving for retirement.  Truth be told, it is probably more important to put money away in good times, before the hardships hit."""
"""Increase or decrease amount to be withheld each pay period?""","""If you know that your tax situation is not easily handled by the standard withholding table then you can use that line to ask for additional funds be withheld. You could also ask for less money to be withheld.   Why would somebody do this? They had a small side business that made them extra income, and wanted to withhold extra money from their full time job to cover the extra income. They might have been awarded a big bonus and it caused too much in taxes to be withheld so they wanted to not have as much taxes from their regular pay check. Given the fact that you are young, in your first real job, and almost the entire tax year ahead of you, it is likely that the standard tax tables will be close enough. So leave the line blank or put zero."""
"""Does a stock really dip in price on the ex-dividend date? And why would it do this?""","""The stock price is what people think a company is worth, this is made up of When a company pays out a dividend the money in the company\u2019s bank account reduces, therefore the value of the company reduces.    When a company says they are going to pay a larger dividend than expected, we start to expect they are going to make more profit next year as well. So stock price tends to go up when a company says it is increasing the dividend, but down on the day then money leaves the companies bank account.   There is normally many months between the two events."""
"""Should I set a stop loss for long term investments?""","""Patience is the key to success. If you hold strong without falling to temptations like seeing a small surge in the price. If it goes down it comes up after a period of time. Just invest on the share when it reaches low bottom and you could see you money multiplying year after year"""
"""What are some examples of unsecured loans""","""Some other unsecured loans that are common:"""
"""Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?""","""Mixing friendship and money, whether that's loans or landlording, is risky. Often things work out, but sometimes the unexpected happens, and it doesn't. If things go wrong, are you prepared to walk away from either the friendship or the money? After you've considered that, the next question is how your roommates feel about the deal. You're looking to charge your friends $2000 to rent part of a property that, from the sound of it, they could rent much cheaper from a stranger. Maybe the market is different in Cleveland, but in my area, I'd expect to pay $2000 in rent for a place worth closer to $300,000 than $100,000. Have your roommates expressed interest in the idea, and have you discussed dollar values with them? Are you still interested if they ended up paying $1600 in rent? $1000?"""
"""How are Canada Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) & related tax measures changing in 2015?""","""The Child Care Expense Deduction (line 214) dollar limits will each increase by $1000, to new amounts of $8000 for children under 7 and $5000 for children age 7\u201316. Notes: As a tax deduction, your tax liability gets reduced at your marginal income tax rate, not the lowest tax rate (as would be the case for a tax credit). Yes, you still need receipts from your child care provider to support any claim. The non-refundable child tax credit a.k.a. amount for children under age 18 (line 367) introduced in 2007 is being eliminated starting in tax year 2015 coincident with the UCCB enhancement above. The credit could previously reduce tax liability by ~$340. The Family Tax Cut is being introduced and will be effective for tax year 2014. That is, when you file your 2014 income tax return in early 2015, you may be able to take advantage of this measure for income already earned in 2014. Provided a couple has at least one child under the age of 18, the Family Tax Cut will permit the transfer of up to $50,000 of taxable income from the higher income spouse's income tax return to the lower income spouse's return. While the potential transfer of $50,000 of taxable income to lower tax brackets sounds like a really big deal, the maximum tax relief is capped at $2000."""
"""Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person?""","""Careful with saying \""no need\"".  Look careful at the cost of life insurance. That cost depends obviously on the amount, but also on the age when you start paying into the insurance. If you take out a $100,000 insurance at 20, and someone else takes it out at 30, and a third person at 50, they will pay hugely different amounts when you reach the same age. You will pay less when you are 50 then the person taking out insurance at 30 when they reach the age of 50, and less again than the person who just started with their life insurance.  And as mhoran said, once you have insurance you can keep it even if you get an illness that would make you uninsurable."""
"""Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?""","""Mostly we invest in companies to make money. The money can be paid to as in the form of dividends that are a share of the profit.   Or the company can convince enough people that it will make a lot higher profit next year, so its stock prices increases. Clearly a company that reinvests its 20% profit from one shop to open an 2nd shop is doing well and is a good investment.      But, But, But... we only have the companies word for it!    A dividend paying company finds it a lot harder to hide bad news for long, as it will not have the money in the bank to pay the dividends."""
"""Paying off student loan or using that money for a downpayment on a house""","""Two years ago, I wrote an article titled Student Loans and Your First Mortgage in response to this exact question posed by a fellow blogger.  The bottom line is that the loan payment doesn't lower your borrowing power as it fits in the slice between 28% (total housing cost) and 38% (total monthly debt burden) when applying for a loan.  But, the $20K is 20% down on $100K worth of house. With median home prices in the US in the mid-high $100Ks, you're halfway there.  In the end, it's not about finance, it's a question of how badly you want to buy a house. If I got along with the parents, I'd stay as long as I was welcome, and save every dollar I could. Save for retirement, save for as large a downpayment as you can, and after you buy the house, pay the student loan aggressively. I moved out the week after I graduated."""
"""A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea?""","""The power of compounding interest and returns is an amazing thing.  Start educating yourself about investing, and do it -- there are great Q&As on this site, numerous books (I recommend \""The Intelligent Investor\"", tools for small investors (like Sharebuilder.com) and other resources out there to get you started. Your portfolio doesn't need to include every dime you have either. But you do need to develop the discipline to save money -- even if that savings is $20 while you're in school. How you split between cash\/deposit account savings and other investment vehicles is a decision that needs to make sense to you."""
"""Can you explain the mechanism of money inflation?""","""Your question asks about the mechanism of money inflation - not price inflation.  Money inflation occurs when new money is introduced into an economy.  The value of money is subject to supply and demand like other items in the economy.  The effects of new money can be difficult to predict.  One of the results of additional money can be rising prices.  These rising prices can be concentrated in one particular area - stocks, homes, food - or they can be spread out over many items.  This is true regardless of the form of money being inflated - gold, silver, or paper money.  There were times in history when large discoveries of gold and silver were found that caused prices to rise as a result.  Of course, the large discoveries of gold and silver pale in comparison to the gigantic discoveries by central banks of new fiat currency."""
"""Why are options created?""","""The main reason is that you move from the linear payoff structure to a non-linear one. This is called convexity in finance. With options you can design a payoff structure in almost any way to want it to be. For example you can say that you only want the upside but not the downside, so you buy a call option. It is obvious that this comes at a price, the option premium. Or equivalently you buy the underlying and for risk management reasons buy a put option on top of it as an insurance. The price of the put could be seen as the insurance premium. You can of course combine options in more complicated ways so that you e.g. profit as long as the underlying moves strongly enough in either direction. This is called a straddle."""
"""Multiple SEO companies claiming I have a past-due invoice""","""Reading stuff like this makes me want to go into the debt collection business. Just send letters to random people demanding money. Sounds like an easy way to make a living. What's your name and address? Just kidding. If they are sending stuff to a Virginia PO Box, close the box with no forwarding address and consider it case closed. If they are targetting you personally in New Hampshire, the best thing to do is to sue proactively before it goes to collection. New Hampshire has strict anti-debt-collection laws. Basically, what you do is go to small claims court and fill out a one-page form. Sue them for $2000, $3000 or whatever is convenient. Do not hire a lawyer. You can do this in 2 hours of your own time. Your grounds are: (1) Violation of the creditor of NH FDCA laws. According to the laws the creditor has to put all kinds of specific stuff in their threat letters. Since they are not doing this, they have violated NH FDCA. Read the FDCA so you know which specific items they are violating. (2) Extortion. Since you do not owe them any money, demanding money from you is extortion which is both criminally and civilly actionable. You sue them for mental anguish due to extortion.  The validity of your claims is irrelevant. You just need to get them in court. There are two possibilities: (A) They fail to show up. In this case you win and they owe you $3000 or whatever. Not only that if they later try to collect from you send a copy of the judgement to the credit bureau or collector or whatever and that is proof you owe them no money. (B) They hire some stooge local lawyer who appears. Accept the court's offer for arbitration. When you go into arbitration with the lawyer tell him you will drop the lawsuit if they send you a check for $500 and a hand-written guarantee from him that you will never hear from his client again. Either way, you come out ahead. By the way, it is absolutely guaranteed that the enemy lawyer will accept your offer in (B) above because the SEO company is already paying him $5000 to show up to answer your lawsuit, and the lawyer does not want to hang around all morning in court waiting for the case to be heard. If he can get out of there in half an hour for only $500 he will do it. -------------------------------UPDATE If all you are getting is calls and the caller refuses to identify themself, then it is definitely an illegal scam. It is illegal in New Hampshire to make collection calls and refuse to full identify who is calling. The phone company has methods for dealing with illegal calls. First you have to file a police report. Then you call Verizon Security at 1-800-518-5507 (or whatever your phone company is). They will trace the call and identify the caller. They you can make a criminal complaint in their jurisdiction unless the call is from Pakistan or something."""
"""What are my investment options in Australia?""","""If you want higher returns you may have to take on more risk. From lowest returns (and usually lower risk) to higher returns (and usually higher risk), Bank savings accounts, term deposits, on-line savings accounts, offset accounts (if you have a mortgage), fixed interest eg. Bonds, property and stock markets.  If you want potentially higher returns then you can go for derivatives like options or CFDs, FX or Futures. These usually have higher risks again but as with any investments some risks can be partly managed. Also, CMC Markets charges $11 commission up to $10,000 trade. This is actually quite a low fee - based on your $7,000, $22 for in and out of a position would be less than 0.32% (of course you might want to buy into more than one company - so your brokerage would be slightly higher). Still this is way lower than full service brokerage which could be $100 or more in and then again out again. What ever you decide to do, get yourself educated first."""
"""Is there such a thing as a deposit-only bank account?""","""Legally, no one else can withdraw from your account. If you suspect the direct-deposit websites are making withdrawals, you can monitor your account balance and dispute any transactions that were not made by you. But realistically, any company that did that would soon be out of business and in so much legal trouble that it wouldn't be worth the money they could get from you."""
"""How can I find a list of self-select stocks & shares ISA providers? ""","""Try fool.co.uk for getting more information about ISAs:  Everything You Need To Know About ISAs"""
"""Do I even need credit cards?""","""You don't need a credit card anymore than you need a TV or a car.  There might be many circumstances where a credit card is a convenience, there might be things you give up because you don't have a credit card.  There are even some upsides to a well managed card account. But no, you don't need it."""
"""What are online payment options with no chargeback protection?""","""Generally there's no ultimate protection against charge backs. Some methods are easier to charge back and some harder, and there's always the resort of going to courts. The hardest to contest is, of course, a cash payment or wire transfer. You need to remember that imposing unnecessary\/unreasonable difficulties on your customers will drive business away. I can buy diamonds in the nearest mall with my credit card - why would I buy from you if you want cash, BTC, or any other shady way to pay? I'm pretty sure that whatever that is you're selling, anyone can buy elsewhere as well."""
"""What are some time tested passive income streams?""","""Interest payments You can make loans to people and collect interest."""
"""What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer?""","""When you initiate a chargeback, the merchant has the right to dispute the chargeback.  If they can provide proof that the purchase actually took place, the chargeback will fail. We don't know all the details of your situation, of course, but it appears from what you have said that the tax chain probably has documents that you signed agreeing to the charges.  They prepared your return (even if they did a poor job), and so from their perspective, they have decided that they deserve to be paid.  Whether or not they did a good job is a matter of opinion, of course; their position might be that they did it correctly, and the second business did it poorly.   The chargeback is a powerful tool, but it is not a magic button that makes a charge disappear.  If the merchant can show that a sale did indeed take place and show that the proper amount was charged, the chargeback will fail.  For a service, it isn't enough usually to simply state that you were unsatisfied; if you received the service at the agreed-upon price, the charge is valid. A chargeback is sort of a nuclear option when it comes to getting a refund.  There are negative ramifications and expenses every time a merchant gets a chargeback (even if they ultimately win), and so often they will be willing to work something out to avoid a chargeback.  You should go to the merchant first, if you can, and ask for a refund before considering the chargeback option.  If you file a chargeback without even giving them the opportunity to work it out with you, the merchant will usually want to fight back."""
"""Do I have to repay the First-Time Homebuyers tax credit if I refinance?""","""No. As long as you live in the house for 3 years, it's yours to keep. Financing has nothing to do with that."""
"""What's the best way to manage all the 401K accounts I've accumulated from my past jobs?""","""I'd roll them all into one account, just for your own convenience.  It's a pain to keep track of lots of different accounts, esp. since you need logins\/passwords, etc for all of them, and we all have plenty of those.  :) Pick a place like Vanguard or Fidelity (for example), where you can find investment options with lower fees, and do the standard rollover.  Once all the accounts are rolled into one, you can think about how to invest the stuff.  (Some good investments require larger minimums, so if you have several old 401ks, putting them together will give you more options.) Rolling them over is not hard, if you have paperwork from each of the 401ks.  You might be able to DIY online, but I found it helpful to call and talk to a person when I did this.  You just need account numbers, etc.  If you are moving brokerage accounts, you may need to provide paper documents\/applications, which might require getting them notarized (I found a notary at my bank, even though the accounts I was moving from and to weren't at my bank), which means you'll need to provide IDs, etc. and get a special crimped seal after the notary witnesses your signature."""
"""Why do stock exchanges close at night?""","""Here are some plausible reasons why markets might continue to close:"""
"""W-8BEN? What's the tax from selling my software to a U.S. company, from abroad?""","""You should not form a company in the U.S. simply to get the identification number required for a W-8BEN form. By establishing a U.S.-based company, you'd be signing yourself up for a lot of additional hassle!  You don't need that.  You're a European business, not a U.S. business.  Selling into the U.S. does not require you to have a U.S. company.  (You may want to consider what form of business you ought to have in your home country, however.) Anyway, to address your immediate concern, you should just get an EIN only.  See businessready.ca - what is a W8-BEN?.  Quote: [...]   There are other reasons to   fill out the W8-BEN but for most of   you it is to make sure they don\u2019t hold   back 30% of your payment which, for a   small company, is a big deal. [...]   How do I get one of these EIN US taxpayer identification numbers? EIN stands for Employer Identification   Number and is your permanent number   and can be used for most of your   business needs (e.g. applying for   business licenses, filing taxes when   applicable, etc).  You can apply by   filling out the Form SS-4 but the   easier, preferred way is online. However, I also found at IRS.gov - Online EIN: Frequently Asked Questions the following relevant tidbit: Q. Are any entity types excluded from   applying for an EIN over the Internet?   A. [...]   If you were incorporated outside of the United States or the U.S.   territories, you cannot apply for an   EIN online. Please call us at  (267)   941-1099 (this is not a toll free   number) between the hours of 6:00 a.m.   to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So, I suggest you call the IRS and describe your situation:  You are a European-based business (sole proprietor?) selling products to a U.S.-based client and would like to request an EIN so you can supply your client with a W-8BEN. The IRS should be able to advise you of the correct course of action. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.  Consider seeking professional advice."""
"""Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills?""","""There are some uniquely American issues in this question (and answer), but some general principles as well. Regarding the comment that you quoted, the context (some of which you excluded) needs some clarification."""
"""Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest?""","""Credit card merchant fees are $0.15 - $0.40 per transaction plus 1.5-4% of the amount charged. Card issuers are competing to get to be the card in your pocket that you use on a daily basis. If you were a card issuer, wouldn't you like to get 1.5-4% of every transaction I make for the rest of my life? As a side note, ever since I became a business owner and saw how much we are all paying for credit card merchant fees, I've patronized a lot more cash-only businesses. The best ones pass the savings directly on to the consumer."""
"""What is a \""Subscription Rights Offering\"" of a stock one owns?""","""After a company goes public, if it wants to raise more money, then it does this by secondary public offering or rights issue. In subscription rights issue gives the right to existing share holders to buy new shares at equal proportion. So if every one buys, they maintain the same percentage of ownership. Generally the pricing is at discount to current market price. Not sure why the price is high, unless the price for this stock fell sharply recently."""
"""Income At the Sell or Reception?""","""It looks like fair-market value when you receive your virtual currency is counted as income. And you're also subject to self-employment tax on that income. Here's an FAQ from the IRS: Q-8: Does a taxpayer who \""mines\"" virtual currency (for example, uses   computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the   public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt   of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? A-8: Yes,   when a taxpayer successfully \""mines\"" virtual currency, the fair market   value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible   in gross income. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income,   for more information on taxable income.Q-9: Is an individual who   \""mines\"" virtual currency as a trade or business subject to   self-employment tax on the income derived from those activities? A-9:   If a taxpayer\u2019s \""mining\"" of virtual currency constitutes a trade or   business, and the \""mining\"" activity is not undertaken by the taxpayer   as an employee, the net earnings from self-employment (generally,   gross income derived from carrying on a trade or business less   allowable deductions) resulting from those activities constitute   selfemployment income and are subject to the self-employment tax. See   Chapter 10 of Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business, for more   information on selfemployment tax and Publication 535, Business   Expenses, for more information on determining whether expenses are   from a business activity carried on to make a profit. You'd of course be able to offset that income with the expense of mining the virtual currency, depreciation of dedicated mining equipment, electricity, not sure what else. Edit: Here's a good resource on filing taxes with Bitcoin: Filling in the 1040 Income from Bitcoins and all crypto-currencies is   declared as either capital gains income or ordinary income, for   example from mining. Income Ordinary income will be declared on either   your 1040 (line 21 - Other Income) for an individual, or within your   Schedule C, if you are self-employed or have sole-proprietor business.   Capital Gains Capital gains income, or losses, are declared on   Schedule D. Since there are no reported 1099 forms from Bitcoin   exchanges, you will need to include your totals with Box C checked for   short-term gains, and with Box F checked for long-term gains. Interesting notes from that article, your first example could actually be trickier than expected if you started mining before there was a Monero to USD exchange. Also, there can also be capital gains implications from using your virtual currency to buy goods, which sounds like a pain to keep track of."""
"""Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis? ""","""Interestingly, ancient Judaism and Christianity held a Jubilee year every 50 years in which all debts were forgive, slaves were freed, etc. \""The land must not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to me. You are only foreigners, my tenant farmers.\"" -Leviticus 25:23 Jubilee would more resemble \""the government declares all mortgages and credit card debts void\"" with FDIC caping the payouts when banks fell into receivership, not simply \""the government pays off all mortgages\"".  Yet, it still demonstrates that primitive societies employed tools similar to what you describe.  There is surely all manor of interesting analysis of the economic impacts of Jubilee by Jewish religious historians.  You might even find arguments that communism was invented because Western Judeo-Christian societies abandoned Jubilee. As an aside, I'm surprised that nobody here directly discussed the velocity of money.  If you wipe out a mortgage, you might convert a spender into a saver, especially during a recession, meaning you've injected slow money.  Conversely, anyone too poor for a mortgage probably spends all their money, meaning giving them a job injects faster money.  In addition, it's much cheaper to hire tons of poor people to do useful things, like repairing bridges."""
"""Definitions of leverage and of leverage factor""","""Your original example is a little confusing because just shorting for 1k and buying for 1k is 100% leveraged or an infinitive leverage ratio. (and not allowed) Brokerage houses would require you to invest some capital in the trade.  One example might be requiring you to hold $100 in the brokerage.  This is where the 10:1 ratio comes from. (1000\/10) Thus a return of 4.5% on the 1000k bond and no movement on the short position would net you $45 and voila a 45% return on your $100 investment. A 40 to 1 leverage ratio would mean that you would only have to invest $25 to make this trade.  Something that no individual investor are allowed to do, but for some reason some financial firms have been able to."""
"""What is the correct pronunciation of CAGR?""","""Most readers probably know that an acronym is an invented word made up   of the initial letters or syllables of other words, like NASA or NATO.   Fewer probably know that an initialism is a type of acronym that   cannot be pronounced as a word, but must be read letter-by-letter,   like FBI or UCLA. A quote from Daily Writing Tips. CAGR is an initialism, and should not be pronounced."""
"""Retirement formula for annual compound interest with changing principal""","""The equation is the same one used for mortgage amortization.  You first want to calculate the PV (present value) for a stream of $50K payments over 20 years at a10% rate.  Then that value is the FV (future value) that you want to save for, and you are looking to solve the payment stream needed to create that future value. Good luck achieving the 10% return, and in knowing your mortality down to the exact year. Unless this is a homework assignment, which need not reflect real life.  Edit - as indicated above, the first step is to get that value in 20 years:  The image is the user-friendly entry screen for the PV calculation. It walks you though the need to enter rate as per period, therefore I enter .1\/12 as the rate. The payment you desire is $50K\/yr, and since it's a payment, it's a negative number. The equation in excel that results is: =PV(0.1\/12,240,-50000\/12,0) and the sum calculated is $431,769 Next you wish to know the payments to make to arrive at this number:  In this case, you start at zero PV with a known FV calculated above, and known rate. This solves for the payment needed to get this number, $568.59 The excel equation is: =PMT(0.1\/12,240,0,431769) Most people have access to excel or a public domain spreadsheet application (e.g. Openoffice). If you are often needing to perform such calculations, a business finance calculator is recommended. TI used to make a model BA-35 finance calculator, no longer in production, still on eBay, used.  One more update- these equations whether in excel or a calculator are geared toward per period interest, i.e. when you state 10%, they assume a monthly 10\/12%. With that said, you required a 20 year deposit period and 20 year withdrawal period. We know you wish to take out $4166.67 per month. The equation to calculate deposit required becomes - 4166.67\/(1.00833333)^240= 568.59  HA! Exact same answer, far less work. To be clear, this works only because you required 240 deposits to produce 240 withdrawals in the future."""
"""What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage?""","""To avoid risk from rising interest rates, get a fixed rate mortgage. For the life of the mortgage your principal and interest payments will remain the same. Keep in mind that the taxes and insurance portion of your monthly payment may still go up. Because you own the property, the costs to maintain the property are your responsibility. If you rented this would be the responsibility of the owner of the property; if the cost to repair and maintain goes up so does the rent. Because you are the owner your annual costs to repair and maintain may go up over time. The way to eliminate risk of loss of value is to never move, until the mortgage is paid off. You will know exactly what principal and interest will cost you over the life of the loan. When you sell that will be essentially return on your payments. You don't know if the loss of value is due to world, national, regional, local or individual circumstances. so hedging is tough. If the fact that the mortgage is 95% is what makes you nervous, your biggest risk is risk of being upside down. That risk is greatly reduced by increasing the amount of the down payment. That decreases the risk that the value will be below the mortgage amount if due to unforeseen circumstances you have to sell immediately. The money will still be lost due to decrease in value, but you aren't forced to bring cash to the settlement table if you need to sell."""
"""Making an offer on a property - go in at market price?""","""Firstly, the agent doesn't work for you. He works for himself.  It's in his interest not to get you a house at the lowest cost but to sell you a house. The higher the price the higher his commission is, or the higher the probability that the seller will sell it meaning less work for him. It depends on the market what price you should give. If I were you, I would do my own research about this area and not just trust the agent's assessment of it being a \""seller's\"" market. Not sure where we are talking about but as you know, house prices have fallen a lot in the last few years and the economy isn't doing that well. It also depends on yourself. Every house is different and there's an emotional attachment to buying property. How much do you really want this house? Would it matter if you didn't get it? Are you prepared to keep looking? If this is your dream house, then maybe it is worth offering a bit more to ensure that you get it. If not, and you are prepared to wait, then yeah, I would shoot a little lower and see what they say. One thing I will say though is generally even if you give them a low offer, unless they're getting lots of other offers or they have to sell urgently, alot of the times the seller will come back and try to negotiate with you anyway. After all, it's business and they're there to get the highest price."""
"""Strategies to guarantee arrival time for transfers between banks""","""Transfers are defined to arrive on a specific number of business days, nearly always one business day (if you submit it before the cutoff time). The exact number of days depends on the receiver bank, but when you try to create a transfer, it will tell you when it will arrive, before you send it out."""
"""What are my investment options in real estate?""","""If you're looking for a well-rounded view into what it's like to actually own\/manage real-estate investments, plus how you can scale things up & keep the management workload relatively low, have a look at the Bigger Pockets community.  There are blogs, podcasts, & interviews there from both full-time & part-time real estate investors. It's been a great resource for me in my investments. More generally, your goal of \""retiring\"" within 20 years is very attainable even without getting extravagant investment returns.  A very underrated determinant in how quickly you build wealth is how much of your income you are contributing to investments. Have a look at this article: The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement"""
"""What college degree should I pursue to learn about stock and forex markets?""","""Financial Economics, although, as I understand it, not all colleges offer this major."""
"""Gift Tax and LLC with foreign partners""","""The LLC portion is completely irrelevant. Don't know why you want it. You can create a joint\/partnership trading account without the additional complexity of having LLC. What liability are you trying to limit here? Her sisters will file tax returns in the us using the form 1040NR, and only reporting the dividends they received, everything else will be taxed by Vietnam. You'll have to investigate how to file tax returns there as well. That said, you'll need about $500,000 each to invest in the regional centers. So you're talking about 1.5 million of US dollars at least. From a couple of $14K gifts to $1.5M just by trading? I don't see how this is feasible."""
"""Company revenue increased however stock price did not""","""Note that we do not comment on specific stocks here, and have no place doing so. If your question is only about that specific stock then it is off topic. I have not tried to answer that part below. The key to valuation is predicting the net present value of all of a company's cash flows; i.e. of their future profits and losses. Through a number of methods to long to explain here investment banks and hedge funds work out what they expect the company's cash flows to be and trade so that these future profits, losses etc. are priced into the stock price. Since future cash flows, profits or whatever you want to call them are priced in, the price of a stock shouldn't move at all on an earnings statement. This begs the question \""why do some stock prices move violently when they announce earnings?\"" The models that the institutional investors use are not perfect and cannot take into account everything. An unexpected craze for a product or a supply chain agreement breaking down on not being as good as it seems will not be factored into this pricing and so the price will move based on the degree to which expectation is missed or exceeded. Since penny socks are speculative their value is based far more on the long term expected cash flows and less on the short run cash flows. This goes a long way to explaining why some of the highest market capitalisation penny stocks are those making consistent losses. This means that they can be far less susceptible to price movements after an earnings announcement even if it is well out of the consensus range. Higher (potential) future value comes with the higher risks of penny stocks which discounts current value. In the end if people's expectation of the company's performance reflects reality then the profitability is priced in and there will be no price movement. If the actuality is outside of the expected range then there will be a price movement."""
"""How to make a decision for used vs new car if I want to keep the car long term?""","""Hard to say in general. It depends on the actual numbers.  First you need to check the suggested retail price of a new car, and the price that you can actually get it for. The difference between these prices is between non-existing and huge, depending on the car. Some dealers will sell you a car that has done 50 miles for a huge rebate - that means they can't sell their cars at full price but don't want to reduce the price. Used cars can be quite expensive compared to a new car or not, also depending on the brand.  Estimate that a brand new car should drive 12 years and 200,000 miles without major repairs (go for a car with generous warranty or check reviews to make sure you are buying a long lasting car). Calculate the cost per year. Since you prefer driving a nicer new car, increase the cost for the first four years and reduce the cost for the last four years. With that information, check what the used car costs and if that is reasonable. Assuming 12 years life, a six your old car should be quite a bit less than 50% of a new one.  You can improve your cost a bit: If your annual mileage is low, you might find a rather new car with huge mileage quite cheap which will still last many years. Or if your annual mileage is excessively high, you can look for a car that is a bit older with low mileage.  Anyway, paying 70% of the price of a new passenger car for a used car that is six years old (you say <7 years, so I assume six years) seems excessive; it would mean the first user effectively paid 30% of the new price to drive the car for six years, and you pay 70% to drive another six years (estimated). You'd be much much better off buying a new car and selling it for 70% after six years."""
"""What do I need to start trading in the NSE (National Stock Exchange)?""","""To start trading at a minimum you need 3 things; Bank Account: This again is not must, but most preferred to transact. Quite a few broker would insist on this. Demat Account: This is must as all shares on NSE are held electronically. The custodians are CSDL or NSDL both Government entities. These don't offer services directly to customer, but via other financial institutions like Banks and Large Brokers. Broker Account: This is required to buy or sell securities. If you are only buying in IPO, this is not required as one can directly participate in IPO and Broker is not involved. However if you want to buy and sell on NSE you would need a broker account. Quite a few financial institutes offer all 3 services or 2 services [Demat\/Broker]. The fee structure and online service etc are differentiators. You can take a look at options and decide the best one to use."""
"""How to donate to charity that will make a difference?""","""In the. US, i'd suggest hitting the Charity Navigator website for evaluation of how efficiently various charities will use your money. At this point I won't donate money to anything that gets less than three stars unless I know the organization very well indeed -- and I've been progressively swapping out 3-star groups for 4-star organizations in the same category. Many of the groups reviewed by CN are international,  so you might find it useful even if you're donating from\/to elsewhere."""
"""Why does Charles Schwab have a Mandatory Settlement Period after selling stocks?""","""quid's answer explains the settlement period well. However, it should be noted that you can avoid the settlement period by opening a margin account. Any specific broker like Schwab may or may not offer margin accounts. Margin accounts allow you to borrow money to avoid the settlement period or to buy more securities than you can actually afford. Note that if you buy more securities than you can afford using margin, you expose yourself to losses potentially larger than your initial investment. If you fund your account with $50,000 and use margin to purchase $80,000 of stock which then drops in value by 80% you will have lost $64,000 and owe the broker $14,000 plus fees."""
"""What is the economic explanation for the high cost of weddings?""","""There is the price they want and the price you pay. Everything is negotiable when its a service (always possible, but usually harder with actual \""goods\""). You should always haggle and price match your vendors. You can also try going to different vendors and not telling them its for a wedding and see if there really is a price difference. For example, call up a florist and say you need X, Y, and Z for a corporate banquet or for a special event for which you cannot give the details. If you then tell them its actually a wedding, and they blindly raise it without a good justification, move on. That said, they jack up the price because they know most people will says \""it's my wedding\"", \""it's once in a lifetime\"", \""it's MY special day\"", etc.... The same is true about diamonds, their price does not reflect the actual supply and demand ratio, just the perception that has been created. However, as mentioned in some of the comments above, the service provided at a wedding may be different or more involved than just a normal dinner The more important issue is ensuring there are no back fees, no hidden fees, and you have well written, well reviewed contracts. For example, we know a couple whose caterer added a mandatory 20% gratuity, regardless of the service which was provided. Most venues or restaurants will not be making the bar a lose-leader, but they will charge for other things.  You can also save money by buying used or looking on ebay for prices closer to wholesale for the product. I think a good analogy to this is the Recent Time Magazine article on the price of healthcare - it costs a lot because its a small market and its harder to navigate, and most are not experienced shoppers in the area or don't have control over the individual item costs."""
"""Getting a mortgage while self-employed""","""Would it be worth legitimizing his business or is it too late at this point? To be blunt, you're asking if we recommend that he stop breaking the law. The answer is obviously yes, he should be declaring his income. And it would probably benefit him to get on the same page as his employer (or client) so they can both start obeying the law together. Once he's filed a tax return for 2016 that would certainly help his cause as far as a lender is concerned, and  as soon as he can provide some recent pay stubs (or paid invoices) he should be ready to move forward on the mortgage based on that additional income."""
"""I'm thinking of getting a new car \u2026 why shouldn't I LEASE one?""","""Also consider how cars fare under your ownership: Does your current car... If any of the answers to these questions are \""Yes\"", you're probably going to get hosed with fees when you return the car."""
"""Should I invest $35,000 for 3-5 months? [duplicate]""","""Is it possible to profit from some of this money in the short term before I need to access it? Sure, it's possible.  But if the stock market decides to \""correct\"" (or even crashes), you'll be in a world of hurt. Thus, since it's so important that you not lose this money, just stick it in an online bank earning 1.2%, and withdraw \""enough\"" twice a month. EDIT: by \""withdraw\"", I mean to transfer to your checking account."""
"""Does it make sense to trade my GOOGL shares for GOOG and pocket the difference?""","""To keep it simple, let's say that A shares trade at 500 on average between April 2nd 2014 and April 1st 2015 (one year anniversary), then if C shares trade on average: The payment will be made either in cash or in shares within 90 days. The difficulties come from the fact that the formula is based on an average price over a year, which is not directly tradable, and that the spread is only covered between 1% and 5%. In practice, it is unlikely that the market will attribute a large premium to voting shares considering that Page&Brin keep the majority and any discount of Cs vs As above 2-3% (to include cost of trading + borrowing) will probably trigger some arbitrage which will prevent it to extend too much. But there is no guarantee. FYI here is what the spread has looked like since April 3rd:  * details in the section called \""Class C Settlement Agreement\"" in the S-3 filing"""
"""How much percent of my salary should I use to invest in company stock?""","""I agree with the other comments that you should not buy\/hold your company stock even if given at a discount. If equity is provided as part of the compensation package (Options\/Restrictive Stock Units RSU)then this rule does not apply. As a matter of diversification, you should not have majority equity stake of other companies in the same sector (e.g. technology) as your employer. Asset allocation and diversification if done in the right way, takes care of the returns. Buying and selling on the same day is generally not allowed for ESPP. Taxation headaches. This is from personal experience (Cisco Systems). I had options issued in Sept 2008 at 18$ which vested regularly. I exited at various points - 19$,20$,21$,23$ My friend held on to all of it hoping for 30$ is stuck. Options expire if you leave your employment. ESPP shares though remain."""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""You can perfectly well manage their wealth without transferring their money into your account first. Just make them open their own account on their name then ask them for credentials and then manage their money from within their own account. That way everyone will be taxed according to their wealth (which is probably advantageous but you probably have to help them with the paperwork) and it is clear at every time what belongs to whom and your relatives can at every time access their wealth. These are big advantages (for them). This keeps you at the role of an adviser (a very active one though) which should have almost zero legal ramifications for you unless you try to deceive your relatives. You may want to shift wealth between accounts to minimize tax burdens, but that comes at the risk that should the family relations get worse this might result in anger. You could open up a registered society, all members getting shares and voting rights, making you the CEO, but that should be a lot of paperwork and maybe only a good idea for large amounts of money. If you decide to transfer money between accounts of different persons this is like a gift. It might invoke a gift tax in your area. All in all, I strongly advise you to make them all open up their own accounts and then just operate the accounts and manage their wealth in their name. Sell it to them as the solution that retains them maximum ownership."""
"""Are Forex traders forced to use leverage?""","""It isn't that the companies force traders, it is more the other way around. Traders wouldn't trade without margin. The main reason is liquidity and taking advantage of minor changes in the forex quotes. It goes down to pips and traders make profit(loss) on movement of pips maybe by 1 or 2 and in some cases in 1\/1000 or less of a pip. So you need to put in a large amount to make a profit when the quotes move up or down. Supposedly if they have put in all the amount upfront, their trading options are limited. And the liquidity in the market goes out of the window. The banks and traders cannot make a profit with the limited amount of money available at their disposal. So what they would do is borrow from somebody else, so why not the broker itself in this case maybe the forex company, and execute the trades. So it helps everybody. Forex companies make their profit from the fees, more the trades done, more the fees and hence more profit. Traders get to put their fingers in many pies and so their chances of making profits increases. So everybody is happy."""
"""Tax exemptions for US stocks held in a Candian account""","""The dividend tax credit is not applicable to foreign dividend income, so you would be taxed fully on every dollar of that income. When you sell a stock, there will be a capital gain or capital loss depending on if it gained or lost value, after accounting for the Adjusted Cost Base. You only pay income tax on half of the amount earned through capital gains, and if you have losses, you can use them to offset other investments that had capital gains (or carry forward to offset gains in the future).  The dividends from US stocks are subject to a 15% withholding tax that gets paid to the IRS automatically when the dividends are issued. If the stocks are held in an RRSP, they are exempt from the withholding tax. If held in a non-registered account, you can be reimbursed for the tax by claiming the foreign tax credit that you linked to. If held in a TFSA or RESP, the withholding tax cannot be recovered. Also, if you are not directly holding the stocks, and instead buy a mutual fund or ETF that directly holds the stocks, then the RRSP exemption no longer applies, but the foreign tax credit is still claimable for a non-registered account. If the mutual fund or ETF does not directly hold stocks, and instead holds one or more ETFs, there is no way to recover the withholding tax in any type of account."""
"""How do Transfer Agents\/Share Registrars get the names of beneficiary shareholders""","""In the United States, the stock certificate is updated to include beneficiary information.  I expect it to be similar with other markets. TOD (Transfer on Death) From: http:\/\/www.nolo.com\/legal-encyclopedia\/free-books\/avoid-probate-book\/chapter3-2.html (emphasis added) If you have a brokerage account, contact the broker for instructions.   Most likely, the broker will send you a form on which you\u2019ll name   beneficiaries to inherit your account. From then on, the account will   be listed in your name, with the beneficiary\u2019s name after it, like   this: \""Evelyn M. Meyers, TOD Jason Meyers.\"" If you have the actual stock certificates or bonds in your possession   (most people don\u2019t), you must get new certificates issued, showing   that you now own the stock in beneficiary form. Ask your broker for   help; if that doesn\u2019t work, contact the transfer agent for the stock.   You can get the address from your broker or the investor relations   office of the corporation. The transfer agent will probably have you   send in the certificates, a form called a stock or bond power (some   stock certificates have the power printed on the back), and a letter   explaining what you want to do."""
"""How to compute for losses in an upside down trade-in of a financed car?""","""Numbers: Estimate you still owe around 37000 (48500 - 4750, 5% interest, 618 per month payment). Initial price, down payment, payments made - none of these mean anything.  Ask your lender, \""What is the payoff of the current loan?\"" Next, sell or trade the current vehicle. Compare to the amount owed. Any shortfall has to be repaid, out of pocket, or in some cases added to the price of the new car and included in the principal of the new loan.  You cannot calculate how much you still owe the way you have, because it totally ignores interest. Advice on practicality:  Don't do this.  You will be upside down even worse on the new car from the instant you drive off the lot.  Sell the current vehicle, find a way to pay the difference - one that doesn't involve financing. Cut your losses on the upside down vehicle. Then purchase a new vehicle. I'm in the \""Pay cash for gently used\"" school, YMMV. Another option is to go to your bank.  Refinance your car now to get a lower interest rate.  Pay as much of the principal as you can.  Keep that car until it is paid off.  Then you will not be upside down. If you're asking how to use the estimator on the webpage.  Put the payoff in the downpayment as a negative and the trade in value in the trade in spot.  Expect the payment to go up significantly.   Another opinion that might be practical advice.  Nothing we say here will convince your financially responsible spouse that this is a good idea."""
"""Consequences of not closing an open short sell position?""","""2 things may happen. Either your positions are closed by the broker and the loss or profit is credited to your account. Else it is carried over to the next day and you pay interest on the stocks lent to you. What happens will be decided by the agreement signed between you and your broker."""
"""My boss wants to buy me a gift. How do I account for taxes for this?""","""The way I have seen this done in the past is the business will withhold taxes on the amount of the gift.  Very much like receiving a bonus.  There are probably other ways to do it where taxes are avoided like you boss could buy the gift for you personally.  Not sure about all the legal ways to avoid taxes on this."""
"""Interest charges on balance transfer when purchases are involved""","""The 'common sense' in it is that they want the maximum money from you while still suggesting to a quick read that you get away free. Their target is not to make you happy, but to make money of you."""
"""Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?""","""Theoretically there is limited demand for risky investments, so higher-risk asset classes should outperform lower-risk asset classes over sufficiently long time periods. In practice, I believe this is true, but it could be several decades before a risky portfolio starts to outperform a more conservative one. Stocks are considered more risky than most assets. Small-cap stocks and emerging market stocks are particularly high-risk. I would consider low-fee ETFs in these areas, like VB or VWO. If you want to seek out the absolute riskiest investments, you could pick individual stocks of companies in dire financial situations, as Bank of America was a couple years ago. Most importantly, if you don't expect to need the money soon, I would maximize your contribution to tax-advantaged accounts since they will grow exponentially faster than taxable accounts. Over 50 years, a 401(k) or IRA will generally grow at least 50% more than a taxable account, maybe more depending on the tax-efficiency of your investments. Try to contribute the maximum ($17,500 for most people in 2014) if you can. If you can save more than that, I'd suggest contributing a Roth 401k rather than a traditional 401(k) - since Roth contributions are post-tax, the effective contribution limit is higher. Also contribute to a Roth IRA (up to $5,500 in 2014), using a backdoor Roth if necessary."""
"""Why Demat\/Stock Market Brokers don't support Credit Card Payin""","""Most credit cards allow you to take \""cash advances\"", but the fees and limits for cash advances are different than for regular purchases. You can buy stock after taking a cash advance from your credit card. When you make a cash advance, you normally pay the credit card company a fee. When you make a regular purchase, the merchant (ie, the stockbroker) pays a fee. Additionally, credit card companies can make merchants wait up to 3 months to actually receive the money, in case the transaction is disputed. Your stockbroker is unlikely to want to pay the fee, accept the delay in receiving the funds, and risking that you will dispute the transaction. Having said that, many FOREX brokers will accept credit card deposits (treated as purchases), although FOREX can be considerably riskier than the stock market. Of course, if you max out your credit cards and lose all your money, you can normally negotiate to pay back the debt for less than the original amount, especially since it's unsecured debt."""
"""A friend wants to use my account for a wire transfer. Is this a scam or is it legitimate?""","""A friend since July online and big business talks and trust\/money forwards.  Usually a question \""is this a scam or legitimate?\"" is hard to answer since obviously scams are modelled after legitimate stories (or they'd easily fail). If there were bookmakers for \""scam or legitimate\"", this one would easily gather odds of 10000:1.  The only plausible reason for this to be legitimate would be to defraud the scam-or-legitimate bookmakers. At any rate, Exxon is a large company and has to obey labor laws.  They cannot set up operations in a manner where their workers may not have access to their salary for prolonged times without easy remedy. Drop communications immediately, don't open them, don't read them.  They hook you with emotional investment.  They will redouble efforts if it appears you are slipping out of their reach.  Explanations will become more plausible, more pressing, more emotionally charged.  You are a big promising fish and they won't let you swim off without a serious struggle to rehook you. Hand your communication so far to law enforcement.  That may help with not having to figure this out on your own."""
"""What is the maximum I can have stored in a traditional 401(k) and a Roth 401(k)?""","""I've never seen anything in any IRS publication that placed limits on the balance of a 401K, only on what you can contribute (and defer from taxes) each year.  The way the IRS 'gets theirs' as it were is on the taxes you have to pay (for a traditional IRA anyway) which would not be insubstantial when you start to figure out the required minimum distribution if the balance was 14Mill.. You're required to take out enough to in theory run the thing out of money by your life expectancy.. The IRS has tables for this stuff to give you the exact numbers, but for the sake of a simple example, their number for someone age 70 (single or with a spouse who is not more than 10 years younger) is 27.4..  If we round that to 28 to make the math nice, then you would be forced to withdraw and pay taxes on around $500,000 per year.  (So there would be a hefty amount of taxes to be paid out for sure). So a lot of that $500K a year going to pay taxes on your distributions, but then, considering you only contributed  660,000 pre-tax dollars in the first place, what a wonderful problem to have to deal with.  Oh don't throw me in THAT briar patch mr fox!"""
"""Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss?""","""There are a couple of reasons that a person might choose to use insurance even if they could handle the financial loss if something went wrong. They know their risk better than the insurance company. While it might seem odd at first glance that an individual can be better at assessing risk than a large company with thousands of actuaries. There are limits to the amount of knowledge that an insurance company can have or use to price their insurance products. For instance if you were a very aggressive driver but didn't have any recent tickets or accidents because you were in college and didn't have a car on a regular basis, but now you have a job and drive 30 miles to work every day. You know your risk is relatively high but the insurance company sees you as relatively low risk and aren't able to price that extra risk into your premium. Just because a person can survive financial after losing something like a car or a house doesn't mean it isn't desirable to pay a small price to mitigate that risk. If you are using your savings to pay for an emergency then that money needs to be semi liquid in case you need it limiting your investment options. Where as if you purchase insurance you pay a small amount of money to be able to invest the rest of your money. Liquidity is a big deal particularly if you are a small business and investing into your business where your money can make your more money but you may or may not be able to access that money very easily."""
"""How to properly do background check for future tenant in my own house?""","""If you can find a tenant by networking -- co-worker, friend of a friend, etc. -- rather than openly advertising, that often gives you a better pool. Side advice:  Check what local housing laws apply to renting a room rather than having a housemate. Once you start advertising this you may be subject to fair housing laws, additional code requirements, and so on."""
"""Are banks really making less profit when interest rates are low? ""","""I've read this claim many times in the news: banks are making less profit from the lending business when interest rates are historically low. The issue with most loans is they can be satisfied at any time.  When you have falling interest rates it means most of the banks loans are refinanced from nice high rates to current market low interest rates which can significantly reduce the expected return on past loans.  The bank gets the money back when it wants it the least because it can only re-lend the money at the current market (lower) interest rates.  When interest rates are increasing refinance and early repayment activity reduces significantly. It's important to look at the loan from the point of view of the bank, a bank must first issue out the entire principal amount.  On a 60 month loan the lender has not received payments sufficient to satisfy the principal until around 50th or 55th month depending on the interest rate.  If the bank receives payment of the outstanding amount on month 30 the expected return on that loan is reduced significantly. Consider a $10,000, 60 month loan at 5% apr.  The bank is expected to receive $11,322 in total for interest income of $1,322.  If the loan is repaid on month 30, the total interest is about $972.  That's a 26% reduction of expected interest income, and the money received can only be re-lent for yet a lower interest rate. Add to this the tricky accounting of holding a loan, which is really a discounted bond, which is an asset, on the books and profitability of lending while interest rates are falling gets really funky. And this doesn't even examine default risk\/cost."""
"""What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?""","""While there have been plenty of good answers I would like to suggest turning it on it's head--the problem is one of perception. Other than in terms of cash-type emergency funds (my general policy is to have enough cash to get home, however far from there I might be) I consider available credit + assets that can be liquidated reasonably quickly to count as emergency fund money."""
"""Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA?""","""There are certain allowable reasons to withdraw money from a 401K.  The desire to free your money from a \""bad\"" plan is not one of them.   A rollover is a special type of withdrawal that is only available after one leaves their current employer.  So as long as you stay with your current company, you cannot rollover.  [Exception: if you are over age  59.5] One option is to talk to HR, see if they can get a expansion of offerings.  You might have some suggestions for mutual funds that you would like to see.  The smaller the company the more likely you will have success here.  That being said, there is some research to support having few choices.  Too many choices intimidates people. It's quite popular to have \""target funds\""  That is funds that target a certain retirement year.  Being that I will be 50 in 2016, I should invest in either a 2030 or 2035 fund.  These are a collection of funds that rebalances the investment as they age.  The closer one gets to retirement the more goes into bonds and less into stocks.   However, I think such rebalancing is not as smart as the experts say.  IMHO is almost always better off heavily invested in equity funds.  So this becomes a second option.  Invest in a Target fund that is meant for younger people.  In my case I would put into a 2060 or even 2065 target. As JoeTaxpayer pointed out, even in a plan that has high fees and poor choices one is often better off contributing up to the match.  Then one would go outside and contribute to an individual ROTH or IRA (income restrictions may apply), then back into the 401K until the desired amount is invested.   You could always move on to a different employer and ask some really good questions about their 401K.  Which leads me back to talking with HR.  With the current technology shortage, making a few tweaks to the 401K, is a very cheap way to make their employees happy. If you can score a 1099 contracting gig, you can do a SEP which allows up to a whopping 53K per year.  No match but with typically higher pay, sometimes overtime, and a high contribution limit you can easily make up for it."""
"""Should retirement fund be equal to amount of money needed for financial independence?""","""It depends what you mean. Finance Independence and Retirement Early (FI\/RE) are two overlapping ideas. If you plan to retire early and spend the same amount of money every year (adjusted for inflation), then you need to save twenty-times your yearly spending to satisfy the 4% Safe Withdrawal rule of thumb. Carefully notice I say \""yearly spending\"" and not income.  I'm unaware how it is in Pakistan, but in America, people who retire in their sixties tend to reduce their spending by 30%. This is for a host of reasons like not eating out as much, not driving to work, paid off mortgages, and their children being adults now. In this type of profile, a person needs to save 17.5x yearly spending. This numbers presume a person will only use their built assets as an income source. Any programs like a government pension acting as a safety net. If you factor those in, the estimates above become smaller."""
"""How do \""held\"" amounts appear on statements and affect balances of traditional credit cards?""","""The \""hold\"" is just placeholder that prevents you from overspending until the transaction is settled. The merchant isn't \""holding\"" your money, your bank or card provider is protecting itself from you overdrawing. In general, it takes 1-3 days for a credit transaction to settle. With a credit card, this usually isn't an issue, unless you have a very low credit line or other unusual things going on. With pre-paid and debit cards, it is an issue, since your spending power is contingent upon you having an available balance. I'm a contrarian on this topic, but I don't see any compelling reason to use debit or stored value cards, other than preventing yourself from overspending. I've answered a few other questions in detail in this area, if you're interested."""
"""Estimated Taxes Fall Short of tax liability \u2014 how do I pay extra online (Federal and NYS)""","""If you qualify for the safe harbor, you are not required to pay additional quarterly taxes.  Of course, you're still welcome to do so if you're sure you'll owe them; however, you will not be penalized. If your income is over $150k (joint) or $75k (single), your safe harbor is: Estimated tax safe harbor for higher income taxpayers. If your 2014 adjusted gross income was more than $150,000 ($75,000 if you are married filing a separate return), you must pay the smaller of 90% of your expected tax for 2015 or 110% of the tax shown on your 2014 return to avoid an estimated tax penalty. Generally, if you're under that level, the following reasons suggest you will not owe the tax (from the IRS publication 505): The total of your withholding and timely estimated tax payments was at least as much as your 2013 tax. (See Special rules for certain individuals for higher income taxpayers and farmers and fishermen.) The tax balance due on your 2014 return is no more than 10% of your total 2014 tax, and you paid all required estimated tax payments on time. Your total tax for 2014 (defined later) minus your withholding is less than $1,000. You did not have a tax liability for 2013. You did not have any withholding taxes and your current year tax (less any household employment taxes) is less than $1,000. If you paid one-fourth of your last year's taxes (or of 110% of your last-year's taxes) in estimated taxes for each quarter prior to this one, you should be fine as far as penalties go, and can simply add the excess you know you will owe to the next check."""
"""What does inflation mean to me?""","""It means that your money does not have the same amount of buying power."""
"""Can I pay estimated taxes based on last year's taxes if I anticipate more income this year?""","""You're interpreting this correctly. Furthermore, if your total tax liability is less than $1000, you can not pay estimates at all, just pay at the tax day. See this safe harbor rule in the IRS publication 17: General rule.    In most cases, you must pay estimated tax for 2016 if   both of the following apply. You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for 2016, after subtracting your withholding and refundable credits. You expect your withholding plus your refundable credits to be less than the smaller of: 90% of the tax to be shown on your 2016 tax return, or 100% of the tax shown on your 2015 tax return (but see Special rules for farmers, fishermen, and higher income taxpayers , later).   Your 2015 tax return must cover all 12 months."""
"""Large volume options sell""","""It depends upon who the counterparty is. If the counterparty is the OCC, they would most likely call force majeure if their finances were at serious risk.  They could be forced to take a loss but not to be pulled apart.  Villain could always try to take the OCC to court, but then his plot would probably be exposed in discovery. The need to involve the courts is even greater if these are private contracts. If the options were on one security, they would be difficult to sell in one day.  If they were spread across the most liquid ETFs and equities, they could be sold in one day easily, the above solvency problems notwithstanding."""
"""Why not pay in full upfront for a car?""","""Two adages come to mind. Never finance a depreciating asset. If you can't pay cash for a car, you can't afford it. If you decide you can finance at a low rate and invest at a higher one, you're leveraging your capital.  The risk here is that your investment drops in value, or your cash flow stops and you are unable to continue payments and have to sell the car, or surrender it. There are fewer risks if you buy the car outright.  There is one cost that is not considered though.  Opportunity cost.   Since you've declared transportation necessary, I'd say that opportunity cost is worth the lower risk, assuming you have enough cash left after buying a car to fund your emergency fund. Which brings me to my final point.  Be sure to buy a quality used car, not a new one.  Your emergency fund should be able to replace the car completely, in the case of a total loss where you are at fault and the loss is not covered by insurance. TLDR: My opinion is that it would be better to pay for a quality, efficient, basic transportation car up front than to take on a debt."""
"""How much time does a doctor's office have to collect balance from me?""","""They have forever to collect a balance from you.  Furthermore they can add whatever penalties and fees they wish to increase that balance.  Worst of all, they don't have to remind you or send you bills or any other notification.  You owed it when you left the office.  (There very well could be local laws that require notifications, but that isn't really the issue here.) That dentist has every right to deny you service until you settle the account.  Forever. The statute of limitations on collecting that debt via court: http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/savings\/when-does-your-debt-expire.aspx Which covers the rules on HOW LONG they have to collect the debt.  Owing the money is one thing, but the rules and tools that you creditor has to collect the debt are another.  You are probably worried about them suing you. But if you don't pay the debt (or settle in some way), that dentist can refuse to provide services to you, even if they write off the debt. Ways you can be punished by your dentist for not paying the bill are: Depending on your jurisdiction and\/or type of debt, they typically only report it on your credit (if they are reporting at all) for 7 years.  Even if you pay and settle the account, it will still be reported on your credit report for 7 years.  The difference is how it is reported.  They can report that \""user133466 is a super reliable person who always pays debts on time\"".  They can say \""user133466 is a flake who pays, but takes a while to pay\"".  Or they can say \""user133466 is a bad person to provide services before collecting money, because user133466 don't pay bills\"". Other people considering lending you money are going to read these opinions and decide accordingly if they want to deal with you or not. And they can say that for 7 years.  The idea of credit reporting is that you settle up as soon as possible and get your credit report to reflect the truth. One popular way to collect a debt to is to sue you for it.  There, each state has a different time period on how long a creditor has to sue you for a debt. http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/credit-cards\/state-statutes-of-limitations-for-old-debts-1.aspx If you pay part of the debt, that will often reset the clock on the statute of limitations, so be sure any partial or negotiated settlements state very clearly, in writing, that payment is considered payment in full on the debt.  Then you keep that record forever. There are other interesting points in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  See Debt collectors calling? Know your rights.  They can only contact you in certain ways, they must respond to you in certain ways, and they have limits on what they can say, who they can say it to, and when they can say it.  There are protections from mean or vicious bill collectors, but that doesn't sound like who you are dealing with.  I don't know that the FDCPA is a tool you need to use in this case. You should negotiate your debt and try your best to settle up.  From your post, both parties dropped the ball, and both parties should give a little.  You should pay no or minor late fees, and the doctor should report your credit positively when you do so.  If you both made honest mistakes, they both parties should acknowledge that and be fair, and not defensive. This is not legal advice.  But you owe the debt, so you should settle up.  I don't think it is fair for you to not pay because they didn't mail you a paper.  However I also do not think it is fair for the doctor to run up fees and not remind you of the bill. Finally, you didn't bring up insurance or many other details.  Those details can change the answer."""
"""What's a reliable way for a non-permanent resident alien in the USA to get an auto loan?""","""I don't think that they ask you for your citizenship status when you apply in a dealership. At least I don't remember being asked. I know of at least 3 people from my closest circle of friends who are in various immigration statuses (including one on F1) and got an auto loan from a dealership without a problem and with good rates. They have to ask for your immigration status on online applications because of the post-9\/11 law changes. Edit to allow Dilip to retract his unjustified downvote: Chase and Wells Fargo have a reliable track of extending auto loans to non-permanent residents."""
"""Can an unmarried couple buy a home together with only one person on the mortgage?""","""I did that.  What is allowed changes over time, though \u2014 leading up to the crisis, lenders would approve at the flimsiest evidence. In particular, my SO had only been in the country a couple years and was at a sweet spot where lack of history was no longer counting against her. Running the numbers, the mortgage was a fraction of a percent cheaper in her name than in mine.  Even though she used a \""stated income\"" (self reported, not backed by job history) of the household, not just herself. The title was in her name, and would have cost money to have mine added later so we didn\u2019t.  This was in Texas, which is a \""community property\"" state so after marriage for sure everything is \""ours\""."""
"""Do I need to invest to become millionaire?""","""I get the sense that this is a \""the world is unfair; there's no way I can succeed\"" question, so let's back up a few steps. Income is the starting point to all of this.  That could be a job (or jobs), or running your own business. From there, you can do four things with your income: Obviously Spend and Give do not provide a monetary return - they give a return in other ways, such as quality of life, helping others, etc. Save gives you reserves for future expenses, but it does not provide growth. So that just leaves Invest.  You seem to be focused on stock market investments, which you are right, take a very long time to grow, although you can get returns of up to 12% depending on how much volatility you're willing to absorb. But there are other ways to invest.  You can invest in yourself by getting a degree or other training to improve your income.  You can invest by starting a business, which can dramatically increase your income (in fact, this is the most common path to \""millionaire\"" in the US, and probably in other free markets). You can invest by growing your own existing business.  You can invest in someone else's business. You can invest in real estate, that can provide both value appreciation and rental income.  So yes, \""investment\"" is a key aspect of wealth building, but it is not limited to just stock market investment. You can also look at reducing expenses in order to have more money to invest. Also keep in mind that investment with higher returns come with higher risk (both in terms of volatility and risk of complete loss), and that borrowing money to invest is almost always unwise, since the interest paid directly reduces the return without reducing the risk."""
"""Has anyone compared an in-person Tax Advisor to software like Turbo Tax?""","""I have fairly simple tax returns and my experience was that TurboTax software produced roughly the same result as human accountant and costs much less. The accountant was never able to find any deductions that the program couldn't find.  Of course, if you have business, etc. you probably need an accountant to help you navigate all the rules, requirements, etc. But for simple enough cases I found that the additional pay is not justified."""
"""Auto insurance on new car""","""$600 a month is high, but may be the best you can do. When I moved from UK to Canada my first insurance quote was $3000 a year, but that was 20 years ago and I was older than 27. The rates go down substantially after you have had a local license for a few years. Best tips for minimising this:"""
"""Stocks are traded on secondary markets?""","""NYSE and Nasdaq are secondary markets where stocks are bought or sold. The process of creating new stocks via IPO or private placements etc are called Private Market."""
"""When to sell a stock?""","""Keep a diary, before buying write down why are you buying the stock, how long do you plan to keep it. Put down reasons when you would sell it. For example you buy a stock because it has lot of cash reserve, it is a focused company, good management. You would sell when management leaves or it starts to use its cash for  acquisition that are not fitting in profile."""
"""Buying a home with down payment from family as a \""loan\""""","""In effect, you are paying for 70% of the house but he gets half the gain. On the flip side, you're living there, so that probably makes up this difference.  It will be toughest if the house jumps in value, to the point you might be forced to sell.  You might want to think about that a bit."""
"""Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids?""","""I see three areas of concern for your budget: This is way high.  I am not sure how much of a house you live in, but the total of these two numbers should be around 25% not 41%. I am a person that considers giving an important part of wealth building, and gives to my local church.  But as one other person has rightly said, this amount is irresponsible.  I am okay at 12%, but would like to see you at 10% until you are in a little better shape.   That is pretty vague for a significant portion of your income.  What makes up that other category?   You are doing pretty darn good financially, although I would like to see some contributions to investments.  I think you are kind of failing there.  Your debt management is spot on.  That is okay, we can all get better at some stuff. There needs to be some numbers behind these percentages.  The bottom line is if you make an average household income, say around 55K, you are going to struggle with or without children.  If you guys make about 110K, and your wife makes 50% of your income, and she quits work to take care of the kidlets, then you will be in that \""boat\"". Having said all that I find 37% of your income as questionable.  At least 5% of that should be invested, so we are kind of like at 32%.  That is a significant amount of money."""
"""How should I prepare for the next financial crisis?""","""Those \u2018crises\u2019 are only an issue if you need your savings during the time of crisis. If you have time to sit it out, you should just do that, and come out of the crisis with a gain. People that lose money during a crisis lose it because they sell their investments during the crisis, either because they had to or because they thought they should. If you look at historic values of investments, the market overall always recovers and goes over the orignal value some time after the crisis. Investing even more right in the crisisis the best way to make a lot of money."""
"""Where should I invest my savings?""","""Basically the first thing you should do before you invest your money is to learn about investing and learn about what you want to invest in. Another thing to think about is that usually low risk can also mean low returns. As you are quite young and have some savings put aside you should generally aim for higher risk higher return investments and then when you start to reach retirement age aim for less risky lower return investments. In saying that, just because an investment is considered high risk does not mean you have to be exposed to the full risk of that investment. You do this by managing your risk to an acceptable level which will allow you to sleep at night. To do this you need to learn about what you are investing in. As an example about managing your risk in an investment, say you want to invest $50,000 in shares. If you put the full $50,000 into one share and that share price drops dramatically you will lose a large portion of your money straight away. If instead you spent a maximum of $10,000 on 5 different shares, even if one of them falls dramatically, you still have another 4 which may be doing a lot better thus minimising your losses. To take it one step further you might say if anyone of the shares you bought falls by 20% then you will sell those shares and limit your losses to $2000 per share. If the worst case scenario occurred and all 5 of your shares fell during a stock market crash you would limit your total losses to $10,000 instead of $50,000. Most successful investors put just as much if not more emphasis on managing the risk on their investments and limiting their losses as they do in selecting the investments. As I am not in the US, I cannot really comment whether it is the right time to buy property over there, especially as the market conditions would be different in different states and in different areas of each state. However, a good indication of when to buy properties is when prices have dropped and are starting to stabilise. As you are renting at the moment one option you might want to look at is buying a place to live in so you don't need to rent any more. You can compare your current rent payment with the mortgage payment if you were to buy a house to live in. If your mortgage payments are lower than your rent payments then this could be a good option. But whatever you do make sure you learn about it first. Make sure you spend the time looking at for sale properties for a few months in the area you want to buy before you do buy. This will give you an indication of how much properties in that area are really worth and if prices are stable, still falling or starting to go up. Good luck, and remember, research, research and more research. Even if you are to take someone elses advice and recommendations, you should learn enough yourself to be able to tell if their advice and recommendations make sense and are right for your current situation."""
"""Does it make sense to buy an index ETF (e.g. S&P 500) when the index is at an all-time high?""","""Here is, from Yahoo Finance, the S&P 500 over the last ~60 years (logarithmic scale):  The behavior since ~2000 has been weird, by historical standards. And it's very easy, looking at that graph, to say \""yes! I would have made so much money had I invested in March '09!\"". Of course, back in March '09, it wasn't so clear that was the bottom. But, yes, over the last 10 years or so, you could have made more money by adopting a rule that you'll accumulate cash in a FDIC (or similar) insured savings account, and dump it into an S&P index fund\/ETF when the index is n% off its high. Of course, if you look at the rest of the chart, that strategy looks a lot less promising. Start in the early 80's, and you'd have held cash until the crash in 2000. Except for the recent weirdness, the general trend in the S&P 500 (and stock markets in general) has been upward. In other words, to a first-order approximation, the S&P 500 is always at an all-time high. That's just the general trend."""
"""Is it better to buy this used car from Craigslist or from a dealership?""","""The 200K vehicle is likely the better deal.  Get your own mechanic to check it out.  If it doesn't have major issues, it will likely cost you less. Why?  Because you've wisely included $6000 in expected maintenance.  Yet it has the possibility of not needing more than $500 of maintenance during the 4 years you plan on owning it.  It's a gamble, but you have the chance to save $5500 of that estimated cost with that vehicle. Note that you will also need to factor in tires for either vehicle, unless that is included in your maintenance estimate."""
"""How to minimize damage from sale of savings account""","""Bank of America has been selling off their local branches to smaller banks in recent years.  Here are a few news stories related to this: Along with the branch buildings, the local customers' savings and checking accounts are sold to the new bank.  It is interesting that you were told that your savings account is being sold, but that your checking account will remain with BofA.  I guess it depends on the terms of the particular sale. Here are your options, as I see it: Let the savings account move to the new bank, and see what the new terms are like.  You might actually like the new bank.  If you don't, you can shop around and close your account at the new bank after it has been created. Close your account now, before the move.  If you have a different bank you'd like to move to, there is no need to wait. Since your checking account is apparently staying with BofA, you could move all your money from your savings account to your checking account, closing your savings account.  Then after \""mid August\"" when the local branch switches to the new bank and everyone else's savings account has moved, you can call up BofA and tell them you want to move some of the money from your checking account into a new savings account. If you really have your heart set on staying with BofA, option 3 looks like a good, easy choice. To address your other concerns: Bank of America is a big credit card company, so I doubt that your credit card is being sold off.  Your credit card account should stay as-is.  Even if your savings account and checking account are at a different bank, there is no need to switch credit cards. Your savings and checking accounts have nothing to do with your credit report or score, so there is no concern there.  If you end up wanting to switch to a new credit card with a different bank, there are minor hits to your credit score involved with applying for a new card and closing your current card, but if I were you I would not worry about your credit score in this.  Switch credit cards if you want a change, and keep your credit card if you don't."""
"""What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?""","""Weather events and aging infrastructure.  Cash will buy gasoline, food and water when there is no power or telephone connectivity to process ATMs and credit cards."""
"""Why is it important to research a stock before buying it?""","""Most markets around the world have been downtrending for the last 6 to 10 months. The definition of a downtrend is lower lows and lower highs, and until you get a higher low and confirmation with a higher high the downtrend will continue. If you look at the weekly charts of most indexes you can determine the longer term trend. If you are more concerned with the medium term trend then you could look at the daily charts. So if your objective is to try and buy individual stocks and try to make some medium to short term profits from them I would start by first looking at the daily charts of the index your stock belongs to. Only buy when the intermediate trend of the market is moving up (higher highs and higher lows).  You can do some brief analysis on the stocks your interested in buying, and two things I would add to the short list in your question would be to check if earnings are increasing year after year. The second thing to look at would be to check if the earnings yield is greater than the dividend yield, that way you know that dividends are being paid out from current earnings and not from previous earning or from borrowings. You could then check the daily charts of these individual stocks and make sure they are uptrending also. Buy uptrending stocks in an uptrending market. Before you buy anything write up a trading plan and develop your trading rules. For example if price breaks through the resistance line of a previous high you will buy at the open of the next day. Have your money management and risk management rules in place and stick to your plan. You can also do some backtesting or paper trading to check the validity of your strategy. A good book to read on money and risk management is - \""Trade your way to Financial Freedom\"" by Van Tharp. Your aim should not be to get a winner on every trade but to let your winners run and keep your losses small."""
"""When you're really young and have about 2K to start investing $ for retirement, why do some people advise you to go risky?""","""First of all, \""going risky\"" doesn't mean driving to Las Vegas and playing roulette. The real meaning is that you can afford higher risk\/return ratio compared to a person who will retire in the following ten years. Higher return is very important since time works for you and even several extra percent annually will make a big difference in the long run because of compound interest effect. The key is that this requires the investment to not be too risky - if you invest in a single venture and it fails you lose all the money and that's worse that some conservative investment that could yield minimum income. So you still need the investment to be relatively safe. Next, as user Chris W. Rea mentions in the comment funds and ETFs can be very risky - depending on the investment policy they can invest into some very risky ventures or into some specific industry and that poses more risk that investing into \""blue chips\"" for example. So a fund or an ETF can be a good fit for you if you choose a right one."""
"""Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?""","""This probably is a question that belongs on History but here's the basic reason: the or Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 established that health benefits under approved plans were not taxable to the employee.  If the employer were to pay for an employees non ERISA approved individual plan, it would be a taxable benefit. The longer story is that many polticians (esp. President Richard Nixon) were concerned that public pressure was going to lead public sentiment toward nationalized health care.  This made health insurance more affordable to employees and effectively made it a cheaper way to compensate employees similar to how 401K contributions are worth more (in nominal terms) to the employee than an equivalent amount of cash.  While the law was not signed by Richard Nixon due to some other stuff that was going on, it was something proposed and pushed by his administration."""
"""Is dividend included in EPS""","""EPS is often earnings\/diluted shares. That is counting shares as if all convertible securities (employee stock options for example) were converted. Looking at page 3 of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release we find both basic ($1.13) and diluted EPS ($1.11). Dividends are not paid on diluted shares, but only actual shares. If we pull put this chart @ Yahoo finance, and hovering our mouse over the blue diamond with a \""D\"", we find that Pfizer paid dividends of $0.28, $0.28, $0.28, $0.30 in 2015. Or $1.14 per share. Very close to the $1.13, non-diluted EPS. A wrinkle is that one can think of the dividend payment as being from last quarter, so the first one in 2015 is from 2014. Leaving us with $0.28, $0.28, $0.30, and unknown. Returning to page three of Q4 2015 Reissued Earnings Press Release, Pfizer last $0.03 per share. So they paid more in dividends that quarter than they made. And from the other view, the $0.30 cents they paid came from the prior quarter, then if they pay Q1 2016 from Q4 2015, then they are paying more in that view also."""
"""How to find a public company's balance sheet and income statement?""","""The websites of the most publicly traded companies publish their quarterly and annual financials.  Check the investor relations sections out at the ones you want to look at."""
"""Is it better to buy a computer on my credit card, or on credit from the computer store?""","""Using your credit card: Applying for a store credit card: In general it is far better to not buy bigger items like a computer until you can pay cash, or pay for it on credit card (to get reward points) and then pay off the card the next month so you don't pay interest."""
"""Should I wait a few days to sell ESPP Stock?""","""It depends on how the program is run. If the company runs the program out of treasury stock (shares that are authorized, but not issued), then there aren't any shares being purchased on the open market.   Because of that, the share price wouldn't be affected.    If you look in your employer's annual report, you will probably find how the program is run and how many shares are issued annually under that program. By comparing that to the daily trading volume of the company's stock you can gauge whether there's any likelihood of the share price being affected by the employee purchases. That is, of course, if shares are being purchased on the open market.  For example, here is Books-A-Million's program, as described in their 2011 annual report: Employee Stock Purchase Plan   The Company maintains an employee stock purchase plan under which shares of the Company\u2019s common stock are reserved   for purchase by employees at 85% of the fair market value of the common stock at the lower of the market value for the   Company\u2019s stock as of the beginning of the fiscal year or the end of the fiscal year. On May 20, 2010, the stockholders of the   Company approved an additional 200,000 shares available for issuance under the plan, bringing the aggregate number of   shares that may be awarded to 600,000. Of the total reserved shares, 391,987, 373,432 and 289,031 shares have been   purchased as of January 29, 2011, January 30, 2010 and January 31, 2009, respectively. This describes an instance of the employee purchase program being run from unissued stock, not open market purchases. From it, we can tell 18,555 shares were issued during the past fiscal year.  As their average daily volume is ~40,000 shares, if the program were run from a single open market purchase, it would have potential to \""move the market\"".  One would think, though, that a company running it from open market purchases would spread the purchases over a period of time to avoid running up the price on themselves."""
"""CD interest rate US vs abroad, is there a catch?""","""If you invest in a foreign bank you are subject to their financial rules and regulations. If you put your money with their CD it will be converted to UAH (grivna) and you will be paid back in UAH, which introduces the exchange rate risk.  FDIC is not the only reason why a CD in a US bank pays a lower interest, but it could be seen as a contributing factor.  It all comes down to risk and what the bank is willing to pay for your money, when a bank issues a CD they are entering the debt market and competing against other banks, governments, or anyone looking for money. If the yield from lending to one bank is the same as the yield of another, the logical choice would be whichever loan is less risky. So in order for the riskier bank to receive loans they must entice investors by offering a greater rate of return. In addition, if a bank isn't looking for loans they might be less inclined to pay for them. - See \""What is the \""Bernanke Twist\"" and \""Operation Twist\""? What exactly does it do?\"" If your looking to invest in the CD's of foreign banks I would suggest doing research on their regulations. Especially if and how your money is protected in the event the bank goes bust."""
"""Can anyone help me figure out what my monthly take-home salary will be?""","""If you are not taking any of the options in the Flexible Benefit Plan, then everything is taxable. Check about \""Retirals\"", the practise differs from organization to organization. Some pay it out annually and some only pay on completion of certain duration on exit. So Deduct 47K from 7 lacs. Gross of around 653,000. Total tax for this around 53,000. After tax yearly around 600,000. Individual contribution to PF@ 12% of basic around 33,600. Net Yearly around 567,225. So net take home would be around 47,268. You can easily take items 3,6,7,8 around 62,400. Thus you will save tax of around 13,000. So take home will increase 1,080."""
"""Getting correlation from regression slope (Completely stumped)""","""Using the following equations from the book a stab at the correlation can be made.   Calculating the residual volatilities from equation 2.4 The correlation of stock A with stock B is 0.378 and stock B has the higher residual volatility. However, the correlation is given as a \""simple model\"", which may suggest that it is an approximation.  If I have applied it correctly, some testing shows that it is only approximate. Also of interest"""
"""What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]""","""Most companies are taken over. One can reasonably guess that company X will be taken over for a price P, at some future point in time. Then the company has a value today, that is less than price P, by a large enough margin so that the investor will likely \""make out\"" when the company finally is taken over at some unknown point in time. The exception is a company like Microsoft or Apple that basically grow too large to be taken over. But then they eventually start paying dividends when they become \""mature.\"" Again, the trick, during the non-dividend paying period (e.g. ten or fifteen years ago) is to guess what dividends will be paid in some future time, and price the stock low enough today so that it will be worthwhile for the buyer."""
"""Selling Stock - All or Nothing?""","""Set a good till cancel GTC order, and partial fills will just roll over to the market session if it doesn't fill completely during the first market session It is a very low probability that each share will only be taken one at a time. It isn't a low probability that it will fill in two or three orders, but this is all a factor of how liquid the stocks you bought are. Also your limit order price is also a factor in this"""
"""Why would people sell a stock below the current price?""","""Say we have stock XYZ that costs $50 this second. It doesn't cost XYZ this second. The market price only reflects the last price at which the security traded. It doesn't mean that if you'll get that price when you place an order. The price you get if\/when your order is filled is determined by the bid\/ask spreads. Why would people sell below the current price, and not within the range of the bid\/ask? Someone may be willing to sell at an ask price of $47 simply because that's the best price they think they can sell the security for. Keep in mind that the \""someone\"" may be a computer that determined that $47 is a reasonable ask price. Remember that bid\/ask spreads aren't fixed, and there can be multiple bid\/ask prices in a market at any given time. Your buy order was filled because at the time, someone else in the market was willing to sell you the security for the same price as your bid price. Your respective buy\/sell orders were matched based on their price (and volume, conditional orders, etc). These questions may be helpful to you as well: Can someone explain a stock's \""bid\"" vs. \""ask\"" price relative to \""current\"" price? Bids and asks in case of market order Can a trade happen \""in between\"" the bid and ask price? Also, you say you're a day trader. If that's so, I strongly recommend getting a better grasp on the basics of market mechanics before committing any more capital. Trading without understanding how markets work at the most fundamental levels is a recipe for disaster."""
"""Why do stock prices of retailers not surge during the holidays?""","""I used to be in research department for big financial data company.   Tell your son that there are three factors: Most people think that net sales vs. expectations is the only factor.  It might not even be the biggest.  It is simply how much money did company make.  Note that this is not how many units they sold.  For most companies they will have adjustable pricing and incentives in their sector.  For example let's talk about a new company selling Superman Kid's Bikes (with a cape the flips out when you hit a certain speed).  The company has it in Walmart at one price, Target at another, Toys R' Us even cheaper, Amazon (making more profit there), and other stores.  They are doing \""OK\"" come Dec. 1 but holiday season being half way over they slash price from $100 to $80 because they have tons of inventory.  What are looking at her is how much money did they make.  Note that marketing, advertising, legal (setting up contracts) are a bit fixed. In my opinion consumer sentiment is the #1 thing for a company that sells a product.  Incredible consumer sentiment is like millions of dollars in free advertising.  So let's say Dec. 15th comes and the reviews on the Superman Bike are through the roof.  Every loves it, no major defects.  Company can't even supply the retailers now because after slashing the price it became a great buy.  A common investor might be pissed that some dummy at the company slashed the prices so they could have had a much better profit margin, but at the same time it wouldn't have led to an onslaught of sales and consumer sentiment. And the last area is product sell-off.  This doesn't apply to all product but most.  Some products will only have a technology shelf life, some will actually go bad or out of fashion, and even selling Superman bikes you want to get those to the store because the product is so big.  So ignoring making a profit can a company sell off inventory at or around cost.  If they can't, even if they made a profit, their risk factor goes up. So let's get back to Superman Bikes.  This is the only product company ABC has.  They had expected holiday sales at 100 million and profits at 40 million.  They ended up at 120 million and 44 million.   Let's say their stock was $20 before any information was gathered by the public (remember for most companies info is gathered daily now so this is rather simplistic).  So you might expect that the stock would rise to maybe $24 - to which if you were an investor is a great profit. However this company has a cult consumer following who are waiting for the Captain America Bike (shoots discs) and the Hulk Bike (turns green when you go fast).  Let's say consumer sentiment and projections base off that put next holiday sales at $250 million.  So maybe the company is worth $40 a share now.  But consumer sentiment is funny because not only does it effect future projections but it also effects perceived present value of company - which may have the stock trading at $60 a share (think earnings and companies like Google).  Having a company people feel proud owning or thinking is cool is also a indicator or share worth. I gave you a really good example of a very successful company selling Superman Bikes... There are just as many companies that have the opposite happening.  Imagine missing sales goals by a few million with bad consumer feedback and all of a sudden your company goes from $20 to $5 a share."""
"""What differentiates index funds and ETFs?""","""I think that assuming that you're not looking to trade the fund, an index Mutual Fund is a better overall value than an ETF. The cost difference is negligible, and the ability to dollar-cost average future contributions with no transaction costs. You also have to be careful with ETFs; the spreads are wide on a low-volume fund and some ETFs are going more exotic things that can burn a novice investor. Track two similar funds (say Vanguard Total Stock Market: VTSMX and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF: VTI), you'll see that they track similarly.  If you are a more sophisticated investor, ETFs give you the ability to use options to hedge against declines in value without having to incur capital gains from the sale of the fund. (ie. 20 years from now, can use puts to make up for short-term losses instead of selling shares to avoid losses)  For most retail investors, I think you really need to justify using ETFs versus mutual funds. If anything, the limitations of mutual funds (no intra-day trading, no options, etc) discourage speculative behavior that is ultimately not in your best interest. EDIT: Since this answer was written, many brokers have begun offering a suite of ETFs with no transaction fees. That may push the cost equation over to support Index ETFs over Index Mutual Funds, particularly if it's a big ETF with narrow spreads.."""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""All the other answers posted thus far discuss matters from the perspective of US tax laws and are unanimous in declaring that what the OP wants to do is indeed a very bad idea. I fully agree: it is a bad idea from the perspective of US tax laws, and is likely a bad idea from the perspective of Indian tax laws too, but what the OP wants to do is  (or used to be) common practice in India. In more recent times, India has created a Permanent Account Number (\""PAN number\"") for each taxpayer for income tax purposes, and each bank account or investment must have the owner's (or first-named owner's, in case of a joint account) PAN number associated with it.  This most likely has decreased the popularity of such arrangements, or has led to new twists being used. The OP has not indicated the residence and citizenship of his family (or his own status for that matter), but if they are all Indian citizens resident in India and are Hindus, then there might be one mechanism for doing what the OP wants to do: apply for a PAN number in the name of the Hindu Undivided Family and use this number to carry out the investments in the name of the Hindu Undivided Family.  (There presumably are similar statuses for undivided families for other religions, but I am not familiar with them). There are lots of matters here which are more legal questions than personal finance questions: e.g. if the OP is a US tax resident, then the family presumably will not be able to claim Hindu Undivided Family status since the OP has been divided from the family for tax purposes (or so I think). Even if HUF status is available, the OP might not be able to act as the pater familias while his father is alive, and so on.  Consultation with tax lawyers, not just chartered accountants, in India is certainly advisable."""
"""Should we prepay our private student loans, given our particular profile?""","""Based on your numbers, it sounds like you've got 12 years left in the private student loan, which just seems to be an annoyance to me.  You have the cash to pay it off, but that may not be the optimal solution. You've got $85k in cash!  That's way too much. So your options are:  -Invest 40k -Pay 2.25% loan off -Prepay mortgage 40k Play around with this link: mortgage calculator Paying the student loan, and applying the $315 to the monthly mortgage reduces your mortgage by 8 years. It also reduces the nag factor of the student loan. Prepaying the mortgage (one time) reduces it by 6 years. (But, that reduces the total cost of the mortgage over it's lifetime the most) Prepaying the mortgage and re-amortizing it over thirty years (at the same rate) reduces your mortgage payment by $210, which you could apply to the student loan, but you'd need to come up with an extra $105 a month."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""You're asking if lottery ticket can ever produce a positive expected value (EV). The short answer is, \""no\"". There's an interesting article that goes into the details and is heavy on the math and graphs. The key point: Even if you think you have a positive expected value due to the size of the jackpot being larger than the number of possible numbers, as more tickets are purchased (and the jackpot grows larger) the odds of someone else picking the winner goes up and your EV goes down. The article concludes: [It] ... paints a grim picture for anyone   still holding out hope that a lottery ticket can ever be an   economically rational investment. As the jackpot grows in value, the   number of people who try to win it grows super-linearly. This human   behavior has a mathematical consequence: even though the jackpot   itself can theoretically grow without bound, there is a point at which   the consequent ticket-buying grows to such a fever pitch that the   expected value of the jackpot actually starts going down again."""
"""What is the best way to short the San Francisco real estate market?""","""The most obvious route is to short the lenders, preferably subprime. Since there are no lenders that operate exclusively in San Francisco, you could look north at Canada. The Canadian real estate market (esp. Vancouver) is just as overheated as the San Francisco market. As a start, famous short seller Marc Cohodes recommends HCG (Home Capital Group) as an opportune short."""
"""I want to invest in a U.S.-based company with unquoted stocks, but I am a foreigner. How to do this?""","""The recommendation is not to make the investment. In general, a company does not have to sell their shares to you or allow you to become an investor, because, as you have stated, it is a private company not quoted on the stock market.   If everyone were trustworthy, you could buy the tools for $11000 -- so that you own the tools -- and sign a lease of the tools to the company whereby they pay you $X\/month.  The lease should be reviewed by a lawyer before it is signed, and perhaps give the buyer the right to demand back the tools at any time.  However, even this arrangement is very risky, because the \""company\"" could simply steal or damage the tools and disappear.   It is not an investment that I would make, because it sounds too good to be true.  $2800\/mo steady cash flow for $11,000 invested.  No, I don't think so.   The following information may also be useful, either to you, or future readers: If you still want to make this investment, then you should know that: The offering for sale of shares by companies located in the USA is subject to a wild array of complex laws.  This is true in many other countries as well.  These laws,  called securities laws or regulations,  can require certain disclosures, require that investors have a high net worth so that they can afford to lose the money or conduct their own investigations and legal actions, or require that the investors know the company founders personally, and can prohibit or limit resale by the buyer\/investor.  Promoters who say you can still invest and are ignoring or disobeying the securities laws are being at least negligent, but more likely are dishonest and probably criminal.  Even if you trust in the investment, can you trust negligent managers to do a good job executing that investment? What about dishonest managers?  What about criminals and thieves?"""
"""How can I stop a merchant from charging a credit card processing fee?""","""You can report the violation to the payment network (i.e., Mastercard or Visa).  For instance here is a report form for Visa and here is one for MasterCard.  I just found those by googling; there are no doubt other ways of contacting the companies. Needless to say, you shouldn't expect that this will result in an immediate hammer of justice being brought down on the merchant.  Given the presence of large-scale fraud schemes, it's unlikely Visa is going to come after every little corner store owner who charges a naughty 50-cent surcharge.  It is also unlikely that threatening to do this will scare the merchant enough to get them to drop the fee on your individual transaction.  (Many times the cashier will be someone who has no idea how the process actually works, and won't even understand the threat.)  However, this is the real solution in that it allows the payment networks to track these violations, and (at least in theory) they could come after the merchant if they notice a lot of violations."""
"""Gauge the strength of the resistance level of a stock just using EMA""","""Firstly, you mean resistance not support, as a support is below the current price and resistance is above the price. Secondly using a MA as support or resistance would mean that that support or resistance level would move up or down as the price moved up or down and would not be static at $25. Generally stocks will range trade more often than they will be trending (either up or down), so a stock can be range trading between a support and resistance levels for months and even years, and usually the longer it range trades for, the bigger the outbreak (either up or down) will be when it does happen. Using a MA (especially shorter dated ones) as support or resistance (or as a up or down trend line) works better when a stock is already trending up or down. When a stock is moving sideways it will tend to keep crossing above and below the MA, and you will be whipsawed if you try to use them as your trigger for entry in these situations. Compare the two charts below:  In the first chart the stock is up-trending for over 6 months and the 50d EMA is being used as a support or up-trending line. As long as the price does not break through and close under the 50d EMA then the uptrend continues. You could use this EMA line as a means of entering the stock when prices move towards the EMA and bounce off it back up again. Or you could use it as your stop loss level, so if price closes below the EMA line you would sell your position.  In the second chart, the stock has been range trading between the support line at about $21.80 and the resistance line at about $25.50 for 10 months. In this case the price has been moving above and below the 50d EMA during these 10 months and you may have been whipsawed many times if you were trading each break above or below the 50d EMA. A better strategy here would be to buy the stock as it approached the support line and bounces up off it and then close and reverse your position (go short) when the price approached the resistance line and bounces down off it.  Edit: When range trading you would have your stops just below the support line when going long and just above the resistance line when going short, that way if it does break through support or resistance and starts trending you will be covered. So this shows that different strategies should be used when a stock is trending to when it is range trading. MAs are better used as entry signal during an established uptrend or downtrend than when a stock is range trading."""
"""My mother's name is on my car title, how can I protect my ownership of the car in the event of her death?""","""It's her car.  Unlike what Ross said in the comments she can't sign it over to you--she doesn't own it yet.  The best you'll be able to do is have her leave it to you in her will--but beware that you very well might need to refinance the loan at that point."""
"""Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?""","""The market capitalization of a stock is the number of shares outstanding (of each stock class), times the price of last trade (of each stock class). In a liquid market (where there are lots of buyers and sellers at all price points), this represents the price that is between what people are bidding for the stock and what people are asking for the stock.  If you offer any small amount more than the last price, there will be a seller, and if you ask any small amount less than the last price, there will be a buyer, at least for a small amount of stock. Thus, in a liquid market, everyone who owns the stock doesn't want to sell at least some of their stock for a bit less than the last trade price, and everyone who doesn't have the stock doesn't want to buy some of the stock for a bit more than the last trade price. With those assumptions, and a low-friction trading environment, we can say that the last trade value is a good midpoint of what people think one share is worth.  If we then multiply it by the number of shares, we get an approximation of what the company is worth. In no way, shape or form does it not mean that there is 32 billion more invested in the company, or even used to purchase stock. There are situations where a 32 billion market cap swing could mean 32 billion more money was invested in the company: the company issues a pile of new shares, and takes in the resulting money.  People are completely neutral about this gathering in of cash in exchange for dilluting shares.  So the share price remains unchanged, the company gains 32 billion dollars, and there are now more shares outstanding. Now, in some sense, there is zero dollars currently invested in a stock; when you buy a stock, you no longer have the money, and the money goes to the person who no longer has the stock. The issue here is the use of the continuous tense of \""invested in\""; the investment was made at some point, but the money doesn't really stay in this continuous state of being.  Unless you consider the investment liquid, and the option to take money out being implicit, it being a continuous action doesn't make much sense. Sometimes the money is invested in the company, when the company causes stocks to come into being and sells them. The owners of stocks has invested money in stocks in that they spent that money to buy the stocks, but the total sum of money ever spent on stocks for a given company is not really a useful value. The market capitalization is an approximation, which under the efficient market hypothesis (that markets find the correct price for things nearly instantly) is reasonably accurate, of the value the company has collectively to its shareholders.  The efficient market hypothesis isn't accurate, but it is an acceptable rule of thumb. Now, this value -- market capitalization -- is arguably not the total value of a company: other stakeholders include bond holders, labour, management, various contract counter-parties, government and customers.  Some companies are structured so that almost all value is captured not by the stock owners, but by contract counter-parties (this is sometimes used for hiding assets or debts). But for most large publically traded companies, it (in theory) shouldn't be far off."""
"""If I plan to buy a car in cash, should I let the dealer know?""","""In the UK at least, dealers definitely want you to take finance. They get benefits from the bank (which are not insubstantial) for doing this; these benefits translate directly to increased commission and internal rewards for the individual salesman. It's conceivable that the salesman will be less inclined to put himself out for you in any way by sweetening your deal as much as you'd like, if he's not going to get incentives out of it. Indeed, since he's taking a hit on his commission from you paying in cash, it's in his best interests to perhaps be firmer with you during price negotiation. So, will the salesman be frustrated with you if you choose to pay in cash? Yes, absolutely, though this may manifest in different ways. In some cases the dealer will offer to pay off the finance for you allowing you to pay directly in cash while the dealer still gets the bank referral reward, so that everyone wins. This is a behind-the-scenes secret in the industry which is not made public for obvious reasons (it's arguably verging on fraud). If the salesman likes you and trusts you then you may be able to get such an arrangement. If this does not seem likely to occur, I would not go out of my way to disclose that I am planning to pay with cash. That being said, you'll usually be asked very early on whether you are seeking to pay cash or credit (the salesman wants to know for the reasons outlined above) and there is little use lying about it when you're shortly going to have to come clean anyway."""
"""Is it possible to buy UK Consols (perpetuities)?""","""Selftrade does list them. Not sure if you'll be able to sign up from the US though, particularly given the FATCA issues."""
"""What is a good price to \""Roll\"" a Covered Call?""","""There is no reason to roll an option if the current market value is lower than the strike sold. Out-of-the-money strikes (as is the $12 strike) are all time value which is decaying constantly and that is to our advantage. If share price remains below the strike, the option will expire worthless, you will still have your shares and free to sell another option the Monday after expiration Friday. If share price is > $12 on expiration Friday and you want to keep those shares, you can roll out or out-and-up depending on your outlook for the stock. Good luck, Alan"""
"""What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money?""","""Your problem is one that has challenged many people.  As you said there are two aspects to balancing a budget, reducing expenses or increasing income.  And you state that you have done all the cost-cutting that you can find.  Looking at ways to increase your income is a good way to balance your budget. How big is your problem?  Do you need to find another $100\/month, or do you need $1000\/month?  There are many part-time jobs you could obtain (fast food, retail, grocery), you could obtain a sales-job (cars, real estate, even working for a recruiting firm) where you could connect buyers and sellers.  If your need is $100\/month, a part-time job on weekends would fill the gap. When I was trying to solve my budget problems a few years ago, I thought that I needed to increase my income.  And I did increase my income.  But then I realized that my expenses were too high.  And I re-evaluated my priorities.  I challenge you to revisit your expenses.  Often we assume that we need things that we really cannot afford.  Consider a few of your (possible) expenses, My problems included mortgage debt, auto loans, high utilities, high car insurance, too much spending on kids activities, and a few other problems."""
"""Pay down on second mortage when underwater?""","""Well, I suppose it depends on your idea of a \""lost cause\"". Are you planning to lose the house to foreclosure?  If so, then yes, it's a lost cause.  Don't waste your money paying down the principal. In any other scenario* you should absolutely pay down the principal to the extent that you'd pay down any loan with nearly 9% interest (in other words, moderately aggressively). The fact is, you owe someone $265,000 unless you plan on losing the home to foreclosure.  You can manage the amount of interest you pay while you hold that debt by paying it down. * Short sale and bankruptcy would be special conditions as well, but not exactly the same effect as foreclosure."""
"""Will I get taxed on withdrawals from Real Cash Economy games?""","""Income from a hobby is tax exempt under Dutch law. To consider whether it's hobby, a few rules are applied such as: How much time do you spend on the activity? And is the hourly wage low? Obviously, having a boss is a sure sign of it not being a hobby. The typical example is making dolls and selling them on a crafts fair. If you travel the country and sell each weekend on a different fair, that's a lot of time. If you only sell them on the fair in your home town, it's a hobby.  Situation 3 is the most difficult. If you just happened to luck out, it's still a hobby. If you spent significant time to improve the value of your holdings, e.g. by trading in-game, then it might be seen as work. In the latter case, you simply file it as \""income from other sources, not yet taxed\"".  For the purpose of determining income from a hobby, you may deduct actual expenses. So, in your case they'd look at the net income of $-1000, which is not unusual for a hobby. It wouldn't be any different if you took up horse riding, decided that you didn't like it, and sell your horse at a loss."""
"""Questrade - What happens if I buy U.S. stock with Canadian money?""","""I personally spoke with a Questrade agent about my question. To make a long story short: in a margin account, you are automatically issued a loan when buying U.S. stock with a Canadian money. Whereas, in a registered account (e.g. RRSP), the amount is converted on your behalf to cover the debit balance. Me: What happens if I open an account and I place an order for U.S. stocks   with Canadian money? Is the amount converted at the time of transfer?   How does that work? Agent: In a margin account, you are automatically issued a loan   for a currency you do not have, however, if you have enough buying   power, it will go through. The interest on the overnight balance is   calculated daily and is charged on a monthly basis. We do not convert   funds automatically in a margin account because you can have a debit   cash balance. Agent: In a registered account, the Canada Revenue Agency does not allow a debit   balance and therefore, we must convert your funds on your behalf   to cover the debit balance if possible. We convert automatically   overnight for a registered account. Agent: For example, if you buy U.S. equity you will need USD to buy it,   and if you only have CAD, we will loan you USD to cover for that   transaction. For example, if you had only $100 CAD and then wanted to   buy U.S. stock worth $100 USD, then we will loan you $100 USD to   purchase the stock. In a margin account we will not convert the funds   automatically. Therefore, you will remain to have a $100 CAD credit and   a $100 USD debit balance (or a loan) in your account. Me: I see, it means the longer I keep the stock, the higher interest   will be? Agent: Well, yes, however, in a registered account there will be not   be any interest since we convert your funds, but in a margin account, there will   be interest until the debit balance is covered, or you can manually   convert your funds by contacting us."""
"""How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage?""","""Being new does not allow me yet to vote on your question, but what a good question it is. We share our opinion in separating finances in our very well going mariage. Currently I have found a sort of okay solution in two websites. These are http:\/\/www.yunoo.nl and http:\/\/www.moneytrackin.com\/. You can actually tag spendings with multiple tags.  I don't like the idea that the data is on a remote server, but since I have not found a proper  local software solution, I just naively trust their promise that your data is save. Then again our financial situation is not that special."""
"""How should I begin investing real money as a student?""","""Without knowing what you are trying to achieve - make a bit of pocket money, become financially independent, invest for retirement, learn trading to become a trader - I'll give you a few thoughts ...  The difficulty you will have trading with $400-600 is that brokerage will be a high proportion of your \""profits\"". I'm not sure of the US (assuming US rather than AU, NZ, etc) rates for online brokers, but UK online brokers are the order of \u00a36-10 \/ trade. Having a quick read suggests that the trading is similar $6-10\/trade. With doing day trades you will be killed by the brokerage. I'm not sure what percent of profitable trades you have, but if it is 50% (e.g.), you will need to make twice the brokerage fees value on each profitable trade before you are actually making a profit. There can be an emotional effect that trips you up. You will find that trading with your own real money is very different to trading with fake money. Read up about it, this brief blog shows some personal thoughts from someone I read from time to time. With a $10 brokerage, I would suggest the following Another option, which I wouldn't recommend is to leverage your money, by trading CDFs or other derivatives that allow you to trade on a margin. Further to that, learn about trading\/investing Plus other investment types I have written about earlier."""
"""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."""
"""Capital losses on early-purchased stock?""","""Yes When exercising a stock option you will be buying the stock at the strike price so you will be putting up your money, if you lose that money you can declare it as a loss like any other transaction. So if the stock is worth $1 and you have 10 options with a strike at $0.50 you will spend $500 when you exercise your options. If you hold those shares and the company is then worth $0 you lost $500. I have not verified my answer so this is solely from my understanding of accounting and finance. Please verify with your accountant to be sure."""
"""What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago?""","""I wish I would have:"""
"""How does the market adjust for fees in ETPs?""","""The market doesn't really need to adjust for fees on ETF funds that are often less than 1\/10th of a percent. The loss of the return is more than made up for by the diversification. How does the market adjust for trading fees? It doesn't have to, it's just a cost of doing business. If one broker or platform offers better fee structures, people will naturally migrate toward the lower fees."""
"""Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud?""","""I was a victim of this.  I'm not sure who got my routing and account number off my check, but someone subscribed to Playboy.com using my bank account information.  Luckily it was only for about $30 and the bank refunded my money.  However, it was a mess in that I had to open a new checking account and keep the other one open until all checks cleared.  The bank was extremely helpful and monitored the account to make sure only the checks I told them about were processed.  I then had to close the old account. This is why I believe checks are much less secure than credit cards or debit cards.  A paper check can lay on someone's desk for anyone to pick up or write the information down off of it.  I avoid checks if at all possible.  For things like Craig's list, I would try to use PayPal or some other intermediate processing service."""
"""As director, can I invoice my self-owned company?""","""Sure you can. Obviously it means your company will make less profit, saving you 20% corporation tax, while your personal income will be higher, meaning you will likely spend more than 20% in income tax and National Insurance contributions."""
"""Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.?""","""I'm not sure if they're required to do so, but I have been neglecting to sign my cards for some time now.  If they do check, that triggers an ID check, where they'll find my signature.  I know of at least one person that writes \""see ID\"" instead of signing their cards.  He began that practice over 10 years ago."""
"""Deductions greater than Income : Traditional IRA to Roth Conversion?""","""Yes. A most emphatic yes.  I suggest you look at your 2014 return and project what 2015 will look like. I'd convert enough to \""top off\"" the 15% bracket. Note, if you overshoot it, and in April 2016, see that you are say $5K into the 25% rate, you can just recharacterize the amount you went over and nail the bracket to the dollar.  If you have the time and patience, you can convert into 2 different Roth accounts. One account for one asset class, say large cap stocks\/funds, the other, cash\/bonds. In April, keep the account that outperformed, and only recharacterize the lagger. Roth Roulette is my name for this strategy. It's risk free, and has the potential to boost the value of your conversions.  Edit - To be clear, you are permitted to recharacterize (undo) any or all of the converted amount. You actually have until tax time (4\/15 or so) plus the 6 month extension. You can recharacterize for any reason - A personal anecdote - I manage my mother in law's money. She is well under the 25% bracket cutoff. Each year I convert, and each April, recharacterize just enough to be at the top of the 15% bracket. Over $100K has been shifted from Traditional IRA to Roth by now. Taxed at 15% so her daughters will 'not' pay 25% when they withdraw. $10K in tax saved from uncle sam, for my effort of filling out paper twice a year for 12 years now. Well worth my effort."""
"""Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money?""","""The article \""Best Stock Fund of the Decade: CGM Focus\"" from the Wall Street Journal in 2009 describe the highest performing mutual fund in the USA between 2000 and 2009. The investor return in the fund (what the shareholders actually earned) was abysmal. Why? Because the fund was so volatile that investors panicked and bailed out, locking in losses instead of waiting them out. The reality is that almost any strategy will lead to success in investing, so long as it is actually followed. A strategy keeps you from making emotional or knee-jerk decisions. (BTW, beware of anyone selling you a strategy by telling you that everyone in the world is a failure except for the few special people who have the privilege of knowing their \""secrets.\"") (Link removed, as it's gone dead)"""
"""Should I invest my money in an ISA or Government bonds? (Or any other suggestion)""","""I recommend investing in precious metals like gold, considering the economic cycle we're in now. Government bonds are subject to possible default and government money historically tends to crumble in value, whereas gold and the metals tend to rise in value with the commodies. Stocks tend to do well, but right now most of them are a bit overvalued and they're very closely tied to overvalued currencies and unstable governments with lots of debt. I would stick to gold right now, if you're planning on investing for more than a month or so."""
"""Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?""","""If I understand you situation correctly, then the accepted answer is extremely misleading and incorrect. Your arrangement with your parents is definitely unreasonable. It is definitely not \""similar to an interest-only loan\"". In an interest-only loan, like you can get from a bank, you will loan a sum of money, which you are expected to pay back at a certain time in the future, or when you sell the condo. But you pay back the original sum, not the value of property at selling time. For the access to the money you pay an interest to the bank. The bank gets their profits from the interest. The property only serves as collateral in case you are not able to make your interest payments.  Another way to view it, is that your parent bought (a share of) your condo for investment reasons. In that case, they would expect to get their profits from the increase of the value of the property over time. That looks most like your situation. Granted, that is more risky for them, but that is what they choose to sign up for. But in that case it is not reasonable to charge your for interest as well, because that would mean they would get double profits. So how does the $500 monthly payment fit in? If it is interest, then it would work out to a yearly interest of about 5.2%. Where I live, that would nowadays be extremely high even for an interest-only mortgage from a bank. But I don't live in the USA, so don't know whether that is true there. I think in your situation, the $500 can only be seen as rent. Whether that is reasonable for your situation I cannot judge from here. It should be 75% of a reasonable rent for a condo like that. But in that case, your parents should also stand for 75% of the maintenance costs of the property, which you don't mention, and most of the property taxes and insurance fees. In short, no it is not a reasonable arrangement. You would be better of trying to get a morgage from the bank, and buy out your parents with it."""
"""IRS \""convenience of the employer\"" test when employee lives far from the office""","""I'm not a tax professional, but as I understand it, you are not expected to commute from San Francisco to Boston.  :) If your employer has not provided you with an external office, then yes, you have very likely met the \""convenience of the employer\"" test. However, to take the home office deduction, there are many requirements that have to be met. You can read more at the Nolo article Can You Deduct Your Home Office When You're an Employee? (Thanks, keshlam) The home office deduction has many nuances and is enough of an IRS red flag that you would be well-advised to talk to an accountant about it.  You need to be able to show that it is exclusively and necessarily used for your job. Another thing to remember: as an employee, the home office deduction, if you take it, will be deducted on Schedule A, line 21 (unreimbursed employee expenses), among other Miscellaneous Deductions.  Deductions in this section need to exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income before you can start to deduct.  So it will not be worth it to pursue the deduction if your income is too high, or your housing expenses are too low, or your office is too small compared to the rest of your house, or you don't itemize deductions."""
"""When I ask a broker to buy stock, what does the broker do?""","""Here are a couple of articles that can help highlight the differences between a broker and an online investment service, which seems to be part of the question that you're asking. Pay attention to the references at the end of this link. http:\/\/finance.zacks.com\/online-investing-vs-personal-broker-6720.html Investopedia also highlights some of the costs and benefits of each side, broke and online investment services. http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/university\/broker\/ To directly answer your question, a broker may do anything from using a website to making a phone call to submitting some other form of documentation. It is unlikely that he is talking directly to someone on the trading floor, as the volume traded there is enormous."""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""Because people are Risk Averse. Suppose that you own an asset worth $10,000 to you.  Suppose that each year, the asset has 1% chance of being stolen (or completely broken).  The expected value is 99% x 10,000 + 1% x $0 = $9,900. This is the average outcome if you do not buy insurance.  Now consider two mutually exclusive outcomes: 99% chance of keeping $10,000 and 1% chance of losing everything (expected value: $9,900)  100% chance of keeping $9,900 (expected value: $9,900)  Everyone would choose option 2, even though the expected values are the same.  Option 2 is an insurance that cost $100 (Actuarially fair, aka the odds are fair).  Now suppose the insurance costs $150 instead of $100 (despite that the bad probability is still 1%). You are faced with  99% chance of keeping $10,000 and 1% chance of losing everything (expected value: $9,900)  100% chance of keeping $9,850 (expected value: $9,850)  Some people would still choose option 2, even though the expected value is actually lower.  The $50 is called Risk Premium, which people are willing to pay in order to avoid uncertainty. The odds are unfair, but the Risk Premium has its value.  That being said, competition between insurance companies would drive down the premium until the insurance is close to actuarially fair, but they have cost to cover (sales, administration, etc), making the odds \""unfair\""."""
"""Accounting Entry for Selling a Covered Call""","""Option contracts typically each represent 100 shares. So the 1 call contract you sold to open (wrote) grants the buyer of that option the right to purchase your 100 shares for $80.00 per share any time before the option expiration date. You were paid a gross amount of $100 (100 shares times $1.00 premium per share) for taking on the obligation to deliver should the option holder choose to exercise. You received credit in your account of $89.22, which ought to be the $100 less any trading commission (~$10?) and miscellaneous fees (regulatory, exchange, etc.) per contract. You did capture premium. However, your covered call write represents an open short position that, until either (a) the option expires worthless, or (b) is exercised, or (c) is bought back to close the position, will continue to show on your account as a liability. Until the open position is somehow closed, the value of both the short option contract and long stock will continue to fluctuate. This is normal."""
"""Non Qualifying Stock Option offered by employer""","""Let's work from the inside out. Options are not stock. Options are a contract that give you the right to own the stock. For options to have value they have to be exercised. Straight line means that each quarter 1\/16th of the option grant becomes yours and the company cannot take it away. Four quarters in a year times four years is 16 quarters. 'Grant' means they are giving you the options at no cost to you. 'Nonqualified' means that there is nothing you have to do, or be, in order to get the options. (Some options are only for management.)"""
"""Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply?""","""Great answer by @duffbeer. Only thing to add is that the option itself becomes a tradeable asset. Here's my go at filling out the answer from @duffbeer. \""Hey kid... So you have this brand-new video game Manic Mazes that you paid $50 for on Jan 1st that you want to sell two months from now\"" \""Yes, Mr. Video Game Broker, but I want to lock in a price so I know how much to save for a new Tickle Me Elmo for my baby sister.\"" \""Ok, for $3, I'll sell you a 'Put' option so you can sell the game to me for $40 in two months.\"" Kid says \""Ok!\"", sends $3 to Mr Game Broker who sends our kid a piece of paper saying: The holder of this piece of paper can sell the game Manic Mazes to Mr Game Broker for $40 on March 1st. .... One month later .... News comes out that Manic Mazes is full of bugs, and the price in the shops is heavily discounted to $30. Mr Options Trader realizes that our kid holds a contract written by Mr Game Broker which effectively allows our kid to sell the game at $10 over the price of the new game, so maybe about $15 over the price in the second-hand market (which he reckons might be about $25 on March 1st). He calls up our kid. \""Hey kid, you know that Put option that Mr Game Broker sold to you you a month ago, wanna sell it to me for $13?\"" (He wants to get it a couple of bucks cheaper than his $15 fair valuation.) Kid thinks:  hmmm ... that would be a $10 net profit for me on that Put Option, but I wouldn't be able to sell the game for $40 next month, I'd likely only get something like $25 for it. So I would kind-of be getting $10 now rather than potentially getting $12 in a month. Note: The $12 is because there could be $15 from exercising the put option (selling for $40 a game worth only $25 in the second-hand market) minus the original cost of $3 for the Put option. Kid likes the idea and replies: \""Done!\"". Next day kid sends the Put option contract to Mr Options Trader and receives $13 in return. Our kid bought the Put option and later sold it for a profit, and all of this happened before the option reached its expiry date."""
"""Why should I trust investment banks' ratings?""","""Investment banks will put out various reports and collect revenues from that along with their banking activity.  I don't read them or care to read them myself.  If banks can make money from something, they will likely do it, especially if it is legal. To take the Tesla stock question for a moment: Aren't you ruling out that yesterday was the day that Tesla was included in the Nasdaq 100 and thus there may be some people today exiting because they tried to cash in on the index funds having to buy the stock and bid it up in a sense?  Or as @littleadv points out there could be those tracking the stocks not in the index that would have been forced to sell for another idea here. The Goldman note is a possible explanation but there could well be more factors in play here such as automated trading systems that seek to take advantage of what could be perceived as arbitrage opportunities. There can be quick judgments made on things which may or may not be true in the end.  After all, who knows exactly what is causing the sell-off.  Is it a bunch of stop orders being triggered?  Is it people actually putting in sell order manually?  Is it something else?  There are lots of questions here where I'm not sure how well one can assign responsibility here."""
"""Why is Insider Trading Illegal?""","""Capitalism works best when there is transparency.  Your secret formula for wealth in the stocks should be based on a fair and free market, as sdg said, it is your clever interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves.  The keyword is fair. Secrets are useful for manufacturing or production, which is only a small part of capitalism.  Even then we had to devise a system to protect ideas (patents, trademarks and copyrights) because as they succeed in the market, their secrecy goes away quickly."""
"""Applying for and receiving business credit""","""Banks will usually look at 2 years worth of tax returns for issuing business credit.  If those aren't available (for instance, for recently formed businesses), they will look at the personal returns of the owners. Unfortunately, it sounds like your friend is in the latter category. Bringing in another partner isn't necessarily going to help, either; with only two partners \/ owners, the bank would probably look at both owners' personal tax returns and credit histories.  It may be necessary to offer collateral. I'm sorry I can't offer any better solutions, but alternative funding such as personal loans from family & friends could be necessary.  Perhaps making them partners in exchange for capital."""
"""Is it irresponsible for me to lease a $300\/month car for 18 months?""","""Some questions: Will you need a car after 18 months?  What are you going to do then? How likely are you able to go over the mileage? Granted paying $300 per month seems somewhat attractive as a fixed cost.  However lease are notorious for forcing people into making bad decisions.  If your car is over miles, or there is some slight damage (even normal wear and tear), or you customize your car (such as window tint) the dealer can demand extra dollars or force you to purchase the car for more than it is actually worth.   The bottom line is leasing is one of the most expensive ways to own a vehicle, and while you have a great income you have a poor net worth.  So yes I would say it is somewhat irresponsible for you to own a vehicle. If I was in your shoes, I would cut my gym expenses, cut my retirement contributions to the match, and buy another used car.  I understand you may have some burnout over your last car, but it is the best mathematical choice. Having said all that you have a great income and you can absorb a lot of less than efficient decisions.  You will probably be okay leasing the car.  I would suggest going for a longer term, or cutting something to pay off the student loans earlier.  This way there is some cushion between when the lease ends and the student loan ends.   This way, when lease turn in comes, you will have some room in your budget to pay some fees as you won't have your student loan payment (assuming around 1400\/month) that you can then pay to the dealer."""
"""What happens if stock purchased on margin plummets below what I have in the brokerage?""","""Different brokerages have different house rules for margin requirements and margin calls.  You will likely get a margin call giving you a small amount of time to deposit the required funds to bring your account balance up to the required margin requirements.  In reality, a stock that falls from $50 to $4 in a short period will probably become unmarginable.  In short, yes, you will owe the broker for the loss."""
"""Should I buy a house with a friend?""","""I did this about 8 years ago with a buddy in Chicago for the reasons specified in the original post.  As other posters have suggested, we discussed  a lot of the same questions listed above, figured out the possible scenarios, and then had a lawyer draw up a contract.  We bought a 3 bedroom house, and rented out the 3rd bedroom.  Overall, it was a great experience.  We both built equity while having a renter pay a third of the mortgage.  Plus the property tax and interest on the loan were tax deductible.  Compared with renting an apartment, it made us  a lot more money.  In the end, we sold the house, and split the profits.  Assuming you have the personalities to make it work, I say go for it."""
"""Where can I trade FX spot options, other than saxobank.com? ""","""Have you looked at ThinkorSwim, which is now part of TD Ameritrade? Because of their new owner, you'll certainly be accepted as a US customer and the support will likely be responsive. They are certainly pushing webinars and learning resources around the ThinkorSwim platform. At the least you can start a Live Help session and get your answers. That link will take you to the supported order types list. Another tab there will show you the currency pairs. USD is available with both CAD and JPY. Looks like the minimum balance requirement is $25k across all ThinkorSwim accounts. Barron's likes the platform and their annual review may help you find reasons to like it. Here is more specific news from a press release: OMAHA, Neb., Aug 24, 2010 (BUSINESS   WIRE) -- TD AMERITRADE Holding   Corporation (NASDAQ: AMTD) today   announced that futures and spot forex   (foreign exchange) trading   capabilities are now available via the   firm's thinkorswim from TD AMERITRADE   trading platform, joining the recently   introduced complex options   functionality."""
"""Why is Google's current nasdaq market cap almost twice the current share price * the No. of shares outstanding?""","""http:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/blogs\/economix\/2014\/04\/02\/the-many-classes-of-google-stock\/ Are you counting both class A and other share classes?"""
"""Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge""","""Here's an excerpt from VISA's Card Acceptance Guidelines for Visa Merchants (PDF)  The merchant name is the single most important factor in cardholder   recognition of transactions. Therefore, it is critical that the   merchant name, while reflecting the merchant\u2019s \""Doing Business As\""   (DBA) name, also be clearly identifiable to the cardholder. This can   minimize copy requests resulting from unrecognizable merchant   descriptors. Merchant applications typically list the merchant name as the merchant   DBA. This may differ from the legal name (which can represent the   corporate owner or parent company), and may differ from the owner\u2019s   name which, for sole proprietorships, may reflect the business owner. I think that the key statement above is \""Therefore, it is critical that the merchant name [...] be clearly identifiable to the cardholder.\"" Since this merchant was not clearly identifiable to the cardholder, they are in breach of a critical point in these guidelines. This is from VISA, but I would assume that all other major credit cards would have similar guidelines for their merchants. However keep in mind that these are \""guidelines\"", and not (necessarily) rules."""
"""help with how a loan repayment is calculated""","""It appears the interest is not compounded daily.  Each period of interest has the loan amount calculated on the \""capital\"" remaining on the start of period, for each day in the period.  The Excel finance functions don't handle irregular periods that well, but I can reconstruct the interest calculations:"""
"""What is the rationale behind stock markets retreating due to S&P having a negative outlook on the USA?""","""Many of the major indices retreated   today because of this news. Why? How   do the rising budget deficits and debt   relate to the stock markets? The major reason for the market retreating is the uncertainty regarding the US Dollar. If the US credit rating drops that will have an inflationary effect on the currency (as it will push up the cost of US Treasuries and reduce confidence in the USD). If this continues the loss of USD confidence could bring an end to the USD as the world's reserve currency which could also create inflation (as world banks could reduce their USD reserves). This can make US assets appear overvalued. Why is there such a large emphasis on   the S&P rating? S&P is a large trusted rating agency so the market will respond to their analysis much like how a bank would respond to any change in your rating by Transunion (Consumer Credit Bureau) Does this have any major implications   for the US stock markets today, in the   short term and in July? If you are a day-trader I'm sure it does. There will be minor fluctuations in the market as soon as news comes out (either of its extension or any expected delays in passing that extension). What happens when the debt ceiling is   reached? Since the US is in a deficit spending situation it needs to borrow more to satisfy its existing obligations (in short it pays its debt with more debt). As a result, if the debt ceiling isn't raised then eventually the US will be unable to pay its existing obligations. We would be in a default situation which could have devastating affects on the value of the USD. How hard the hit will depend on how long the default situation lasts (the longer we go without an increased ceiling after the exhaustion point the more we default on). In reality, Congress will approve a raise, but they will drag it out to the last possible minute. They want to appear as if they are against it, but they understand the catastrophic effects of not doing so."""
"""What ETF best tracks the price of gasoline, or else crude oil?""","""Do not buy any commodity tracking ETF without reading and understanding the prospectus. Some of these things get exposure to the underlying commodity via swaps or other hocus-pocus derivatives, so you're really buying credit obligations from some bank. Others are futures based, and you need to understand your potential upside AND downside. If you think that oil prices are going to continue to rise, you should look into sector funds, or better yet individual stocks that are in the oil or associated businesses. Alternatively, look at alternative investments like natural gas producers or pipeline operators."""
"""Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house?""","""In most cases of purchases the general advice is to save the money and   then make the purchase. Paying cash for a car is recommended over   paying credit for example. For a house, getting a mortgage is   recommended. Says who? These rules of thumb hide the actual equations behind them; they should be understood as heuristics, not as the word of god. The Basics The basic idea is, if you pay for something upfront, you pay some fixed cost, call it X, where as with a loan you need to pay interest payments on X, say %I, as well as at least fixed payments P at timeframe T, resulting in some long term payment IX. Your Assumption To some, this obviously means upfront payments are better than interest payments, as by the time the loan is paid off, you will have paid more than X. This is a good rule of thumb (like Newtonian's equations) at low X, high %I, and moderate T, because all of that serves to make the end result IX > X. Counter Examples Are there circumstances where the opposite is true? Here's a simple but contrived one: you don't pay the full timeframe. Suppose you die, declare bankruptcy, move to another country, or any other event that reduces T in such a way that XI is less than X. This actually is a big concern for older debtors or those who contract terminal illnesses, as you can't squeeze those payments out of the dead. This is basically manipulating the whole concept. Let's try a less contrived example: suppose you can get a return higher than %I. I can currently get a loan at around %3 due to good credit, but index funds in the long run tend to pay %4-%5. Taking a loan and investing it may pay off, and would be better than waiting to have the money, even in some less than ideal markets. This is basically manipulating T to deal with IX. Even less contrived and very real world, suppose you know your cash flow will increase soon; a promotion, an inheritance, a good market return. It may be better to take the loan now, enjoy whatever product you get until that cash flows in, then pay it all off at once; the enjoyment of the product will make the slight additional interest worth it. This isn't so much manipulating any part of the equation, it's just you have different goals than the loan. Home Loan Analysis For long term mortgages, X is high, usually higher than a few years pay; it would be a large burden to save that money for most people. %I is also typically fairly low; P is directly related to %I, and the bank can't afford to raise payments too much, or people will rent instead, meaning P needs to be affordable. This does not apply in very expensive areas, which is why cities are often mostly renters. T is also extremely long; usually mortgages are for 15 or 30 years, though 10 year options are available. Even with these shorter terms, it's basically the longest term loan a human will ever take. This long term means there is plenty of time for the market to have a fluctuation and raise the investments current price above the remainder of the loan and interest accrued, allowing you to sell at a profit. As well, consider the opportunity cost; while saving money for a home, you still need a place to live. This additional cost is comparable to mortgage payments, meaning X has a hidden constant; the cost of renting. Often X + R > IX, making taking a loan a better choice than saving up. Conclusion \""The general advice\"" is a good heuristic for most common human payments; we have relatively long life spans compared to most common payments, and the opportunity cost of not having most goods is relatively low.  However, certain things have a high opportunity cost; if you can't talk to HR, you can't apply for jobs (phone), if you can't get to work, you can't eat (car), and if you have no where to live, it's hard to keep a job (house). For things with high opportunity costs, the interest payments are more than worth it."""
"""Can you sell stocks\/commodities for any price you wish (either direct or market)?""","""I think for this a picture is worth a thousand words.  This is a \""depth chart\"" that I pulled from google images, specifically because it doesn't name any security.  On the left you have all of the \""bids\"" to buy this security, on the right you have the \""asks\"" to sell the security.  In the middle you have the bid\/ask spread, this is the space between the highest bid and the lowest ask.  As you can see you are free to place you order to the market to buy for 232, and someone else is free to place their order to the market to sell for 234.  When the bid and the ask match there's a transaction for the maximum number of available shares.  Alternatively, someone can place a market order to buy or sell and they'll just take the current market price. Retail investors don't really get access to this kind of chart from their brokers because for the most part the information isn't terribly relevant at the retail level."""
"""Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund""","""Paying off the debt is low-risk, low-reward.  You're effectively guaranteed a 4% return.  If you buy a mutual fund, you're going to have to take some risk to have a decent chance of getting better than 4% and change return in the long run, which probably means a fund that invests primarily in stocks.  Buying a stock mutual fund is high-risk, high reward, especially when you're in significant debt.  On the other hand, 4% and change is very low-interest.  If you wanted to buy stocks on margin, financing stock investments directly with debt, you'd pay a heck of a lot more.  Bottom line:  It comes down to your personal risk tolerance."""
"""I'm 18. How to build good monthly income at my 20's?""","""Market rate of return averages about 8% annually (sometimes more, sometimes less or negative). To get 30k monthly -- even taking that as pretax -- you're talking about 360k yearly. Divide that by 0.08 and you need to have savings of 4.5 million--- and really you should double that for safety..  Tl;dr: forget it. Added thought: If you really have $20k\/month coming in, you really have no business asking the Internet for advice. Hire a professional financial advisor (not a broker, someone who is paid a flat fee for their expertise and has no incentives to give you less-than-optimal advice). . The money they will save\/make for you will more than pay for their hire."""
"""What are some time tested passive income streams?""","""Renting a house out using a management company is mostly passive income. Earning affiliate income from companies that pay on a recurring basis is closer to passive income."""
"""How to calculate money needed for bills, by day""","""I think you might benefit from adopting a zero-sum budget, in which you plan where each dollar will be spent ahead of time, rather than simply track spending or worry about the next expense. Here's a pretty good article on the subject: How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget. This is the philosophy behind a popular budgeting tool You Need a Budget, I am not advocating the tool, but I am a fan of the idea that a budget is less about tracking spending and more about planning spending. That said, to answer your specific question, one method for tracking your min-needed for upcoming expenses would be to record the date, expense, amount due, and amount paid as shown here:  Then the formula to calculate the min-needed (entered in E1 and copied down) would be: As you populate amounts paid, the MinNeeded is adjusted for all subsequent rows. You could get fancier and only populate the MinNeeded field on dates where an expense is due using IF()."""
"""Where can I find historic ratios by industry? ""","""If you would like to find data on a specific industry\/market sector, a good option is IBISworld reports. You can find their site here. You can find reports on almost any major US sector. The reports include historical data as well as financial ratios. In college projects, they were very useful for getting benchmark data to compare an individual business against an industry as a whole."""
"""Do I need a Like-Kind Exchange when selling a personal vehicle for a company car""","""You cannot do a like-kind (Sec. 1031) exchange for personal property, only for business\/investment property. Since you said that you traded in your personal car - no like-kind exchange is possible. Also, since the new car doesn't belong to you - you didn't actually perform any exchange. You sold your old car, but you didn't buy a new one. If Turbo-Tax suggests you to fill the exchange form - you must have entered something wrong to make it think there was an exchange. Check your entries again, specifically - check if you entered that you purchased a new car instead of the old one, since you didn't. See an example of where to start looking here."""
"""Why does ExxonMobil's balance sheet show more liabilities than assets?""","""I believe you are missing knowledge of how to conduct a ratio analysis. Understanding liquidity ratios, specifically the quick or acid-test ratio will be of interest and help your understanding. http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/a\/acidtest.asp Help with conducting a ratio analysis. http:\/\/www.demonstratingvalue.org\/resources\/financial-ratio-analysis Finally, after working through the definitions, this website will be of use. https:\/\/www.stock-analysis-on.net\/NYSE\/Company\/Exxon-Mobil-Corp\/Ratios\/Liquidity"""
"""What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?""","""I recently drove past Winslow, Arizona and knocked out the fuel pump in my truck. It cost $500 to repair, and the tow would have been another several hundred if I hadn't had a Good Samaritan's club card, since it was the weekend. 2-3 days would not be acceptable in this sort of scenario. And that was just the fuel pump!"""
"""Is it true that Income Tax was created to finance troops for World War I?""","""Income tax was seen as a way to exploit the revenues available from the rapidly expanding ranks of people with mid to high incomes. It was initially targeted at the very wealthy. Previously, most Federal revenues came from excise taxes and tariffs, both of which have many negative economic effects, leave the government with limited revenue generating ability and bring a host of international and domestic political problems.  Since the successful implementation of the income tax required a constitutional amendment, it is very unlikely that anyone at the time seriously considered the income tax a temporary measure."""
"""How should residents of smaller economies allocate their portfolio between domestic and foreign assets?""","""We face the same issue here in Switzerland. My background: Institutional investment management, currency risk management. My thoughs are: Home Bias is the core concept of your quesiton. You will find many research papers on this topic. The main problems with a high home bias is that the investment universe in your small local investment market is usually geared toward your coutries large corporations. Lack of diversification: In your case: the ASX top 4 are all financials, actually banks, making up almost 25% of the index. I would expect the bond market to be similarly concentrated but I dont know. In a portfolio context, this is certainly a negative. Liquidity: A smaller economy obviously has less large corporations when compared globally (check wikipedia \/ List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization) thereby offering lower liquidity and a smaller investment universe. Currency Risk: I like your point on not taking a stance on FX. This simplifies the task to find a hedge ratio that minimises portfolio volatility when investing internationally and dealing with currencies. For equities, you would usually find that a hedge ratio anywhere from 0-30% is effective and for bonds one that ranges from 80-100%. The reason is that in an equity portfolio, currency risk contributes less to overall volatility than in a bond portfolio. Therefore you will need to hedge less to achieve the lowest possible risk. Interestingly, from a global perspective, we find, that the AUD is a special case whereby, if you hedge the AUD you actually increase total portfolio risk. Maybe it has to do with the AUD being used in carry trades a lot, but that is a wild guess. Hedged share classes: You could buy the currency hedged shared classes of investment funds to invest globally without taking currency risks. Be careful to read exactly what and how the share class implements its currency hedging though."""
"""Why is being \""upside down\"" on a mortgage so bad?""","""Sample Numbers: Owe $100k on house.  House (after 'crash') valued at: $50K.  Reason for consternation: What rational person pays $100k for property that is only worth half that amount? True Story: My neighbor paid almost $250K (a quarter-of-a-million dollars - think about that..) for a house that when he walked (ran!) away from it was sold by the bank for $88K.  Unless he declares bankruptcy (and forgoes all his other assets, including retirement savings) he still owes the bank the difference. And even with bankruptcy, he may still owe the bank - this should cause anyone to be a bit concerned about being up-side down in a mortgage loan."""
"""Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money \""in this economy\""?""","""Saving some money for the future is a good idea.  But how much to save is a tough question.  I retired with a small fraction of what the experts said I would need.  Three years later, I can confidently say I did not even need what I had saved."""
"""Can I withdraw from my Roth IRA retirement account to fund a startup?""","""Chris's answer is a great start. Keep in mind that when you withdraw from a Roth IRA, you \""shrink\"" the size of the IRA (i.e. if the start up flourishes, you can't put the $10k you withdrew back, as you're limited to ~$5k in contributions per year). You may want to consider funding your startup with a credit card (ideally a balance transfer of $10k at 0% interest).  If you need to, you can always pay your card off with your Roth balance, but if the startup takes off, your IRA is unharmed. (On a side note, I wouldn't feel comfortable quitting my job to do a startup with only $10k in savings, but to each his own!)"""
"""How to make use of EUR\/USD fluctuations in my specific case?""","""This is called currency speculation, and it's one of the more risky forms of investing.  Unless you have a crystal ball that tells you the Euro will move up (or down) relative to the Dollar, it's purely speculation, even if it seems like it's on an upswing.  You have to remember that the people who are speculating (professionally) on currency are the reason that the amount changed, and it's because something caused them to believe the correct value is the current one - not another value in one direction or the other. This is not to say people don't make money on currency speculation; but unless you're a professional investor, who has a very good understanding of why currencies move one way or the other, or know someone who is (and gives free advice!), it's not a particularly good idea to engage in it - while stock trading is typically win-win, currency speculation is always zero-sum. That said, you could hedge your funds at this point (or any other) by keeping some money in both accounts - that is often safer than having all in one or the other, as you will tend to break even when one falls against the other, and not suffer significant losses if one or the other has a major downturn."""
"""Could someone place an independent film on the stock market?""","""When we say \""stock market,\"" we are usually thinking of the publicly traded stocks, such as the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. Shares of individual products do not go on these exchanges, only large corporations.  You won't see a stock ticker symbol for The Force Awakens or for the iPhone 6s Plus.  The reason for this is that when investors buy a stock, they are looking for something that will grow in value theoretically forever. Individual products usually have a limited lifespan. Your movie will (hopefully) generate revenue when it comes out, but after a while sales will slow down after people have seen it. If someone bought a share of stock in a movie on the stock market, they have to realize that eventually the movie will stop making money, and their share of stock won't be worth anything anymore. Instead, people invest in companies that have the potential to make new products, such as Disney or Apple.  So if you were envisioning seeing the ticker symbol of your movie going across the screen on CNBC, sorry, that's not going to happen.  However, you could theoretically sell shares to individual investors for a percentage of the profit. You figure out how much money you need to create the movie, and estimate how much profit you think the movie will earn. Then you find an investor (or group of investors) that is willing to give you the money you need in exchange for a percentage of the profit. Unlike a stock market investor, these investors won't be looking for the long-term growth potential of the resale value of the stock, but simply a share of the profit."""
"""What ETF or other security tracks closest to 30 year mortgage rates?""","""Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note. The CBOE Interest Rate 10-Year T-Note, TNX, is a security directly related to this rate. Divide the CBOE price of TNX by 10 to get the yield.  One can also track the  10Y T-Note yield at yahoo finance using ticker symbol (^TNX).   One can also track the  10Y T-Note yield at yahoo finance using ticker symbol (^TNX)."""
"""Should I include retirement funds in calculating my asset allocation?""","""I'd imagine that it's a small portion of the population that can have much of both. If one is saving a decent amount for retirement, say 10-15%, they aren't likely to have much else, aside from the house if included. For example, when I look at my 'pie chart' I get Retirement 72%, House 22%, everything else 6%.  Specific to your question, emergency funds should be just that, accessible for urgent matters, other short term needs, such as car fund, big TV fund, vacation, etc, also in non-risky cash (i.e. money funds CDs, etc) and the rest invested long term. The short need money isn't part of the long term asset allocation, to be specific."""
"""Why do stock prices of retailers not surge during the holidays?""","""That's a pretty good question for a six-year-old! In addition to the good answers which point out that expectations are priced in, let's deny the premises of the question: Sales do not increase the value of a company; a company could be, for example, losing money on every sale. Share prices are (at least in theory) correlated with profits.  So let's suppose that company X is unprofitable 320 days a year and is relying upon sales in late November and December to be in the black for the year. (Hence \""black Friday\"".)  Carefully examine the supposition of this scenario: we have a company that is so unprofitable that it must gamble everything on successfully convincing bargain hunting consumers in a weak economy to buy stuff they don't actually need from them and not a competitor. Why would this inspire investor confidence? There are plenty of companies that fail to meet their sales targets at Christmas, for plenty of reasons."""
"""Homeowners: How can you protect yourself from a financial worst-case scenario?""","""Think about your priorities in life.  Everybody is a little different.  In my case I have a wife and child, so these are priorities for me, and you might have your own depending on your story. So if I lost my job, and I have no more money coming in (unemployment insurance runs out, savings depleted) then the bank can have the house.  I personally would probably drop the house long before it came to that point. The first thing you do is talk to your creditors and work out a deal.  At the same time I would stop paying for ALL unnecessary things (cable TV, extra cell phones, automobiles, leaving light bulbs on and turning the heat up over putting on a sweater).  If I can't get a good deal from the creditors, I would stop paying the mortgage, find a place to live (family, friends, cheap apartment) while the credit is still good. My advice is to get yourself setup while your credit is good and you have SOME money in the bank.  Waiting until the bank decides to foreclose is probably going to make your harder."""
"""Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area?""","""This is known as \""Zone Pricing\"" or \""Geographical Pricing\"". http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2005\/jun\/19\/business\/fi-calprice19 Such price variations may seem odd, but they are not unique to Anaheim. On any given day, in any major U.S. city, a single brand of gasoline will sell for a wide range of prices even when the cost to make and deliver the fuel is the same. The primary culprit is zone pricing, a secret and pervasive oil company strategy to boost profits by charging dealers different amounts for fuel based on traffic volume, station amenities, nearby household incomes, the strength of competitors and other factors. It's a controversial strategy, but the courts have thus far deemed it legal, and the Federal Trade Commission recently said the effect on consumers was ambiguous because some customers got hurt by higher prices while others benefited from lower ones. http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Geographical_pricing Zone pricing, as practiced in the gasoline industry in the United States, is the pricing of gasoline based on a complex and secret weighting of factors, such as the number of competing stations, number of vehicles, average traffic flow, population density, and geographic characteristics. This can result in two branded gas stations only a few miles apart selling gasoline at a price differential of as much as $0.50 per gallon. But the short answer is \""because they can\"". It's legal, provided that some people are paying less while others are paying more. Essentially the larger, richer audience is subsidizing the product for other areas. It's not terribly different than the way most drugs are priced in the world."""
"""1.4 million cash. What do I do?""","""At 1.4 Million, you can definately afford a professional advisor who would give you the best advice taking into account all your goals and risk appetite."""
"""Non Resident Alien Spouse Treated As Resident - Self Employment Income""","""First, the SSN isn't an issue. She will need to apply for an ITIN together with tax filing, in order to file taxes as Married Filing Jointly anyway. I think you (or both of you in the joint case) probably qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, if you've been outside the US for almost the whole year, in which cases both of you should have all of your income excluded anyway, so I'm not sure why you're getting that one is better. As for Self-Employment Tax, I suspect that she doesn't have to pay it in either case, because there is a sentence in your linked page for Nonresident Spouse Treated as a Resident that says However, you may still be treated as a nonresident alien for the   purpose of withholding Social Security and Medicare tax. and since Self-Employment Tax is just Social Security and Medicare tax in another form, she shouldn't have to pay it if treated as resident, if she didn't have to pay it as nonresident. From the law, I believe Nonresident Spouse Treated as a Resident is described in IRC 6013(g), which says the person is treated as a resident for the purposes of chapters 1 and 24, but self-employment tax is from chapter 2, so I don't think self-employment tax is affected by this election."""
"""When are stock trade fees deducted?""","""As others have said, it depends on the brokerage firm.  My broker is Scottrade. With Scottrade the commission is assessed and applied the moment the order is filled. If I buy 100 shares of XYZ at $10 a share then Scottrade will immediately deduct $1007.02 out of my account. They add the commission and fees to the buy transaction. On a sale transaction they subtract the commission and fees from the resulting money. So if I sell 100 shares of XYZ at $11 a share I will get 1,092.98 put into my account, which I can use three business days later."""
"""What does it mean to long convexity of options?""","""Long convexity is achieved by owning long dated low delta options. When a significant move occurs in the underlying the volatility curve will move higher. Instead of a linear relationship between your long position and it's return, you receive a multiple of the linear return. For example: Share price $50 Long 1 (equals 100 shares) contract of a 2 year 100 call Assume this is a 5 delta option If the stock price rises to $70 the delta of the option will rise because it is now closer to the strike. Lets assume it is now a 20 delta option. Then  Expected return on a $20 price move higher, 100 shares($20)(.20-.05)=$300 However what happens is the entire volatility surface rises and causes the 20 delta option to be 30 delta option. Then The return on a $20 price move higher, 100 shares($20)(.30-.05)=$500 This $200 extra gain is due to convexity and explains why option traders are willing to pay above the theoretical price for these options."""
"""Are traders 100% responsible for a stock's price changes?""","""Yes, the value of a stock is completely, 100% determined by what people are willing to pay for it in conjunction with what people who have it are willing to sell it for. If something really bad happened to a company, like their only factory burned to the ground, and the traders didn't care, then I guess, in that scenario, the value of the stock would not change. But you can spin all sorts of hypotheticals of that sort. If dogs could talk, would German Shepherds speak German? Etc. Any answer is pretty meaningless because the premise is wildly unlikely. As CQM notes, \""traders\"" in this context means everyone who buys or sells stock. If you buy stock, that includes you. They're not some mystical cabal somewhere. If you see a stock listed at, whatever, $50, and you are not willing to pay more than $40 for it, then you refuse to buy, and so you tend to force the price down. If you're not a billionaire, then your impact on the market is tiny, but the market is made up of millions of people each with tiny influence. Note that all this is true not just of the stock market, but of every product on the market. A product is worth whatever the owner is willing to sell it for and people are willing to pay. This is what determines the price of everything from houses to toasters. It's a little theory I've invented that I like to call, \""the law of supply and demand\"". :-)"""
"""What economic growth rate is required to halve U.S. unemployment?""","""I believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published some numbers in this area... I cannot find them at the moment though. I think you need to take these numbers with a grain of salt, though, because they cannot account for productivity and automation improvements that are being aggressively implemented. Companies aren't just bloodletting -- they are refactoring business processes and automating thousands of jobs away."""
"""Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation?""","""If I were in your shoes (I would be extremely happy), here's what I would do: Get on a detailed budget, if you aren't doing one already. (I read the comments and you seemed unsure about certain things.)  Once you know where your money is going, you can do a much better job of saving it. Retirement Savings: Contribute up to the employer match on the 401(k)s, if it's greater than the 5% you are already contributing. Open a Roth IRA account for each of you and make the max contribution (around $5k each).  I would also suggest finding a financial adviser (w\/ the heart of a teacher) to recommend\/direct your mutual fund investing in those Roth IRAs and in your regular mutual fund investments. Emergency Fund With the $85k savings, take it down to a six month emergency fund.  To calculate your emergency fund, look at what your necessary expenses are for a month, then multiply it by six.  You could place that six month emergency fund in ING Direct as littleadv suggested.  That's where we have our emergency funds and long term savings.  This is a bare-minimum type budget, and is based on something like losing your job - in which case, you don't need to go to starbucks 5 times a week (I don't know if you do or not, but that is an easy example for me to use).  You should have something left over, unless your basic expenses are above $7083\/mo. Non-retirement Investing: Whatever is left over from the $85k, start investing with it. (I suggest you look into mutual funds) it.  Some may say buy stocks, but individual stocks are very risky and you could lose your shirt if you don't know what you're doing.  Mutual funds typically are comprised of many stocks, and you earn based on their collective performance. You have done very well, and I'm very excited for you. Child's College Savings: If you guys decide to expand your family with a child, you'll want to fund what's typically called a 529 plan to fund his or her college education.  The money grows tax free and is only taxed when used for non-education expenses.  You would fund this for the max contribution each year as well (currently $2k; but that could change depending on how the Bush Tax cuts are handled at the end of this year). Other resources to check out: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and the Dave Ramsey Show podcast."""
"""Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time?""","""As some others have pointed out, it's key to remember the difference in market value and accounting value.  To simplify things, book value is the only item that specifically depreciates... it happens in the world of accounting to try to time \""when did I use a long term asset?\"" with \""when did I obtain value from that asset?\"" For a house, governments usually allow owners to claim depreciation of the building over a set period of time. This does not affect your resale value of the house.  Similarly, for a commercial property, governments set laws for how an individual or a company can time the \""use\"" of that asset vs. their accounting. Some companies can have totally depreciated (\""zero cost\"") assets that are still very productive.   Market Property values are derived from 3 specific sources: Value in Trade is an estimate of the value that others would be willing to pay for a similar asset. That's why you can buy a house today, and in a \""normal\"" market, the same house should be worth a similar amount of money in the future. Value in Use can be more interesting... this is where a farmer can extract $100,000 in value per year from 10 acres of land. But as a region develops, a manufacturing company can generate $300,000 per year from the same 10 acres of land. The company can buy out the farmer at a 'fair' price (>$100,000 per year) and still net positive from the investment.  Income Approach tends to be focused on properties that have a cash flow, but can be adapted to other property estimates. It evaluates the current \""business case\"" for any property with the cost of money down, the overall investment price, and the expected value from any returns.  Remember, the market value is very simply, the price you could obtain if you sold the asset at a given time. It is rarely considered in terms of \""how much will this go down?\"".  Book value is an accounting exercise and declines by a set amount every year, because it means you can estimate the \""cost\"" of owning an asset vs the value it generates in a particular time period."""
"""Advantages\/disadvantages of buying stocks on dips vs buying outright?""","""Dollar-Cost averaging will allow you to reduce your risk while the stock prices falls provided: You must invest a fixed amount $X on a fixed time scale (i.e. every Y days). By doing this you will be able to take advantage of the lowering price by obtaining more shares per period as the price falls. But at the same time, if it starts to rise, you will already have your pig in the race.  Example: Suppose you wanted to invest $300 in a company. We will do so over 3 periods. As the price falls, your average dollar cost will as well. But since you don't know where the bottom is, you cannot wait until the bottom. By trying to guess the bottom and dumping all of your investment at once you expose yourself to a higher level of risk."""
"""23 and on my own, what should I be doing?""","""Congratulations on earning a great income. However, you have a lot of debt and very high living expenses. This will eat all of your income if you don't get a hold of it now. I have a few recommendations for you.  At the beginning of each month, write down your income, and write down all your expenses for the month. Include everything: rent, food, utilities, entertainment, transportation, loan payments, etc.  After you've made this plan for the month, don't spend any money that's not in the plan. You are allowed to change the plan, but you can't spend more than your income. Budgeting software, such as YNAB, will make this easier.  You are $51,000 in debt. That is a lot. A large portion of your monthly budget is loan payments. I recommend that you knock those out as fast as possible. The interest on these loans makes the debt continue to grow the longer you hold them, which means that if you take your time paying these off, you'll be spending much more than $51k on your debt. Minimize that number and get rid of them as fast as possible. Because you want to get rid of the debt emergency as fast as possible, you should reduce your spending as much as you can and pay as much as you can toward the debt. Pay off that furniture first (the interest rate on that \""free money\"" is going to skyrocket the first time you are late with a payment), then attack the student loans. Stay home and cook your own meals as much as possible. You may want to consider moving someplace cheaper.  The rent you are paying is not out of line with your income, but New York is a very expensive place to live in general.  Moving might help you reduce your expenses. I hope you realize at this point that it was pretty silly of you to borrow $4k for a new bedroom set while you were $47k in debt. You referred to your low-interest loans as \""free money,\"" but they really aren't. They all need to be paid back. Ask yourself: If you had forced yourself to save up $4k before buying the furniture, would you still have purchased the furniture, or would you have instead bought a used set on Craigslist for $200? This is the reason that furniture stores offer 0% interest loans. They got you to buy something that you couldn't afford. Don't take the bait again.  You didn't mention credit cards, so I hope that means that you don't owe any money on credit cards. If you do, then you need to start thinking of that as debt, and add that to your debt emergency. If you do use a credit card, commit to only charging what you already have in the bank and paying off the card in full every month. YNAB can make this easier.  $50\/hr and $90k per year are fairly close to each other when you factor in vacation and holidays. That is not including other benefits, so any other benefits put the salaried position ahead. You said that you have a few more years on your parents' health coverage, but there is no need to wait until the last minute to get your own coverage. Health insurance is a huge benefit. Also, in general, I would say that salaried positions have better job security. (This is no guarantee, of course. Anyone can get laid off. But, as a contractor, they could tell you not to come in tomorrow, and you'd be done. Salaried employees are usually given notice, severance pay, etc.) if I were you, I would take the salaried position.  Investing is important, but so is eliminating this debt emergency. If you take the salaried position, one of your new benefits will be a retirement program. You can take advantage of that, especially if the company is kicking in some money. (This actually is \""free money.\"") But in my opinion, if you treat the debt as an emergency and commit to eliminating it as fast as possible, you should minimize your investing at this point, if it helps you get out of debt faster. After you get out of debt, investing should be one of your major goals.  Now, while you are young and have few commitments, is the best time to learn to live on a budget and eliminate your debt. This will set you up for success in the future."""
"""Analyze stock value""","""A Bloomberg terminal connected to Excel provides the value correcting splits, dividends, etc. Problem is it cost around $25,000. Another one which is free and I think that takes care of corporate action is \""quandl.com\"". See an example here."""
"""Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it?""","""I'm guessing it depends on how much you'd be paying for membership. If you save more than the membership costs you and you actually use the products you buy and they don't get thrown away, then it's worth it. I'm not a member of a warehouse club but I do have a membership for another wholesale outlet, so I know a little bit about buying in bulk.  You need to take the same approach to buying goods wholesale as you would in an ordinary outlet, and do a few more things besides. Things like writing a list and sticking to it, making that list logically, so that you minimise the amount of time you spend walking around the shop. The less you see, the less you are likely to buy. Don't be taken in by offers, it's only a bargain if it's something you would have bought anyway. Don't shop on an empty stomach or with you children. And with bulk buying, you have to stick to things with long dates, unless your family gets through something at a phenomenal rate. Things like pet food are good, sugar too if you do a lot of home baking, that kind of thing. Toilet paper and kitchen roll are great to buy in bulk if you have the storage space and toothbrushes are good too. You'll always need them, always need to replace them, they don't take up much space and don't have a use by.  The rules differ from family to family. Look at what your family uses and how much time it takes to get through something. That's the best place to start."""
"""Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS""","""Intellectually and logically, it shouldn't bother me for a second to charge something for a buck.  It's a losing proposition for the merchant, but their immediate business costs should be of little concern to me.  (They're making a choice to sell that item to me at that price and by accepting that means of payment, right?)  but the more I charge as opposed to paying cash, the more cash back I get. In my old-ish age, I've gotten a little softer and will pay cash more often for smaller amounts because I understand the business costs, but it's not a matter of caring what other people think. Accepting credit cards, or not, is a business decision.  It's usually a good one.  But with that decision come the rules, which up until about a year ago, meant that merchants couldn't set a minimum charge amount.  Now that's not the case; merchant account providers can no longer demand that their merchant clients accept all charges, though they are allowed to set a minimum amount that is no lower than $10.00. In the end, it's a matter of how much you're willing to pay in order to influence people's thinking of you, because the business\/financial benefits of doing one or the other are pretty clear."""
"""How is gold shared in worldwide economies?""","""You might want to read about about the Coase Theorem.  \""In law and economics, the Coase theorem, attributed to Ronald Coase, describes the economic efficiency of an economic allocation or outcome in the presence of externalities. The theorem states that if trade in an externality is possible and there are no transaction costs, bargaining will lead to an efficient outcome regardless of the initial allocation of property rights. In practice, obstacles to bargaining or poorly defined property rights can prevent Coasian bargaining.\"" This is similar to what you are asking. Each country has an endowment of gold, and they must create a set amount of money to represent their endowment of gold. This will establish an exchange rate. If I have 5 tons of gold and you have 5 tons, and I print 10 dollars and you print 20, then one of my dollars is worth two of your dollars.  Thus, the amount of money is not relevant-  it's the exchange rate between the countries. If all the nations know each other's gold endowment, then we will have a perfect exchange rate. If we don't, then currency printing will vary but arbitrage should drive it to an accurate price.  Gold and diamonds are both valuable in part due to scarcity, but gold has been used as a measure of value because it's been historically used as a medium of exchange. People just realized that swapping paper was safer and cheaper than physically transporting gold, but the idea of gold as a measure of value is present because \""that's how it's always been.\"" Nobody \""creates\/supervises\"" these procedures, but organizations like the IMF, ECB, Fed Reserve, etc implement monetary policy to regulate the money supply and arbitrage drives exchange rates to fair values."""
"""US citizen married to non-resident alien; how do I file taxes?""","""From what you've described, your spouse is a non-resident alien for US tax purposes. You have two choices: Use the Nonresident Spouse Treated As Resident election and file as Married Filing Jointly. Since your spouse doesn't have, and doesn't currently qualify for, an SSN, he\/she will need to apply for an ITIN together with the tax filing. Note that by becoming a resident alien, your spouse's worldwide income the whole year would be subject to US taxes, and would need to be reported on your joint tax filing, though he\/she will be able to use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion to exclude $100k of her foreign earned income, since he\/she will have been out of the US for 330 days in a 12-month period. Or, file as Married Filing Separately. You write \""NRA\"" for your spouse's SSN on your tax return. As a nonresident alien, if your spouse doesn't have any US income, he\/she doesn't have to file a US tax return, and doesn't need to apply for an ITIN. Which one is better is up to you to figure out."""
"""Current accounts reward schemes and reciprocal standing orders?""","""I don't think it would be counted as income, and if it's a short-term loan it doesn't really matter as the notional interest on the loan would be negligible. But you can avoid any possible complications by just having two accounts in the name of the person trying to get the account benefits, particularly if you're willing to just provide the \""seed\"" money to get the loop started."""
"""Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund""","""I wouldn't pay down your mortgage faster until you have a huge emergency fund.  Like two years' worth of expenses.  Once you put extra money toward principal you can't get it out unless you get a HELOC, which costs money.  You're in a position now to build that up in a hurry.  I suggest you do so. Your mortgage is excellent.  In the land of inflation it gets easier and easier to make that fixed-dollar payment: depreciating dollars. You seem like a go-getter.  Once you have your huge emergency fund, why not buy a few websites and monetize the heck out of them?  Or look for an investment property from someone who needs to sell desperately? Get a cushion that you can do something with."""
"""When is it better to rent and when is better buy in a certain property market?""","""No magic answers here. Housing is a market, and the conditions in each local market vary. I think impact on cash flow is the best way to evaluate housing prices. In general, I consider a \""cheap\"" home to cost 20% or less of your income, \""affordable\"" between 20-30% and \""not affordable\"" over 30%. When you start comparing rent vs. buy, there are other factors that you need to think about: Renting is an easy transaction. You're comparing prices in  a market that is usually pretty stable, and your risk and liability is low. The \""cost\"" of the low risk is that you have virtually no prospects of recouping any value out of the cash that you are laying out for your home. Buying is more complex. You're buying a house, building equity and probably making money due to appreciation. You need to be vigilant about expenses and circumstances that affect the value of your home as an investment. If you live in a high-tax state like New York, an extra $1,200 in property taxes saps over $16,000 of buying (borrowing) power from a future purchaser of your home. If your HOA or condo association is run by a pack of idiots, you're going to end up paying through the nose for their mistakes. Another consideration is your tastes. If you tend to live above your means, you're not going to be able to afford necessary maintenance on the house that you paid too much for."""
"""Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money?""","""It appears that there's a confusion between the different types of average. Saying \""the average investor\"" generally means the most common type of small-scale unsophisticated investor - the mode (or possibly median) investor. However, while this class of investors is numerous, each of them has assets that are quite small compared to some other types of investors; and the market average performance is determined proportionally to the amount of assets held, not to the number of holders; so the performance of large investors \""counts\"" that much more. For any measure, the mode of performance can be (and often is) different from the mean performance - in this case, Dalbar is saying that the most common results are lower than the (weighed) average results."""
"""Priced out of London property market. What are my accommodation investment options?""","""Real Estate is all local. In the United States, I can show you houses so high the rent on them is less than 1\/3% of their value per month, eg. $1M House renting for less than $3500. I can also find 3 unit buildings (for say $200K) that rent for $3000\/mo total rents. I might want to live in that house, but buy the triplex to rent out. You need to find what makes sense, and not buy out of impulse.  A house to live in and a house to invest have two different sets of criteria. They may overlap, but if the strict Price\/Rent were universal, there would be no variation. If you clarify your goal, the answers will be far more valuable."""
"""What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?""","""Guns. Without them, any other conceivable asset would be taken from you. By someone with guns."""
"""Gigantic point amount on rewards card - what are potential consequences?""","""Of course, as a 'good' person (or maybe a 'stupid' person), I should call them, (wait 30 minutes in the queue), and then try to explain the issue to the service desk. I actually did that, and the guy thought I am nuts to even call, and told me to 'just use them they are yours now'. I don't feel like calling again and again until I get someone that believes it, just to return them their points. Calling generally does not solve this problem. You would need to write a letter using certified mail and send some reminders. Hopefully they should notice it, if not you at least have evidence that you have communicated. I could just toss the card and forget about it. However, I had quite some points on it that really belong to me, so that feels like I pay for their fault. There is no need. You can continue to use the card as usual. Use them and play stupid. This is not a good idea. They are clearly not yours. Somewhere in Terms and Conditions you will find some fine print about notifying Bank\/Financial Institution about the errors. Best course, after intimating informing them via letters, keep using your card as normal and use your points as normal. You would roughly know your points balance."""
"""Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock?""","""A more serious problem: how do you know who's really buying your stock? \""Shell companies\"" are an increasingly obvious problem in corporate and tax accountability. There are jurisdictions where companies can be created with secret lists of directors and shareholders. If stock is bought by one of these companies, it is very hard to trace it to a particular individual."""
"""What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? ""","""I suggest you to test AlauxSoft Accounts and Budget. This software is a money-like. There is a freeware and a shareware (24 EUR). You will find its at http:\/\/www.alauxsoft.com Best regards, Michel ALAUX."""
"""Ways to invest my saved money in Germany in a halal way?""","""What is not permitted in Islam is the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans that unfairly enrich the lender. Originally, usury meant interest of any kind. A loan may be considered usurious because of excessive or abusive interest rates or other factors. But In case of financial markets, people borrow money to make money and both parties benefits, and no one is taking advantage of the other. I may be wrong in interpreting this way, God knows the best."""
"""Why is being \""upside down\"" on a mortgage so bad?""","""The problem comes when the borrower cannot afford his home.  If a borrower buys more home than they can afford, as long as he can sell the house for more than he owes, he's not in a disastrous situation. He can sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and choose more affordable housing instead.  If he is upside-down on his home, he doesn't have that option. He's stuck in his home. If he sells it, he will have to come up with extra money to pay off the mortgage (which he doesn't have, because he is in a home he can't afford). It used to be commonplace for banks to issue mortgages for 100% of the value of the home. As long as the home keeps appreciating, everybody is happy. But if the house drops in value and the homeowner finds himself unable to make house payments, both the homeowner and the bank are at risk. Recent regulations in the U.S. have made no-down-payment mortgages less common."""
"""Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit?""","""If you have self control and a good handle on your finances, which it sounds like - I suggest the following: Note: #3 is important - if you're not able to pay it off each month don't do this because it will cost you a lot in interest. Make sure to check how interest is calculated in case you don't pay it off in full or miss the due date for a month. If you can do this you'll earn some good benefits from the card using money that you're going to spend anyway, as well as build your credit profile. Regarding annual fees -"""
"""I just \""paid\"" online with a debit card with no funds. What now?""","""There are a few factors at play here. Depending on the bank that has offered you the card there are different types of overdraft protection that may have been set up. Typically, if they attempt to run the card with no money, if one of these is in play, you will be spared any overdraft fees by the transaction charging to a designated overdraft account, usually savings, or by the transaction failing due to insufficient funds.  If you know the transaction went through, and you know there were not enough funds in the account to cover the transactions, then you have a few options. If you have overdraft protection that auto charges insufficient funds charges to a separate account, then you have nothing to worry about. If you do not, most banks offer a grace period where you have until the end of the day to zero out your account, that is to say pay the overdraft amount and bring your balance to at least $0.  If this is a charge that occurred in the past, and you have already been charged an overdraft fee, there may still be hope. I cannot speak for all banks, but I know that Chase Bank offers a once per year overdraft forgiveness, where they will get rid of the charges if you agree to bring the account out of the negative. There is a chance other banks will do the same if you call their customer service."""
"""Evidence For\/Against Real Estate Investing Vis-a-vis Investing in ETFs""","""Real Estate potentially has two components of profit, the increase in value, and the ongoing returns, similar to a stock appreciating and its dividends.   It's possible to buy both badly, and in the case of stocks, there are studies that show the typical investor lags the market by many percent.  Real estate is not a homogeneous asset class. A $200K house renting for $1,000 is a far different investment than a $100K 3 family renting for $2,000 total rents. Both exist depending on the part of the country you are in.  If you simply divide the price to the rent you get either 16.7X or 4.2X. This is an oversimplification, and of course, interest rates will push these numbers in one direction or another. It's safe to say that at any given time, the ratio can help determine if home prices are too high, a bargain, or somewhere in between.  As one article suggests, the median price tracks inflation pretty closely. And I'd add, that median home prices would track median income long term.  To circle back, yes, real estate can be a good investment if you buy right, find good tenants, and are willing to put in the time.  Note: Buying to rent and buying to live in are not always the same economic decision. The home buyer will very often buy a larger house than they should, and turn their own 'profit' into a loss. e.g. A buyer who would otherwise be advised to buy the $150K house instead of renting is talked into a bigger house by the real estate agent, the bank, the spouse. The extra cost of the $225K house is the 1\/3 more cost of repair, utilities, interest, etc. It's identical to needing a 1000 sq ft apartment, but grabbing one that's 1500 sq ft for the view."""
"""How does the Pension system work in Poland?""","""littleadv's answer gives a concise summary of the system as it stands now, but much more changed than just the portion of the mandatory contribution that was diverted to the private plan. In broad terms, the balances of your accounts and your future benefit won't change. It's only the source of these benefits that's changing. The Bloomberg article describes the changes this way: The state will take over the amount of bonds that pension funds held as of end of Sept. 3 and turn them into pension liabilities in the state-run social security system... The state will assume control of 51.5 percent of pension-fund assets, including bonds guaranteed by the government and \""other non-stock assets\"" After the change, Polish workers that held bonds in the private portion of their retirement portfolios will instead have more payments from the state-run pension system. The balances of your retirement portfolio and your future benefits shouldn't change, but the reality may depend on how the state pension system is managed and any future changes the government implements. The effect this change will have on future benefits isn't clear, because the change may simply delay the problem of high levels of outstanding sovereign debt, not solve it. The government stated that because increasing numbers of workers invested their money in private pension funds, less money went into the government's fund, which forced them to issue sovereign debt in order to cover the shortfall in their current pension liabilities.  The government's recent cancellation of government bonds in the hands of private pensions will decrease their overall outstanding debt, but in exchange, the government is increasing its future pension liabilities. Years down the road, the government may find that they need to issue more sovereign debt to cover the increased pension liabilities they're taking on today. In other words, they may find themselves back in the same situation years down the road, and it's difficult to predict what changes they might make at that time."""
"""How to calculate PE ratios for indices such as DJIA?""","""You could look up the P\/E of an equivalent ETF, or break the ETF into components and look those up. Each index has its own methodology, usually weighted by market cap.  See here: http:\/\/www.amex.com\/etf\/prodInf\/EtAllhold.jsp?Product_Symbol=DIA"""
"""What's a Letter of Credit? Are funds held in my bank for the amount in question?""","""Wikipedia has a detailed article explaining this. A standard, commercial letter of credit (LC) is a document issued mostly by a financial institution, used primarily in trade finance, which usually provides an irrevocable payment undertaking. So yes, they are primarily for use by businesses. If you will read the article stating the terms and conditions for payment and shipment you will realize that such model won't be of much value to and will create many hurdles for a typical consumer. Yes, you can cash a letter of credit but only once the conditions in the letter have been met (e.g., delivery\/shipment of goods\/services). An array of documents need to be presented as well. Whether it is easy or not is a very subjective question.  A bank will issue a letter of credit only when it is reasonably sure that its risk is covered --either backed by a bank deposit or by conditions in the letter itself. Obviously derivatives on these letters have evolved as well."""
"""The best credit card for people who pay their balance off every month""","""For people who are already a Costco member. The American Express TrueEarnings Business Card is a good choice. Note: If you don't own a business, just use your name as the business. The business card is better than the regular TrueEarnings card. Pros:"""
"""Can a company donate to a non-profit to pay for services arranged for before hand?""","""When you say \""donate\"", it usually assumes charitable donation with, in this context, tax benefit. That is not what happens in your scenario. Giving someone money with the requirement of that someone to spend that money at your shop is not donation. It is a grant. You can do that, but you won't be able to deduct this as charitable donation, but the money paid to you back would be taxable income to you. I respectfully disagree with Joe that its a wash. It is not. You give them money that you cannot deduct as an expense (as it is not business expense) or donation (as strings are attached). But you do give them the money, it is no longer yours. When they use the money to pay you back - that same money becomes your taxable income. End result: you provide service, and you're the one paying (taxes) for it. Why would you do that?"""
"""Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \""Buy Low, Sell High\""?""","""Obviously a stock that's hit a high is profit waiting to be taken, be safe, take the money, Sell Sell Sell!! Ah.. but wait, they say \""run your winners, cut your losers\"", so here this stock is a winner... keep on to it, Hold Hold Hold!!!!! Of course, if you're holding, then you think it's going to return even higher.... Buy Buy Buy!!!! So,  hope that's clears things up for you - Sell, Hold, or maybe Buy :-) A more serious answer is not ever to worry about past performance, if its gone past a reasonable valuation then consider selling, but never care about selling out just because its reached some arbitrary share price. If you are worried about losses, you might like to set a trailing stop and sell if it drops, but if you're a LTBH type person, just keep it until you feel it is overvalued compared to its fundamentals."""
"""Conservative ways to save for retirement?""","""Dividend reinvestment plans are a great option for some of your savings. By making small, regular investments, combined with reinvested dividends, you can accumulate a significant nest egg. Pick a medium to large cap company that looks to be around for the foreseeable future, such as JNJ, 3M, GE, or even Exxon. These companies typically raise their dividends every year or so, and this can be a significant portion of your long term gains. Plus, these programs are usually offered with miniscule fees. Also, have a go at the interest rate formulas contained in your favorite spreadsheet application. Calculate the FutureValue of a series of payments at various interest rates, to see what you can expect. While you cannot depend on earning a specific rate with a stock investment, a basic familiarity with the formula can help you determine a rate of return you should aim for."""
"""Why do I get a much better price for options with a limit order than the ask price?""","""What you have to remember is that Options are derivatives of another asset like stocks for example.  The price of the Option is derived from the price of the underlying. If the underlying is a stock for example, as the price of the stock moves up and down during the trading day, so will the Market Maker's fair value for the Option.  As Options are usually less liquid than the underlying stock, Market Makers are usually more active in 'Providing a Market' with Options. Thus if you place a limit order half way between the current Bid and Ask and the underlying stock price moves towards your limit order, the Market Maker will do their job and 'Provide a Market' at that price, thus executing your order."""
"""Trading : how to deal with crashes (small or big)""","""You can buy out of the money put options that could minimize your losses (or even make you money)  in the event of a huge crash. Put options are good in that you dont have to worry about not getting filled, or not knowing what price you might get filled with a stop-loss order, however, put options cost money and their value decays over time. It's just like buying insurance, you always have to pay up for it."""
"""Whats the difference between day trading and flipping and their tax implications?""","""Flipping usually refers to real-estate transaction: you buy a property, improve\/renovate\/rehabilitate it and resell it quickly. The distinction between flipper and investor is similar to the distinction between trader and investor, even though the tax code doesn't explicitly refer to house flipping. Gains on house flipping can be considered as active business gain or passive activity income, which are treated differently: passive income goes on Schedule E and Schedule D, active income goes on Schedule C. The distinction between passive and active is based on the characteristics of the activity (hours you spent on it, among other things). Trading income can similarly be considered as either passive (Schedule D\/E treatment) or active (Schedule C treatment). Here's what the IRS has to say about traders: Special rules apply if you are a trader in securities, in the business   of buying and selling securities for your own account. This is   considered a business, even though you do not maintain an inventory   and do not have customers. To be engaged in business as a trader in   securities, you must meet all of the following conditions: The following facts and circumstances should be considered in   determining if your activity is a securities trading business: If the nature of your trading activities does not qualify as a   business, you are considered an investor... Investor, in this context, means passive income treatment (Schedule D\/E). However, even if your income is considered active (Schedule C), stock sale proceeds are not subject to the self-employment tax. As you can see, there's no specific definition, but the facts and circumstances matter. You may be considered a trader by the IRS, or you may not. You may want to be considered a trader (for example to be able to make a mark-to-market election), or you may not. You should talk to a professional tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) for more details and suggestions."""
"""List of Investments from safest to riskiest?""","""I think your premise is slightly flawed. Every investment can add or reduce risk, depending on how it's used. If your ordering above is intended to represent the probability you will lose your principal, then it's roughly right, with caveats. If you buy a long-term government bond and interest rates increase while you're holding it, its value will decrease on the secondary markets. If you need\/want to sell it before maturity, you may not recover your principal, and if you hold it, you will probably be subject to erosion of value due to inflation (inflation and interest rates are correlated). Over the short-term, the stock market can be very volatile, and you can suffer large paper losses. But over the long-term (decades), the stock market has beaten inflation. But this is true in aggregate, so, if you want to decrease equity risk, you need to invest in a very diversified portfolio (index mutual funds) and hold the portfolio for a long time. With a strategy like this, the stock market is not that risky over time. Derivatives, if used for their original purpose, can actually reduce volatility (and therefore risk) by reducing both the upside and downside of your other investments. For example, if you sell covered calls on your equity investments, you get an income stream as long as the underlying equities have a value that stays below the strike price. The cost to you is that you are forced to sell the equity at the strike price if its value increases above that. The person on the other side of that transaction loses the price of the call if the equity price doesn't go up, but gets a benefit if it does. In the commodity markets, Southwest Airlines used derivatives (options to buy at a fixed price in the future) on fuel to hedge against increases in fuel prices for years. This way, they added predictability to their cost structure and were able to beat the competition when fuel prices rose. Even had fuel prices dropped to zero, their exposure was limited to the pre-negotiated price of the fuel, which they'd already planned for. On the other hand, if you start doing things like selling uncovered calls, you expose yourself to potentially infinite losses, since there are no caps on how high the price of a stock can go. So it's not possible to say that derivatives as a class of investment are risky per se, because they can be used to reduce risk. I would take hedge funds, as a class, out of your list. You can't generally invest in those unless you have quite a lot of money, and they use strategies that vary widely, many of which are quite risky."""
"""Negative properties of continuously compounded returns""","""What you're missing is the continuous compounding computation doesn't work that way.  If you compound over n periods of time and a rate of return of r, the formula is e^(r*n), as you have to multiply the returns together with a mulitplicative base of 1.  Otherwise consider what 0 does to your formula.  If I get a zero return, I have a zero result which doesn't make sense.  However, in my formula I'd still get the 1 which is what I'm starting and thus the no effect is the intended result. Continuous compounding would give e^(-.20*12) = e^(-2.4) = .0907 which is a -91% return so for each $100 invested, the person ends up with $9.07 left at the end.  It may help to picture that the function e^(-x) does asymptotically approach zero as x tends to infinity, but that is as bad as it can get, so one doesn't cross into the negative unless one wants to do returns in a Complex number system with imaginary numbers in here somehow. For those wanting the usual compounding, here would be that computation which is more brutal actually: For your case it would be (1-.20)^12=(0.8)^12=0.068719476736 which is to say that someone ends up with 6.87% in the end.  For each $100 had in the beginning they would end with $6.87 in the end. Consider someone starting with $100 and take 20% off time and time again you'd see this as it would go down to $80 after the first month and then down to $64 the second month as the amount gets lower the amount taken off gets lower too.  This can be continued for all 12 terms.  Note that the second case isn't another $20 loss but only $16 though it is the same percentage overall. Some retail stores may do discounts on discounts so this can happen in reality.  Take 50% off of something already marked down 50% and it isn't free, it is down 75% in total.  Just to give a real world example where while you think a half and a half is a whole, taking half and then half of a half is only three fourths, sorry to say.  You could do this with an apple or a pizza if you want a food example to consider. Alternatively, consider the classic up and down case where an investment goes up 10% and down 10%.  On the surface, these should cancel and negate each other, right?  No, in fact the total return is down 1% as the computation would be (1.1)(.9)=.99 which is slightly less than 1. Continuous compounding may be a bit exotic from a Mathematical concept but the idea of handling geometric means and how compounding returns comes together is something that is rather practical for people to consider."""
"""Is unrealized gain part of asset?""","""There's an expression, \""stock prices have no memory.\"" Apple trades at about $115. Why would I carry my shares at anything but $115 even though I paid say $75 a share, while you just bought it at $115?  The only difference, perhaps, is that if I hold them in a non retirement account, I might track the net I'd have, post tax."""
"""How to maximize small business 401k contribution?""","""I would hire an accountant to help set this up, given the sums of money involved.  $53,000 would be the minimum amount of compensation needed to maximize the 401k. The total limit of contributions is the lesser of: 100% of the participant's compensation, or $53,000 ($59,000 including catch-up contributions) for 2015 and 2016. and they don't count contributions as compensation Your employer's contributions to a qualified retirement plan for you   are not included in income at the time contributed. (Your employer can   tell  you  whether  your  retirement  plan  is  qualified.) On the bright side, employer contributions aren't subject to FICA withholdings."""
"""why would someone buy or sell just a few shares in stocks ""","""Simple, there is no magic price adjustment after sales - why do you expect the stock price to change? The listed price of a stock is what someone was willing to pay for it in the last deal that was concluded. If any amount of stock changes ownership, this might have the effect that other people are willing to buy it for a higher price - or not. It is solely in the next buyer's decision what he is willing to pay. Example: if you think Apple stocks are worth 500$ a piece, and I buy a million of them, you might still think they are worth 500$. Or you might see this as a reason that they are worth 505$ now."""
"""Repaying Debt and Saving - Difficult Situation""","""She seems to be paying an inordinate amount of money for car payments. $850\/month is just too high. She may be able to get by on public transit, depending on where she lives, but if not, she needs to look at selling her car and picking up a cheap second-hand vehicle. Public transit would probably save her $750\/month. Going to a cheaper car should still save her $300 - $400\/month. Next, phone and cable. These are certainly nice, but they are rarely necessities. I do not have cable t.v., for example. I do have a cell phone, and I do have Internet (a requirement of my job), but no cable t.v. She may be able to save some money there. My guess is that she could save $125\/month here, though I may be biased on how much it costs to heat a Canadian home in our cold, cold winters. And, of course, the college payment. $900 - $1000 a month? I understand that she is paying this so that your sister can attend college. That's very nice, but it certainly sounds like your mother cannot afford that. On the other hand, if this is repayment of college expenses already incurred, there may be no choice here. Rent, at $1625\/month. I have no idea what that gets you in NJ, but perhaps she could rent out a room. It's not inconceivable that she could bring in $1000\/month from doing so, though obviously that's going to very much depend on the real estate\/rental market where you live. Alternatively, she could move out and move in with someone else and that should certainly get her share of the rent down to $800 - $1000\/month or thereabouts, and most likely cut her utility bills, also. I've identified a number of places where she can save money. No doubt, the budget is tight, but I think she's spending on far more than just bare essentials. One thing that concerns me here is that she appears to have no emergency funds and very little for entertainment, other than cable t.v. If at all possible, she needs to cut her budget down so that she is not living paycheque to paycheque and has money to cover, for example, emergency car repairs. And I'd really like to see her have more than $50\/month for expenses (which I'm guessing is entertainment). It may not be possible, of course, but I would most definitely say she should not be paying for your sister's college if this places her in such dire financial risk. Easier said than done, of course. Most certainly, I would not even consider cutting the health insurance, by the way. Another approach would be to look at how her expenses will go down when your sister is done school and perhaps cleared up other expenses. It may be worth borrowing from family and friends, knowing that in a year, her expenses will go down $500\/month. That makes her budget manageable. Additionally, the debt repayment presumably will finish at some point. The point I'm trying to make is that, in a year, her budget will be just about manageable, and she may be able to get there with smaller trims in the immediate future."""
"""Should I replace bonds in a passive investment strategy""","""Bonds still definitely have a place in many passive portfolios.  While it is true that interest rates have been unusually low, yields on reasonable passive bond exposures are still around 2-4%.  This is significantly better than both recent past inflation and expected inflation both of which are near zero.   This is reasonable if not great return, but Bonds continue to have other nice properties like relatively low risk and diversification of stock portfolios (the \""offset[ing] losses\"" you mention in the OP).  So to say that bonds are \""no longer a good idea\"" is certainly not correct.  One could say bonds may no longer be a good idea for some people that have a particularly high risk tolerance and very high return requirements. However, to some extent, that has always been true. It is worth remembering also that there is some compelling evidence that global growth is starting to broadly slow down and many people believe that future stock returns and, in general, returns on all investments will be lower.  This is much much harder to estimate than bond returns though.  Depending on who you believe, bond returns may actually look relatively better than the have in the past. Edit in response to comment:  Corporate bond correlation with stocks is positive but generally not very strong (except for high-yield junk bonds) so while they don't offset stock volatility (negative correlation) they do help diversify a stock portfolio.  Government bonds have essentially zero correlation so they don't really offset volatility as much as just not add any.  Negative correlation assets are generally called insurance and you tend to have to pay for them.  So there is no free lunch here.  Assets that reduce risk cost money, assets that add little risk give less return and assets that are more risky tend to give more return in the long run but you can feel the pain.  The mix that is right for you depends on a lot of things, but for many people that mix involves some corporate and government bonds."""
"""Reinvesting dividends and capital gains""","""I have found The DRiP Investing Resource Center to be a useful resource for more information about DRIP investing.  Moneypaper.com offers a list of companies offering both direct purchase options and dividend reinvestment plans. For those offering dividend reinvestment plans, but not direct purchase, you have the option of using a service to purchase your first shares to enroll in the DRIP program.  The tax paperwork for DRIPs is a pain due to the partial shares purchased over time when you have to figure out your own cost basis upon sale of shares , but a spreadsheet and a FIFO (first in first out) approach makes it not too much of a headache.   -MU"""
"""Taxes due for hobbyist Group Buy""","""From the poster's description of this activity, it doesn't look like he is engaged in a business, so Schedule C would not be appropriate. The first paragraph of the IRS Instructions for Schedule C is as follows: Use Schedule C (Form 1040) to report income or loss from a business   you operated or a profession you practiced as a sole proprietor. An   activity qualifies as a business if your primary purpose for engaging   in the activity is for income or profit and you are involved in the   activity with continuity and regularity. For example, a sporadic   activity or a hobby does not qualify as a business. To report income   from a nonbusiness activity, see the instructions for Form 1040, line   21, or Form 1040NR, line 21. What the poster is doing is acting as a nominee or agent for his members. For instance, if I give you $3.00 and ask you to go into Starbucks and buy me a pumpkin-spice latte, you do not have income or receipts of $3.00, and you are not engaged in a business. The amounts that the poster's members are forwarding him are like this.  Money that the poster receives for his trouble should be reported as nonbusiness income on Line 21 of Form 1040, in accordance with the instructions quoted above and the instructions for Form 1040. Finally, it should be noted that the poster cannot take deductions or losses relating to this activity. So he can't deduct any expenses of organizing the group buy on his tax return. Of course, this would not be the case if the group buy really is the poster's business and not just a \""hobby.\"" Of course, it goes without saying that the poster should document all of this activity with receipts, contemporaneous emails (and if available, contracts) - as well as anything else that could possibly be relevant to proving the nature of this activity in the event of an audit."""
"""Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market?""","""There is no single 'market interest rate'; there are myriad interest rates that vary by risk profile & term. Corporate bonds are (typically) riskier than bank deposits, and therefore pay a higher effective rate when the market for that bond is in equilibrium than a bank account does. If you are willing to accept a higher risk in order gain a higher return, you might choose bonds over bank deposits. If you want an even higher return and can accept even higher risk, you might turn to stocks over bonds. If you want still higher return and can bear the still higher risk, derivatives may be more appealing than stocks."""
"""Should I pay myself a dividend or a salary?""","""In cases like this you should be aware that tax treaties may exist and that countries are generally willing to enter into them. Their purpose is to help prevent double taxation. Tax treaties often times give you a better tax rate than even being a resident of the countries in question! (For instance, the Italy to US tax rate is lower than simply doing business in many United States)  This should guide your google search, here is something I found for Germany\/Spain http:\/\/tmagazine.ey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/2011G_CM2300_Spain-Germany-sign-new-tax-treaty.pdf It appears that the dividend tax rate under that treaty is 5% , to my understanding, the income tax rates are often multiples higher! I read that spain's income tax rate is 18%  So what I would do is see if there is the possibility of deferring taxes in the lower tax jurisidiction and then doing a large one time dividend when conveninet. But Germany isn't really known for its low taxes, being a Federal Republic, the taxes are levied by both the states and the federal government. Look to see if your business structure can avoid being taxed as the entity level: ie. your business' earnings are always distributed to the owners - which are not germany citizens or residents - as dividends. So this way you avoid Germany's 15% federal corporate tax, and you avoid Spain's 18% income tax, and instead get Spanish dividends at 5% tax. Anyway, contact a tax attorney to help interpret the use of the regulations, but this is the frame of mind you should be thinking in. Because it looks like spain is willing to do a tax credit if you pay taxes in germany, several options here to lower your tax footprint."""
"""Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply?""","""Put Options for Kids: You have a big box of candy bars. You saved up your allowance to get a lot of them, so you could have one whenever you want one. But, you just saw a commercial on TV for a new toy coming out in one month. Your allowance alone won't buy it, and you want that toy more than you want the candy. So, you decide that you'll sell the candy to your friends at school to buy the toy. Now, you have a choice. You can sell the candy now, and put the money in your piggy bank to buy the toy later. Or, you can save the candy, and sell it in a month when you actually need the money to buy the toy. You know that if you sell all the candy you have today, you can get 50 cents a bar. That's not quite enough to buy the toy, but your allowance will cover the rest.  What you don't know is how much you might be able to sell the candy for in a month. You might be able to get 75 cents a bar. If you did, you could pay for the toy with just the money from the candy and even have some left over. But, you might only be able to sell them for 25 cents each, and you wouldn't have enough to buy the toy even with your allowance. You'd like to wait and see if you could get 75 cents each, but you don't want to risk getting only 25 cents each. So, you go to your father. He and his co-workers like these candy bars too, so he'd be willing to buy them all and sell them to his friends the way you're planning to do with yours. You ask for the option to sell him all the candy bars for 50 cents each in one month. If you find out you can get more for them at school, you want to be able to take that deal, but if you can't sell them for 50 cents at school, you'll sell them to your dad. Now, your dad knows that he could have the same problem selling the candy at 50 cents or more that you are afraid of. So, he offers a compromise. If you pay him $5 now, he'll agree to the deal. You figure that even without that $5, between your allowance and the candy money, you can still buy the toy. So, you take the deal.  In one month, you can offer the candy at school. If nobody will pay 50 cents, you can sell the candy to your dad when you get home, but if the kids at school will pay 50 cents or more, you can sell it all at school. Either way, you have enough money to buy the toy, and you can also choose which price to accept, but you had to pay your dad $5, and you can't get that back, so if it turns out that you can sell the candy at school for 50 cents, same as today, then because you paid the $5 you don't end up with as much as if you'd simply waited. In the financial market, this type of option is a \""put option\"". Someone who owns something that's traded on the market, like a stock, can arrange to sell that stock to someone else at an agreed-on price, and the seller can additionally pay some money to the buyer up front for the option to not sell at that price. Now, if the stock market goes up, the seller lets the contract expire and sells his stock on the open market. If it goes down, he can exercise the option, and sell at the agreed-upon price to the buyer. If, however, the stock stays about the same, whether he chooses to sell or not, the money the seller paid for the option means he ends up with less than he would have if he hadn't bought the option. Call Options for Kids: Let's say that you see another ad on TV for another toy that you like, that was just released. You check the suggested retail price on the company's web site, and you see that if you save your allowance for the next month, you can buy it. But, in school the next day, everybody's talking about this toy, saying how they want one. Some already have enough money, others are saving up and will be able to get it before you can. You're afraid that because everyone else wants one, it'll drive up the price for them at the local store, so that your month's allowance will no longer buy the toy. So, you go to your dad again. You want to be able to use your allowance money for the next month to buy the new toy. You're willing to wait until you actually have the money saved up before you get the toy, but you need that toy in a month. So, you want your dad to buy one for you, and hold it until you can save up to buy it from him. But, you still want it both ways; if the price goes down in a month because the toy's not so new anymore and people don't want it, you don't want to spend your entire month's allowance buying the one from your dad; you just want to go to the store and buy one at the lower price. You'll pay him $5 for the trouble, right now, whether you buy the toy he got you or not. Your dad doesn't want to have a toy he's not using sitting around for a month, especially if you might not end up buying it from him, so he offers a different deal; In one month, if you still want it, he'll stop by the store on his way home and pick up the toy. You'll then reimburse him from the allowance you saved up; if it ends up costing less than a month's allowance, so be it, but if it costs more than that, you won't have to pay any more. This will only cost you $3, because it's easier for him. But, because he's not buying it now, there is a small chance that the item will be out of stock when he goes to buy it, and you'll have to wait until it's back in stock. You agree, on the condition that if you have to wait longer than a month for your toy, because he couldn't get one to sell you, he pays you back your $3 and knocks another $5 off the cost to buy the toy from him. The basic deal to buy something at an agreed price, with the option not to do so, is known as a \""call option\"". Someone who wishes to buy some stocks, bonds or commodities at a future date can arrange a deal with someone who has what they want to buy them at a specific price. The buyer can then pay the seller for the option to not buy. The counter-offer Dad made, where he will buy the toy from the store at whatever price he can find it, then sell it to you for the agreed price, is known as a \""naked call\"" in finance. It simply means that the seller, who is in this case offering the option to the buyer, doesn't actually have what they are agreeing to sell at the future date, and would have to buy it on the open market in order to turn around and sell it. This is typically done when the seller is confident that the price will go down, or won't go up by much, between now and the date of the contract. In those cases, either the buyer won't exercise the option and will just buy what they want on the open market, or they'll exercise the option, but the difference between what the seller is paying to buy the commodity on the market and what he's getting by selling it on contract is within the price he received for the option itself. If, however, the price of an item skyrockets, the seller now has to take a significant, real loss of money by buying something and then selling it for far less than he paid. If the item flat-out isn't available, the buyer is usually entitled to penalties for the seller's failure to deliver. If this is all understood by both parties, it can be thought of as a form of insurance."""
"""Looking for good investment vehicle for seasonal work and savings""","""In the short-term, a savings account with an online bank can net you ~1% interest, while many banks\/credit unions with local branches are 0.05%. Most of the online savings accounts allow 6 withdrawals per month (they'll let you do more, but charge a fee), if you pair it with a checking account, you can transfer your expected monthly need in one or two planned transfers to your checking account. Any other options that may result in a higher yield will either tie up your money for a set length of time, or expose you to risk of losing money. I wouldn't recommend gambling on short-term stock gains if you need the money during the off-season."""
"""Bond ETFs vs actual bonds""","""ETFs are just like any other mutual fund; they hold a mix of assets described by their prospectus. If that mix fits your needs for diversification and the costs of buying\/selling\/holding are low, it's as worth considering as a traditional fund with the same mix. A bond fund will hold a mixture of bonds. Whether that mix is sufficiently diversified for you, or whether you want a different fund or a mix of funds, is a judgement call. I want my money to take care of itself for the most part, so most of the bond portion is in a low-fee Total Bond Market Index fund (which tries to match the performance of bonds in general). That could as easily be an ETF, but happens not to be."""
"""$65000\/year or $2500 every two weeks: If I claim 3 exemptions instead of zero, how much would my take home pay be?""","""It will usually take a week or two for changes to your withholding to take effect in payroll.  However 0 deductions will withhold more per check than 3.  So if at 0 deductions you are having to pay in April then I would suggest not changing your W2 to 3 deductions.  Instead in the section for extra with holding add $25 per week.  This should leave you with a more manageable return in April."""
"""Why companies appear in several stock exchanges?""","""The case you are looking at is rather special, because the Chinese government for the longest time did not allow foreigners to invest in Chinese stocks. The ADRs explained in @DStanley's answer are a way around that restriction; recently there are some limited official ways,  In general, it is perfectly normal for a stock to appear on different exchanges, in different currencies, and it's all the \""real\"" stock. Because remember: a stock exchange is really nothing more than a fancy place for people to buy and sell stocks. There is absolutely no reason why a specific stock should only be traded in one place. Companies that have decided to be publically tradeable generally want to be traded in as many exchanges as possible, because it makes the stock more liquid, which helps their shareholders. Individual exchanges have different requirements for a stock to be listed for trading there, some may even do it without the company's explicit approval."""
"""Why do some people say a house \""not an investment\""?""","""There's an old saying:  \""Never invest in anything that eats or needs maintenance.\"" This doesn't mean that a house or a racehorse or private ownership of your own company is not an investment.  It just points out that constant effort is needed on your part, or on the part of somebody you pay, just to keep it from losing value.  Common stock, gold, and money in the bank are three things you can buy and leave alone.  They may gain or lose market value, but not because of neglect on your part. Buying a house is a complex decision.  There are many benefits and many risks. Other investments have benefits and risks too."""
"""Difference between Vanguard sp500 UCITS and Vanguard sp500""","""The main difference is that VOO trades on US stock exchanges while VUSA\/VUSD trade on the London Stock Exchange.  (VUSA is listed in British pounds while VUSD is listed in US dollars.) They are essentially the same product, but the fees and legal hurdles for a European citizen to trade on the LSE may be quite different from those on US stock exchanges."""
"""First time home buyer. How to negotiate price?""","""Advice from a long-time flipper You negotiate price based on four factors and none of these are set in stone: How much you love the house.  Is this house a 100 out of 100 for you or a 85 or a 75.  How much have you compromised. What is the likelihood that you will find a house that will make you just as happy or at least close.  You might have a house that is a 95 out of 100 but there are five other houses that you rated between 93-95.   What is your timeframe.  Know that playing hardball takes longer and can knock you out of the game sometimes and takes a little while to find a new game. What is the relative housing market.  Zillow and other such sites are crap.  Yes the give you a generalized feel for a community but their estimates are off sometimes by 30-40%.  Other factors like street\/noise\/updates to house\/ and so on are huge factors.  You will have to really navigate the area and look for very comparable houses that have recently sold.  Then use average housing movements to extrapolate your future houses cost. As a buyer you have two jobs.  Buy the house you want and manage your agent.  Your agent wants you to buy a house as soon as possible and to increase their reputation.  Those are their only two factors of working.   By you offering closer to the asking price they are able to get their sales as quick as possible.  Also other agents will love working with them.  In fact your agent is selling you on the home and the price.  Agents hardly worry about you paying too much - as most buyers oversell the deal they get on their home.  Admitting that you paid too much for your house is more of an admission of ignorance of yourself, compared to agent incompetency. If you decide to low-ball the owner, your agent spends more time with you and possibly reduces their reputation with the selling agent.  So it is common for agents to tell you that you should not offer a low price as you will insult the owner. My advice.  Unless the home is truly one of a kind for the market offering anything within 20% of the asking price is DEFINITELY within range.  I have offered 40% less.  If a house is asking too much and has been on the market for 8 months there is no way I am going in with an offer of even 15% lower.  That leaves you no room.   What you do? First think about how much you think this house could sell for in the next 3 months.  In your example let's say 80K based on conservative comps.  Then take the most you would actually pay for it.  Let's say 75K.  70K is about as high of an opening offer I would go.   Do NOT tell your agent your true breaking points.  If you tell your agent that you would go to 75K on the house.  Then that is what their negotiations will start at.  Remember they want the sale to happen as soon as possible.  Very likely the other agent - especially if they know each other - will ask if how flexible you are going to be.  Then next thing you know your agent calls you back and says would you be willing to go 77K or the owner is firm at 80K. Do not give up your position.  You should never forecast to your agent what your next bid or offer would be for the house.  Never get into scenarios or future counters.   So you offer 70K.  If your agent asks you how firm that is?  \""Very firm\"".  If your agent doesn't want to take the offer to them, \""Thank you for being my agent, but I am going to be working with someone that represents what I want.\""   If the owner says \""You are done too me cheapskate.\""  Well that's how it goes.  If the owner stays firm at asking or lowers - then you can come up if you feel comfortable doing so.  But understand what your goal is.  Is it to get a house or to get a good deal on a house?  Mine was always to get a good deal on a house.  So I might offer 72K next.  If they didn't budge, I am out.  If they moved down I went from there.   Easy Summary The fact is if they aren't willing to negotiate with you enough it always ends the same.  You give them your take-it-or-leave-it offer.  You tell your agent that if he\/she comes back with one penny over it comes from their commission (god I have said this 100 times in my life and it is the best negotiation tactic you have with your agent).  The owner says yes or no and it is over."""
"""Are PINs always needed for paying with card?""","""As far as I'm aware, PINs are only used for in-person transactions, not 'remote' (over the Internet or phone)."""
"""Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment?""","""An old question... but the recent answer for me turned out to be Check (formerly Pageonce) https:\/\/check.me\/ (NOTE: Check was recently purchased by Intuit and is now MintBills) The only thing Check doesn't do that PayTrust did was accept paper bills from payees that couldn't do eBill... but that's a rare problem anymore (for me anyways).  I went through each of my payees in PayTrust and added them into Check, it found almost all of them... I added my security info for their logins, and it was setup. The few that Check couldn't find, it asked me for the details and would contact them to try and get it setup... but in the meantime I just added them to my bank's billpay system with automatic payment rules (my mortgage company was the only one it couldn't find, and I know what my mortgage is every month so it's easy to setup a consistent rule) Check does so much more than PayTrust will ever do... Check has a MOBILE APP, and it is really the centerpiece of the whole system... you never really log into the website from your desktop (except to setup all the payees)... most of the time you just get alerts on your phone when a bill is due and you just click \""pay\"" and choose a funding source, and bam you're done. It's been awesome so far... I highly recommend dumping PayTrust for it! FYI:  Check is clearly winning at this point, but some of the competition are  are http:\/\/manilla.com (not sure if you can pay your bills through them though) and DoxoPay ( https:\/\/www.doxo.com\/posts\/pay-your-bills-on-the-go-with-mobile-doxopay-new-android-app-and-an-updated-iphone-app\/ )"""
"""Is it a gift or not?""","""Part of 'consideration', I imagine, would be the obligation of either party to follow through on an agreement, not only fair market value. Look at the thought experiment from the opposite perspective.  If you did not pay him $150 (maybe just $50 or even $0), would you be breaking a contractual obligation to him?  If he left after 2 hours because he forgot about a family event and did not finish your move, would he be breaking a contractual obligation to you even if you gave him $150? It seems it can be considered a gift (Update: in all cases) There was no agreement of what either party viewed as full consideration in a mutual exchange.   To put it another way: From your examples, there is no evidence that the performance of either party hinged on receiving mutual consideration from the other.  More Updates from comments: Patterns Matter Similarly to how the IRS may determine W2 employee vs independent contractor, patterns do matter.  If your friend has a pattern of helping people move in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in gifts every year, the IRS would view that in a different light. A waitress\/waiter has a pattern of accepting 'gifts' of tips in exchange for good service as a part of their established job duties. If you gifted your friend with $150\/week when they watched your kids every Monday-Wednesday, that would be different. You are establishing a pattern, and I would suggest you may be establishing mutual consideration. In that case, consult a professional if you are worried. Amounts Matter This is why the gift tax exemption was created. The IRS does not care about the amounts in question here. It is too much of a burden to track and account for transactions that are this questionable and this small.  You gift your friend with a $20k car? Now you need to pay attention. Consult your CPA. You gift your friend $1k for helping build your new deck? The IRS does not care. Intent Matters Even in the first case, it is not necessarily true that your friend considers $150 to be mutual consideration for his services. Would he open a business where he offers that rate to the general public? I doubt it. He intends to gift you services out of his own free will, not because there will be an equitable exchange of value.  The intent of both parties is to give a gift. There is no evidence that would suggest otherwise to the IRS, it seems, even if they cared in the first place."""
"""Income tax exemptions for small business?""","""Yes, you should be able to deduct at least some of these expenses.  For expense incurred before you started the business: What Are Deductible Startup Costs? The IRS defines \""startup costs\"" as deductible capital expenses that are used to pay for: 1) The cost of \""investigating the creation or acquisition of an active trade or business.\"" This includes costs incurred for surveying markets, product analysis, labor supply, visiting potential business locations and similar expenditures. 2) The cost of getting a business ready to operate (before you open your doors or start generating income). These include employee training and wages, consultant fees, advertising, and travel costs associated with finding suppliers, distributors, and customers. These expenses can only be claimed if your research and preparation ends with the formation of a successful business. The IRS has more information on how to claim the expenses if you don\u2019t go into business. https:\/\/www.sba.gov\/blogs\/startup-cost-tax-deductions-how-write-expense-starting-your-business Once your business is underway, you can deduct expenses, but the exact details depend on how you organized.  If you're a sole proprietor for tax purposes, then you'll deduct them on Schedule C of your Form 1040 on your personal tax.  If you are a partnership, C-Corp, or S-Corp, they will be accounted at the business level and either passed on to you on a Schedule K (partnership and S-Corp) or deducted directly by the company (C-Corp). In any case, you will need good records that justify your expenses as business related. It might be well worth at least an initial meeting with a CPA to make sure that you get started on the right foot."""
"""What happens when a stock gets delisted?""","""When a delisting happens, the primary process involves, the firm or the entity, trying to buy everyone out so that they can take the firm private by delisting from the stock exchanges. As the firm wants to buy everyone out, the current owners of the equity have the upper hand. They wouldn't want to sell if they believe the firm has a brighter future. So to compensate the existing holders, the buyer needs to compensate the current holders of any future loss, so they pay a premium to buy them out. Hence the prices offered will be more than the current existing price. And in anticipation of a premium the stocks price rises on this speculation. The other scenario is if the current holder(s) decide no to sell their holdings and are small in number, dependent on exchange regulations, and the buyer manages to de-list the stock, the holders might loose out i.e. they have to find another buyer who wants to buy which becomes difficult as the liquidity for the stock is very minimal. if any stock is DE-listed and then we can not trade on it,  In India if the promoters capital is more than 90%, he can get the stock de-listed. There is a process, he has to make an open offer at specified price to minority shareholders. The minority shareholder can refuse to sell. Once the stock is de-listed, it means it cannot be traded on a given exchange. However you can still sell \/ buy by directly finding a buyer \/ seller and it's difficult compared to a listed stock."""
"""Ballpark salary equivalent today of \""healthcare benefits\"" in the US?""","""Healthcare for the employee is more valuable to the employer than is providing healthcare for the rest of the family members.  Depending on the family situation, you're going to see significant differences in price between out of pocket costs for insurance of just the employee, vs cost for insuring the entire family.  This is because in the first instance the insurance is more subsidized by the company (as a percentage of the total cost).   The costs to the company for insuring just the individual (mid-career) are in the neighborhood of $5000 per year.  If this is all that's being negotiated (single person coverage) then I would use that amount as a baseline."""
"""What forms of payment am I compelled to accept?""","""I just listened to a podcast on this topic this week, and Satanicpuppy is pretty much correct. If you are interested, here is a link to the podcast on Legal Lad: Can Businesses Refuse to Accept Cash?"""
"""Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?""","""I am going to add just one more item to what are some very well thought out answers. The element of \""Cash Out\"" If you are taking out 80% of the value of the home that you already own free and clear the bank considers this a \""Cash Out\"" transaction - meaning you would effectively walk away from closing with a check for 80% of your home's value. So in a hypothetical situation you have a $200,000 home value - you would be handed a check for $160,000 with which you could do anything that you wanted. Granted, you are likely going to do something responsible with it and purchase another home - BUT (big BUT) the bank can't control what you do with it and that is the part they don't like - and therefore they treat these types of transactions with a higher degree of scrutiny. It is all about control - if the property you are downsizing to fits their rules for lending they may actually loan you a higher loan to value on that purchase than they would on your \""cash out\"" refinance transaction on your current home.  With the purchase loan the money you get goes immediately to the purchase of a new home.  In the \""cash out\"" transaction it goes to a check with which you could do anything you want . . .  and then not pay the loan back . . .  I know no one here would do that - but there are some folks that would . . . and this is one of the reasons \""Cash Out\"" loans are not nearly as easy as they once were to get. http:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao\/az\/mortgagefraud.html"""
"""What publicly available software do professional stock traders use for stock analysis?""","""Another one I have seen mentioned used is Equity Feed. It had varies levels of the software depending on the markets you want and can provide level 2 quotes if select that option. http:\/\/stockcharts.com\/ is also a great tool I see mentioned with lots of free stuff."""
"""If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets?""","""If you own 1% of a company, you are technically entitled to 1% of the current value and future profits of that company. However, you cannot, as you seem to imply, just decide at some point to take your ball and go home. You cannot call up the company and ask for 1% of their assets to be liquidated and given to you in cash. What the 1% stake in the company actually entitles you to is: 1% of total shareholder voting rights. Your \""aye\"" or \""nay\"" carries the weight of 1% of the total shareholder voting block. Doesn't sound like much, but when the average little guy has on the order of ten-millionths of a percentage point ownership of any big corporation, your one vote carries more weight than those of millions of single-share investors. 1% of future dividend payments made to shareholders. For every dollar the corporation makes in profits, and doesn't retain for future growth, you get a penny. Again, doesn't sound like much, but consider that the Simon property group, ranked #497 on the Fortune 500 list of the world's biggest companies by revenue, made $1.4 billion in profits last year. 1% of that, if the company divvied it all up, is $14 million. If you bought your 1% stake in March of 2009, you would have paid a paltry $83 million, and be earning roughly 16% on your initial investment annually just in dividends (to say nothing of the roughly 450% increase in stock price since that time, making the value of your holdings roughly $460 million; that does reduce your actual dividend yield to about 3% of holdings value). If this doesn't sound appealing, and you want out, you would sell your 1% stake. The price you would get for this total stake may or may not be 1% of the company's book value. This is for many reasons: Now, to answer your hypothetical: If Apple's stock, tomorrow, went from $420b market cap to zero, that would mean that the market unanimously thought, when they woke up tomorrow morning, that the company was all of a sudden absolutely worthless. In order to have this unanimous consent, the market must be thoroughly convinced, by looking at SEC filings of assets, liabilities and profits, listening to executive statements, etc that an investor wouldn't see even one penny returned of any cash investment made in this company's stock. That's impossible; the price of a share is based on what someone will pay to have it (or accept to be rid of it). Nobody ever just gives stock away for free on the trading floor, so even if they're selling 10 shares for a penny, they're selling it, and so the stock has a value ($0.001\/share).  We can say, however, that a fall to \""effectively zero\"" is possible, because they've happened. Enron, for instance, lost half its share value in just one week in mid-October as the scope of the accounting scandal started becoming evident. That was just the steepest part of an 18-month fall from $90\/share in August '00, to just $0.12\/share as of its bankruptcy filing in Dec '01; a 99.87% loss of value. Now, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates what would be necessary to get a stock to go all the way to zero (if indeed it ever really could). Enron's stock wasn't delisted until a month and a half after Enron's bankruptcy filing, it was done based on NYSE listing rules (the stock had been trading at less than a dollar for 30 days), and was still traded \""over the counter\"" on the Pink Sheets after that point. Enron didn't divest all its assets until 2006, and the company still exists (though its mission is now to sue other companies that had a hand in the fraud, get the money and turn it around to Enron creditors). I don't know when it stopped becoming a publicly-traded company (if indeed it ever did), but as I said, there is always someone willing to buy a bunch of really cheap shares to try and game the market (buying shares reduces the number available for sale, reducing supply, increasing price, making the investor a lot of money assuming he can offload them quickly enough)."""
"""Does a stay at home mom need term life insurance?""","""Another source of insurance can be through the working spouses employment. Some companies do provide free or low cost coverage for spouses without a need for a physical exam. The risk is that it might not be available at the amount you want, and that if the main spouse switches companies it might not be available with the new employer. A plus is that if there is a cost it is only a one year commitment. Term insurance is the way to go. It is simple to purchase, and not complex to understand. Sizing is key. You may need to provide some level of coverage until the youngest child is in high school or college. Of course the youngest child might not have been born yet. The longer the term, the higher the cost to account for the inflation during the period of the insurance. If the term expires, but the need still exists, it is possible to get another policy but the cost of the new term policy will be higher because the insured is older. If there are special needs children involved the amount and length may need to be increased due to the increased costs and duration of need.   Don't forget to periodically review the insurance situation to make sure your need haven't changed so much a new level of insurance would be needed."""
"""Legitimate unclaimed property that doesn't appear in any state directory?""","""@ Chris:  Companies like Keane, ours, and others know where to look for these funds and where to ask at the correct agencies that are holding this money that is not part of the public links that you have access to. This is how we find this information.  Our types of companies spend significant time, money and resources in finding out about the money, then finding who it actually belongs to (because it does not always belong to who is mentioned on the list) and then finding the correct individual. @ jdsweet:  I apologize if you think this is a marketing ploy.  It is not.  Our company doesn't even take phone calls from people that want us to find them money.  Only if we contact someone, because at that time we're confident that the person we touch base with is due the funds. Again, I am not plugging our company, but trying to let Neil know that in some cases he is right, you don't need a third party to claim funds for you - if you can find them.  In this case, he has looked and cannot find them.  Keane is charging a fair amount to retrieve funds he cannot find and doesn't know about and is not charging him anything to do all the work. Again, as mentioned above, the direct answer is that we know how to access information and lists that have this money hidden from the public because the agency holding the funds doesn't want you to know about it so that they can escheat the funds.  Escheating is the state's legal way to confiscate your money.   See, if you don't put in a claim for the money (depending on what type it is and where it is located) the agency and state holding the funds has certain time frames for you to get the money.  If you don't, again, they get to keep it and that is what they want despite what they say.  That is why there is approximately $33 Billion that is known to the public and really $1 Trillion that's out there. I apologize if you think that this is a plug for my company, it's not because we're not looking for calls, we make them.  I'm also not asking Neil for his business. From all accounts on my side, this seems like a fair deal."""
"""What are the economic benefits of owning a home in the United States?""","""Altough this may vary a lot depending on where you live and your actual finance, here what convinced me buying a home instead of renting : Other benefits :"""
"""How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score?""","""I wrote an article about FICO scoring which shows that 30% of your score is based on utilization or amount owed. I can't say exactly how much your score will rise, or how long it will take, but your score will improve dramatically from what you propose.    This chart is from Credit Karma, and it shows how zero utilization is actually bad when it comes to your score. I wrote an article on my blog titled Too Little Debt in which I discuss further. Under 20% is ideal, just not zero."""
"""Timing between loans and applying for a new credit card""","""There were several areas where the mortgage and car loan have affected your credit.  The mortgage had the following impacts, The car loan (purchased shortly after the house) had the following impacts, You did not mention your payment history, but since you had an 800 prior to the house purchase, we can assume that your payment history is current (nothing late). You did not mention your credit utilization, but you want to keep your utilization low (various experts suggest 10%, 20% and 30% as thresholds).  The down payment on the house likely drained your available funds, and replacing the car may have also put stress on your funds.  And when you buy a house, often there are additional expenses that further strain budgets. My guess is that your utilization percentage has increased.  My suggestion would be to reduce your utilization ratio on your revolving accounts.  And since you have plenty of credit lines, you might want to payoff the car. Your Chase card has a good age, which helps with age of credit, and though you will find experts that say you should only have 2-4 revolving accounts (credit cards), other experience shows that having accounts with age on them is a good thing.  And having a larger number of accounts does not cause problems (unless you have higher utilization or you miss payments). You did not mention whether the Chase card has any fees or expenses, as that would be a reason to either negotiate with Chase to reduce or eliminate the fees, or to cancel the card. Have you checked your credit report for errors?  You can get a free report from each of the three bureaus once per year."""
"""How can I raise finance to build a home for my family""","""Wanting save enough money to purchase a home is an issue that a lot of people face, regardless of where they live. The most simple answer is to save, save, save. Create a budget so that you are able to track every dollar. After you do so for a few weeks, then you will be able to see exactly how your money is being spent and where you can cut costs. If you need to, pick up a second or third job in your spare time. Then you can contribute your salary from that to your savings. If possible, consider moving in with friends or family - paying them rent of course, but it might be cheaper than renting on your own (you might also consider exchanging house work for rent). Times might be lean when you are saving, but you should remind yourself of what the ultimate goal is.  I am unfamiliar with the government policies in Pakistan, but perhaps there is some kind of housing relief program where you can relocate to temporarily? Your situation is unfortunate and I sympathize with you. Best of luck!"""
"""Should I fund a move by borrowing or selling other property assets?""","""that would deprive me of the rental income from the property. Yes, but you'd gain by not paying the interest on your other mortgage.  So your net loss (or gain) is the rental income minus the interest you're paying on your home.  From a cash flow perspective, you'd gain the difference between the rental income and your total payment. Any excess proceeds from selling the flat and paying off the mortgage could be saved and use later to buy another rental for \""retirement income\"".  Or just invest in a retirement account and leave it alone.  Selling the flat also gets rid of any extra time spent managing the property. If you keep the flat, you'll need a mortgage of 105K to 150K plus closing costs depending on the cost of the house you buy, so your mortgage payment will increase by 25%-100%. My fist choice would be to sell the flat and buy your new house debt-free (or with a very small mortgage).  You're only making 6% on it, and your mortgage payment is going to be higher since you'll need to borrow about 160k if you want to keep the flat and buy a $450K house, so you're no longer cash-flow neutral. Then start saving like mad for a different rental property, or in non-real estate retirement investments."""
"""When do I need to return short stock to the lender""","""If the owner of the stock wants it back, they \""call\"" it back. There are no guarantees of how long you can keep it for your short, or the cost involved to hold it.  Usually, everyone knows about a particular set-up (e.g. a warrant or convertible bond mispricing) that is attractive for arbitrage. This causes the associated stock to be in high demand thus expensive to borrow for shorting, or impossible to find for any price at all."""
"""What's the point of a benchmark?""","""Markets tend to go up over time, so most things you could buy would make money. A benchmark is meant to represent the market as a whole (or a subset that is relevant to what you are trading), so you can tell if your specific choices helped or hurt your return. As an example, say you pick two financial stocks, Citi and Goldman.  They get you a return of 10% for the year, so you think you made good choices.  But if the financial sector as a whole had a return of 20%, your choices weren't actually that great."""
"""How can one tell if a company's quarterly financial report represents a profit or loss?""","""You have defined net profit to include all income and, presumably, expenses. Specifically, you are including income from other sources and are including finance costs and tax expense. For the quarter ended June 30, 2015, the net profit, by your definition, is 12.58. This is given on line 9 of the PDF. You ask how you can review this information. You cannot, given only the PDF you linked to. Note that the numbers have not been audited so it is the case that no trusted third party has yet reviewed it and signed off that the information is accurate."""
"""How can I stop a merchant from charging a credit card processing fee?""","""Mastercard rules also prohibit asking for ID along with the card. Yet, when I was at Disneyland, years ago (so I don't know if this is still a practice) they asked for my driver's license with every purchase. I can charge up to $200 at Costco with a swipe, not even a signature, but a $5 bottle of water (maybe it was $6) required me to produce my license.  The answer is Pete's comment, don't patronize these merchants. By the way, it's legal now. From Visa web site -  Note - 9* states still prohibit surcharges, so they tend to offer cash discounts. The question you linked is from 2010, things change."""
"""Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics?""","""Credit Scores \/ Rates are based on sometimes simple and sometimes quite complex Statistical Models (Generalised Linear Models, Neural Networks, Regression and Classification Trees, Mixture Models, etc).This depends on whether it is something more general like FICO or what large banks develop in-house. In any case, there are many legislation-dependent factors (Qualitative such as education, occupation security, sex, etc, payment history; or Quantitative such as age, liquidity and leverage ratios, etc).  Now, most model that are used today are propriety and closely held trade secrets. The most important reason for this is actually because of the databases that feed the models. More better quality data is what makes the real difference ... although at the cutting-edge, the mathematicians\/statisticians\/computer scientists that design the algorithms will make a huge difference.  Now, back to the main thing: The Credit Score\/Rate is meant to be used only as an indicator for representing the Probability of Default (\""How likely you are to default on your obligation towards me?\"" is what it means and that is largely based upon \""Has company\/he\/she honoured his financial obligations?\"") of a certain consumer. In more sophisticated models, they may also use your industry sector or occupational and financial security to predict the future behaviour. However, this \""Credit Score\"" has meaning only in relation to a \""Credit Limit\"" (\""Can you pay back my $X?\""). The credit limit on the other hand is defined by your income level, debt\/asset, etc).   As a credit risk analyst, whether we are dealing with large corporate loans, mortgages, personal loans, etc), the principles are the same: One thing to consider is that factors considered in determining a credit score usually do not have a simple linear relationship.  Consumer Profile types such as utilisation rate are a lot more about EFFECT than CAUSE:   The most important thing is to honour your obligations, whether you pay before or after you spend makes little difference, so long as you pay in full and prior to maturity, your rate\/score will improve with time. Financial Institutions have many ways to make money of everyone. Some, such as interest rates and fees are directly charged to you and some are charged to your goods-and-services providers. That has no bearing on your score. Sometimes it even makes sense to take on customers with rock-bottom ratings, lend them lots of money, and charge them to dirt. As you may well know, the recent financial crisis - with ongoing after-shocks and tremors - was the result of such practices."""
"""What intrinsic, non-monetary value does gold have as a commodity?""","""Gold has no \""intrinsic\"" value. None whatsoever.  This is because \""value\"" is a subjective term. \""Intrinsic value\"" makes just as much sense as a \""cat dog\"" animal. \""Dog\"" and \""cat\"" are referring to two mutually exclusive animals, therefore a \""cat dog\"" is a nonsensical term. Intrinsic Value:  \""The actual value of a company or an asset based on an underlying perception of its true value ...\""  Intrinsic value is perceived, which means it is worth whatever you, or a group of people, think it is. Intrinsic value has nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing, to do with anything that exists in reality.  The most obvious example of this is the purchase of a copy-right. You are assigning an intrinsic value to a copy-right by purchasing it. However, when you purchase a copy-right you are not buying ink on a page, you are purchasing an idea. Someone's imaginings that, for all intensive purposes, doesn't even exist in reality! By definition, things that do not exist do not have \""intrinsic\"" properties - because things that don't exist, don't have any natural properties at all. \""Intrinsic\"" according to Websters Dictionary:  \""Belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing ... (the intrinsic brightness of a star).\""  An intrinsic property of an object is something we know that exists because it is a natural property of that object. Suns emit light, we know this because we can measure the light coming from it. It is not subjective. \""Intrinsic Value\"" is the OPPOSITE of \""Intrinsic\"""""
"""Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?""","""Inflation is a bad thing.  It makes it much more difficult for people to compare prices and prosperity over a long period of time.  This causes people to ignore the wisdom of their elders (who remember prices from a long time ago). Back in my day, you could get a burger and fries for 15 cents -- a dime for the burger, and a nickel for the fries.   But the minimum wage was only a quarter an hour!  That doesn't help me decide if things have gotten better or worse. How long is \""a long period of time\""?  That depends on the inflation rate. At 1 percent per year, 50 or 100 years is \""a long time\"". At 10 percent per year, 5 or 10 years. At 100 percent per year, a few months. Because of the Spanish conquests of gold and silver mines in Mexico and Peru, prices in the sixteenth century rose by a factor of 5.5 during the century.  This inflation was recognized as causing lots of social and governmental problems.  Note that this means an average inflation rate of 2 percent per year for a century is known to be a very bad thing. There are several reasons that most governments want some inflation:"""
"""Which set of earnings is used to work out the P\/E of a stock""","""There are two common types of P\/E ratio calculations: \""trailing\"" and \""forward\"" (and then there are various mixes of the two). Trailing P\/E ratios are calculated as [current price] \/ [trailing 12-month EPS]. An alternative is the Forward P\/E ratio, which is based on an estimate of earnings in the coming 12 months. The estimate used is usually called \""consensus\"" and, to answer your question, is the average estimate of analysts who cover the stock. Any reputable organization will disclose how they calculate their financials. For example, Reuters uses a trailing ratio (indicated by \""TTM\"") on their page for BHP. So, the first reason a PE ratio might not jump on an announcement is it might be forward looking and therefore not very sensitive to the realized earnings. The second reason is that if it is a trailing ratio, some of the annual EPS change is known prior to the annual announcement. For example, on 12\/31 a company might report a large drop in annual earnings, but if the bulk of that loss was reported in a previous quarterly report, then the trailing EPS would account partially for it prior to the annual announcement.  In this case, I think the first reason is the culprit. The Reuters P\/E of nearly 12 is a trailing ratio, so if you see 8 I'd think it must be based on a forward-looking estimate."""
"""Paid credit card bill, but money didn't leave my checking account [duplicate]""","""This is normal for credit cards.  As long as you make the credit card company's cutoff time, they will make the funds available on your credit card rather than make you wait for them to actually get the funds from your bank. The amount of time this takes actually can vary significantly from bank to bank. You do want to make sure funds are available in your bank account for them to withdraw when they do take them though. If not, the payment would get returned and can set red flags on your credit card account that take a while to drop off."""
"""I own a mutual fund that owns voting shares, who gets the vote?""","""You will not get a vote on any issues of the underlying stock.   The mutual fund owner\/manager will do the voting. In 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required that   fund companies disclose proxy votes, voting guidelines and conflicts   of interest in the voting process. All funds must make these   disclosures to the SEC through an N-PX filing, which must either be   available to shareholders on the fund company's websites or upon   request by telephone. You can also find your fund's N-PX filing on the   SEC website.  -- http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/mutualfund\/08\/acting-in-interest.asp"""
"""Short an option - random assignment?""","""You've described the process fairly well.  It's tough to answer a question that ultimately is 'how is this fair?' It's fair in that it's part of the known risk. And for the fact that it applies to all, pretty equally. In general, this is not very common. (No, I don't have percents handy, I'm just suggesting from decades of trading it's probably occurring less than 10% of the time). Why? Because there's usually more value to the buyer in simply selling the option and using the proceeds to buy the stock. The option will have 2 components,  its intrinsic value (\""in the money\"") and the time premium. It takes the odd combination of low-to-no time premium, but desire of the buyer to own the stock that makes the exercise desirable."""
"""Is it prudent to sell a stock on a 40% rise in 2 months""","""Depends entirely on the stock and your perception of it. Would you buy it at the current price? If so, keep it. Would you buy something else? If so, sell it and buy that."""
"""Please explain the relationship between dividend amount, stock price, and option value?""","""The exchanges artificially push the price of the stock down on the ex-div date. Often the impact of paying the dividend is absorbed by the ebb and flow of trading in the stock later in the day by the market. I think this was noticable with Nokia because the company is in poor shape and the stock has plunged recently.  Dividends are a great way for companies to return value to shareholders. The trend for many companies, particularly growth stocks is to reinvest profits to grow the company. Former growth stocks like Microsoft like to just sit on billions of dollars and do nothing with it."""
"""Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates?""","""You\u2019ve really got three or four questions going here\u2026 and it\u2019s clear that a gap in understanding one component of how bonds work (pricing) is having a ripple effect across the other facets of your question. The reality is that everybody\u2019s answers so far touch on various pieces of your general question, but maybe I can help by integrating. So, let\u2019s start by nailing down what your actual questions are:  1. Why do mortgage rates (tend to) increase when the published treasury bond rate increases? I\u2019m going to come back to this, because it requires a lot of building blocks. 2. What\u2019s the math behind a bond yield increasing (price falling?)  This gets complicated, fast. Especially when you start talking about selling the bond in the middle of its time period. Many people that trade in bonds use financial calculators, Excel, or pre-calculated tables to simplify or even just approximate the value of a bond. But here\u2019s a simple example that shows the math.  Let\u2019s say we\u2019ve got a bond that is issued by\u2026 Dell for $10,000. The company will pay it back in 5 years, and it is offering an 8% rate. Interest payments will only be paid annually. Remember that the amount Dell has promised to pay in interest is fixed for the life of the bond, and is called the \u2018coupon\u2019 rate. We can think about the way the payouts will be paid in the following table:   As I\u2019m sure you know, the value of a bond (its yield) comes from two sources: the interest payments, and the return of the principal. But, if you as an investor paid $14,000 for this bond, you would usually be wrong. You need to \u2018discount\u2019 those amounts to take into account the \u2018time value of money\u2019. This is why when you are dealing in bonds it is important to know the \u2018coupon rate\u2019 (what is Dell paying each period?). But it is also important to know your sellers\u2019\/buyers\u2019 own personal discount rates. This will vary from person to person and institution to institution, but it is what actually sets the PRICE you would buy this bond for.  There are three general cases for the discount rate (or the MARKET rate). First, where the market rate == the coupon rate. This is known as \""par\"" in bond parlance. Second, where the market rate < the coupon rate. This is known as \""premium\"" in bond parlance. Third, where the market rate > coupon rate. This is known as a \u2018discount\u2019 bond.  But before we get into those in too much depth, how does discounting work? The idea behind discounting is that you need to account for the idea that a dollar today is not worth the same as a dollar tomorrow. (It\u2019s usually worth \u2018more\u2019 tomorrow.) You discount a lump sum, like the return of the principal, differently than you do a series of equal cash flows, like the stream of $800 interest payments. The formula for discounting a lump sum is:  Present Value=Future Value* (1\/(1+interest rate))^((# of periods)) The formula for discounting a stream of equal payments is:  Present Value=(Single Payment)* (\u30161-(1+i)\u3017^((-n))\/i) (i = interest rate and n = number of periods) **cite investopedia So let\u2019s look at how this would look in pricing the pretend Dell bond as a par bond. First, we discount the return of the $10,000 principal as (10,000 * (1 \/ 1.08)^5). That equals $6,807.82.  Next we discount the 5 equal payments of $800 as (800* (3.9902)). I just plugged and chugged but you can do that yourself. That equals $3,192.18. You may get slightly different numbers with rounding.  So you add the two together, and it says that you would be willing to pay ($6,807.82 + $3,192.18) = $10,000. Surprise! When the bond is a par bond you\u2019re basically being compensated for the time value of money with the interest payments. You purchase the bond at the \u2018face value\u2019, which is the principal that will be returned at the end.  If you worked through the math for a 6% discount rate on an 8% coupon bond, you would see that it\u2019s \""premium\"", because you would pay more than the principal that is returned to obtain the bond [10,842.87 vs 10,000]. Similarly, if you work through the math for a 10% discount rate on an 8% coupon bond, it\u2019s a \u2018discount\u2019 bond because you will pay less than the principal that is returned for the bond [9,241.84 vs 10,000].  It\u2019s easy to see how an investor could hold our imaginary Dell bond for one year, collect the first interest payment, and then sell the bond on to another investor. The mechanics of the calculations are the same, except that one less interest payment is available, and the principal will be returned one year sooner\u2026 so N=4 in both formulae.  Still with me? Now that we\u2019re on the same page about how a bond is priced, we can talk about \""Yield To Maturity\"", which is at the heart of your main question.  Bond \""yields\"" like the ones you can access on CNBC or Yahoo!Finance or wherever you may be looking are actually taking the reverse approach to this. In these cases the prices are \u2018fixed\u2019 in that the sellers have listed the bonds for sale, and specified the price. Since the coupon values are fixed already by whatever organization issued the bond, the rate of return can be imputed from those values.  To do that, you just do a bit of algebra and swap \""present value\"" and \""future value\"" in our two equations.  Let\u2019s say that Dell has gone private, had an awesome year, and figured out how to make robot unicorns that do wonderful things for all mankind. You decide that now would be a great time to sell your bond after holding it for one year\u2026 and collecting that $800 interest payment. You think you\u2019d like to sell it for $10,500. (Since the principal return is fixed (+10,000); the number of periods is fixed (4); and the interest payments are fixed ($800); but you\u2019ve changed the price... something else has to adjust and that is the discount rate.) It\u2019s kind of tricky to actually use those equations to solve for this by hand\u2026 you end up with two equations\u2026 one unknown, and set them equal. So, the easiest way to solve for this rate is actually in Excel, using the function =RATE(NPER, PMT, PV, FV). NPER = 4, PMT = 800, PV=-10500, and FV=10000. Hint to make sure that you catch the minus sign in front of the present value\u2026 buyer pays now for the positive return of 10,000 in the future.  That shows 6.54% as the effective discount rate (or rate of return) for the investor. That is the same thing as the yield to maturity. It specifies the return that a bond investor would see if he or she purchased the bond today and held it to maturity.  3. What factors (in terms of supply and demand) drive changes in the bond market? I hope it\u2019s clear now how the tradeoff works between yields going UP when prices go DOWN, and vice versa. It happens because the COUPON rate, the number of periods, and the return of principal for a bond are fixed. So when someone sells a bond in the middle of its term, the only things that can change are the price and corresponding yield\/discount rate.  Other commenters\u2026 including you\u2026 have touched on some of the reasons why the prices go up and down. Generally speaking, it\u2019s because of the basics of supply and demand\u2026 higher level of bonds for sale to be purchased by same level of demand will mean prices go down. But it\u2019s not \u2018just because interest rates are going up and down\u2019. It has a lot more to do with the expectations for 1) risk, 2) return and 3) future inflation. Sometimes it is action by the Fed, as Joe Taxpayer has pointed out. If they sell a lot of bonds, then the basics of higher supply for a set level of demand imply that the prices should go down. Prices going down on a bond imply that yields will go up. (I really hope that\u2019s clear by now). This is a common monetary lever that the government uses to \u2018remove money\u2019 from the system, in that they receive payments from an investor up front when the investor buys the bond from the Fed, and then the Fed gradually return that cash back into the system over time.  Sometimes it is due to uncertainty about the future. If investors at large believe that inflation is coming, then bonds become a less attractive investment, as the dollars received for future payments will be less valuable. This could lead to a sell-off in the bond markets, because investors want to cash out their bonds and transfer that capital to something that will preserve their value under inflation. Here again an increase in supply of bonds for sale will lead to decreased prices and higher yields.  At the end of the day it is really hard to predict exactly which direction bond markets will be moving, and more importantly WHY. If you figure it out, move to New York or Chicago or London and work as a trader in the bond markets. You\u2019ll make a killing, and if you\u2019d like I will be glad to drive your cars for you.  4. How does the availability of money supply for banks drive changes in other lending rates?  When any investment organization forms, it builds its portfolio to try to deliver a set return at the lowest risk possible. As a corollary to that, it tries to deliver the maximum return possible for a given level of risk.  When we\u2019re talking about a bank, DumbCoder\u2019s answer is dead on. Banks have various options to choose from, and a 10-year T-bond is broadly seen as one of the least risky investments. Thus, it is a benchmark for other investments.  5. So\u2026 now, why do mortgage rates tend to increase when the published treasury bond yield rate increases? The traditional, residential 30-year mortgage is VERY similar to a bond investment. There is a long-term investment horizon, with fixed cash payments over the term of the note. But the principal is returned incrementally during the life of the loan.  So, since mortgages are \u2018more risky\u2019 than the 10-year treasury bond, they will carry a certain premium that is tied to how much more risky an individual is as a borrower than the US government.  And here it is\u2026 no one actually directly changes the interest rate on 10-year treasuries. Not even the Fed. The Fed sets a price constraint that it will sell bonds at during its periodic auctions. Buyers bid for those, and the resulting prices imply the yield rate. If the yield rate for current 10-year bonds increases, then banks take it as a sign that everyone in the investment community sees some sign of increased risk in the future. This might be from inflation. This might be from uncertain economic performance. But whatever it is, they operate with some rule of thumb that their 30-year mortgage rate for excellent credit borrowers will be the 10-year plus 1.5% or something. And they publish their rates."""
"""Does my net paycheck decrease as the year goes on due to tax brackets filling up?""","""Most countries with income tax, including the USA, design their withholding system so that in straightforward cases, tax is withheld from each month's paycheck on an annualized basis: tax for a month is calculated on the assumption that you will keep earning the same monthly amount for the rest of the year, and the withholding is set so that the tax is spread evenly across the year. Another way of putting that is that in practice you only get the tax brackets allocated proportionately throughout the year - so up till the end of August you'll only have been assigned 8\/12 of the $37450 bracket, and so on. So if your income doesn't change and your general tax affairs don't change, your paycheck also shouldn't change. If your income is irregular or changes during the year then things can get more complicated. As other answers have noted, withholdings are calculated according to tables that normally just take into account that specific month's income. There are various possible changes to your tax affairs that might cause the withholdings to change. For example there'd be an impact from any change in your contributions to tax advantaged things like health insurance or retirement, health or education savings. You might also use form W-4 to change your withholdings yourself. Note that even with a regular income that doesn't change through the year, you might find yourself either owing money or being owed a refund when you file your taxes after the end of the year. It's worth making sure that your W-4 accurately records the allowances you are entitled to, to minimize or eliminate this adjustment."""
"""Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it?""","""As a rule, purchasing fairly priced (minus a spread) insurance on items you can afford to replace is a bad idea. However, in addition to the points mentioned in the previous answers, one should note that many types of insurance are UNDERpriced because on average people do not make claims even though they are entitled to them.  If you purchase something moderately priced at Best Buy and get the extended warranty and it breaks down a year later, you will be unlikely to even remember that you purchased the insurance much less go through the trouble of making a claim.  More likely you will just go buy a replacement or whatever the latest and greatest iteration is.  It's like homeowner's insurance--an amazing number of things is covered but no one ever makes claims, so it is cheap.  If you are a person who remembers and utilizes warranties and insurance, there are many types of insurance that will save you money in expectation.   The other thing is that you know more about your own riskiness than the insurer does.  I had a girlfriend who bought super comprehensive insurance on her crappy old car.  I was quite stern with her about it but could not change her mind.  She totaled it a few months later.  They bought her a replacement.  She got in a more serious accident with that car and got yet another one in addition to payment of her medical care, which did not even go to her health care insurance.  Yes, her rates went up, but not fast enough to deal with how risky she was.  Another example: I used to carry an e-book reader around in my shirt pocket and read it any time I had a chance.  Cheap item and not that delicate, but since I had it with me all the time and used it constantly, it was a big risk for the store.  The extended warranty would have been a great idea. In short, avoid extended warranties and insurance on things you can afford to lose unless you know that you are high risk or are otherwise more likely than average to make a claim."""
"""Will I be liable for taxes if I work for my co. in India for 3 months while I am with my husband in UK""","""The finance team from your company should be able to advise you. From what I understand you are Indian Citizen for Tax purposes. Any income you receive globally is taxable in India. In this specific case you are still having a Employee relationship with your employer and as such the place of work does not matter. You are still liable to pay tax in India on the salary. If you are out of India for more than 182 days, you can be considered as Non-Resident from tax point of view. However this clause would not be of any benefit to you as are having a Employee \/ Employer relationship and being paid in India. Edit: This is only about the India portion of taxes. There maybe a UK protion of it as well, plus legally can you work and your type of Visa in UK may have a bearing on the answer"""
"""Why could rental costs for apartments\/houses rise while buying prices can go up and down?""","""Average rent rates will typically rise and fall, and are market-dependent just like real estate. In the short term, a collapse in housing like the one we saw in 2008 can induce a spike in rental costs as people walk away or get foreclosed on, and move back into apartments. That then tends to self-adjust, as the people who had been in the apartments find a deal on a foreclosed house and move out. However, one thing I've seen to be near-constant in the apartment business is that a landlord will offer you a deal to get in, then increase the rent on you from year to year until you get fed up and move. This is a big reason I didn't have the same address for two years in a row until I bought my house. The landlord is basically betting that you won't want to deal with the hassle of moving, and so will pay the higher rent rate, even if, when you do the math, it makes more sense to move even to maintain the same rent rate. Eventually though, you do get fed up, look around, find the next good deal, and move, \""resetting\"" your rent rate. I have never, not once in my life, seen or heard of any landlord offering a drop in rent as a \""loyalty\"" move to keep you from going somewhere else. It's considered part of the game; retailers will price match, but most service providers (landlords, but also utility providers) expect a large amount of \""churn\"" in their customer base as people shop around. It averages out."""
"""Why REIT prices are not going down while bonds are being hammered?""","""I don't like REITs because they are more closely correlated to the movement of the stock market. They don't really do the job of diversifying a portfolio because of that correlation.  When the stock market dropped in 2008, REITs were hammered as well because the housing bubble burst. Bonds went up, and if you rebalanced (sold the bonds to buy more stock) then you came out much further ahead when the stock market recovered. The point of adding bonds for diversification is that they move in the opposite direction of equities; blunting the major drops (and providing buying opportunities). REITs don't fit that bill. REITs are not undergoing a correction like bonds because the price of real estate is a function of housing supply and buyer demand. Rising interest rates only make it a little harder for buyers to buy, so the effect of rising interest rates on real estate prices is muted. The other effects on real estate prices (more wealth in the economy for buyers) pushes in the opposite direction of the rising interest rates."""
"""How does a financial advisor choose debt funds and equity funds for us?""","""There are raters of stock and bond funds of which Morningstar's is the best. Standard and Poor's and Value line offer reports that aren't quite as good. If you are able to read and understand these reports yourself, you don't need a professional. Such help is necessary for people who are \""rank beginners\"" in investments."""
"""How much house can a retired person afford""","""Consider property taxes (school, municipal, county, etc.) summing to 10% of the property value.  So each year, another .02N is removed.  Assume the property value rises with inflation.  Allow for a 5% after inflation return on a 70\/30 stock bond mix for N.   After inflation return.   Let's assume a 20% rate.  And let's bump the .05N after inflation to .07N before inflation.  Inflation is still taxable.   Result  Drop in value of investment funds due to purchase.   Return after inflation.   After-inflation return minus property taxes.   Taxes are on the return including inflation, so we'll assume .06N and a 20% rate (may be lower than that, but better safe than sorry).   Amount left.   If no property, you would have .036N to live on after taxes.  But with the property, that drops to .008N.  Given the constraints of the problem, .008N could be anywhere from $8k to $80k.   So if we ignore housing, can you live on $8k a year?  If so, then no problem.  If not, then you need to constrain N more or make do with less house.   On the bright side, you don't have to pay rent out of the .008N.  You still need housing out of the .036N without the house.   These formulas should be considered examples.  I don't know how much your property taxes might be.  Nor do I know how much you'll pay in taxes.  Heck, I don't know that you'll average a 5% return after inflation.  You may have to put some of the money into cash equivalents with negligible return.  But this should allow you to research more what your situation really is.   If we set returns to 3.5% after inflation and 2.4% after inflation and taxes, that changes the numbers slightly but importantly.  The \""no house\"" number becomes .024N.  The \""with house\"" number becomes  So that's $24,000 (which needs to include rent) versus -$800 (no rent needed).  There is not enough money in that plan to have any remainder to live on in the \""with house\"" option.  Given the constraints for N and these assumptions about returns, you would be $800 to $8000 short every year.   This continues to assume that property taxes are 10% of the property value annually.  Lower property taxes would of course make this better.  Higher property taxes would be even less feasible.   When comparing to people with homes, remember the option of selling the home.  If you sell your .2N home for .2N and buy a .08N condo instead, that's not just .12N more that is invested.  You'll also have less tied up with property taxes.  It's a lot easier to live on $20k than $8k.   Or do a reverse mortgage where the lender pays the property taxes.  You'll get some more savings up front, have a place to live while you're alive, and save money annually.   There are options with a house that you don't have without one."""
"""Does wash sale apply if I buy stock on 2 two different dates and sell it later""","""Wash sale applies. If you purchase shares within 30 days of that Feb 3 sell date, the wash sale kicks in, preventing the loss on that sale, and deferring it into the new shares."""
"""How might trading volume affect future share price?""","""There tends to be high volume around big changes in stock price. The volume of a stock does not remain constant and the term \""fat fingers\"" can influence price.--> http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-10-01\/that-japanese-fat-finger-can-absolutely-happen-in-u-s-.html That being said keshlam is 99% right when it comes to a stock moving when their is no news or earnings announcements. Check out these papers. http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1475-6803.2010.01285.x\/full They do a time series analysis to try and predict future prices off of past demand during news events. They forecast using auto-regressive models.  google \""forecasting autoregressive model\"" and the upenn lecture will be helpful. I would post another link but I cannot because I do not have enough rep\/ This is more of a quant question. Hope this helps. JL"""
"""Calculation, timing, and taxes related to profit distribution of an S-corp?""","""We will bill our clients periodically and will get paid monthly. Who are \""we\""? If you're not employed - you're not the one doing the work or billing the client. Would IRS care about this or this should be something written in the   policy of our company. For example: \""Every two months profits get   divided 50\/50\"" They won't. S-Corp is a pass-through entity. We plan to use Schedule K when filing taxes for 2015. I've never filled a schedule K before, will the profit distributions be reflected on this form? Yes, that is what it is for. We might need extra help in 2015, so we plan to hire an additional   employee (who will not be a shareholder). Will our tax liability go   down by doing this? Down in what sense? Payroll is deductible, if that's what you mean.  Are there certain other things that should be kept in mind to reduce the tax liability? Yes. Getting a proper tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) to explain to you what S-Corp is, how it works, how payroll works, how owner-shareholder is taxed etc etc."""
"""Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.)""","""I'm not certain if you can get a debit card with it, but if you have a PNC in your area, they have a special kind of account designed around teaching financial literacy to children: https:\/\/www1.pnc.com\/sisforsavings\/tour.html . I'm not sure if you can get a debit card for the child or not, but the custodian gets one I believe, and the child gets a special online login to manage the money, so if you don't mind the name issue, it might be worth looking into. If you don't have PNC, maybe one of the banks in your area have a similar program?"""
"""Can I invest in the USA or EU from an Asian 3rd-world country, over the Internet?""","""Absolutely.  It does highly depend on your country, as US brokerages are stricter with or even closed to residents of countries that produce drugs, launder money, finance terror, have traditional difficulty with the US, etc. It also depends on your country's laws.  Some countries have currency controls, restrictions on buying foreign\/US securities, etc. That said, some brokerages have offices world-wide, so there might be one near you.  If your legal situation as described above is fortunate, some brokers will simply allow you to setup online using a procedure not too different from US residents: provide identification, sign tons of documents.  You'll have to have a method to deliver your documentation in the ways you'd expect: mail, fax, email. E*Trade is the best starter broker, right now, imo.  Just see how far you can go in the sign-up process."""
"""What implications does having the highest household debt to disposable income ratio have on Australia?""","""I'd like to see a credible source for \""the highest\"", but it's certainly fairly high. Household debt could be broadly categorized as debt for housing and debt for consumption. Housing prices seem very high compared to equivalent rental income.  This is generating a great deal of debt.  Keynes(?) said that \""if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.\""  Just when it will stop, and whether it will stop suddenly or gradually is a matter of great interest.  Obviously there are huge vested interests, including the large fraction of the population who already own property and do not wish to see it fall.  Nobody really knows; my guess would be on a very-long-term plateau in nominal prices and decline in real prices. The Australian stock market is unlike the US: since it's a small country, a lot of the big companies are export-driven, either by directly exporting physical goods (miners, agriculture) or by FDI (property trusts, banks).  So a local recession will hurt the stock market, but not across the board.  A decline in the value of the Australian dollar would be very good news for some of these companies. Debt for consumption I think is the smaller fraction.  Arguably it's driven by a wealth effect of Australia having had a reasonably good crisis with low unemployment and increasing international purchasing power.  If this tops out, you'd expect to see reduced earnings for consumer discretionary companies."""
"""Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest?""","""I would think it extremely unlikely that an issuer would cancel your card for having an ADB of approximately zero. The issuer charges the vendor that accepts a card a percentage of the transaction (usually up to ~3%, AMEX is generally higher) - so they are making money even if you carry no balance on your card (the specific language for various vendor-side (acceptor) credit card agreements boils down to \""we are essentially giving you, the vendor, a short-term loan and you will pay us for it). This why you see credit-card minimum purchase amounts at places like hot-dog stands - they're getting nailed on the percentage.  This is also why, when given the choice between \""Debit or Credit\"" for a particular card, I choose where to put the hit on the company I like less - the retailer or the bank."""
"""Can I change my loan term from 60 to 36 months?""","""Just call your credit union and ask if they will let you refinance at the lower rate. If they won't, then just increase your payment every month so that your car is paid off early (in 36 months instead of 60). You won't get the lower rate, but since your loan will be paid early, you'll be saving interest anyway."""
"""When do I pay taxes if I'm self employed?""","""I strongly recommend that you talk to an accountant right away because you could save some money by making a tax payment by January 15, 2014. You will receive Forms 1099-MISC from the various entities with whom you are doing business as a contractor detailing how much money they paid you. A copy will go to the IRS also. You file a Schedule C with your Form 1040 in which you detail how much you received on the 1099-MISC forms as well as any other income that your contracting business received (e.g. amounts less than $600 for which a 1099-MISc does not need to be issued, or tips, say, if you are a taxi-driver running your own cab), and you can deduct various expenses that you incurred in generating this income, including tools, books, (or gasoline!) etc that you bought for doing the job. You will need to file a Schedule SE that will compute how much you owe in Social Security and Medicare taxes on the net income on Schedule C. You will pay at twice the rate that employees pay because you get to pay not only the employee's share but also the employer's share. At least, you will not have to pay income tax on the employer's share. Your net income on Schedule C will transfer onto Form 1040 where you will compute how much income tax you owe, and then add on the Social Security tax etc to compute a final amount of tax to be paid. You will have to pay a penalty for not making tax payments every quarter during 2013, plus  interest on the tax paid late.  Send the IRS a check for the total. If you talk to an accountant right away, he\/she will likely be able to come up with a rough estimate of what you might owe, and sending in that amount by January 15 will save some money. The accountant can also help you set up for the 2014 tax year during which you could make quarterly payments of estimated tax for 2014 and avoid the penalties and interest referred to above."""
"""How do top investors pull out 20% ROI?""","""It's called leverage. Here's an example from real estate. The underlying appreciation on a house in certain parts of America is something like 7% a year. So if you bought the house \""all cash,\"" your return would be something like 7% a year. (Actually, a little more, because of the rent you would be collecting, or saving, if you were the \""renter.\"") Suppose you buy the same house, 20% down, 80% mortgage. The rent pays for your mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc. like it is supposed to. The house goes up the same 7% each year. But now your rate of return is 35%, that is 7%\/20% (your down payment). You get the whole appreciation but put up only 20% of the money. The bank (and your renter) did the rest."""
"""Will an ETF increase in price if an underlying stock increases in price""","""Since the market is in general rather efficient, the price of the ETF will most of the time reflects the prices of the underlying securities. However, there are times when ETF price deviates from its fundamental value. This is called trading at a premium\/discount. This creates arbitrage opportunity, which is actually being studied in finance literature."""
"""Help! I've cancelled their service, but this company continues to bill my credit card an annual fee. What can I do?""","""I don't think you should have to cancel your card.  Call your customer service line and just indicate to them what has happened.  You aren't getting service for what they are charging you and they are refusing to remove it themselves."""
"""What should I do with the change in my change-jar?""","""Are you in an occupation that regularly collects change or is this change left in your pocket at the end of the day? Here in the US it is typically worth it to invest in some automatic coin counters if you are in an occupation that regularly collects coins.  In your case you can collect the little baggies from the bank, use your coin counters and then make a deposit.  Here is an example of US coin counters. If it is just pocket change then in the morning, make it a habit of taking some with you.  This way you are less likely to break larger bills.  Also if you are making a deposit at the bank, add some change to the deposit without making it to annoying."""
"""Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?""","""Your analysis is not comparing apples to apples which is why it looks like investing money in a non-qualified account is better than a 401k (traditional or Roth).  For the non-qual you are using post tax dollars (money that has already been taxed). Now on top of that original tax you are also going to pay capital gains tax for any growth plus dividend rates for any dividends it throws off.  For the 401k, let's assume for the moment that $10,000 is invested in a traditional and that the marginal tax rate is always 20%. And for growth let's assume 10x. With a traditional your money will grow to $100,000 and then the IRS gets $20,000 as you pull the money out. The result is a net 80,000 for you.  For a Roth 401k, it is taxed first so only $8,000 gets invested. This then grows by the same multiplier to $80,000. (Until you consider changing tax rates the Roth and traditional give the same growth of money). Considering the non-qual option, like with the Roth we only have $8,000 to invest. However in this case you will not realize the full 10x growth as you will have to pay taxes on $72,000. These are taxes that the 401ks (and also IRAs) do not pay. There are other reasons to consider non-qual over maxing out your 401k. Liquidity, quality of investments, and fees being some of those. But the capital gains rate vs. ordinary income rate is not one, as the money in the non-qual still has to go through that ordinary income tax first before it is available to even invest."""
"""How can I investigate historical effect of Rebalancing on Return and Standard Deviation?""","""Doesn't \""no rebalancing\"" mean \""start with a portfolio and let it fly?\""  Seems like incorporation of rebalancing is more sophisticated than not. Just \""buy\"" your portfolio at the start and see where it ends up with no buying\/selling, as compared with where it ends up if you do rebalance. Or is it not that simple?"""
"""How to calculate the number of months until a loan is paid off (given principal, APR and payment amount)?""","""Here is the derivation of the formula, with The loan is equal to the sum of the repayments discounted to present value."""
"""Why should a company go public?""","""You go public to raise money, to invest in the business and\/or pay off the existing shareholders. It's really as simple as that. The advantage of being public is that your shares can easily be bought and sold, and so you can issue and sell new ones and your existing shareholders can sell out if they want to. The disadvantage is that you are much more tightly regulated, with more disclosure requirements, and also that you are exposed to much more pressure from your shareholders to maintain and increase your share price."""
"""What is the best way to get cash from my retirement accounts for a home down payment?""","""The best way to get cash from retirement is to not do it.  Leave the retirement savings alone.  Start saving for house down payment.  Look for ways to squirrel away money for that down payment.  Consider payment plus insurance, taxes, and maintenance costs.  If all that comes in less than a rental, you're probably better off buying.  Most likely it will not.  Make sure that when you go to buy, you have 20% down, AND an emergency fund that will cover you for 3 months of expenses at the new, higher, rate.  Hint, that'll probably be in excess of 10k based on a single person with a 1.5-2k a month mortgage, plus utilities and food.  And as a home owner, you will have a lot of things for which that emergency fund will come in handy.  It's a matter of when, not if.  Consider, 5k for a new roof, 6k for a hvac system, 1.5k for exterior paint, 500 for the plumber, 750 for pest control, 250 to have the tree removed that fell in a storm.  1000 for a new fridge.  500 for a new water heater.  1200 for washer and dryer.  ALL of these are periodic costs, and they all able to fail before they're supposed to."""
"""Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings?""","""If you can set up automatic payments (like direct debits in the UK) and you can be disciplined enough to not spend the money on something else then this can be a good way of building\/improving your credit rating. Banks \/ Lenders like it when they see you have previously taken, and repaid, credit. This can help you get better finance deals etc. in the future. Update: as noted in the comments France had a different financial system and people do not have credit ratings, so this point isn't valid in France"""
"""What happens if a bank loses your safe deposit box?""","""Unfortunately assets placed in a safety deposit box are not covered under the Federal Deposit Insurance Program (FDIC). Unless the bank is found to be negligent in the way it handled or protected your safety deposit box, neither them nor their private insurance company will reimburse you for the loss. Find out if in the duration you had your box with them, they moved, transitioned or merged with another entity. In this specific situation, you may be able to demonstrate negligence on the part of the banks as they have seemingly misplaced your box during their transition phase, and depending upon the value of the items placed in your safety deposit box, you may be entitled to some form of recovery. Some homeowner's insurance policies may also cover the loss, but if you didn't document what you kept in the box, you have difficulty verifying proof of the value. Valuables are often lost but documents can often be reconstructed. You can get stock and bonds by paying a fee for new certificates. For wills and trusts, you can reach out to the lawyer that prepared them for a copy. You should always keep 3 copies of such documents. When you put stuff in the box, always videotape it (photographs can be challenged) but if the video shows it was put in there, although it can still be taken out by you after you turn off the camera, yields more weight in establishing content and potential value. Also know the value of the items and check with your homeowner policy to make sure the default amount covers it, if not then you may need to include a rider to add the difference in value and the video, receipts, appraisals and such will serve you well in the future in such unfortunate circumstances. If the contents of a safety deposit box are lost because you didn't pay the fee, then depending on the state you are in the time frame might vary (3 years on average), but none the less they are sent to the State's unclaimed property\/funds department. You can search for these online often times or by contacting the state. It would help for you to find out which scenario you are in, their fault or yours, and proceed accordingly. Good luck."""
"""Is it ever logical to not deposit to a matched 401(k) account?""","""One situation where it would be prudent not to contribute would be if expenses are so tight that you cannot afford to contribute because you need that cashflow for expenses."""
"""Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?""","""What I should have done in the first place was just ask them.  From their customer support team: Thanks for writing in and for your interest in Square. It is perfectly acceptable to use Square for personal business, such as a yard sale. You do not need to have a registered business to take advantage of Square and the ability to accept credit cards. Just please note that it is against our Terms of Service to process prepaid cards, gift cards or your own credit card using your own Square account. Additionally, you may not use Square as a money transfer system. For every payment processed through Square, you must provide a legitimate good or service. Please let me know if you have any additional concerns."""
"""How do I pay my estimated income tax?""","""Congratulations on starting your own business. Invest in a tax software package right away; I can't recommend a specific one but there is enough information out there to point you in the right direction: share with us which one you ended up using and why (maybe a separate question?) You do need to make your FICA taxes but you can write off the SE part of it. Keep all your filings as a PDF, a printout and a softcopy in the native format of the tax software package: it really helps the next tax season. When you begin your business, most of the expenses are going to be straightforward (it was for me) and while I had the option of doing it by hand, I used software to do it myself. At the beginning, it might actually seem harder to use the tax software package, but it will pay off in the end. Build relationships with a few tax advisors and attorneys: you will need to buy liability insurance soon if you are in any kind of serious (non hobby) business and accounting for these are no trivial tasks. If you have not filed yet, I recommend you do this: File an extension, overpay your estimated taxes (you can always collect a refund later) and file your return once you have had a CPA look over it. Do not skimp on a CPA: it's just the cost of running your business and you don't want to waste your time reading the IRS manuals when you could be growing your own business. Best of luck and come back to tell us what you did!"""
"""Can one use dollar cost averaging to make money with something highly volatile?""","""As you mentioned in the title, what you're asking about comes down to volatility.  DCA when purchasing stock is one way of dealing with volatility, but it's only profitable if the financial instrument can be sold higher than your sunk costs.  Issues to be concerned with: Let's suppose you're buying a stock listed on the NYSE called FOO (this is a completely fake example).  Over the last six days, the average value of this stock was exactly $1.00Note 1.  Over six trading days you put $100 per day into this stockNote 2: At market close on January 11th, you have 616 shares of FOO.  You paid $596.29 for it, so your average cost (before fees) is: $596.29 \/ 616 = $0.97 per share Let's look at this including your trading fees: ($596.29 + $30) \/ 616 = $1.01 per share. When the market opens on January 12th, the quote on FOO could be anything.  Patents, customer wins, wars, politics, lawsuits, press coverage, etc... could cause the value of FOO to fluctuate.  So, let's just roll with the assumption that past performance is consistent: Selling FOO at $0.80 nets: (616 * $0.80 - $5) - ($596.29 + $30) =  $123.49 Loss Selling FOO at $1.20 nets: (616 * $1.20 - $5) - ($596.29 + $30) =  $107.90 Profit Every day that you keep trading FOO, those numbers get bigger (assuming FOO is a constant value).  Also remember, even if FOO never changes its average value and volatility, your recoverable profits shrink with each transaction because you pay $5 in fees for every one. Speaking from experience, it is very easy to paper trade.  It is a lot harder when you're looking at the ticker all day when FOO has been $0.80 - $0.90 for the past four days (and you're $300 under water on a $1000 portfolio).  Now your mind starts playing nasty games with you. If you decide to try this, let me give you some free advice: Unless you have some research (such as support \/ resistance information) or data on why FOO is a good buy at this price, let's be honest: you're gambling with DCA, not trading. END NOTES:"""
"""How does Vanguard determine the optimal asset allocation for their Target Retirement Funds?""","""Googling vanguard target asset allocation led me to this page on the Bogleheads wiki which has detailed breakdowns of the Target Retirement funds; that page in turn has a link to this Vanguard PDF which goes into a good level of detail on the construction of these funds' portfolios. I excerpt: (To the question of why so much weight in equities:) In our view, two important considerations justify an expectation of an   equity risk premium. The first is the historical record: In the past,   and in many countries, stock market investors have been rewarded with   such a premium.  ... Historically, bond returns have lagged equity returns by about 5\u20136   percentage points, annualized\u2014amounting to an enormous return   differential in most circumstances over longer time periods.   Consequently, retirement savers investing only in \""safe\"" assets must   dramatically increase their savings rates to compensate for the lower   expected returns those investments offer. ... The second strategic principle underlying our glidepath   construction\u2014that younger investors are better able to withstand   risk\u2014recognizes that an individual\u2019s total net worth consists of both   their current financial holdings and their future work earnings. For   younger individuals, the majority of their ultimate retirement wealth   is in the form of what they will earn in the future, or their \""human   capital.\"" Therefore, a large commitment to stocks in a younger   person\u2019s portfolio may be appropriate to balance and diversify risk   exposure to work-related earnings (To the question of how the exact allocations were decided:) As part of the process of evaluating and identifying an appropriate   glide path given this theoretical framework, we ran various   financial simulations using the Vanguard Capital Markets Model. We   examined different risk-reward scenarios and the potential   implications of different glide paths and TDF approaches. The PDF is highly readable, I would say, and includes references to quant articles, for those that like that sort of thing."""
"""Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real?""","""If they could really do this, do you really think they would be wasting their time offering this course? You are being lied to. (Or more accurately: It's certainly possible to gamble and get lucky, but those gambles are  more likely to result in your rapidly  losing your money than in your rapidly gaining value.) It is possible to make money in the market. But \""market rate of return\"" has historically averaged around  8%. That won't make you rich by itself, but it's better return than you can get from banks... at higher risk, please note. There are places in the market where, by accepting more risk of losing your money, you can improve on that 8%. For me the risk and effort are too much for the potential additional gains, but de gustibus."""
"""Should a high-school student invest their (relative meager) savings?""","""IMHO It is definitively not too early to start learning and thinking about personal finances and also about investing.  If you like to try stock market games, make sure to use one that includes a realistic fee structure simulation as well - otherwise there'll be a very unpleasant awakening when switching to reality... I'd like to stress the need for low fees with the brokerage account! Sit down and calculate how much fees different brokers take for a \""portfolio\"" of say, 1 ETF, 1 bond, 1 share of about $500 or $1000 each (e.g. order fee, annual fee, fee for paying out interest\/dividend).   In my experience, it is good if you can manage to make the first small investing steps before starting your career. Real jobs tend to need lots of time (particularly at the beginning), so time to learn investing is extremely scarce right at the time when you for the first time in your life earn money that could\/should be invested. I'm talking of very slowly starting with a single purchase of say an ETF, a single bond next time you have saved up a suitable amount of toy money, then maybe a single share (and essentially not doing anything with them in order to avoid further fees). While such a \""portfolio\"" is terrible with respect to diversification and relative fees*, this gives you the possibility to learn the procedures, to see how the fees cut in, what to do wrt taxes etc. This is why I speak about toy money and why I consider this money an investment in education. * An order fee of, say, $10 on a $500 position are terrible 4% (2 x $10) for buying + selling - depending on your local taxes, that would be several years of dividend yield for say some arbitrary Dow Jones ETF. Nevertheless, purchase + sale together are less than 3 cinema tickets."""
"""New to investing \u2014 I have $20,000 cash saved, what should I do with it?""","""Just my 2 cents, I read on the book, The WSJ Financial Guidebook for New Parents, that \""the average family spends between $11k and $16k raising their child during his first year\"".  So it might be better for you to make a budget including that cost, then decide how much money you feel safe to invest."""
"""What to do with an expensive, upside-down car loan?""","""An option that no one has yet suggested is selling the car, paying off the loan in one lump sum (adding cash from your emergency sum, if need be), and buying an old beater in its place.  With the beater you should be able to get a few years out of it - hopefully enough to get you through your PhD and into a better income situation where you can then assess a new car purchase (or more gently-used car purchase, to avoid the drive-it-off-the-lot income loss).   Even better than buying another car that you can afford to pay for is if you can survive without that car, depending on your location and public transit options.  Living car free saves you not only this payment but gas and maintenance, though it costs you in public transit terms. Right now it looks as if this debt is hurting you more than the amount in your emergency fund is helping.  Don't wipe out your emergency fund completely, but be willing to lower it in order to wipe out this debt."""
"""Better ways to invest money held by my small, privately-held Canadian corporation?""","""The issue only arises when the investments grow in size.  A small amount won't trigger the higher tax rates. If the amount is large enough, then consider using either: Insurance products that are 'segregated', or RRSPs in your own name after your business pays you wages, or Gifting to other family members."""
"""Pros and cons of using a personal assistant service to manage your personal finances?""","""Years ago I hired someone part time (not virtual however) to help me with all sorts of things.  Yes it helps free up some time. However particularly with finances, it does take a leap of faith.  If you have high value accounts that this person will be dealing with you can always get them bonded.  Getting an individual with a clean credit history and no criminal background bonded usually costs < $600 a year (depending on $ risk exposure). I would start out small with tasks that do not directly put that person in control of your money.  In my case I didn't have an official business, I worked a normal 9-5 job, but I owned several rental units, and an interest in a bar.  My assistant also had a normal 9-5 job and worked 5-10 hours a week for me on various things. Small stuff at first like managing my calendar, reminding me when bills were due, shipping packages, even calling to set up a hair cut. At some point she moved to contacting tenants, meeting with contractors, showing apartments, etc... I paid her a fixed about each week plus expenses. I would pay her extra if I needed her more (say showing an apartment on a Saturday, or meeting a plumber). She would handled all sorts of stuff for me, and I gave her the flexibility when needed to fit things in with her schedule. After about a month I did get her a credit card for expenses. Obviously a virtual assistant would not be able to do some of these things but I think you get the point.   Eventually when the trust had been built up I put her on most of my accounts and gave her some fiduciary responsibilities as well. I'm not sure that this level of trust would be possible to get to with a virtual assistant. However, with a virtual assistant you might be able to avoid one really big danger of hiring an assistant.... You see, several years later when I sold off my apartment buildings I no longer needed an assistant, so I married her. Now one good thing about that is I don't have to pay her now.   ;)"""
"""Is leveraging notoriety to raise stock prices illegal in the US?""","""If he didn't lie, I don't see the issue. He did not force anyone to buy anything. His opinion was stock X is good, he publicized it and it turned out to be true (at least temporary) - what's wrong with it?  It is customary for people who have either fiduciary duty towards the clients or are perceived as independent analysts to disclose their interest and potential conflict of interest, lest they lose the respect of the public as independent and trustworthy sources of financial information. Jackson never had that, express or implied, and never had the duty to provide anybody with impartial financial analysis, so he can say anything he wants. He can invest into the company and promote it and make money from it - isn't it what was called \""business\"" once? Why is it even being questioned?"""
"""Trying to figure out my student loans""","""Is there anything here I should be deathly concerned about? A concern I see is the variable rate loans. Do you understand the maximum rate they can get to? At this time those rates are low, but if you are going to put funds against the highest rate loan, make sure the order doesn't change without you noticing it. What is a good mode of attack here?  The best mode of attack is to pay off the one with the highest rate first by paying more than the minimum. When that is done roll over the money you were paying for that loan to the next highest. Note if a loan balance get to be very low, you can put extra funds against this low balance loan to be done with it. Investigate loan forgiveness programs. The federal government has loan forgiveness programs for certain job positions, if you work for them for a number of years. Some employers also have these programs.  What are the payoff dates for the other loans? My inexact calculations put a bunch in about 2020 but some as late as 2030. You may need to talk to your lender. They might have a calculator on their website.  Why do my Citi loans have a higher balance than the original payoff amounts? Some loans are subsidized by the federal government. This covers the interest while the student is still in school. Non-subsidized federal loans and private loans don't have this feature, so their balance can grow while the student is in school."""
"""Pros and cons of using a personal assistant service to manage your personal finances?""","""When you want to hire personal assistants, you must be sure that you are hiring in a trusted company or the person you talk to have been proven by a lot of people. You must be wise in choosing one because these people will handle some of your personal things and data."""
"""Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period?""","""a link to this article grabbed my Interest as I was browsing the site for something totally unrelated to finance.  Your question is not silly - I'm not a financial expert, but I've been in your situation several times with Carmax Auto Finance (CAF) in particular. A lot of people probably thought you don't understand how financing works - but your Car Loan set up is EXACTLY how CAF Financing works, which I've used several times. Just some background info to anyone else reading this - unlike most other Simple Interest Car Financing, with CAF, they calculate per-diem based on your principal balance, and recalculate it every time you make a payment, regardless of when your actual due date was.  But here's what makes CAF financing particularly fair - when you do make a payment, your per-diem since your last payment accrued X dollars, and that's your interest portion that is subtracted first from your payment (and obviously per-diem goes down faster the more you pay in a payment), and then EVerything else, including Any extra payments you make - goes to Principal. You do not have to specify that the extra payment(S) are principal only. If your payment amount per month is $500 and you give them 11 payments of $500 - the first $500 will have a small portion go to interest accrued since the last payment - depending on the per-diem that was recalculated, and then EVERYTHING ELSE goes to principal and STILL PUSHES YOUR NEXT DUE DATE (I prefer to break up extra payments as precisely the amount due per month, so that my intention is clear - pay the extra as a payment for the next month, and the one after that, etc, and keep pushing my next due date). That last point of pushing your next due date is the key  - not all car financing companies do that. A lot of them will let you pay to principal yes, but you're still due next month. With CAF, you can have your cake, and eat it too. I worked for them in College - I know their financing system in and out, and I've always financed with them for that very reason.  So, back to the question - should you keep the loan alive, albeit for a small amount. My unprofessional answer is yes! Car loans are very powerful in your credit report because they are installment accounts (same as Mortgages, and other accounts that you pay down to 0 and the loan is closed). Credit cards, are revolving accounts, and don't offer as much bang for your money - unless you are savvy in manipulating your card balances - take it up one month, take it down to 0 the next month, etc. I play those games a lot - but I always find mortgage and auto loans make the best impact.  I do exactly what you do myself - I pay off the car down to about $500 (I actually make several small payments each equal to the agreed upon Monthly payment because their system automatically treats that as a payment for the next month due, and the one after that, etc - on top of paying it all to principal as I mentioned).  DO NOT leave a dollar, as another reader mentioned - they have a \""good will\"" threshold, I can't remember how much - probably $50, for which they will consider the account paid off, and close it out. So, if your concern is throwing away free money but you still want the account alive, your \""sweet spot\"" where you can be sure the loan is not closed, is probably around $100.  BUT....something else important to consider if you decide to go with that strategy of keeping the account alive (which I recommend). In my case, CAF will adjust down your next payment due, if it's less than the principal left. SO, let's say your regular payment is $400 and you only leave a $100, your next payment due is $100 (and it will go up a few cents each month because of the small per-diem), and that is exactly what CAF will report to the credit bureaus as your monthly obligation - which sucks because now your awesome car payment history looks like you've only been paying $100 every month - so, leave something close to one month's payment (yes, the interest accrued will be higher - but I'm not a penny-pincher when the reward is worth it - if you left $400 for 1.5 years at 10% APR - that equates to about $50 interest for that entire time - well worth it in my books. Sorry for rambling a lot, I suck myself into these debates all the time :)"""
"""Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?""","""I won't repeat what's already been said, but I agree that it's a good move to take advantage of the free financing so long as you read the fine print carefully, keep the money designated to pay off this debt and not use it for anything else, and make sure to pay it off before you get smacked with some bad interest. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that this kind of offer can help build credit.  You mentioned that you already have excellent credit, but for someone who has good credit, this could be an account that, if used carefully, could give their credit a boost by adding to their history of on-time payments."""
"""Does a rescheduled conference call generally mean \""something's wrong\"" with a company?""","""Does the market automatically assume a rescheduled call means something major, like the auditors aren't signing the financials, is going on? Yes. (If so, why?) People - including investors - are emotional. And suspicious. And paranoid. Financial discussions tend to make everything sound like a cold, clinical science, and to some degree that is true. But you should never look past something much more simple - people are people. And of course, once all is said and done, acts like a reschedule often do mean something is up. So you've now got a nice mix of fact and emotion.   Does it mean that 95% of the shares' holders are insiders who all decided to sell when they learned about whatever is causing the delay in the con call? No. See Littleadv's answer."""
"""Can I use a different HSA than PayFlex that came with aetna?""","""You can ask your employer for anything that you want. However, most employers, if they are contributing their own money into your HSA, or you are contributing to your own HSA through payroll deduction, only work with one HSA, which is much easier for them to manage. You are free to decline their HSA if you want.  However, if they are kicking in free money into your HSA, I don't recommend that you decline it.  Just pick the best option you have for investing. As for the money that you are contributing, if you don't want to put your own money into your employer's Aetna HSA, you can open up an HSA with any institution you like.  You can even do this and still keep Aetna HSA to take advantage of the employer's contributions.  However, your annual limit is still the total of all contributions to all HSA's in your name, whether you make them or your employer makes them. When deciding whether or not to use payroll deduction into the Aetna HSA or to go your own way, keep in mind that payroll deduction skips some payroll taxes."""
"""Rolled over husband's 401(k) to IRA after his death. Can I deduct a loss since?""","""I trust the 401(k) was a traditional, pre tax account. There was no tax paid, and any withdrawals would be taxable. The account could go to zero, and there's no write off, sorry. I have to ask - were there any withdrawals along the way? What was it invested in that lost 90% of its value?  Edit - I'm sorry the OP came and went. It would be great to have closure on some of these issues. Here, I'm thinking as Duff said, malpractice, or perhaps a 401(k) that was 100% in company stock. Seems we'll never know."""
"""Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards?""","""I'd like to know if there is any reliable research on the subject. Intuitively, this must be true, no? Is it? First, is it even possible to discover the correlation, if one exists? Dave Ramsey is a proponent of \""Proven study that shows you will spend 10% more on a credit card than with cash.\"" Of course, he suggests that the study came from an otherwise reliable source, Dun & Bradstreet. A fellow blogger at Get Rich Slowly researched and found - Nobody I know has been able to track down this mythical Dun and   Bradstreet study. Even Dun and Bradstreet themselves have been unable   to locate it. GRS reader Nicole (with the assistance of her trusty   librarian Wendi) contacted the company and received this response:   \""After doing some research with D&B, it turns out that someone made up   the statement, and also made up the part where D&B actually said   that.\"" In other words, the most cited study is a Myth.  In fact, there are studies which do conclude that card users spend more. I think that any study (on anything, not just this topic. Cigarette companies buy studies to show they don't cause cancer, Big Oil pays to disprove global warming, etc.) needs to be viewed with a critical eye. The studies I've seen nearly all contain one of 2 major flaws - My own observation - when I reviewed our budget over the course of a year, some of the largest charges include - I list the above, as these are items whose cost is pretty well fixed. We are not in the habit of \""going for a drive,\"" gas is bought when we need it. All other items I consider fixed, in that the real choice is to pay with the card or check, unlike the items some claim can be inflated. These add to about 80% of the annual card use. I don't see it possible for card use to impact these items, and therefore the \""10% more\"" warning is overreaching.  To conclude, I'll concede that even the pay-in-full group might not adhere to the food budget, and grab the $5 brownie near the checkout, or over tip on a restaurant meal. But those situations are not sufficient to assume that a responsible card user comes out behind over the year for having done so.  A selection of the Studies I am referencing -"""
"""The Benefits\/Disadvantages of using a credit card""","""An advantage of using a major credit card is that they act as a buffer and source of recourse between you and the merchant. Cheated and the store won\u2019t answer you letters? Call Visa (or more accuratly, call the number on the back of the card). (That is, #2 on this answer, which you can also reference for a whole list of benefits.)"""
"""How can I transfer and consolidate my 401k's and other options?""","""You should ask your broker of choice for paperwork to move funds to them. You can't move into an account that doesn't exist, so when I wanted to move my money from an old pension plan to an IRA I set up the IRA with the broker first. When I told them it was to receive this money, they weren't asking for any initial deposit. You then have a broker and account number to give the old company to set up the move."""
"""What kind of trade is this?""","""The question mentions a trailing stop. A trailing stop is a type of stop loss order. It allows you to protect your profit on the stock, while \""keeping you in the stock\"". A trailing stop is specified as a percentage of market price e.g. you might want to set a trailing stop at 5%, or 10% below the market price. A trailing stop goes up along with the market price, but if the market price drops it doesn't move down too. The idea is that it is there to \""catch\"" your profit, if the market suddenly moves quickly against you. There is a nice explanation of how that works in the section titled Trailing Stops here. (The URL for the page, \""Tailing Stops\"" is misleading, and a typo, I suspect.)"""
"""Is www.onetwotrade.com a scam?""","""It is a binary options market licensed by the \""gaming authority\"" of Malta. One of the most liberal \""pay to play\"" jurisdictions in the European Union. It sells access to tighter regulatory regimes. This is distinctly a gambling website, not licensed or protected by securities regulations. But that aside, even if they were able to masquerade more as a financial service, none of that dictates whether you will lose your money. Therefore try to find reviews from people that already use the site. This is not investing, a distinction I am able to make because no product they offer has positive expected value. Cash settled binary options do sound like a lot of fun though! And maybe you can make successful predictions in the allotted time period of the option. The things I would expect are issues withdrawing your funds, or unexplained fees."""
"""Tax Form 1099 and hourly worker do i file a W-2 if my employer filed the 1099 for me?""","""Forms 1099 and W2 are mutually exclusive. Employers file both, not the employees. 1099 is filed for contractors, W2 is filed for employees. These terms are defined in the tax code, and you may very well be employee, even though your employer pays you as a contractor and issues 1099. You may complain to the IRS if this is the case, and have them explain the difference to the employer (at the employer's expense, through fines and penalties). Employers usually do this to avoid providing benefits (and by the way also avoid paying payroll taxes). If you're working as a contractor, lets check your follow-up questions: where do i pay my taxes on my hourly that means does the IRS have a   payment center for the tax i pay. If you're an independent contractor (1099), you're supposed to pay your own taxes on a quarterly basis using the form 1040-ES. Check this page for more information on your quarterly payments and follow the links. If you're a salaried employee elsewhere (i.e.: receive W2, from a different employer), then instead of doing the quarterly estimates you can adjust your salary withholding at that other place of work to cover for your additional income. To do that you submit an updated form W4 there, check with the payroll department on details. Is this a hobby tax No such thing, hobby income is taxed as ordinary income. The difference is that hobby cannot be at loss, while regular business activity can. If you're a contractor, it is likely that you're not working at loss, so it is irrelevant. what tax do i pay the city? does this require a sole proprietor   license? This really depends on your local laws and the type of work you're doing and where you're doing it. Most likely, if you're working from your employer's office, you don't need any business license from the city (unless you have to be licensed to do the job). If you're working from home, you might need a license, check with the local government. These are very general answers to very general questions. You should seek a proper advice from a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your state) for your specific case."""
"""What is a 401(k) Loan Provision?""","""401K accounts, both regular and Roth, generally have loans available. There are maximum amounts that are based on federal limits, and your balance in the program. These rules also determine the amount of time you have to repay the loan, and what happens if you quit or are fired while the loan is outstanding. In these loan programs the loan comes from your 401K funds. Regarding matching funds. This plan is not atypical. Some match right away, some make you wait. Some put in X percent regardless of what you contribute. Some make you opt out, others make you opt in. Some will direct their automatic amounts to a specific fund, unless you tell them otherwise.  The big plus for the fund you describe is the immediate vesting. Some companies will match your investments but then only partially vest the funds. They don't want to put a bunch of matching funds into your account, and then have you leave.  So they say that if you leave before 5 years is up, they will not let you keep all the funds. If you leave after 2 years you keep 25%, if you leave after 3 years you keep 50%... The fact they immediately vest is a very generous plan."""
"""Avoid Capital Gains on Rental""","""While it may not be your preferred outcome, and doesn't eliminate the income, in the event you find yourself in the path described here you have a way to defer gains to the future. but I would then want to buy another house as a rental If you sell this house and buy another investment property (within strict time windows: 45 days to written contract and closed in 180 days),  you can transfer your basis and defer your gains via what is called a 1031 like-kind exchange"""
"""Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash?""","""My figuring (and I'm not an expert here, but I think this is basic math) is: Let's say you had a windfall of $1000 extra dollars today that you could either: a. Use to pay down your mortgage b. Put into some kind of equity mutual fund Maybe you have 20 years left on your mortgage.  So your return on investment with choice A is whatever your mortgage interest rate is, compounded monthly or daily.  Interest rates are low now, but who knows what they'll be in the future.  On the other hand, you should get more return out of an equity mutual fund investment, so I'd say B is your better choice, except: But that's also the other reason why I favour B over A.  Let's say you lose your job a year from now.  Your bank won't be too lenient with you paying your mortgage, even if you paid it off quicker than originally agreed.  But if that money is in mutual funds, you have access to it, and it buys you time when you really need it.  People might say that you can always get a second mortgage to get the equity out of it, but try getting a second mortgage when you've just lost your job."""
"""Given a certain yearly savings, how much can I spend on a capital improvement? NPV of future cash flow""","""For this, the internal rate of return is preferred. In short, all cash flows need to be discounted to the present and set equal to 0 so that an implied rate of return can be calculated. You could try to work this out by hand, but it's practically hopeless because of solving for roots of the implied rate of return which are most likely complex. It's better to use a spreadsheet with this capability such as OpenOffice's Calc. The average return on equity is 9%, so anything higher than that is a rational choice. Example Using this simple tool, the formula variables can easily be input. For instance, the first year has a presumed cash inflow of $2,460 because the insurance has a 30% discount from $8,200 that is assumed to be otherwise paid, a cash inflow of $40,000 to finance the sprinklers, a cash outflow of $40,000 to fund the sprinklers, a $400 outflow for inspection, and an outflow in the amount of the first year's interest on the loan. This should be repeated for each year.  They can be input undiscounted, as they are, for each year, and the calculator will do the rest."""
"""How to model fees from trades on online platforms?""","""Assuming cell A1 contains the number of trades: will price up to A1=100 at 17 each, and the rest at 14 each. The key is the MAX and MIN. They keep an item from being counted twice. If X would end up negative, MAX(0,x) clamps it to 0. By extension, if X-100 would be negative, MAX(0, X-100) would be 0 -- ie: that number doesn't increase til X>100. When A1=99, MIN(a1,100) == 99, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 0. When A1=100, MIN(a1,100) == 100, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 0. When A1=101, MIN(a1,100) == 100, and MAX(0,a1-100) == 1. Of course, if the 100th item should be $14, then change the 100s to 99s."""
"""Who gets the periodic payments when an equity is sold on an repurchase agreement?""","""Repurchase agreements are a way of financing a security position. You have a collateralized loan where you give your security in exchange for cash. Let's say you have a 10 year Treasury note paying 3.5% while the 1-week repurchase rate is 0.5%. You loan the security to someone with a promise to repurchase it from them some time in the future. You  collect the 3.5% coupon and you pay the 0.5% interest. Clearly it makes no sense for someone to collect interest on money and also collect coupon payments. And for the counter-party it makes no sense to be not getting coupon payments and also to be paying interest. This how one website explains the process: During the transaction, any coupon payments that come due belong to   the legal owner, the \""borrower.\"" However, when this happens, a cash   amount equal to the coupon is paid to the original owner, this is   called \""manufactured payment.\"" In order to avoid the tax payment on   the coupon, some institutions will repo the security to a tax exempt   entity and receive the manufactured payment and avoid the tax (\""coupon   washing\"") I find this unequivocal description to be the clearest During the life of the transaction the market risk and the credit risk   of the collateral remain with the seller. (Because he has agreed to   repurchase the asset for an agreed sum of money at maturity). Provided   the trade is correctly documented if the collateral has a coupon   payment during the life of the repo the buyer is obliged to pay this   to the seller."""
"""How to help a financially self destructive person?""","""I am no expert by any means in divorce situations, but it seems like you probably have more than enough evidence (if you can back up everything you outlined here) that the living conditions an her place are not suitable for kids.  This ought to be enough for you to gain sole custody of the kids.  Maybe you didn't want to keep their mother in the equation for their benefit, but right now it's not to their benefit for her to be in the equation. The honest truth is that you're not in a position to help her being divorced.  You can't force her to do anything as things stand now.  But if you take legal actions to gain sole custody you might be able to lay down some conditions under which she could regain partial custody of the kids.  This might be the \""scare\"" approach you're looking for if she cares about her children."""
"""Historical company performance data ""","""I know of no free source for 10 years historical data on a large set of companies.  Now, if it's just a single company or small number that interest you, contact Investor Relations at the company(ies) in question; they may be willing to send you the data for free."""
"""What pension options are there for a 22 year old graduate in the UK?""","""Major things to consider: If you're expecting to look at the property market: it might prove to be sensible to start doing it now, since the market is just recovering, and (IMHO warning -I'm not a professional investor, just a random guy on the internet) prices still hasn't caught up with value fundamentals.  check out cash ISA's for a 24-36 month timeframe; most do a reasonable 3-4% AER, with the current inflation rate being around 4%, this will, at the very least, make sure your money doesn't loose it's purchasing power. Finally, a word of caution: SIPPs have a rather rubbish AER rates. This, by itself, wouldn't be much of a problem on a 30-40 years timeframe, but keep the (current, and historically strictly monotonically increasing) 4% inflation rate in mind: this implies the purchasing power of any money tied in these vehicles will  loose it's purchasing power, in a compounding manner. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions."""
"""\""Top down\"" and \""bottom-up approach\"" ""","""Top down approach needed when bottom-up approach of markets leads to   periods of high unemployment Imagine a chart that starts with one point at the top and breaks it down into the details by the time you get to the bottom. People can read this chart either from the top and go down or from the bottom and go up. Wikipedia does have articles on Top-down and bottom-up design if you want more detail than I give here. Top down refers to the idea of starting at a high level and then working down to get into the details. For example, in planning a vacation, one could start with what continent to go, then which country, then which cities in that country and so forth. Thus, the idea here would be to start with macroeconomic trends and then create a strategy to fix this as the other way is what created the problem. The idea of taking a subject or system and breaking it down into individual pieces would be another way to state this. Bottom up refers to the idea of starting with the details and then build up to get a general idea. To use the vacation example again, this is starting with the cities and then building up to build the overall itinerary. Within political circles you may here of \""grassroots\"" efforts where citizens will form groups to gain influence. This would be an example of bottom up since it is starting with the people. The idea of taking individual components and putting them together to build up something would be another way to state this. The statement is saying that a completely different style of approach will be necessary than the one that created the problem here."""
"""Why would a bank take a lower all cash offer versus a higher offer via conventional lending?""","""One other point to consider is that cash offers often include no contingencies. That is, the offer comes in and if the seller signs then the deal is done, without any chance that the buyer backs out. As you can imagine, this is an attractive option in some situations."""
"""Is an investor of a startup subjected under a vesting schedule?""","""Recently, I asked about what the company valuation is and how many   shares does my 4% represent.CFO told me that there is no point to talk   about \""shares\"" or \""stock\"" since the company is not public. Is it   right? No, it is wrong. Shares and stocks exist regardless of how they can be traded. Once a company is formed, there are stocks that belong to the owners in the proportion of the ownership. They may not exist physically, but they do exist on paper. As an owner of 5% of the company, you own 5% of the company stocks. I asked if my investor portion equity will be subjected under a   vesting schedule, CFO said yes. That doesn't make sense to me, because   I bought those 4%? Aren't those supposed to be fully vested? I agree   to my employee equity to be vested. Doesn't make sense to me either, since your money is already in their pocket. But I'm not sure if its illegal. If that's what is written in the signed contract - then may be its possible to have that situation. But it doesn't make much sense, because these shares are granted to you in return to your money, not some potential future work (as the 1% employee's portion). You already gave the money, so why wouldn't they be vested? Best to read the contract upon which you gave them your money, I really hope you have at least that and not just gave them a check...."""
"""How do I bring money overseas?""","""I'm an Australian who just got back from a trip to Malaysia for two weeks over the New Year, so this feels a bit like dejavu! I set up a 28 Degrees credit card (my first ever!) because of their low exchange rate and lack of fees on credit card transactions. People say it's the best card for travel and I was ready for it. However, since Malaysia is largely a cash economy (especially in the non-city areas), I found myself mostly just withdrawing money from my credit card and thus getting hit with a cash advance fee ($4) and instant application of the high interest rate (22%) on the money. Since I was there already and had no other alternatives, I made five withdrawals over the two weeks and ended up paying about $21 in fees. Not great! But last time I travelled I had a Commonwealth Bank Travel Money Card (not a great idea), and if I'd used that instead on this trip and given up fees for a higher exchange rate, I would have been charged an extra $60! Presumably my Commonwealth debit card would have been the same. This isn't even including mandatory ATM fees. If I've learned anything from this experience and these envelope calculations I'm doing now, it's these:"""
"""Buy index mutual fund or build my own?""","""One thing I would add to @littleadv (buy an ETF instead of doing your own) answer would be ensure that the dividend yield matches.  Expense ratios aren't the only thing that eat you with mutual funds: the managers can hold on to a large percentage of the dividends that the stocks normally pay (for instance, if by holding onto the same stocks, you would normally receive 3% a year in dividends, but by having a mutual fund, you only receive .75%, that's an additional cost to you).  If you tried to match the DJIA on your own, you would have an advantage of receiving the dividend yields on the stocks paying dividends.  The downsides: distributing your investments to match and the costs of actual purchases."""
"""Why does money value normally decrease?""","""You expect interest because you forgo the opportunity of using the money as well as the risk of losing the money if the borrower can not pay you back.  This is true also with gold - you would expect interest if you loaned someone your gold for a time period. When you deposit your money in the bank you are loaning your money to the bank who then loans the money to others.  This is how the bank is able to pay interest on your accounts."""
"""How come the government can value a home more than was paid for the house?""","""The real answer why the government is \""allowed\"" to do something is because they are the government and they make the rules. There are lots of laws that I think make no sense. I ran into a similar situation to yours. I bought a house during a time when the market in my area was way down. The previous owner had paid $140,000 but I got it for only $80,000. The government appraised it for, I forget the exact number, but over $100,000. I appealed, and the argument I made to the appeal board was that the law says it is supposed to be appraised for \""fair market value\"". The definition of \""fair market value\"" is the amount that a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller, absent special conditions like a sweetheart sale to a relative. The house had been advertised for a higher price and the seller had to drop the price several times before getting an offer, and finally accepting mine. This is pretty much the definition of \""fair market value\"". The appeals board replied that it was not FMV because the market was bad at this particular time and so I got a good deal. I said that that's the definition of market value: it goes up and down as market conditions change. If the market happened to be up when someone bought a house and they had to pay a high price, would the government assess the house at a lower value because that was an unusually high price? I doubt it. They ended up reducing the assessed value, but not to what I actually paid. All that said, arguably a foreclosure sale might be considered special conditions. Prices at a foreclosure sale tend to be lower than \""ordinary\"" sales. In a foreclosure, the bank is usually trying to get rid of the property quickly because they don't want to be in the property-management business, they want to be in the money lending and management business. Of course you could say that sort of thing about conditions surrounding many sales. Maybe the price is low because the seller needed cash now to start a business. Maybe the price is high because the buyer was too lazy to shop around. Maybe the price is low because the buyer is a very skilled negotiator. Etc etc.  My watch just broke and while I was shopping for a new one I found two listings for the exact same watch, I mean exact same manufacturer and model number, identical picture, on the same web site, one giving the price as $24 and the other as $99. What is the market value of that watch? I presume anyone who saw both listings would pick the $24 one, but I presume some number of people pay the higher price because they never see the lower price. In real life there isn't really one, exact, fair market value. That's an abstraction."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""Day trading is probably the most often tried and failed activity in the financial world. People think they can parlay $1,000 investment into $1,000,000 in a week with little or no knowledge on how to evaluate stocks and or companies. They think they can just look at where the line graphs' been and forecast where it's going to be next week. Unfortunately if it were that simple everyone would be making money hand over fist in the market.   So in short, the reason day trading is considered a risky venture is because most of the people that attempt to do it are willfully ignorant. They intentionally choose not to read about day trading. They intentionally choose not to learn about how to read a company's financial report and they intentionally choose not to learn how to compare one stock to another. They also don't consider the fact that most of their data is 15 or more min old because of the shady rules brokers have worked into the system.  Real everyday investors that make money in the market do it by careful evaluation of the purchase they are about to make. Guess what, even they lose time to time. That's the game!"""
"""Are mutual funds safe from defaults?""","""There is a measure of protection for investors. It is not the level of protection provided by FDIC or NCUA but it does exist: Securities Investor Protection Corporation What SIPC Protects SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities \u2013 such as stocks   and bonds \u2013 held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member   brokerage firm. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which   includes a $250,000 limit for cash. Most customers of failed brokerage   firms when assets are missing from customer accounts are protected.   There is no requirement that a customer reside in or be a citizen of   the United States. A non-U.S. citizen with an account at a brokerage   firm that is a member of SIPC is treated the same as a resident or   citizen of the United States with an account at a brokerage firm that   is a member of SIPC. SIPC protection is limited. SIPC only protects the custody function of   the broker dealer, which means that SIPC works to restore to customers   their securities and cash that are in their accounts when the   brokerage firm liquidation begins. SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of your securities.   SIPC does not protect individuals who are sold worthless stocks and   other securities. SIPC does not protect claims against a broker for   bad investment advice, or for recommending inappropriate investments. It is important to recognize that SIPC protection is not the same as   protection for your cash at a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation   (FDIC) insured banking institution because SIPC does not protect the   value of any security. Investments in the stock market are subject to fluctuations in market   value. SIPC was not created to protect these risks. That is why SIPC   does not bail out investors when the value of their stocks, bonds and   other investment falls for any reason. Instead, in a liquidation, SIPC   replaces the missing stocks and other securities when it is possible   to do so."""
"""Is it possible to sell a stock at a higher value than the market price?""","""Yes  You could write a covered call and the stock gets called away at the price + premium.  You could convince someone to buy it regardless of the market price."""
"""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's up to you. Generally the weakest point in security is with the user. An \""attacker\"" is far more likely to get your account information from you then he is from the site your registered with.  Why you're the weakest point: When you enter your account information, your password is never saved exactly how you enter it. It's passed through what is called a \""one way function\"", these functions are easy to compute one way but given the end-result is EXTREMELY difficult to compute in reverse. So in a database if someone looked up your password they would see it something like this \""31435008693ce6976f45dedc5532e2c1\"". When you log in to an account your password is sent through this function and then the result is checked against what is saved in the database, if they match you are granted access. The way an attacker would go about getting your password is by entering values into the function and checking the values against yours, this is known as a brute force attack. For our example (31435008693ce6976f45dedc5532e2c1) it would take someone 5 million years to decry-pt using a basic brute force attack. I used \""thisismypassword\"" as my example password, it's 12 characters long. This is why most sites urge you to create long passwords with a mix of numbers, uppercase, lowercase and symbols. This is a very basic explanation of security and both sides have better tools then the one explained but this gives you an idea of how security works for sites like these. You're far more likely to get a virus or a key logger steal your information. I do use Mint. Edit: From the Mint FAQ: Do you store my bank login information on your servers?   Your bank login credentials are stored securely in a separate database   using multi-layered hardware and software encryption. We only store the   information needed to save you the trouble of updating, syncing or   uploading financial information manually. Edit 2:  From OFX About Security Open Financial Exchange (OFX) is a unified specification for the   electronic exchange of financial data between financial institutions,   businesses and consumers via the Internet. This is how mint is able to communicate with even your small local bank. FINAL EDIT: ( This answers everything )  For passwords to Mint itself, we compute a secure hash of the user's   chosen password and store only the hash (the hash is also salted - see   http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sal... ).  Hashing is a one-way function   and cannot be reversed.   It is not possible to ever see or recover   the password itself.  When the user tries to login, we compute the   hash of the password they are attempting to use and compare it to the   hashed value on record. (This is a standard technique which every site   should use). For banking credentials, we generally must use reversible encryption   for which we have special procedures and secure hardware kept in our   secure and guarded datacenter.  The decryption keys never leave the   hardware device (which is built to destroy the key material if the   tamper protection is attacked).  This device will only decrypt after   it is activated by a quorum of other keys, each of which is stored on   a smartcard and also encrypted by a password known to only one person.   Furthermore the device requires a time-limited   cryptographically-signed permission token for each decryption. The   system (which I designed and patented) also has facilities for secure   remote auditing of each decryption. Source: David K Michaels, VP Engineering, Mint.com - http:\/\/www.quora.com\/How-do-mint-com-and-similar-websites-avoid-storing-passwords-in-plain-text"""
"""Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly?""","""The only card I've seen offer this on credit card purchases is Discover.  I think they have a special deal with the stores so that the cash-over amount is not included in the percentage-fee the merchant pays.  (The cash part shows up broken-out from the purchase amount on the statement--if this was purely something the store did on its own without some collaboration with Discover that would not happen). The first few times I've seen the offer, I assumed it would be treated like a cash-advance (high APR, immediate interest with no grace period, etc.), but it is not.  It is treated like a purchase. You have no interest charge if you pay in full during the grace period, and no transaction fee.  Now I very rarely go to the ATM. What is in it for Discover?  They have a higher balance to charge you interest on if you ever fail to pay in full before the grace period.  And Discover doesn't have any debit\/pin option that I know of, so no concern of cannibalizing their other business.  And happier customers. What is in it for the grocer?  Happier customers, and they need to have the armored car come around less often and spend less time counting drawers internally."""
"""What do the suffixes on stock symbols indicate""","""The suffix represents the stock exchange the stock is traded on. N represents the New York Stock Exchange and O represents the Nasdaq. Sometimes a stock can be listed on more than one exchange so the suffix will give you an indication of which exchange the stock is on. For example the Australian company BHP Billiton Ltd is listed on multiple exchanges so is given a different suffix for the different exchanges (especially when the code is the same for each exchange). Below are a few examples of BHP:"""
"""Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible?""","""When you pay interest on a loan used to fund a legitimate investment or business activity, that interest becomes an expense that you can deduct against related income. For example, if you borrowed $10k to buy stocks, you could deduct the interest on that $10k loan from investment gains.  In your case, you are borrowing money to invest in the stock of your company.  You would be able to deduct the interest expense against investment gain (like selling stock or receiving dividends), but not from any income from the business. (See this link for more information.) You do not have to pay taxes on the interest paid to your father; that is an expense, not income.  However, your father has to pay taxes on that interest, because that is income for him."""
"""Why does the biotechnology industry have such a high PE ratio?""","""I want to elaborate on some of the general points made in the other answers, since there is a lot that is special or unique to the biotech industry. By definition, a high P\/E ratio for an industry can stem from 1) high prices\/demand for companies in the industry, and\/or 2) low earnings in the industry. On average, the biotech industry exhibits both high demand (and therefore high prices) and low earnings, hence its average P\/E ratio. My answer is somewhat US-specific (mainly the parts about the FDA) but the rest of the information is relevant elsewhere. The biotech industry is a high-priced industry because for several reasons, some investors consider it an industry with significant growth potential. Also, bringing a drug to market requires a great deal of investment over several years, at minimum. A new drug may turn out to be highly profitable in the future, but the earliest the company could begin earning this profit is after the drug nears completion of Phase III clinical trials and passes the FDA approval process.  Young, small-cap biotech companies may therefore have low or negative earnings for extended periods because they face high R&D costs throughout the lengthy process of bringing their first drug (or later drugs) to market. This process can be on the order of decades. These depressed earnings, along with high demand for the companies, either through early investors, mergers and acquisitions, etc. can lead to high P\/E ratios.  I addressed in detail several of the reasons why biotech companies are in demand now in another answer, but I want to add some information about the role of venture capital in the biotech industry that doesn't necessarily fit into the other answer. Venture capital is most prevalent in tech industries because of their high upfront capital requirements, and it's even more important for young biotech companies because they require sophisticated computing and laboratory equipment and highly-trained staff before they can even begin their research. These capital requirement are only expected to rise as subfields like genetic engineering become more widespread in the industry; when half the staff of a young company have PhD's in bioinformatics and they need high-end computing power to evaluate their models, you can see why the initial costs can be quite high. To put this in perspective, in 2010, \""venture capitalists invested approximately $22 billion into nearly 2,749 companies.\"" That comes out to roughly $7.8M per company. The same year (I've lost the article that mentioned this, unfortunately), the average venture capital investment in the biotech industry was almost double that, at $15M. Since many years can elapse between initial investment in a biotech company and the earliest potential for earnings, these companies may require large amounts of early investment to get them through this period. It's also important to understand why the biotech industry, as a whole, may exhibit low earnings for a long period after the initial investment. Much of this has to do with the drug development process and the phases of clinical trials. The biotech industry isn't 100% dedicated to pharmaceutical development, but the overlap is so significant that the following information is more than applicable. Drug development usually goes through three phases: Drug discovery - This is the first research stage, where companies look for new chemical compounds that might have pharmaceutical applications. Compounds that pass this stage are those that are found to be effective against some biological target, although their effects on humans may not be known. Pre-clinical testing - In this stage, the company tests the drug for toxicity to major organs and potential side effects on other parts of the body. Through laboratory and animal testing, the company determines that the drug, in certain doses, is likely safe for use in humans. Once a drug passes the tests in this stage, the company submits an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA. This application contains results from the animal\/laboratory tests, details of the manufacturing process, and detailed proposals for human clinical trials should the FDA approve the company's IND application.  Clinical trials - If the FDA approves the IND application, the company moves forward with clinical trials in human, which are themselves divided into several stages. \""Post-clinical phase\"" \/ ongoing trials - This stage is sometimes considered Phase IV of the clinical trials stage. Once the drug has been approved by the FDA or other regulatory agency, the company can ramp up its marketing efforts to physicians and consumers. The company will likely continue conducting clinical trials, as well as monitoring data on the widespread use of the drug, to both watch for unforeseen side effects or opportunities for off-label use. I included such detailed information on the drug development process because it's vitally important to realize that each and every step in this process has a cost, both in time and money. Most biopharm companies won't begin to realize profits from a successful drug until near the end of Phase III clinical trials. The vast R&D costs, in both time and money, required to bring an effective drug through all of these steps and into the marketplace can easily depress earnings for many years.  Also, keep in mind that most of the compounds identified in the drug discovery stage won't become profitable pharmaceutical products. A company may identify 5,000 compounds that show promise in the drug discovery stage. On average, less than ten of these compounds will qualify for human tests. These ten drugs may start human trials, but only around 20% of them will actually pass Phase III clinical trials and be submitted for FDA approval. The pre-clinical testing stage alone takes an average of 10 years to complete for a single drug. All this time, the company isn't earning profit on that drug. The linked article also goes into detail about recruitment delays in human trials, scheduling problems, and attrition rates for each phase of the drug development process. All of these items add both temporal and financial costs to the process and have the potential to further depress earnings. And finally, a drug could be withdrawn from the market even after it passes the drug development process. When this occurs, however, it's usually the fault of the company for poor trial design or suppression of data (as in the case of Vioxx). I want to make one final point to keep in mind when looking at financial statistics like the P\/E ratio, as well as performance and risk metrics. Different biotech funds don't necessarily represent the industry in the same way, since not all of these funds invest in the same firms. For example, the manager of Fidelity's Select Biotechnology Portfolio (FBIOX) has stated that he prefers to weight his fund towards medium to large cap companies that already have established cash flows. Like all biopharm companies, these firms face the R&D costs associated with the drug development process, but the cost to their bottom line isn't as steep because they already have existing cash flows to sustain their business and accumulated human capital that should (ideally) make the development process more efficient for newer drugs.  You can also see differences in composition between funds with similar strategies. The ishares Nasdaq Biotech Index Fund (IBB) also contains medium to large cap companies, but the composition of its top 10 holdings is slightly different from that of FBIOX. These differences can affect any metric (although some might not be present for FBIOX, since it's a mutual fund) as well as performance. For example, FBIOX includes Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD) in its top 10 holdings, while IBB doesn't. Although IBB does include IRWD because it's a major NASDAQ biotech stock, the difference in holdings is important for an industry where investors' perception of a stock can hinge on a single drug approval. This is a factor even for established companies. In general, I want to emphasize that a) funds that invest more heavily in small-cap biotech stocks may exhibit higher P\/E ratios for the reasons stated above, and b) even funds with similar mixes of stocks may have somewhat different performance because of the nature of risk in the biotech industry. There are also funds like Vanguard's Healthcare ETF (VHT) that have significant exposure to the biotech industry, including small-cap firms, but also to major players in the pharmaceutical market like Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, etc. Since buyouts of small-cap companies by large players are a major factor in the biotech industry, these funds may exhibit different financial statistics because they reflect both the high prices\/low earnings of young companies and the more standard prices\/established earnings of larger companies.  Don't interpret anything I stated above as investment advice; I don't want anything I say to be construed as any form of investment recommendation, since I'm not making one."""
"""Bank denying loan after \""subject-to\"" appraisal: What to do?""","""I'm not sure about your first two options.  But given your situation, a variant of option three seems possible.   That way you don't have to throw away your appraisal, although it's possible that you'll need to get some kind of addendum related to the repairs.   You also don't have your liquid money tied up long term.  You just need to float it for a month or two while the repairs are being done.  The bank should be able to preapprove you for the loan.   Note that you might be better off without the loan.  You'll have to pay interest on the loan and there's extra red tape.   I'd just prefer not to tie up so much money in this property.   I don't understand this.  With a loan, you are even more tied up.  Anything you do, you have to work with the bank.  Sure, you have $80k more cash available with the loan, but it doesn't sound like you need it.  With the loan, the bank makes the profit.  If you buy in cash, you lose your interest from the cash, but you save paying the interest on the loan.  In general, the interest rate on the loan will be higher than the return on the cash equivalent.   A fourth option would be to pay the $15k up front as earnest money.  The seller does the repairs through your chosen contractor.  You pay the remaining $12.5k for the downpayment and buy the house with the loan.  This is a more complicated purchase contract though, so cash might be a better option.   You can easily evaluate the difficulty of the second option.  Call a different bank and ask.  If you explain the situation, they'll let you know if they can use the existing appraisal or not.  Also consider asking the appraiser if there are specific banks that will accept the appraisal.  That might be quicker than randomly choosing banks.   It may be that your current bank just isn't used to investment properties.  Requiring the previous owner to do repairs prior to sale is very common in residential properties.  It sounds like the loan officer is trying to use the rules for residential for your investment purchase.  A different bank may be more inclined to work with you for your actual purchase."""
"""Is an open-sourced World Stock Index a pipe-dream?""","""An index is just a mathematical calculation based on stock prices. Anyone can create such a calculation and (given a little effort) publish it based on publicly available data. The question of \""open source\"" is simply whether or not the calculator chooses to publish the calculation used. Given how easy an index is to create, the issue is not the \""open source\"" nature or otherwise, but its credibility and usefulness."""
"""What explains the enormous increase in gold price in the early 21st century? ""","""Since 2007 the world has seen a period of striking economic and financial volatility featuring the deepest recession since the 1930s despite this gold has performed strongly with its price roughly doubling since the global financial crisis began in mid-2007. 1. Gold and real interest rates: One of the factor that influences gold prices is real interest rate which is to some extent related to inflation. Since gold lacks a yield of its own, the opportunity cost of holding gold increases with a real interest rate increase and decreases with a fall in real interest rates. 2. Gold and the US dollar: The external value of the US dollar has been a significant influence on short-term gold price movements. The IMF estimated6 in 2008 that 40-50% of the moves in the gold price   since 2002 were dollar-related, with a 1% change in the effective   external value of the dollar leading to a more than 1% change in the   gold price (Source).  3. Gold and financial stress: It is a significant and commonly observed influence on the short-term price of gold. In periods of financial stress gold demand may rise for a number of   reasons:  4. Gold and political instability: It is another factor that can boost gold prices. Investor concerns about wars, civil conflicts and international   tensions can boost demand for gold for similar reasons to those noted   above for periods of financial stress. Gold\u201fs potential function as a   \u201ecurrency of last resort\u201f in case of serious system collapse provides   a particular incentive to hold it in case the political situation is   especially severe. (Source) 5. Gold and official sector activity: The behaviour of central banks and other parts of the official sector can have an important impact on gold prices.  One reason for this is that central banks are big holders of gold,   possessing some 30,500 metric tons in 2010, which is approximately 15%   of all above-ground gold stocks. As a result, central bank policies on   gold sales and purchases can have significant effects, and these   policies have been subject to considerable shifts over the decades. (Source)   (Source of above graphs)"""
"""Tax considerations for outsourcing freelance work to foreign country""","""If a person is not a U.S. citizen and they live and work outside the U.S., then any income they make from a U.S. company or person for services provided does not qualify as \""U.S. Source income\"" according to the IRS.  Therefore you wouldn't need to worry about withholding or providing tax forms for them for U.S. taxes.  See the IRS Publication 519 U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens."""
"""How to properly collect money from corporate sponsors?""","""http:\/\/www.legalzoom.com\/business-management\/starting-your-business\/turn-your-calling Answering this, but I expect an expert to give an answer with some insight too There are many more steps, but not having done them personally I suggest you read the legalzoom.com site."""
"""How can I claim tax back from whilst I was working in Austria?""","""I don't have any specific situation on the situation in Austria, but in general there are a few things that you should keep in mind. First of all, the official website of the Austrian tax authorities appears to be this one: https:\/\/www.bmf.gv.at\/steuern\/startseite-steuern.html. There is an English page there, but it is mainly aimed at international businesses. The part about tax treaties may be relevant, though. The general procedure is outlined here: https:\/\/www.bmf.gv.at\/steuern\/startseite-steuern.html. Like I said in my comment, most information is likely only available in German. I would strongly advise to ask help from someone who speaks German and is familiar with the tax system in Austria. The main thing that you would have to do first is to check of which country you are a resident for tax purposes. This is usually the country in which you lived for more than 183 days in the past year. If you moved during the year, and had income from more than one country, you may have to file tax returns in both countries. There are tax treaties between Austria and the UK (and most other countries), so you would have to check those treaties to find out what gets taxed where. In principle you get taxed only once, but usually you would have to declare all income. The last important thing is of course to make sure you submit before the relevant deadlines."""
"""Simplifying money management""","""Personally, I have a little checkbook program that I use to keep track of my spending and balance. Like you -- and I presume like most people -- I have certain recurring bills: the mortgage, insurance payments, car payment, etc. I simply enter these into the checkbook program about a month before the bill is due. Then I can run a transaction list that shows the date, amount, and remaining balance after each transaction. So if I want to know how much money I really have available to spend, I just look for the last transaction before my next payday, and see what the balance will be on that day. Personally, I always keep a certain amount of pad in my account so if I made a mistake and entered an incorrect amount for a check, or forgot to enter one completely, I don't overdraw the account. (I like to keep $1000 in such padding but that's way more than really necessary, it's very rare that I make a mistake of more than $100.) In my case, I don't enter electric bills or heating bills because I don't know the amount until I get the bill, and the amounts fall well within my padding, and for just two bills I can factor them in in my head. BTW I wrote this program myself but I'm sure there are similar products on the market. I used to use a spreadsheet and that worked pretty well. (Mainly I wrote the program because I have a tiny side business that I have to keep tax records for even though it makes almost no money.) You could in principle do it on paper, but the catch to that is that when you write payments on your paper ledger in advance of actually writing the check, you will often be writing down payments out of order, and so it becomes difficult to see what your balance is or was or will be on any given date. But a computer system can easily accept transactions out of order and then sort them and re-do the balance calculations in a fraction of a second."""
"""How do I protect myself from a scam if I want to help a relative?""","""For some reason can't transfer it directly to his account overseas (something to do with security codes, authorized payees and expired cards). Don't become someone's financial intermediary. Find out exactly why he can't transfer the money himself, and then if you want to help him, solve that problem for him. Helping him fix his issue with his expired card, or whatever the real problem is, would be a good thing to do. Allowing him to involve you in the transaction, would be a bad thing to do.  Possible problems which might be caused by becoming directly involved in the transaction: -The relative is being scammed themselves, and doesn't realize it \/ doesn't realize the risks, and either wants you to take the risk, or simply thinks there is no risk but needs administrative help. -The person contacting you is not the relative - perhaps they are faking that person's identity, and are using your trust to defraud you. -The person is committing some form of fraud, money laundering, or worse, and is directly trying to defraud you in order to keep their hands clean. -The transaction may be perfectly legal, but is considered taxable in one or more countries. By getting involved, you might face tax filing obligations, or even tax payment obligations. -The transaction may be perfectly legal and legitimate, but might accidentally get picked up as potential fraud by a financial monitoring system, causing the funds to be held, and your account to be flagged for further investigation, creating headaches for you until it becomes resolved. There are possibly other ways that this can go awry, but these are the biggest possibilities I can think of. The only possible 'good' outcome here is that everything goes smoothly, and it works exactly as well as if your relative's \""administrative problems\"" were solved first, and the money went through his own account. Handwaving about why your account is needed and his is faulty is a big red flag. If it is truly just an administrative issue on his end, help him fix that issue instead."""
"""Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \""Buy Low, Sell High\""?""","""I bought 1000 shares of Apple, when it was $5. And yet, while the purchase was smart, the sales were the dumbest of my life.  \""You can't go wrong taking a profit\"" \""When a stock doubles sell half and let it ride\"", etc.  It doubled, I sold half, a $5000 gain. Then it split, and kept going up. Long story short, I took gains of just under $50,000 as it rose, and had 100 shares left for the 7 to 1 split.  The 700 shares are worth $79,000. But, if I simply let it ride, 1000 shares split to 14,000. $1.4M. I suppose turning $5,000 into $130K is cause for celebration, but it will stay with me as the lost $1.3M opportunity.  Look at the chart and tell me the value of selling stocks at their 52 week high. Yet, if you chart stocks heading into the dotcom bubble, you'll see a history of $100 stocks crashing to single digits. But none of them sported a P\/E of 12."""
"""Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?""","""If they return to their earlier prices Assuming I don't make too many poor choices That's your problem right there: you have no guarantee that stocks, will in fact return to their earlier prices rather than go down some more after the time you buy them. Your strategy only looks good and easy  in hindsight when you know the exact point in time when stocks stopped going down and started going up. But to implement it, you need to predict that time, and that's impossible. I would adopt a guideline of \""sell when you've made X%, even if it looks like it might go higher.\"" Congratulations, you've come up with the concept of technical analysis. Now go and read the hundreds of books that have been written about it, then think about why the people who wrote them waste time doing so rather than getting rich by using that knowledge."""
"""How can I stop wasting food?""","""Try to choose less perishable items.  Besides canned and bottled are adequate for some foods, and frozen foods for a wider range, such as vegetables and prepared foods.  Dairy has a limited life, but some types live longer, like yogurt.  Fruits like apples and oranges will last a good deal longer in the fridge (bananas too, but the peels discolor).  Bread items and leafy vegetables just won't keep long for fresh use; pick them up when you're actually about to use them.  (Keeping bread in the freezer for toasting works well, though.)"""
"""Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup""","""Putting a dollar amount on the valuation of a start up business is an art form that often has very little at all to do with any real numbers and more to do with your \""salesman\"" abilities when talking with the VC. That said, there are a few starting points: First is past sales, the cost of those sales and a (hopefully) realistic growth curve.  However, you don't have that so this gets harder. Do you have any actual assets?  Machinery, computers, desks, patents, etc.  Things that you actually own.  If so, then add those in.  If this is a software start-up, \""code\"" is an asset, but without sales it's incredibly hard to put a value on it.  The best I've come up with is \""How much would it cost for someone else to build it .. after they've seen yours\"".  Yes, you may have spent 5,000 hours building something but could someone else duplicate it, or at least the major parts, in 200 hours after seeing a demo?  Use the lower number. If I was you, I'd look hard at my business plan.  Hopefully you were as honest as you can be when writing it (and that it is as researched as possible).  What is it going to take to get that first sale?  What do you actually need to get there? (hint: your logo on the side of a building is NOT a necessary expense.  Nor is really nice office space.)  Once you have that first sale, what is the second going to take?  Can you extrapolate out to 3 years?  How many key members are there?  How much is their contribution worth?  At what point will you be profitable?   Next is to look at risks.  You haven't done this before, that's huge - I'm assuming simply because you asked this question.  Another is competitors - hopefully they already exist because opening a new market is incredibly hard and expensive; on the flip side, hopefully there aren't that many because entering a crowded market is equally hard and expensive.  Note: each are possible, but take radically different approaches and sums of money - and $200k isn't going to cut it no matter what it is you are selling. That said, competition should be able to at least point you in the direction of a price point and estimate for how long sales take.  If any are publicly traded then you have additional info to help you set a valuation.  Are there any potential regulatory or legal issues? What happens if a key member leaves, dies or is otherwise no longer available?  Insurance only helps so much if the one guy that knows everything literally gets run over.  God help you if this person likes to go skydiving. I bring risks up because you will have to surmount them during this negotiation.  For example, asking for $200k with zero hard assets, while trying to sell software to government agencies assuming a 3 week sales cycle will have you laughed at for naivety.  Whereas asking for $10m in the same situation, with a team that has governmental sales experience would likely work. Another big question is exit strategy: do you intend to IPO or sell to a competitor or a business in a related category?  If selling, do you have evidence that the target company actually buys others, and if so, how did those deals work out?  What did they look for in order to buy?  Exit strategy is HUGE to a VC and they will want to make several multiples of their money back in a relatively short amount of time.  Can you realistically support that for how much you are asking for?  If not then going through an Angel group would be better.  They have similar questions, but very different expectations. The main thing is that no one knows what your business is worth because it is 100% unproven after 2 years and is therefore a huge financial risk.  If the money you are asking for is to complete product development then that risk factor just went up radically as you aren't even talking about sales.  If the money is purely for the sales channel, then it's likely not enough. However if you know what it's going to take to get that first sale and have at least an educated idea on how much it's going to cost to repeat that then you should have an idea for how much money you want.  From there you need to decide how much of the business it is worth to you to give up in order to get that money and, voila, you have a \""pre money valuation\"". The real trick will be to convince the VC that you are right (which takes research and a rock solid presentation) and negotiating from there.  No matter what offer a small percentage of the business for the money you want and realize you'll likely give up much more than that. A few things you should know: usually by year 3 it's apparent if a start-up is going to work out or not.  You're in year 2 with no sales. That doesn't look good unless you are building a physical product, have a competent team with hard experience doing this, have patents (at least filed), a proven test product, and (hopefully) have a few pre-orders and just need cash to deliver.  Although in that situation, I'd probably tell you to ask your friends and family before talking to a VC.  Even kickstarter.com would be better.   $200k just isn't a lot of money and should be very easy to raise from Friends or Angels.  If you can't then that speaks volumes to an institutional VC.  A plus is having two or three people financially invested in the company; more than that is sometimes a problem while having only 1 is a red flag. If it's a web thing and you've been doing this for 2 years with zero sales and still need another $200k to complete it then I'd say you need to take a hard look at what you've built and take it to market right now.  If you can't do that, then I'd say it might be time to abandon this idea and move on as you'll likely have to give up 80%+ to get that $200k and most VCs I've run into wouldn't bother at that level.  Which begs the question: how did the conversation with the VC start?  Did you approach them or did they approach you?  If the latter, how did they even find out about you?  Do they actually know anything about you or is this a fishing expedition?  If the latter, then this is probably a complete waste of your time. The above is only a rough guide because at the end of the day something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay.  $200k in cash is a tiny sum for most VCs, so without more information I have no clue why one would be interested in you. I put a number of hard questions and statements in here.  I don't actually want you to answer me, those are for you to think about.  Also, none of this shouldn't be taken as a discouragement, rather it should shock you into a realistic viewpoint and, hopefully, help you understand how others are going to see your baby.   If the VC has done a bit of research and is actually interested in investing then they will bring up all the same things (and likely more) in order to convince you to give up a very large part of it.  The question you have to ask yourself is: is it worth it?  Sometimes it is, often it's not."""
"""Borrowed shares how are they tracked?""","""Brokerage firms are required to report the number of shares being shorted.  This information is reported to the exchange (NYSE of NASDAQ) and is made public.  Most financial sites indicate the number of shares being shorted for a particular stock.  The image below from Yahoo finance shows 3.29 million shares of CMG were being shorted at the close of 9-28-2012.  This is over 12% of the total outstanding shares of CMG.  For naked short selling additional information is tracked.  If the brokerage is unable to borrow shares to deliver before the settlement date of a short sale then the transaction is recorded as fails-to-deliver.  No money or shares are exchanged since the brokerage is unable to deliver the shares that were agreed upon.  A large amount of fails-to-deliver transactions for a stock usually indicates an excessive amount of naked shorting.  When investors and brokerage firms start to aggressively short a stock they will do so without having borrowed the shares to sell.  This will result in a large amount of naked short selling.  When there are a large number of naked short sellers not all the sellers will be able to borrow the necessary shares before the settlement date and many fails-to-deliver transactions will be recorded. The SEC records the number of fails-to-deliver transactions. The table below summarizes the fails-to-deliver transactions from 1-1-2012 through 9-14-2012 (data obtained from here). The \""Ext Amount\"" column shows the total dollar value of the transactions that failed ( i.e. Fail Qty * Share price ).  The \""Volume\"" column is the total number of shares traded in the same time period.  The \""% Volume\"" shows the percentage of shares that failed to deliver as a percentage of the total market volume. The table orders the data in descending order by the quantity of shares that were not delivered.  Most of the companies at the top of the list no longer exist.  For many of these companies, the quantity of shares that failed to deliver where many multiples of the number of shares traded during the same time period.  This indicates massive naked short selling as many brokerages where unable to find shares to borrow before the settlement date. More information here."""
"""Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate?""","""My wife and I maintain seperate accounts. We have the bills split between us so that certain bills are paid by one of us, and other bills by the other. This is not a perfect 50\/50 split as we don't make the same amount of money, but comparable enough that neither feels like they're doing all the bills alone. Our investments are similar. That means we each have a pool of money that we can spend on toys or entertainment as we see fit without overspending. Once my bills are paid and my savings are paid for the month, if I want to go buy some DVDs and my wife wants to buy a new lens for the camera, we don't have to agree. We just use our own money and do it. For us that's led to minimal friction or arguments over what to spend money on, simply because we aren't using the same pool. Getting it work requires getting the split right AND having the mindset that the other person is just as entitled to spend their share of the money as you are to spend yours. It really helps to eliminate issues where she spent money that I expected to be able to spend before I could, which can happen in a joint account. (We have no joint accounts, only things like the mortgage are in both our names.) I've been told by more then one person that how we're doing it is \""wrong\"", but it works a lot better for us then trying to combine finances ever did. I think it also helps that we're younger, and this seems far less common amongst older couples."""
"""Can you buy gift cards at grocery store to receive a higher reward rate?""","""In a similar situation I wrote about How I Made $4,000+ on a Cash Back Credit Card Offer. The total was actually $4550, and was from an insane offer from a new credit card my bank advertised. 10% cash back on all spending during the first 90 days. I wondered if gift card purchases counted, and more than store cards, I saw that Visa gift cards with a $500 value sold for a $4.95 fee. A 1% hit.  It would have been foolish to load up, and realize that they were somehow excluded, so I bought 2 and followed the transaction on line. When I saw the 10% credit, I went full steam, and bought these, $2000 at a time, as that was the limit CVS imposed. In the end, I stopped at $50,000. (And the bank killed the online offer about $25K into this, but still honored my 90 days) Yes, I had to make payments mid cycle to avoid the card limit ($20K), but in the end, the bit of effort paid off. It took a bit over a year and a half to burn through them. In hindsight, I'd do it for $100K if the opportunity came up. Cash in the bank is earning near zero.    TL:DR Make a small purchase and confirm your card gives you the bonus you expect."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""Often times the commission fees add up a lot. Many times the mundane fluctuations in the stock market on a day to day basis are just white noise, whereas long term investing generally lets you appreciate value based on the market reactions to actual earnings of the company or basket of companies. Day trading often involves leverage as well."""
"""How does the U.S. wash sale replacement stock rule work?""","""From Pub 550: More or less stock bought than sold.   If the number of shares of   substantially identical stock or securities you buy within 30 days   before or after the sale is either more or less than the number of   shares you sold, you must determine the particular shares to which the   wash sale rules apply. You do this by matching the shares bought with   an equal number of the shares sold. Match the shares bought in the   same order that you bought them, beginning with the first shares   bought. The shares or securities so matched are subject to the wash   sale rules. You must match \""beginning with the first shares bought.\"" If only activity 1 & 4 happened, you'd have bought and sold stock with no wash sale. If you remove activity 1 & 4 from consideration because they are a \""normal\"" or non-wash sale transaction, then the Activity 2 or Activity 3 trigger a wash sale. The shares in lot 1 are sold for disallowed loss, so the disallowed basis would be added to shares in lot 2 because lot 2 was purchased before lot 3. (hat tip to user662852 who had much better wording) Second example: Activity 5, 7, and 8 all together would not be a wash sale.   The addition of activity 6 creates a wash sale. The shares in Activity 5 are sold for a disallowed loss in Activity 7 & 8 because of the wash sale triggering purchase in Activity 6.   Activity 6 is where you add the disallowed basis because they are the \""first shares bought\"" that cause the wash sale rule to be triggered."""
"""What are the reasons to get more than one credit card?""","""I have a fair number of cards floating around some reasons I have opened multiple accounts. I am not saying that it is for everyone but there are valid scenarios where multiple credit cards can make sense."""
"""Making an offer on a property - go in at market price?""","""First piece of advice: fire your agent.   A pushy agent is a bad agent.  From what you've told us, he's actually given you poor advice regarding mortgage interest rates.  Rates are already at historic lows.  That and the precarious state of the world economy mean that further rate cuts are more likely in the near term. Second piece of advice: While more information on the real estate market you're in would help,  going in at asking price is rarely a good idea.   Sale prices from \""the last few years\"" are not relevant to what you should pay, because the last few years include a financial crisis caused in large part by the bursting of a housing bubble.  They could be even less relevant depending on your location because of a spike in foreclosures in certain areas of the U.S.  There was already a ton of housing inventory before, so an increase due to foreclosures is going to depress prices further.  Now that banks are finally practicing the due diligence they should have been all along, your ability to be pre-approved for large mortgage amount puts you in a strong position.   Use a tool like Zillow or Redfin to see what properties in that area have sold for over the past six months.  You should also be able to see a history of what prices the particular property you're interested in has been offered and\/or sold at in the past.  Also check and see how long the particular property you're interested in has been on the market.  If it's been on the market more than 60-90 days, it's priced too high."""
"""Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income?""","""Here's one reason that's being overlooked in answers so far. (@ChrisInEdmonton, this is for your comment on @Chad's answer.) How do credit card companies make money? Sure, there's interest charges, but those are offset significantly by the cost of borrowing money, and by people defaulting on their debt \/ entering bankruptcy. The other way they make money is by processing transactions. They get a cut of whatever you buy. If you're a high-income person, and you're going to process a lot of expenditures with this credit card, your business is worth more. They will be willing to bribe you with things like cash-back, frequent flier miles, and insurance on your auto rentals, so that they can be your #1 go-to card.  (This works in concert with the way that some credit card vendors with richer clientele overall - American Express - get to charge higher merchant fees for access to these customers' wallets. But that was mentioned in other answers.) If you're not a high-income person, your business is worth less. If you go somewhere asking for credit, they're going to try and give you a card which will earn them the most money - which probably isn't the one where they give you back 50% of their transaction fee in rewards. It's a calculated risk, since they still have to compete against cash, debit cards, and all the other credit card companies, so they don't have you totally over a barrel, but you shouldn't expect as many freebies, either."""
"""Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?""","""When you are investing for 40 years, you will have taxable events before retirement.  You'll need to pay tax along the way, which will eat away at your gains. For example, in your taxable account, any dividends and capital gain distributions will need taxes paid each year.  In your 401(k) or IRA, these are not taxable until retirement. In addition, what happens if you want to change investments before retirement?  In your taxable account, taxes on the capital gains will be due at that time, but in a retirement account, you can change investments anytime you like without having to pay taxes early. Finally, when you do pull money out of your 401(k) at retirement, it will be taxed at whatever your tax rate is at retirement.  After you retire, your income will probably be lower than when you were working, so your tax rate might be less."""
"""Upcoming company merger with company I have stock in, help me interpret what is happening""","""The \""par value\"" is a technicality that you can ignore in this case, and it has nothing directly to do with the merger.  When a company issues stock, it puts a \""par value\"" on the shares.  If it later issues more shares, they cannot be issued at less than par value. The rest of the notice seems to be as you said: If you hold until the merger takes effect, they are going to give you $25\/share and your shares will be gone.  As always, you can try to sell on the open market before that time instead, although you can bet that not too many people are going to want to give you more than $25\/share at this point."""
"""How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?""","""It depends on how you define trading.  If you're looking at day-trading, where you're probably going to be in a highly-leveraged position for minutes or hours, the automated traders are probably going to kill you.  But, if you have a handful (less than a dozen) equities, and spend about an hour or so every week conducting research, you have a good chance of doing pretty well. You need to understand the market, listen to the earnings calls, and understand the factors that contribute to the bottom line of your investments.  You should not be trading for the sake of trading, you're trading to try to achieve the best returns. Beware of dogmatists and people selling products that align with their dogma. Warren Buffet invests in companies for an extremely long investment window. Mr. Buffet also expends significant resources to gain a deep understanding of the fundamentals of the businesses that he invests in and the factors affecting those fundamentals. Buffet does not buy an S&P 500 index fund and whistle dixie."""
"""I'm 23, living at home, and still can't afford my own property. What could I do?""","""You have made the most important first step by starting to think about your money, well done. Firstly pay of all credit cards as quickly as you can and start to live within your means.  Until you have paid of your credits cards don\u2019t spend any money of unnecessary items, e.g. Once your credit cards are paid off you can start living a more normal life.  Each time you spend money you need to ask yourself: Is this worth more to be then being   able to buy a new house in a few years   time? You should be able to save at least half the amount you were paying of the credit card each mouth and still leave a reasonable life, so setup a standing order at the start of the month to  your saving account. Given your age you are like to get promoted and hence have increased pay or get increments for each year of service.  Therefore Every time your pay goes up, set up a   standing order to transfer at least   half of the pay increases to a saving   account.   You did not have this money   before, so you will not miss it when    you save it. In the long term, you should be able to keep your car until it is about 15 years old, so will not have the cost of buying another car.  Therefore once the car loan is over, you can save that money as well."""
"""Are there \""buy and hold\"" passively managed funds?""","""Passive implies following an index. Your question seems to ask about a hypothetical fund that starts, say, as an S&P fund, but as the index is adjusted, the old stocks stay in the fund. Sounds simple enough, but over time, the fund's performance will diverge from the index. The slight potential gain from lack of cap gains will be offset by the fund being unable to market itself.  Keep in mind, the gains distributed each year are almost exclusively long term, taxed at a favorable rate."""
"""Is the Yale\/Swenson Asset Allocation Too Conservative for a 20 Something?""","""I don't think the advice to take lots more risk when young makes so much sense. The additional returns from loading up on stocks are overblown; and the rocky road from owning 75-100% stocks will almost certainly mess you up and make you lose money. Everyone thinks they're different, but none of us are. One big advantage of stocks over bonds is tax efficiency only if you buy index funds and don't ever sell them. But this does not matter in a retirement account, and outside a retirement account you can use tax-exempt bonds. Stocks have higher returns in theory but to have a reasonable guarantee of higher returns from them, you need around a 30-year horizon. That is a long, long time. Psychologically, a 60\/40 stocks\/bonds portfolio, or something with similar risk mixing in a few more alternative assets like Swenson's, is SO MUCH better. With 100% stocks you can spend 10 or 15 years saving money and your investment returns may get you nowhere. Think what that does to your motivation to save. (And how much you save is way more important than what you invest in.) The same doesn't happen with a balanced portfolio. With a balanced portfolio you get reasonably steady progress. You can still have a down year, but you're a lot less likely to have a down decade or even a down few years. You save steadily and your balance goes up fairly steadily. The way humans really work, this is so important. For the same kind of reason, I think it's great to buy one fund that has both stocks and bonds in there. This forces you to view the thing as a whole instead of wrongly looking at the individual asset class \""buckets.\"" And it also means rebalancing will happen automatically, without having to remember to do it, which you won't. Or if you remember you won't do it when you should, because stocks are doing so well, or some other rationalization. Speaking of rebalancing, that's where a lot of the steady, predictable returns come from if you have a nice balanced portfolio. You can make money over time even if both asset classes end up going nowhere, as long as they bounce around somewhat independently, so you'll buy low and sell high when you rebalance. To me the ideal is an all-in-one fund that aims for about 60\/40 stocks\/bonds level of risk, somewhat more diversified than stocks\/bonds is great (international stock, commodities, high yield, REIT, etc.). You can just buy that at age 20 and keep it until you retire. In beautiful ideal-world economic theory, buy 90% stocks when young. Real world with human brain involved: I love balanced funds. The steady gains are such a mental win. The \""target retirement\"" funds are not a bad option, but if you buy the matching year for your age, I personally wish they had less in stocks. If you want to read more on the \""equity premium\"" (how much more you make from owning stocks) here are a couple of posts on it from a blog I like: Update: I wrote this up more comprehensively on my blog,"""
"""Efficient International money transfer""","""Typical wire transfers are not with 4-5%; but it all depends on the bank that does the transfer. You can chose to send ('wire') the money in source currency or in US $; the former, the target bank in the US does the conversion (so pick one that adds no or little spread); the latter, the sending bank does the conversion (so ask about their fees\/spreads). I have multiple times transferred money across the ocean (though not from Japan), and never paid more than 0.3% + ~40 $ flat. It should be possible to get te same range. Note that if you look around for current offers, you might be easily able to even make some money on it - some US banks are eager for new money, and offer 200+$ bonus if you open an account and bring (significant =15k$+) new money to them."""
"""Unrealized Profit & Loss for Non-Stock Securities""","""Suddenly its not just comparing the current price to the price of the contract, or is it? Sure it is.  Suppose you bought 100 option contracts (each for 100 shares) and paid a $1 per share premium ($10,000 total).  Now those options are trading for $1.50 per share.  You have an unrealized $0.50 gain per share, or $5,000. The $10,000 in options you bought are now worth $15,000.  It holds whether they were bought to open or close a position, or whether they are puts or calls.  The only difference is whether you bought or sold the options (the arithmetic is just reversed for selling an option). But lets say we have an Option, where the payoff is max(St-K, c0) where ct is the market price. What do you do then? Your current, unrealized P&L is different than the payoff.  The payoff only happens at maturity.  The current P&L is based on current market prices, just like stock.  Option prices all have a \""time premium\"" making them worth more than their payoff (intrinsic) value prior to maturity."""
"""Is there a way to buy raw oil today and sell it in 1 year time?""","""There are many ways of investing either directly or indirectly in oil: all of these options are ways to invest in an expected change in the price of oil at various degrees of directness and risk profiles. Investing in derivative or derivative-like products such as futures and CFDs is very risky and requires a good degree of sophisticated knowledge to manage."""
"""Is there a good options strategy that has a fairly low risk?""","""By coincidence, I entered this position today. Ignore the stock itself, I am not recommending a particular stock, just looking at a strategy. The covered call.  For this stock trading at $7.47, I am able, by selling an in-the-money call to be out of pocket $5.87\/sh, and am obliged to let it go for $7.00 a year from now. A 19% return as long as the stock doesn't drop more than 6% over that time. The chart below shows maximum profit, and my loss starts if the stock trades 21% below current price.  The risk is shifted a bit, but in return, I give up potential higher gains. The guy that paid $1.60 could triple his money if the stocks goes to $12, for example. In a flat market, this strategy can provide relatively high returns compared to holding only stocks."""
"""How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate]""","""while not stated, if you have any debt at all, use the $3000 to pay it off. That's the best investment in the short term. No risk and guaranteed reward. College can invite all sorts of unexpected expenses and opportunities, so stay liquid, protect working capital."""
"""One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this?""","""From some of your previous questions it seems like you trade quite often, so I am assuming you are not a \""Buy and Hold\"" person. If that is the case, then have you got a written Trading Plan? Considering you don't know what to do after a 40% drop, I assume the answer to this is that you don't have a Trading Plan. Before you enter any trade you should have your exit point for that trade pre-determined, and this should be included in your Trading Plan. You should also include how you pick the shares you buy, do you use fundamental analysis, technical analysis, a combination of the two, a dart board or some kind of advisory service? Then finally and most importantly you should have your position sizing and risk management incorporated into your Plan. If you are doing all this, and had automatic stop loss orders placed when you entered your buy orders, then you would have been out of the stock well before your loss got to 40%. If you are looking to hang on and hoping for the stock to recover, remember with a 40% drop, the stock will now need to rise by 67% just for you to break even on the trade. Even if the stock did recover, how long would it take? There is the potential for opportunity loss waiting for this stock to recover, and that might take years. If the stock has fallen by 40% in a short time it is most likely that it will continue to fall in the short term, and if it falls to 50%, then the recovery would need to be 100% just for you to break even. Leave your emotions out of your trading as much as possible, have a written Trading Plan which incorporates your risk management. A good book to read on the psychology of the markets, position sizing and risk management is \""Trade your way to Financial Freedom\"" by Van Tharp (I actually went to see him talk tonight in Sydney, all the way over from the USA)."""
"""How to value employee benefits?""","""Health insurance varies wildly per state and per plan and per provider - but check them out to have a baseline to know what it should cost if you did it yourself. Don't forget vacation time, too: many contract\/comp-only jobs have no vacation time - how much is that 10 or 15 days a year worth to you? It effectively means you're getting paid for 2080 hours, but working 2000 (with the 2 week number). Is the comp-only offer allowing overtime, and will they approve it? Is the benefits-included job salaried? If it's truly likely you'll be working more than a normal 40 hour week on a routine basis (see if you can talk to other folks that work there), an offer that will pay overtime is likely going to be better than one that wouldn't .. but perhaps not in your setting if it also loses the PTO."""
"""How to sell a stock in a crashing market?""","""It is typically possible to sell during a crash, because there are enough people that understand the mechanics behind a crash. Generally, you need to understand that you don't lose money from the crash, but from selling. Every single crash in history more than recovered, and by staying invested, you wouldn't have lost anything (this assumes you have enough time to sit it out; it could take several years to recover). On the other side of those deals are people that understand that, and make money by buying during a crash. They simply sit the crash out, and some time later they made a killing from what you panic-sold, when it recovers its value."""
"""What are the possible metrics for evaluating annual performance of a portfolio?""","""The Investopedia article you linked to is a good start. Its key takeaway is that you should always consider risk-adjusted return when evaluating your portfolio. In general, investors seeking a higher level of return must face a higher likelihood of taking a loss (risk). Different types of stocks (large vs small; international vs US; different industry sectors) have different levels of historical risk and return. Not to mention stocks vs bonds or other financial instruments... So, it's key to make an apples-to-apples comparison against an appropriate benchmark. A benchmark will tell you how your portfolio is doing versus a comparable portfolio. An index, such as the S&P 500, is often used, because it tells you how your portfolio is doing compared against simply passively investing in a diversified basket of securities. First, I would start with analyzing your portfolio to understand its asset allocation. You can use a tool like the Morningstar X-Ray to do this. You may be happy with the asset allocation, or this tool may inform you to adjust your portfolio to meet your long-term goals. The next step will be to choose a benchmark. Given that you are investing primarily in non-US securities, you may want to pick a globally diversified index such as the Dow Jones Global Index. Depending on the region and stock characteristics you are investing in, you may want to pick a more specialized index, such as the ones listed here in this WSJ list. With your benchmark set, you can then see how your portfolio's returns compare to the index over time. IRR and ROI are helpful metrics in general, especially for corporate finance, but the comparison-based approach gives you a better picture of your portfolio's performance. You can still calculate your personal IRR, and make sure to include factors such as tax treatment and investment expenses that may not be fully reflected by just looking at benchmarks. Also, you can calculate the metrics listed in the Investopedia article, such as the Sharpe ratio, to give you another view on the risk-adjusted return."""
"""What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers?""","""This is definitely a scam. I had a friend sign up for a very similar offer and what they did was send a fake check and then asked to transfer the same amount to them. So now you just send them a couple grand and you're holding a fake check."""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""(Disclosure - I am a real estate agent, involved with houses to buy\/sell, but much activity in rentals) I got a call from a man and his wife looking for an apartment. He introduced itself, described what they were looking for, and then suggested I google his name. He said I'd find that a few weeks back, his house burned to the ground and he had no insurance. He didn't have enough savings to rebuild, and besides needing an apartment, had a building lot to sell.  Insurance against theft may not be at the top of your list. Don't keep any cash, and keep your possessions to a minimum. But a house needs insurance for a bank to give you a mortgage. Once paid off, you have no legal obligation, but are playing a dangerous game. You are right, it's an odds game. If the cost of insurance is .5% the house value and the chance of it burning down is 1 in 300 (I made this up) you are simply betting it won't be yours that burns down.  Given that for most people, a paid off house is their largest asset, more value that all other savings combined, it's a risk most would prefer not to take.  Life insurance is a different matter. A person with no dependents has no need for insurance. For those who are married (or have a loved one), or for parents, insurance is intended to help survivors bridge the gap for that lost income. The 10-20 times income value for insurance is just a recommendation, whose need fades away as one approaches independence. I don't believe in insurance as an investment vehicle, so this answer is talking strictly term."""
"""Query regarding international transaction between governments ""","""$USD, electronic or otherwise, are not created\/destroyed during international transactions. If India wants to buy an F-16s, at cost $34M USD, they'll have to actually acquire $34M USD, or else convince the seller to agree to a different currency. They would acquire that $34M USD in a few possible ways. One of which is to exchange INR (India Rupees) at whatever the current exchange rate is, to whomever will agree to the opposite - i.e., someone who has USD and wants INR, or at least is willing to be the middleman. Another would be to sell some goods or services in the US (for USD), or to someone else for USD.  Indian companies undoubtedly do this all the time. Think of all of those H1B workers that are in the news right now; they're all earning USD and then converting those to INRs.  So the Indian government can just buy their USD for INR, directly or more likely indirectly (through a currency exchange market). A third method would be to use some of their currency stores. Most countries have significant reserves of various foreign currencies on hand, for two reasons: one to simplify transactions like this one, and also to stabilize the value of their own currency. A less stable currency can be stabilized simply by the central bank of that country owning USD, EUR, Pounds Sterling, or similar stable-value currencies. The process for an individual would be essentially the same, though the third method would be less likely available (most individuals don't have millions in cash on hand from different currencies - although certainly some would).  No government gets involved (except for taxes or whatnot), it's just a matter of buying USD in exchange for INRs or for goods or services."""
"""Low risk hybrid investment strategy""","""I recall similar strategies when (in the US) interest rates were quite a bit higher than now. The investment company put 75% or so into into a 5 year guaranteed bond, the rest was placed in stock index options. In effect, one had a guaranteed return (less inflation, of course) of principal, and a chance for some market gains especially if it went a lot higher over the next 5 years.  The concept is sound if executed correctly."""
"""Ways to get individual securities from ETF's""","""ETFs are legally required to publicly disclose their positions at every point in time. The reason for this is that for an ETF to issue shares of ETF they do NOT take cash in exchange but underlying securities - this is called a creation unit. So people need to know which shares to deliver to the fund to get a share of ETF in exchange. This is never done by retail clients, however, but by nominated market makers. Retail persons will normally trade shares only in the secondary market (ie. on a stock exchange), which does not require new shares of the ETF to be issued. However, they do not normally make it easy to find this information in a digestible way, and each ETF does it their own way. So typically services that offer this information are payable (as somebody has to scrape the information from a variety of sources or incentivise ETF providers to send it to them). If you have access to a Bloomberg terminal, this information is available from there. Otherwise there are paid for services that offer it. Searching on Google for ETF constituent data, I found two companies that offer it: See if you can find what you need there. Good luck. (etfdb even has a stock exposure tool freely available that allows you to see which ETFs have large exposure to a stock of your choosing, see here: http:\/\/etfdb.com\/tool\/etf-stock-exposure-tool\/). Since this data is in a table format you could easily download it automatically using table parsing tools for your chosen programming language. PS: Don't bother with underlying index constituents, they are NOT required to be made public and index providers will normally charge handsomely for this so normally only institutional investors will have this information."""
"""Selling stocks - capital gains""","""In the US you specify explicitly what stocks you're selling. Brokers now are required to keep track of cost basis and report it to the IRS on the 1099-B, so you have to tell the broker which position it is that you're closing. Usually, the default is FIFO (i.e.: when you sell, you're assumed to be closing the oldest position), but you can change it if you want. In the US you cannot average costs basis of stocks (you can for mutual funds), so you either do FIFO, LIFO (last position closed first), or specify the specific positions when you submit the sale order."""
"""Should you check to make sure your employer is paying you the correct superannuation amount? [Australia]""","""Yes, there are checks and balances.  Employers can be, and have been, prosecuted for failing to pay super before the statutory timeline, which is three months from the pay date. However, it is still in your interests to check for yourself.  The most common point for missing super to be discovered is when the company goes broke, at which point it's too late for you.  What you should do is  Check on your payslips that the right amount is allocated to super.  It should be 9% of gross, plus any salary sacrifice or additional component. Check your super fund's half-yearly statements line up the deductions given on your payslip. Consider getting online access to your super account so you can check more quickly. If something is missing, call your super fund and\/or payroll office. Resources:"""
"""Should I learn to do my own tax?""","""If you've been using TurboTax, let me suggest a compromise: Let TTax fill out the forms, but then print them out and go through it again by hand. If you don't get the same numbers, investigate why. If you do, you can probably conclude that you could do it by hand if you really want to, especially if you have the previous year's returns as a reference. (I've gone through every version of this from before personal tax software existed thru hand-constructed spreadsheets to commercial software and e-filing (federal only; I refuse to pay for something that reduces THEIR work). I can't use the free online version -- my return's got complications it won't handle -- and I'm uncomfortable putting that much data on a machine I don't control, so I'm still buying software each year. I COULD save the money, but it's worth a few bucks to me to make the process less annoying.) Late edit: Note that a self-constructed spreadsheet is one answer to the annoyance of pencil and paper -- you're still doing all the data manipulation yourself, but you're recording HOW you manipulated it as you go, and if numbers change you don't have to redo all the work. And it avoids raw math errors. It does require that you enter all the formulas rather than just their results, and figuring out how to express some things in stylesheet form can be a nuisance, but it isn't awful... and once you've done it (assuming you got it right) updating it for the next year is usually not hard unless you've introduced a completely new set of issues."""
"""2008-2009 Stock Market Crash \u2014 what caused the second drop?""","""Ultimately no one really knows what causes the markets to rise and fall beyond supply and demand. If more people want to buy then sell, prices go up. And if more people want to sell, prices go down. The news channels will often try to attribute a specific reason to the price move, but that is largely just guess work to fill up the news pages so people have something to read. You may find it interesting to read up on the Elliot wave principle. The crash of 2008 was a perfect Elliot Wave fit. Elliot Wave theory states that social moods (which ultimately drive the stock market) generally occur in a relatively predictable pattern. The crash in September was a Wave 3 down. This is where the majority of people give up hope. However there are still a few people who are still holding on. The markets tend to meander about during wave 4. Finally the last few people give up hope and sell out. This causes the final crash of wave 5. Only when the last person has given up hope can the markets start to go up again.."""
"""Should I try to negotiate a signing bonus?""","""You asked about a signing bonus and were told the conditions that would be required to get one. It does not appear that you will qualify, but you do have another option. Ask if you can start earlier. Some times they can't change the start date. They might have a contractual issue with the customer and the customer is setting the start date. Other times they are waiting for somebody else to retire or transfer. But ask. Tell them starting earlier speeds up the training process. For you it can make the transfer of insurance benefits sooner. Keep in mind it could be a few weeks before you get your first pay check. How were you planning on bridging the gap?"""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""If you go through the web pages of some online brokers, you will find out that some of them allow you to manage friends\/relatives accounts from your account as a trusteer. That should really solve your underlying problem, you will need only one login, etc. (Example: https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/ff\/en\/main.php) If I understand it right it will even allow you to make one trade splitting the cost and returns among the other accounts, but you would have to verify that. Anyways, that will save you a lot of trouble and your broker can probably help you with the legal necessities."""
"""Should I use a credit repair agency?""","""Here's what my wife and I did. First, we stopped using credit cards and got rid of all other expenses that we absolutely didn't need.  A few examples: cable TV, home phone, high end internet - all shut off.  We changed our cell phone plan to a cheap one and stopped going out to restaurants or bars.  We also got rid of the cars that had payments on them and replaced them with ones we paid cash for.  Probably the most painful thing for me was selling a 2 year old 'vette and replacing it with a 5 year old random 4 door.   Some people might tell you don't do this because older cars need repairs.  Fact is, nearly all cars are going to need repairs.  It's just a matter of whether you are also making payments on it when they need them and if you can discipline yourself enough to save up a bit to cover those. After doing all this the only payments we had to make were for the house (plus electric\/gas\/water) and the debt we had accumulated.  I'd say that if you have the option to move back into your parent's house then do it.  Yes, it will suck for a while but you'll be able to pay everything off so much faster.  Just make sure to help around the house. Ignore the guys saying that this tanks your score and will make getting a house difficult.  Although they are right that it will drop your score the fact is that you aren't in any position to make large purchases anyway and won't be for quite some time, so it really doesn't matter.  Your number one goal is to dig yourself out of this hole, not engage in activity that will keep you in it. Next, if you are only working part time then you need to do one of two things.  Either get a full time job or go find a second part time one.  The preference is obviously on the first, which you should be able to do in your spare time.  If, for some reason, you don't have the tech skills necessary to do this then go find any part time job you can.   It took us about 3 years to finally pay everything (except the house) off - we owed a lot.  During that time everything we bought was paid for in cash with the vast majority of our money going to pay off those accounts. Once the final account was paid off, I did go ahead and get a credit card.  I made very minor purchases on it - mostly just gas - and paid it off a few days before it was due each month.  Every 4 months they increased my limit.   After around 18 months of using that one card my credit score was back in the 700+ range and with no debt other than the mortgage. *note: I echo what others have said about \""Credit Repair\"" companies.  Anything they can do, you can too.  It's a matter of cutting costs, living within your means and paying the bills.  If the interest rates are killing you, then try to get a consolidation loan.  If you can't do that then negotiate settlements with them, just get everything in writing prior to making a payment on it if you go this route.  BTW, make sure you actually can't pay them before attempting to settle."""
"""Can you recommend some good websites\/brokers for buying\/selling stocks in India? ""","""API wise there's just one at the retail level: Interactive Brokers (India). Brokerage is high though - 3.5 bps for F&O and 5 bps for cash.  I've used Sharekhan (good, can get to 2 bps brokerage, trading client software, no API). Also used multiple other brokerages, and am advising a new one, Zerodha http:\/\/www.zerodha.com. API wise the brokers don't provide it easily to retail, though I've worked with direct access APIs at an institutional level."""
"""Is a robo-adviser worth the risk?""","""They've been around long enough now for there to be past performance figures you can google for. I think you'll find the results aren't very encouraging. I personally don't think there's a huge risk that the robots will lose all your money, but there's every reason to expect they aren't likely to perform better than traditional managers or beat the market. At the end of the day the robots are employing a lot of analysis and management techniques that traditional managers have been using, and since traditional managers use computers to do it efficiently there's not much gain IMO. Yes in theory labour is expensive so cutting it out is good, but in practise, in this case, the amount of money being managed is huge and the human cost is pretty insignificant. I personally don't believe that the reduced fees represent the cost of the human management, I think it's just marketing. There might be some risk that the robots can be 'gamed' but I doubt the potential is very great (your return might in theory be a fraction of a percent less over time because it's going on). The problem here is that the algorithms are functionally broadly known. No doubt every robo adviser has its own algorithms that in theory are the closely guarded secret, but in reality a broad swath of the functional behaviour will be understood by many people in the right circles, and that gives rise to predictability, and if you can predict investment\/trading patterns you can make money from those patterns. That means humans making money (taking margin away) from the robots, or robots making money from other robots that are behind the curve. If robo advisers continue to take off I would expect them to under perform more and more."""
"""What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988?""","""So a major problem with looking at historical stock data on these graphs is that they set the stock price based off of current market volumn. If I was to say look at Majesco Entertainment (COOL) in june of 2016. It would say that the stock as trading between $5-6. In reality it was between .50-$1.  But in august there was a 6:1 reverse split. So June's value based on todays current share count would be about $5-6 per one share. 1988 for home depot must have been a really bad year for them, and because of all the splits they've had over the years already screws that estimate of what one share is worth. There's a lot of variance in 1988, but you have to be looking at only 1988. 87 and 89 really screws the the chart's scale."""
"""Most important skills needed to select profitable stocks ""","""You need to have 3 things if you are considering short-term trading (which I absolutely do not recommend): The ability to completely disconnect your emotions from your gains and losses (yes, even your gains but especially your losses). The winning\/losing on a daily basis will cause you to start taking unnecessary risk in order to win again. If you can't disconnect your emotions, then this isn't the game for you.  The lowest possible trading costs to enter and exit a position. People will talk about 1% trading costs; that rule-of-thumb doesn't apply anymore. Personally, my trading costs are a total 13.9 basis points to enter and exit a $10,000 position and I think it's still too high (that's just a hair above one-eighth of 1% for you non-traders).  The ability to \""gut-check\"" and exit a losing position FAST. Don't hesitate and don't hope for it to go up. GTFO. If you are serious about short-term trading then you must close all positions on a daily basis.  Don't do margin in today's market as many valuations are high and some industries are not trending as they have in the past. The leverage will kill you. It's not a question of \""if\"", it's a when.  You're new. Don't trade anything larger than a $5,000 position, no matter what. Don't hold more than 10% of your portfolio in the same industry. Don't be afraid to sit on 50% cash or more for months at a time. Use money market funds to park cash because they are T+1 settlement and most firms will let you trade the stock without cash as long as you effect the money market trade on the same day since stock settlement is T+3."""
"""Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?""","""If you have been putting savings away for the longer term and have some extra funds which you would like to take some extra risk on - then I say work yourself out a strategy\/plan, get yourself educated and go for it. If it is individual shares you are interested then work out if you prefer to use fundamental analysis, technical analysis or some of both. You can use fundamental analysis to help determine which shares to buy, and then use technical analysis to help determine when to get into and out of a position. You say you are prepared to lose $10,000 in order to try to get higher returns. I don't know what percentage this $10,000 is of the capital you intend to use in this kind of investments\/trading, but lets assume it is 10% - so your total starting capital would be $100,000. The idea now would be to learn about money management, position sizing and risk management. There are plenty of good books on these subjects. If you set a maximum loss for each position you open of 1% of your capital - i.e $1,000, then you would have to get 10 straight losses in a row to get to your 10% total loss. You do this by setting stop losses on your positions. I'll use an example to explain: Say you are looking at a stock priced at $20 and you get a signal to buy it at that price. You now need to determine a stop price which if the stock goes down to, you can say well I may have been wrong on this occasion, the stock price has gone against me so I need to get out now (I put automatic stop loss conditional orders with my broker). You may determine the stop price based on previous support levels, using a percentage of your buy price or another indicator or method. I tend to use the percentage of buy price - lets say you use 10% - so your stop price would be at $18 (10% below your buy price of $20). So now you can work out your position size (the number of shares to buy). Your maximum loss on the position is $2 per share or 10% of your position in this stock, but it should also be only 1% of your total capital - being 1% of $100,000 = $1,000. You simply divide $1,000 by $2 to get 500 shares to buy.  You then do this with the rest of your positions - with a $100,000 starting capital using a 1% maximum loss per position and a stop loss of 10% you will end up with a maximum of 10 positions. If you use a larger maximum loss per position your position sizes would increase and you would have less positions to open (I would not go higher than 2% maximum loss per position). If you use a larger stop loss percentage then your position sizes would decrease and you would have more positions to open. The larger the stop loss the longer you will potentially be in a position and the smaller the stop loss generally the less time you will be in a position. Also as your total capital increases so will your 1% of total capital, just as it would decrease if your total capital decreases. Using this method you can aim for higher risk\/ higher return investments and reduce and manage your risk to a desired level. One other thing to consider, don't let tax determine when you sell an investment. If you are keeping a stock just so you will pay less tax if kept for over 12 months - then you are in real danger of increasing your risk considerably. I would rather pay 50% tax on a 30% return than 25% tax on a 15% return."""
"""Do I need to file taxes when selling on eBay or Amazon?""","""In simple terms, it is a business operation when it becomes a   profit-making enterprise. It is a grey area, but there is a difference between selling   occasional personal items on eBay and selling for profit. I would imagine the sort of considerations HM Revenue & Customs would   take into account are the size of your turnover, the extent to which   you are both buying and selling, and whether you are clearly   specialising in one particular commodity as opposed of disposing of   unwanted presents or clearing the loft. http:\/\/www.ebay.co.uk\/gds\/When-does-eBay-selling-become-taxable-\/10000000004494855\/g.html I don't believe that you selling your personal camera gear will be taxable, but as the link says, it is a grey area.  They also recommend to do this It's far better than having to deal with an investigation a few years   down the line. When it comes to completing your tax return, there is a section which   is headed \""other income\"", and it is here where you will enter the net   earnings from the web business. \""Net\"" here means your additional income, less all expenses associated   with it. If you are still worried I would always encourage people to take a cautious approach and discuss their position with HMRC via its helpline on 08454 915 4515."""
"""International (ex-US) ETFs with low exposure to financial sector?""","""If you are looking for a European financials ETF to short, you could take a look at the iShares EURO STOXX Banks, which is traded on a a few German stock exchanges (Frankfurt etc.): iShares Euro Stoxx Banks Website You find its current holdings here: holdings."""
"""HELOC vs. Parental Student Loans vs. Second Mortgage?""","""I'd like to propose a 4th option: Let your kid(s) take out their own student loans, and then you can make payments directly to help them pay them down. Some advantages to this method: Note the many similarities to the HELOC, which would probably be my second choice."""
"""Income Tax and Investments""","""The $50k is subject to the appropriate income taxes, which may include FICA taxes including the employer share if you are self employed. The after tax money can then be invested with the amount invested being the cost basis (I.e., if you invest $40k you will have a cost basis of $40k).  In future years you will have taxes due if any of those investments pay dividends (or capital gain distributions). Once you sell you will have a capital gain or loss that you will pay taxes on (or take a deduction if a loss). Now you can improve this picture if you are able to put some of your money into a retirement account (either a tax deductible or a ROTH). With retirement accounts you do not pay tax on the capital gains or dividends. If you use a tax deferred account your tax is higher but that is because you were also investing Uncle Sam's portion of your pay check."""
"""Why buy a vertical spread if I could instead buy a naked call?""","""Late to the party, but it's just improving your cost basis in a defined risk trade even further. If you want to put up less risk capital but want to test the waters, this can be one way to do it. Another could be buying cheap OTM butterflies or financing a further otm option with the basis reduction from the debit spread if you want to gamble a bit further and venture into 15-20 delta positions. Usually, I am doing debit spreads with a buying atm and selling a couple strikes further otm or at least at the most liquid strikes, but if it's a high flier, it can be disappointing, but a good trade. If you're more of a contrarian in where you buy your calls\/puts, it's absolutely a good way to lessen your risk on a calculated bet."""
"""Primary residence converted to a rental property & tax implications""","""Schedule E is the form you'll use. It lists nearly all deductions you can take for a rental. TurboTax Deluxe will handle it and it includes State Filing."""
"""Effect of country default on house prices?""","""It could be a a way to preserve the value of your money, but depends upon various factors. If a country defaults, and it leads to hyper-inflation, by definition that means that money loses its purchasing power.  In even simpler terms, it cannot buy as much tomorrow as I could today. Therefore people can be incented to either hoard physical goods, or other non-perishable items. Real-estate may well be such an item.  If you are resident in the country, you have to live somewhere.  It is possible that a landlord might try to raise rent beyond what your job is willing to pay.  Of course, in a house, you might have a similar situation with utilities like electricity... Assuming some kind of re-stabilization of the economy and currency, even with several more zeros on the end, it is conceivable that the house would subsequently sell for an appropriately inflation adjusted amount, as other in-demand physical goods may. Lots of variables. Good Luck."""
"""How to increase my credit score""","""You need to get yourself a credit card, and use it regularly and also repay on time. This will help increase your credit score.  Hope you have a regular job which is bringing in money every month, but having just this isnt enough, get a credit card."""
"""Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?""","""I somewhat agree to Alex B's post.  I was a finance manager for 7 years both prime and sub-prime(special)(in other words bad).   The parts he's 100% right on.  Hit up you local credit union then your bank.  Get your financing done first if you can.  Now 690 credit score is one of 3 bureaus, not all banks and lending institutions use all three or the same one.  Also the score isn't everything.  That could be good or bad.  The 2-3% range is normally for the 720+ crowd unless its a manufacture.  (GM, Ford, so on)  With rates capping out at around 30% depending on state laws.  However 690 should not be 19% on a new or late model car.  At 690 at 19% you would have be going for a 70,000+ mile 6 year or older car if I had to guess. Assuming you have no BK's and repos.   Some times dealerships have to pay banks to get people financed.  Its hidden in the cost and they by law are not allowed to tell you about it because it cannot be passed on to you.  However the banks don't just fund any crazy amount of money either say like 115% of book and  that it.  That is where and why they want that big down payment because that is used to off set the finance amount and what you pay.  Making the dealership money.  and i can go on and on and on...   But you should always try to get the funding prior.  Your credit union won't charge the hidden fees and they only care about your down payment to see that you are making a commitment.  If you are buying used.  Save out 1500 for future repairs and tires and such.  Don't buy paint protectant and such.  If you finance thru the dealership and put less than 20% down DO buy Gap Insurance but thats it.  I can go on and on but I won't.  Feel free to ask though.   And to answer your original only question with not context. \""Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?\"" Yes if the money is better served paying off credit cards or long term mortgage, assuming you don't need the write off."""
"""Why does short selling require borrowing?""","""This can be best explained with an example. Bob thinks the price of a stock that Alice has is going to go down by the end of the week, so he borrows a share at $25 from Alice. The current price of the shares are $25 per share. Bob immediately sells the shares to Charlie for $25, it is fair, it is the current market price. A week goes by, and the price does fall to $20. Bob buys a share from David at $20. This is fair, it is the current market value. Then Bob gives the share back to Alice to settle what he borrowed from her, one share. Now, in reality, there is interest charged be Alice on the borrowed value, but to keep it simple, we'll say she was a friend and it was a zero interest loan. So then Bob was able to sell something he didn't own for $25 and return it spending $20 to buy it, settling his loan and making $5 in the transaction. It is the selling to Charlie and buying from David (or even Charlie later, if he decided to dump the shares), without having invested any of your own money that earns the profit."""
"""Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?""","""If it is true that for the same price, you could get a better place (or that for a lower price you could get an equivalent place), you should do some soul-searching to decide what monetary value you would place on the hassle of moving to such an alternative.  You should then negotiate aggressively for a rent that is no more than the rent of the alternative place plus your hassle costs, and if the landlord does not meet your price, you should refuse to renew your lease, and instead move out to an alternative.  (Of course, you might also want to double-check your research to ensure you really can get such a good alternative, and that your new landlords won't try a similar bait-and-switch and force you to move again in a year.) Barring local ordinances such as rent control laws, I don't think it's worth it to worry about whether the increase is \""normal\"".  If you can get a better deal somewhere else, then what your landlords are asking is too much.  If you have a good relationship with them on a personal level you may be able to tell them this in a nice way and thus get them to make a more reasonable offer.  Otherwise, the landlords will learn that their expectations are unreasonable when all their tenants move out to cheaper places."""
"""Are there \""buy and hold\"" passively managed funds?""","""They pretty much already have what you are looking for.  They are called Unit Investment Trusts.  The key behind these is (a)  the trust starts out with a fixed pool of securities.  It is completely unmanaged and there is no buying or selling of the securities, (b) they terminate after a fixed period of time, at which time all assets are distributed among the owners. According to Investment Company Institute, \""securities in a UIT are   professionally selected to meet a stated investment objective,  such   as growth,  income, or capital appreciation.\"" UITs sell a fixed    number of units at one-time  public offering. Securities in a UIT do    not trade actively, rather, UITs use a  strategy known as    buy-and-hold. The UIT purchases a certain amount of  securities and    holds them until its termination date. Holdings rarely change   throughout the life of the trust so unit holders know exactly what    they're  investing in, and the trust lists all securities in its    prospectus. Unit trusts  normally sell redeemable units - this    obligates the trust to re-purchase  investor's units at their net    asset value at the investors request."""
"""Money market account for emergency savings""","""I think it's only a choice of terminology.  Typically with a money market account has check-writing privileges whereas a savings account does not. In terms of rates, this blog has a good list of high interest yield savings accounts. http:\/\/www.hustlermoneyblog.com\/best-bank-rates\/ Disclosure: I am not affiliated with this blog.  I just think it is a good resource to compare the rates across different banks."""
"""Can I transfer money from a personal pension to a SIPP, while leaving the original pension open?""","""Just to aid your searching, note that what your employer has provided you with access to is a Group Personal Pension . Now, as to the question of whether partial transfers from a GPP to a SIPP are possible - the answer would appear to be Probably Yes; however you should contact the pension administrator at your employer (who will be able to give both the employer's and the scheme's points of view), and also the SIPP provider you are considering, to get a definitive answer. I'm basing this on the results I'm seeing googling for 'partial gpp transfer', eg Partial transfer from group pension possible? and Is it possible to transfer?. Add to that the fact that one of the largest UK SIPP providers explicitly includes a 'Partial Transfer' checkbox on their pension transfer form."""
"""Costs around a modern crowd-sourced hedge fund""","""Your inference in #1 is incorrect.  The million dollars he has contributed is going to be part of the assets of the fund.  This is common practice and is a way for the founder to express confidence that the fund will make money.  He wants you to come up with a model that he can then use to trade those assets.  Presumably he will give you some money if he uses your model and it works. Regarding #2, there are lots of ways of getting data.  Sometimes you can buy it directly from the exchange.  You can also buy from vendors like tickdata.com.  There are lots of such vendors.  Since he makes a big deal about saying it's expensive, I'm assuming he is talking about data at relatively high frequency (not daily, which would be cheap).  Stock data is still not bad.  Complete US data would be a few thousand dollars (maybe 20K at the most).  For someone sitting at home with no capital, that's a lot of money, but for a hedge fund it's nothing. As an institutional investor, your broker will give you a data feed that will provide all prices in real time (but not historically).  If he's been in operation a while, he could have just saved the prices as they came out of the pipe.  I don't think that's the case here, though, based on how young he is and how little money is involved. In short, he paid for some data and has \""encrypted\"" it in such a way that he can legally share it for free.  Supposedly his method preserves the structure so that you could write a trading model based on the encrypted data and it would work on real data.  Once you have a good trading model, you sell it to him and he will use it to trade his million dollars and whatever other money he is able to gather."""
"""Equity - date of offer, or date of joining?""","""Options or Shares vest by date they are granted. It would strike me as odd for anyone to say their shares were given with 4 year vesting, but the clock was pre-started years prior.  In my opinion, you have nothing to complain about."""
"""why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?""","""You're absolutely correct. If you have maxed out your retirement investment vehicles and have some additional investments in a regular taxable account, you can certainly use that as an emergency source of funds without much downside. (You can borrow from many retirement account but there are downsides.) Sure, you risk selling at a loss when\/if you need the money, but I'd rather take the risk and take advantage of the investment growth that I would miss if I kept my emergency fund in cash or money market. And you can choose how much risk you're willing to take on when you invest the money."""
"""What should I do with my $25k to invest as a 20 years old?""","""My original plan was to wait for the next economic downturn and invest   in index funds. These funds have historically yielded 6-7% annually   when entered at any given time, but maybe around 8-9% annually when   entered during a recession. These numbers have been adjusted for   inflation. Questions or comments on this strategy? Educate yourself as index funds are merely a strategy that could be applied to various asset classes such as US Large-cap value stocks, Emerging Market stocks, Real Estate Investment Trusts, US Health Care stocks, Short-term bonds, and many other possibilities. Could you be more specific about which funds you meant as there is some great work by Fama and French on the returns of various asset classes over time. What about a Roth IRA? Mutual fund? Roth IRA is a type of account and not an investment in itself, so while I think it is a good idea to have Roth IRA, I would highly advise researching the ins and outs of this before assuming you can invest in one. You do realize that index funds are just a special type of mutual fund, right? It is also worth noting that there are a few kinds of mutual funds: Open-end, exchange-traded and closed-end. Which kind did you mean? What should I do with my money until the market hits another   recession? Economies have recessions, markets have ups and downs. I'd highly consider forming a real strategy rather than think, \""Oh let's toss it into an index fund until I need the money,\"" as that seems like a recipe for disaster. Figure out what long-term financial goals do you have in mind, how OK are you with risk as if the market goes down for more than a few years straight, are you OK with seeing those savings be cut in half or worse?"""
"""What does \""interest rates\"", without any further context, generically refer to?""","""It refers to the risk free rate of a particular country. Because all other rates are usually pegged to the risk free rate. In US,it is the 30 day treasury rate. In England, it is the LIBOR In Canada, it is the overnight rate at which banks lend money to each other. All of these come under the category of risk free rate."""
"""What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors?""","""Never speak to a debt collector. Ask them to stop calling you and STOP talking to them. Communicate only via postal mail. Do not react in an emotional way, do not use foul language, etc. If they call you and attempt to harass or intimidate you, note the date\/time, name of the caller and nature of the call. Ask them to cease communications via phone and hang up. You're missing alot of detail here. You need to understand: The key to these things is to fully understand the situation you are in and find out what your legal obligations are."""
"""How do I explain why debt on debt is bad to my brother?""","""The key idea he should focus on is that every debt includes interest - the money he didn't borrow, but now owes. The interest goes straight to the lender pocket and the debtor has to get money somewhere for that interest. That's the key reason of why getting another loan only increases pressure on the debtor - with the new loan he owes new interest in addition to what he already owed."""
"""First concrete steps for retirement planning when one partner is resistant""","""Bringing your spouse on board a financial plan is key to success.  The biggest part is to have a shared dream.  Having retirement saving doesn't mean that you can't work. It does mean that you both will have some level of security as you age.   Does your husband really want you to be impoverished when he dies?  I doubt it, he probably just hasn't given it much thought.  A strong nest-egg can help you after his is gone even if you are still working. My wife and I follow Dave Ramsey's baby steps.  It has worked like a champ for us and can help you as well.  You can look up his plan, most of the materials are free.  A few highlights: So in short, don't worry about retirement until you two are out of debt.  Once you two are out of debt then save for your retirement, kids college and pay off your home early. Building a shared dream with your husband is the best way to get him onboard.  Talk about helping the kids, freedom to vacation, your parents struggle, whatever gets him to see the importance of having some savings."""
"""Changed from job that had a 401K, and the new one doesn't. How do I answer when filing?""","""If you had a retirement plan at any time in 2013 you are considered covered by an plan. Are You Covered by an Employer's Retirement Plan? You\u2019re covered by an employer retirement plan for a tax year if your   employer (or your spouse\u2019s employer) has a: Defined contribution plan (profit-sharing, 401(k), stock bonus and money purchase pension plan) and any contributions or forfeitures were   allocated to your account for the plan year ending with or within the   tax year; IRA-based plan (SEP, SARSEP or SIMPLE IRA plan) and you had an amount contributed to your IRA for the plan year that ends with or   within the tax year; or Defined benefit plan (pension plan that pays a retirement benefit spelled out in the plan) and you are eligible to participate for the   plan year ending with or within the tax year. Box 13 on the Form W-2 you receive from your employer should contain a   check in the \""Retirement plan\"" box if you are covered. If you are   still not certain, check with your (or your spouse\u2019s) employer. The limits on the amount you can deduct don\u2019t affect the amount you   can contribute. However, you can never deduct more than you actually   contribute. Additional Resources: Publication 590, Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs)"""
"""Set different trigger and sell price for Trailing Stop Limit""","""It will depend largely on your broker what type of stop and trailing stop orders they provide. Saying that, I have not come across any brokers yet that offer limit orders with trailing stop orders.  Unlike a standard stop order where you can either make it a market stop order or a limit stop order, usually most brokers have trailing stop orders as market orders only, where you can either set the trailing stop to be a dollar value or percentage from the most recent high. Remember also, that trailing stop orders will be based on the intra-day highs and not the highest closing price. That means that if the share price spikes up during the day your trailing stop will move up, and if the price then spikes down you may be stopped out prematurely, after which the price might rally again. For this reason I try to base my trailing stops on the highest closing price by using standard stop loss orders and moving it up manually after the close of trade if the share price has closed at a new high. This takes a few minutes each evening (depending on how many stocks you have to check and adjust the stops for) but gives you more control. Using this method will also enable you to set limit orders attached to your stop loss triggers, and you won't have to keep your trailing too close to the last high price thus potentially causing you to get stopped out prematurely. Slightly off track but may be handy if you set profit targets, my broker has recently introduced Trailing Take Profit Orders. The way it works is, say you have a profit target of 50%, so you buy at $2 and want to take profits if the price reaches $3, you could set your Trailing Take Profit Trigger at say $3.10 or above and set a Trail by Amount of say $0.10. So if the price after hitting $3.10 falls to $3.00 you will be stopped out and collect your profits. If the price moves up to $3.30 and then falls to $3.20, you will be stopped out at $3.20 and make some extra profits. If the price continues going up the Trailing Take Profit will continue to move up always $0.10 below the highest price reached. I think this would be a very useful order if you were range trading where you could set the Trailing Take Profit trigger near recent resistance so you can get out if prices start reversing at or around the resistance, but continue profiting if the price breaks through the resistance."""
"""Using property to achieve financial independence""","""Be very careful about buying property because it has been going up quickly in recent years.  There are some fundamental factors that limit the amount real-estate can appreciate over time.  In a nutshell, the general real-estate market growth is supported by the entry-level property market.  That is, when values are appreciating, people can sell and use the capital gains to buy more valuable property.  This drives up the prices in higher value properties whose owners can use that to purchase more expensive properties and so on and so forth. At some point in a rising market, the entry-level properties start to become hard for entry-level buyers to afford.  The machine of rising prices throughout the market starts grinding to a halt.  This price-level can be calculated by looking at average incomes in an area.  At some percentage of income, people cannot buy into the market without crazy loans and if those become popular, watch out because things can get really ugly.  If you want an example, just look back to the US in 2007-2009 and the nearly apocalyptic financial crisis that ensued. As with most investing, you want to buy low and sell high.  Buying into a hot market is generally not very profitable.  Buying when the market is abnormally low tends to be a more effective strategy."""
"""Why do some people say a house \""not an investment\""?""","""I invested in single family homes and made ok.  Houses can be an investment. (though the OP seems to equate \""house\"" with primary residence)   Just like any other investment buying houses has risks.   I would not treat your primary residence or a vacation  home as an investment.  That is asking for trouble, but for many many years it was safe to assume that you would make a good return on it, and many people did.   If you evaluate the numbers for purchase price, rental market, etc and find that rentals or flipping is worth your exposure then by all means, do it.  But treating your primary residence as an investment apparently is what that comment means. Just like the stock market, many people have gotten wealthy on homes and there are lots of people who lost their shirts."""
"""Why don't boards of directors try to produce results in line with estimates?""","""First off, some companies do something like this.  Microsoft for example was well-known for consistently hitting earnings estimates every quarter - nearly never missed them, and most of the time didn't exceed by much either.  In order to do this and not be prosecuted for accounting fraud, you typically have to be a service or nontangible good company (like Microsoft used to be) where you can manipulate the amount of product on hand and move costs fairly easily from one quarter to the next.  A company like, say, Home Depot or Caterpillar - both of which have tangible goods they're either retailing or producing - has less flexibility there, although they will still try to move profits around to match earnings estimates more closely. However, you have to be consistently doing well to be able to do this.  You can't manufacture additional total revenue; so if you have one 'down' quarter, you have to either have moved some revenue into it from the previous quarter, or you have to be able to move some into it from the next quarter.  That obviously doesn't work consistently unless you're a fast-growing company, or have an extremely stable base.  It's also hard to do this in a legal-seeming fashion - technically this sort of manipulation is illegal, so decisions have to be justifiable.  Companies (like Microsoft) that are expanding can also do things to encourage slightly lower expectations.  A company in need of a stock price bump issues press releases touting its inventions and products as amazing things that will drive profits through the roof and an aggressive profit forecast - just as easy to issue a press release with a conservative forecast, meaning the bar will be lower to hit.   It's also not really necessary to manipulate earnings to have a consistently well-performing stock.  This article for example shows that companies who miss earnings estimates don't really suffer much (when controlling for their actual earnings changes, of course) in the long run.  Your price might drop a bit, but if your company is otherwise sound, it will recover. Finally, companies do sometimes come out with information ahead of earnings that cause expectations to be lowered.  7-Eleven for example just lowered its earnings expectations due to various reasons.  Some companies choose to do this in order to dilute the effect on the market.  I'm not sure if this is ever required, but it seems to me that some companies are much quicker to restate earnings expectations than others."""
"""Valuation Spreadsheet""","""Yes, all of that is possible with google sheets..."""
"""How much do large sell orders affect stock price?""","""In general, how does a large open market stock sale affect prices? A very general answer, all other things being equal, the price will move down. However there is nothing general. It depends on total number of shares in market and total turn over for that specific shares. The order book for the day etc. What is the maximum percentage of a company you could sell per day before the trading freezes, and what factors matter? Every stock exchange has rules that would determine when a particular stock would be suspended from trading, generally a 10-20% swing [either ways]. Generally highly liquid stock or stock during initial listing are exempt from such limits as they are left to arrive the market price ...  A large sell order may or may not swing the price for it to get suspended. At times even a small order may do ... again it is specific to a particular stock."""
"""Company asking for card details to refund over email""","""If it is a well known company that wants to give you a refund, I would not worry about giving them your credit card number.  However, I would never type my credit card number into an e-mail message. E-mail messages are very insecure, and can be read by many people along its way to the destination. They also can be archived in many places, meaning that your number will continue to be posted out there for someone to grab in the future.  If you need to give this company your credit card number, do it over the phone.  Having said that, ultimately you are not generally responsible for fraudulent charges if your card number is stolen and misused. I've had so many fraudulent charges, despite my being relatively careful with my number, that I don't really worry much anymore about losing my number. I just check my statement for false charges, and when they happen,  the bank cancels the charge and issues me a new number. It has happened to either my wife or I maybe 5 times over the last two years."""
"""Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price""","""On the surface this sounds ridiculous, which makes me suspect that there might be something that the dealer intends to cling on to; otherwise it sounds like the dealer should be ashamed to even call your son about its own incompetence. I'd recommend politely refusing the request since said mistake didn't happen on your end, and wait to see if the dealer comes back with some sort of argument."""
"""Why doesn\u2019t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes?""","""In a nutshell, there are significant entrance hurdles, legally and especially financially. The fixed cost and effort to get it set up is high (although later, the proportional cost and efforts are negligible). Therefore, this is only of interest for taxable amounts of seven digits or more - which most people don\u2019t reach."""
"""What software do you recommend for Creating a To-The-Penny, To-The-Day Budget?""","""I've tried Mint, and I've tried Quicken. Now, I think Quicken is an annoying, crashy little piece of software, but it is also quite capable; overall I think it has the features you want. You can enter your bills, broken down by category, in advance. You can enter your paychecks, broken down by category (gross income, federal income tax, state income tax, social security, SDI, transfers to tax-protected 401(k) account, etc) in advance. You can enter in your stock trades and it can tell you how much you'll need to end up paying in capital gains taxes. You can even enter in your stock option vesting schedule in advance (it's a royal pain because you can't go back and change anything without deleting everything, but you can do it). It'll forecast your bank account balance in all of your bank accounts in advance with a shiny chart. It'll even model your loans, if you set it up right. I didn't do too much with the \""budgeting\"" tools per se, but the account-balances-daily features sound like the closest thing to what you're looking for that's likely to exist. The only thing that's a trifle tricky is that transfers from one account to another may take multiple days (hello, ACH) and you'll have to decide whether to record them at departure or arrival."""
"""Why do people invest in mutual fund rather than directly buying shares?""","""There are several reasons. One, mutual funds provide instant diversification.  To build a diverse portfolio \""manually\"" (by buying individual shares) requires a lot of time and effort.  If your portfolio is not diverse, then it is wrong to say \""buying shares gives higher return\""; in many cases diversification will increase your returns. Two, mutual funds reduce transactions costs.  If you buy individual shares, you pay transactions costs every time you buy or sell.  If you buy and sell the shares of many companies, you must perform many transactions and thus incur heavy fees.  With mutual funds, a single transaction gets you access to many companies.  In addition, it is often possible to buy mutual funds without paying transactions costs at all (although you will still pay fund expenses). Three (sort of a combination of the previous two) it is just easier.  Many people can easily buy mutual funds with no cost and little effort through their bank.  It is also simple to set up auto-investment plans so that you automatically save money over time.  All of these things are much more complicated if you try to buy many individual shares. Four, if you buy the right kinds of funds (low-cost index funds), it is probably more lucrative than buying individual shares.  The odds that, through carefully selected stock-buying, you will earn more than the market average are small.  Even professional stock-pickers consistently underperform broad market indexes. In short, it is not true that \""buying shares gives higher return\"", and even if it were, the convenience and diversification of mutual funds would still be good reasons to use them."""
"""How is the actual trade on exchanges processed for simple stock orders?""","""The simple answer is, there are many ways for trades to take place.  Some systems use order-matching software that employs proprietary algorithms for deciding the order of processing, others use FIFO structures, and so on.  Some brokerages may fill customer orders out of their own accounts (which happens more frequently than you might imagine), and others put their orders into the system for the market makers to handle.  There's no easy all-encompassing answer to your question, but it's still a good one to ask. By the way, asking if the market is \""fair\"" is a bit naive, because fairness depends on what side of the trade you came out on! (grin)  If your limit order didn't get filled and you missed out on an opportunity, that's always going to seem unfair, right?"""
"""How can a Canadian establish US credit score""","""set up a US company (WY is cheap and easy), go south and open a personal and business bank account, ask for the itin form. file for the itin. set up your EIN for the company. get a credit card for both. pay some mail forwarding service with it. file for taxes in the next year using your itin. prepaid cards do not link to your tax id"""
"""How to get started with the stock market? [duplicate]""","""There's several approaches to the stock market. The first thing you need to do is decide which you're going to take. The first is the case of the standard investor saving money for retirement (or some other long-term goal). He already has a job. He's not really interested in another job. He doesn't want to spend thousands of hours doing research. He should buy mutual funds or similar instruments to build diversified holdings all over the world. He's going to have is money invested for years at a time. He won't earn spectacular amazing awesome returns, but he'll earn solid returns. There will be a few years when he loses money, but he'll recover it just by waiting. The second is the case of the day trader. He attempts to understand ultra-short-term movements in stock prices due to news, rumors, and other things which stem from quirks of the market and the people who trade in it. He buys a stock, and when it's up a fraction of a percent half an hour later, sells it. This is very risky, requires a lot of attention and a good amount of money to work with, and you can lose a lot of money too. The modern day-trader also needs to compete with the \""high-frequency trading\"" desks of Wall Street firms, with super-optimized computer networks located a block away from the exchange so that they can make orders faster than the guy two blocks away. I don't recommend this approach at all. The third case is the guy who wants to beat the market. He's got long-term aspirations and vision, but he does a lot more research into individual companies, figures out which are worth buying and which are not, and invests accordingly. (This is how Warren Buffett made it big.) You can make it work, but it's like starting a business: it's a ton of work, requires a good amount of money to get going, and you still risk losing lots of it.  The fourth case is the guy who mostly invests in broad market indexes like #1, but has a little money set aside for the stocks he's researched and likes enough to invest in like #3. He's not going to make money like Warren Buffett, but he may get a little bit of an edge on the rest of the market. If he doesn't, and ends up losing money there instead, the rest of his stocks are still chugging along. The last and stupidest way is to treat it all like magic, buying things without understanding them or a clear plan of what you're going to do with them. You risk losing all your money. (You also risk having it stagnate.) Good to see you want to avoid it. :)"""
"""Are stock prices likely drop off a little bit on a given friday afternoon?""","""There are classes of 'traders' who close their positions out every evening, not just on fridays.  But their are other types of businesses who trade shortly before or nearly right at market close with both buys and sells  There are lots of theories as to how the market behaves at various times of day, days of the week, months of the year.  There are some few patterns that can emerge but in general they don't provide a lot of 'lift' above pure random chance, enough so that if you 'bet' on one of these your chances of being wrong are only very slightly different from being right, enough so that it's not really fair to call any of them a 'sure thing'.  And since these events are often fairly widely spaced, it's difficult to play them often enough to get the 'law of large numbers' on your side (as opposed to say card-counting at a blackjack table) which basically makes betting on them not much different from gambling"""
"""Totally new to finance, economy, where should I start?""","""I'd start with learning how to read a company's financial statement and their annual report. I would recommend reading the following: All three books are cheap and readily available. If you really want to enhance your learning, grab a few annual reports from companies' websites to reference as you learn about different aspects of the financial statements."""
"""Advice for a college student interested in investment opportunities.""","""2.5 years is a short period in the stock market. That means there is a significant chance it will be lower in 2.5 years, whereas it is very likely to be higher over a longer time period like 5-10 years. So if you want the funds to grow for sure then consider an online savings account, where you might earn 1-2%.  If you want to do stocks anyway, but don't have any idea what fund to buy, the safest default choice is to buy an index fund that tracks the S&P 500. Vanguard's VFINX is one example."""
"""Home sale: No right to terminate?""","""The most likely reason for this is that the relocation company wants to have a guaranteed sale so as to get a new mortgage in the new location.  Understand that the relocation company generally works for a prospective employer.  So they are trying to make the process as painless as possible for the homeowner (who is probably getting hired as a professional, either a manager or someone like an engineer or accountant).   If the sale is guaranteed to go through regardless of any problems, then it is easy for them to arrange a new mortgage.  In fact, they may bridge the gap by securing the initial financing and making the downpayment, then use the payout from the house you are buying to buy out their position.  That puts them on the hook for a bunch of money (a downpayment on a house) while they're waiting on the house you're purchasing to close.   This does not necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with the house.  The relocation company would only know about something wrong if the owner had disclosed it.  They don't really care about the house they're selling.  Their job is to make the transition easy.  With a relocation company, it is more likely that they are simply in a hurry and want to avoid a busted purchase.  If this sale fails to go through for any reason, they have to start over.  That could make the employment change fall through.   This is a variation of a no contingencies sale.  Sellers like no contingencies sales because they are easier.  Buyers dislike them because their protections are weaker.  But some buyers will offer them because they get better prices that way.  In particular, house flippers will do this frequently so as to get the house for less money than they might otherwise pay.  This is better than a pure no contingencies sale, as they are agreeing to the repairs.   This is a reasonable excuse to not proceed with the transaction.  If this makes you so uncomfortable that you'd rather continue looking, that's fine.  However, it also gives you a bit of leverage, as it means that they are motivated to close this transaction quickly.  You can consider any of the following:   Or you can do some combination of those or something else entirely that makes you fell more secure.  If you do decide to move forward with any version of this provision, get a real estate lawyer to draft the agreement.  Also, insist on disclosure of any previous failed sales and the reason for the failure before signing the agreement.  The lawyer can make that request in such a way as to get a truthful response.   And again, in case you missed it when I said this earlier.  You can say no and simply refuse to move forward with such a provision.  You may not get the house, but you'll save a certain amount of worry.  If you do move forward, you should be sure that you are getting a good deal.  They're asking for special provisions; they should bear the cost of that.  Either your current deal is already good (and it may be) or you should make them adjust until it is."""
"""How can a freelancer get a credit card? (India)""","""I don't know about India, but here in the US banks, and more friendly institutions such as credit unions, use to offer the option of a 'secured' credit card where the card was secured by placing a lock on money in a savings account equal to the credit limit on the card. So for example, if you had $1500 in savings, you could have them lock say $1000, which you would not be able to withdraw from savings, in return for a credit card account with a credit limit of $1000.  Typically you still earned interest on the full amount of the savings, you were just limited to having to maintain a minimum balance in that account of $1000."""
"""Can I Accept Gold?""","""You can accept almost anything mutually agreeable to you and the other party as payment. That's the definition of \""barter\"". If you agree to trade manufactured goods for livestock, as long as both parties agree on the terms, I'm not aware of any law that would prohibit it. I hedged with \""almost\"" because of course you can't accept something that is explicitly illegal. Like you can't say you'll accept cocaine as payment. Less obviously, there are laws regulating the sale of guns, nuclear fuel, agricultural products, etc. You'd still have to pay taxes, and it can get complicated to determine the taxable value of the transaction. Sorry, but you can't avoid taxes by getting your income in something other than cash."""
"""Should I \""hedge\"" my IRA portfolio with a life cycle \/ target date mutual fund?""","""I like that you are hedging ONLY the Roth IRA - more than likely you will not touch that until retirement.  Looking at fees, I noticed Vanguard Target retirement funds are .17% - 0.19% expense ratios, versus 0.04 - 0.14% for their Small\/Mid\/Large cap stocks."""
"""Why would people sell a stock below the current price?""","""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."""
"""Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns?""","""The points given by DumbCoder are very valid. Diversifying portfolio is always a good idea. Including Metals is also a good idea. Investing in single metal though may not be a good idea.   \u2022Silver is pretty cheap now, hopefully it will be for a while. \u2022Silver is undervalued compared to gold. World reserve ratio is around 1 to 11, while price is around 1 to 60. Both the above are iffy statements. Cheap is relative term ... there are quite a few metals more cheaper than Silver [Copper for example]. Undervalued doesn't make sense. Its a quesiton of demand and supply. Today Industrial use of Silver is more widespread, and its predecting future what would happen. If you are saying Silver will appreciate more than other metals, it again depends on country and time period. There are times when even metals like Copper have given more returns than Silver and Gold. There is also Platinum to consider. In my opinion quite a bit of stuff is put in undervalued ... i.e. comparing reserve ratio to price in absolute isn't right comparing it over relative years is right. What the ratio says is for every 11 gms of silver, there is 1 gm of Gold and the price of this 1 gm is 60 times more than silver. True. And nobody tell is the demand of Silver 60 times more than Gold or 11 times more than Gold. i.e. the consumption. What is also not told is the cost to extract the 11 gms of silver is less than cost of 1 gm of Gold. So the cheapness you are thinking is  not 100% true."""
"""What risk of a diversified portfolio can be specifically offset by options?""","""As I stated in my comment, options are futures, but with the twist that you're allowed to say no to the agreed-on transaction; if the market offers you a better deal on whatever you had contracted to buy or sell, you have the option of simply letting it expire. Options therefore are the insurance policy of the free market. You negotiate a future price (actually you usually take what you can get if you're an individual investor; the institutional fund managers get to negotiate because they're moving billions around every day), then you pay the other guy up front for the right of refusal later. How much you pay depends on how likely the person giving you this option is to have to make good on it; if your position looks like a sure thing, an option's going to be very expensive (and if it's such a sure thing, you should just make your move on the spot market; it's thus useful to track futures prices to see where the various big players are predicting that your portfolio will move). A put option, which is an option for you to sell something at a future price, is a hedge against loss of value of your portfolio. You can take one out on any single item in your portfolio, or against a portion or even your entire portfolio. If the stock loses value such that the contract price is better than the market price as of the delivery date of the contract, you execute the option; otherwise, you let it expire. A call option, which is an option to buy something at a future price, is a hedge against rising costs. The rough analog is a \""pre-order\"" in retail (but more like a \""holding fee\""). They're unusual in portfolio management but can be useful when moving money around in more complex ways. Basically, if you need to guarantee that you will not pay more than a certain per-share price to buy something in the future, you buy a call option. If the spot price as of the delivery date is less than the contract price, you buy from the market and ignore the contract, while if prices have soared, you exercise it and get the lower contract price. Stock options, offered as benefits in many companies, are a specific form of call option with very generous terms for whomever holds them. A swaption, basically a put and a call rolled into one, allows you to trade something for something else. Call it the free market's \""exchange policy\"". For a price, if a security you currently hold loses value, you can exchange it for something else that you predicted would become more valuable at the same time. One example might be airline stocks and crude oil; when crude spikes, airline stocks generally suffer, and you can take advantage of this, if it happens, with a swaption to sell your airline stocks for crude oil certificates. There are many such closely-related inverse positions in the market, such as between various currencies, between stocks and commodities (gold is inversely related to pretty much everything else), and even straight-up cash-for-bad-debt arrangements (credit-default swaps, which we heard so much about in 2008)."""
"""Why is the stock market price for a share always higher than the earnings per share?""","""Stock prices are set by supply and demand. If a particular stock has a high EPS, say, $100, then people will bid more for that stock, driving up its price over one with a $10 EPS. Your job as an investor is to find stocks with low share prices, but which will give you high earnings (either in dividends, our future share price). This means finding stocks which you believe the market has priced incorrectly, for whatever reason (as an example, many bank stocks are being punished right now, even if the underlying banks are in good shape financially). If you want to beat the market indices, be prepared to do a lot of research, because you're trying to outsmart the market as a whole."""
"""How do I calculate tax liability on the turnover of a small vendor?""","""There are quite a few questions as to how you are recording your income and expenses.   If you are running the bakery as a Sole Proprietor, with all the income and expense in a business account; then things are easy. You just have to pay tax on the profit [as per the standard tax bracket].   If you running it as individual, you are still only liable to pay tax on profit and not turnover, however you need to keep a proper book of accounts showing income and expense. Get a Accountant to do this for you there are some thing your can claim as expense, some you can't."""
"""What does \""Net Depreciation in Fair Value\"" mean on a financial report?""","""First, the annual report is just that, a snapshot that shows value at the beginning and end of the period. Beginning = Aug 08 = $105B End =       Aug 09 =  $89B Newsletter date May 10 = $96B Odd they chose end of August as it's not even a calendar quarter end. The $16B was market loss during that period. Nearly half of that seemed to be recovered by the time this newsletter came out. The balance sheet also has to show deposits and payments made to existing retirees. I haven't looked at the S&P numbers for those dates, but my gut says this is right. The market tanked and the plan was down, but not too bad.  Protect? The PBGC guarantees pensions up to a certain limit. I believe that in general, teachers are below the limit and are not at risk of a reduced benefit. You do need to check that your plan is covered. If not, I believe the state would take over directly. I hope this helps."""
"""Personal finance app where I can mark transactions as \""reviewed\""? ""","""Not web-based, but both Moneydance and You Need A Budget allow this."""
"""is the bankruptcy of exchange markets possible?""","""It might be easiest to think of stock exchanges like brokers.  If you buy a home, and your broker goes bankrupt, you still own your home, but you could not sell it without the aid of another broker.   Same with stocks, you own the stocks you buy, but you would be unable to either purchase new stocks or sell your stock holdings without an exchange."""
"""If I have no exemptions or deductions, just a simple paycheck, do I HAVE to file taxes?""","""While you are required to do so as others have said, it's actually in your interest to do so. In a recent article at GlobeInvestor, Tim Cestnick discusses the benefits of filing tax returns for teens. This situation may or may not apply to you but the message is the same. The main benefits are (1) create RRSP contribution room and (2) be eligible for GST\/HST credits and other possible one-shot credits (think oil royalty surplus cheques in Alberta). Excerpt: You see, when Lincoln was 14, he filed a tax return and reported $2,000 of income that year. He paid no tax thanks to the basic personal tax credit, but he created $360 of RRSP contribution room that year. Beginning in 2003, Lincoln started working part-time in his father's business. His father agreed to pay him $6,000 each summer to work in the business, to help save money for university. Lincoln didn't pay any tax on the money he earned in those summers because his basic personal tax credit was always higher than his earnings. In addition, Lincoln added to his RRSP contribution room simply by filing a tax return each year."""
"""Where can I find historic performance data on Barclays Aggregate Canadian Bond Index?""","""I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that  This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the link in your question. Vanguard also sent me a link to the methodology Barclay's uses when constructing this index, which you might find interesting as well.  I haven't heard from Barclays, but I presume the story is the same; even if they've been collecting data on Canadian bonds since before the inception of this index, they probably didn't aggregate it into an index before their contract with Vanguard (and if they did, it might be proprietary and not available free of charge)."""
"""Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? ""","""I don't think Xero Personal does. I have my bank account in there, but since there's no automatic feed for the bank I use I imported it manually. I entered the bank by hand, so I think you could use it without listing a bank account at all."""
"""I'm 20 and starting to build up for my mortgage downpayment, where should I put my money for optimal growth?""","""The highest growth for an investment has historically been in stocks. Investing in mature companies that offer dividends is great for you since it is compound growth. Many oil and gas companies provide dividends."""
"""What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?""","""As you suspected, there is more than just car replacement taken care of by insurance (some of them are pointed out in Chad's story:"""
"""Is there a way to roll over short-term gains and avoid capital gain tax""","""If the investments are in a non-retirement, taxable account, there's not much you can do to avoid short-term capital gains if you sell now. Ways to limit short-term capital gains taxes: Donate -- you can donate some of the stock to charity (before selling it). Transfer -- you can give some of the stock to, say, a family member in a lower tax bracket. But there are tons of rules, gift limits, and won't work for little kids or full time students. They would still pay taxes at their own rate. Protect your gains by buying puts. Wait it out until the long-term capital gains rate kicks in. This allows you to lock in your gains now (but you won't benefit from potential future appreciation.) Buying puts also costs $, so do the ROI calculation. (You could also sell a call and buy a put at the same time and lock in your gains for certain, but the IRS often looks at that as locking in the short-term capital gain, so be careful and talk to a tax professional if you are considering that method.) Die. There's a \""step-up\"" basis on capital gains for estates. source: http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/2010\/07\/30\/avoid-capital-gains-tax-anschutz-personal-finance-baldwin-tax-strategy.html"""
"""How can I import customers and invoices from a previous year's Gnucash file?""","""There does not appear to be a way to export the customers and invoices nor a way to import them into another data file if you could export them. However, as said in the comments to your question, your question seems predicated upon the notion that it is 'best practice' to create a new data file each year. This is not considered necessary It should be noted that GnuCash reports should be able to provide   accurate year-end data for accounting purposes without zeroing   transactions, so book-closing may not be necessary. Leaving books   unclosed does mean that account balances in the Chart of Accounts will   not show Year-To-Date amounts.   - Closing Books GnuCash Wiki The above linked wiki page has several methods to 'close the books' if that is what you want to do - but it is not necessary. There is even a description on how to create a new file for the new year which only talks about setting up the new accounts and transactions - nothing about customers, invoices etc. Note that you can 'close the books' without creating a new data file. In summary: you cannot do it; but you don't need to create a new file for the new year so you don't need to do it."""
"""Why do so many NFL (pro football) players have charities?""","""BobbyScon's answer really covers this, but perhaps isn't sufficiently explicit.  Reason 1 of the quotation is the largest, by far: Get an Immediate Tax Deduction, but Give Later: You get the tax deduction when the foundation is funded, then make your charitable gifts over time. Having a \""personal\"" foundation means that you make donations whenever it is appropriate from a personal finance point of view, but then actually perform the charitable giving in a time that is convenient. So you fund the foundation on Dec. 31, say; that gets the money out of your hands, and out of your taxable income, for the prior tax year.  Then you're not required to do anything else with that money until a time and place where it's convenient to you. In many cases, they set it up not as a foundation but as a Donor Advised Fund.  These are of late becoming extremely popular among the wealthy, largely the ease of setting them up and the above. The other major advantage of a Donor Advised Fund is simplicity in tax season: you have exactly one charitable donation recipient, with one receipt (or one set of them if you donate over time)."""
"""Please help me understand reasons for differences in Government Bond Yields""","""These are yields for the government bonds. EuroZone interest rates are much lower (10 times lower, in fact) than the UK (GBP zone) interest rates. The rates are set by the central banks."""
"""How should I calculate the opportunity cost of using a 401(k) loan?""","""There is no equation. Only data that would help you come to the decision that's right for you.  Assuming the 401(k) is invested in a stock fund of one sort or another, the choice is nearly the same as if you had $5K cash to either invest or pay debt.  Since stock returns are not fixed, but are a random distribution that somewhat resembles a bell curve, median about 10%, standard deviation about 14%. It's the age old question of \""getting a guaranteed X% (paying the debt) or a shot at 8-10% or so in the market.\"" This come up frequently in the decision to pre-pay mortgages at 4-5% versus invest. Many people will take the guaranteed 4% return vs the risk that comes with the market. For your decision, the 401(k) loan, note that the loan is due if you separate from the company for whatever reason. This adds an additional layer of risk and another data point to the mix. For your exact numbers, the savings is barely $50. I'd probably not do it. If the cards were 18%, I'd lean toward the loan, but only if I knew I could raise the cash to pay it back to not default."""
"""Can a broker refuse to place my limit-orders?""","""Ethereum trades are not subject to the same rules as securities are. Thats the primary flaw in your assessment. Yes, cryptocurrency is a free trading arena where you can actually take advantage of market inefficiencies yourself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at massive profits. The equity securities markets are not like that, and can't be used as a comparison. If you have a preference for flexibility, then it is already clear which markets work better for you. Market makers can make stub quotes, brokers can easily block their retail customers from doing it themselves. Even the dubious market manipulation excuse is reference to a sanction exclusive to the equity markets. The idea that it went through a week earlier probably triggered the compliance review. Yes, a broker can refuse to place your limit order."""
"""Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques""","""How you use the metric is super important.   Because it subtracts cash, it does not represent 'value'.  It represents the ongoing financing that will be necessary if both the equity plus debt is bought by one person, who then pays himself a dividend with that free cash.   So if you are Private Equity, this measures your net investment at t=0.5, not the price you pay at t=0.  If you are a retail investor, who a) won't be buying the debt, b) won't have any control over things like tax jurisdictions, c) won't be receiving any cash dividend, etc etc .... the metric is pointless."""
"""Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC?""","""LLC is, as far as I know, just a US thing, so I'm assuming that you are in the USA. Update for clarification: other countries do have similar concepts, but I'm not aware of any country that uses the term LLC, nor any other country that uses the single-member LLC that is disregarded for income tax purposes that I'm referring to here (and that I assume the recruiter also was talking about). Further, LLCs vary by state. I only have experience with California, so some things may not apply the same way elsewhere. Also, if you are located in one state but the client is elsewhere, things can get more complex. First, let's get one thing out of the way: do you want to be a contractor, or an employee? Both have advantage, and especially in the higher-income areas, contractor can be more beneficial for you. Make sure that if you are a contractor, your rate must be considerably higher than as employee, to make up for the benefits you give up, as well as the FICA taxes and your expense of maintaining an LLC (in California, it costs at least $800\/year, plus legal advice, accounting, and various other fees etc.). On the other hand, oftentimes, the benefits as an employee aren't actually worth all that much when you are in high income brackets. Do pay attention to health insurance - that may be a valuable benefit, or it may have such high deductibles that you would be better off getting your own or paying the penalty for going uninsured. Instead of a 401(k), you can set up an IRA (update or various other options), and you can also replace all the other benefits. If you decide that being an employee is the way to go, stop here. If you decide that being a contractor is a better deal for you, then it is indeed a good idea to set up an LLC. You actually have three fundamental options: work as an individual (the legal term is \""sole proprietorship\""), form a single-member LLC disregarded for income tax purposes, or various other forms of incorporation. Of these, I would argue that the single-member LLC combines the best of both worlds: taxation is almost the same as for sole proprietorship, the paperwork is minimal (a lot less than any other form of incorporation), but it provides many of the main benefits of incorporating. There are several advantages. First, as others have already pointed out, the IRS and Department of Labor scrutinize contractor relationships carefully, because of companies that abused this status on a massive scale (Uber and now-defunct Homejoy, for instance, but also FedEx and other old-economy companies). One of the 20 criteria they use is whether you are incorporated or not. Basically, it adds to your legal credibility as a contractor. Another benefit is legal protection. If your client (or somebody else) sues \""you\"", they can usually only sue the legal entity they are doing business with. Which is the LLC. Your personal assets are safe from judgments. That's why Donald Trump is still a billionaire despite his famous four bankruptcies (which I believe were corporate, not personal, bankrupcies). Update for clarification Some people argue that you are still liable for your personal actions. You should consult with a lawyer about the details, but most business liabilities don't arise from such acts. Another commenter suggested an E&O policy - a very good idea, but not a substitute for an LLC. An LLC does require some minimal paperwork - you need to set up a separate bank account, and you will need a professional accounting system (not an Excel spreadsheet). But if you are a single member LLC, the paperwork is really not a huge deal - you don't need to file a separate federal tax return. Your income will be treated as if it was personal income (the technical term is that the LLC is disregarded for IRS tax purposes). California still does require a separate tax return, but that's only two pages or so, and unless you make a large amount, the tax is always $800. That small amount of paperwork is probably why your recruiter recommended the LLC, rather than other forms of incorporation. So if you want to be a contractor, then it sounds like your recruiter gave you good advice. If you want to be an employee, don't do it. A couple more points, not directly related to the question, but hopefully generally helpful: If you are a contractor (whether as sole proprietor or through an LLC), in most cities you need a business license. Not only that, but you may even need a separate business license in every city you do business (for instance, in the city where your client is located, even if you don't live there). Business licenses can range from \""not needed\"" to a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. In some cities, the business license fee may also depend on your income. And finally, one interesting drawback of a disregarded LLC vs. sole proprietorship as a contractor has to do with the W-9 form and your Social Security Number. Generally, when you work for somebody and receive more than $600\/year, they need to ask you for your Social Security Number, using form W-9. That is always a bit of a concern because of identity theft. The IRS also recognizes a second number, the EIN (Employer Identification Number). This is basically like an SSN for corporations. You can also apply for one if you are a sole proprietor. This is a HUGE benefit because you can use the EIN in place of your SSN on the W-9. Instant identity theft protection. HOWEVER, if you have a disregarded LLC, the IRS says that you MUST use your SSN; you cannot use your EIN! Update: The source for that information is the W-9 instructions; it specifically only excludes LLCs."""
"""My account's been labeled as \""day trader\"" and I got a big margin call. What should I do? What trades can I place in the blocked period?""","""The SEC considers a day trade to be any trade that is opened and closed within the same trading day, and considers a day trader to be any trader that completes 4 or more day trades within 5 business days. If so they would label you day trader and in the US you are required to have at least $25K in your account. Maybe that's why they require you to add more money to your account? See more at Day trading restriction on US stocks and Wikipedia - Pattern day trader."""
"""can the government or debt collectors garnish money from any bank account to which the debtor has access?""","""I would call the bank and ask how the person is on the account.   If they are an owner, or are an authorized user, or what type of owner they are, etc.    If the bank makes the distinction between \""user\"" and \""owner\"" then most likely, your funds are not able to be seized.  If they are a joint owner, then, typically, 100% of the money is yours and 100% of the money is theirs and either of you could withdraw all the money, close the account, or have the money seized as part of a legal action."""
"""How to check the paypal's current exchange rate?""","""fx-rate.net offers a AUDUSD exchange rate comparison, which includes paypal: Currencyfair    $1.14 Transferwise    $ 2.29 Worldremit  $ 3.50 Xendpay $ 3.71 Tranzfers   $ 5.52 Ukforex $ 7.35 Skrill  $ 15.13  Paypal  $ 25.77  Kantox  $ 27.76  http:\/\/fx-rate.net\/currency-transfer\/?c_input=AUD&cp_input=USD"""
"""How to maximise savings?""","""First: it sounds like you are already making wise choices with your cash surplus. You've looked for ways to keep that growing ahead of inflation and you have made use of tax shelters. So for the rest of this answer I am going to assume you have between 3-6 months expenses already saved up as a \""rainy day fund\"" and you're ready for more sophisticated approaches to growing your funds. To answer this part: Are there any other ways that I can save\/ invest that I am not currently doing? Yes, you could look at, for example: 1. Peer to peer These services let you lend to a 'basket' of borrowers and receive a return on your money that is typically higher than what's offered in cash savings accounts. Examples of peer to peer networks are Zopa, Ratesetter and FundingCircle. This involves taking some risks with your money \u2013 Zopa's lending section explains the risks. 2. Structured deposits These are a type of cash deposit product where, in return for locking your money away for a time (typically 5 years), you get the opportunity for higher returns e.g. 5% + \/ year. Your deposit is usually guaranteed under the FSCS (Financial services compensation scheme), however, the returns are dependent on the performance of a stock market index such as the FTSE 100 being higher in x years from now. Also, structured deposits usually require a minimum \u00a33,000 investment. 3. Index funds You mention watching the stock prices of a few companies. I agree with your conclusion \u2013 I wouldn't suggest trying to choose individual stocks at this stage. Price history is a poor predictor of future performance, and markets can be volatile. To decide if a stock is worth buying you need to understand the fundamentals, be able to assess the current stock price and future outlook, and be comfortable accepting a range of different risks (including currency and geographic risk). If you buy shares in a small number of companies, you are concentrating your risk (especially if they have things in common with each other). Index funds, while they do carry risks, let you pool your money with other investors to buy shares in a 'basket' of stocks to replicate the movement of an index such as the FTSE All Share. The basket-of-stocks approach at least gives you some built-in diversification against the risks of individual stocks. I suggest index funds (as opposed to actively managed funds, where you pay a management fee to have your investments chosen by a professional who tries to beat the market) because they are low cost and easier to understand. An example of a very low cost index fund is this FTSE All Share tracker from Aberdeen, on the Hargreaves Lansdown platform: http:\/\/www.hl.co.uk\/funds\/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets\/search-results\/a\/aberdeen-foundation-growth-accumulation General principle on investing in stock market based index funds: You should always invest with a 5+ year time horizon. This is because prices can move up and down for reasons beyond your anticipation or control (volatility). Time can smooth out volatility; generally, the longer the time period, the greater your likelihood of achieving a positive return. I hope this answer so far helps takes into account the excess funds. So\u2026 to answer the second part of your question:  Or would it be best to start using any excess funds [\u2026] to pay off my student loan quicker? Your student loan is currently costing you 0.9% interest per annum. At this rate it's lower than the last 10 years average inflation. One argument: if you repay your student loan this is effectively a 0.9% guaranteed return on every pound repaid \u2013 This is the equivalent of 1.125% on a cash savings account if you're paying basic rate tax on the interest. An opposing argument: 0.9% is lower than the last 10 years' average inflation in the UK. There are so many advantages to making a start with growing your money for the long term, due to the effects of compound returns, that you might choose to defer your loan repayments for a while and focus on building up some investments that stand a chance to beat inflation in the long term."""
"""Is buying or selling goods for gold or silver considered taxable?""","""Of course. The rationale is exactly the same as always: profit is taxed. The fact that you use intermediate barter to make that profit is irrelevant. To clarify, as it seems that you think it makes a difference that no money \""changed hands\"". Consider this situation: So far your cost is $10000. How will the tax authority address this? They will look at the fair market value of the barter. You got gold worth of $20000. So from their perspective, you got $20000, and immediately exchanged it into gold. What does it mean for you? That you're taxed on the $10000 gain you made on your product X (the $20000 worth of barter that you received minus the $10000 worth of work\/material\/expenses that you spend on producing the merchandise), and that you have $20000 basis in the gold that you now own. If in a year, when you plan to sell the gold, its price drops - you can deduct investment losses. If its price goes up - you'll have investment gain. But for the gain you're making on your product X you will pay taxes now, because that's when you realized it - sold the merchandize and received in return something else of a value."""
"""Advice for college student: Should I hire a financial adviser or just invest in index funds?""","""If you use a financial planner not only should they be a fiduciary but you should just pay them an hourly rate once a year instead of a percentage unless the percentage is cheaper at this time. To find a good one, go to the National Association of Personal Financial Advisers website, NAPFA.org. Another good resource is Garrett Planning Network: GarrettPlanningNetwork.com."""
"""Price\/Time priority order matching - limit order starvation""","""Market orders do not get priority over limit orders.  Time is the only factor that matters in price\/time order matching when the order price is the same. For example, suppose the current best available offer for AAPL is $100.01 and the best available bid is $100.00.  Now a limit buy for $100.01 and a market buy arrive at around the same instant.  The matching engine can only receive one order at a time, no matter how close together they arrive. Let's say that by chance the limit buy arrives first.  The engine will check if there's a matching sell at $100.01 and indeed there is and a trade occurs.  This all happens in an instant before the matching engine ever sees the market buy.  Then it moves on to the market buy and processes it accordingly. On the other hand, let's say that by chance the market buy arrives first.  The engine will match it with the best available sell (at $100.01) and a trade occurs.  This all happens in an instant before the matching engine ever sees the limit buy.  Then it moves on to the limit buy and processes it accordingly. So there's never a comparison between the two orders or their \""priorities\"" because they never exist in the system at the same time.  The first one to arrive is processed first; the second one to arrive is processed second."""
"""What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland?""","""As per Wikipedia of right now, here are unemployment figures for Switzerland and surrounding countries: Liechtenstein, unfortunately, does not have a large job market, given its total population of about 37,000 people. And note that the German figure of 4.5% is the lowest it has been for decades - I'd expect this number to go up and the Swiss one to stay constant. Bottom line: you will have an easier time finding a job in Switzerland. (Plus all the other good points the other answers raised: great mountains, great chocolate, low taxes, clean streets etc.)"""
"""Dual Citizen British\/US and online business taxes""","""I see no reason why a US ID would be mandatory anywhere in the UK. I'm sure they have their own tax IDs in the UK. However, if the gallery requires US persons to submit US W-9 - then yes, you're covered under that requirement."""
"""What implications does having the highest household debt to disposable income ratio have on Australia?""","""It is basically the same situation what US was when the crash happened. People took on debt without the means to pay, even with awful credit records. But the problem isn't the debt people take on themselves, but with the limited disposable income they have how efficiently can their debts be serviced. And how do banks who lend out money can recover their money. When banks lend money to all and sundry, they have to take care of defaults and that is when financial wizardry comes into play. In US people have the option to default on their debt and refinance it, so banks assumed default and tried to hedge their risks. If this is an option in Australia, be ready for a crash else not to worry about much. If banks continue lending expect higher inflation rates, higher interest rates and maybe a downgrade of bonds issued by the Australian government. Higher import costs and a boom in exports because of devalued Australian dollar."""
"""Exchange rate $ ETF,s""","""Your assumption that funds sold in GBP trade in GBP is incorrect. In general funds purchase their constituent stocks in the fund currency which may be different to the subscription currency. Where the subscription currency is different from the fund currency subscriptions are converted into the fund currency before the extra money is used to increase holdings. An ETF, on the other hand, does not take subscriptions directly but by creation (and redemption) of shares. The principle is the same however; monies received from creation of ETF shares are converted into the fund currency and then used to buy stock. This ensures that only one currency transaction is done. In your specific example the fund currency will be USD so your purchase of the shares (assuming there are no sellers and creation occurs) will be converted from GBP to USD and held in that currency in the fund. The fund then trades entirely in USD to avoid currency risk. When you want to sell your exposure (supposing redemption occurs) enough holdings required to redeem your money are sold to get cash in USD and then converted to GBP before paying you. This means that trading activity where there is no need to convert to GBP (or any other currency) does not incur currency conversion costs. In practice funds will always have some cash (or cash equivalents) on hand to pay out redemptions and will have an idea of the number and size of redemptions each calendar period so will use futures and swaps to mitigate FX risk. Where the same firm has two funds traded in different currencies with the same objectives it is likely that one is a wrapper for the other such that one simply converts the currency and buys the other currency denominated ETF. As these are exchange traded funds with a price in GBP the amount you pay for the ETF or gain on selling it is the price given and you will not have to consider currency exchange as that should be done internally as explained above. However, there can be a (temporary) arbitrage opportunity if the price in GBP does not reflect the price in USD and the exchange rate put together."""
"""Approximate IT company valuation (to proximate stock options value)""","""You also need to remember that stock options usually become valueless if not exercised while an employee of the company.  So if there is any chance that you will leave the company before an IPO, the effective value of the stock options is zero.  That is the safest and least risky valuation of the stock options.   With a Google or Facebook, stock options can be exercised and immediately sold, as they are publicly traded.  In fact, they may give stock grants where you sell part of the grant to pay tax withholding.  You can then sell the remainder of the grant for money at any time, even after you leave the company.  You only need the option\/grant to vest to take advantage of it.  Valuing these at face value (current stock price) makes sense.  That's at least a reasonable guess of future value.   If you are absolutely sure that you will stay with the company until the IPO, then valuing the stock based on earnings can make sense.  A ten million dollar profit can justify a hundred million dollar IPO market capitalization easily.  Divide that by the number of shares outstanding and multiply by how many you get.  If anything, that gives you a conservative estimate.   I would still favor the big company offers though.  As I said, they are immediately tradeable while this offer is effectively contingent on the IPO.  If you leave before then, you get nothing.  If they delay the IPO, you're stuck.  You can't leave the company until then without sacrificing that portion of your compensation.  That seems a big commitment to make."""
"""What is the maximum number of options I can buy if the price is $0.01?""","""Options trading at $.01 have the same position limits as other options. Self regulatory organizations set the position limits for options which can be 250,000 contracts on one side of the book, as an example. Weeklies that are expiring soon have lots of liquidity while trading at $0.01, you can see this in Bank of America stock if interested"""
"""Best way to pay off debt?""","""The key phrase in your post is that the options are \""in a good position now\"".  They may be worthless in three months or a year.   If I was you I would cash in the options and pay off the debt.  Cash in enough to also cover taxes.  You may want to cash them all in."""
"""How to calculate cash loss over time?""","""If inflation is at 2% per annum, in a year you would need \u00a3102 to buy equivalent goods to what you could buy today.  So if you keep your money in a drawer the buying power of your \u00a3100 in a year will be only 100\/102 = 98.039% of what it is currently."""
"""What are the advantages and disadvantages of leasing out a property or part of a property (such as a basement apartment)?""","""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"""
"""Acquiring first office clothes""","""While in the interview stage you need one good outfit. Take care of them and they will see you through this stage of the process. Shoes, ties, shirt, and a suit can all be purchased on sale. The fact that you have months before graduation give you time to purchase them when there is a sale.  Off-the-rack is good enough for a suit for this stage of your life. There is no need to go custom made when you are just starting out. In fact you may find you never need more than one or two suits, and they never need to be custom made."""
"""Would it be considered appropriate to use a market order for my very first stock trade?""","""Obvious answer but the limit order should be set at the price that you are willing to pay :). More usefully, if you want a decent chance of the order filling in short notice you should place the order one price tick above the current highest buyer (bid price). As long as high frequency trading remains alive I would advise against ever using market orders, these algorithmic trades can occasionally severely distort the price of a security in a fraction of a second. So if your market order happens to fill in during such a distortion you might end up massively overpaying\/underselling."""
"""How do I know when I am financially stable\/ready to move out on my own?""","""It all depends on what your financial goals are when you are ready.  You sound like you could be ready today if you wanted to be.  The steps that I would take are. Create a monthly draft budget.  This doesn't have to be something hard and fast, just a gague of what your living expenses would be compared to your after-tax salary.  Make sure there  would be room for \""fun\"" money. a. Consider adding a new car fund line item to this budget, and deducting that amount from your paycheck starting now so that you can save for the car. Based on the most realistic estimate that you can make, you'll get a good idea if you want to spend the money it takes to move out alone now or later.  You'll also see the price for various levels of rentals in your area (renting a single family home, townhouse, condo, apartment, living in a rented room or basement, sharing a place with friends, etc) and know some of the costs of setting up for yourself.  Since you're looking at the real estate market, you may want to do a cost comparison of renting versus buying.  I've found the New York Times interactive graphic on this is excellent.  If you are looking to buy, make sure to research the hidden costs of buying thoroughly before taking this step. To answer your last question, if you have the cash you should consider upping your 401K investment (or using Roth or regular IRA).  Make sure you are investing enough to get your full employer match, if your employer offers one, and then get as close as you can to government maximum contribution limits.  Compound interest is a big deal when you are 23."""
"""Does investing more money into stocks increase chances of profit?""","""I think you are mixing up the likelihood of making a profit with the amount of profit. The likelyhood of profit will be the same, because if you buy $100 worth of shares and the price moves up you will make a profit. If you instead bought $1000 worth of the same shares at the same price and the price moved up you would once again make a profit. In fact if you don't include commissions and other fees, and you buy and sell at the same prices, you percentage profit would be the same.  For example, if you bought at $10 and sold at $12, you percentage gain of 20% would be the same no matter how many shares you bought (not including commissions). So if you bought $100 worth your gain would have been 20% or $20 and if you bought $1000 worth your gain would have been 20% or $200. However, if you include commissions, say $10 in and $10 out, your net profit on $100 would have been $0 (0%) and your net profit on $1000 would have been $180 (18%)."""
"""Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock?""","""Yes and no. This really should be taught at junior school level in a capitalist country but that is a different argument. A company is influenced by its shareholders but not in the way you are hoping. This is the only area where a Company must behave democratically with one share one vote. If you own one share in a company (specifically a voting share), then you are entitled to attend an AGM where you will have a vote on issues presented by the board. You might have an opportunity to make a statement or ask a question at the AGM, but I wouldn't rely on it. You will not be able to influence the companies behavior beyond that unless you control enough shares to influence the board. Notice I said 'control' not 'own'. If you get other shareholders to agree to vote with you, then you effectively control their shares. Shareholders are there to get a return on their investment, so you must convince them that they will get a better return by agreeing with you then by following the board (that they put there!). Convince them that (for example) a trespass lawsuit will rob the company of more value then the profit to be made and they might agree to not trespass. Morals, ethics, justice etc., are human attributes and since most shareholders are other corporations not humans, they have no place in your arguments with one exception; Goodwill is a value that appears on a balance sheet and you might be able to use emotional arguments to show that there is a risk of a loss of goodwill from the proposed actions. You can make your argument stronger by generating media pressure on customers and suppliers of the company to make critical public comments."""
"""Are there any Social Responsibility Index funds or ETFs? ""","""TIAA-Cref has their Social Choice Equity Fund, which is a Large Blend primarily equity fund that invests given the following consideration: The Fund primarily invests in companies that are screened by MSCI Inc. (\""MSCI\"") to favor companies that meet or exceed certain environmental, social and governance (\""ESG\"") criteria. The Fund does this by investing in U.S. companies included in one or more MSCI ESG Indices that meet or exceed the screening criteria described below. Prior to being eligible for inclusion in the MSCI ESG Indices, companies are subject to an ESG performance evaluation conducted by MSCI, consisting of numerous factors. The ESG evaluation process favors companies that are: (i) strong stewards of the environment; (ii) devoted to serving local communities where they operate and to human rights and philanthropy; (iii) committed to higher labor standards for their own employees and those in the supply chain; (iv) dedicated to producing high-quality and safe products; and (v) managed in an exemplary and ethical manner. https:\/\/www.tiaa.org\/public\/offer\/products\/mutual-funds\/responsible-investing"""
"""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money?""","""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? Sometimes. If the market goes down, and someone sells -- on a panic, perhaps, or nervousness -- at a loss, if you have extra cash then you can buy that stock on the hope\/expectation that its value will rise."""
"""Why ever use a market order?""","""What you are saying is a very valid concern.  After the flash crash many institutions in the US replaced \""true market orders\"" (where tag 40=1 and has no price) with deep in the money limit orders under the hood, after the CFTC-SEC joint advisory commission raised concerns about the use of market orders in the case of large HFT traders, and concerns on the lack of liquidity that caused market orders that found no limit orders to execute on the other side of the trade, driving the prices of blue chip stocks into the pennies.  We also applaud the CFTC requesting comment regarding whether it is   appropriate to restrict large order execution design that results in   disruptive trading. In particular, we believe there are questions   whether it is ever appropriate to permit large order algorithms that   employ unlimited use of market orders or that permit executions at   prices which are a dramatic percentage below the present market price   without a pause for human review So although you still see a market order on the front end, it is transformed to a very aggressive limit in the back end. However, doing this change manually, by selling at price 0 or buying at 9999 may backfire since it may trigger fat finger checks and prevent your order from reaching the market.  For example BATS Exchange  rejects orders that are priced too aggressively and don't comply with the range of valid prices.  If you want your trade to execute right now and you are willing to take slippage in order to get fast execution, sending a market order is still the best alternative."""
"""Are there guidelines for whom you should trust for financial advice (online, peer, experts, only myself, etc)""","""Nothing beats statistics like that found on Morning Star, Yahoo or Google Finance.  When you are starting out, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.  Pick a couple of mutual funds with good track records and start there.   Keep in mind the financial press, to some degree, has a vested interest in having their readership chase the next hot thing.  So while sites like Seeking Alpha, Kiplingers, or Money do provide some good advice, there is also an element that placates their advertisers.   The only peer-to-peer lending I would consider is Lending Club.  However, you are probably better off in the long run investing in mutual funds.  One way to get involved in individual stocks without getting burned is to participate in Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRIPs).  Companies that have them tend to be very well established, and they are structured to discourage trading.  Buying is easy, dividend reinvestment is easy, dividend payouts are easy; but, starting and selling  is kind of a pain.  That is a good thing."""
"""Should I have more than one brokerage account?""","""I use two different brokerages, both well-known. I got a bit spooked during the financial crisis and didn't want to have all my eggs in one basket. The SIPC limits weren't so much a factor. At the time, I was more worried about the hassle of dealing with a Lehman-style meltdown. If one were to fail, the misery of waiting and filing and dealing with SIPC claims would be mitigated by having half of my money in another brokerage. In hindsight, I was perhaps a bit too paranoid. Dealing with two separate brokerages is not much of an inconvenience, though, and it's interesting to see how their web interfaces are slightly different and some things are easier to do with one vs the other. Overall, they're really similar and I can't say there's much advantage (other than my tin-foil hat tendencies) to splitting it up like that."""
"""What are frontier markets? Is investing in them a good idea?""","""From Wikipedia A frontier market is a type of developing country which is more developed than the least developing countries, but too small to be generally considered an emerging market. The term is an economic term which was coined by International Finance Corporation\u2019s Farida Khambata in 1992. The term is commonly used to describe the equity markets of the smaller and less accessible, but still \""investable\"", countries of the developing world. The frontier, or pre-emerging equity markets are typically pursued by investors seeking high, long-run return potential as well as low correlations with other markets. Some frontier market countries were emerging markets in the past, but have regressed to frontier status. Investopedia has a good comparison on Emerging Vs Frontier While frontier market investments certainly come with some substantial risks, they also may post the kind of returns that emerging markets did during the 1990s and early 2000s. The frontier market contains anywhere from one-fifth to one-third of the world\u2019s population and includes several exponentially growing economies. The other Question    and are they a good option as well? This depends on risk appetite and your current investment profile. If you have already invested in domestic markets with a well diversified portfolio and have also invested in emerging markets, you can then think of expanding your portfolio into these."""
"""Why are some countries' currencies \""weaker\""? ""","""You may as well ask why a piece of wood is 25 centimeters long but only 10 inches. Most units of measure are very arbitrary. Somebody decides that this amount of heat or distance or money is a convenient unit, and so that's what they use. Suppose that tomorrow the government issued a whole new currency that had 10 times the value of the old currency. So if you used to make 10,000 foobars a year, now you make 1,000 new foobars. And likewise the price of everything you buy is divided by 10. If a certain model car used to cost 2,000 foobars, now it costs 200 new foobars. Are you better or worse off? Clearly if ALL prices change by the same percentage, then it makes absolutely no difference. (Aside from the hassle of making the switch and getting used to the new numbers.) A currency where 1 unit of money buys more is not necessarily a \""stronger currency\"". Any more than inches are \""better\"" than centimeters because you get more wood for an inch than you get for a centimeter. A currency is said to be \""strong\"" when it's value is stable or increasing relative to other currencies. If yesterday I could trade 10 foobars for 1 plugh, but today I only need 9 foobars to buy 1 plugh, then foobars are stronger than plughs. Even though I still need more foobars than plughs to buy the same item."""
"""If I have 10,000 stocks to sell with 23 B market cap""","""You will almost certainly be able to sell 10,000 shares at once. The question is a matter of price. If you sell \""at market\"" then you may get a lower price for each \""batch\"" of the stock sold (one person buys 50, another buys 200, another buys 1000 etc) at varying prices. Will you be able to execute a single order to sell them all at the same price at the same time? Nobody can say, and it's not really a function of the company size. The exchange has what's called \""open interest\"" which roughly correlates to how many people have active orders in at a given price. This number is constantly changing alongside the bid and ask (particularly for active stocks). So let's say you have 10,000 shares and you want to sell them for $100 each. What you need is at least 10,000 in open interest at $100 bid to execute. By contrast let's say you issue a limit order at $100 for 10,000 shares. Your ask will stay outstanding at that price and you'll be filled at that price if there are enough buyers. I you have a limit sell order at $100 for 10,000 shares the strike price of the stock cannot go to $100.01 until all of your sell orders are filled."""
"""How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?""","""Making a profit in trading is not a function of time, it's a function of information, speed, and consistency. Regardless of how much time you spend learning about trading, there is no guarantee that you will ever become profitable because you will always be competing against a counter-party who is either better- or more poorly-informed than you are.  Since trading is a zero-sum game, someone is always a winner and someone else is always a loser. So you need to be either better informed than your counter-party, or you need to be as well informed as them but beat them to the punch. You also need to be able to be consistent, or else eventually you will get wiped out when the unexpected happens or you make a mistake. This is why resources such as full-time professional analysts, high-speed trading terminals\/platforms, and sophisticated algorithms can provide significant advantages. Personally, I think that people with talent and those kinds of resources would take all my lunch money, so I don't trade and stick to passive investing. One funny story, I once knew a trader who was in the money on a particular trade and went out to have a drink to celebrate. The next day, she remembered that she had forgotten to exercise the options. Luckily, they had expired while in the money, and by rule had been exercised automatically as a result."""
"""What publicly available software do professional stock traders use for stock analysis?""","""If you are looking to analyze stocks and don't need the other features provided by Bloomberg and Reuters (e.g. derivatives and FX), you could also look at WorldCap, which is a mobile solution to analyze global stocks, at FactSet and S&P CapitalIQ.  Please note that I am affiliated with WorldCap."""
"""A merchant requests that checks be made out to \""Cash\"". Should I be suspicious?""","""If the business owner doesn't want you to pay him directly, the only reason I can think of is breaking a law. It can be because the business doesn't legally exists, or because the barber wants to evade taxes, or because he doesn't pay his child support or doesn't want his income to be apparent to his debtors in a bankruptcy proceedings. Either way, stinks."""
"""US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert ""","""Real-time equity (or any other market) data is not available for free anywhere in the US.  It is always delayed by 10-15 minutes. On the other hand, online brokers who target the \""day trader\"" (Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade, etc.) offer much closer to real-time data AND feature all the tools\/alerts\/charts\/etc. you could ever possibly dream of.  I bet the type of alert you're asking for is available with just a couple of clicks on one of these brokers' platforms. Of course, accounts with these online brokers are not free; you must pay for these sophisticated tools and fast market access.  Another down side is that the data feeds sent to you by even the most sophisticated online broker are still delayed by tens of seconds compared to the data feeds used by big banks and professional investors.  Not to mention that the investment arm of the broker you use will be making its own trades based on the data feeds before relaying them on to you. So this begs the question: why do you need real-time information?  Are you trying to \""day trade\"" -- i.e. profit from minute-to-minute fluctuations in the stock market?  (I can't in good conscience recommend that, but best of luck to you.)  If on the other hand you don't truly need \""real-time\"" data for your application, then I support @ChrisDegnen's approach -- use public data feeds and write your own software.  You probably will not find any free tools for the sort of alerting you're looking for because most folks who want these types of alerts also need faster feeds and are therefore already using an online broker's tools."""
"""Does dollar cost averaging really work?""","""Dollar cost averaging works if the stuff you're buying goes up within your time horizon.  It won't protect you from losing money if it doesn't. Also consider that the person (or company, or industry) that suggests dollar-cost averaging might want you to start up a regular investment program and put it on auto-pilot, which subsequently increases the chance that you won't give due attention to the fact that you're sending them money every paycheck to buy an investment that make them money regardless of whether you make money or not."""
"""Distribution rules LLC vs. S-Corp""","""It's actually the other way around.  Distributions in an LLC are usually based on  each member's equity share, although the operating agreement can specify how often such distributions are made.  Shareholders in a corporation can receive dividends, but those are determined by the corporation's board and can vary depending on the class of stock each shareholder owns.  Preferred-class shareholders, who may hold a smaller overall fraction of the company's outstanding shares than the common stock shareholders, may receive disproportionately larger dividends per share than common stock shareholders, which is one of the (many) reasons that preferred stock is a better choice when it is available.  Take, for instance, what Berkshire Class \""A\"" shareholders receive in dividends per year compared to Class \""B\"" shareholders. Here's a good link from LegalZoom that can explain what you're asking about: Explanation of LLC distributions I hope this helps. Good luck!"""
"""How inflation in China makes real exchange rate between China and US to rise? ""","""Chinese currency is not freely convertible. Its exchange rate is not determined by the market but rather by the Chinese government. Thus the counter-intuitive result. In essence, the Chinese government is subsidizing exports (which is reasonable since exports is what drives the Chinese economy)."""
"""Is CFD a viable option for long-term trading?""","""Yes it is viable as long term!! BUT... The average yearly return for the Nasdaq-100 for the last 20 years is 15%!! If you subtract the financing cost for the CFD (my broker is 4%) it gives you about 11%. You can add 1% dividend yield to that. That's 12% return!! As you earn more you can compound in more contracts. Make sure you keep your buffer. Soon enough you can have a very large exposure. The market right now is in euphoria. But a Trump impeachment can be very dangerous thing.. Happy investing!!"""
"""What could be the harm in sharing my American Express statements online?""","""As a person who has had several part time assistants in the past I will offer you a simple piece of advise that should apply regardless of what country the assistant is located. If you have an assistant, personal or business, virtual or otherwise, and you don't trust that person with this type of information, get a different assistant.  An assistant is someone who is supposed to make your life easier by off loading work. Modifying your records before sending them every month sounds like you are creating more work for yourself not less. Either take the leap of faith to trust your assistant or go somewhere else.  An assistant that you feel you have to edit crucial information from is less than useful. That being said, there is no fundamental reason to believe that an operation in the Philippines or anywhere else is any more or less trustworthy than an operation in your native country. However, what is at issue is the legal framework around your relationship and in particular your recourse if something goes wrong.  If you and your virtual assistant are both located in the US you would have an easier time collecting damages should something go wrong.  I suggest you evaluate your level of comfort for risk vs. cost.  If you feel that the risk is too high to use an overseas service versus the savings, then find someone in the states to do this work.  Depending on your needs and comfort you might want to seek out a CPA or other licensed\/bonded professional.  Yes the cost might be higher however you might find that it is worth it for your own piece of mind. As a side note you might even consider finding a local part-time assistant. This can often be more useful than a virtual assistant and may not cost as much as you think. If you can live without someone being bonded.  (or are willing to pay for the bonding fee) yourself,  depending on your market and needs you may be able to find an existing highly qualified EA or other person that wants some after hours work.   If you are in a college town, finance, accounting or legal majors make great assistants.  They will usually work a couple hours a week for \""beer money\"", they have flexible schedules and are glad to have something pertinent to their degree to put on their resume when they graduate.  Just be prepared to replace them every few years as they move on to real jobs."""
"""What U.S. banks offer two-factor authentication (such as password & token) for online banking? ""","""StasM, It's taken a while but many banks offer tokens - although they tend to limit the accounts for which they will be issued. All of the following issue tokens, but there are many more: CitiBank JP Morgan Union Bank Wells Fargo Callaway Bank Wachovia Bank of North Dakota The River Bank of Wisconsin Metcalf Bank, Kansas Stonebridge Bank In 2005 federal regulators stipulated that banks needed to get better with security for online banking customers, but they did not endorse a particular technology. Tokens (aka fobs) were endorsed. The news was negatively received by the banks because putting more steps in the way of a customer drives the customer away. See this 2005 report for more info: http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/tech\/news\/computersecurity\/2005-11-02-cybercrime-prevention_x.htm  My guess is a tipping point was reached since then, where customers became savvy of the risks, and that the \""extra steps\"" became less an issue than the \""extra security\""."""
"""Specifically when do options expire?""","""Equity options, at least those traded in the American exchanges, actually expire the Saturday after the 3rd Friday of the month.  However, the choice to trade or exercise the options must be specified by the 3rd Friday. This is outlined by the CBOE, who oversees the exchange of equity options.  Their FAQ regarding option expiration can be found at http:\/\/www.cboe.com\/LearnCenter\/Concepts\/Beyond\/expiration.aspx."""
"""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, no matter how bad you think things might be for you financially, there are always things you can do to improve your situation. Set a Budget The first thing you must do is to set a budget. List down all sources of income you receive each month, including any allowances. Then list all your sources of expenses and spending. List all your bills such as rent, telephone, electricity, car maintenance, credit card and other loans. Keep a diary for a month for all your discretionary spending - including coffees, lunches, and other odd bits and ends. You can also talk with your existing lenders and come to some agreement on reducing you interest rates on your debts and the repayments. But remember any reduction in repayments may increase your repayment period and the total interest you have to pay in the long term. If you need help setting up your budget here are some links to resources you can download to help you get started: Once you set up your budget you want your total income to be more than your total expenses. If it isn't you will be getting further and further behind each month. Some things you can do are to increase your income - get a job\/second job, sell some unwanted items, or start a small home business. Some things you can do to reduce your expenses - make coffees and lunches at home before going out and buying these, pay off higher interest debts first, consolidate all your debts into a lower interest rate loan, reduce discretionary spending to an absolute minimum, cancel all unnecessary services, etc. Debt Consolidation In regards to a Debt Consolidation for your existing personal loans and credit cards into a single lower interest rate loan can be a good idea, but there are some pitfalls you should consider. Manly, if you are taking out a loan with a lower interest rate but a longer term to pay it off, you may end up paying less in monthly repayments but will end up paying more interest in the long run. If you do take this course of action try to keep your term to no longer than your current debt's terms, and try to keep your repayments as high as possible to pay the debt off as soon as possible and reduce any interest you have to pay. Again be wary of the fine print and read the PDS of any products you are thinking of getting. Refer to ASIC - Money Smart website for more valuable information you should consider before taking out any debt consolidation. Assistance improving your skills and getting a higher paid job If you are finding it hard to get a job, especially one that pays a bit more, look into your options of doing a course and improving your skills. There is plenty of assistance available for those wanting to improve their skills in order to improve their chances of getting a better job. Check out Centrelink's website for more information on Payments for students and trainees. Other Action You Can Take If you are finding that the repayments are really getting out of hand and no one will help you with any debt consolidation or reducing your interest rates on your debts, as a last resort you can apply for a Part 9 debt agreement. But be very careful as this is an alternative to bankruptcy, and like bankruptcy a debt agreement will appear on your credit file for seven years and your name will be listed on the National Personal Insolvency Index forever. Further Assistance and Help If you have trouble reading any PDS, or want further information or help regarding any issues I have raised or any other part of your financial situation you can contact Centrelink's Financial Information Service. They provide a free and confidential service that provides education and information on financial and lifestyle issues to all Australians. Learn how to manage your money so you can get out of your debt and can lead a much more comfortable and less stressful life into the future."""
"""If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down?""","""As others have already pointed out, the bank isn't getting your money upfront - the cash goes to the dealer and the bank will be financing you a much smaller amount. They really don't have any incentive to give you a better interest rate, but it never hurts to ask. The more important (and unasked) question is should you do this? Keeping in mind that a loan with good credit could be in the 1.8% range. Average long-term returns in the market are over 3x that, so by paying upfront you're trading the opportunity for 6%+ returns for the ability to save -2% fees."""
"""Digital money pots?""","""I guess it depends on your bank. My bank (Rabobank) recently did introduce this feature. You don't get a card per category, though. Instead you set up rules to match each expenditure to one of the existing pots."""
"""Why does short selling require borrowing?""","""You can't make money on the way down if it was your money that bought the shares when the market was up.  When you sell short, borrowing lets you tap into the value without paying for it. That way, when the price (hopefully) drops you profit from the difference. In your example, if you hadn't paid the \u00a320 in the first place, then you would actually be up \u00a35. But since you started with \u00a320, you still show loss. As others said, borrowing is the definition of selling short. It is also simply the only way the math works. Of course, there is a large risk you must assume to enjoy benefiting from something you do not own!"""
"""How to get started with options investing?""","""One answer in four days tells you this is a niche, else there should be many replies by now.  The bible is McMillan on Options Note - I link to the 1996 edition which starts at 39 cents, the latest revision will set you back $30 used. The word bible says it all, it offers a great course in options, everything you need to know. You don't get a special account for option trading. You just apply to your regular broker, so depending what you wish to do, the amount starts at   You sell calls against stock you own in your IRA. You see, selling covered calls always runs the risk of having your stock called away, and you'd have a gain, I'd hope. By doing this within the IRA, you avoid that.  Options can be, but are not always, speculative. Covered calls just change the shape of your return curve. i.e. you lower your cost by the option premium, but create a fixed maximum gain. I've created covered calls on the purchase of a stock or after holding a while depending on the stock. Here's the one I have now: MU 1000 shares bought at $8700, sold the $7.50 call (jan12) for $3000.  Now, this means my cost is $5700, but I have to let it go for $7500, a 32% return if called. (This was bought in mid 2010, BTW.) On the flip side, a drop of up to 35% over the time will still keep me at break even. The call seemed overpriced when I sold it. Stock is still at $7.20, so I'm close to maximum gain. This whole deal was less risky than just owning one risky stock. I just wrote a post on this trade Micron Covered Call, using today's numbers for those actually looking to understand this as new position. (The article was updated after the expiration. The trade resulted in a 42% profit after 491 days of holding the position, with the stock called away.) On the other hand, buying calls, lots of them, during the tech bubble was the best and worst thing I did. One set of trades' value increased by a factor of 50, and in a few weeks blew up on me, ended at 'only' triple. I left the bubble much better off than I went in, but the peak was beautiful, I'd give my little toe to have stayed right there. From 99Q2 to 00Q2, net worth was up by 3X our gross salary. Half of that (i.e. 1.5X) was gone after the crash. For many, they left the bubble far far worse than before it started. I purposely set things up so no more than a certain amount was at risk at any given time, knowing a burst would come, just not when. If nothing else, it was a learning experience.   You sell calls against stock you own in your IRA. You see, selling covered calls always runs the risk of having your stock called away, and you'd have a gain, I'd hope. By doing this within the IRA, you avoid that.  Options can be, but are not always, speculative. Covered calls just change the shape of your return curve. i.e. you lower your cost by the option premium, but create a fixed maximum gain. I've created covered calls on the purchase of a stock or after holding a while depending on the stock. Here's the one I have now: MU 1000 shares bought at $8700, sold the $7.50 call (jan12) for $3000.  Now, this means my cost is $5700, but I have to let it go for $7500, a 32% return if called. (This was bought in mid 2010, BTW.) On the flip side, a drop of up to 35% over the time will still keep me at break even. The call seemed overpriced when I sold it. Stock is still at $7.20, so I'm close to maximum gain. This whole deal was less risky than just owning one risky stock. I just wrote a post on this trade Micron Covered Call, using today's numbers for those actually looking to understand this as new position. (The article was updated after the expiration. The trade resulted in a 42% profit after 491 days of holding the position, with the stock called away.) On the other hand, buying calls, lots of them, during the tech bubble was the best and worst thing I did. One set of trades' value increased by a factor of 50, and in a few weeks blew up on me, ended at 'only' triple. I left the bubble much better off than I went in, but the peak was beautiful, I'd give my little toe to have stayed right there. From 99Q2 to 00Q2, net worth was up by 3X our gross salary. Half of that (i.e. 1.5X) was gone after the crash. For many, they left the bubble far far worse than before it started. I purposely set things up so no more than a certain amount was at risk at any given time, knowing a burst would come, just not when. If nothing else, it was a learning experience."""
"""How can I calculate the volatility(standard deviation) of a stock price? and\/or ROI (return on investment) of a stock?""","""Use the Black-Scholes formula. If you know the current price, an options strike price, time until expiration, and risk-free interest rate, then knowing the market price of the option will tell you what the market's estimation of the volatility is. This does rely on a few assumptions, such as Gaussian random walk, but those are reasonable assumptions for most stocks. You can also get a list of past stock prices, put them in Excel, and ask Excel to calculate the standard deviation with stdev.s(), but that gives you the past volatility. The market's estimate of future volatility is more relevant."""
"""How to correct a tax return filed electronically and already approved?""","""Simply file an amended return to correct the mistake. This happens all the time and is a standard procedure that every legitimate tax pro can handle. You can work it out with the tax pro about whose mistake it was and who should pay for the additional service."""
"""How much should I be contributing to my 401k given my employer's contribution?""","""JoeTapayer has good advice here. I would like to add my notes. If they give a 50% match that means you are getting a 50% return on investment(ROI) immediately. I do not know of a way to get a better guaranteed ROI. Next, when investing you need to determine what kind of investor you are. I would suggest you make yourself more literate in investments, as I suggest to anyone, but there are basic things you want to look for. If your primary worry is loss of your prinicipal, go for Conservative investments. This means that you are willing to accept a reduced expected ROI in exchange for lower volatility(risk of loss of principal). This does not mean you have a 100% safe investment as the last market issues have shown, but in general you are better protected. The fidelity investments should give you some information as to volatility or if they deem the investments conservative. Conservative investments are normally made up of trading bonds, which have the lowest ROI in general but are the most secure. You can also invest in blue chip companies, although stock is inherently riskier. It is pointed out in comments that stocks always outperform bonds in the long term, and this has been true over the last 100 years. I am just suggesting ways you can protect yourself against market downturns. When the market is doing very well bonds will not give you the return your friends are seeing. I am just trying to give you a basic idea of what to look for when you pick your investments, nothing can replace a solid investment adviser and taking the time to educate yourself."""
"""Should I sell when my stocks are growing?""","""Try to find out (online) what 'the experts' think about your stock. Normally, there are some that advise you to sell, some to hold and some to buy. Hold on to your stock when most advise you to buy, otherwise, just sell it and get it over with. A stock's estimated value depends on a lot of things, the worst of these are human emotions... People buy with the crowd and sell on panic. Not something you should want to do.  The 'real' value of a stock depends on assets, cash-flow, backlog, benefits, dividends, etc. Also, their competitors, the market position they have, etc. So, once you have an estimate of how much the stock is 'worth', then you can buy or sell according to the market value. Beware of putting all your eggs in one basket. Look at what happened to Arthur Andersen, Lehman Brothers, Parmalat, Worldcom, Enron, etc."""
"""Is there anything comparable to\/resembling CNN's Fear and Greed Index?""","""Lipper publishes data on the flow of funds in \/ out of stock and bond funds: http:\/\/www.lipperusfundflows.com Robert Shiller works on stock market confidence indices that are published by Yale: http:\/\/som.yale.edu\/faculty-research\/our-centers-initiatives\/international-center-finance\/data\/stock-market-confidence"""
"""What is the preferred way to set up personal finances?""","""simplicity and roi are often at odds. the simplest plan that also supports a reasonable investment return would have 3 accounts: if you want to get better returns on your investments, things can get much more complicated. here are some optional accounts to consider: besides the mechanics of money flowing between accounts, a budget helps you understand and control your spending.  while there are many methods for this (e.g. envelopes of cash, separate accounts for various types of expenses), the simplest might be using mint.com.  just be sure to put all your spending on a credit or debit card, and you can see your spending by category when you log into mint. it can take a bit to get it set up, and your bank needs to be compatible, but it can give you a really good picture of where your money is going.  once you know that, you can start making decisions like \""i should spend less on coffee\"", or \""i should go to the zoo more\"", based on how much things cost vs how much you enjoy them. if you feel like your spending is out of control, then you can set yourself hard limits on certain kinds of spending, but usually just watching and influencing your own choices is enough. notes:  if you have a spouse or partner, you should each maintain your own separate accounts. there are many reasons for this including simplicity and roi, besides the obvious. if you feel you must have a joint account, be sure to clearly define how it should be used (e.g. only for paying the utilities) and funded (x$ per month each). particularly with your house, do not do joint ownership. one of you should be a renter and the other a landlord. some of these statements assume you are in the usa. on a personal note, i have about 20 credit cards, 2 checking accounts, 2 ira's, 2 brokerage accounts, and 3 401k's. but i consider myself a personal finance hobbyist, and spend an absurd amount of time chasing financial deals and tax breaks."""
"""Digital envelope system: a modern take ""","""The whole point of the \""envelope system\"" as I understand it is that it makes it easy to see that you are staying within your budget: If the envelope still has cash in it, then you still have money to spend on that budget category. If you did this with a bunch of debit cards, you would have to have a way to quickly and easily see the balance on that card for it to work. There is no physical envelope to look in. If your bank lets you check your balance with a cell-phone app I guess that would work. But at that point, why do you need separate debit cards? Just create a spreadsheet and update the numbers as you spend. The balance the bank shows is always going to be a little bit behind, because it takes time for transactions to make it through the system. I've seen on my credit cards that sometimes transactions show up the same day, but other times they can take several days or even a week or more. So keeping a spreadsheet would be more accurate, or at least, more timely. But all that said, I can check my bank balance and my credit card balances on web sites. I've never had a desire to check from a cell phone but at least some banks have such apps -- my daughter tells me she regularly checks her credit card balance from her cell phone. So I don't see why you couldn't do it with off-the-shelf technology. Side not, not really related to your question: I don't really see the point of the envelope system. Personally, I keep my checkbook electronically, using a little accounting app that I wrote myself so it's customized to my needs. I enter fixed bills, like insurance premiums and the mortgage payment, about a month in advance, so I can see that that money is already spoken for and just when it is going out. Besides that, what's the advantage of saying that you allot, say, $50 per month for clothes and $100 for gas for the car and $60 for snacks, and if you use up all your gas money this month than you can't drive anywhere even though you have money left in the clothes and snack envelopes? I mean, it makes good sense to say, \""The mortgage payment is due next week so I can't spend that money on entertainment, I have to keep it to pay the mortgage.\"" But I don't see the point in saying, \""I can't buy new shoes because the shoe envelope is empty. I've accumulated $5000 in the shampoo account since I went bald and don't use shampoo any more, but that money is off limits for shoes because it's allocated to shampoo.\"""""
"""Should I move my money market funds into bonds?""","""If your money market funds are short-term savings or an emergency fund, you might consider  moving them into an online saving account.  You can get interest rates close to 1% (often above 1% in higher-rate climates) and your savings are completely safe and easily accessible.  Online banks also frequently offer perks such as direct deposit, linking with your checking account, and discounts on other services you might need occasionally (i.e. money orders or certified checks).   If your money market funds are the lowest-risk part of your diversified long-term portfolio, you should consider how low-risk it needs to be.  Money market accounts are now typically FDIC insured (they didn't used to be), but you can get the same security at a higher interest rate with laddered CD's or U.S. savings bonds (if your horizon is compatible). If you want liquidity, or greater return than a CD will give you, then a bond fund or ETF may be the right choice, and it will tend to move counter to your stock investments, balancing your portfolio.   It's true that interest rates will likely rise in the future, which will tend to decrease the value of bond investments.  If you buy and hold a single U.S. savings bond, its interest payments and final payoff are set at purchase, so you won't actually lose money, but you might make less than you would if you invested in a higher-rate climate.  Another way to deal with this, if you want to add a bond fund to your long-term investment portfolio, is to invest your money slowly over time (dollar-cost averaging) so that you don't pay a high price for a large number of shares that immediately drop in value."""
"""Tax on Stocks or ETF's""","""I think the answer you are looking for is:  You are not taxed on the original basis (purchase cost) of your investment.  If you pay $30 a share, and sell at $35, the $5 per share gain is taxable at time of sale.  But the $30 basis cost doesn't enter into tax calculations at all.  (So it's important to keep good records on your investments and how much you paid for them at purchase.)"""
"""Ballpark salary equivalent today of \""healthcare benefits\"" in the US?""","""As others have said, it depends entirely on what benefits are provided, and how much of the cost of those benefits is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee, and compare that to what it would cost to obtain the necessary\/equivalent coverage without employer assistance. In my case, my employer pays more than $10,000 per year toward the cost of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for myself and my family. That's almost 20% of the average total household income in my state, so it is not an insignificant amount at all."""
"""What is the tax treatment of scrip dividends in the UK?""","""I wrote about this in another answer: You can sell the scrip dividend in the market; the capital gain from this sale may fall below the annual tax-free allowance for capital gains, in which case you don't pay any capital gains tax on that amount. For a cash dividend, however, there isn't a minimum taxable amount, so you would owe dividend tax on the entire dividend (and may therefore pay more taxes on a cash dividend). Since you haven't sold the shares in the market yet, you haven't earned any income on the shares. You don't owe taxes on the scrip until you sell the shares and earn capital gains on them. HMRC is very explicit about this, in CG33800: It is quite common for a company, particularly a quoted company, to offer its shareholders the option of receiving additional shares instead of a cash dividend. The expression `stock or scrip dividend' is used to describe shares issued in such circumstances. The basic position under tax law is that when a company makes a bonus issue of shares no distribution arises, and the bonus issue of shares is not income for tax purposes in the hands of the recipient. Obviously, if this is an issue for you, talk to a tax professional to make sure you get it right."""
"""At what point should I go into credit card debt?""","""You're situation is actually pretty solid except for the job part. I definitely understand the existential meltdown in your 30s. Luckily you're in web design and have an in-demand job. Maybe go to a code school\/design immersive to add some new skills and reinvigorate yourself. If mental health needs to be addressed above all, then definitely make that a priority.  Avoid credit card debt like the plague. If you think you're stressed now, just wait."""
"""Should I finance rental property or own outright?""","""In general you do not want to show a taxable gain on rental properties if you can avoid it.  One of the more beneficial advantages of owning cash flowing rental properties, is that the income is tax deferred because of the depreciation.  I say deferred, because depreciation affects the cost basis of your property.   Also since you are considering financing, it sounds like you don't need the cash flow currently.  You usually can get better returns by financing and buying more rental properties, especially with investment mortgages at historical lows (Win via inflation over time)"""
"""What does volume and huge daily price increases say about stock prices?""","""Stock B could be considered to be more risky because it seems to be more volatile - sharp rises on large volume increases can easily be followed by sharp drops or by further rises in the start of a new uptrend.  However, if both A and B are trading on low volume in general, they can both be more on the risky side due to having relatively low liquidity, especially if you buy a large order compared to the average daily volume. But just looking at the criteria you have included in your question is not enough to determine which stock is riskier than the other, and you should look at this criteria in combination with other indicators and information about each stock to obtain a more complete picture."""
"""How does stock dilution work in relation to share volume?""","""Here is an example for you. We have a fictional company. It's called MoneyCorp. Its job is to own money, and that's all. Right now it owns $10,000. It doesn't do anything special with that $10,000 - it stores it in a bank account, and whenever it earns interest gives it to the shareholders as a dividend. Also, it doesn't have any expenses at all, and doesn't pay taxes, and is otherwise magic so that it doesn't have to worry about distractions from its mathematical perfection. There are 10,000 shares of MoneyCorp, each worth exactly $1. However, they may trade for more or less than $1 on the stock market, because it's a free market and people trading stock on the stock market can trade at whatever price two people agree on. Scenario 1. MoneyCorp wants to expand. They sell 90,000 shares for $1 each. The money goes in the same bank account at the same interest rate. Do the original shareholders see a change? No. 100,000 shares, $100,000, still $1\/share. No problem. This is the ideal situation. Scenario 2: MoneyCorp sells 90,000 shares for less than the current price, $0.50 each. Do the original shareholders lose out? YES. It now has something like $55,000 and 100,000 shares. Each share is now worth $0.55. The company has given away valuable equity to new shareholders. That's bad. Why didn't they get more money from those guys? Scenario 3: MoneyCorp sells 90,000 shares for more than the current price, $2 each, because there's a lot of hype about its business. MoneyCorp now owns $190,000 in 100,000 shares and each share is worth $1.90. Existing shareholders win big! This is why a company would like to make its share offering at the highest price possible (think, Facebook IPO). Of course, the new shareholders may be disappointed. MoneyCorp is actually a lot like a real business! Actually, if you want to get down to it, MoneyCorp works very much like a money-market fund. The main difference between MoneyCorp and a random company on the stock market is that we know exactly how much money MoneyCorp is worth. You don't know that with a real business: sales may grow, sales may drop, input prices may rise and fall, and there's room for disagreement - that's why stock markets are as unpredictable as they are, so there's room for doubt when a company sells their stock at a price existing shareholders think is too cheap (or buys it at a price that is too expensive). Most companies raising capital will end up doing something close to scenario 1, the fair-prices-for-everyone scenario. Legally, if you own part of a company and they do something a Scenario-2 on you... you may be out of luck. Consider also: the other owners are probably hurt as much as you are. Only the new shareholders win. And unless the management approving the deal is somehow giving themselves a sweetheart deal, it'll be hard to demonstrate any malfeasance. As an individual, you probably won't file a lawsuit either, unless you own a very large stake in the company. Lawsuits are expensive. A big institutional investor or activist investor of some sort may file a suit if millions of dollars are at stake, but it'll be ugly at best. If there's nothing evil going on with the management, this is just one way that a company loses money from bad management. It's probably not the most important one to worry about."""
"""Why is property investment good if properties de-valuate over time?""","""It's all about the land value. The structure is only ever worth as much as it would cost to build a new one (minus demolition costs)"""
"""Why does money value normally decrease?""","""The reason is governments print extra money to cause inflation (hopefully reasonable) so that people don't just sit comfortably but do something to make money work. Thus inflation is an artificial measure which leads to money value gradually decreasing and causing people invest money in one way or another to beat inflation or maybe even gain some more money. Printing money is super cheap unlike producing any kind of commodity and that makes money different from commodities - commodities have their inherent value, but money has only nominal value, it's an artificial government-controlled product."""
"""Strategies for saving and investing in multiple foreign currencies""","""If you want to use that money and maybe don't have the time to wait a few years if things should go bad, than you will definitely want to hold a good bunch of your money in the currency you buy most stuff with (so in most cases the currency of the country you live in) even if it is more volatile."""
"""Why do they call them \""financial products\""?""","""They are called \""financial products\"" because they are contracts that are \""produced\"" by the financial industry. For example, you could also say that a car manufacturer does not sell you a car, but a contract that will gives you ownership of a car. And, if a contract is a service and not product, in that case a car manufacturer is only selling services. It seems like it is more about the definition of \""product\"" than \""financial product\"". I think that as long as something is produced by the effort of labor, it could be called a product, and since financial contracts are produced by the people working in the finance industry, they can be qualified as products too. Maybe this page of wikipedia could explain things better than I just did: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Product_%28business%29"""
"""Insurance, healthcare provider, apparent abuse, lack of transparency""","""I wouldn't classify your treatment as abuse. Medical billing has become more complex not less complex. You need to learn to ask even more questions regarding expenses, you probably need to see these price quotes in writing. You did several things correctly. Staying in-network generally is best because many plans have two deductible limits: In-network, and out-of-network.  You need to make sure that the insurance company does credit you with having paid the new patient fee. That will qualify as an expense toward the deductible and your maximum out of pocket for the year. Some doctors offices don't send to insurance companies items that they know will not be covered, not remembering that these costs are critical under the High deductible plans with a health savings account. Doctors offices have problems determining how much the cost to you will be. It depends not just on the insurance company but also which type of plan you have, which sub-plan you have, and are you covered by more than one plan. Not to mention individual deductibles, family deductibles, and annual out-of-pocket amount. All this is wanted prior to the doctor seeing the patient. Most doctors offices will work with you, they know that each insurance plan treats each medical billing code differently, sometimes they make a mistake. Talk to them."""
"""Auto insurance on new car""","""Auto insurance is a highly personalized item, so depending on your driving record and other factors, $600 a month for full coverage may be as good as you can get. Look at the premium for each category, and consider raising the deductible if you have some savings that could be used in the event that you have a claim. Also, you're not only buying insurance to cover the other person's damage and medical expenses, you're paying for insurance for your car.  Brand-new cars are more expensive to replace (and thus insure) than used cars. Leasing is effectively renting a car for a long period of time. While the payments are less, when the lease expires you're going to have to decide whether to give up the car or buying it, usually at a price much higher than market value.   I'm glad you discovered that the insurance would break your budget before it's too late.  My suggestion would be to look for a 1-2 year old car that's less expensive to buy and to insure."""
"""What purchases, not counting real estate, will help me increase my cash flow?""","""You can increase your monthly cash flow in two ways: It's really that simple. I'd even argue that to a certain extent, decreasing expenses can be more cash-positive than increasing income by the same amount if you're spending post-tax money because increasing income generally increases your taxes. So if you have a chunk of cash and you want to increase your cash flow, you could decrease debt (like Chris suggested) and it would have the same effect on your monthly cash flow. Or you could invest in something that pays a dividend or pays interest. There are many options other than real estate, including dividend-paying stocks or funds, CDs, bonds, etc. To get started you could open an account with any of the major brokerage firms and get suggestions from their financial professionals, usually for free. They'll help you look at the risk\/reward aspects of various investments."""
"""How to increase my credit score""","""It's probably important to understand what a credit score is.   A credit score is your history of accruing debt and paying it back.  It is supplemented by your age, time at current residence, time at previous residences, time at your job, etc. A person with zero debt history can still have a decent score - provided they are well established, a little older and have a good job.  The top scores are reserved for those that manage what creditors consider an \""appropriate\"" amount of debt and are well established.  In other words, you're good with money and likely have long term roots in the community.  After all, creditors don't normally like being the first one you try out... Being young and having recently moved you are basically a \""flight risk\"".  Meaning someone who is more likely to just pick up and move when the debt becomes too much. So, you have a couple options.  The first is to simply wait.  Keep going to work, keep living where you are, etc.  As you establish yourself you become less of a risk.   The second is to start incurring debt.  Personally, I am not a fan of this one.  Some people do well by getting a small credit card, using some portion of it each month and paying it off immediately.  Others don't know how to control that very well and end up having a few months where they roll balances over etc which becomes a trap that costs them far more than before. If I were in your position, I'd likely do one of two things.  Either buy the phone outright and sign up for a regular mobile plan OR take the cheaper phone for a couple years."""
"""Put on a put option""","""I doubt that this exists, but it could theoretically. After all, a share is kind of an option to a company's future success, and so a call is already a second level on indirection. The better approach would be to 'create your own Put-Puts', by investing less money (A) in the Put you wanted to invest into, and put the smaller rest (B) in the share itself or a Call. That way, if the original Put is successful, at max (B) is lost, and if it is unsuccessful, the loss on (A) is covered by a gain on (B). Potentially, if you do the math, you can reach a mathematical equivalent situation to a Put-Put by buying the right amount and kind of Calls. However, we know already that buying a Put and a Call is a poor strategy, so that would mean a Put-Put would also be a poor strategy."""
"""What to do if a state and federal refund is denied direct deposit?""","""Publication 17 Your Income Tax top of page 14 If the direct deposit cannot be done, the IRS will send a check instead. When your girlfriend gets the check, she can endorse it over to you for deposit into your account."""
"""What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?""","""If you can afford to replace your car, it is more cost effective, on average and over time, not to carry comprehensive and collision insurance. The insurance companies do make a profit, after all. However, you may be able to worry less (\""What if someone steals my car if I park here?\"") with the insurance, and you have the knowledge the you won't have to spend your own money on a new car if something happens to this one, which may help with financial planning."""
"""501(3)(c) to donators for trophy party""","""The good news is that your parent organization is tax exempt and your local organization might be. The national organization even has guidelines and even more details.  Regarding donations they have this to say: Please note: The law requires charities to furnish disclosure   statements to donors for such quid pro quo donations in excess of   $75.00.  A quid pro quo contribution is a payment made partly as a   contribution and partly for goods or services provided to the donor by   the charity. An example of a quid pro quo contribution is when the   donor gives a charity $100.00 in consideration for a concert ticket   valued at $40.00. In this example, $60.00 would be deductible because   the donor\u2019s payment (quid pro quo contribution) exceeds $75.00. The   disclosure statement must be furnished even though the deductible   amount does not exceed $75.00. Regarding taxes: Leagues included under our group exemption number are responsible for   their own tax filings with the I.R.S. Leagues must file Form 990 EZ   with Schedule A if gross receipts are in excess of $50,000 but less   than $200,000. Similar rules also apply to other youth organizations such as scouts, swim teams, or other youth sports."""
"""Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate]""","""How much can I save? Depends on inflation and what other investment opportunities you have. It could end up costing you millions. Can I pay $12,000 extra once a year or $1000 every month - which option is better?  It depends on how risk adverse you are.  The first option does sound better, but for a 30 year mortgage, is it that significant? How much of your time is it going to cost you to do it every month? What is keeping you from doing it every day? How much is your time worth to you. Giving the bank its money sooner is always better than giving it it's money from a saving interest perspective. When is the best time to pay?  See above."""
"""Using credit cards online: is it safe?""","""You're right that someone who, say, photographed the front of your card at the store could use it to make some online purchases. Schemes like Visa's 3-D Secure provide additional online security by having you enter your password on the issuer's website, but they aren't common yet in the US. But as littleadv says, you as the cardholder generally aren't liable for fraud (except $50 in some cases). Just be sure to check your statement monthly and notify the issuer of any fraud within 60 days. To issuers, fraud losses are fairly predictable, and the cost is acceptable."""
"""How can I determine if leaving a lower paying, tax advantaged, job for a higher paying one makes sense financially?""","""It looks like a coin toss. What you have isn't bad at all.  If you have enough free time with your $50k job to do extra stuff on the side, you can use that time to build a business.  You're obviously a go-getter type, so this might suit you. Which job is closer to your calling?  All other things being equal, the more fulfilling job should win, no?"""
"""Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money?""","""People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe.  Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walked away and took massive hits to their wealth and credit scores. When it is hard or impossible to sell, that means you can't move to where the jobs are. While it is possible to make money in real estate, treating your house as an investment vehicle means that you are putting not only all your eggs into one basket; you are also living in the basket. In general you should assume that all investment involves risk. So if you are trying to avoid all chances of losing money then the safest form of investment is via your bank account and government bonds. Your national government has a program to insure bank accounts, you need to understand the rules for that program, including types of accounts and amounts. You should also look into your national programs for retirement accounts, to make sure you are investing for the long term. Many people invest via the stock market or the bond market. These investments are not guaranteed, though there may be some protection for fraud. The more specific your investments (individual companies) the more time you need to invest in research and tracking. Many investors do so via mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds, this involves less of a time investment because you are paying the management comp nay for the fund to do that research for all their investors."""
"""Why are typical 401(k) plan fund choices so awful?""","""The managers of the 401(k) have to make their money somewhere.  Either they'll make it from the employer, or from the employees via the expense ratio.  If it's the employer setting up the plan, I can bet whose interest he'll be looking after. Regarding your last comment, I'd recommend looking outside your 401(k) for investing.  If you get free money from your employer for contributing to your 401(k), that's a plus, but I wouldn't -- actually, I don't -- contribute anything beyond the match.  I pay my taxes and I'm done with it."""
"""Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money""","""This is a scam, I'm adding this answer because I was scammed in this fashion. The scammer sent me a check with which I was to deposit.  When the money showed up in my account, I would withdraw the scammer's share, and wire the cash to its destination. However, it takes a couple days for a check to clear.  Banks, however, want you to see that money, so they might give it to you on good faith before the check actually clears. That's how the scam works, you withdraw the fake money the bank has fronted before the check clears.  A couple days later, the check doesn't clear, and you wake up with an account far into the negatives, the scammer long gone."""
"""What happens when a (Internation) Central securities depository goes bankrupt?""","""There is no generic answer and it would depend on case to case basis.  CSD are built on strong foundation in the sense they would have very low cost base and generally would not go bankrupt.  However if such a situation as CSD provide an essential role, the regulator, central bank and Government would all step in to prevent a total collapse. They would be forced merged with other entity or more capital raised or put under watch by Govt appointed trustee to settle issues so that there is least or No impact."""
"""What exchange rate does El Al use when converting final payment amount to shekels?""","""In older days the merchants and their merchant banks[or service providers] would take funds in their currency. Say in this case USD. When the charge hits the issuer bank, the merchant and merchant bank gets there USD and were happy. The user would get charged in local currency Shekel in this case. The rate applied by his bank [and card provider, Visa\/Master also take a cut] is the standard shelf rate to individuals.   When business growing and banking becoming more sophisticated, lots of Merchant Banks and Merchants have created a new business, if you offer Shekel to all users then you have lots of Shekel that you can convert into USD. So in this model, the Merchant makes some more profit from Fx spread, the Merchant Bank makes good money in Fx. Your Bank [and card network] loose out. You stand to gain because you potentially get a better rate. All this theory is good. But the rates are moving and its quite difficult to find out if the rates offered directly by EI AI would be better than those offered by your bank. I have no experience in this example, but I have tried this with large shops, buy 2 items one charge in GBP and other in local currency around 2-3 times spread over a year. The difference in rate was close to identical, at times better or worse in range of .02%"""
"""Transfering funds from India to the US""","""Can I transfer funds from India to USA which I have borrowed in India. Funds borrowed in India may not be transferred outside of India as per Foreign Exchange Management Act. Loans in rupees to non-residents against security of shares or   immovable property in India:-   Subject to the directions issued by   the Reserve Bank from time to time in this regard, an authorised   dealer in India may grant loan to a non-resident Indian, e) the loan amount shall not be remitted outside India;"""
"""Applying student loan proceeds toward tuition?""","""Your university should have a finance department which can help with payments. Speak with them and tell them you have interest in paying for at least part of your next semester in cash. From here they should be able to tell you the best method for this, though most likely cash\/check will suffice. If there is no finance department, or you are still unsure, check with student services for more information."""
"""Why and why would\/wouldn't a company split their stock?""","""From Investopedia, A stock split is usually done by companies that have seen their share   price increase to levels that are either too high or are beyond the   price levels of similar companies in their sector. The primary motive   is to make shares seem more affordable to small investors even though   the underlying value of the company has not changed. From Wikipedia, It is often claimed that stock splits, in and of themselves, lead to   higher stock prices; research, however, does not bear this out. What   is true is that stock splits are usually initiated after a large run   up in share price...stock splits do increase the liquidity of a stock;   there are more buyers and sellers for 10 shares at $10 than 1 share at   $100. Some companies have the opposite strategy: by refusing to split   the stock and keeping the price high, they reduce trading volume.   Berkshire Hathaway is a notable example of this. Something more to munch on, Why Warren Buffett Is Against Stock Splits."""
"""Strategies for putting away money for a child's future (college, etc.)?""","""Saving for school is [fundamentally] no different than saving for any other major purchase: in addition to some of the great answers already provided, here are a couple other thoughts: Just to have the [simplified] numbers handy: If you can increase that to $2000\/yr, after 18 years: One final thought - I would personally avoid the 529 plans because if your child decides to not go to school (eg goes in the Coast Guard, decides to be a farmer, enters the Peace Corps, etc), you're penalized on withdrawal, whereas with any other savings\/investment methodology, you won't have those penalties."""
"""Economics: negative consumer sentiment following failure to upsell""","""There are several different participants in the transaction, and you may not be aware of all the issues: In some business (fast food) they are required to ask if you want to super size, they are expected to do this at every transaction, but aren't paid more if you buy more. The employee can also decide that too much pressure to up-sell may push you to purchase the item online. That will cost them a commission, the store location a sale, and maybe drive you to a different company. It is also possible they don't have the training to be able to explain the difference between the items."""
"""Dad paid cash for house and we want to put it in my name""","""If your parents are not on the deed then I am not sure how it could be their house. It seems like the sale was done unofficially. If your parents or aunt pass away this could be a real mess. Make this official ASAP. It might be possible for your aunt to gift you the house. This may have tax implication but the article below suggests that it may not be an issue. http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/real-estate\/aunt-be-taxed-for-bargain-price-on-house.aspx As you're probably aware, owning a house is expensive. Make sure you can afford taxes, bills, and maintenance. Things add up fast.  I should have address the \""rent to own\"" plan. If you plan on transferring the house from your aunt to you by renting with $0 monthly payment and then claiming it is all paid off, then I think this would be considered a gifting of the house from your aunt to you. It sounds like fraud to claim you paid something that you didn't. In the end, it is either a gift from your parents or from your aunt. The sooner you get the house in your name the better"""
"""If I make over 120k a year, what are my options for retirement plans?""","""Put in the maximum you can into the 401(k), the limit should be $16,500 so long as the highly compensated rules don't kick in. Since you cannot deduct the traditional IRA, it's a great option to deposit to a traditional IRA and immediately convert that balance to a Roth account. That puts you at $21,500\/yr saved, nearly 18%.  There's nothing stopping you from investing outside these accounts. A nice ETF with low expenses, investing in a stock index (I am thinking SPY for the S&P 500) is great to accumulate long term."""
"""How does stabilization work during an IPO?""","""IPO's are priced so that there's a pop\"" on the opening day.\"" If I were IPOing my company and the price \""popped\"" on the open, I would think the underwriter priced it too low. In fact if I were to IPO, I'd seek an underwriter whose offerings consistently traded on the first day pretty unchanged. That means they priced it correctly. In the 90's IPO boom, there were stocks that opened up 3X and more. The original owners must have been pretty upset as the poor pricing guidance the underwriter offered."""
"""Pay Yourself With Credit Card Make Money With Cash Back [duplicate]""","""The idea is old as dirt, and some millions of people had it before you. Credit card swipes cost you between 2.4 and 4.5%, depending on the cards, the provider, and the amounts, plus potentially a fixed small amount per swipe. Of course, a 2% cash back card cost more than 2% to swipe; and a 3% cash back card cost more than 3% to swipe; those guys are not morons."""
"""Investing in dividend-yielding stocks with money borrowed from margin account?""","""I wouldn't recommend leveraged dividend fishing. Dividend stocks with such high dividends are highly volatile, you will run out of collateral to cover your trades very quickly"""
"""Are prepayment penalties for mortgages normal?""","""It used to be much more common, particularly for sub-prime loans. If you do run into someone offering a loan with a prepayment penalty, you should certainly consider other options."""
"""Should I stockpile nickels?""","""The collectible value of coins will probably increase with the underlying metal value. I'd collect coins for that reason and because I enjoy collecting them. I wouldn't recommend buying bags of rolled nickels or anything though."""
"""Is there an investment account where I can owe taxes only if the net of capital gain and dividend payment is positive?""","""No such account exists as capital gains aren't realized until holdings are sold. For example: OR  Both scenarios would result in you owing the appropriate taxes on a $40 gain from the dividends.   The $100 gain or $100 loss that isn't realized (you haven't sold the stock) isn't accounted for until the year of sale."""
"""Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?""","""Liquidity Say you have $50k in student loan debt.  You come into a large amount of money and throw $10k at it.  Yes, it's now down to $40k, saving you a lot of money in interest over the long run, but it's money you can no longer 'use'. Now if you invest that same $10k instead, you still potentially have access to it if needed. Paying $10k towards a debt at a 5% interest rate has essentially the same rate of return as investing the $10k at a 5% return.  You're 'making' the same amount of money either way.  But if you say, get laid off or need money for medical expenses or a down payment on a house, you can tap into that $10k investment if needed.  It is a liquid asset."""
"""Moonlighting as a software developer: employee or independent contractor w\/ LLC?""","""I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were \""sunk\"" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations:"""
"""I am Brasilian resident, how to buy shares on NYSE?""","""There are some brokers in the US who would be happy to open an account for non-US residents, allowing you to trade stocks at NYSE and other US Exchanges. Some of them, along with some facts: DriveWealth Has support in Portuguese Website TD Ameritrade Has support in Portuguese Website Interactive Brokers Account opening is not that straightforward Website"""
"""How do I report this cash bonus\/tip on income tax return?""","""How do I report this on our income tax return? You should include it on Line 7 of your Form 1040.   Additionally, you should report the extra payment to your employer if it was greater that $20. You can use From 4070 to do this if your employer does not provide you with a form. And finally, you are right, you should Form 4137 to report any tips that you include on your Form 1040 in order to pay the required social security and medicare taxes.   Credit is due to glibdud and Nathan L for constructive feedback! Thanks!"""
"""Risk and reward of a synthetic option position""","""But if underlying goes to 103 at expiration, both the call and the put   expire worthless If the stock closes at 103 on expiration, the 105 put is worth $2, not worthless."""
"""Company revenue increased however stock price did not""","""looking over some historical data I cannot really a find a case where a stock went from $0.0005 to $1 it almost seem that once a stock crosses a minimum threshold the stock never goes back up. Is there any truth to that? That would be a 2000X (200,000%) increase in the per-share value which would be extraordinary.  When looking at stock returns you have to look at percentage returns, not dollar returns.  A gain of $1 would be minuscule for Berkshire-Hathaway stock but would be astronomical for this stock,. If the company is making money shouldn't the stock go up? Not necessarily.  The price of a stock is a measure of expected future performance, not necessarily past performance.  If the earnings had been more that the market expected, then the price might go up, but if the market sees it as an anomaly that won't continue then there may not be enough buyers to move the stock up. looking at it long term would it hurt me in anyway to buy ~100,000 shares which right now would run be about $24 (including to fee) and sit on it? If you can afford to lose all $24 then no, it won't hurt.  But I wouldn't expect that $24 to turn into anything higher than about $100.  At best it might be an interesting learning experience."""
"""How To Assign Payments Received Properly In GnuCash?""","""When I receive a check from a customer whom I previously sent an invoice, I go to the customer report for that customer, click on the link \""Invoice\"" for that invoice, then click on the Pay Invoice button (very far right side). I then do a customer report and see that there is no balance (meaning all the invoices have been paid). I don't process invoices using the same method you do.  Instead I go to Business -> Customer -> Process Payment.  From there I can select the applicable customer, and a list of unpaid invoices will come up.  I've never experienced the issue you've described. On a related topic: are you posting your invoices?  From experience that has caused issues for me; when you post the invoice it should show up in your Accounts Receivable (or whichever account you've designated), and after you process the payment the A\/R should go down accordingly.  When posting your invoice, you specify which account it gets posted to:  So that account should show a balance once you have posted it:  Then, when a client pays you, your cash will go up, and A\/R will go down."""
"""In-laws moving in (financial\/tax implications)?""","""GET A LAWYER. Doing business with relatives is business first, and some effort spent in setting things up and nailing down exactly what the financial relationships and obligations are beforehand can save a lot of agony and animosity later. Assuming it's a legal rental, you may be able to deduct business costs spent on maintaining the rental unit, but of course you will have to declare the rent as income. If it's just a bedroom suite, rather than a full legal apartment, I don't think you can claim it as rental. (Note that whether you decide to share cooking and such is a separate question; apartment in most areas requires its own kitchen and bathroom.) As Joe pointed out, the actual purchase also sounds like it's going to involve a large gift, which has its own tax implications. Either that, or they retain ownership of their share and you get to deal with that if you or they decide to sell.  Again: GET A LAWYER. And a tax accountant or tax lawyer to advise you on those implications. This is not someplace where the average wisdom of the Internet should be relied upon except for generalities; local laws and contract details matter."""
"""Can a high down-payment on a house offset the need for proof of income?""","""It's difficult to provide an exact answer as this will very much depend on the bank & the local regulatory scheme.  However as a business owner you should be able to provide incorporation docs, some proof of ownership of the company and last years' financial statements or tax returns, many banks would accept this as a proof of income for the purposes of granting credit. In general in most jurisdictions I can think of, a high downpayment will not remove the need to verify income as the bank needs to feel comfortable that you have the ability to pay the remaining 25% (e.g. how do they know you're not a serially unemployed lottery winner) and if the downpayment is quite large they may want some assurance that you got the money legally (e.g. how do they make sure you're not a drug dealer). So probably regardless of how large a downpayment most banks would probably want some additional proofs of income however what proofs are needed may be more flexible than just a salary stub. I suggest taking a look at what sort of documents you may have on hand that can serve to validate your revenue in some way and contacting a few banks directly to see what options they can provide and whether some custom-tailored arrangement can be made."""
"""Is IRS Form 8938 asking me to double-count foreign assets?""","""The requirement is to report the highest balance on the account, it has nothing to do with your income."""
"""Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser?""","""Many Web sites and articles warn against buying former rental cars, because people renting these cars often mistreat them. Many of those are also written by unqualified individuals for publication on blog farms and encourage all sorts of odious financial practices. That's not even considering the interests of who is paying to advertise on said blogs-- I'm sure their interests align with making sure you always pay top dollar for a new car. Because those icky used ones are so mistreated! Never trust financial advice published on the internet (or in the media, for that matter). Edit: One caveat on further thought-- never, never buy used vehicles from government auctions (impounds, asset seizures, old police cars, etc). Anybody irresponsible enough to go to jail or abandon their car long enough to lose their assets likely isn't a responsible owner of such, and cops and crooks alike do absolutely beat the snot out of police cars.  When it comes to government-owned vehicles (police cars, schoolbuses) municipal governments are notoriously stingy and will squeeze every last minute of use out of them before putting them on the market. If you're buying a government vehicle, assume it's being sold because it has intractable problems. But from a financial point of view, I notice that rental agencies sell cars within the first two years, during the time when they depreciate the most. Bingo. I figure many large rental companies will have mathematicians who calculate the best time to sell. Does the fact that they sell the car mean during this time suggest that they know the car's cost of further maintenance or other costs will be higher? Or is there another reason they sell at this time which, has a calculated advantage to them, but which is less than idea statistically for me, the purchaser? It doesn't take a PhD to realize it's bad for business if your model revolves around renting out 1970s rustbuckets that run the risk of breaking down and leaving customers stranded in inopportune or dangerous places. Uhaul in particular has a terrible reputation for this, and it shows in the condition of their trucks-- relics of the 90s, all of them. Uber won't let you drive for them if your car is older than 7-10 years for the same reasons. Yes, as a car ages, the chance of having to make repairs increases. Rental agencies are in the business of renting vehicles, not running service centers and garages. It's more aligned with their core business model to just dispose of cars once they've squeezed the most reliable years out of them and amortize the vehicles' depreciation across the tax deductions and fleet pricing they enjoy when buying new ones.  This gets them out of the service game and lets them focus on their core business-- procurement and rental. There's no calculated \""time-to-lemon\"" that they're trying to skirt here; they're just trying to avoid having to make any repairs whatsoever."""
"""Where to Park Proceeds from House Sale for 2-5 Years?""","""With 100K, I would dump the first 95K into something lame like a tax advantaged bond or do as the others here suggested.  My alternative would be to take the remaining 5K and put into something leveraged.  For instance, 5K would be more than enough to buy long term LEAPS options on the SPY ETF.    @ Time of post, you could get 4 contracts on the DEC 2017 leaps at the $225 strike (roughly 10% out of the money) for under $1200 apiece.  Possibly $1100 if you scalp them. 4 * $1200 = $4800 at risk. 4 * $22500 = $90,000 = amount of SPY stock you control with your $4800. If the market drops, SPY never reaches $225 in the next 3 years and you are out the $4800, but can use that to reduce capital gains and still have the $95K on the sidelines earning $950 or so per year.  Basically you'd be guaranteed to have $97K in the bank after two years. If the market goes up significantly before 2018, you'll still have 95K in the bank earning a measly 1%, but you've also got 4 contracts which are equal to $90K shares of S&P 500.  Almost as if every single dollar was invested.  Bad news, if SPY goes up 20% or more from current levels over the next three years you'll unfortunately have earned some taxable income.  Boo freaking hoo. https:\/\/money.stackexchange.com\/a\/48958\/13043"""
"""Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?""","""Another benefit of holding shares longer was just pointed out in another question: donating appreciated shares to a nonprofit may avoid the capital gains tax on those shares, which is a bigger savings the more those shares have gone up since purchase."""
"""How to choose a good 401(k) investment option?""","""Great question and good for you for starting investments.  Are you young, like in your 20s? I would do all that you can in the ROTH.  You will not get a tax break now, but you will get one later.  Keep in mind that any company match does not go into ROTH but the IRA. I try to look at two things when judging a mutual fund:  the historic performance, and the expense fee.  When comparing two funds, if one has a 10% average return for 10 years, and a 1% fee, I feel it is better than a fund that has a 12% return for the same time period and a 3% fee.   If they are close, you can always put a little bit in each one.   An important question to ask is if you have debt.  You may want to scale back your contributions some to pay down that debt.  For me, I don't like to go below a company match to do so, but anything over and above might be better utilized to move that student, car or credit card loan to zero.  Others might disagree, so YMMV, but I have done this myself."""
"""Can gold prices vary between two places or country at the same time?""","""I don't know about an actual example now, but in the past, India had restrictions on how much gold you could bring into the country from abroad, and there were heavy customs duties. Thus, gold smuggling was a huge business, because by avoiding the duties, people could stand to make a lot of money. At some point in 90s, India made changes in these laws so that smuggling was not as profitable."""
"""Should you diversify your bond investments across many foreign countries?""","""The Vanguard Emerging Market Bond Index has a SEC yield of 4.62%, an expense ratio of 0.34%, a purchase fee of 0.75%, and an average duration of 6.7 years.  The Vanguard Emerging Market Bond Index only invests in US Dollar denominated securities, so it is not exposed to currency risk.  The US Intermediate Term Bond Index Fund has a SEC yield of 2.59%, an expense ratio of 0.1% and an average duration of 6.5 years.  So after expenses, the emerging market bond fund gives you 1.04% of extra yield (more in subsequent years as the purchase fee is only paid once).   Here are the results of a study by Vanguard: Based on our findings, we believe that most investors should consider   adding [currency risked] hedged foreign bonds to their existing diversified portfolios. I think a globally diversified bond portfolio results in a portfolio that's more diversified."""
"""How to decide on split between large\/mid\/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance""","""There many asset allocation strategies to chose from that beat lifestyle funds. For example: Relative Strength Asset Allocation keeps your money in Stocks when stocks perform well, bonds when they outperform stocks, and cash when both bonds and stocks are under-performing.   The re-allocation happens on a monthly basis."""
"""How and why does the exchange rate of a currency change almost everyday?""","""It's simply supply and demand.   First, demand: If you're an importer trying to buy from overseas, you'll need foreign currency, maybe Euros.  Or if you want to make a trip to Europe you'll need to buy Euros.  Or if you're a speculator and think the USD will fall  in value, you'll probably buy Euros. Unless there's someone willing to sell you Euros for dollars, you can't get any.  There are millions of people trying to exchange currency all over the world.  If more want to buy USD, than that demand will positively influence the price of the USD (as measured in Euros).  If more people want to buy Euros, well, vice versa. There are so many of these transactions globally, and the number of people and the nature of these transactions change so continuously, that the prices (exchange rates) for these currencies fluctuate continuously and smoothly. Demand is also impacted by what people want to buy and how much they want to buy it.  If people generally want to invest their savings in stocks instead of dollars, i.e., if lots of people are attempting to buy stocks (by exchanging their dollars for stock), then the demand for the dollar is lower and the demand for stocks is higher.  When the stock market crashes, you'll often see a spike in the exchange rate for the dollar, because people are trying to exchange stocks for dollars (this represents a lot of demand for dollars). Then there's \""Supply:\"" It may seem like there are a fixed number of bills out there, or that supply only changes when Bernanke prints money, but there's actually a lot more to it than that.  If you're coming from Europe and want to buy some USD from the bank, well, how much USD does the bank \""have\"" and what does it mean for them to have money?  The bank gets money from depositors, or from lenders.  If one person puts money in a deposit account, and then the bank borrows that money from the account and lends it to a home buyer in the form of a mortgage, the same dollar is being used by two people.  The home buyer might use that money to hire a carpenter, and the carpenter might put the dollar back into a bank account, and the same dollar might get lent out again.  In economics this is called the \""multiplier effect.\"" The full supply of money being used ends up becoming harder to calculate with this kind of debt and re-lending.   Since money is something used and needed for conducting of transactions, the number of transactions being conducted (sometimes on credit) affects the \""supply\"" of money. Demand and supply blur a bit when you consider people who hoard cash.  If I fear the stock market, I might keep all my money in dollars.  This takes cash away from companies who could invest it, takes the cash out of the pool of money being used for transactions, and leaves it waiting under my mattress.  You could think of my hoarding as a type of demand for currency, or you could think of it as a reduction in the supply of currency available to conduct transactions. The full picture can be a bit more complicated, if you look at every way currencies are used globally, with swaps and various exchange contracts and futures, but this gives the basic story of where prices come from, that they are not set by some price fixer but are driven by market forces.   The bank just facilitates transactions.  If the last price (exchange rate) is 1.2 Dollars per Euro, and the bank gets more requests to buy USD for Euros than Euros for USD, it adjusts the rate downwards until the buying pressure is even.  If the USD gets more expensive, at some point fewer people will want to buy it (or want to buy products from the US that cost USD).  The bank maintains a spread (like buy for 1.19 and sell for 1.21) so it can take a profit. You should think of currency like any other commodity, and consider purchases for currency as a form of barter.  The value of currency is merely a convention, but it works.  The currency is needed in transactions, so it maintains value in this global market of bartering goods\/services and other currencies.  As supply and demand for this and other commodities\/goods\/services fluctuate, so does the quantity of any particular currency necessary to conduct any of these transactions. A official \""basket of goods\"" and the price of those goods is used to determine consumer price indexes \/ inflation etc.  The official price of this particular basket of goods is not a fundamental driver of exchange rates on a day to day basis."""
"""What should I look for when looking for stocks that are 'on-sale'?""","""It might seem like the PE ratio is very useful, but it's actually pretty useless as a measure used to make buy or sell decisions, and taken largely on its own, pretty useless becomes utterly and completely useless. Stocks trade at prices based on future expectations and speculation, so that means if traders expect a company to double its profits next year, the share price could easily double (there are reasons it might not increase so much, and there are reasons it could increase even more than that, but that's not the point). The Price is now double, but the Earnings is still the same, so the PE ratio is double, and this doubling is based on something some traders know, or think they know, but other traders might not know or not believe! Once you understand that, what use is a PE ratio really? The PE ratio of a company might be low because it is in a death spiral, with many traders believing it will report lower and lower profits in years to come, and the lower the PE ratio of a given company gets probably, relatively, the more likely it is to go bust! If you buy a stock with a low PE ratio you must do so because you feel you understand the company, understand why the market is viewing it negatively, believe that the negativity is wrong or over done, and believe that it will turn around. Equally a PE ratio might be high, but be an excellent buy still because it has excellent growth prospects and potential even beyond what is priced in already! Lets face it, SOMEONE has been buying at the price that's put that PE ratio where is is, right? They might be wrong of course, or not! Or they might be justified now but circumstances might change before earnings ever reach the current priced in expectation. You'll know next year probably! To answer your actual question... first you should now understand there is no such thing as a stock that is on sale, just stocks that are priced broadly according to the markets consensus on its value in years to come, the closest thing being a stock that is 'over sold' (but one man's 'over sold' is another man's train crash remember)... so what to actually look for? The only way to (on average) make good buy and sell decisions is to know about investing and trading (buy some books, I have 12), understand the businesses you propose to invest in and understand their market(s) (which may also mean understanding national and international economics somewhat)."""
"""What is the best asset allocation for a retirement portfolio, and why?""","""You're right, the asset allocation is one fundamental thing you want to get right in your portfolio.  I agree 110%.  If you really want to understand asset allocation, I suggest any and all of the following three books, all by the same author, William J. Bernstein. They are excellent \u2013 and yes I've read each.  From a theory perspective, and being about asset allocation specifically, the Intelligent Asset Allocator is a good choice.  Whereas, the next two books are more accessible and more complete, covering topics including investor psychology, history, financial products you can use to implement a strategy, etc.  Got the time? Read them all. I finished reading his latest book, The Investor's Manifesto, two weeks ago.  Here are some choice quotes from Chapter 3, \""The Nature of the Portfolio\"", that address some of the points you've asked about.  All emphasis below is mine. Page 74: The good news is [the asset allocation   process] is not really that hard:  The   investor only makes two important   decisions: Page 76: Rather, younger investors should own a   higher portion of stocks because they   have the ability to apply their   regular savings to the markets at   depressed prices.  More precisely,   young investors possess more \""human capital\"" than financial capital;   that is, their total future earnings   dwarf their savings and investments.    From a financial perspective, human   capital looks like a bond whose   coupons escalate with inflation.    \u00a0 Page 78: The most important asset allocation   decision is the overall stock\/bind   mix; start with age = bond allocation   rule of thumb. [i.e. because the younger you are, you already have bond-like income from anticipated employment earnings; the older you get, the less bond-like income you have in your future, so buy more bonds in your portfolio.] He also mentions adjusting that with respect to one's risk tolerance.  If you can't take the ups-and-downs of the market, adjust the stock portion down (up to 20% less); if you can stomach the risk without a problem, adjust the stock portion up (up to 20% more). Page 86: [in reference to a specific example where two assets that zig and zag are   purchased in a 50\/50 split and adjusted back to targets] \u00a0   This process, called \""rebalancing,\""   provides the investor with an   automatic buy-low\/sell-high bias that over the long run usually \u2013   but not always \u2013 improves returns. Page 87: The essence of portfolio construction   is the combination of asset classes   that move in different directions at   least some of the time. Finally, this gem on pages 88 and 89: Is there a way of scientifically picking the very best future   allocation, which offers the maximum   return for the minimum risk?  No, but   people still try. \u00a0 [...   continues with description of   Markowitz's \""mean-variance analysis\""   technique...] \u00a0 It took   investment professionals quite a while   to realize that limitation of   mean-variance analysis, and other   \""black box\"" techniques for allocating   assets. I could go on quoting relevant pieces ... he even goes into much detail on constructing an asset allocation suitable for a large portfolio containing a variety of different stock asset classes, but I suggest you read the book :-)"""
"""What's the smartest way to invest money gifted to a child?""","""American Century has their Heritage Fund: https:\/\/www.americancentury.com\/sd\/mobile\/fund_facts_jstl?fund=30 It has a good track record.  Here are all the mutual funds from American Century: https:\/\/www.americancentury.com\/content\/americancentury\/direct\/en\/fund-performance\/performance.html A mutual fund is a good wayway to go as it is not subject to fluctuations throughout the day whereas an ETF is."""
"""When's the best time to sell the stock of a company that is being acquired\/sold?""","""This happened to me recently.  What became the final offer was a cash buy-out of all of our shares rather than a conversion.  The cash buy-out was higher than the company's original asking price and than the stock ever went on the market before hand.  I was extremely pleased to have held on to the stock until the end. That said, it sounds like your situation is different.  You can't necessarily time this sort of thing.  You can just make your best decision and determine to be happy with the way it all plays out."""
"""Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?""","""You should look at the opportunity cost for your money (i.e. what kind of return it could generate otherwise).  We took advantage of these types of offer (zero interest for x months) in the past with the goal to redirect the money to the mortgage (it was 7.5% back then) and we made sure we don't get hosed by the surprisingly high interest rate by having a big reminder in the bulletin board in the kitchen to make sure we pay off the money before the interest rate kicks in.  So we basically reduced our interest on the mortgage during that period.  Oh - we use an all-in-one account (Manulife One) so that was real nice. I would stay away from those \""interest-deferred\"" offers - it's totally not worth it."""
"""Need to change cash to cashier's check without bank account (Just arrived to the US)""","""the easiest thing would be to go to walmart and stock up on 1000$ money orders paying a 70 cents fee for each. your landlord would almost certainly accept money orders, but double check first just in case. i say stock up because you can't get a money order for more than 1000$ and they usually won't let you buy more than 3 per day. alternatively, you can probably open a bank account using your ssn and your passport.  look for any bank offering \""free\"" checking, and they should be able to give you a few \""starter\"" checks on the spot when you open the account. in any case, they can certainly get you a cashier's check for free or a small fee.  side note: if you want to shop around for a checking account, look for a bank or credit union offering a \""kasasa\"" account."""
"""Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing""","""Money is a tool. Here is an \""oversimplified\"" order of investments:"""
"""When should I open a \""Line of credit\"" at my bank?""","""With the information you have given, I would say never. Remember the banker is a salesman, and the line of credit is the product. If you don't need to borrow the money for something specific, then you don't need the line of credit in the first place. Even if you did need something I would tell you to save up and pay cash for it. On the tax advantage: There is none, in the US you can deduct your mortgage interest on your taxes but it's not a tax credit it's a tax deductions. Let me explain further: You spend $10,000 on mortgage interest, and you're in the 25% tax bracket. You send the bank $10,000 in return you get at tax savings of $2500. You are still in the hole $7500 You would have been better off not taking out the loan in the first place. On the Emergency Fund: You should have 3 - 6 months of expenses in cash, like a money market account.  This money isn't for investing, it's like insurance, and you don't make money on insurance. The last thing you want to do is have to go into debt right in the middle of an emergency. Say you lost your job, the last thing you would want to do is borrow money, right at the time you have no income to pay it back. The bank is under no obligation to maintain you credit limit and can without notice reduce it, they can in most cases call the loan balance due in full with little or no notice as well. Both of those are likely scenarios if the bank were to become aware of the fact that you were unemployed."""
"""How prudent would it be to invest (stocks\/equity) in businesses that are based on Cash transactions?""","""If they're hiding their profits from the government, what makes you think they wouldn't hide their profits from their shareholders?"""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""This is the biggest blunder I see in money handling.  \""Oh I'm a good person and everyone knows my intentions are good.  And they're really happy with me right now, so it'll stay that way forever, right?  So I can just do anything and they'll trust me.\""  And then in hindsight 10 years later, the person realizes \""wow, I was really stubborn and selfish to just assume that.  No wonder it blew up.\""  Anyway, to that end, your requirement that all the money be in one account and \""this will simplify taxes\"" is horsepuckey.  No one will believe a legitimate financial advisor needs that, but it's exactly what a swindler would do. And that's the problem.  If anything goes wrong, their trust in you will be forgotten, some will say you intended to scam all along, and the structure will be the first thing to convict you.   Money makes everyone mistrusting.  Ironically, the concept is called a \""trust\"", and there's a wide body of law and practice for Person X responsibly handling the money of Person Y.  The classic example is Person Y is a corporation (say, a charity) and Person X is on the Board of Directors.  It's the same basic thing.   The doctrine is:"""
"""When paying estimated quarterly taxes, can I prorate the amount based on the irregular payment due dates?""","""You may want, or at least be thinking of, the annualized method described in Pub 505 http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p505\/ch02.html#en_US_2015_publink1000194669 (also downloadable in PDF) and referred to in Why are estimated taxes due \""early\"" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only? . This doesn't prorate your payments as such; instead you use your income and deductions etc for each of the 3,2,3,4-month \""quarters\"" to compute a prorated tax for the partial year, and pay the excess over the amount already paid. If your income etc amounts are (nearly) the same each month, then this computation will result in payments that are 3,2,3,4\/12ths of 90% of your whole-year tax, but not if your amounts vary over the year. If you do use this method (and benefit from it) you MUST file form 2210 schedule AI with your return next filing season to demonstrate that your quarterly computations, and payments, met the requirements. You need to keep good per-period (or per-month) records of all tax-relevant amounts, and don't even try to do this form by hand, it'll drive you nuts; use software or a professional preparer (who also uses software), but I'd expect someone in your situation probably needs to do one of those anyway. But partnership puts a wrinkle on this. As a partner, your taxable income and expense is not necessarily the cash you receive or pay; it is your allocated share of the partnership's income and expenses, whether or not they are distributed to you. A partnership to operate a business (like lawyers, as opposed to an investment partnership) probably distributes the allocated amounts, at least approximately, rather than holding them in the partnership; I expect this is your year-end draw (technically a draw can be any allowed amount, not necessarily the allocated amount). In other words, your husband does earn this money during the year, he just receives it at the end. If the year-end distribution (or allocation if different) is significant (say more than 5% of your total income) and the partnership is not tracking and reporting these amounts (promptly!) for the IRS quarters -- and I suspect that's what they were telling you \""affects other partners\"" -- you won't have the data to correctly compute your \""quarterly\"" taxes, and may thus subject yourself to penalty for not timely paying enough. If the amount is reasonably predictable you can probably get away with using a conservative (high-side) guess to compute your payments, and then divide the actual full-year amounts on your K-1 over 12 months for 2210-AI; this won't be exactly correct, but unless the partnership business is highly seasonal or volatile it will be close enough the IRS won't waste its time on you. PS- the \""quarters\"" are much closer to 13,9,13,17 weeks. But it's months that matter."""
"""What's the process to buy an old house to tear it down and create a new one?""","""Thank you for your response KeithB and Ross. I was researching more about this and looks like I have to follow all these steps (please, correct me if I'm wrong):"""
"""Buying insurance (extended warranty or guarantee) on everyday goods \/ appliances?""","""Generally, a polite decline. However, I have dealt with sales people who take first refusal as a \""test\"" response, and decide to go into the details anyway. The longer they talk the more robust my responses. See this Telegraph article that discusses why their experts think it's a ripoff, and why you should check your credit cards and home insurance policies as they may already have you covered (possibly UK\/Europe only). http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/2820644\/Extended-warranties-In-our-view-its-a-rip-off.html On a different note, see this list of questions to ask if you are considering going with the extended warranty. The source doesn't rule for or against the idea, leaving it at caveat emptor: http:\/\/www.choice.com.au\/reviews-and-tests\/technology\/home-entertainment\/accessories\/extended-warranties\/page\/questions%20to%20ask.aspx"""
"""Should I move my money market funds into bonds?""","""Your only real alternative is something like T-Bills via your broker or TreasuryDirect or short-term bond funds like the Vanguard Short-Term Investment-Grade Fund.  The problem with this strategy is that these options are different animals than a money market. You're either going to subject yourself to principal risk or lose the flexibility of withdrawing the money. A better strategy IMO is to look at your overall portfolio and what you actually want. If you have $100k in a money market, and you are not going to need $100k in cash for the forseeable future -- you are \""paying\"" (via the low yield) for flexibility that you don't need. If get your money into an appropriately diversified portfolio, you'll end up with a more optimal return. If the money involved is relatively small, doing nothing is a real option as well. $5,000 at 0.5% yields $25, and a 5% return yields only $250. If you need that money soon to pay tuition, use for living expenses, etc, it's not worth the trouble."""
"""Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?""","""Credit scoring has changed recently and the answer to this question will have slightly changed. While most points made here are true: But now (as of July 2017) it is possible having a large available credit balance can negatively effect your credit score directly:  ... VantageScore will now mark a borrower negatively for having   excessively large credit card limits, on the theory that the person   could run up a high credit card debt quickly. Those who have prime   credit scores may be hurt the most, since they are most likely to have   multiple cards open. But those who like to play the credit card   rewards program points game could be affected as well. source"""
"""Why don't banks allow more control over credit\/debit card charges?""","""This is a question with a flawed premise.  Credit cards do have two-factor authentication on transactions they consider more at risk to be fraudulent.  I've had several times when I bought something relatively expensive and unusual for me, where the CC either initially declined and sent me a text asking to confirm immediately (after which they would approve the charges), or approved but sent me a text right away asking to confirm (after which they'd automatically dispute if I told them to).  The first is legitimately what you are asking for; the second is presumably for less risky but still some risk transactions). Ultimately, the reason they don't allow it for every transaction is that not enough people would make use of it to be worth their time to implement it.  Particularly given it slows down the transaction significantly (and look at the complaints at the ~10-15 seconds extra EMV authentication takes, imagine that as a minute or more), I think you'd get a single digit percentage of people using that service."""
"""Stock Dividends & Splits: Are they always applied over night?""","""I've never seen a dividend, split or other corporate action during the day, but I have seen trade suspended a few times when something big happened. The market opening price is not in general the same as the close of the previous day. It can gap up or down and does frequently. I don't know of an api to find out if the dividend was cash or stock, but stock dividends are a lot less common."""
"""What drives the stock of bankrupt companies?""","""What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? Such stock is typically considered \""distressed assets\"".  Technically, what drives it is what drives every stock - supply and demand. A more interesting question is of course, why would there be demand? First, who exerts the buying pressure on the stock? Typically, three types of entities: The largest ones are financial institutions specializing in distressed assets (frequently, alternatives specialists - hedge funds, private equity firms etc...). Usually, they invest in distressed debt or distressed preferred equity; but sometimes distressed equity as well. Why? We will discuss their motivations separately in this answer. Second one are existing equity holders.  Why? Short answer, behavioral psychology and behavioral economics. Many investors - especially non-professionals - insist on holding distressed stocks due to variety of investment fallacies (sunk cost etc...); usually constructing elaborate theories of why and how the company and the stock will recover Sometimes, people who buy into penny stock scams, pump and dump schemes etc... Why? \""There's a sucker born every minute.\"" - P.T. Barnum Let's find out why an investment professional would invest in distressed equity? First, the general process is always the same. Company's assets are used to pay off its liabilities; in accordance with applicable law. There are two ways this can be done - either through selling the company; OR through bankruptcy process. The liabilities are paid according to seniority. The seniority priorities rules are covered by 11 U.S. Code \u00a7 507 - Priorities A company in bankruptcy can have one of 2 outcomes: Buyout. Some buyer might decide that the company's assets are worth something to them as a whole; and buy the whole enterprise; rather than risk it being destroyed piecemeal in bankruptcy proceedings. In that case, the proceeds from the sale will be used to fund the liabilities as discussed above. This option is one of the possible reasons people might consider investing in distressed equity.  For example, if the company is in bankruptcy because it can't get enough financing right now, but is likely to have good profits in the future. The chances are, some buyer will buy it for a premium that includes those future profits; and that sale amount might possibly exceed the liabilities. Bankruptcy. The assets are sold and liabilities are covered according to priorities. In that case, the investors in distressed equity might be hoping that there are un-obvious assets whose value would also put the total assets above claimed liabilities. Additional possible beneficial factor is that unsecured debtors must file with the court in order to be paid; and the claim must be validated. Some might fail on either count; so total amount of liabilities might lessen once the bankruptcy process goes through. Assets Now, here's where things get interesting. Of course, companies have usual assets. Real estate, inventory, plants, cash, etc... These are all able to be sold to cover liabilities, and at first glance are possibly not enough to cover liabilities, leaving equity holders with nothing (and even that's not a certainty - bankruptcy is simply inability to service debt payments; and while it correlates to assetsliquid assets, not full asset valuation). But some assets are less sure, and are thus rarely included in such calculations. These may include: Chances of winning appeals if specific existing liabilities are results of litigation, e.g. tax appeals, court judgement appeals etc... Clawbacks and lawsuits against former executives, especially in cases where the company's financial distress resulted from executive malfeasance. I was personally involved in one such case as an equity holder, where the company assets were valued at $X; had liabilities of $X*2; but had a real possibility of winning about $X*3 in a lawsuit against former CEO accused of various malfeasance including fraud and insider trading. As such, the best case scenario was literally 100% profit on holding that distressed equity."""
"""What is the valuation of a company based on?""","""The textbook answer would be \""assets-liabilities+present discounted value of all future profit\"".  A&L is usually simple (if a company has an extra $1m in cash, it's worth $1m more; if it has an extra $1m in debt, it's worth $1m less). If a company with ~0 assets and $50k in profit has a $1m valuation, then that implies that whoever makes that valuation (wants to buy at that price) really believes one of two things - either the future profit will be significantly larger than $50k (say, it's rapidly growing);  or the true worth of assets is much more - say, there's some IP\/code\/patents\/people that have low book value but some other company would pay $1m just to get that. The point is that valuation is subjective since the key numbers in the calculations are not perfectly known by anyone who doesn't have a time machine, you can make estimates but the knowledge to make the estimates varies (some buyers\/sellers have extra information), and they can be influenced by those buyers\/sellers; e.g. for strategic acquisitions the value of company is significantly changed simply because someone claims they want to acquire it. And, $1m valuation for a company with $500m in profits isn't appropriate - it's appropriate only if the profits are expected to drop to zero within a couple years; a stagnant but stable company with $500m profits would be worth at least $5m and potentially much more."""
"""How to calculate the rate of return on selling a stock?""","""If annualized rate of return is what you are looking for, using a tool would make it a lot easier.   In the post I've also explained how to use the spreadsheet.   Hope this helps."""
"""When is an option a certain number of strikes in the money? e.g. \""two strikes in\""?""","""I have traded options, but not professionally. I hadn't come across this terminology, but I expect it counts how far in-the-money, as an ordinal, an option is relative to the distinct strike prices offered for the option series \u2014 a series being the combination of underlying symbol, expiration date, and option type (call\/put); e.g., all January 2015 XYZ calls, no matter the strike. For instance, if stock XYZ trades today at $11 and the available January 2015 XYZ calls have strike prices of $6, $8, $10, $12, $14, and $16, then I would expect the $10 call could be called one strike in the money, the $8 two strikes in the money, etc. Similarly, the $12 and $14 calls would be one and two strikes out of the money, respectively. However, if tomorrow XYZ moves to $13, then the $10 previously known as one strike in the money would now be two strikes in the money, and the $12 would be the new one strike in the money. Perhaps this terminology arose because many option strategies frequently involve using options that are at- or near-the-money, so the \""one strike in\"" (or out) of the money contracts would tend to be those employed frequently? Perhaps it makes it easier for people to describe strategies in a more general sense, without citing specific examples. However, the software developer in me dislikes it, given that the measurement is relative to both the current underlying price (which changes quickly), and the strike prices available in the given option series. Hence, I wouldn't use this terminology myself and I suggest you eschew it, too, in favor of something concrete; e.g. specify your contract strikes in dollar terms \u2014 especially when it matters."""
"""What is a \""Junk Bond\""?""","""A \""junk bond\"" is one that pays a high yield UP FRONT because there is a good chance that it could default. So the higher interest rate is necessary to try to compensate for the default Junk bonds are used in leveraged buyouts (LBOs) because such deals are INHERENTLY risky. \""Normal\"" companies may have 20%-30% debt and the rest equity, so that the company will have to lose 70%-80% of its value before the debtholders start losing money on \""normal\"" bonds. But in an LBO, the company may have only 10%-20% equity and the rest debt. Meaning that if it loses that small equity cushion, the value of the \""junk\"" bonds will be impaired."""
"""Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?""","""I pretty much only use my checking. What's the downside? Checking accounts don't pay as much interest as savings account. Oh, but wait, interest rates have been zero for nearly 10 years. So there is very little benefit to keeping money in my savings account. In fact, I had two savings accounts, and Well Fargo closed one of them because I hadn't used it in years. Downsides of savings accounts: You are limited to 5 transfers per month into or out of them. No such limit with checking. Upsides of savings accounts: Well, maybe you will be less likely to spend the money. Why don't you just have your pay go into your checking and then just transfer \""extra money\"" out of it, rather than the reverse? If you want to put money \""away\"" so that you save it, assuming you're in the U.S.A., open a traditional IRA. Max deposit of $5500\/year, and it reduces your taxable income. It's not a bad idea to have a separate account that you don't touch except for in an emergency. But, for me, the direction of flow is from work, to checking, to savings."""
"""Is there any downside snapping a picture (or scanning a copy) of every check one writes vs. using a duplicate check?""","""No, there is no downside. I personally don't use duplicate checks.  I simply make a record of the checks I write in the check register.  A copy of the check, whether a duplicate or a photo, isn't really proof of payment for anyone but yourself, as it is very easy to write a check after the fact and put a different date on it."""
"""Unemployment Insurance Through Options""","""This is a snapshot of the Jan '17 puts for XBI, the biotech index.  The current price is $65.73. You can see that even the puts far out of the money are costly. The $40 put, if you get a fill at $3, means a 10X return if the index drops to $10. A 70X return for a mild, cyclic, drop isn't likely to happen.  Sharing youtube links is an awful way to ask a question. The first was far too long to waste my time. The second was a reasonable 5 minutes, but with no example, only vague references to using puts to protect you in bad years.  Proper asset allocation is more appropriate for the typical investor than any intricate option-based hedging strategy. I've successfully used option strategies on the up side, multiplying the returns on rising stocks, but have never been comfortable creating a series of puts to hit the jackpot in an awful year."""
"""Tax for Basket with Coupon containing two different VAT rates""","""The vendor needs to do this using apportionment, according to the VAT rules for mixed supplies: If you make mixed supplies and the individual supplies are not liable to VAT   at the same rate then you need to work out the tax value of   each supply in order to calculate how much tax is due. If the tax   value is based on the total price you charge (see paragraph 7.3) you   do this by splitting that price between the supplies. This is called   an apportionment ... There is no special method of apportionment ... However, your calculations must be fair and you must be able to justify them. It is usually best to use one of the methods shown in section 32. The section 32 referred to really relates to apportioning use between business and non-business purposes, but it implies that splitting up the total price in proportion to the original prices would probably be fair. So in your example the vendor might split the \u00a35 discount equally between the spoon and the carrycot as they had the same gross cost, and pay VAT as if each had cost \u00a37.50 gross. The vendor could also do it in proportion to their net (pre-VAT) prices and thus apportion a bit more of the discount to the carrycot than the spoon, but as this would lead to them paying slightly more tax overall they probably wouldn't choose to. However, none of this is likely to be too relevant to a consumer, since in the UK prices must be presented as the gross (VAT-inclusive) amounts and so the discounts will also apply to those amounts. It will of course affect how much of the purchase price the vendor ends up paying on to the government and thus might indirectly affect what discounts the vendor is willing to offer."""
"""Do Banks Cause Inflation?  What are other possible causes?""","""There are several causes of inflation. One is called cost push \u2014 that is, if the price of e.g. oil goes up sharply (as it did in the 1970s), it creates inflation by making everything cost more. Another is called demand pull: if labor unions bargain for higher wages (as they did in the 1960s), their wage costs push up prices, especially after they start buying. The kind of inflation that the banks cause is monetary inflation. That is, for every dollar of deposits, they can make $5 or $10 of loans. So even though they don't \""print\"" money (the Fed does) it's as if they did. The result could be the kind of inflation called \""too much money chasing too few goods.\"""""
"""In US, is it a good idea to hire a tax consultant for doing taxes?""","""It's going to depend entirely on your tax situation, its complexity, and your willingness\/interest in dealing with tax filings.  Personally I find that not only do I not enjoy dealing with figuring out my taxes, but I don't know even a fraction of the possible deductions available and all the clever ways to leverage them.  Plus the tax code is changing constantly and staying on top of that is not something I'm ever going to attempt. I am of the philosophy that it is my duty to pay only the absolute minimum tax legally required, and to utilize every possible exemption, deduction, credit, etc. that is available to me.  Plus my business activities are a bit on the non-traditional side so it requires some unorthodox thinking at times.  For me, a trained professional is the only way to go.  What it costs me, I way more than make up in savings on my tax bill.  I also go out of my way to never get a refund because if I get one, it just means I gave the government a free loan. The last time I computed my own taxes (used TurboTax if memory serves) was I think in the late 90s."""
"""Investing: P\/E Ratio basic question""","""While on the surface it might not make sense to pay more than one dollar to get just one dollar back, the key thing is that a good company's earnings are recurring each year. So, you wouldn't just be paying for the $1 dollar of earnings per share this year, but for the entire future stream of earnings per share, every year, in perpetuity -- and the earnings may grow over time too (if it remains a good company.) Your stock is a claim on a portion of the company's future. The brighter and\/or more certain that future, the more investors are willing to pay for each recurring dollar of earnings. And the P\/E ratio tells you, in effect, how many years it might take for your investment to earn back what you paid \u2013 assuming earnings remain the same. But you would hope the earnings would grow, too. When a company's earnings are widely expected to grow, the P\/E for the stock is often higher than average. Bear in mind you don't actually receive the company's earnings, since management often decides to reinvest all or a portion of it to grow the company. Yet, many companies do pay a portion of earnings out as dividends. Dividends are money in your pocket each year."""
"""How could strike price for new shares be higher than the market price""","""This can arise with very thinly traded stocks for large blocks of shares. If the market only has a few thousand dollars available at between 8.37 and 12.5 the price is largely meaningless for people who want to invest in hundreds of thousands\/millions of dollars worth, as the quoted price can't get them anywhere near the number of shares they want. How liquid is the stock in question?"""
"""Where can I find closed dates for the New York Stock Exchange for the coming year?""","""You can find the NYSE holiday dates listed on the exchange's own site (already linked in answer above), which should obviously be consulted as the most reliable source; they are also published in an article that I have written here: NYSE Holidays 2016, which provides additional information about traditions and events that can be expected to lead to unscheduled closures, and closed dates for holidays that are day-of-month rather than date specific (e.g. President's Day and Memorial Day). NYSE Holidays are not quite identical to those for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, though most US stock exchange dates are the same. Also, note that both the Merc (via the Globex platform) and NYSE Arca have different normal cash sessions and trading hours to the New York Stock Exchange."""
"""What purchases, not counting real estate, will help me increase my cash flow?""","""Mutual funds can be relatively low risk and a good starting point. Really it depends on you.  What are your goals? This is a pretty open ended question. These can all be low risk and provide some return.  Note \""Less Knowledge\"" is never a good qualifier for an investment. Your money is your business and you are entitled to know what your business is up to."""
"""What are some tips for getting the upper hand in car price negotiations?""","""I love John's answer, but I just can't help myself from adding my 2 cents, even though it's over 5 years later. I sold cars for a while in the late 90s, and I mostly agree with John's answer. Where I disagree though, is that where I worked, the salesperson did not have ANY authority to make a sale. A sales manager was required to sign off on every sale. That doesn't mean that the manager had to interact with the buyer, that could all be handled behind the scenes, but the pricing and even much of the negotiating strategies were dictated by the sales managers. Some of the seasoned salespeople would estimate numbers on their own, but occasionally you'd hear the managers still chew them out with \""I wish you wouldn't have said that\"". Of course, every dealership is different. Additional purchase advice: There is a strategy that can work well for the buyer, but only in scenarios where the salesperson is trying to prevent you from leaving. They may start interrupting you as you are packing up, or blocking your path to the door, or even begging. If this happens, they are obviously desperate for whatever reason. In this case, if you came prepared with research on a good price that you are comfortable with, then shoot lower and hold firm to the point of near exhaustion. Not so low that that they realize you're too far away- they will let you leave at that point. It needs to be within a reasonable amount, perhaps at most 1-2% of the purchase price. Once you detect the salesperson is desperate, you finally move up to your goal number or possibly a little lower. Typically the salesperson will be so happy to have gotten you to move at all that they'll accept. And if the managers are fed up too (like 45 minutes after close), they'll accept too. I saw this happen multiple times in a high pressure scenario. I also used it once myself as a buyer. If you are planning to purchase options that can be added at the dealer rather than from the factory, keep them up your sleeve at first. Get your negotiations down to where you are a little further apart than the invoice price of the option, then make your move. For example, suppose the option you want retails for $350 with an invoice of $300. Get within about $400 of the dealer. Then offer to pay their price, but only if they throw in the option you want. This will throw them completely off guard because they didn't expect it and all of their calculations were based on without it. If they say yes, you effectively moved $100 and they moved $300. It's much more likely that they'll agree to this than taking $300 off the price of the car. (I'm guessing the reason for this is partially due to how their accounting works with sticker price vs aftermarket price, and partially psychological.) Note, this works best with new cars, and make sure you only do this if it's for items they can add after the fact. Even if they don't have the part in stock it's ok, they can give you an IOU. But if the option requires a car change to something they don't have on the lot, it will probably just make them mad."""
"""Should I invest in the world's strongest currency instead of my home currency?""","""Currency speculation is a very risky investment strategy. But when you are looking for which currency to denote your savings in, looking at the unit value is quite pointless. What is important is how stable the currency is in the long term. You certainly don't want a currency which is prone to inflation, because it means any savings denoted in that currency constantly lose purchasing power. Rather look for a currency which has a very low inflation rate or is even deflating. Another important consideration is how easy it is to exchange between your local currency and the currency you want to own. A fortune in some exotic currency is worth nothing when no local bank will exchange it into your local currency. The big reserve currencies like US Dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling and Japanes yen are usually safe bets, but there are regional differences which can be easily converted and which can't. When the political relations between your country and the countries which manage these currencies is unstable, this might change over night. To avoid these problems, rather invest into a diverse portfolio of commodities and\/or stocks. The value of these kinds of investments will automatically adjust to inflation rate, so you won't need to worry about currency fluctuation."""
"""What does a stock's quoted value represent?""","""Price for the latest transaction. If the stock is selling for  $898.7 means that the stock is currently trading for  $898.7, and it will be your ask price of stock if you purchase currently."""
"""What if you get pre-approved for a mortgage but don't find a house in the pre-approval timeframe?""","""As mentioned before - you're over-thinking the hard-pull issue. But do try to make the preapproval as close to the actual bidding as possible - because it costs money. At least from my experience, you'll get charged the application fee for preapproval, while \""pre-qualification\"" is usually free. If you're seriously shopping, I find it hard to believe that you can't find a house within 3 months. If you're already in the process and your offer has been accepted and you opened the escrow - I believe the preapproval will be extended if it expires before closing. I've just had a similar case from the other side, as a buyer, and the seller had a short-sale approval that expired before closing. It was extended to make the deal happen, and that's when the bank is actually loosing money. So don't worry about that. If you haven't even started the process and the preapproval expired, you might have to start it all over again from scratch, including all the fees. The credit score is a minor issue (unless you do it every 2-3 months)."""
"""How much money do I need to have saved up for retirement?""","""Invest in kids, not pension - they never inflate. Without kids your retirement will be miserable anyway. And with them you'll be good. Personally, I do not believe that that our current savings will be worth it in 30 years in these times."""
"""Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans?""","""Personally, I avoid making business deals with friends and relatives. There's just too much of a possibility that things can go wrong.  Let's assume that you're honest people and you have no intention of cheating your mother-in-law. Still, all sorts of things could happen that could make it difficult for you to repay the loan. You could lose your job. You could get some big medical expense. Etc. Then what happens? Then your financial problems become family problems. There's a strong temptation when people borrow from relatives to make paying the loan the lowest priority in their budget. \""I know I promised to pay \\$X per month, but things are really tight right now and Mom should understand.\"" Maybe she does understand and can manage without it. But maybe not. And then it becomes a family fight. \""You promised you'd pay it back.\"" \""And we will, we're having a hard time right now. Can't you just give us a break?\"" Etc. Or she might have some extra expense, and say, \""Hey, can't you pay a little more this month? I really need some extra cash.\"" \""I'm sorry, we're struggling just to make the regular payments, we can't.\"" \""Well I was willing to loan you all this money. The least you could do is pay me back when I need it.\"" Etc. You can end up ruining family relationships over money. Your wife can find herself in the position of having to choose whether to side with her mother or her husband. Etc. I'm sure plenty of people do things like this and it works out just great. But there are big risks. And by the way, apparently this was your idea, not your mother-in-laws. I wonder what her reaction is. Is she eager to help out her daughter and son-in-law and had nothing in particular to do with the money anyway? Or is she feeling very imposed on? It's one thing to ask relatives to let you borrow their car for the weekend. Asking someone to loan you $50,000 is a very big request. If one of my kids asked me to loan them $50,000 from my retirement fund, I'd consider that a very presumptuous request. (Unless they needed the money for life-saving surgery for my grandchild or some such.)"""
"""income tax for purchased\/sold short term & long term shares""","""As mentioned by Dilip, you need to provide more details. In general for transacting on stocks; Long Term: If you hold the stock for more than one year then its long term and not taxable. There is a STT [Securities Transaction Tax] that is already deducted\/paid during buying and selling of a stock. Short Term: If you hold the stock for less than one year, it's short term gain. This can be adjusted against the short term loss for the financial year. The tax rate is 10%. Day Trading: Is same as short term from tax point of view. Unless you are doing it as a full time business. If you have purchased multiple quantities of same stock in different quantities and time, then when you selling you have to arrive at profit or loss on FIFO basis, ie First in First Out"""
"""How to read bond yield quotes? What do the time, coupon, price, yield, and time mean?""","""The 1 month and 1 year columns show the percentage change over that period. Coupon (coupon rate) is the amount of interest paid on the bond each period (as specified on the coupon itself. Price is the normalised price of the bond; the price of taking a position of $100 worth of the principal in the bond. Yield is the interest rate that you would receive by buying at that price (this is the inverse of the price). The time is the time of the quote presented."""
"""How to record \""short premium\"" in double-entry accounting? ""","""You don't. No one uses vanilla double entry accounting software for \""Held-For-Trading Security\"".  Your broker or trading software is responsible for providing month-end statement of changes.  You use \""Mark To Market\"" valuation at the end of each month.  For example, if your cash position is -$5000 and stock position is +$10000, all you do is write-up\/down the account value to $5000.  There should be no sub-accounts for your \""Investment\"" account in GNUCash.  So at the end of the month, there would be the following entries:"""
"""What is the meaning of \""writing put options\""?""","""Suppose you're writing a put with a strike price of 80. Say the share's(underlying asset) price goes down to 70. So the holder of the put will exercise the option. Ie he has a 'right to sell' a share worth 70 for rs 80. Whereas a put option writer has an 'obligation to buy' at rs 80 a share trading at rs 70. Always think from the perspective of the holder. If the holder exercises the option, the writer will suffer a loss. Maximum loss he suffers will be the break even FSP, which is Strike price reduced by the premium paid.. If he doesn't exercise the option the writer will make a profit, which can maximum be the put premium received."""
"""Why do credit cards have minimum limits?""","""They have a minimum to discourage applications for that particular card. Every application costs them money because they have to pay the credit agencies to pull the applicant's credit history. So one way they save money and reduce their cost of business is to discourage people from applying if they're not creditworthy enough for that product. Credit card companies tailor their products into different income\/credit brackets. Those who have less creditworthiness would be better suited for a different product than what you're referring, similar to those with greater creditworthiness."""
"""Is there a law or regulation that governs the maximum allowable interest amount that can be charged on credit cards or in agreements where credit is extended?""","""In the U.S., each state has its own local usury law. This website has a separate page for each state summarizing the local usury law and provides a reference to the local statute. The rules aren't simple: some set absolute limits, some appear to be pegged to something like the Prime Rate, some states don't have a general usury limit, the rules don't apply to certain loans because of the type of loan or lender, etc. There are US Federal laws dealing with usury, primarily in the context of racketeering -- the RICO Act lets the Feds go after racketeers that violate local usury laws beyond certain parameters."""
"""Can future rental income be applied to present debt-to-income ratio when applying for second mortgage?""","""Generally speaking, no they won't. In this case, though I haven't done it myself, I was recommended to put the mortgage on the real estate after it's been leased out and has a contract on it.  Then, yes, they will use it for that.  But, ex-ante don't expect any bank to count on income from it because, at that point, there's zero guarantee you'll get it leased, and even if you do, at what rate."""
"""Can preventive health checkup be claimed as a separate expense from medical expenses?""","""Deduction for Health Checkup is allowed under Section 80D and is allowed to everyone whether Salaried or Business\/Professional. However, Exemption for Medical Reimbursement of Rs. 15000 is allowed under a different section.  A salaried employee can take benefit of both Medical Reimbursement of Rs. 15,000 as well as Preventive Health Check-up of Rs. 5,000.  Source: Tax Deduction for Health Check-up"""
"""Consolidate my debt? Higher APR, but what does that actually mean?""","""No.  It means each month the total amount you owe goes up by a factor of (1+0.298\/12).  So if you owed $23K at the beginning of the month, at the end you owe a total of 23K*1.0248=$23,571.  Then subtract the $804 you are paying.  If you want to think of it in terms of interest and principal, you are paying $571 a month in interest and 233 toward principle, I guess. Paying off debt with a lower interest rate using debt with a higher interest rate is throwing a lot of money away and impoverishing yourself needlessly.  Psychology can't get around that.  If you want a psychological aid, decide how much you are going to pay toward these debts and have it automatically deducted from your paycheck so you never see it. Make the minimum payment on every debt you have except the one with the highest interest rate.  Pay the very most you can toward that.  Then when it is paid off, move to the next highest.  Do all your spending out of the lowest rate card, or avoid using these credit cards until your financial discipline and resources allow you to pay all credit cards off completely at the end of each month."""
"""How to gift money anonymously to an individual after collection thru a donation site?""","""Regarding the tax implications half of your question ... There seem to be a lot of articles that say there's not yet any established law concerning the tax treatment of crowdsourced funds. Since your objective is gift-giving rather than business purposes, it would seem that the gift tax rules would apply, and gift taxes are charged to the donor not the donee.  (But I am not a tax attorney.)"""
"""How does a tax exemption for an action = penalty for inaction?""","""There's a significant difference between \""discount\"" and \""surcharge\"". For starters - legal difference. If you have a list price of $X - that's the price you're committed to sell regardless of the payment method. So it doesn't matter if I pay with cash or credit - I'll pay $X. However, it costs you more when I pay with credit - so you want to pass that cost on me. You charge me surcharge - an addition to the price. In some States in the US and in some other countries - that is against the law. You cannot add on top of the listed price any amount regardless of the payment method. However, you can say that the list price is $X, which includes the assumed credit card surcharge of $Y. And then you give discount of $Y to anyone not paying with credit card. The list price is still $X, regardless of the payment method. You don't have to give the discount, the discount is your cost of doing business. But that would be legal in some places (not all!) that forbid credit card surcharge. So the main difference from legal perspective is that you're not allowed to add to the list price, but you're allowed to discount from it. Regarding taxes - exemption\/deduction is not a penalty for negative. Exemption\/deduction is an implementation of a social policy. For example, it is for the public benefit for everyone to own a house. So the Congress comes up with a deduction of mortgage interest. However, you're not penalized if you don't own a house by paying higher taxes. Your tax rate doesn't change. You just don't get to deduct something that you might be able to deduct had you owned a house with a mortgage. This is, again - a discount of a list price, not a surcharge. You're not penalized if you don't have a house or don't have a mortgage, but if you do - you get a break. The author you're quoting claims that bottom line would be the same as if you considered the absence of a deduction as a penalty. But that's not true, because even if you do have a mortgage you may not be able to deduct it because your income is too high, the mortgage is for too much, or your mortgage is not on the primary residence. So mere existence of the mortgage doesn't directly correlate to the existence of the deduction. Similarly with credit card surcharges - you may get a cash discount, but you may get the similar amount of money back even if you use a credit card. Not as a cash discount but rather as rewards, cash-backs or points. However, if there's no cash discount, you won't be getting these if you're paying cash. So again - you're not penalized for having a credit card by not getting a discount, because you may still get it in a different way - and if you don't, you still may end up not getting it. So the quote is a rather simplistic and negative view and more of an opinion than stating a fact."""
"""Paid off oldest CC keep it open or close it?""","""First off, congratulations on taking care of your finances and paying off your cards!  Takes a lot of discipline.   If your next oldest card is just a year apart, you can safely close this card."""
"""As a contractor, TurboTax Business-and-Home or Basic?""","""Assuming you file state tax returns, you shouldn't buy Basic. Ever. Your choice is probably between the \""Premier\"" version and the \""Business and Home\"" version. Price difference is insignificant (I have a comparison on my blog, including short descriptions as to who might find each version useful the most). The prices have gone down significantly, since when I wrote the article, its cheaper now."""
"""In Canada, are options available to subsidize conversion of a house into an energy efficient house?""","""There may be more, but a good starting point would be the ecoENERGY Retrofit Grants and Incentives.  Natural Resources Canada's ecoENERGY Retrofit program provides financial support to implement energy-saving projects. There are different application processes for homes, commercial and institutional buildings and industrial facilities. Together we can reduce energy-related greenhouse gases and air pollution, leading to a cleaner environment for Canada. Also, there was a temporary home renovation tax credit about a year back, but that no longer exists and nothing has replaced it yet."""
"""Does the CRA reprieve those who have to commute for work?""","""The answer on the Canadian Government's website is pretty clear:  Most employees cannot claim employment expenses. You cannot deduct the   cost of travel to and from work, or other expenses, such as most tools   and clothing. However, that is most likely related to a personal vehicle. There is a deduction related to Public Transportation:  You can claim cost of monthly public transit passes or passes of   longer duration such as an annual pass for travel within Canada on   public transit for 2016. The second sleeping residence is hard to justify as the individual is choosing to work in this town and this individual is choosing to spent the night there - it is not currently a work requirement.  As always, please consult a certified tax professional in your country for any final determinations on personal (and corporate) tax laws and filings."""
"""Withdraw funds with penalty or bear high management fees for 10 years?""","""Most financial \""advisors\"" are actually financial-product salesmen.  Their job is to sweet-talk you into parting with as much money as possible - either in management fees, or in commissions (kickbacks) on high-fee investment products** (which come from fees charged to you, inside the investment.)  This is a scrappy, cutthroat business for the salesmen themselves.  Realistically that is how they feed their family, and I empathize, but I can't afford to buy their product.  I wish they would sell something else. These people prey on people's financial lack of knowledge.  For instance, you put too much importance on \""returns\"".  Why?  because the salesman told you that's important.  It's not.  The market goes up and down, that's normal.  The question is how much of your investment is being consumed by fees.  How do you tell that (and generally if you're invested well)?  You compare your money's performance to an index that's relevant to you.  You've heard of  the S&P 500, that's an index, relevant to US investors.  Take 2015. The S&P 500 was $2058.20 on January 2, 2015.  It was $2043.94 on December 31, 2015.  So it was flat;  it dropped 0.7%. If your US investments dropped 0.7%, you broke even.  If you made less, that was lost to the expenses within the investment, or the investment performing worse than the S&P 500 index.  I lost 0.8% in 2015, the extra 0.1% being expenses of the investment. Try 2013: S&P 500 was $1402.43 on December 28, 2012 and $1841.10 on Dec. 27, 2013. That's 31.2% growth.  That's amazing, but it also means 31.2% is holding even with the market.  If your salesman proudly announced that you made 18%... problem! All this to say: when you say the investments performed \""poorly\"", don't go by absolute numbers. Find a suitable index and compare to the index.  A lot of markets were down in 2015-16, and that is not your investment's fault.  You want to know if were down compared to your index.   Because that reflects either a lousy funds manager, or high fees.   This may leave you wondering \""where can I invest that is safe and has sensible fees?  I don't know your market, but here we have \""discount brokers\"" which allow self-selection of investments, charge no custodial fees, and simply charge by the trade (commonly $10).  Many mutual funds and ETFs are \""index funds\"" with very low annual fees, 0.20% (1 in 500) or even less.    How do you pick investments? Look at any of numerous books, starting with John Bogle's classic \""Common Sense on Mutual Funds\"" book which is the seminal work on the value of keeping fees low.  If you need the cool, confident professional to hand-hold you through the process, a fee-only advisor is a true financial advisor who actually acts in your best interest.  They honestly recommend what's best for you. But beware: many commission-driven salespeople pretend to be fee-only advisors.  The good advisor will be happy to advise investment types, and let you pick the brand (Fidelity vs Vanguard) and buy it in your own discount brokerage account with a password you don't share. Frankly, finance is not that hard.  But it's made hard by impossibly complex products that don't need to exist, and are designed to confuse people to conceal hidden fees.  Avoid those products.  You just don't need them.  Now, you really need to take a harder look at what this investment is. Like I say, they make these things unnecessarily complex specifically to make them confusing, and I am confused.  Although it doesn't seem like much of a question to me.  1.5% a quarter is 6% a year or 60% in 10 years (to ignore compounding). If the market grows 6% a year on average so growth just pays the fees, they will consume 60% of the $220,000, or $132,000.  As far as the $60,000, for that kind of money it's definitely worth talking to a good lawyer because it sounds like they misrepresented something to get your friend to sign up in the first place.  Put some legal pressure on them, that $60k penalty might get a lot smaller.   ** For instance they'll recommend JAMCX, which has a 5.25% buy-in fee (front-end load) and a 1.23% per year fee (expense ratio). Compare to VIMSX with zero load and a 0.20% fee.  That front-end load is kicked back to your broker as commission, so he literally can't recommend VIMSX - there's no commission! His company would, and should, fire him for doing so."""
"""Income tax on international income with money not deposited in India""","""If the work is done in India, then the income arising out of it, is taxable when received by you, and not when it come into India ..."""
"""What can I expect to pay when meeting my first financial planner?""","""A complete analysis of your current situation, goals, and formulating a plan to meet those goals, including discussing your risk tolerance cannot be completed during the initial meeting. The first meeting should be him trying to convince you of his skills and services, he will also be collecting the required data from you.  You could inquire a few days before the meeting what information he needs from you. The less he asks for the less though the analysis at the initial meeting. This would also be a good time to ask about fee structure. Some planners make money on the initial plan, others make money on the execution of the plan. What fee that is expected for the initial analysis can vary greatly. You should ask, but most will consider this first meeting as the cost of doing business."""
"""Looking into investment bonds for the first time- what do I need to be aware of?""","""First off, I do not recommend buying individual bonds yourself. Instead buy a bond fund (ETF or mutual fund). That way you get some diversification.  The risk-reward ratio will be evident in what you find to invest in. Junk bond funds pay the highest rates. Treasury bond funds pay the lowest. So you have to ask yourself how comfortable are you with risk?  Buy the funds that pay the highest rate but still let you sleep at night."""
"""Federal taxes for nonresident alien whose only income in 2016 was a 2015 state tax return""","""I believe you have to file a tax return, because state tax refund is considered income effectively connected with US trade or business, and the 1040NR instructions section \""Who Must File\"" includes people who were engaged in trade or business in the US and had a gross income. You won't end up having to pay any taxes as the income is less than your personal exemption of $4050."""
"""How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?""","""The rent will be determined by: the rent being charged on similar houses near you. Your mortgage and other costs (very unfortunately!) have no bearing, at all, on the price you will get."""
"""I file 83(b) election, but did't include a copy of it in that year\u2019s tax return""","""This may be relevant: it suggests that IRS is lenient with the attachment of the form with 1040. To paraphrase: \""The ruling involved a taxpayer who timely filed the election with the IRS within 30 days of the property transfer but who did not attach a copy of the election to his or her Form 1040 for the year of the transfer.  Fortunately for the taxpayer in question, the ruling indicated that the submission of the election to the IRS within 30 days of the property transfer fulfilled the requirements for a valid election, and the failure to attach the copy to the tax return did not affect the validity of the election.  The IRS requested that the taxpayer forward a copy of the election to the IRS to be associated with the processing of the tax return. - See more at: http:\/\/www.bnncpa.com\/services\/employee_benefit_plans\/blog\/irs_rules_that_failure_to_attach_83b_election_to_form_1040_did_not_invalida#sthash.0c3h2nJY.dpuf\"" If someone wants to grok the IRS ruling: http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-wd\/1405008.pdf And this is the article where I saw the above referenced. www.bnncpa.com\/services\/employee_benefit_plans\/blog\/irs_rules_that_failure_to_attach_83b_election_to_form_1040_did_not_invalida"""
"""Buying a house, Bank or rent to own?""","""With no numbers offered, it's not like we can tell you if it's a wise   purchase. -- JoeTaxpayer We can, however, talk about the qualitative tradeoffs of renting vs owning. The major drawback which you won't hear enough about is risk. You will be putting a very large portion of your net worth in what is effectively a single asset. This is somewhat risky. What happens if the regional economy takes a hit, and you get laid off? Chances are you won't be the only one, and the value of your house will take a hit at the same time, a double-whammy. If you need to sell and move away for a job in another town, you will be taking a financial hit - that is, if you can sell and still cover your mortgage. You will definitely not be able to walk away and find a new cheap apartment to scrimp on expenses for a little while. Buying a house is putting down roots. On the other hand, you will be free from the opposite risk: rising rents. Once you've purchased the house, and as long as you're living in it, you don't ever need to worry about a local economic boom and a bunch of people moving into town and making more money than you, pushing up rents. (The San Francisco Bay Area is an example of where that has happened. Gentrification has its malcontents.) Most of the rest is a numbers game. Don't get fooled into thinking that you're \""throwing away\"" money on renting - if you really want to, you can save money yourself, and invest a sum approximately equal to your down payment in the stock market, in some diversified mutual funds, and you will earn returns on that at a rate similar to what you would get by building equity in your home. (You won't earn outsized housing-bubble-of-2007 returns, but you shouldn't expect those in the housing market of today anyway.) Also, if you own, you have broad discretion over what you can do with the property. But you have to take care of the maintenance and stuff too."""
"""How should I save money if the real interest rate (after inflation) is negative?""","""Inflation protected securities (i-bonds or TIPS).   TIPS stands for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities. By very definition, they tend to protect your savings against inflation. They won't beat inflation, but will keep up with it. TIPS or iBonds have two parts. A fixed interest part and a variable interest portion which varies depending upon the current rates. The combined rate would match the inflation rate. They can be bought directly from the treasury (or from a broker or bank who might charge a commission)"""
"""Treatment of donations of appreciated stock to a IRC \u00a7501(c)(7) Social Club?""","""If cash donations are not deductable, stock contributions aren't either and I believe the same rules apply as for a private party."""
"""Paying for things on credit and immediately paying them off: any help for credit rating?""","""The biggest risk is Credit Utilization rate.  If you have a total of $10,000 in revolving credit (ie: credit card line) and you ever have more than 50% (or 33% to be conservative) on the card at any time then your credit score will be negatively impacted. This will be a negative impact even if you charge it on day one and pay it off in full on day 2.  Doesn't make much sense but credit companies are playing the averages:  on average they find that people who get close to maxing their credit limit are in some sort of financial trouble. You're better off to make small purchases each month, under $100, and pay them off right away.  That will build a better credit history - and score."""
"""Advice for college student: Should I hire a financial adviser or just invest in index funds?""","""Exactly what you do with the money depends on various personal choices you'll have to make for yourself.  Investing your money in Vanguard index funds such as the ones you mentioned is certainly one smart move.  However, I think you're quite right to be suspicious of an advisor with a 1% fee.  In many cases, such advisors are not worth their costs.  The thing to remember is that, typically with that type of fee structure, you always pay the costs, even if the advisor turns out to be wrong and your money doesn't grow. One thing to check is whether the advisor you mentioned is paid only by the fees he charges (a \""fee-only financial planner') , or whether he also makes money via the sales of financial products.  Some advisors earn money by selling you financial products (such as mutual funds), which can create a conflict of interest.  You can read about fee-only financial advisors and choosing a financial advisor on Investopedia."""
"""Avoiding Capital Gains Long Term""","""It's correct.   Be sure of your personal opportunity cost and not that you're letting the tax tail wag the dog just to score \""tax free\"".  Your upside is $3,700 (single) or $7,000 (married) in taxes saved until you're out of the 0% zone.  Is that worth not receiving an income? Even if your savings are such that you don't need to work for income for a fiscal year, how would this affect the rest of your career and lifetime total earning prospects?  Now, maybe: Otherwise, I'd hope you have solid contacts in your network who won't be fazed by a resume gap and be delighted to have a position open for you in 2019 (and won't give you the \""mother returning to the workforce\"" treatment in salary negotiations)."""
"""What impact does trading in a car have on your credit score?""","""Paying off your loan in full will most likely not help your credit score, and could potentially even hurt it. Because car loans are installment loans (and thus differ from consumer credit), lenders really only like seeing that you responsibly pay off your loans on time. They don't really care if you pay it off early--lenders like seeing open lines of credit as long as you manage them well. The hard inquiry will simply lower your credit score a few points for up to two years. So, from a credit score perspective, you're really not going to help yourself in this scenario (although it's not like you're going to be plummeting yourself either)."""
"""I've tracked my spending and have created a budget, now what do I do with it?""","""Use the budget to drive down spending so you can save (for retirement, for college, for expenses) and so you can pay off your mortgage early.  Some, (Dave Ramsey, for example) advocate for an \""Envelope system\""...  If your budget says 100 a month for restaurants, then at the beginning of the month, you put 100 into that envelope.  Once you've spent that much on restaurants that month, you're done for the month.  On the other hand, if you don't spend the 100, then you have two choices:  either you can adjust the budget downward and put the money somewhere else (like your Mortgage) or you can build up cash in that account so you can afford a really expensive restaurant in a few months."""
"""What's the most conservative split of financial assets for my portfolio in today's market?""","""If you can afford the time and are looking for more deep, and fun, investment tips, check out http:\/\/gurufocus.com. Great for more fundamental analysis of \""Intelligent Investor\"" type Benjamin Graham-style businesses.  No use scatter-shooting the stock exchange hoping to find good value businesses. Even blue-chips have an increasingly uncertain future (except IMHO certain world dominators like KO, WMT, XO and MCD)."""
"""Restricted Stock Grants - How to prepare tax return when you sell to cover taxes""","""You don't. When you sell them - your cost basis would be the price of the stock at which you sold the stocks to cover the taxes, and the difference is your regular capital gain."""
"""Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply?""","""In addition to all these great answers, check out the Wikipedia entry on options. The most important thing to note from their definition is that an option is a derivative (and nothing about any derivative is simple).  Because it is a derivative, increases or decreases in the price of the underlying stock won't automatically result in the same amount of change in the value of the option."""
"""Buying shares in a company after you quit""","""US law dictates that you cannot buy \/ sell shares in a company you   work for except during open trading windows. I understand lockout   periods when you're in a company but what about after you quit? There's no such law. Trading lockouts are imposed by companies themselves to avoid the complexities of identifying \""insiders\"". For large companies it sometimes is easier\/cheaper to assume everyone is insider instead of imposing internal data flow controls and limitations. For such companies, their internal policies would also manage how the employees who are leaving should be treated."""
"""Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined?""","""The previous answers have raised very good points, but I believe one facet of this has been neglected. While it's true that the total accessible supply of gold keeps growing(although rather slowly as was mentioned earlier) the fact remains that gold, like oil, is a non-renewable natural resource. So, at some point, we are going to run out of gold to mine. Due to this fact, I believe gold will always be highly valued. Of course it can certainly always fluctuate in value. In fact, I expect in the reasonably near future to see a decline in the price of gold due to investors selling it en masse to re-enter the stock market when the economy has recovered more substantially."""
"""Why do some people say a house \""not an investment\""?""","""With an investment, you tend to buy it for a very specific purpose, namely to make you some money. Either via appreciation (ie, it hopefully increases value after you take all the fees and associated costs into account, you sell the investment, realise the gains) or via a steady cashflow that, after you subtracted your costs, leaves you with a profit. Your primary residence is a roof over your head and first and foremost has the function of providing shelter for yourself and your family. It might go up in value, which is somewhat nice, but that's not its main purpose and for as long as you live in the house, you cannot realise the increase in value as you probably don't want to sell it. Of course the remortgage crowd would suggest that you can increase the size of the mortgage (aka the 'home atm') but (a) we all know how that movie ended and (b) you'd have to factor in the additional interest in your P&L calculation. You can also buy real estate as a pure investment, ie with the only objective being that you plan to make money on this. Normally you'd buy a house or an apartment with a view of renting it out and try to increase your wealth both due to the asset's appreciation (hopefully) and the rent, which in this scenario should cover the mortgage, all expenses and still leave you with a bit of profit. All that said, I've never heard someone use the reasoning you describe as a reason not to buy a house and stay in an apartment - if you need a bigger place for your family and can afford to buy something bigger, that falls under the shelter provision and not under the investment."""
"""Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash?""","""How to start is pretty simple.   With your next pay check set aside an amount and open a separate savings account.  Since this is an emergency fund - you want it someplace where you can get to the money quickly (so a CD or mutual fund is not good), but you want it in a separate account so that you don't accidentally use it.    Once the account is opened I'd recommend setting up an automatic transfer, or make it part of the direct deposit if you do that, so that you put in some money regularly (every pay check).  By adding to it regularly and not using it, you'll more quickly achieve your goal.   I'd recommend stopping, or slowing any retirement savings or other investing, until you get the emergency fund in place.  If you have an emergency, the money in the retirement fund isn't going to do you much good as it costs too much to do an early withdrawal.  The whole point of the emergency fund is to have liquidity when you need it so that you don't incur the costs of unplugging your longer term investments. Also don't worry overly much about making money on this money.  This isn't an investment it is there for emergencies."""
"""Should I get cash from credit card at 0% for 8 months and put it on loans?""","""Do you know how many people end up with an 18-21% rate on their credit card?  They started off with low teaser rates.  There was an article about it recently on Yahoo.  Mainly this comes from a lack of discipline, or an unforeseen emergency.  However, lets assume, that you are a bit uncommon and have iron discipline. It comes down to a math question.  What is the rate on your student loan?  I am going to assume 6%, and lets say that you are now paying interest.  So there is 7 months between now an then, you would pay $140 (4000 * .06\/12 * 7) in interest if you left it on the student loan. Typically there is not really a free lunch with the zero percent interest rate CC.  They often charge a 3% balance transfer fee, so you would pay that on the entire amount, about $120.   Is it worth the $20?  I would say not.   However, those simple calculations are not really correct.  Since you would have to pay the CC $588.6\/month to take care of this, you have to shrink the balance on the student loan to do a true apples to apples comparison.   So doing a little loan amortization, you can retire $4000 on the student loan only paying $583\/month, and paying a total of $80.40 in interest. So it would cost you money to do what you are suggesting if there is a 3% transfer fee.   Even if there is no transfer fee, you only save about $80 in interest.   If it was me, I would direct my energy in other areas, like trying to bring in more money to make this student loan go away ASAP. Oh and GO STEELERS!"""
"""How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?""","""The high frequency trading you reference has no adverse impact on individual investors - at least not in the \""going to take advantage of you\"" way that many articles imply. If anything, high-frequency trading is generally more helpful than harmful, adding liquidity to the system, although it can cause some volatility and \""noise\"" in volume and other data, and the sudden entrance or exit of this type of trading can drive some abnormal market movements. As to research and time needed for trading, most data suggests that the less you try to \""beat the market\"", the better you'll do.   Trade activity tends to be inversely related to returns, particularly for individuals.   Your best bet is likely to learn enough about investment risks to ensure you're comfortable with them, and invest in broadly diversified asset classes, regions, and sectors, and then mostly leave them alone, or rebalance annually.   You'll almost surely do a lot better that way than you will if you spend countless hours researching the \""right\"" stocks to buy."""
"""How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money?""","""If you have a single member LLC there is no need to separate expenses in this way since it is simply treated as part of the owner's normal tax returns.  This is the way I've been operating. Owner of Single-Member LLC   If a single-member LLC does not elect to be treated as a corporation, the LLC is a \""disregarded entity,\"" and the LLC's activities should be reflected on its owner's federal tax return. If the owner is an individual, the activities of the LLC will generally be reflected on: Form 1040 Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship) (PDF) Form 1040 Schedule E, Supplemental Income or Loss (PDF) Form 1040 Schedule F, Profit or Loss from Farming (PDF) An individual owner of a single-member LLC that operates a trade or business is subject to the tax on net earnings from self employment in the same manner as a sole proprietorship.   If the single-member LLC is owned by a corporation or partnership, the LLC should be reflected on its owner's federal tax return as a division of the corporation or partnership. https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/single-member-limited-liability-companies"""
"""How do credit union loans and dividends vs interest work?""","""A credit Union makes loans exactly the same ways a bank does. A portion of the money deposited in  checking, savings, money market, Certificate of Deposit, or IRA is then used to make loans for cars, boats, school, mortgages, 2nd mortgages, lines of credit... The government dictates the percentage of each type of deposit that must be held in reserve for non-loan transactions. The Credit Union members are the share holders of the \""company\"". There are no investors in the \""company\"" because the goal is not to make money. In general the entire package is better because there is no pressure to increase profits.  Fees are generally lower because they are there to discourage bad behavior, not as a way to make a profit off of the bad behavior.  Dividends\/interest are treated the same way as bank interest. The IRS forms are the same, and it is reported the same way. Some of bizarre rules they have to follow: maximum number of transactions between accounts, membership rules, are there because banks want to make it harder to be a member of a credit union."""
"""United States Treasury Not Endorsing Checks""","""1.Why is there no \""United States Treasury\"" endorsement? Why should there be, and what do you think it would look like? Some person at Treasury sitting at a desk all day signing \""Uncle Sam\""? At most you would expect to see some stamp, because it's clear that no person is going to sign all of these checks. 2.Can I have the check returned for proper endorsement? No, this is none of your business unless you have some serious reason to believe that someone other than the treasury cashed your check. (If that were really your concern, then you'd have a bigger issue than the endorsement.) 3.If I am required to endorse checks made out to me, why isn't the US Treasury? As others have noted, an endorsement is often not required as long as the name on the check matches a name on the account to which it is deposited.  Individual banks may have stricter rules, but that's between you and your bank."""
"""Why would people sell a stock below the current price?""","""Firstly, if a stock costs $50 this second, the bid\/ask would have to be 49\/50.  If the bid\/ask were 49\/51, the stock would cost $51 this second.  What you're likely referring to is the last trade, not the cost.  The last trading price is history and doesn't apply to future transactions. To make it simple, let's define a simple order book.  Say there is a bid to buy 100 at $49, 200 at $48, 500 at $47.  If you place a market order to sell 100 shares, it should all get filled at $49.  If you had placed a market order to sell 200 shares instead, half should get filled at $49 and half at $48.  This is, of course, assuming no one else places an order before you get yours submitted.  If someone beats you to the 100 share lot, then your order could get filled at lower than what you thought you'd get.  If your internet connection is slow or there is a lot of latency in the data from the exchange, then things like this could happen.  Also, there are many ECNs in addition to the exchanges which may have different order books.  There are also trades which, for some reason, get delayed and show up later in the \""time and sales\"" window. But to answer the question of why someone would want to sell low... the only reason I could think is they desire to drive the price down."""
"""Saving for a non-necessity""","""In the course of one's spending, it's not tough to find things that are going to be that expensive.  A median income is in the $50K range in the US. The diamond folk advertise that one should spend 3 month's salary on an engagement ring. Even with a decent income, I spent zero. My wife was practical, not interested in jewelry, and wanted a big house. The money went to the downpayment. The house cost 2.5 years salary at that time.  A car, even used, will cost some month's salary.  If that $50K earner is saving, has an emergency account, and is on track with their financial long term goals, a week's pay can buy a nice sized TV.  A nice vacation can cost a week's pay to a month's pay.  Your question is great, although it shows a concern that's typical very early on in one's career. There are related question here about \""how can I spend more?\"" They tend to come from someone living on a student budget that now has an adult's income from a desirable job. The answer is to sit down, list your monthly spending, properly budget a decent portion for savings, and see how much you have for frivolous spending. Keep in mind, it's easier to sock it away now. No house, no kids, etc. When we were first married, we lived on my wife's income (in effect) and socked mine away. The house tightened the budget, as did the kid.  In the end, the PS4 is less about the $400 than it is about the rest of your finances."""
"""Why would a stock opening price differ from the offering price?""","""The opening price is derived from new information received. It reflects the current state of the market. Opening Price Deviation (from Investopedia): Investor expectation can be changed by corporate announcements or   other events that make the news. Corporations typically make   news-worthy announcements that may have an effect on the stock price   after the market closes. Large-scale natural disasters or man-made   disasters such as wars or terrorist attacks that take place in the   afterhours may have similar effects on stock prices. When this   happens, some investors may attempt to either buy or sell securities   during the afterhours. Not all orders are executed during after-hours trading. The lack of   liquidity and the resulting wide spreads make market orders   unattractive to traders in after-hours trading. This results in a   large amount of limit or stop orders being placed at a price that is   different from the prior day\u2019s closing price. Consequently, when the   market opens the next day, a substantial disparity in supply and   demand causes the open to veer away from the prior day\u2019s close in the   direction that corresponds to the effect of the announcement, news or   event."""
"""What should I do with my paper financial documents?""","""Regarding your specific types: If you can't part with anything, sure, scan them. Also, there are lots of opportunities to sign up for eStatements with just about any financial provider.  They want you to sign up for them, because it reduces their expenses. If you still like having paper around (I do admit that it's comforting in a way) then you can usually prune your paper a bit by statement (getting rid of T&C boilerplate, advertisements, etc.) or by consolidation (toss monthly when the quarterly consolidation statement arrives; toss the quarterly when the yearly arrives)."""
"""Clarification on student expenses - To file the tax for the next year""","""Assuming here that you're talking about deducting your tuition as a below the line deduction as a business expense or similar, then it depends. Per 1.162-5, if the education: Then it qualifies as a legitimate business expense and is deductible.  If not - if you're going to school for a different career, such as someone employed as a waiter but going to school to get a degree in nursing, or someone employed as a teacher getting a law degree - then it's not; you'd have to qualify under one of the other (simpler, but lesser) credits. Read more on this topic at Tax topic 513. Note that the other most commonly applicable deduction - the above the line Tuition and Fees deduction - expired in 2016 and is not applicable (yet?) in 2017, and further would not require most of what you describe as it only counts tuition and fees paid directly to the institution and required as a condition of attendance, so books, parking, etc. don't count."""
"""Mortgage refinancing fees""","""2.5%? Whoa, you are being robbed there.  Straight-up, stripped-down, and bent-over-a-table robbed. Never agree to \""fees\"".  If they don't want to do the work to give you a loan, there are other lenders who do. Rarely agree to \""points\"".  If you know -- and I don't mean \""think\"", I mean \""know\"" -- if you know that you are going to hold that loan much longer than it would take to repay those points, then maybe.  For example, if they are charging one point to lower your rate 0.25%, you want to be totally sure you will stay in the house at least four years, and probably more like six or eight years before moving or refinancing. It's more-or-less OK to pay for the appraisal.  If something goes wrong with the loan application, the appraisal will be valid for a few more months, you can try again. I once had 14% cash for a down-payment.  The loan officer said if I could come up with 15%, the rate would be reduced by 0.25%.  To get the money, I took a \""reverse point\"", which paid me 1% but raised my the rate by 0.25%. The loan officer, who wasn't too bright, asked, \""Why did you do that?  The two things cancel each other out.\"" \""I did it,\"" I explained, \""because you paid me 1% of the value of my house to sign my name twice.\"""""
"""How to explain an income discrepancy to the IRS? ""","""The IRS doesn't tax \""increased wealth\"" They tax Revenue -- income.  If this money or property came to you as a gift, you would owe no tax on it but the giver probably would owe gift tax.  If it came to you as a loan, you would owe no tax on it but the lender would owe tax on any interest you pay (and must charge at least minimal interest, though they could give that to you as a gift and possibly not have it be taxable). But if came as payment for goods or services or investment or anything of that sort, and you aren't demonstrably tax-exempt, it is income and you are responsible for declaring it as such and paying tax on it."""
"""What traditionally happens to bonds when the stock market crashes?""","""The short answer is if you own a representative index of global bonds (say AGG) and global stocks (say ACWI) the bonds will generally only suffer minimally in even the medium large market crashes you describe.  However, there are some caveats. Not all bonds will tend to react the same way.  Bonds that are considered higher-yield (say BBB rated and below) tend to drop significantly in stock market crashes though not as much as stock markets themselves.  Emerging market bonds can drop even more as weaker foreign currencies can drop in global crashes as well. Also, if a local market crash is caused by rampant inflation as in the US during the 70s-80s, bonds can crash at the same time as markets.  There hasn't been a global crash caused by inflation after countries left the gold standard, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. Still, I don't mean to scare you away from adding bond exposure to a stock portfolio as bonds tend to have low correlations with stocks and significant returns.  Just be aware that these correlations can change over time (sometimes quickly) and depend on which stocks\/bonds you invest in."""
"""Bid\/ask spreads for index funds""","""First, what structure does your index fund have?  If it is an open-end mutual fund, there are no bid\/ask spread as the structure of this security is that it is priced once a day and transactions are done with that price.  If it is an exchange-traded fund, then the question becomes how well are authorized participants taking advantage of the spread to make the fund track the index well?  This is where you have to get into the Creation and Redemption unit construct of the exchange-traded fund where there are \""in-kind\"" transactions done to either create new shares of the fund or redeem out shares of the fund.  In either case, you are making some serious assumptions about the structure of the fund that don't make sense given how these are built. Index funds have lower expense ratios and are thus cheaper than other mutual funds that may take on more costs.  If you want suggested reading on this, look at the investing books of John C. Bogle who studied some of this rather extensively, in addition to being one of the first to create an index fund that became known as \""Bogle's Folly,\"" where a couple of key ones would be \""Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor\"" and \""Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor.\"" In the case of an open-end fund, there has to be a portion of the fund in cash to handle transaction costs of running the fund as there are management fees to come from running the fund in addition to dividends from the stocks that have to be carefully re-invested and other matters that make this quite easy to note.  Vanguard 500 Index Investor portfolio(VFINX) has .38% in cash as an example here where you could look at any open-end mutual fund's portfolio and notice that there may well be some in cash as part of how the fund is managed.  It\u2019s the Execution, Stupid would be one of a few articles that looks at the idea of \""tracking error\"" or how well does an index fund actually track the index where it can be noted that in some cases, there can be a little bit of active management in the fund. Just as a minor side note, when I lived in the US I did invest in index funds and found them to be a good investment.  I'd still recommend them though I'd argue that while some want to see these as really simple investments, there can be details that make them quite interesting to my mind. How is its price set then? The price is computed by taking the sum value of all the assets of the fund minus the liabilities and divided by the number of outstanding shares.  The price of the assets would include the closing price on the stock rather than a bid or ask, similar pricing for bonds held by the fund, derivatives and cash equivalents.  Similarly, the liabilities would be costs a fund has to pay that may not have been paid yet such as management fees, brokerage costs, etc. Is it a weighted average of all the underlying stock spreads, or does   it stand on its own and stems from the usual supply & demand laws ? There isn't any spread used in determining the \""Net Asset Value\"" for the fund.  The fund prices are determined after the market is closed and so a closing price can be used for stocks. The liabilities could include the costs to run the fund as part of the accounting in the fund, that most items have to come down to either being an asset, something with a positive value, or a liability, something with a negative value. Something to consider also is the size of the fund.  With over $7,000,000,000 in assets, a .01% amount is still $700,000 which is quite a large amount in some ways."""
"""Investing in real estate when the stock market is high, investing in stocks when it's low?""","""You're \""onto\"" something. Investing in real estate was not a bad idea about 10-15 years ago, when stocks were high, and real estate was not. On the other hand, by about 2006, BOTH stocks and real estate were high, and should have been avoided. And around 1980, both were LOW, and should have been bought. I expand this construct to include gold and oil. Around 2005, these were relatively low, and should have been bought over stocks and real estate. On the other hand, ALL FOUR are high right now, and offer comparable dangers."""
"""When is the right time to buy a new\/emerging technology?""","""When is the right time to buy a new\/emerging technology? When it's trading at a discount that allows you to make your money back and then some. The way you presented it, it is of course impossible to say. You have to look at exactly how much cheaper and efficient it will be, and how long that will take. Time too has a cost, and being invested has opportunity cost, so the returns must not only arrive in expected quantity but also arrive on time. Since you tagged this investing, you should look at the financial forecasts of the business, likely future price trajectories, growth opportunity and so on, and buy if you expect a return commensurate with the risk, and if the risk is tolerable to you. If you are new to investment, I would say avoid Musk, there's too much hype and speculation and their valuations are off the charts. You can't make any sensible analysis with so much emotion running wild. Find a more obscure, boring company that has a sound business plan and a good product you think is worth a try. If you read about it on mainstream news every day you can be sure it's sucker bait. Also, my impression that these panels are actually really expensive and have a snowball's chance in Arizona (heh) in a free market. Recently the market has been manipulated through green energy subsidies of a government with a strong environmentalist voter base. This has recently changed, in case you haven't heard. So the future of solar panels is looking a bit uncertain. I am thinking about buying solar panels for my roof. That's not an investment question, it's a shopping question. Do you actually need a new roof? If no, I'd say don't bother. Last I checked the payoff is very small and it takes over a decade to break even, unless you live in a desert next to the Mexican border. Many places never break even. Electricity is cheap in the United States. If you need a new roof anyway, I suppose look at the difference. If it's about the same you might as well, although it's guaranteed to be more hassle for you with the panels. Waiting makes no sense if you need a new roof, because who knows how long that will take and you need a roof now. If a solar roof appeals to you and you would enjoy having one for the price available, go ahead and get one. Don't do it for the money because there's just too much uncertainty there, and it doesn't scale at all. If you do end up making money, good for you, but that's just a small, unexpected bonus on top of the utility of the product itself."""
"""How do I calculate two standard deviations away from the stock price?""","""Standard Deviation is a mathematical term that is useful in many areas. It can be considered a measure of how tight the data points are to the average. If there is consistency in the measurement system, then a point that is two standard from the average can be considered an outlier. It doesn't even need to be time based. We can say that a child born weighing less than X pounds is more than 2 standard deviations below the average.  Using it to look at a price or an index value doesn't make a lot of sense because many expect there to be long term growth. For example you would never say that you will buy a new jacket for your child when they are two standard deviations above their average height. You can say you will buy or sell a financial instrument when the P\/E ratio is 2 standard deviations from some average. It could be the average of the long term history, or the index, or the sector. You could do the same thing for earnings per share or many other business of financial statistics. A standard deviation calculated from a time series assumes that the measurement will normally stay withing some bounds. And that straying from those bounds is a sign of the right time to buy or sell."""
"""How to convince someone they're too risk averse or conservative with investments?""","""(Leaving aside the question of why should you try and convince him...) I don't know about a very convincing \""tl;dr\"" online resource, but two books in particular convinced me that active management is generally foolish, but staying out of the markets is also foolish.  They are: The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk by William Bernstein, and A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time Tested-Strategy for Successful Investing by Burton G. Malkiel Berstein's book really drives home the fact that adding some amount of a risky asset class to a portfolio can actually reduce overall portfolio risk. Some folks won a Nobel Prize for coming up with this modern portfolio theory stuff. If your friend is truly risk-averse, he can't afford not to diversify.  The single asset class he's focusing on certainly has risks, most likely inflation \/ purchasing power risk ... and that risk that could be reduced by including some percentage of other assets to compensate, even small amounts. Perhaps the issue is one of psychology? Many people can't stomach the ups-and-downs of the stock market.  Bernstein's also-excellent follow-up book, The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, specifically addresses psychology as one of the pillars."""
"""When and how should I pay taxes on ForEx trades?""","""I don't know how taxes work in Israel, but I imagine it is relatively similar to taxes in the US. In the US you need to pay taxes on investment earnings when you sell them or in this case trade them for something of value. The amount that would typically would be taxed on would be the difference between how much you paid for the currency and the value of the item you traded it for.  In theory there shouldn't be any difference in trading bitcoins versus dollars or euros. Reality is that they are rather weird and I don't know what category they would fall into. Are they a currency or a collectors item? I think this is all rather hypothetical because there is no way for any government to track digital currencies and any taxes paid would be based on the honor system.  I am not an account and the preceding was not tax advice..."""
"""Is investing in an ETF generally your best option after establishing a Roth IRA?""","""When investing small amounts, you should consider the substantial toll that commissions will take on your investment. In your case, $800 placed in just one ETF will incur commissions of about $8 each way, or a total of 2% of your investment. I suggest you wait until you have at least $5000 to invest in stocks or ETFs. Since this is in a IRA, your options are limited, but perhaps you may qualify for a Vanguard mutual fund, which will not charge commissions and will have annual expenses only a trivial amount higher than the corresponding ETF. it should probably go in a mixed allocation fund, and since you are young, it should be a relatively aggressive one. Mutual funds will also allow you to contribute small amounts over time without incurring any extra fees."""
"""Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS""","""Etiquette doesn't really come into the picture here. The business offers a service and I choose to accept it. Personally, I use my debit card as much as possible. For every transaction, I record it in my checkbook. Then, when I do reconciling, I know exactly how much I paid for various categories of stuff. Good for budgeting. Most often my purchases are over $10 but when they aren't, I have no qualms about using the card."""
"""What is good growth?""","""In One Up on Wall Street, Peter Lynch suggested that there are six major aspects to choosing growth stocks:"""
"""Are American Eagle $20 gold coins considered \""securities\"", requiring dealers to be licensed to sell them as such?""","""No. Securities brokers\/dealers in the United States are licensed to broker debt and equity in corporations. (There are additional, commodities licenses to broker derivatives.) $20 American Eagle coins, or any other type of physical currency or physical precious metals can be traded or brokered by anyone without a specific license (except maybe a sales tax registration). The only situation where a securities license would be required is if a legal entity is holding the coins and you deal\/broker an interest in that legal entity. For example, dealing in SPDR Gold Shares or a similar structure holding either physical assets or the right to purchase those assets (like a commodity pool) would require a securities and\/or commodities dealing license."""
"""Why doesn\u2019t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes?""","""However, if you are employed by a company that exists in a tax haven and your services are provided to an employer by that tax haven company, it is the tax haven company that gets paid, not you. Under various schemes that company need not pay you at all. For example it may make you a loan which is not taxed (ie you don't pay tax on a loan, just as you don't pay tax on the money lent you by a mortgage company). You are bound by the terms of the loan agreement to repay that loan at a rate that the company finds acceptable. Indeed the company may find eventually that it is simply convenient to write off the loan as unrecoverable. if the owners\/officers of he company write off your loans, how much tax will you have paid on the money you have had as   loans? The taxman can of course state that this was simply set up to avoid tax (which is illegal) so you should have a balancing scheme to show that that the loans were taken to supplement income,just as one might take a bank loan \/ mortgage, not replace it entirely as a tax scam. Hiring tax counsel to provide this adequate proof to HMRC has a price.  Frequently this kind of loophole exists because the number of people using it were sufficiently low not to warrant policing ( if the policing costs more than the tax recovered, then it is more efficient to ignore it) or because at some stage the scheme has been perfectly legal (as in the old offshore'education' trust recommended by the government a few decades ago). When Gordon Brown set out a 75% tax rate (for his possibly ideological reasons rather than financially based ones)for those who had these accounts , he encountered opposition from MPs who were going to be caught up paying high tax bills for what was effctively retrospective taxation, so there was a built in 'loophole' to allow the funds to be returned without undue penalty.  If you think that is morally wrong, consider what the response would be if a future Chancellor was to declare all IAs the work of the devil and claim that retrospective tax would need to be paid on all ISA transactions over the last few decades.eg: tot up all the dividends and capital gains made on an ISA in any year and pay 40% tax on all of them, even if that took the ISA into negative territory because the value today was low\/ underperfoming. Yet this has been sggested as a way of filling in the hole in the budget on the grounds that anyone with an ISA can be represented as 'rich' to a selected party of voters."""
"""What effect would a company delisting from the LSE to move to china have on shareholders?""","""You would still be the legal owner of the shares, so you would almost certainly need to transfer them to a broker than supports the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (which allows you to trade on the Shanghai exchange). In order to delist they would need to go through a process which would include enabling shareholders to continue to access their holdings."""
"""I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?""","""I would have asked for the intended recipient's account number and pursue sending the money there. If it's the same as yours (except for one digit) that would be a good sign. But even here, the crook could send money to dozens of different accounts, all off by one digit, just to make it look authentic. I'm going with scam just to be safe. As for the checksum, it's used on paper checks (next to the last digit) but not necessarily the actual account. Credit card accounts use an algorithm, but online tools create as many legitimate character strings as you want. I used to work at a credit union, and when the time was just right, I opened account number 860000 (actual account number except for the second digit). All their account numbers were sequential, so the oldest account number was 000001. Sadly, many important systems are set up to meet the simple needs of the masses, and are easy to beat if you really want to. Check out If you dare hackers to hack you, they'll hack you good."""
"""offshoring work and tax dilemma""","""Generally for tax questions you should talk to a tax adviser. Don't consider anything I write here as a tax advice, and the answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer. Does IRS like one payment method over other or they simply don't care   as long as she can show the receipts? They don't care as long as she withholds the taxes (30%, unless specific arrangements are made for otherwise). She should withhold 30% of the payment and send it to the IRS. The recipient should claim refund, if the actual tax liability is lower. It's only consulting work at the moment, so most of the communication   is done over phone. Should they start engaging in written   communication to keep records of the work done? Yes, if she wants it to be a business expense. Is it okay to pay in one go to save money-transferring fees? Can she   pay in advance? Again, she can do whatever she wants, but if she wants to account for it on her tax returns she should do it the same way she would pay any other vendor in her business. She cannot use different accounting methods for different vendors. Basically, she has not outsourced work in previous years, and she   wants to avoid any red flags. Then she should start by calling on her tax adviser, and not an anonymous Internet forum."""
"""What are the pros and cons of investing in a closed-end fund?""","""The pros and cons of investing in a closed end fund both stem from the fact that the price per share is likely to differ from the net asset value (NAV) of the underlying assets. That could work to your advantage if the fund is selling for LESS than NAV, or at a discount. Then you get the \""benefit of the bargain\"" and hope to sell the shares in the future for \""par\"" or even a premium (MORE than NAV). On the other hand, if you buy such a fund at a premium, you stand to have a RELATIVE loss if the value of the fund goes back to par (or a discount) compared to NAV. That's because a closed end fund has a FIXED number of shares, with the assets continually being reinvested. In essence, you are \""buying out\"" an existing shareholder of the fund at a price determined by supply and demand. This differs from an OPEN end fund, in which your contribution creates NEW shares (all other things being equal). Then the fund, has to invest YOUR money (and charges you a fee for the service) on exactly a pro rata basis with other investors in the fund, meaning that you will enter and exit such a fund at \""par.\"" In either case, your return depends mainly on the performance of the underlying assets. But there are premium\/discount issues for investing in a closed end fund."""
"""Do I even need credit cards?""","""There are numerous reasons that go beyond the immediate requirement for access to credit.  Many people just plain don't like carrying cash. Before electronic debit cards became mainstream about the only way to pay for online services was with a credit card.  This has now changed just about everywhere except a large number of airlines which still only sell online tickets via a credit card payment. And then there are all those countries where governments (and some banks) have decided to charge merchants more when customers use debit cards.  If you don't like carrying cash then you may find that the only card you can use is a credit card. These concerns are gradually disappearing and at some stage someone is likely to offer a combined debit-credit card. At which point you'll probably get credit whether you like it or not."""
"""If I invest in securities denominated in a foreign currency, should I hedge my currency risk?""","""As the other answer already states, whether you should or shouldn't currency-hedge your equity investments depends on a lot of factors. If you decide to do so, depending on your investment vehicles, there might be a more cost-efficient way than arranging a separate futures contract with a bank: If you are open to (or are already investing in) ETFs, there are currency-hedged versions of some popular ETFs. These are hedged against the currency risk for a specific currency; for example, if you are buying in (and expecting to sell for) USD, you would buy an ETF hedged to USD. Of course they have a higher expense ratio than non-hedged ETFs since the costs of the necessary contracts are included in the expenses."""
"""How to file tax for the sale of stocks from form 1099B?""","""You can group your like-kind (same symbol, ST\/LT) stock positions, just be sure that your totals match the total dollar amounts on the 1099.  An inconsistency will possibly result in a letter from IRS to clarify. So, if you sold the 100 shares, and they came from 7 different buys, list it once.  The sell price and date is known, and for the buy price, add all the buys and put \""Various\"" for the date. If you have both long term and short term groups as part of those 7 buys, split them into two groups and list them separately."""
"""Simplifying money management""","""Track your spending and expected income -- on paper, or with a personal-finance program. If you know how much is committed, you know how much is available. Trivial with checks, requires a bit more discipline with credit cards."""
"""Treasury Bonds, and why has the NYSE 20+ Year Treasury Bond index (AXTWEN) gone up so much in the last year (2011)?""","""The price of a bond goes up when yields go down.  For example, you purchase a 5% bond today for $100 and the very next day the same bond is being offered with a rate of 10%.  Will you be able to sell you bond for the $100 you paid?  No, you must compete with the 10% bonds being sold so you will have to sell your bond for less than the $100 you paid to compete with the new bonds being sold.  Thus, bond prices are inversely related to bond yields. The 20-year index you cited tracks bond prices and bond prices have gone up over the last 10 years which means bond yields have gone down.  Why have bond prices gone up?  Demand.  More investors are moving their savings into bonds.  Why?  I believe there a couple of reasons.  One, US Treasuries are thought to be one of the safest investments.  With the financial crisis and increased stock market volatility (see chart below) more investors are allocating more of their portfolios to safer investments.  Two, a large portion of the US population is approaching retirement (see chart below).  These folks are not interested in watching their retirement portfolios potentially shrink in the stock market so they move into bonds."""
"""How do i get into investing stocks [duplicate]""","""50 (dollars, Euros?) is a very small amount to invest. The first time I ever bought stock I picked a winner. It went up by about 40% in the first few months. I sold it and lost money. How? I only bought 10 shares at $7.50 each. The profit was less than the two commissions for buying and selling (about $17 a piece). If you are thinking of buying individual stocks, You simply need to save up more money before it will be practical. If you are not trying to beat the market, which is probably not something an amateur like you or I should attempt, then you should consider low cost index funds. I have money in mutual funds, some of which, have as low as a $100 minimum investment. I have moved entirely away from picking stocks. It was a good experience and I could afford to lose the money, but as a long term strategy, it just was not working for me. Note: This is coming from an American. If this somehow does not apply in Europe..."""
"""Will my current employer find out if I have a sole proprietarship\/corporation?""","""I would have thought that if you are doing it in your own time using your own resources it really has nothing to do with your current employer, so there is really no need at all to keep it from them. By being open and transperant you might even get some business from your work mates."""
"""Can an unmarried couple buy a home together with only one person on the mortgage?""","""There is no issue whatsoever, getting a mortgage this way as an unmarried couple. This is very similar to what I did while my wife and I were engaged. We we're on the title as joint tenants. I would expect them to have her as a signee to the mortgage.  She won't be able to claim 50% ownership and make things hard on the lender. The title will be contingent on the mortgage being paid. What will be harder is if you guys decide to split. It's not at all uncommon for unmarried couples to buy a house together. Find a broker and get their advice."""
"""Can saving\/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire?""","""I'll offer another answer, using different figures. Let's assume 6% is the rate of return you can expect.  You are age 25, and plan to retire at age 65.  If you have $0 and want $1M at retirement, you will need to put away $524.20\/month, or $6,290.40\/year, which is 15% of $41,936.  So $41,936 is what you'd need to make per year in order to get to your target. You can calculate your own figures with a financial calculator:  480 months as your term (or, adjust this to your time horizon in months), .486755% as your interest (or, take your assumed interest rate + 1 to the 1\/12th power and subtract 1 to convert to a monthly interest rate), 0 as your PV, and $1M as your FV; then solve for PMT."""
"""Is there an investment account where I can owe taxes only if the net of capital gain and dividend payment is positive?""","""Income and Capital are taxed separately in the uk.  You probably can't get dividends paid  gross even in ISA's you pay the basic rate of tax on dividends only higher rate tax payers get tax benefit from dividends. What you could do is invest in splits (Spilt capital investment trusts ) in the share class where all the return comes as capital and use up some of your yearly CGT allowance that way."""
"""Home owners association for houses, pro\/cons""","""I think it depends a lot on your idea of how you should relate to your neighbors. Personally, I think that I should be allowed to do just about whatever I want with my property, and I grant my neighbor the same right. If my neighbor wants to paint his house purple with orange stripes and fill his front lawn with pink flamingos, I think that's his right. If I don't like it, I don't have to look at his house. (I would draw the line at things that I cannot avoid by simply looking the other way, like running jet engines in his back yard at 2 in the morning, as I could not avoid the noise. Or dumping toxic waste on the street, as it will cause health problems. Etc.) Others think it IS their business what their neighbor does with his property and want to be able to control it. They want someone who has the authority to force everyone in the neighborhood to paint their house in colors deemed acceptable, to meet certain requirements for yard work. And that's what Home Owners Associations are for: to require that everyone in the neighborhood maintain their property according to a standard set by the HOA, which should theoretically represent the wishes of the majority. Of course the price you pay for giving you the right to tell your neighbor what kind of fence he is allowed to have is that now your neighbors can tell you what kind of fence you can have. Advocates of HOAs often say that they are necessary to protect property values. Personally I think this is something of a circular argument: I must have the right to prevent my neighbor from doing something that, in my opinion, makes his house ugly, not because I necessarily have no choice but to stare out my window at his house all day and be repulsed by it, but because someday I may want to sell my house to someone who will have no choice but to stare out the window at his house all day and be repulsed by it and so will not want to buy my house. Of course if we all just minded our own business, this wouldn't be an issue. Okay, this was pretty much an anti-HOA post, but I did TRY to state the other side of it."""
"""Paid by an American company but working from France: where should I pay taxes?""","""There's nothing wrong with your reasoning except that you expect the tax laws to make perfect sense. More often than not they don't. I suggest getting in touch with a professional tax preparer (preferably with a CPA or EA designation), who will be able to understand the issue, including the relevant portions of the French-US tax treaty, and explain it to you. You will probably also need to do some reporting in France, so get a professional advice from a French tax professional as well. So, in my tax return, can I say that I had no US revenue at all during   this whole year? I doubt it."""
"""What should I be doing to protect myself from identity theft?""","""Here are a handful of measures I take myself: I check my credit reports once in a while and look for anything out of the ordinary. If somebody calls me on the telephone claiming to be from my bank or credit card company, utility, etc. I ask for their number, check it, and call them back.  I don't give personal information to people merely claiming to be from a place I do business with. I never fill out ballots for free contests.  Most of the time these are scams.  When I get a call telling me \""you won a free cruise\"" for a ballot I supposedly filled out at the mall, I say they're lying through their teeth.  For excitement, I'll sometimes buy a lotto ticket instead. I'm careful when I surf the web.  I don't give my personal information to web sites I can't trust.  If they look the least bit shady, I'm out.  Also, I use different passwords at different web sites.  I avoid using a password from a public terminal, but when I must, I change my password soon after. I'm careful when I download software.  I don't install anything I didn't get from a trusted source.  I pay for software when necessary, so finding a trusted source is not hard.  But, I've heard of people who \u2013 to save a buck \u2013 would download a pirated application from a shady warez site only to be \""gifted\"" a trojan horse key logging or other spyware along with it. When I no longer need a bill, receipt, statement, etc. or any document containing personal information, I shred it, and I use a shredder that does a micro-cut, not just a strip- or cross-cut.  The micro-cut remains go in the green bin with wet and yucky organic waste. When I no longer need a hard drive, I use a secure wiping tool like Darik's Boot & Nuke before reusing.  If the drive isn't worth reusing, I'll wipe first then take apart with my Torx screwdriver.  Once I have the drive platter, I scratch the heck out of it.  Remains go to the community recycling depot. That's all I can think of right now; I probably missed a few :-) So, what do others do?  I'm curious, too."""
"""First Job, should I save or invest?""","""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."""
"""Why ever use a market order?""","""The original poster's concern is valid.  Sometimes, market orders do get executed at seemingly ridiculous prices. In addition to Victor's reasons for using a market order, sometimes a seller does not care how low the price is.  For example, after a company goes broke, its stock continues to trade for a while.  This allows shareholders to realize their losses for tax purposes, and allows short-sellers to close out their positions.  A shareholder who is trying to realize a 10 dollar per share loss for tax purposes probably does not care whether he gets 10 cents per share or 0.001 cents per share, so a sell-at-market order makes sense."""
"""Technical Analysis: the concepts of overbought \/ oversold don't make sense""","""Investopedia's explanation of overbought: An asset that has experienced sharp upward movements over a very short period of time is often deemed to be overbought. Determining the   degree in which an asset is overbought is very subjective and can   differ between investors. Technicians use indicators such as the relative strength index, the stochastic oscillator or the money flow index to identify securities   that are becoming overbought. An overbought security is the opposite of one that is oversold. Something to consider is the \""potential buyers\"" and \""potential sellers\"" of a stock. In the case of overbought, there are many more buyers that have appeared and driven the price to a point that may be seen as \""unsustainably high\"" and thus may well come down soon if one looks at the first explanation. For oversold, consider the flip side of this. A real life scenario here would be to consider airline tickets where a flight may be \""overbooked\"" that could also be seen as \""oversold\"" in that more tickets were sold than seats that are available and thus people will be bumped as not all tickets can be honored in this case. For a stock scenario of \""oversold\"" consider how IPOs work where several buyers have to exist to buy the shares so the investment bank isn't stuck holding them which sends up the price since the amount wanted by the buyers may be more than what can be sold. The price shifts in bringing out more of one side than the other is the point you are missing. In shifting the price up, this attracts more sellers to satisfy the buyers. However, if there is a surge of buyers that flood the market, then there could be a perception that the security is overbought in the sense that there may be few buyers left for the security and thus the price may fall in the near term. If the price is coming down, this attracts more buyers to achieve the other side. The potential part is what you don't see and I wonder if you can imagine this part of the market. The airline example I give as an example as you don't seem to think either side of buying or selling can be overloaded. In the case of an oversold flight, there were more seats sold than available so yes it is possible. Stocks exist in finite quantities as there are only X shares of a company trading at any one time if you look into the concept of a float."""
"""Is there any downside to using temporary credit card numbers with subscription services?""","""I did just what you suggest. The card company honored the charge, they told me the temporary number was solely for the purpose of assigning a number to one vendor\/business. So even though I set a low limit, the number was still active and the card company paid the request. Small price to pay, but it didn't go as I wished.    For this purpose, I've used Visa\/Mastercard gift cards. They are often on sale for face value and no additional fees."""
"""Sell your home and invest in growth stock mutual fund""","""It wouldn't surprise me to see a country's return to show Inflation + 2-4%, on average. The members of this board are from all over the world, but those in a low inflation country, as the US,Canada, and Australia are right now, would be used to a long term return of 8-10%, with sub 2% inflation.  In your case, the 20% return is looking backwards, hindsight, and not a guarantee. Your country's 10 year bonds are just under 10%. The difference between the 10% gov bond and the 20% market return reflects the difference between a 'guaranteed' return vs a risky one.  Stocks and homes have different return profiles over the decades. A home tends to cost what some hour's pay per month can afford to finance.  (To explain - In the US, the median home cost will center around what the median earner can finance with about a week's pay per month. This is my own observation, and it tends to be correct in the long term. When median homes are too high or low compared to this, they must tend back toward equilibrium.)  Your home will grow in value according to my thesis, but an investment home has both value that can rise or fall, as well as the monthly rent. This provides total return as a stock had growth and dividends.  Regardless of country, I can't predict the future, only point out a potential flaw in your plan."""
"""Can I negotiate a 0% transaction fee with my credit card company?""","""TL;DR summary: 0% balance transfer offers and \""free checks usable anywhere\""   rarely are a good deal for the customer. 0% rate balance transfer offers (and the checks usable anywhere including payment of taxes) come with a transaction fee because the credit card company is paying off the balance on the other card (or the tax or the electric bill) in the full amount of $X as stated on the other card statement or on the tax\/electric bill). This is in contrast to a purchase transaction where if you buy something for $X, you pay the card company $X but the card company pays the merchant something less than $X$. (Of course, the merchant has jacked up the sale price of the item to pass on the charge to you.) Can you get the credit card company to waive the transaction fee? You can try asking them but it is unlikely that you will succeed if your credit score is good! I have seen balance transfer offers with no transaction fees made to people who have don't have good credit scores and are used to carrying a balance  on their credit cards. I assume that the company making the offer knows that it will make up the transaction fee from future interest payments. A few other points to keep in mind with respect to using a 0% balance transfer offer to pay off a student loan (or anything else for that matter):"""
"""Is it better to use DRIP or invest when stock drops before ex-date?""","""Yes you can do that and it it wise to do so. However, you should make sure that the general trend of the stock is upwards and you buy during a trought in the uptrend. So basically if the stock is making higher highs and higher lows on the daily or weekly charts, then you would want to buy around one of the higher lows before the ex-dividend date. If the stock is making lower lows and lower highs, then it is in a downtrend, so never buy in this instance. It is better to miss out on a dividend of $1 rather than to buy just for this $1 dividend and lose $5 or more when the price continues to drop further."""
"""Creating a personal company ""","""You're confusing so many things at once here...... First thing first: we cannot suggest you what to do business-wise since we have no idea about your business. How on Earth can anyone know if you should sell the software to someone or try to distribute to customers yourself? How would we know if you should hire employees or not? If you say you don't need employees - why would you consider hiring them? If you say you want to sell several copies and have your own customers - why would you ask if you should sell your code to someone else? Doesn't make sense. Now to some more specific issues: I heard sole proprietary companies doesn't earn more than 250k and   it's better to switch to corporation or LLC etc. because of benefits. I heard it was snowing today in Honolulu. So you heard things. It doesn't make them true, or relevant to you. There's no earning limit above which you should incorporate. You can be sole proprietor and make millions, and you can incorporate for a $10K\/year revenue business. Sole proprietorship, incorporation (can be C-Corp or S-Corp), or LLC - these are four different types of legal entity to conduct business. Each has its own set of benefits and drawbacks, and you must understand which one suits you in your particular situation. For that you should talk to a lawyer who could help you understand what liability protection you might need, and to a tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your state) who can help you understand the tax-related costs and benefits of each choice. On the other hand I heard that if I create LLC company, in case of   failure, they can get EVERYTHING from me, what's this all about? No. This is not true. Who are \""they\"", how do you define \""failure\"", and why would they get anything from you at all? Even without knowing all that, your understanding is wrong, because the \""LL\"" in LLC stands for LIMITED liability. The whole point of forming LLC or Corporation is to limit your own personal liability. But mere incorporation or forming LLC doesn't necessarily mean your liability is limited. Your State law defines what you must do for that limited liability protection, and that includes proper ways to run your business. Again - talk to your lawyer and your tax adviser about what it means to you. I'm totally unfamiliar with everything related to   taxes\/companies\/LLC\/corporation etc Familiarize yourself. No-one is going to do it for you. Start reading, ask specific questions on specific issues, and get a proper legal and tax advice from licensed professionals."""
"""What is the purpose of endorsing a check?""","""So the bank can (theoretically) compare that signature to the ID you provide, showing that the names and signatures match and that you are the person to whom the check was written."""
"""Do I owe taxes if my deductions are higher than my income?""","""I'm going to echo Phil and say that you should add more information. That being said, I think it is possible for you to owe the government that much. If you received a federal health insurance subsidy and live in a state that didn't expand medicaid, you could have received a subsidy through out the year that you did not end up qualifying for. It appears you are outside the medicaid limit of 133% of the poverty level($11,670) or $15,521. If you received a subsidy of $275 a month from the marketplace, you would have received $3300 worth of aid from the government that you don't qualify for. Now they are expecting you to pay it back."""
"""Can There Be Partial Trade Fill Percentage?""","""I place a trade, a limit order on a thinly traded stock. I want to buy 1000 shares at $10. The current price is $10.50. Someone places a market order for 500 shares. Another trader has a limit order for $10.10 for 400 shares. His order fills, and I get 100 at my price. I wait another day to see if I get any more shares. This is just an example of how it can work. I can place my order as \""all or none\"" if I wish to avoid this."""
"""Buying a small amount (e.g. $50) of stock via eToro \""Social Trading Network\"" using a \""CFD\""?""","""As many people here have pointed out, a CFD is a contract for difference. When you invest in stock at eToro, you buy a CFD reflecting a bid on the price movement of the underlying stock, however, you do not actually own the stock or hold any rights shareholders have. The counterparty to the CFD is eToro. When you close your position, eToro shall pay you the amount representing the difference between your buy and sell price for each stock.  I suggest you read the following article about CFDs, it explains everything clearly and thoroughly: http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/stocks\/09\/trade-a-cfd.asp#axzz2G9ZsmX3A As some of the responders have pointed out, and as is mentioned in the article, a broker can potentially misquote the prices of underlying assets in order to manipulate CFDs to their advantage. However, eToro is a highly reputable broker, with over 2 million active accounts, and we guarantee accurate stock quotes. Furthermore, eToro is regulated in Europe (Germany, UK, France, etc.) by institutions that exact strict regulations on the CFD trading sector, and we are obligated to comply with these regulations, which include accurate price quoting.  And of course, CFD trading at eToro has tremendous benefits. Unlike a direct stock investment, eToro allows you to invest as much or as little as you like in your favorite stocks, even if the amount is less than the relevant stock price (i.e. fraction stocks). For example:  if you invest $10 in Microsoft, and on the day of execution eToro\u2019s average aggregated price was $30 after a spread of 0.1%, you will then have a CFD representing 0.33 stocks of Microsoft in your eToro account. In addition, with eToro you can invest in stock in the context of a social trading network, meaning that you can utilize the stock trading expertise of other trader to your advantage by following them, learning their strategies, and even copying their stock investments automatically. To put it briefly, you won\u2019t be facing the stock market alone!  Before you make a decision, I suggest that you try stock trading with an eToro demo account. A free demo account grants you access to all our instruments at real market rates, as well as access to our social network where you can view and participate in trader discussions about trading stocks with eToro, all without risking your hard earned money. Bottom line \u2013 it\u2019s free, there are no strings attached, and you can get a much firmer idea of what trading stocks with eToro is like. If you have any further questions, please don\u2019t hesitate to contact us through our site: www.etoro.com."""
"""What's a good way to find someone locally to help me with my investments?""","""Dave Ramsey has a list of ELPs (Endorsed Local Providers) of which I've only heard good things.  You can request an investment ELP here."""
"""Why pay estimated taxes?""","""In addition to the other answers, which cover the risks of what is essentially leveraged investing, I'd like to point out that the 2.6% penalty is a flat rate. If you are responsible for withholding your own taxes then you are paying tax four times a year. So any underpayment on your first quarterly tax payment will have much more time to accrue in the stock market than your last payment, although each underpayment will be penalized by the 2.6%. It may make sense for someone to make full payments on later payments but underpay on earlier ones."""
"""does one have to keep stock until the dividend payment date to get the dividend? (Record Date vs Payment Date) [duplicate]""","""You only have to hold the shares at the opening of the ex-dividend date to get the dividends. So you can actually sell the shares on ex-dividend date and still get the dividends. Ex-dividend date occurs before the record date and payment date, so you will get the dividend even if you sold before the record date."""
"""Top 3 things to do before year end for your Stock Portfolio?""","""Bonus: Contribute to (or start!) your IRA for 2010.  This doesn't have to be done have to be done by the end of the year; you can make your 2011 contribution in 2010, before you file your tax return (by Apr. 15 at the latest, even if you get an extension.)"""
"""What is the buy-hold-sell indication based on?""","""It is simply an average of what each analyst covering that stock are recommending, and since they usually only recommend Hold or Buy (rarely Sell), the value will float between Hold and Buy. Not very useful IMHO."""
"""Are parking spaces and garage boxes a good investment?""","""In Italy (even with taxes that are more than 50% on income) owning garages is generally a good business, as you said: \""making money while you sleep\"", because of no maintainance. Moreover garages made by real concrete (and not wood like in US) are still new after 50 years, you just repaint them once every 20 years and you change the metal door gate once every 30 years. After 20 years you can be sure the price of the garage will be higher than what you paied it (at least for the effect of the inflation, after 20 years concrete and labour work will cost more than today). The only important thing before buying it is to make sure it is in an area where people are eager to rent it. This is very common in Italian cities' downtown because they were built in dark ages when cars did not exists, hence there are really few available parkings."""
"""Should we buy a house, or wait?""","""You are very young, you make a huge amount of money, and you have (from what information you provide) very little debt. If you simply want to buy a house for whatever reason, sure, but be honest with yourself about why you want to buy it. I see a lot of people who think they're doing it for smart financial reasons, but then when I ask them about their pension savings and credit card debts and so on, there is no evidence that they are actually the kind of person who makes decisions for smart financial reasons. If you want a house because that seems like the thing that people do, maybe you could think more about what you actually want. If your concern is putting your money to work for you (you seem to dislike that you pay rent each month and after that month you don't have anything to show for your money, except of course that you didn't spent the last month living on the streets), you can do a lot better than getting a mortgage. For example, living frugally you should be able to dump 50k a year into investments; if you did that for a few years, you could reasonably expect the return to cover your rent and bills in a surprisingly small number of years (a lot less than a 25 year mortgage). Your question seems to be starting from the position that you should buy a house. You're asking if you should buy it now, or wait. You are rich enough now (and if your earnings keep going up, will be even more rich in a few years) that you should perhaps question your need to buy a house. With your kind of money, at this stage of your life, you can do a lot better."""
"""Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do?""","""I would even say 1% is not even reasonable in this age.  The short answer is there probably isn't much you can do directly.  However, there are a few things to consider:"""
"""How are stock buybacks not considered insider trading?""","""The reason that stock buybacks are not considered insider trading is because the offers are open to all on equal terms to everyone outside the company. Even if the company knows \""inside\"" information, it's not supposed to tell it (and company executives are not allowed to tender shares, unless they had previously set up a \""blind\"" selling program on a\""schedule.\"") If that's actually the case, no one investor is better informed than another, and hence there is no insider trading. The issue of inside trading is that \""insiders\"" ARE better informed."""
"""How should I report my RSUs in my tax return""","""Your employer should send you a statement with this information. If they didn't, you should still be able to find it through E*Trade. Navigate to: Trading & Portfolios>Portfolios. Select the stock plan account. Under \""Restricted Stock\"", you should see a list of your grants. If you click on the grant in question, you should see a breakdown of how many shares were vested and released by date. It will also tell you the cost basis per share and the amount of taxes withheld. You calculate your cost basis by multiplying the number of released shares by the cost basis per share. You can ignore the ordinary income tax and taxes withheld since they will already have been included on your W2 earnings and withholdings. Really all you need to do is report the capital gain or loss from the cost basis (which if you sold right away will be rather small)."""
"""How much lump sum investment in stocks would be needed to yield a target stable monthly income?""","""If your requirements are hard (must have $1000\/month, must have the same or bigger in capital at the end), stocks are a poor choice of investment. However, in many cases, people are willing to tolerate some level of risk to achieve the expected returns. You also do not mention inflation, which can take quite a lot out of your portfolio over the course of ten years. If we make some simplifying assumptions, you want to generate $12,000 a year. You can realistically expect the (whole) stock market, long term (i.e. over time periods substantially longer than 10 years), to return approximately 4 - 5% after factoring in inflation. That means an investment of $240,000 - $300,000 (the math is simplified somewhat here). If you don't care about inflation, you can up the percentage rather somewhat. According to this article, the S&P 500 returned an average of 11.31% from 1928 through 2010 (not factoring in inflation), which would require an investment of approximately $106,100. But! This opens you up to substantial risk. The stock market may go down 30% this year! According to the above article, the S&P returned only 3.54% from 2001 to 2010. Long-term, it goes up, but your investment case is really unsuited to investing in an index to the entire stock market given your requirements. You may be better suited investing primarily in stable bonds, or perhaps a mix of bonds and stocks. Alternatively, you may want to consider even more stable investments such as treasury notes. Treasury notes are all but guaranteed, but with a lousy rate of return. Heck, you could consider a GIC (that may be Canada-only) or even a savings account. There's also the possibility of purchasing an annuity, though almost everyone will advise against such. Personally, I'd go for a mutual fund which invested approximately 70% bonds and the rest in stocks over such a time period. Something like ING Direct's Streetwise Balanced Income Portfolio, if you were in Canada. It substantially lowers your expected return but also lowers your risk. I can't honestly say what the expected return there is; at this point, it's returned 4% per year (before inflation), but has been around only since the beginning of 2008. And to be clear, this is absolutely not free of risk."""
"""online personal finance software that I can host myself""","""You can use www.mint.com for most of your requirements. It works great for me, it's free and I'd say is secure. Hosting that kind of service just for your will be time-consuming and not necessarily more secure than most of the stuff that is readily available out there. Good luck."""
"""Are precious metals\/collectibles a viable emergency fund?""","""If you were asking if you should buy silver for an emergency fund, I'd say no. But, you already have it...  Note: I wrote most of the below under the assumption that this is silver bullion coins\/bars; it didn't occur to me till the end that it could be jewelry.  Both of you have good arguments for your points of view. Breaking it down: Her points 1. A very good point. And while she may not be irresponsible, maybe the invisibility of it is good for her psychology? It's her's, so her comfort is important here. 2. Good. Make sure it's explicitly listed on the policy. 3. Bad. I think it will as well, at least the long run. But, this is not a good reason for an emergency fund -- the whole point of which is to be stable in case of emergencies. 4. Good. Identity theft is a concern, though unless her info is already \""out there\"", it's insufficient for the emergency fund. And besides, she could keep cash. Your points 1. Iffy. On the one hand, you're right. On the other hand, Cyprus. It is good to remember that money in accounts is in someone else's control, not yours, as the Cypriots found out to their chagrin. And of course, it can't happen here, but that's what they thought too. There is value in having some hard assets physically in your control. Think of it as an EMERGENCY emergency fund. Cash works too, but precious metals are better for these mega-upheaval scenarios. Again, find out how having such an EMERGENCY fund would make her feel. Does having that give her some comfort? A gift from a family member of this much silver leads me to assume that her family might have a little bit of a prepper culture. If so, then even if she is not a prepper herself, she may derive some comfort from having it, just in case -- it'll be baked into her background. Definitely a topic to discuss with her. 2. Excellent point. This is precisely why you want your emergency fund in some form of cash. 3. Bad. You can walk into any pawn shop and sell it in a heartbeat. Or you can send it in to a company and have cash in days. 4. Bad. If you know a savings account that pays 3%-4%, please, please, please tell me where it is so I can get one. Fact is, all cash instruments pay negligible interest now, and all such savings are being eroded by inflation. 5. Maybe. There is value to looking at your net worth this way, but my experience has been that those that do take it way too far. I think there's more value at looking at allocation within a few broad \""buckets\"" -- emergency fund, savings (car, house, college, etc), and retirement fund. If this is to be an EMERGENCY fund, as per point #1, then you should look at it as its own bucket (and maybe add a little cash too).      Another thought to add: This is a gift from a family member -- they gave her a lot of silver. Of course it's your SO's now, and she can do whatever she wants with it, but how would the family member react if she did liquidate it? If that family member is a prepper, and gave her this with the emotional desire to see her prepped, they may be upset if she sold it. It just occurred to me this may be jewelry. Your SO may not have sentimental attachment to it, but what about the family member's sentiments? They may not like to see family silver they loving maintained and passed on casually discarded for mere cash by your SO. Another thing to discuss with her.      Wrap up Generally, you are right about not keeping a 6 month emergency fund in silver. But there are other factors to consider here. There's also the fact that it's already bought -- the cost of buying (paying over market) has already been taken.  Edit -- so it's silverware Ah, so it's silverware. Well, scratch everything, except how the family member feels about, which now looms large.  This doesn't have much value as an emergency fund. Nor really as an investment. If you did keep it as an investment, think of it as an investment in collectibles\/art, less so in precious metals. If no one will get upset, I'd say pick out the nicest set to keep for special occasions, and sell the rest. Find out first if it has collectible or historical value. It may be worth far more than the pure weight in silver. Ebay might be the way to go to sell it."""
"""Remortgaging my home to release capital for second property""","""I've had a hard time finding out details on remortgaging Help to Buy loans myself, but found one article (http:\/\/www.thisismoney.co.uk\/money\/mortgageshome\/article-3038831\/Help-Buy-borrowers-risk-missing-best-remortgage-deals.html) which points out it IS possible.  But also that there aren't many lenders offering such deals out there.  The article lists a number of lenders that do offer these programs, and the extra requirements on equity you might have to have. It sounds like it's going to be critical to know how much equity you've built up.   Since part of the valuation increase will be credited to Help to Buy, you won't get all the \u00a330k increase you've mentioned.  Instead, I believe you'll only get 80%, so \u00a324k.   Which would mean your total equity is \u00a324k + \u00a37k = \u00a331k, plus whatever you might have already paid off.  I'm going to assume there isn't much you've paid off, so will assume just over 18%. (31\/170) While this is higher than most of the equity limits mentioned in the above article, keep in mind you'd only get cash out corresponding to the difference between your current equity amount and the equity required for the loan.  For example, if you went with a loan requiring 15% equity to qualify, you'd only have 3% over that, and thus get \u00a35.1k out.   And that's before any fees you might have to pay!  (You might have new origination fees, but you also might have early repayment fees.) Maybe you could pursue a lower money down refi and get to keep more, but the same article points out that Help to Buy might consider that too risky for you, and refuse to allow the refi. I think it's worth shopping around to get actual numbers for your exact situation, but personally it doesn't sound like you have enough equity yet to get much cash out of a refi.  Perhaps you'll get lucky though.  Best of luck!"""
"""How to calculate average drawdown of a trading system?""","""First of all, I think I'll clear off some confusion in the topic. The Sterling Ratio is a very simple investment portfolio measurement that fits nicely to the topic of personal finance, although not so much to a foreign exchange trading system. The Sterling Ratio is mainly used in the context of hedge funds to measure its risk-reward ratio for long term investments. To do so, it has been adapted to the following in order to appear more like the Sharpe Ratio:  I Suppose this is why you question the Average Largest Draw-down. I'll come back to that later. It's original definition, suggested by the company Deane Sterling Jones, is a little different and perhaps the one you should use if you want to measure your trading system's long term risk-reward ratio, which is as followed:  Note: Average Annual Draw-down has to be negative on the above-mentioned formula. This one is very simple to calculate and the one to use if you want to measure any portfolio's long-term results, such an example of a 5 or 10 years period and calculate the average of each years largest drawdown. To answer @Dheer's comment, this specific measurement can also be used in personal investments portfolio, which is considered a topic related to personal finance. Back to the first one, which answers your question. It's used in most cases in investment strategies, such as hedging, not trading systems. By hedging I mean that in these cases long term investments are made in anti-correlated securities to obtain a diversified portfolio with a very stable growth. This one is calculated normally annually because you rely on the Annual Risk-Free Rate. Having that in mind I think you can guess that the Average Largest Drawdown is the average between the Largest\/Maximum Drawdown from each security in the portfolio. And this doesn't make sense in a trading system. Example: If you have invested in 5 different securities where we calculated the Largest Draw-down for each, such as represented in the following array: MaxDD[5] = { 0.12, 0.23, 0.06, 0.36, 0.09 }, in this case your Average Largest Draw-down is the average(MaxDD) that equals 0.172 or 17,2% If your portfolio's annual return is 15% and the Risk-free Rate is 10%, your Sterling Ratio SR = (0.15 - 0.10)\/0.172, which result to 0.29. The higher the rate better is the risk-reward ratio of your portfolio. I suggest in your case to only use the original Sterling Ratio to calculate your long-term risk-reward, in any other case I suggest looking at the Sharpe and Sortino ratios instead."""
"""What is the process of getting your first share?""","""You could also look up stock trading games.  Basically, you get x amount of \""money\"" and \""invest\"" it in stocks, trying to get the highest return of the group in y amount of time.  They are a decent way to get used to how different types of trades work without having to risk any real money, while having enough \""money\"" to invest that you can try different things.  Of course, as others have mentioned they may or may not include all the nuances, like minimum investments and brokerage fees, but at least you can learn and see how the different buying and selling options work."""
"""Friend was brainwashed by MLM-\/ponzi investment scam. What can I do?""","""If this 'scam' has a name, address and\/or phone number, I forward it to the FBI anonymously. That is my advice.  You may also wish to consult a lawyer."""
"""Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?""","""In theory, in a perfect world, what you state is almost true. Apart from transaction fees, if you assume that the market is perfectly efficient (ie: public information is immediately reflected in a perfect reflection of future share value, in all share prices when the information becomes available), then in theory any transaction you would choose to take is opposed by a reasonable person who is not taking advantage of you, just moving their position around. This would make any and all transactions completely reasonable from a cost-benefit perspective.  ie: if the future value of all dividends to be paid by Apple [ie: the value of holding a share in Apple] exactly matches Apple's share price of $1,000, then buying a share for $1,000 is an even trade. Selling a share for $1,000 is also an even trade. Now in a perfectly efficient market, which we have assumed, then there is no edge to valuing a company using your own methods. If you take Apple's financial statements \/ press releases \/ reported information, and if you apply modern financial theory to evaluate the future dividends from Apple, you should get the same $1,000 share price that the market has already arrived at. So in this example, why wouldn't you just throw darts at a printout of the S&P 500 and invest in whatever it lands on? Because, even if the 'perfectly efficient market' agrees on the true value of something, different investments have different characteristics. As an example, consider a simple comparison of corporate bonds: Corporations make bond offerings to the public, allowing individual investors to effectively lend money to the corporation, for a future benefit. For simplicity, assume a bond with a 'face value' (the amount to be repaid to the investor on maturity) of $1,000 has these 3 defining characteristics: (1) The price [What the investor pays to acquire it]; (2) Interest payments [how much, if any, the corporation will pay to the investor before maturity, and when those payments will be made]; and (3) a bond rating [which is a third party assessment of how risky the bond is, based on the 'health' of the corporation]. Now if the bond rating agency is perfect in its risk assessment, and if the price of all bond's is fair, then why does it matter who you loan your money to? It matters because different people want different things out of their investments. If you are waiting to make a down payment on a house next year, then you don't want risk - you want to be certain that you will get your cash back, even if it means lower returns. So, even though a high-risk bond may be perfectly priced, it should only be bought by someone willing to bear that risk. If you are retired, and you need your bonds to pay you interest regularly as your sole source of income, then of course a zero-coupon bond [one that pays no interest] is not helpful to you. If you are young, and have a long time to invest, then you may want risk, because you have time to overcome losses and you want to get the most return possible. In addition, taxes are not universal between all investors. Some people benefit from things that would be tax-heavy to their neighbors. For example in Canada, there is a 'dividend tax credit' which reduces the taxes owing on dividends received by a corporation. This credit exists to prevent 'double-taxation', because otherwise the corporation would pay its ~30% of tax, and then a wealthy investor would pay another ~45% of tax. Due to the mechanics of how the credit is calculated, however, someone who makes less money, gets an even lower tax bill than they normally would. This means that someone making under the top tax bracket in Canada, has a tax benefit by receiving dividends. This means that while 2 stocks may be both fairly priced, if one pays dividends and the other doesn't [ie: if the other company instead reinvests more heavily in future projects, creating even more value for shareholders down the road], then someone in the bottom tax brackets may want the dividend paying stock more than the other. In conclusion: Picking investments yourself does require some knowledge to prevent yourself from making a 'bad buy'; this is because the market is not perfectly efficient. As well, specific market mechanics make some trades more costly than they should be in theory; consider for example transaction fees and tax mechanics. Finally, even if you assume that all of the above is irrelevant as a theoretical idea, different investors still have different needs. Just because $1,000,000 is the 'fair' price for a factory in your home town, doesn't mean you might as well convert your retirement savings to buy it as your sole asset."""
"""When should I walk away from my mortgage?""","""I'm in a similar situation, but I live in a state that doesn't allow mortgagees to \""walk away\"" without recourse. I would consider a short sale or otherwise abandoning the property if: At the end of the day, real estate is an investment, and you don't realize gains or losses until you close the position. The \""ra, ra\"" crowd that thought that real estate was going to boom forever in 2006 was just as wrong as the \""bad news bears\"" crowd that thinks that real estate will never recover either.  Investments rise and fall. Many people who bought houses in the 1980's boom (recall the S&L crisis) were underwater for years until prices started rising in the mid-90's. You haven't lost money until you realize that loss."""
"""Conservative ways to save for retirement?""","""A 401(k) is just a container. Like real-world containers (those that are usually made out of metal), you can put (almost) anything you want in it. Signing up for your employer's match is a great thing to do. Getting into the habit of saving a significant portion of your take-home pay early in your career is even better; doing so will put you lightyears ahead of lots of people by the time you approach retirement age. Even if you love your job, that will give you options you otherwise wouldn't have. There is no real reason why you can't start out by putting your retirement money in a short-term money-market fund within that 401(k). By doing so you will only earn a pittance, probably not even enough to keep up with inflation in today's economic environment, but at this point in your (savings and investment) career, that doesn't really matter much. What really matters is getting into the habit of setting that money aside every single time you get paid and not thinking much of it. And that's a lot easier if you start out early, especially at a time when you likely have received a significant net pay increase (salaried job vs college student). I know, everyone says to get the best return you can. But if you are just starting out, and feel the need to be conservative, then don't be afraid to at least start out that way. You can always rebalance into investment classes that have the potential for higher return -- and correspondingly higher volatility -- in a few years. In the meantime, you will have built a pretty nice capital that you can move into the stock market eventually. The exact rate of return you get in the first decade matters a lot less than how much money you set aside regularly and that you keep contributing. See for example Your Investment Plan Means Nothing If You Don\u2019t Do This by Matt Becker (no affiliation), which illustrates how it takes 14 years for saving 5% at a consistent 10% return to beat saving 10% at a consistent 0% return. So look through what's being offered in terms of low-risk investments within that 401(k). Go ahead and pick a money-market fund or a bond fund if you want to start out easy. If it gets you into the habit of saving and sticking with it, then the overall return will beat the daylights out of the return you would get from a good stock market fund if you stop contributing after a year or two. Especially (but not only) if you do pick an interest-bearing investment, do make sure to pick one that has as low fees as you can possibly find for what you want, because otherwise the fees are going to eat a lot into your potential returns, benefiting the bank or investment house rather than yourself. Just keep an open mind, and very strongly consider shifting at least some of your investments into the stock market as you grow more comfortable over the next several years. You can always keep a portion of your money in various interest-bearing investments to act as a cushion in case the market slumps."""
"""Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic\/political country""","""I suggest that you're really asking questions surrounding three topics: (1) what allocation hedges your risks but also allows for upside? (2) How do you time your purchases so you're not getting hammered by exchange rates? (3) How do you know if you're doing ok? Allocations Your questions concerning allocation are really \""what if\"" questions, as DoubleVu points out. Only you can really answer those. I would suggest building an excel sheet and thinking through the scenarios of at least 3 what-ifs.  A) What if you keep your current allocations and anything in local currency gets cut in half in value? Could you live with that? B) What if you allocate more to \""stable economies\"" and your economy recovers... so stable items grow at 5% per year, but your local investments grow 50% for the next 3 years? Could you live with that missed opportunity?  C) What if you allocate more to \""stable economies\"" and they grow at 5%... while SA continues a gradual slide? Remember that slow or flat growth in a stable currency is the same as higher returns in a declining currency. I would trust your own insights as a local, but I would recommend thinking more about how this plays out for your current investments.  Timing You bring up concerns about \""timing\"" of buying expensive foreign currencies... you can't time the market. If you knew how to do this with forex trading, you wouldn't be here :).  Read up on dollar cost averaging. For most people, and most companies with international exposure, it may not beat the market in the short term, but it nets out positive in the long term.  Rebalancing For you there will be two questions to ask regularly: is the allocation still correct as political and international issues play out? Have any returns or losses thrown your planned allocation out of  alignment?  Put your investment goals in writing, and revisit it at least once a year to evaluate whether any adjustments would be wise to make.  And of course, I am not a registered financial professional, especially not in SA, so I obviously recommend taking what I say with a large dose of salt."""
"""What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments?""","""Making extra principal payments will reduce the term of your loan. I wouldn't sign up for a biweekly schedule, just do it yourself so you have more flexibility. A simple spreadsheet will allow you to play \""What if?\"" and make it clear that extra principal payments are most effective early in the term of the loan. My wife and I paid off our home in less than 10 years with this approach. Some will say that the opportunity costs of not using that money for something else outweighs the gains. I would say that not having a mortgage has a positive impact on your cash flow and your assets (you own the home), which combine to create more opportunity, not less. That being said, It should be obvious that paying off higher interest debt first is the priority, (Paying off a zero percent interest car loan early is just foolish)"""
"""Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0?""","""The issue for you seems to be the sequence of events. Presumably, there will be a gain in the fund. In one year, you have a fund worth $100,000 and the $8500 your netted from the $10,000 dividend. (Dividends are taxed at 15% for most of us. If your taxable income is under $38K single, it's $0) An $8500 net return for the year. Now, if there were no initial dividend, and at the end of a full year, your $100K grew to $110K, and then gave you the $10K dividend, you might not be so unhappy. Even on day 2, you now have a fund worth $90K with a basis of $100K, and the promise of future dividends or cap gains. When you sell, the first $10K of gain from this point will effectively be tax free due to this quick drop.  To directly answer the last few sentences, dividends and cap gains are different. And different still, for the way a fund processes them."""
"""Should I invest in real estate to rent, real estate to live in, or just stocks and bonds to earn 10-15%?""","""Are there other options I haven't thought of? Mutual funds, stocks, bonds. To buy and sell these you don't need a lawyer, a real-estate broker and a banker. Much more flexible than owning real estate. Edit: Re Option 3: With no knowledge of investing the first thing you should do is read a few books. The second thing you should do is invest in mutual funds (and\/or ETFs) that track an index, such as the FTSE graph that was posted. Index funds are the safest way to invest for those with no experience. With the substantial amount that you are considering investing it would also be wise to do it gradually. Look up \""dollar cost averaging.\"""""
"""Is it adventageous to expedite my wedding before the new year for tax savings?""","""You are correct. If you get married by December 31, you will file as married for this year (Married Filing Jointly or Married Filing Separately) instead of Single. That could indeed save you some amount of taxes, if your situation is as you described. Some people do plan their date of marriage in such a way to optimize tax savings. Whether your marriage date should be set in such a way is your personal decision."""
"""Is it possible for all the owners of a stock to gain or lose money at the same time?""","""The Owners of stock keep changing with every Buy and Sell. Hence its theoritically possible that everyone makes or loses money. Say the price was $10 when everyone purchased the stock. If the stock is doing good and the markets are good, the stock will move up to $12. Everyone sells the stock to someone else. So all the Old owners have made $2. Now after some period of time, the stock \/ company is not doing so well, and the markets are bad, so the stock falls to $11, everyone sells. So all the current owners make a loss of $1.   However in normal market conditions, there are Owners who have purchased stock at different price points and have held it irrespective of whether the price has gone above their purchase price or below their purchase price."""
"""Is diversification better""","""Diversification tends to protect you from big losses. But it also tends to \""protect\"" you from big gains. In any industry, some companies provide good products and services and prosper while others have problems and fail. (Or maybe the winners are just lucky or they paid off the right politicians, whatever, not the point here.) If you put all your money in one stock and they do well, you could make a bundle. But if you pick a loser, you could lose your entire investment. If you buy a little stock in each of many companies, then some will go up and some will go down, and your returns will be an average of how everyone in the industry is doing. Suppose I offered to bet you a large sum of money that if I roll a die, it will come up 6. You might be reluctant to take that bet, because you can't predict what number will come up on one roll of a die. But suppose I offered to bet you a large sum of money that a die will come up 6, 100 times in a row. You might well take that bet, because the chance that it will turn up 6 time after time after time is very low. You reduce risk by spreading your bets. Anyone who's bought stock has surely had times when he said, \""Oh man! If only I'd bought X ten years ago I'd be a millionaire now!\"" But quite a few have also said, \""If only I'd sold X ten years ago I wouldn't have lost all this money!\""  I recently bought a stock a stock that within a few months rose to 10 times what I paid for it ... and then a few months later the company went bankrupt and the stock was worth nothing. I knew the company was on a roller coaster when I bought the stock, I was gambling that they'd pull through and I'd make money. I guessed wrong. Fortunately I gambled an amount that I was willing to lose."""
"""Where can I trade FX spot options, other than saxobank.com? ""","""You can trade currency ETF options on IB. It is SIPC insured; the options are just like vanilla options in Saxo."""
"""Does reading financial statements (quarterly or annual reports) really help investing?""","""Reading financial statements is important, in the sense that it gives you a picture of whether revenues and profits are growing or shrinking, and what management thinks the future will look like. The challenge is, there are firms that make computers read filings for them and inform their trading strategy. If the computer thinks the stock price is below the growth model, it's likely to bid the stock up. And since it's automated it's moving it faster than you can open your web browser. Does this mean you shouldn't read them? In a sense, no. The only sensible trading strategy is to assume you hold things for as long as their fundamentals exceed market value. Financial statements are where you find those fundamentals. So you should read them. But your question is, is it worth it for investors? My answer is no; the market generally factors information in quickly and efficiently. You're better off sticking to passive mutual funds than trying to trade. The better reason to learn to read these filings is to get a better sense of your employer, potential employers, competitors and even suppliers. Knowing what your margins are, what your suppliers margins and acquisitions are, and what they're planning can inform your own decision making."""
"""Why index funds have different prices?""","""Price, whether related to a stock or ETF, has little to do with anything.  The fund or company has a total value and the value is distributed among the number of units or shares.   Vanguard's S&P ETF has a unit price of $196 and Schwab's S&P mutual fund has a unit price of $35, it's essentially just a matter of the fund's total assets divided by number of units outstanding. Vanguard's VOO has assets of about $250 billion and Schwab's SWPPX has assets of about $25 billion. Additionally, Apple has a share price of $100, Google has a share price of $800, that doesn't mean Google is more valuable than Apple.  Apple's market capitalization is about $630 billion while Google's is about $560 billion.  Or on the extreme a single share of Berkshire's Class A stock is $216,000, and Berkshire's market cap is just $360 billion.   It's all just a matter of value divided by shares\/units."""
"""Where to find LEAPS option quotes (full chain)? CBOE & Yahoo! Finance not working""","""I'm familiar with and have traded U.S.-listed LEAPS and I've always used the CBOE quotes page you linked to.  So, I too was surprised I couldn't find 3M (MMM) LEAPS quotes at that page, even after checking the \""List all options, LEAPS, Credit Options & Weeklys if avail.\"" radio button.  Used to work! Fortunately, I was able to get access to the full chain of option quotes from the CBOE's other quotes page:  Go to the \""Quotes & Data\"" menu, then select Delayed Quotes - NEW!\u00a0 Here's how: I think the new interface is terrible: it's too many steps to get to the information desired.  I preferred the all-in-one table of the Delayed Quotes Classic page, the one you linked to. As to why that classic page isn't yielding the full chain, I can only suggest it is a recently introduced bug (software defect).  I certainly was able to get LEAPS quotes from that page before. On Yahoo! Finance option quotes: I don't know why their chain is incomplete \u2013 I can't see the logic, for instance, as to why MMM Jan 2012 60 calls are missing.  I thought at first it may be lack of volume or open interest, but nope.  Anyway, I don't trust Yahoo! to provide accurate, reliable quotes anyway, having seen too many errors and missing data in particular in the feed of Canadian stocks, which I also trade. I rely on the exchange's quotes, and my broker's real-time quotes.  I check Yahoo! only for convenience sake, and when it actually matters I go to the other more reliable sources. For what it's worth, though, you can also get full chain option quotes at NASDAQ.  See here for the 3M (MMM) example then click on the \""Jan 12\"" link near the top.  However, I would consider CBOE's quotes more definitive, since they are the options exchange."""
"""Making $100,000 USD per month, no idea what to do with it ""","""I would be more than happy to find a good use for your money. ;-) Well, you have a bunch of money far in excess of your regular expenses. The standard things are usually: If you are very confused, it's probably worth spending some of your windfall to hire professional help. It beats you groping in the dark and possibly doing something stupid. But as you've seen, not all \""professionals\"" are equal, and finding a good one is another can of worms. If you can find a good one, it's probably worth it. Even better would be for you to take the time and thoroughly educate yourself about investment (by reading books), and then make a knowledgeable decision. Being a casual investor (ie. not full time trader) you will likely arrive, like many do, at a portfolio that is mostly a mix of S&P ETFs and high grade (eg. govt and AAA corporate) bonds, with a small part (5% or so) in individual stock and other more complicated securities. A good financial advisor will likely recommend something similar (I've had good luck with the one at my credit union), and can guide you through the details and technicalities of it all. A word of caution: Since you remark about your car and house, be careful about upgrading your lifestyle. Business is good now and you can afford nicer things, but maybe next year it's not so good. What if you are by then too used to the high life to give it up, and end up under mountains of debt? Humans are naturally optimistic, but be wary of this tendency when making assumptions about what you will be able to afford in the future. That said, if you really have no idea, hey, take a nice vacation, get an art tutor for the kids, spend it (well, ideally not all of it) on something you won't regret. Investments are fickle, any asset can crash tomorrow and ruin your day. But often experiences are easier to judge, and less likely to lose value over time."""
"""Methods for forecasting price?""","""Assuming a price is set on an free market there are particular difficulties to pricing. A free market is one where the price is entirely determined by the willingness of people to buy and sell at a particular price point. What you perceive as price, is actually the \""tick\"", i.e. the quote of the last transaction. The first and most serious major obstacle to pricing is a variation of the prisoners dilemma, a psychological phenomenon. For instance, bitcoin might be worth 4$ now, but you believe it will be worth 5$ in 3 days. Will you buy bitcoin? If acting only on your conviction, yes. But what if you consider what other people will do? Will others believe bitcoin will be worth 5$ in 3 days? Will they act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe that it wil be worth 5$ in 3 days, and will the others believe that the others who believe will act on their conviction? Will the others believe that others believe of still others who believe that they will act on their conviction? It goes on like this ad-infinitum. The actual behavior of any individual on the market is essentially chaotic and unpredictable (for the reason stated above and others). This is related to a phenomenon you call market efficiency. An efficient market always reflects the optimal price-point at any given time. If that is so, then you cannot win on this market, because at the time you would have to realize a competitive edge, everybody else has already acted on that information. Markets are not 100% efficient of course. But modern electronic markets can be very, very efficient (as say compared to stock markets fro 100 years ago, where you could get a competitive edge just by having access to a fast courier). What makes matters rather more difficult for price forecasting is that not only are humans engaging in the market, machines are as well. The machines may not be terribly good at what they do, but they are terribly fast. The machines that work well (i.e. don't loose much) will survive, and the ones that don't will die in short order. Since speed is one of the major benefits of the machines over humans, they tend to make markets even more efficient. Another phenomenon to price forecasting is that of information and entropy. Suppose you found a reliable method to predict a market at a given time. You act on this information and indeed you make a profit. The profit you will be able to achieve will diminish over time until it reaches zero or reverts. The reason for this is that you acted on private information, which you leaked out by engaging in a trade. The more successful you are in exploiting your forecast, the better you train every other market participant to react to their losses. Since for every trade you make successfully, there has to be somebody who lost. People or machines who lose on markets usually exit those markets in some fashion. So even if the other participants are not adjusting their behavior, your success is weeding out those with the wrong behavior. Yet another difficulty in pricing forecasts are black-swan events. Since information can have a huge impact on pricing, the sudden appearance of new information can throw a conservative forecast completely off the rails and incur huge losses (or huge unexpected benefits). You cannot quantify black-swan events in any shape or form. It is my belief that you cannot predict efficient and well working markets. You might be able to predict some very sub-optimal markets, but usually, hedge-funds are always on the hunt for inefficient markets to exploit, so by simple decree of market economics, the inefficient markets tend to be a perpetually dying species."""
"""How to find the smallest transaction fees and commissions available and reduce trading overhead?""","""The lowest cost way to trade on an exchange is to trade directly on the exchange. I can't speak to the LSE, but in the US, there is a mandated firewall between the individual and the exchange, the broker; therefore, in the US, one would have to start a business and become a broker. If that process is too costly, the broker or trade platform that permits individuals to trade with the lowest commissions is the next lowest."""
"""hardship withdrawal""","""Gaining traction is your first priority. WARNING: as @JosephZambrano explains in his answer the tax penalty for withdrawing from a 401(k) can easily exceed the APR of the credit card making it a very bad strategy. Consult in-depth with a financial advisor to see before taking that path.  As @JoeTaxpayer has noted a loan is another alternative. The 401k is no good to you if you can't have shelter or comfort in the mean time.  The idea is to look at all the money as a single thing and balance it together.  There is no credit and retirement, just a single target that you can hit by moving the good money to clear the bad. Consolidating the credit card debt somehow would be very wise if you can.  Assuming it is 30% APR shrinking that quickly is the first priority. You may be able to justify a hardship withdrawal to finance the reduction\/consolidation of the credit card.  It may be worth considering negotiating a closure arrangement with a reduced principal.  Credit card companies can be quite open to this as it gets their money back. You may also be able to negotiate a lower interest rate. You may be able to negotiate a non-credit-affecting debt consolidation with a debt consolidator.  They want to make money and a 25K loan to a person with sound credit is a pretty good bet. Moving, buying a house, or any of that may just relocate the problem.   You may be able to withdraw $25K from your 401k under hardship, pay the credit card, and come up with a payment plan for the medical debt. It's a retirement setback for sure, but retirement is an illusion with that credit card shark eating all of your hard-earned money.  You gotta slay that beast quick. Again, be sure to fully analyze whether the penalty on the 401(k) withdrawal exceeds the APR of the credit card."""
"""Hiring a teenager as a household employee""","""Here is what I was able to find: Yes, but there are special instructions for minors: Working hours: New York State labor laws are slightly more strict than the federal: https:\/\/www.labor.state.ny.us\/workerprotection\/laborstandards\/workprot\/nyvsfed.shtm Minimum wage: The Dept of Labor's Youth & Labor page states: Occupations such as babysitting are not subject to the minimum wage law. No supporting documentation is given. Another page describes the Youth Minimum Wage Program: A minimum wage of not less than $4.25 may be paid to employees under the age of 20 for their first 90 consecutive calendar days  However, I can't find any such exception in New York State minimum wage law. According to Publication 926, Household Employer's Tax Guide: Federal income tax withholding No, I am not required to withhold federal income taxes from a household employee.  If we both want them to be withheld, a W-4 should be submitted to me. State income tax withholding No, according to NYS Pub 27: Withholding income tax (federal or New York State) from wages paid to household employees is voluntary on your part and your employee Social security and medicare No, I am not required to withhold FICA taxes because when calculated wages, I should not include: An employee who is under the age of 18 at any time during the year.   Exception: Count these wages if providing household services is the   employee's principal occupation. If the employee is a student,   providing household services is not considered to be his or her   principal occupation. Unemployment insurance No, I don't think I have to pay federal unemployment tax.  I think the exception for FICA applies to FUTA.  For New York (according to Household Employers Guide for Unemployment Insurance), there is an exception for paying state unemployment insurance: Daytime students who attend elementary or high school (However, you must pay UI taxes on wages you pay these students if you are liable under FUTA.) I can't find any specific requirements, but aside from numbers of hours times rate of pay, you might want to consider the information required by the Wage Theft Prevention Act: Also, consider this requirements from the NY Minimum Wage Act Every employer shall keep true and accurate records of hours worked by   each employee covered by an hourly minimum wage rate, the wages paid   to all employees, and such other information as the commissioner deems   material and necessary, and shall, on demand, furnish to the   commissioner or his duly authorized representative a sworn statement   of the same."""
"""Are traders 100% responsible for a stock's price changes?""","""Yes traders, living or algorithmic, are the only direct factors that can cause a change in the price of a marketable item. Traders can be affected by news, broken exchanges ;), emotional cycles, lunar cycles, time the trader goes to lunch (or a power cycle if you are an algo running on that unfortunate OS), anything."""
"""I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold.  Should I register for VAT?""","""If I remember correctly, once you're about to exceed the threshold you really don't have a choice and have to register for VAT. As DumbCoder mentions, the quarterly VAT returns isn't that much of a hassle, plus if you fall under a certain threshold, you can sign up for the annual accounting scheme for VAT, which means you'll have to only put in a single return, but HMRC takes more payments out over the course of the year. This is what I did when I ran my own limited company in the UK."""
"""What does Capital Surplus mean?""","""I think it's easiest to illustrate it with an example... if you've already read any of the definitions out there, then you know what it means, but just don't understand what it means.  So, we have an ice cream shop. We started it as partners, and now you and I each own 50% of the company. It's doing so well that we decide to take it public.  That means that we will be giving up some of our ownership in return for a chance to own a smaller portion of a bigger thing. With the money that we raise from selling stocks, we're going to open up two more stores.  So, without getting into too much of the nitty gritty accounting that would turn this into a valuation question, let's say we are going to put 30% of the company up for sale with these stocks, leaving you and me with 35% each. We file with the SEC saying we're splitting up the company ownership with 100,000 shares, and so you and I each have 35,000 shares and we sell 30,000 to investors.  Then, and this depends on the state in the US where you're registering your publicly traded corporation, those shares must be assigned a par value that a shareholder can redeem the shares at. Many corporations will use $1 or 10 cents or something nominal.  And we go and find investors who will actually pay us $5 per share for our ice cream shop business. We receive $150,000 in new capital. But when we record that in our accounting, $5 in total capital per share was contributed by investors to the business and is recorded as shareholder's equity. $1 per share (totalling $30,000) goes towards actual shares outstanding, and $4 per share (totalling $120,000) goes towards capital surplus.  These amounts will not change unless we issue new stocks. The share prices on the open market can fluctuate, but we rarely would adjust these. Edit: I couldn't see the table before. DumbCoder has already pointed out the equation Capital Surplus = [(Stock Par Value) + (Premium Per Share)] * (Number of Shares) Based on my example, it's easy to deduce what happened in the case you've given in the table. In 2009 your company XYZ had outstanding Common Stock issued for $4,652. That's probably (a) in thousands, and (b) at a par value of $1 per share. On those assumptions we can say that the company has 4,652,000 shares outstanding for Year End 2009.  Then, if we guess that's the outstanding shares, we can also calculate the implicit average premium per share: 90,946,000 \u00f7 4,652,000 == $19.52. Note that this is the average premium per share, because we don't know when the different stocks were issued at, and it may be that the premiums that investors paid were different. Frankly, we don't care.  So clearly since \""Common Stock\"" in 2010 is up to $9,303 it means that the company released more stock. Someone else can chime in on whether that means it was specifically a stock split or some other mechanism... it doesn't matter. For understanding this you just need to know that the company put more stock into the marketplace... 9,303 - 4,652 == 4,651(,000) more shares to be exact. With the mechanics of rounding to the thousands, I would guess this was a stock split.  Now. What you can also see is that the Capital Surplus also increased. 232,801 - 90,946 == 141,855. The 4,651,000 shares were issued into the market at an average premium of 141,855 \u00f7 4,651 == $30.50. So investors probably paid (or were given by the company) an average of $31.50 at this split.  Then, in 2011 the company had another small adjustment to its shares outstanding. (The Common Stock went up). And there was a corresponding increase in its Capital Surplus.  Without details around the actual stock volumes, it's hard to get more exact. You're also only giving us a portion of the Balance Sheet for your company, so it's hard to go into too much more detail. Hopefully this answers your question though."""
"""Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks?""","""One thing no one else has touched on is the issue of time frame. If I'm looking to hold my shares over the next few years, I don't mind riding out a few short-term bumps, while the short-seller is looking to make a quick profit on some bad news. Sure, I could sell and rebuy, but that's a lot of hassle, not to mention commissions and tax issues."""
"""Are there any banks in Europe that I can have an account without being in that country?""","""Opening account in foreign bank is possible, but you must have strong proofs you use it for legitimate purposes. More chances to get an account if you visit Europe and able to stay, for example, for a week, to visit bank in person and wait for all the checks and approvals. Also keep in mind that there will be deposit\/withdraw limits and fees applicable, that are significantly stricter and larger for non-EU citizen. In my opinion, if your amounts are not large, it might not worth it. If amounts are large, you might consider business account rather than personal, as is the example of strong proof I meant."""
"""How should we organize our finances to effectively plan and prepare for an retirement in next 10 years?""","""Wow! First, congratulations! You are both making great money. You should be able to reach your goals.  Are we on the right track ? Are we doing any mistakes which we could have avoided ? Please advice if there is something that we should focus more into ! I would prioritize as follows: Get on the same page. My first red flag is that you are listing your assets separately. You and your wife own property together and are raising your daughter together. The first thing is to both be on the same page with your combined income and assets. This is critical. Set specific goals for the future. Dreaming and big-picture life planning will be the foundation for building a detailed plan for reaching your goals. You will see more progress with more sacrifice. If you both are not equally excited about the goals, you will not both be equally willing to sacrifice lifestyle now. You have the income now to be able to set yourselves up to do whatever you want in 10 years, if you can agree on what you want. Hire a financial planner you trust. Interview people, ask someone who is where you want to be in 10 years. You need someone with experience that can guide you through these questions and understands how to manage your income stream. Start saving for retirement in tax-advantaged accounts. This should be as much as 10%-15% of your income combined, so $30k-$45k per year. You need to start diversifying your investments. Real estate is great, but I would never recommend it as this large a percentage of net worth. Start saving for your child's education. Hard to say what you need here, since I don't know your goals. A financial planner should assist you with this. Get rid of your debt. Out of your $2.1M of rental real estate and land, you have $1.4M of debt. It will be difficult to start a business with that much additional debt. It will also put stress on your retirement that you don't need. You are taking on lots of risk here. I would sell all but maybe one of the properties and let it cash flow. This will free up cash to start investing for retirement or future business too. Buy more rental in the future with cash only. You have plenty of income to do it this way, and you will be setting yourself up for a great future. At this point you can continue to pile funds into any\/all your investments, with the goal of using the funds to start a business or to live on. If all your investments are tied up in real estate, you wont have anything to draw on if needed for a business opportunity. You need to weigh this out in your goal and planning. What should we do to prepare for a comfortable retirement and safety You cannot plan for or see all scenarios. However, good planning will give you more options and more choices. Investing driven by fear will set you up for failure.  Spend less than you make. Be patient. Be generous. Cheers!"""
"""Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate?""","""They aren't actually. It appears to be a low interest rate, but it doesn't cover their true cost of capital. It is a sales tactic where they are raising the sticker price\/principal of the car, which is subsidizing the true cost of the loan, likely 4% or higher. It would be hard to believe that the true cost of a car loan would be less than for a mortgage, as with a mortgage the bank can reclaim an asset that tends to rise in value, compared to a used car, which will have fallen in value. This is one reason why you can generally get a better price with cash, because there is a margin built in, in addition to the fact that with cash they get all their profit today versus a discount of future cash flows from a loan by dealing with a bank or other lending company. So if you could see the entire transaction from the \""inside\"", the car company would not actually be making money. The government rate is also so low that it often barely covers inflation, much less operating costs and profit. This is why any time you see \""0% Financing!\"", it is generally a sales tactic designed to get your attention. A company cannot actually acquire capital at 0% to lend to you at 0%, because even if the nominal interest rate were 0%, there is an opportunity cost, as you have observed. A portion of the sticker price is covering the real cost, and subsidizing the monthly payment."""
"""What's the fuss about Credit Score \/ History?""","""If human beings were Homo Economicus, i.e. textbook rational and self-interested economic-minded beings, as opposed to simply human, then yes, simple advice like \""just stay out of debt and your credit score will take care of itself\"" could work.  Your simplification would be very persuasive to such a being. However, people are not perfectly rational.  We buy something we shouldn't have, we charge it on a credit card, we can't afford to pay it off at the end of the month.  We lose our job.  Our furnace breaks down, or our roof leaks, and we didn't anticipate the replacement cost.  Some of this is our fault, some of it isn't \u2013 basically, shit happens .. and we get into debt...  maybe even knowing all the while we shouldn't have. Our credit history and score takes a hit.  Only then do we find out there are consequences! Our interest rates go up, our insurance companies raise premiums, our prospective new employers or landlords run credit checks and either deny us the job or the apartment. Telling a person who asks for help about their credit history\/score that they shouldn't have taken on debt in the first place is like telling the farmer he should have kept the barn door shut so the horse wouldn't run out.  While it is not \""bad\"" advice, it's not the only kind of advice to offer when somebody finds themselves in such a situation. Adding advice about corrective actions is more helpful.  The person probably already know that they shouldn't have overspent in the first place and got into debt.  Yes, remind them of the value of being sensible about debt in the first place \u2013 it's good reinforcement \u2013 but add some helpful advice to the mix.  e.g. \""So you're in debt.  You shouldn't have lived beyond your means.  But now that you are in this mess, here's what you can do to improve the situation.\"""""
"""Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?""","""If you want to spend all of your money in the next few years, then a CD protects you from the risk of a bear market. however, if your time horizon is longer than 10 years, then the stock market is a better bet, since it is less effected by inflation risk. also, as you point out average stock returns are much higher, ignoring volatility.  On the whole, CD's appeal to people who would otherwise save their money in cash.  generally, it seems these people are simply afraid of stocks and bonds because those securities can lose nominal value as well as real value.  I suspect this is largely because these people don't understand inflation, nor the historical long-term index fund performance."""
"""Car finance, APR rates and per week in adverts; help understanding them""","""Easier to copy paste than type this out. Credit: www.financeformulas.net Note that the present value would be the initial loan amount, which is likely the sale price you noted minus a down payment.   The loan payment formula is used to calculate the payments on a loan.   The formula used to calculate loan payments is exactly the same as the   formula used to calculate payments on an ordinary annuity. A loan, by   definition, is an annuity, in that it consists of a series of future   periodic payments. The PV, or present value, portion of the loan payment formula uses the   original loan amount. The original loan amount is essentially the   present value of the future payments on the loan, much like the   present value of an annuity. It is important to keep the rate per period and number of periods   consistent with one another in the formula. If the loan payments are   made monthly, then the rate per period needs to be adjusted to the   monthly rate and the number of periods would be the number of months   on the loan. If payments are quarterly, the terms of the loan payment   formula would be adjusted accordingly. I like to let loan calculators do the heavy lifting for me. This particular calculator lets you choose a weekly pay back scheme. http:\/\/www.calculator.net\/loan-calculator.html"""
"""List of Investments from safest to riskiest?""","""With every caveat that Rick said plus many many more lets have some fun.  One common way to measure risk is volatility of returns roughly how much the value of your asset jumps around.  Interestingly, the following ordering is fairly similar for many other common measures of risk. The first three on the list would be mostly interchangeable.  Generally, putting your money in \""cash\"" investments has no real day-to-day price variability and the main risk is that the bank won't give you your money back at the end.  Money market funds are last as they can \""Break the buck\"". To get a feel for the next few on the list I'm using previous 360 day volatility numbers for representative broad indices (asof 2014-10-27).  While these volatility values can move around quite a bit, the order is actually remarkably stable. Hedge funds might seem out of place here, but remember that hedge funds can hold be long and short at the same time and this can cancel out daily variation.  However, Hedge funds do have plenty of risks that may not be well accounted for by this measure.   For derivatives I'll refer to back to Rick's answer. This is a measure for broad investment in these categories your particular investment in Long-term Capital Management or Argentine Bonds may vary. It is important to note that your return on your investment generally grows as you go toward more risky investments down this list as people generally expect to be rewarded  in the long term for risky investments."""
"""Calculating required rate of return for an income-generating savings account""","""Line one shows your 1M, a return with a given rate, and year end withdrawal starting at 25,000.  So Line 2 starts with that balance, applies the rate again, and shows the higher withdrawal, by 3%\/yr.  In Column one, I show the cumulative effect of the 3% inflation, and the last number in this column is the final balance (903K) but divided by the cumulative inflation.  To summarize - if you simply get the return of inflation, and start by spending just that amount, you'll find that after 20 years, you have half your real value.  The 1.029 is a trial and error method, as I don't know how a finance calculator would handle such a payment flow. I can load the sheet somewhere if you'd like.  Note: This is not exactly what the OP was looking for. If the concept is useful, I'll let it stand. If not, downvotes are welcome and I'll delete."""
"""How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old""","""Determine how much you are going to save first.  Then determine where you can spend your money.  If you're living with your parents, try to build an emergency fund of six months income.  The simplest way is to put half of your income in the emergency fund for a year.   Try to save at least 10% of your income for retirement.  The earlier you start this, the longer you'll have to let the magic of compounding work on it.  If your employer offers a 401k with a match, do that first.  If not, consider an IRA.  You probably want to do a Roth now (because you probably pay little in taxes so the deduction from a standard IRA won't help you).   After the year, you'll have an emergency fund.  Work out how much money you'll need for rent, utilities, and groceries when you're on your own.  Invest that in some way.  Pay off student loans if you have any.  Buy a car that you can keep a long time if you need one.  Go to night school.  Put any excess money in a savings account or mutual fund.  This is money for doing things related to housing.  Perhaps you'll need to buy a washer\/dryer.  Or pay a down payment on a mortgage eventually.   Saving this money now does two things:  first, it gives you savings for when you need it; second, it keeps you from getting used to spending your entire paycheck.  If you are used to only having $200 of spending cash out of each check, you will fit your spending into that.  If you are used to spending $800 every two weeks, it will be hard to cut your spending to make room for rent, etc."""
"""Saving up for an expensive car""","""I've read online that 20% is a reasonable amount to pay for a car each month - Don't believe everything you read on the internet.  But, let me ask, does your current car have zero expense? No fuel, no oil change, no repairs, no insurance? If the 20% is true, you are already spending a good chunk of it each month. My car just celebrated her 8th birthday. And at 125,000 miles, needed $3000 worth of maintenance repairs.  The issue isn't with buying the expensive car, you can buy whatever you can afford, that's a personal preference. It's how you propose to budget for it that seems to be bad math. Other members here have already pointed out that this financial decision might not be so wise."""
"""Are BIC and SWIFT code the same things?""","""BIC and IBANN are used in EU (and some other OECD countries) for inter bank transfers. SWIFT is used everywhere for interbank transfers. In the US - IBAN system is not (yet, hopefully) available, so you have to use SWIFT. The codes may look the same, but these are different systems. More details here."""
"""How to make an investment in a single company's stock while remaining market-neutral?""","""For the type of market neutrality you desire, free from crash risk, it's best to hedge the shares with covered calls when implied volatility is expensive and puts when implied volatility is cheap with the nearest at the money expirations.  A put only strategy can be very expensive and should only be used with the longest term options available since they can cost many tens of % per year. Securities become almost perfectly correlated during a crash; therefore, market crash risk of one security is essentially equal to the market crash risk, so hedging the security itself makes a position market neutral for crash risk. This strategy will have intermittent opportunity cost risk in the form of slower returns during market expansion to pay for smaller losses during a crash; however, the expected long run return hedged this way should be greater than the underlying's expected long run return with less volatility."""
"""Fringe Benefits (Lodging) for single member S-Corp""","""If you use \""a room or other separately identifiable space\"" within your apartment exclusively for your business, then you might be able to recoup a fraction of your rent for that. Check the rules for home office at the IRS and adopt a consistent and well-documented approach. (I would pay your full rent out of your personal account, and then do an \""expense report\"" for the portion that's legitimately business related, but that's not a unique approach.) Other than that, I agree with the answer by litteadv - You cannot reduce your tax by the full amount of your rent just by having the S Corp pay, and trying to do so is probably playing with fire.  Generally speaking, don't comingle business and personal expenses like that."""
"""Is a fixed-price natural gas or electricity contract likely to save money?""","""I would argue: Because the company only offers you this if it can make money from it. What you are basically doing is betting against the company."""
"""How to report Canadian income from a small contract job?""","""It's pretty easy. In the Interview Setup for Ufile, check the box for \""Self-employment business income\"". Then during the process of filling everything out, you'll get a Self-Employment screen. It'll ask for the name of your business, but just put your own name since you don't have one. For the 6-digit classification code, click the ? button and look through the list for the industry that best matches the one for whom you wrote the technical report. Or you can go with 711500: Independent artists, writers and performers. It doesn't really matter that much so don't worry if it's a poor match. It will also ask you for your income and expenses.   I don't know exactly what costs you might have incurred to write your report, but you can likely claim a very tiny amount of \""home office\"" expenses. Costs like rent (or mortgage interest + property tax), utilities, and home insurance can be claimed, but they have to be pro-rated for the time you were actually doing the work, and are based on the amount of space you used for the work.  For example, if you paid $1000 rent and $200 utilities for the month in which the work was done, and it took you 20 of the 31 days in that month to actually do the work, and you used a room that makes up about 10% of the square footage of your home, then you can claim: $1200 * 20\/31 * 0.1 = $77.42 for your home office expenses. If you also used that room for non-business purposes during that time, then you reduce it even further. Say, if the room was also used for playing video games 50% of the time, then you'd only claim $38.71"""
"""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."""
"""Can I trust the Motley Fool?""","""I've had a MF Stock Advisor for 7 or 8 years now, and I've belong to Supernova for a couple of years. I also have money in one of their mutual funds. \""The Fool\"" has a lot of very good educational information available, especially for people who are new to investing. Many people do not understand that Wall Street is in the business of making money for Wall Street, not making money for investors.  I have stayed with the Fool because their philosophy aligns with my personal investment philosophy. I look at the Stock Advisor picks; sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't, but the analysis is very good. They also have been good at tracking their picks over time, and writing updates when specific stocks drop a certain amount. With their help, I've assembled a portfolio that I don't have to spend too much time managing, and have done pretty well from a return perspective. Stock Advisor also has a good set of forums where you can interact with other investors.  In summary, the view from the inside has been pretty good. From the outside, I think their marketing is a reflection of the fact that most people aren't very interested in a rational & conservative approach to investing in the stock market, so MF chooses to go for an approach that gets more traffic. I'm not particularly excited about it, but I'm sure they've done AB testing and have figured out what way works the best. I think that they have had money-back guarantees on some of their programs in the past, so you could try them out risk free. Not sure if those are still around."""
"""Are traders 100% responsible for a stock's price changes?""","""Traders = every market participant. Not some shadow figure that excludes you just because you passively drop cash into a 401k Vanguard fund every paycheck. So yes, if everyone stopped trading then the price won't move. Trades are 100% responsible for the prices you see on charts and tickers. A stock won't be worth \""$100\"" if nobody ever traded $100 for it. It only has that price now or in the past because somebody placed an order for it at $100 and somebody else filled that order at $100"""
"""What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments?""","""Another thing to consider is that paying extra principal (either via one of these services, or by including something extra with your normal mortgage payment and designating that it go to principal rather than be held to reduce next month's payment, or just sending an additional payment to the bank and designating it as reducing the principal) shortens the term of your loan. Is this good? Maybe. Consider that banks lend with a variety of terms. Usually the 15-year fixed rate mortgage has a lower interest rate than the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, and the 5-year home-equity-loan has an even lower rate. When you prepay your loan, your interest rate stays the same, but the bank gets its money back sooner. This makes more profit for the bank as it can then invest the money in other things. That profit could have been yours if you had made that investment instead of prepaying your mortgage."""
"""Mortgage or not?""","""Better in terms of what? less taxes paid? or more money to save for retirement? In terms of retirement, it would be better for you to keep the condo you currently have for at least two reasons: You wouldn't incur the penalties and fees from buying and selling a home. Selling and buying a home comes with a multitude of fees and expenses that aren't included in your estimation. You aren't saddled with a mortgage payment again. You aren't paying a mortgage payment right now. If you set aside the amount you would be paying towards that, it more than covers your taxes, with plenty left over to put towards retirement."""
"""What does net selling or buying of a stock mean?""","""What does it mean when some one says that today there was a lot of net selling or buying in a stock. What does it mean because for every selling there is also a buying going on then how can you determine a selling or buying ? Generally if the price of stock has gone down compared to previous day, the trend is of selling. As the price can be volatile, there maybe few trades that are above close price of previous day, or below close price of previous day.  How can you calculate average trade price for a stock It is simple {sum of all [price*quantity]}\/quantity. Related question Equity market inflow meaning"""
"""Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates?""","""The simple answer is that, even though mortgages can go for 10, 15, 20 and 30 year terms in the U.S., they're typically backed by bonds sold to investors that mature in 10 years, which is the standard term for most bonds. These bonds, in the open market, are compared by investors with the 10-year Treasury note, which is the gold standard for low-risk investment; the U.S. Government has a solid history of always paying its bills (though this reputation is being tested in recent years with fights over the debt ceiling and government budgets). The savvy investor, therefore, knows that he or she can make at least the yield from the 10-year T-note in that time frame, with virtually zero risk. Anything else on the market is seen as being a higher risk, and so investors demand higher yields (by making lower bids, forcing the issuer to issue more bonds to get the money it needs up front). Mortgage-backed securities are usually in the next tier above T-debt in terms of risk; when backed by prime-rate mortgages they're typically AAA-rated, making them available to \""institutional investors\"" like banks, mutual funds, etc. This forms a balancing act; mortgage-backed securities issuers typically can't get the yield of a T-note, because no matter how low their risk, T-debt is lower (because one bank doesn't have the power to tax the entire U.S. population). But, they're almost as good because they're still very stable, low-risk debt. This bond price, and the resulting yield, is in turn the baseline for a long-term loan by the bank to an individual. The bank, watching the market and its other bond packages, knows what it can get for a package of bonds backed by your mortgage (and others with similar credit scores). It will therefore take this number, add a couple of percentage points to make some money for itself and its stockholders (how much the bank can add is tacitly controlled by other market forces; you're allowed to shop around for the lowest rate you can get, which limits any one bank's ability to jack up rates), and this is the rate you see advertised and - hopefully - what shows up on your paperwork after you apply."""
"""Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?""","""Regarding the mortgage company, they will want to know where the down payment came from, and as long as you are honest about it, there is no fraud. It's possible that the mortgage company may have some reservations about the deal now that they know where the down payment came from, but that will depend on the size of the deal and other factors. If everyone involved has decent credit, and this is a fairly standard mortgage, it will probably have no impact at all."""
"""Higher returns from international markets?""","""Here's the 2009-2014 return of the S&P 500 (SPY) vs. Vanguard FTSE ex-US (VEU) (higher returns bolded) Another argument for them is their low correlation to U.S stocks.   Looking at history however, I don't see it. Most times U.S stocks have   done badly, foreign stocks have also done badly. Looking at the last 6 years (and current YTD), 1 in 3 years have international stocks doing better.    I invest a portion of my investments in international because they aren't well correlated."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""If you just buy a few lotto tickets normally, then no, it's not going to be a good investment, as @Jasper has shown. However, there are certain scenarios where you can get a positive expected value from a lottery. In 2012, it was revealed that some MIT students found a scheme to game the Massachusetts state lottery.  The game, called Cash WinFall, had a quirk in the rules: the jackpot prize was capped at $2 million.  Any money in the jackpot beyond $2 million would increase the payout of the consolation prizes.  Thus, the game would sometimes have a positive expected value.  The return on investment was 15% to 20% \u2014 enough for the participants to quit their jobs. This specific loophole is no longer available: a cap was placed on the number of tickets sold per store, then the game was discontinued altogether. Another possible strategy is to buy enough tickets to nearly assure a win, as one investment group did in 1992.  Given a large enough jackpot, this strategy can yield a positive expected value, but not a guaranteed profit. Caveats include: Or, you might be a genius and exploit a flaw in the lottery's pseudorandom number generator, as one statistician did in an Ontario scratch-off lottery in 2011."""
"""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 that the company won't be able to maintain the level of profit. For example, let's say a company announces a 300% profit growth compared to the previous year. This should push the stock upwards; maybe not by 300%, but certainly by quite a bit. Let's also say that this company is in the business of designing, manufacturing and selling some highly useful gadget that lots of people want to buy. Now suppose that the company managed such an profit increase by one of: In scenario 1 (firing the engineering department), it is highly unlikely that the company will be able to come up with, manufacture and sell a Next Generation Gadget. Hence, while profit is up now, it is highly likely to go down in the months and years coming up. Because stock market investors are more interested in future profits than in past profits, this should push the value of the company down. In scenario 2 (selling off the machinery), the company may very well be able to come up with a Next Generation Gadget, and if they can manufacture it, they might very well be able to sell it. However, no matter how you slice it, the short-term costs for manufacturing either their current generation Gadget, or the Next Generation Gadget, are bound to go up because the company will either need to rent machinery, or buy new machinery. Neither is good for future profits, so the value of the company again should go down in response. In scenario 3 (their product getting a large boost), the company still has all the things that allowed them to come up with, produce and sell Gadgets. They also have every opportunity to come up with, manufacture and sell Next Generation Gadgets, which implies that future profits, while far from guaranteed, are likely. In this case, the probability remains high that the company can actually maintain a higher level of profit. Hence, the value of the company should rise. Now apply this to a slightly more realistic scenario, and you can see why the value of a company can fall even if the company announces, for example, record profits. Hence, you are looking for news which indicate a present and sustained raised ability to turn a profit. This is the type of news that should drive any stock up in price, all else being equal. Obviously, buyer beware, your mileage may vary, all else is never equal, nothing ever hits the average, you are fighting people who do this type of analysis for a living and have every tool known available to them, etc etc. But that's the general idea."""
"""What are the gains from more liquidity in ETF for small investors?""","""One of the often cited advantages of ETFs is that they have a higher   liquidity and that they can be traded at any time during the trading   hours. On the other hand they are often proposed as a simple way to   invest private funds for people that do not want to always keep an eye   on the market, hence the intraday trading is mostly irrelevant for   them. I am pretty sure that this is a subjective idea. The fact is you may buy GOOG, AAPL, F or whatever you wish(ETF as well, such as QQQ, SPY etc.) and keep them for a long time. In both cases, if you do not want to keep an on the market it is ok. Because, if you keep them it is called investment(the idea is collecting dividends etc.), if you are day trading then is it called speculation, because you main goal is to earn by buying and selling, of course you may loose as well. So, you do not care about dividends or owning some percent of the company. As, ETFs are derived instruments, their volatility depends on the volatility of the related shares. I'm wondering whether there are secondary effects that make the   liquidity argument interesting for private investors, despite not   using it themselves. What would these effects be and how do they   impact when compared, for example, to mutual funds? Liquidity(ability to turn cash) could create high volatility which means high risk and high reward. From this point of view mutual funds are more safe. Because, money managers know how to diversify the total portfolio and manage income under any market conditions."""
"""What is the Blue Line in these stock Charts?""","""The curved lines (on my screen orange, yellow and pink) are simple moving averages.  The fuchsia and blue straight lines are automatically generated trend lines.  Those lines are attempting to show how a stock is trending by showing potential bounce points and are commonly used in technical analysis (TA)."""
"""Efficient markets hypothesis and performance of IPO shares after lock-up period""","""That's the way the markets work in THEORY. In actual fact, markets are subject to \""real world\"" pressures. That is, there are so many things going on in the market that the end of the \""Lined In\"" lock up is just one of many. To produce the result you describe, traders would have to hold cash in reserve for this so-called \""contingency\"" to buy at the end of the lock-up. In most cases, they wouldn't want to because of everything else that is going on.  To use a real world analogy, would you want to wait until the last possible moment before going to the bathroom? Or would you go now while you had the chance? That's what the decision about \""holding cash in reserve for a contingency\"" is like."""
"""Basic Algorithmic Trading Strategy""","""This strategy is called trading the 'Golden Cross' if the 50 day SMA moves above the 200 day, or the 'Death Cross' when the 50 day SMA moves below the 200 day SMA. Long-term indicators carry more weight than shorter-term indicators, and this cross, in a positive direction signals a change in momentum of the stock. You will not catch the very bottom using this method, but there is a better chance that you will catch a move near the beginning of a longer-term trend. Golden Cross Information - Zacks"""
"""Aggressive Mortgage Repayment""","""It is great that you came up with a plan to own a rental home, free and clear, and also move up in home.  It is also really good of you to recognize that curtailing spending has a profound effect on your net worth, many people fail to acknowledge that factoid and prefer to instead blame things outside their control.  Good work there.  Here are some items of your plan that I have comments on. 11mo by aggressively curtailing elective spending How does your spouse feel about this?  They have to be on board, but it is such a short time frame this is very doable. cashing out all corporate stock, This will probably trigger capital gains.  You have to be prepared to pay the tax man, but this is a good source of cash for your plan.  You also have to have an additional amount that will likely be due next April 15th. redirecting all contributions to my current non-matched R401(k) This is fine as well because of the short time frame. withdrawing the principal from a Roth IRA This I kind of hate.  We are so limited in money that we can put into tax favored plans, that taking money out bothers me.  Also it is that much more difficult to save in a ROTH because of the sting of taxes.  I would not do this, but would favor instead to take a few extra months to make your plan happen. buy home #2 How are you going to have a down payment for home #2?  Is your intention to pay off home and save a while, then purchase home #2?  I would do anything to avoid PMI.   Besides I would take some time to live in a paid for house. Overall I would grade your plan a B.  If take a bit longer, and remove the withdrawing from the ROTH, it then becomes an A-.  With a good explanation of how you come up with the down payment for house 2, you could easily move to an A+."""
"""Why is the number of issued shares less than the number of outstanding shares""","""The formulae #issued shares = #outstanding shares + #treasury shares looks right. However it looks like the Treasury Shares are treated as -ve in accounting books and thus the outstanding shares are more than issued shares to the extent of Treasury shares. Further info at \""Accounting for treasury stock\"" on wiki"""
"""What is the smartest thing to do in case of a stock market crash""","""I suggest to just invest in index funds, these are low risk with high reward stocks that can survive even the worst of stock crashes but are still extremely profitable when the stock market is booming"""
"""What does the term \""match the market\"" mean?""","""If your returns match the market, that means their rate of return is the same as the market in question. If your returns beat the market, that means their rate of return is higher. There's no one 'market', mind you. I invest in mutual funds that track the S&P500 (which is, very roughly, the U.S. stock market), that track the Canadian stock market, that track the international stock market, and which track the Canadian bond market. In general, you should be deeply dubious of any advertised investment option that promises to beat the market. It's certainly possible to do so. If you buy a single stock, for example, that stock may go up by 40% over the course of a year while the market may go up by 5%. However, you are likely taking on substantially more risk. So there's a very good chance (likely, a greater chance) that the investment would go down, losing you money."""
"""What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?""","""This is going to be a list of some things that will likely be of value immediately after some apocalyptic event.  However, note that I am not answering your question of what you should invest in now to take advantage of such an event.  That is a pretty ridiculous notion.  Preparing oneself for such a possibility is certainly a good idea.  That said, there are some realistic limitations to how you could take advantage of such a situation.  Namely, the very real requirement of physical security.  Unless you have a huge posse -- armed to the teeth -- to defend your cache, someone will come along with a bigger and better armed group to take it.  (Not to mention that I am the type of person that would -- at least -- consider organizing such a group to take you down; if only as a matter of principle.) Guns & ammo (Also, knives; ideally ones that can be used as weapons and for food preparation\/hunting.) Alcohol.  Especially liquor.  It's concentrated and easier to store than beer or wine.  Beside for getting inebriated, it is useful as a sedative and antiseptic. Non-perishable foods.  Canned goods are obvious.  Though, grains and cereals can be stored with relative ease under some circumstances.  (Obviously, not so easily done in an urban area.) Methods of starting a fire.  Preferably rugged ones, such as flint and steel.  (Lighters would only be of limited use.  Matches are bulky and require water-tight storage.) Salt and\/or salt-licks.  (Possibly, other forms of non-perishable bait.)  As bstpierre puts it, hunting will be about survival not sport. Hand-tools. Textiles, fabrics, thread and needles. Medicines of all sorts, though especially antibiotics, antiseptics and painkillers. Books of a practical nature.  Topics such as: wilderness survival, cooking, carpentry, etc. The list is mostly ordered in terms of value & practicality. Ultimately, I doubt there is much that will provide a practical investment idea for such a scenario.  The physical security issue is a big limiting factor.  In a post-apocalyptic scenario it goes back to who is bigger, stronger and better armed. One thing does come to mind: knowledge.  Prepare yourself with the skills and knowledge you need to survive in such a scenario and you will be invaluable.  Also, as bstpierre notes in the comments, connections will likely also be important.  (Probably local or nearby connections.)  No one person can do it all alone.  It will come down to cooperation."""
"""Trouble sticking to a budget when using credit cards for day to day transactions?""","""The trick to using a credit card responsibly is accounting. With your old system, you were paying for everything out of your savings account.  Everytime you had an expense, it was immediately withdrawn from your savings account, and you saw how much money you had left. Now, with a credit card, there isn't any money being withdrawn from your savings account until a month later, when you have a huge credit card bill. The trick is to treat every credit card transaction as if it was a debit card transaction, and subtract the money from your \""available funds\"" on paper immediately.  Then you'll know how much money you actually have to spend (not by looking at your bank statement, but by looking at your \""available funds\"" number), and when the credit card bill comes, you'll have money sitting there waiting to go to the credit card company. This requires more work than you had with your old system, and if it sounds like too much work, you might be better off with a debit card or cash.  But if you want to continue to use the credit card, you'll find that the right software will make the accounting process easier.  I like YNAB, but there are other software products that work as well.  Just make sure that your system accounts for each credit card transaction as it is spent, deducting the amount from your budget now, so that there is money set aside for the credit card bill.  Software that simply categorizes your spending after the fact is not as useful."""
"""Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash?""","""Since it's not tagged united-states, I'd like to offer a more general advice. Your emergency fund should match the financial risks that are relevant to you. The two main classes of financial risk are of course a sudden increase in costs or a decrease in income. You'd have to address both independently. First, loss of income. For most, this would simply equate to the loss of a job. How much benefits would you expect to get, and for how long? This is often the most important question; the 6 months advise in the US is based on a lack of benefits.  With two incomes, you're less likely to lose both jobs at the same time. That's a general advise, though. If you both work for the same employer, the risk of losing two jobs at the same time is certainly real. Also, in countries with little protection against dismissal (such as the US), the chance of being layed off at the same time is also higher. On the debit side, there are also two main risks. The first is the loss or failure of an essential possession, i.e. one which requires immediate replacement. This could include a car, or a washing machine. You already paid for one before, so you should have a good idea how much it costs. The second expenditure risk is health-related costs. Those can suddenly crop up, but often you have some kind of insurance. If not, you'd need to account for some costs, but it's hard to come up with an objective number here. The two categories are dependent, of course. Health-related costs may very well coincide with a loss of income, especially if you're self-employed. Now, once you've figured out what the risks are, it's time to figure out how to insure against them. Insurance might be a better choice than an emergency fund, especially for the health costs. You might even discover that you don't need an emergency fund at all. In large parts of Europe, you could establish a credit margin that's not easily revoked (i.e. overdraft agreements), and unemployment benefits are sufficient to cover your regular cost of living. The main risk would then be a sudden lack of liquidity if your employer goes bankrupt and fails to pay the monthly wages, which means your credit should be guaranteed sufficient to borrow one month of expenses. (This of course assumes quite good credit; \""pay off my car\"" doesn't suggest that.)"""
"""When writing a covered call, what's the difference between a \""net debit\"" and a \""net credit\""?""","""When you buy a stock and sell a covered call, the call can't be valued higher than the stock, right? How can a call on a $10 stock sell for more than the stock?  So, the initial position of a covered call will cost you something. The transaction is a debit  to you. The net amount of the deal, usually prices as per stock\/option single share.  For the image showing net credit, it's as if you expect to get paid for you to take this deal."""
"""US taxation of stock purchase plan for non-resident alien""","""From my research it looks like its an income NOT effectively connected with the trade of business. This page has the exact details https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/individuals\/international-taxpayers\/effectively-connected-income-eci"""
"""What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate]""","""A share of stock is a small fraction of the ownership of the company. If you expect the company to eventually be of interest to someone who wants to engineer a merger or takeover, it's worth whatever someone is willing to pay to help make that happen or keep it from happening. Which means it will almost always track the company's value to some degree, because the company itself will buy back shares when it can if they get too cheap, to protect itself from takeover. It may also start paying dividends at a later date. You may also value being able to vote on the company's actions. Including whether it should offer a dividend or reinvest that money in the company. Basically, you would want to own that share -- or not -- for the same reasons you would want to own a piece of that business. Because that's exactly what it is."""
"""Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?""","""I would personally suggest owning Mutual Funds or ETF's in a tax sheltered account, such as a 401k or an IRA, especially Roth options if available.  This lets you participate in the stock market while ensuring that you have diversified portfolio, and the money is managed by an expert.  The tax sheltered accounts (or tax free in the case of Roth accounts) increase your savings, and simplify your life as you don't need to worry about taxes on earnings within those accounts, as long as you leave the money in. For a great beginner's guide see Clark's Investment Guide (Easy)."""
"""Is foreign stock considered more risky than local stock and why?""","""It is very important to note the strength and reputation of the country's regulatory agency. You cannot assume the standards of say the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) apply in other countries (even well-developed ones). These regulations force companies to disclose certain information to inform and protect investors. The standards for such practices vary internationally."""
"""Where do stock traders get realtime updates on Fed announcements? Is there a feed I could scrape? ""","""Bloomberg terminal is a pretty standard way nowadays to get this information (and a lot more) pretty much in real time."""
"""Is per diem taxable?""","""Per-diem is not taxable, if all the conditions are met. Conditions include: You can find this and more in this IRS FAQ document re the per-diem."""
"""What are the top \""market conditions\"" to follow?""","""The best advice I've heard regarding market conditions is:  Buy into fear, and sell into greed. That is, get in when everyone is a bear and predicting economic collapse. Start selling when you hear stock picks at parties and family functions. That said. You are better off in the long term not letting emotion (of you or the market) control your investing decisions). Use dollar cost averaging to put a fixed amount in at fixed intervals and you will most likely end up better off for it."""
"""Calculating the cost of waiting longer for money""","""The cost of an extra 30 days is $1459.80"""
"""Is an analyst's \""price target\"" assumed to be for 12 months out?""","""The time horizon applicable to the price target is always specified by the broker or bank which published the research report.  You will find this information in the disclaimer, which is present on every research report. Usually it is 12 months, but some firms give 6 months price targets. However, you should never rely on the price target alone and always combine it with the following details (to name a few): Are the analyst's estimate above or below consensus estimates (or company guidance), did the analyst rise or lower its estimates. What is the rating on the stock (Buy, Sell, Hold...), when did he change his rating or price target.  Does the firm do business with the company? (which may influence a bullish tone and optimistic price target)."""
"""Why can't online transactions be completed outside of business hours?""","""Generally, unless you're doing a wire transfer, bank transactions are processed in batches overnight. So the credit card company won't be able to confirm your transfer until the next business day (it may take even longer for them to actually receive the money)."""
"""How much should I save up per trade?""","""I'd answer it this way:  What do you want to do? I'd say any amount is acceptable from as low as $100.  When you look at the specific \""tree\"" of investing paying $5 for a $100 seems unacceptable.  However when observing the \""forest\"" what does it matter if you \""waste\"" $5 on a commission?  Your friends (and maybe you) probably waste more than $5 multiple times per day.  For them buying a latte might empower them, if buying another share of HD, for a similar cost, empowers you than do it.  In the end who will be better off? Studies show that the more important part of building a significant investment portfolio is actually doing it.  Rate of return and the cost of investing pales in comparison to actually doing it.  How many of your peers are doing similar things?  You are probably in very rare company. If it makes you happy, it is a wonderful way to spend your money."""
"""Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest""","""The biggest question is do you want to be a landlord? There are a lot of ups and down to managing property from bad tenants to having to fix a water heater or replace a fridge.   If you aren't interested in being a landlord, it is definitely a bad idea.   If you do want to be a landlord, then the question is how close do you want to be to your tenants?   What if they are up late making noise, etc.?   What if they watch TV all night and you hear it through the walls?   What is your plan?   You ask if people have trouble \""sharing\"" a house.   If you are the landlord and the other party the tenant, then you aren't \""Sharing\"", you are leasing.   It's a different relationship with different strains."""
"""Website for managing personal cash inflow and outflow, applicable to India? ""","""I like Pocketsmith for simple cashflow forecasting. I use Moneycenter for more complex tracking."""
"""How can I save money on a gym \/ fitness membership? New Year's Resolution is to get in shape - but on the cheap!""","""I came across an article posted at Squawkfox last week.  It's particularly relevant to answering this question.  See 10 Ways to Cut Your Fitness Membership Costs.  Here's an excerpt: [...]   If you\u2019re in the market for a   shiny new gym membership, it may be   wise to read the fine print and know   your rights before agreeing to a   fitness club contract. No one wants to   be stuck paying for a membership they   can no longer use, for whatever   reason.   But if you\u2019re revved and ready to burn   a few calories, here are ten ways to   get fitter while saving some cash on a   fitness club or gym membership. Yay,   fitness tips!    [...] Check it out!"""
"""What emergencies could justify a highly liquid emergency fund?""","""First of all, a person that relies on their ability to tap a line of credit to cover an emergency isn't generally the kind of person that has investments they can cash out to cover the debt. That being said, my personal reasons for having a liquid emergency fund revolve around bank errors and identify theft. I used to work for a company that made bank software. Errors are a common occurrence. You'd be surprised how many transactions are still input by human hands despite our computerized world. All it takes is one typo to wipe out your ability to swipe plastic for a few days. This has actually happened to me. My utility company sent me a bill for $240 and wound up taking $2400 by accident, overdrawing my account and sending me into a fee spiral. They fixed their mistake... several days later. The snowball of fees from other transactions that bounced took another two months to correct. In the meantime, I also had my mortgage payment due. In the US, you can't pay your mortgage with credit, and for those who rent, many landlords won't let you pay with credit either. I have also seen this scenario play out twice with other people I've known who've had their ID stolen. Yes, the bank will cover the fraud after a lengthy process. But the disruption causes fees and overdrafts to quickly snowball out of control. I have a separate savings account at a different bank for this kind of thing, and I have a few hundred dollars cash in my house at all times. Having a liquid emergency fund allows you to quickly stabilize the situation and gives you walking around money for those times where the banking system becomes your enemy for a time."""
"""My investment account is increasingly and significantly underperforming vs. the S&P 500. What should I do?""","""The majority (about 80%) of mutual funds are underperforming their underlying indexes. This is  why ETFs have seen massive capital inflows compared to equity funds, which have seen significant withdrawals in the last years.  I would definitively recommend going with an ETF. In addition to pure index based ETFs that (almost) track broad market indexes like the S&P 500 there are quite a few more \""quant\"" oriented ETFs that even outperformed the S&P. I am long the S&P trough iShares ETFs and have dividend paying ETFs and some quant ETFS on top (Invesco Powershares) in my portfolio."""
"""Why pay for end-of-day historical prices?""","""There are several reasons to pay for data instead of using Yahoo Finance, although these reasons don't necessarily apply to you if you're only planning to use the data for personal use.  Yahoo will throttle you if you attempt to download too much data in a short time period. You can opt to use the Yahoo Query Language (YQL), which does provide another interface to their financial data apart from simply downloading the CSV files. Although the rate limit is higher for YQL, you may still run into it. An API that a paid data provider exposes will likely have higher thresholds.  Although the reliability varies throughout the site, Yahoo Finance isn't considered the most reliable of sources. You can't beat free, of course, but at least for research purposes, the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at UChicago and Wharton is considered the gold standard. On the commercial side, data providers like eSignal, Bloomberg, Reuters also enjoy widespread popularity. Although both the output from YQL and Yahoo's current CSV output are fairly standard, they won't necessarily remain that way. A commercial API is basically a contract with the data provider that they won't change the format without significant prior notice, but it's reasonable to assume that if Yahoo wanted to, they could make minor changes to the format and break many commercial applications. A change in Yahoo's format would likely break many sites or applications too, but their terms of use do state that Yahoo \""may change, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Yahoo! Finance Modules at any time, including the availability of any Yahoo! Finance Modules. Yahoo! may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict your access to parts or all of the Yahoo! Finance Modules or the Yahoo! Web site without notice or liability.\"" If you're designing a commercial application, a paid provider will probably provide technical support for their API.  According to Yahoo Finance's license terms, you can't use the data in a commercial application unless you specifically use their \""badges\"" (whatever those are). See here. In this post, a Yahoo employee states: The Finance TOS is fairly specific. Redistribution of data is only   allowed if you are using the badges the team has created. Otherwise, you can use YQL or whatever method to obtain data for   personal use. The license itself states that you may not: sell, lease, or sublicense the Yahoo! Finance Modules or access   thereto or derive income from the use or provision of the Yahoo!   Finance Modules, whether for direct commercial or monetary gain or   otherwise, without Yahoo!'s prior, express, written permission In short, for personal use, Yahoo Finance is more than adequate. For research or commercial purposes, a data provider is a better option. Furthermore, many commercial applications require more data than Yahoo provides, e.g. tick-by-tick data for equities, derivatives, futures, data on mergers, etc., which a paid data source will likely provide. Yahoo is also known for inaccuracies in its financial statements; I can't find any examples at the moment, but I had a professor who enjoyed pointing out flaws in the 10K's that he had come across. I've always assumed this is because the data were manually entered, although I would assume EDGAR has some method for automatic retrieval. If you want data that are guaranteed to be accurate, or at least have a support contract associated with them so you know who to bother if it isn't, you'll need to pay for it."""
"""Will depositing $10k+ checks each month raise red flags with the IRS?""","""Contractors regularly deposit checks like this; if the income is legitimate don't worry. Report it to the IRS as income whether or not the customer issues you a 1099. With deposits like this you should be making quarterly payments to the IRS for your projected income."""
"""How do I get the latest or even realtime information of institutions stock buy\/sell action?""","""Of course not, this is confidential information in the same way that I cannot phone up your bank and ask to see a list of the transactions that you have made. Any bank has to be extremely careful about protecting the private transactions of it's customers and would be subject to heavy fines if it revealed this information without the customer's consent."""
"""1 EIN doing business under multiple business names""","""You're confusing a lot of things here. Company B LLC will have it's sales run under Company A LLC, and cease operating as a separate entity These two are contradicting each other. If B LLC ceases to exist - it is not going to have it's sales run under A LLC, since there will be no sales to run for a non-existent company. What happens is that you merge B LLC into A LLC, and then convert A LLC into S Corp. So you're cancelling the EIN for B LLC, you're cancelling the EIN for A LLC - because both entities cease to exist. You then create a EIN for A Corp, which is the converted A LLC, and you create a DBA where A Corp DBA B Shop. You then go to the bank and open the account for A Corp DBA B Shop with the EIN you just created for A Corp. Get a better accountant. Before you convert to S-Corp."""
"""How do you choose which mortgage structure is appropriate when buying a home?""","""Down payment: Emphatically avoid PMI if at all possible; it's pouring money down the drain. Do 20% down if you can, or pay off enough to bring you above 20% and ask for PMI to be removed as soon as you can. Beyond that it's a matter of how much risk you want to accept and how long you'll own the place, and you'll have to run the numbers for the various alternatives -- allowing for uncertainty in your investments -- to guide your decision. Do not assume you will be able to make a profit when you sell the house; that's the mistake which left many people under water and\/or foreclosed on. Do not assume that you will be able to sell it quickly; it can take a year of more. Do not assume immediate or 100% occupancy it you rent it out; see many other answers here for more realistic numbers.... and remember that running a rental is a business and has ongoing costs and hassles. (You can contract those out, but then you lose a good percentage of the rent income.) Double mortgage is another great way to dig yourself into a financial hole; it can be a bigger cost than the PMI it tries to dodge and is definitely a bigger risk. Don't."""
"""Financing with two mortgages: a thing of the past?""","""I doubt it. I researched it a bit when I was shopping for a HELOC, and found no bank giving HELOC for more than 80% LTV. In fact, most required less than 80%. Banks are more cautious now. If the bank is not willing to compromise on the LTV for the first mortgage - either look for another bank, or another place to buy. I personally would not consider buying something I cannot put at least 20% downpayment on. It means that such a purchase is beyond means."""
"""Can I make my savings keep in check with or beat inflation over a long time period via index funds?""","""For your base question, yes.  (Barring some major collapse-of-civilization event, but in that case you're screwed anyway :-))  On the individual points: 1) Depends on whether you choose to invest in index-type funds (where profit is mainly expected from price appreciation), or more value-based investing.  But either or a mix of the two (my own choice) should show returns above inflation, over the long term. 2) Yes, in the US anyway.  You can invest a few hundred dollars at a time, and (with good companies like Vanguard & T. Rowe Price) there are no transaction fees, either for investing or for redeeming.   3) Long-term, it's crash-proof IF you have the self-discipline not to panic-sell at market lows.  In my case, my total fund valuation dropped around 40% in '08.  I didn't sell anything (and in fact tried to cut spending and invest more), and now I have nearly double what I had before the crash. Bottom line is that it has worked for me.  After ~30 years of investing this way without being fanatic about it, I have enough that I could live moderately without working for the rest of my life.  Not - and this is where I part company with MMM and most of the FIRE community - that I'd ever want to actually retire.  But my modest financial independence gives me the freedom to work at things I like, rather than because I'm worrying about paying bills."""
"""Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go \""above water\"" to qualify for a refinance?""","""Does it cost money to refi? I know there are quite a few deals out there, I refi'd in June for $500, not bad. But sometimes can cost couple grand. If so, you have up front costs, plus the cost of the personal loan, that probably would break even at some point after your refi, but at what point? Will you sell before then, or even think about it? Or would you break even next year, then its a no brainer. As mentioned by others, do the numbers."""
"""High Leverage Inflation Hedges for Personal Investors""","""I assume you're looking for advice, not an actual guaranteed-to-appreciate answer, yes? If you believe Treasury bonds will increase as fast as inflation, that may be the way to go."""
"""Accepting high volatility for high long-term returns""","""This is basically what financial advisers have been saying for years...that you should invest in higher risk securities when you are young and lower risk securities when you get older. However, despite the fact that this is taken as truth by so many financial professionals, financial economists have been unable to formulate a coherent theory that supports it.  By changing the preferences of their theoretical investors, they can get solutions like putting all your investments in a super safe asset until you get to a minimum survival level for retirement and then investing aggressively and many other solutions.  But for none of the typically assumed preferences does investing aggressively when young and becoming more conservative as you near retirement seem to be the solution.  I'm not saying there can be no such preferences, but the difficulty in finding them makes me think maybe this idea is not actually correct. Couple of problems with your intuition that you should think about: It's not clear that things \""average out\"" over time.  If you lose a bunch of money in some asset, there's no reason to think that by holding that asset for a while you will make back what you lost--prices are not cyclical.  Moreover, doesn't your intuition implicitly suggest that you should transition out of risky securities as you get older...perhaps after having lost money? You can invest in safe assets (or even better, the tangency portfolio from your graph) and then lever up if you do want higher risk\/return.  You don't need to change your allocation to risky assets (and it is suboptimal to do so--you want to move along the CAL, not the curve). The riskiness of your portfolio should generally coincide (negatively) with your risk-aversion.  When you are older and more certain about your life expectancy and your assets, are you exposed to more or less risks?  In many cases, less risks.  This means you would choose a more risky portfolio (because you are more sure you will have enough to live on until death even if your portfolio takes a dive). Your actual portfolio consists both of your investments and your human capital (the present value of your time and skills).  When you are young, the value of this capital changes significantly with market performance so you already have background risk.  Buying risky securities adds to that risk.  When you are old, your human capital is worth little, so your overall portfolio becomes less risky.  You might want to compensate by increasing the risk of your investments. EDIT: Note that this point may depend on how risky your human capital is (how likely it is that your wage or job prospects will change with the economy). Overall the answer to your question is not definitively known, but there is theoretical evidence that investing in risky securities when young isn't optimal. Having said that, most people do seem to invest in riskier securities when young and safer when they are older. I suspect this is because with life experience people become less optimistic as they get older, not because it is optimal to do so.  But I can't be sure."""
"""I've got $100K to invest over the next 2 to 7 years. What are some good options?""","""Well, a proper answer needs a few more details: 1) What's your marginal tax bracket? (A CD is just plain silly for someone in a high tax bracket and in a high tax state) 2) What's your state of residence? 3) Do you have a 401k to draw on for a house loan in case of badly timed volatility? 4) What does will the rest of our investment portfolio look like in case of a sudden rise in interest rates? Depending on the answers to those questions, the mix of investments could be anywhere from: Tell me more about bracket\/state\/other investment mix and I can suggest something."""
"""Equity or alternative compensation in an LLC?""","""I'm not sure 1099-MISC is what you should expect. Equity means ownership, and in LLC context it means membership. As an LLC member, you'll get distributions and should receive a K-1 form for tax treatment, not 1099 or W2. If the CEO is talking about 1099 it means he's going to hire you as a contractor which contradicts the statement about equity allocation. That's an entirely different situation. 1) Specifically, would the 1099-MISC form be used in this case? 1099-MISC is used to describe various payments. Depending on which box is filled, the tax treatment may be as of employment income (subject to SE taxes) or passive income (royalties, rents, etc - subject to various limitations in the tax code). 3) If this is the only logical method of compensation (receiving a % of real estate sales), how would it be taxed? That would probably be a commission and taxed as employment income. I suggest to get a professional tax adviser consultation on this issue, with specific details, numbers, and kinds of deals involved. You can get gain or lose a lot of money just because you're characterized as a contractor and not LLC member or employee (each has its own benefits and disadvantages, and you have to consider them all). 4) Are there any advantages\/disadvantages to acquiring and selling   properties through the company as opposed to receiving a % of sales? Yes. There are advantages and there are disadvantages. For example, if you're using a corporation, you can get salary, if you're a contractor you cannot. There are a lot of issues hidden in this distinction (which I've just discussed with KeithS in this argument)."""
"""Alternative means of salary for my employees ""","""There are several local currency initiatives in the US list here.  Most are attempts to normalize a value as a living wage, or encourage local consumption networks.  If you are in the catchment region of one of these, see if you can get a grant or loan to get started (if you are willing to buy into the philosophy of the group such as a $10 minimum wage) m"""
"""Buying from an aggressive salesperson""","""I have a very simple rule. For anything other than trivial purchases (a small fraction of my monthly income), the only final decision I will make in the presence of a salesperson is \""No\"". After I have the terms nailed down, and still feel that I am likely to buy the item, I leave the store, car dealership etc., and think about it by myself. Often, I go to a mall coffee shop to do the thinking. If it is really big, I sleep on it and make my decision the next day. Once I have made my decision, I inform the salesperson. If the decision is \""No\"" I do not discuss my reasons - that gives them an overcome-the-objection lever. I just tell them I have decided not to buy the item, which is all they need to know."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""Gambling is never a wise investment. Even assuming that the stated odds are correct, there can be multiple winners, and the jackpot is shared between the winners, so the individual payout can be significantly less than the total jackpot. If I were to take a dollar from you and a dollar from your buddy on the promise that I'd give the two of you a total of $3 back if you both guessed the result of a single, fair coin toss, would you take the offer? Note, also, that the \""jackpot\"" value is quite misleading: it's the sum of the annual payments, and if you reduce that to present value it's significantly less."""
"""Index funds with dividends?""","""I assume that when you say 'the DOW' that you actually mean the general market.  The ticker symbol for the general market is SPY (called a 'Spider'). The ticker symbol for Nasdaq is QQQ.  SPY currently pays 2.55% in dividends in a year.  QQQ currently pays 1.34% in dividends in a year."""
"""What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \""emergencies\"" but are not covered by an Emergency Fund?""","""Some things are nearly universal, and have been mentioned already.  My \""favorite\"" forseeable expenses in this category are: However, I also advocate saving for expenses that are specific to you.  Look back on your expenses for the last 12 months, minimum (18 or 24 may be better).  Ask yourself these questions: I ask about large expenditures because you may make enough that you can \""eat\"" these lapses in budgeting, as I did for many years.  It is not an emergency now, but it turned into an emergency down the road as my spending went out of control.  Look at all expenditures over a certain level, say $100 or $200.   Some personal examples of expenses that aren't quite so universal, but turned into small emergencies: This last one was rather unexpected.  It is the reason why I ask the question \""why didn't I budget for it?\""  These fees and dues are for my professional-level certifications.  In my industry, they are \""always\"" paid for by the company.  A year ago, they weren't paid by my former employer because they planned to lay me off.  This year, they weren't paid by my present employer because I am technically a temporary worker (4 years is temporary?).  So, from now on, I plan to save for this expense.  If my employer pays my dues, then I stop saving for the expense, but keep the money I've saved."""
"""Can I rollover an \""individual retirement annuity\"" to an IRA?""","""You are not allowed to take a retirement account and move it into the beneficiary's name, an inherited IRA is titled as \""Deceased Name for the benefit of Beneficiary name\"". Breaking the correct titling makes the entire account non-retirement and tax is due on the funds that were not yet taxed. If I am mistaken and titling remained correct, RMDs are not avoidable, they are taken based on your Wife's life expectancy from a table in Pub 590, and the divisor is reduced by one each year.  Page 86 is \""table 1\"" and provides the divisor to use. For example, at age 50, your wife's divisor is 34.2 (or 2.924%). Each year it decrements by 1, you do not go back to the table each year. It sounds like the seller's recommendation bordered on misconduct, and the firm behind him can be made to release you from this and refund the likely high fees he took from you. Without more details, it's tough to say. I wish you well. The only beneficiary that just takes possession into his\/her own account is the surviving spouse. Others have to do what I first described."""
"""What is 'consolidating' debt and why do people do it?""","""With the scenario that you laid out (ie. 5% and 10% loans), it makes no sense at all. The problem is, when you're in trouble the rates are never 5% or 10%. Getting behind on credit cards sucks and is really hard to recover from. The problem with multiple accounts is that as the banks tack on fees and raise your interest rate to the default rate (usually 30%) when you give them any excuse (late payment, over the limit, etc). The banks will also cut your credit lines as you make payments, making it more likely that you will bump over the limit and be back in \""default\"" status. One payment, even at a slightly higher rate is preferable when you're deep in the hole because you can actually pay enough to hit principal. If you have assets like a house, you'll get a much better rate as well. In a scenario where you're paying 22-25% interest, your minimum payment will be $150-200 a month, and that is mostly interest and penalty. \""One big loan\"" will usually result in a smaller payment, and you don't end up in a situation where the banks are jockeying for position so they get paid first. The danger of consolidation is that you'll stop triggering defaults and keep making your payments, so your credit score will improve. Then the vultures will start circling and offering you more credit cards. EDIT: Mea Culpa.  I wrote this based on experiences of close friends whom I've helped out over the years, not realizing how the law changed in 2009.  Back around 2004, a single late payment would trigger universal default on most cards, jacking all rates up to 30% and slashing credit lines, resulting in over the limit and other fees. Credit card banks generally apply payments (in order, to interest on penalties, penalties, interest on principal, principal) in a way that makes it very difficult to pay down principal for people deep in debt. They would also offer \""payment plans\"" to entice you to pay Bank B vs. Bank A, which would trigger overlimit fees from Bank A. Another change is that minimum payments were generally 2% of statement balance, which often didn't cover the monthly finance charge. The new law changed that, resulting in a payment of 1% of balance + accrued interest. Under the old regime, consolidation made it less likely that various circumstances would trigger default, and gave the struggling debtor one throat to choke. With the new rules, there are definitely a smaller number of scenarios where consolidation actually makes sense."""
"""Can paying down a mortgage be considered an \""investment\""?""","""Your mortgage represents a negative cash flow of $X for N months. The typical mortgage prepayment doesn't reduce your next payment, but does reduce the length of the mortgage. If you look at the amortization table of a 30 year loan, you might see a payment of $1000 but only $50 going to principal. So if on day one you send an extra $51 or so to the bank, you find that in 30 years you just saved that $1000 payment. In effect, it was a long term bond or CD, yielding the post tax rate of the mortgage. Say your loan were 7%. At 7%, money doubles every 10 years or so. 30 years is 3 doubles or 8X. If I were to offer you $1000 and ask for $7500 in 30 years, you might accept it, with an agreement to buy me out if you refinanced. For me, that would be an investment. Just like buying a bond. In fact, there is a real return, as you see the cash flow at the end. The payments 'not made' are your payback.  Those who insist it's not an investment are correct in the strict sense of the word's definition, but pedantic for the fact in practice, the prepayment is a choice to be considered alongside other investment choices. When I have a mortgage, I am the mortgagor, the bank, the mortgagee. Same as a company issuing a bond, the Bank holds my bond and I'm making payments to them. They hold my bond as an investment. There is no question of that. In fact, they package these and sell them as CMOs, groups of mortgages. A pre-payment is me buying back the last coupon on my mortgage. I fail to see the distinction between me 'buying back' $10K in future coupons on my own loan or me investing $10K in someone else's loans.  The real question for me is whether this makes sense when rates are so low. At 4%, I'd say it's a matter of prioritizing any high rate debt and any other investments that might yield more. But even so, it's an investment yielding 4%.  Over the years, I've developed the priorities of where to put new money - The priorities are debatable. I have my opinion, and my reasons to back them up. In general, it's a balance between risk and return. In my opinion, there's something wrong with ignoring a dollar for dollar match on the 401(k) in most circumstances. Others seem to prefer being 100% debt free before saving at all. There's a balance that might be different for each individual. As I started, the mortgage is a fixed return, with no chance to just get it back if needed. If your cash savings is pretty high, and the choice is a .001% CD or prepay a 4% mortgage, I'd use some funds to pay it down. But not to the point you have no liquid reserves."""
"""What is high trading volume in a stock indicative of? Is high liquidity a good thing or a bad thing?""","""In general, there should be a \""liquidity premium\"" which means that less-liquid stocks should be cheaper. That's because to buy such a stock, you should demand a higher rate of return to compensate for the liquidity risk (the possibility that you won't be able to sell easily). Lower initial price = higher eventual rate of return. That's what's meant when Investopedia says the security would be cheaper (on average). Is liquidity good? It depends. Here's what illiquidity is. Imagine you own a rare piece of art. Say there are 10 people in the world who collect this type of art, and would appreciate what you own. That's an illiquid asset, because when you want to sell, maybe those 10 people aren't buying - maybe they don't want your particular piece, or they all happen to be short on funds. Or maybe worse, only one of them is buying, so they have all the negotiating leverage. You'll have to lower your price if you're really in a hurry to sell. Maybe if you lower your price enough, you can get one of the 10 buyers interested, even if none were initially. An illiquid asset is bad for sellers. Illiquid means there aren't enough buyers for you to get a bidding war going at the time of your choosing. You'll potentially have to wait around for buyers to turn up, or for a stock, maybe you'd have to sell a little bit at a time as buyers want the shares. Illiquid can be bad for buyers, too, if the buyer is for some reason in a hurry; maybe nobody is selling at any given time. But, usually buyers don't have to be in a hurry. An exception may be if you short sell something illiquid (brokers often won't let you do this, btw). In that case you could be a forced buyer and this could be very bad on an illiquid security. If there are only one or two sellers out there, they now have the negotiating leverage and they can ask whatever price they want. Illiquidity is very bad when mixed with margin or short sales because of the potential for forced trades at inopportune times. There are plenty of obscure penny stocks where there might be only one or two trades per day, or fewer. The spread is going to be high on these because the bids at a given time will just be lowball offers from buyers who aren't really all that interested, unless you want to give your stock away, in which case they'll take it. And the asks are going to be from sellers who want to get a decent price, but maybe there aren't really any buyers willing to pay, so the ask is just sitting there with no takers. The bids and asks may be limit orders that have been sitting open for 3 weeks and forgotten about. Contrast with a liquid asset. For example, a popular-model used car in good condition would be a lot more liquid than a rare piece of art, though not nearly as liquid as most stocks. You can probably find several people that want to buy it living nearby, and you're not going to have to drop the price to get a buyer to show up. You might even get those buyers in a bidding war. From illiquid penny stocks, there's a continuum all the way up to the most heavily-traded stocks such as those in the S&P500. With these at a given moment there will be thousands of buyers and sellers, so the spread is going to close down to nearly zero. If you think about it, just statistically, if there are thousands of bids and thousands of asks, then the closest bid-ask pair is going to be close together. That's a narrow spread. While if there are 3 bids and 2 asks on some illiquid penny stock, they might be dollars away from each other, and the number of shares desired might not match up. You can see how liquidity is good in some situations and not in others. An illiquid asset gives you more opportunity to get a good deal because there aren't a lot of other buyers and sellers around and there's some opportunity to \""negotiate\"" within the wide spread. For some assets maybe you can literally negotiate by talking to the other party, though obviously not when trading stocks on an exchange. But an illiquid asset also means you might get a bad deal, especially if you need to sell quickly and the only buyers around are making lowball offers. So the time to buy illiquid assets is when you can take your time on both buying and selling, and will have no reason for a forced trade on a particular timeline. This usually means no debt is involved, since creditors (including your margin broker) can force you to trade. It also means you don't need to spend the money anytime soon, since if you suddenly needed the money you'd have a forced trade on your hands. If you have the time, then you put a price out there that's very good for you, and you wait for someone to show up and give you that price - this is how you get a good deal. One more note, another use of the term liquid is to refer to assets with low or zero volatility, such as money market funds. An asset with a lot of volatility around its intrinsic or true value is effectively illiquid even if there's high trade volume, in that any given point in time might not be a good time to sell, because the price isn't at the right level. Anyway, the general definition of a liquid investment is one that you'd be comfortable cashing out of at a moment's notice. In this sense, most stocks are not all that liquid, despite high trading volume. In different contexts people may use \""liquid\"" in this sense or to mean a low bid-ask spread."""
"""How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away?""","""First, if it is in any way a joint account, the debt usually goes to the surviving person. Assets in joint accounts usually have their own instructions on how to disperse the assets; for example, full joint bank accounts usually immediately go to the other name on the account and never become part of the estate. Non-cash assets will likely need to be converted to cash and a fair market valuation shown to the probate court, unless the debts can be paid without using them and they can be transferred to next of kin. If, after that, the deceased has any assets at all, there is usually (varies by state) a legally defined order in which debtor types must be paid. This is handled by probating the estate. There is a period during which you publish a death notice and then wait for debt claims and bills to arrive. Then pay as many as possible based on the priority, and inform the others the holder is deceased and the estate is empty. This sometimes needs to be approved by a judge if the assets are less than the debts. Then disperse remaining assets to next of kin. If there are no assets held by just the deceased, as you get bills you just send a certified copy of the death certificate, tell them there is no estate, then forget about them. A lawyer can really help in determining which need to be paid and to work through probate, which is not simple or cheap. But also note that you can negotiate and sometimes get them to accept less, if there are assets. When my mother died, the doctors treating her zeroed her accounts; the hospitals accepted a much reduced total, but the credit cards wanted 100%."""
"""A guy scammed me, but he gave me a bank account number & routing number. Can I use that to take out what he owes me?""","""A routing number and account number are on the bottom of every check. If anybody who ever handled your checks or even saw your checks could just withdraw as much money as they wanted, the whole banking system would need to be reworked. In short, just having that info is not enough. Not legally."""
"""Can a company donate to a non-profit to pay for services arranged for before hand?""","""Can a company say \""StackExchange\"" donate to a non-profit company say $5,000 in agreement that they will spend that on paying a designer for a new website? And most importantly is this donation still tax deductible? A non-profit would have to typically create a bucket for IT Services or Website design. As long as \""StackExchange\"" specify they employ a profession service to get it done, there would be no issue. If \""StackExchange\"" were to specify an individula\/company it would be an issue."""
"""Is my mother eligible for SNAP?""","""If she lives by herself, my guess would be that she qualifies as a household of one. Either way, her monthly income is below the threshold, so she should be eligible. Per the linked website The only way to determine if your household is eligible for SNAP benefits is to apply. I'd say it's worth a try."""
"""Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 Billion. How are existing shareholders affected?""","""isn't it still a dilution of existing share holder stock value ? Whether this is dilution or benefit, only time will tell. The Existing value of Facebook is P, the anticipated value after Watsapp is P+Q ... it may go up or go down depending on whether it turns out to be the right decision. Plus if Facebook hadn't bought Watsapp and someone else may have bought and Facebook itself would have got diluted, just like Google Shadowed Microsoft and Facebook shadowed Google ... There are regulations in place to ensure that there is no diversion of funds and shady deals where only the management profits and others are at loss. Edit to littleadv's comments: If a company A is owned by 10 people for $ 10 with total value $100, each has 10% of the share in the said company. Now if a Company B is acquired again 10 ea with total value 100. In percentage terms everyone now owns 5% of the new combined company C. He still owns $10 worth. Just after this acquisition or some time later ..."""
"""Where I can find the exact time when a certain company's stock will be available in the secondary market?""","""Very often, the word secondary market is used synonymously with the stock market as we all know it.  In this case, the primary market would be the \""closed\"" world of VCs, business angels, etc to which stock market investors do not have access, e.g. the securities are not trading on a public stock market."""
"""Why do stocks track the price of Oil? ""","""Anthony Russell - I agree with JohnFx. Petroleum is used in making many things such as asphalt, road oil, plastic, jet fuel, etc. It's also used in some forms of electricity generation, and some electric cars use gasoline as a backup form of energy, petrol is also used in electricity generation outside of cars. Source can be found here. But to answer your question of why shares of electric car companies are not always negatively related to one another deals with supply and demand. If investors feel positively about petroleum and petroleum related prospects, then they are going to buy or attempt to buy shares of \""X\"" petrol company. This will cause the price of \""X\"", petrol company to rise, ceteris paribus. Just because the price of petroleum is high doesn't mean investors are going to buy shares of an electric car company. Petrol prices could be high, but numerous electric car companies could be doing poorly, now, with that being said you could argue that sales of electric cars may go up when petrol prices are high, but there are numerous factors that come into play here. I think it would be a good idea to do some more research if you are planning on investing. Also, remember, after a company goes public they no longer set the price of the shares of their stock. The price of company \""X\"" shares are determined by supply and demand, which is inherently determined by investors attitudes and expectations, ultimately defined by past company performance, expectations of future performance, earnings, etc.. It could be that when the market is doing well - it's a good sign of other macroeconomic variables (employment, GDP, incomes, etc) and all these factors power how often individuals travel, vacation, etc. It also has to deal with the economy of the country producing the oil, when you have OPEC countries selling petrol to the U.S. it is likely much cheaper per barrel than domestic produced and refined petrol because of the labor laws, etc. So a strong economy may be somewhat correlated with oil prices and a strong market, but it's not necessarily the case that strong oil prices drive the economy..I think this is a great research topic that cannot be answered in one post.. Check this article here. From here you can track down what research the Fed of Cleveland has done concerning this. My advice to you is to not believe everything your peers tell you, but to research everything your peers tell you. With just a few clicks you can figure out the legitimacy of many things to at least some degree."""
"""Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?""","""The idea is that the premiums (or costs) associated with the plan are a business expense, you know that already.  The distinction here is that employees don't pay premiums, they elect to contribute. The company sponsors a plan, the employees then choose to accept less salary in order to participate in the employer's plan.  The idea is that you're foregoing income. Why is the employee not taxed on this cost?  One major reason is that the employee has no say in, and often no idea, what the gross costs are (some find out if they ever receive COBRA election paperwork). There are more benefits than strict healthcare that are Section 125 eligible.  The government has a vested interest in keeping the population healthy, and when the ERISA laws and Section 125 were written it was (and still is) a pretty low friction way to get health insurance out to more people.  At this point, taking away the tax break from the employees would be a huge government take away from most of the population.  Try to get a politician to take something away from taxpayers. Why doesn't the deduction exist in kind to people buying individual coverage?  Ask your legislators.  There are thousands of preferential tax treatment oddities, where some industry will get some sort of benefit or break.  I'm not sure what leads you to think there needs to be some supremely logical reason for this oddity to exit."""
"""If I have no exemptions or deductions, just a simple paycheck, do I HAVE to file taxes?""","""In many cases, you are required to file your taxes by law even if you won't owe. If it's anything like in the US, it's quite possible your employer is not taking the right amount and you may owe more or may even be in line for a return. http:\/\/www.usatax.ca\/Pages\/filing_requirement_taxes_canada.html"""
"""Can I donate short-stock to charity?""","""No. There is no asset associated with your short position, so there's nothing to gift. The short position in the stock is purely a liability. When you note that you have a profit in the position, what you mean is that the cash you made when you shorted the stock is more than enough to cover the short position. The only asset in this picture, then, is the cash you made when you entered the short position."""
"""Expense ratio of an ETF included in the price or calculated separately""","""The expense ratio reduces the return of the ETF; your scenario of paying 100.0015 is that of a load.  Most (all?) ETFs can be bought without paying a load (sales charge as a percent of amount invested), and some ETFs can be bought without paying a brokerage fee (fixed or variable charge for a buy transaction just like buying any other stock  through the brokerage) because the brokerage has waived it.  Your broker  might charge fees for both buying and selling shares in an ETF, but in any case, this is quite separate from the expense ratio."""
"""Does SIPC protect securities purchased in foreign exchanges?""","""I'll give it a shot, even though you don't seem to be responding to my comment. SIPC insures against fraud or abuse of its members. If you purchased a stock through a SIPC member broker and it was held in trust by a SIPC member, you're covered by its protection. Where you purchased the stock - doesn't matter. There are however things SIPC doesn't cover. That said, SIPC members are SEC-registred brokers, i.e.: brokers operating in the USA. If you're buying on the UK stock exchange - you need to check that you're still operating through a US SIPC member. As I mentioned in the comment - the specific company that you mentioned has different entities for the US operations and the UK operations. Buying through them on LSE is likely to bind you with their UK entity that is not SIPC member. You'll have to check that directly with them."""
"""Alternatives to Intuit's PayTrust service for online bill viewing and bill payment?""","""Something you may want to consider if you are still choosing a bill-paying service is the contingency policies of the service.   I just suffered an extended stay in a hospital and my officially (in writing) designated Power of Attorney was NOT granted access to my PAYTRUST account.  Thus they could NOT take care of my finances easily.  After my discharge, I contacted PAYTRUST and they had canceled my account and would not reactivate it.  This is after over fifteen years of loyalty.  Needless to say there was much financial chaos in my life due to their negligence.  They were staunch in their policy and said officially that if they need to acknowledge a Power of Attorney, the ONLY thing they will allow the POA to do is close the PAYTRUST account.  How's that for customer service?!  Caveat Emptor. I am now seeking another service and will be asking about their POA policies."""
"""If I deposit money as cash does it count as direct deposit?""","""As RonJohn points out, direct deposit is something very different.  What's going on here is that they are trying to exclude the \""customers\"" that open the account simply for the premium and then close it again as soon as the terms of the offer have been met.  Most people have only one regular source of direct deposit money, either their paycheck or a retirement check.  This acts to make it hard for them to simply take the offer and run."""
"""Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]""","""Prices can go up or down for a variety of reasons. If interest rates decline typically every stock goes up, and vice versa. Ultimately, there are two main value-related factors to a price of a stock: the dividends the company may issue or the payoff in the event the company is bought by someone else. Any dividend paid will give concrete value to a stock. For example, imagine a company has shares selling at $1.00 and they announce that they will pay a dividend at the end of the year of $1.00 per share. If their claim is believable then the stock is practically FREE at $1.00 a share, so in all likelihood the stock will go up a lot, just on the basis of the dividend alone. If a company is bought by another, they need to buy at least a majority of the shares, and in some cases all the shares. Since the price the buyer will be willing to pay for the company is related to its potential future income for the buyer, the more profitable the company is, the more a buyer will be willing to pay and hence the greater the value of the stock."""
"""How can I spend less?""","""Try the Envelope Budgeting System. It is a pretty good system for managing your discretionary outflows. Also, be sure to pay yourself first. That means treat savings like an expense (mortgage, utilities, etc.) not an account you put money in when you have some left over. The problem is you NEVER seem to have anything leftover because most people's lifestyle adjusts to fit their income. The best way to do this is have the money automatically drafted each month without any action required on your part. An employer sponsored 401K is a great way to do this."""
"""Is it possible for the average person to profit on the stock market?""","""I'd refer you to Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money? The answer there is \""no, not true,\"" and much of the discussion applies to this question.  The stock market rises over time. Even after adjusting for inflation, a positive return. Those who try to beat the market, choosing individual stocks, on average, lag the market quite a bit. Even in a year of great returns, as is this year ('13 is up nearly 25% as measured by the S&P) there are stocks that are up, and stocks that are down. Simply look at a dozen stock funds and see the variety of returns. I don't even look anymore, because I'm sure that of 12, 2 or three will be ahead, 3-4 well behind, and the rest clustered near 25.  Still, if you wish to embark on individual stock purchases, I recommend starting when you can invest in 20 different stocks, spread over different industries, and be willing to commit time to follow them, so each year you might be selling 3-5 and replacing with stocks you prefer. It's the ETF I recommend for most, along with a buy and hold strategy, buying in over time will show decent returns over the long run, and the ETF strategy will keep costs low."""
"""Electric car lease or buy?""","""I might be missing something, but I always understood that leasing is about managing cash-flow in a business. You have a fixed monthly out-going as opposed to an up-front payment. My accountant (here in Germany) recommended: pay cash, take a loan (often the manufactures offer good rates) or lease - in that order. The leasing company has to raise the cash from somewhere and they don't want to make a loss on the deal. They will probably know better than I how to manage that and will therefore be calculating in the projected resale value at the end of the leasing period. I can't see how an electric car would make any difference here. These people are probably better informed about the resale value of any type of car than I am. My feeling is to buy using a loan from the manufacturer. The rates are often good and I have also got good deals on insurance as a part of that package. Here in Germany the sales tax (VAT) can be immediately claimed back in full when the loan deal is signed."""
"""Importance of dividend yield when evaluating a stock?""","""But I wish to know why the parameter is dividend\/market price rather than just 'dividend'? What 'extra' info you can uncover by looking at dividend\/market price that you cannot get from 'dividend'? Consider two stocks A and B. A offers a dividend of $1 per year. B offers a dividend of $2 per year. Let's remove all complications aside and assume that this trend continues. If you were to buy each of these stocks you will get the following amounts over its life (assumed infinity for simplicity): cash flows from A = $1\/(0.04) = $25, assuming risk free is 4% per annum cash flows from B = $2\/(0.04) = $50, assuming risk free is 4% per annum The price you buy them at is an important factor to consider because let's say if A was trading for $10 and B for $60, then A would look like a profitable nvestment while B won't. Of course, this is a very simplistic view. Dividend rates are not constant and many companies pose a significant risk of going bust but this should help illustrate the general idea behind the D\/P ratio. P.S.:- The formula I have used is one for computing the NPV of a perpetuity."""
"""Mortgage or not?""","""Here is something that should help your decision: Currently you are 57, suppose that means that you will still work for 10 years, and then be retired for another 20 before you sell the house. Your retirement account is nearly flat, so you will have to support yourself with your own income.  If there are no surprises, you and your wife could expect to earn 1.16 million over the  next 10 years. There will be interest on your savings, but also inflation, so to simplify I will ignore both. That means you will have an average of 40k (gross?) per year available to live from during the next 30 years. If you get a mortgage where you only pay nett 3% interest (no payback of the loan), that would cost you 6k per year on interest (based on 350k-150k), if you also want to pay back the 200k difference within 30 years, it would totally be close to 13k in annual interest+payback. Now consider whether you would rather live on 40k per year in your current place, or on a lower amount in a bigger place. Personally I would not choose to make a 200k investment at this point, perhaps after trying to live on a budget for a while. (This has the additional benefit that you can even build some cash reserve before buying anything.)"""
"""Closing a futures position""","""Assuming these are standardized and regulated contracts, the short answer is yes.  In your example, Trader A is short while Trader B is long.  If Trader B wants to exit his long position, he merely enters a \""sell to close\"" order with his broker. Trader B never goes short as you state.  He was long while he held the contract, then he \""sold to close\"". As to who finds the buyer of Trader B's contract, I believe that would be the exchange or a market maker.  Therefore, Trader C ends up the counterparty to Trader A's short position after buying from Trader B.  Assuming the contract is held until expiration, Trader A is responsible for delivering contracted product to Trader C for contracted price.  In reality this is generally settled up in cash, and Trader A and Trader C never even know each other's identity."""
"""Why I cannot find a \""Pure Cash\"" option in 401k investments?""","""The short term bond fund, which you are pretty certain to have as an option, functions in this capacity.  Its return will be low, but positive, in all but the most dramatic of rising rate scenarios. I recall a year in the 90's when rates rose enough that the bond fund return was zero or very slightly negative. It's not likely that you'd have access to simple money market or cash option."""
"""Put idle savings to use while keeping them liquid""","""Since you're coming out of college, you're probably a new investor and don't know too much about stocks, etc. I was in the same situation as well.  I wanted to keep my cash 'liquid' and wanted to make low risk investments. What I ended up doing was investing the majority of my money in higher interest GICs (Guaranteed Investment Certificate) and keeping the rest in my chequing\/savings account. I understand that GICs aren't exactly the most liquid asset out there. However, instead of investing it all into 1 GIC, I put them in to smaller increments with varying lock-in times and roll-over options. I.e. for 15000 keep $3000 on hand in your account 2x$1000 invested for 2 years 4x$1000 invested for 1 year 3x$1000 invested for 180 days 3x$1000 invested for 90 days When you find that you run out of cash from your $3000, you'll have a GIC expiring soon.  The 'problem' with GICs is that redeeming them before the maturity period usually incurs a penalty in the form of no interest.  Keeping them in smaller increments allows you to redeem only the amount you need without losing too much interest.  At maturity, if you don't need the money, you can just have the GIC renew.   The other problem with GICs, is that interest rates, though better than savings accounts, aren't that much more.  You're basically just fighting off inflation.  The benefit is that on maturity, you are guaranteed your principal and the interest.   This plan is easy to implement if your bank\/credit union allows you to create and manage GICs online."""
"""What are the options for a 19-year-old college student who only has about $1000?""","""If you're looking for ways to turn $1000 into more, don't just think of ways it can make money -- also consider whether there are any ways you can use it to save money. Among the advantages of this approach is that you're not taxed for reducing your expenditures. The good news is that there are a lot more ways to save a little bit of money on a $1000 budget than there are to make a little money on that budget. The bad news is that most of them will require some additional input: labor. Have you taken an economics course? Capital + Labor => output.  I don't know what you spend your money on exactly, but some thoughts: You may find more opportunities for things like this as you move out from college and into your own apartment (\/house) and the university isn't taking care of as many of your needs. Just don't confuse yourself about where the line is between actually saving money that you were going to spend anyway, and just consuming more. Consumption is fine in and of itself (and ultimately it's what you have money for) but doesn't make you financially better off. Also, when considering what to do with the money, don't just think \""I can spend $2000 on this bike and it will ultimately save me gas money\"" unless you also know how to think \""I could spend $200 on a slightly lesser bike and still save all the gas money, or maybe even spend $20 on a yard sale bike.\"". Consider borrowing kitchen equipment from the parents, instead of buying new stuff, or buy it at a yard sale. Also, make sure you actually will use the things you buy."""
"""Why do put option prices go higher when the underlying stock tanks (drops)?""","""Options pricing is based on the gap between strike and the current market, and volatility. That's why the VIX, a commonly accepted volatility index, is actually just a weighted blend of S&P 500 future options prices.  A general rise in the price of options indicates people don't know whether it will go up or down next, and are therefore less willing to take that risk.  But your question is why everything underwater in the puts chain went higher, and that's simple: now that Apple's down, the probability of falling a few more points is higher. Especially since Apple has gone through some recent rough times, and stocks in general are seen as risky these days."""
"""Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?""","""The biggest challenge as a young person maxing out a 401k in my opinion is the challenge of saving for a house, and (if necessary) paying off student loans. You have to consider - are you OK renting for the next 3, 5, 10 years? Or do you eventually want to buy a place? how much will that cost vs your current expenses?  That being said, I didn't max out but had over 8-10% of 401k contribution in the same situation you're in right now and I don't regret it.  Rereading your question, I see you are considering investing in a Roth IRA. Especially at your current age, assuming your wages will go UP, investing to the company match with the 401K and then maxing out a Roth IRA would be my recommendation. THEN continue maxing out the 401k (if you wish).  P.S. I highly recommend doing two things if you go down this path:"""
"""Better ways to invest money held by my small, privately-held Canadian corporation?""","""Since you are talking about a small firm, for the long term, it would be advisable to invest your money into the expansion - growth, diversification, integration - of your business. However, if your intention is to make proper use of your earnings in the short term, a decent bank deposit would help you to increase the credit line for your business with the benefit of having a high enough liquidity. You can also look at bonds and other such low risk instruments to protect your assets."""
"""Do credit checks affect credit scores?""","""Hard pulls you give your explicit permission to run do affect your credit.  Soft pulls do not. While hard pulls affect your score, they don't affect it much.  Maybe a couple few point for a little while.  In your daily activities, it is inconsequential.  If you are prepping to get a mortgage, you should be mindful. Similar type hard pulls in a certain time window will only count once, because it is assume you are shopping.  For example, mortgage shopping will result in a lot of hard pulls, but if they are all done in a fortnight, they only count against once.  (I believe the time window is actually a month, but I have always had two weeks in my head as the safe window.) The reason soft pulls don't matter is because businesses typically won't make credit decisions based on them.  A soft pull is so a business can find a list of people to make offers to, but that doesn't mean they ACTUALLY qualify.  Only the information in a hard pull will tell them that.  I don't know, but I suspect it is more along the lines of \""give me everybody who is between 600 and 800 and lives in zip code 12344\"" not \""what is series0ne's credit score?\"" A hard pull will lower your score because of a scenario where you open up many many lines of credit in a short period of time.  The credit scoring models assume (I am guessing) that you are going to implode.  You are either attempting to cover obligations you can't handle, or you are about to create a bunch of obligations you can't handle. Credit should be used as a convenient method of payment, not a source of wealth.  As such, each credit line you open in a short time lowers the score.  You are disincentivized to continue opening lines, and lenders at the end of your credit line opening spree will see you as riskier than the first."""
"""Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?""","""Dividends are one way to discriminate between companies to invest in. In the best of all worlds, your investment criteria is simple: \""invest in whatever makes me the most money on the timeline I want to have it.\""  If you just follow that one golden rule, your future financial needs will be taken care of! Oh... you're not 100% proof positive certain which investment is best for you?  Good.  You're mortal.  None of us magically know the best investment for us.  We wing it, based on what information we can glean.  For instance, we know that bonds tend to be \""safer\"" than stocks, but with a lower return, so if something calls itself a bond, we treat it differently than we treat a stock. So what sorts of information do we have?  Well, think of the stock market linguistically.  A dividend is one way for a company to communicate with their stockholders in the best way possible: their pocketbooks.  There's some generally agreed upon behaviors dividends have (such as they don't go down without some good reason for it, like a global recession or a plan to acquire another company that is well-accepted by the stockholders).  If a company starts to talk in this language, people expect them to behave a certain way.  If they don't, the stock gets blacklisted fast.  A dividend itself isn't a big deal, but a dividend which isn't shunned by a lot of smart investors... that can be a big deal. A dividend is a \""promise\"" (which can be broken, of course) to cash out some of the company's profits to its shareholders.  Its probably one of the older tools out there (\""you give investors a share of the profits\"" is pretty tried and true).  It worked for many types of companies.  If you see a dividend, especially one which has been reliable for many years, you can presume something about the type of company they are. Other companies find dividend is a poor tool to accomplish their goals.  That doesn't mean they're better or worse, simply different.  They're approaching the problem differently.  Is that kind of different the kind you want in your books?  Maybe.  Companies which aren't choosing to commit a portion of their profits to shareholders are typically playing a more aggressive game.  Are you comfortable that you can keep up with how they're using your money and make sure its in your interests?  It can be harder in these companies where you simply hold a piece of paper and never get anything from them again."""
"""How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?""","""If you are not planning on living in your condo for at least 10 years don't do it. For about 5 years your mortgage will be more then rent, after 5 years you start to break even and may start paying less. On the other hand, if you plan to be there for 10 years or more it might be a great savings tool,"""
"""Should I give to charity by check or credit card?""","""This might be blasphemy in the context of an audience that may be most focused on the gift itself, but you should be donating in a manner that helps advance the landscape, as well as your particular favourite charity. Almost 90% of businesses are in the process of trying to move away from issuing and receiving checks, and several countries in the world have already stopped using them. Checks are inefficient, costly and in a resource constrained environment like that facing most charities, create an opportunity cost that is even higher than the manual processing cost that flows directly.  As donors, we need to think about scale in a manner that many individual charities don't.  Send your donation via ACH!"""
"""Where do short-term traders look for the earliest stock related news? ""","""I work for a fund management company and we get our news through two different service providers Bloomberg and Thomson One. They don't actually source the news though they just feed news from other providers Professional solutions (costs ranging from $300-1500+ USD\/month\/user) Bloomberg is available as a windows install or via Bloomberg Anywhere which offers bimometric access via browser. Bloomberg is superb and their customer support is excellent but they aren't cheap. If you're looking for a free amateur solution for stock news I'd take a look at There are dozens of other tools people can use for day trading that usually provide news and real time prices at a cost but I don't have any direct experience with them"""
"""What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out?""","""The rest of the market knows when the dividends are paid out, and that will be reflected naturally in the share price. That's why there is no way to consistently beat the market. Because the market is other human beings, who's sum of knowledge is greater than any individual. Everything in the stock market boils down to this in one way or another."""
"""Where can I find the current price to rent ratio of the locality of my interest?""","""Chris, this is an arbitrage question with a twist: you cannot treat the location you want to live objectively. For example, why not SoCal instead of Texas? Yes, SoCal's expensive but what if you account for the weather? This question is very interesting for me personally: something I am going to focus on myself, soon, as well. To the question at hand: it's very hard to get a close estimate of the price from a single source, say, a website. The cost of a house is always negotiable and there's no sticker price, and there begins your problems. However, there are some publicly available information which websites aggregate, see: http:\/\/www.city-data.com\/ Also, some heuristics might help: Rent is at-least as expensive as the monthly mortgage, (property) taxes, HOA fees, etc. Smart people have told me this, and this also makes sense to me as the landlord is in this business to make some money after all. However, there are also other hidden costs of home ownership that I am not aware of in details (and which I craftily sidestepped in my \""etc\"" above) that could put a rental to be \""cheaper\"". One example that comes to mind is you as a tenant get to complain if the washer-dryer misbehaves and demand the landlord get you a new one (see how you wouldn't make a sound were you to own it however) Such a website to gauge rentals: http:\/\/www.rentometer.com\/ Houses cost more where the median income is more. Again, you cannot be objective about this because smart people like to live around smart people (and pay for the privilege). Turn again to http:\/\/www.city-data.com\/ to get this information Better weather is more expensive than not so good weather. In the article you linked, notice the ratio of homes in California. Yes, I know of people who sold off their family ranches in Vancouver and Seattle to buy homes in Orange Country. In short, there is a lot of information you would have to gather from multiple sources, and even then never be sure that you did your best! This also includes arbitrage, as you would like to \""come out ahead\"" and while you are doing your research (and paying your rent), you want to invest your \""savings\"" in instruments where you earn more than what you would have saved in a mortgage, etc. I would very much like to be refuted on every point and my answer be edited and \""made better\"" as I need the same answers as you do :-D Feel free to comment, edit your question etc and I will act on feedback and help both of us (and future readers) out!"""
"""At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool?""","""Average return on the S&P500 over the last 10 years has been 1.6 %; so if you'd invested in that with money borrowed at 3 % you would have lost (so far). Investing with borrowed money implies you think you can beat the market: that you're a cleverer investor than whoever decided to lend you the money. Whoever decided to lend you the money decided that you are the best (return\/risk ratio) investment for their money. It might make sense to invest borrowed money if you don't need to pay it back if things go wrong: if you're an investment professional whose bonus depends on the profit you make, but who won't need to repay any loss. It might also makes sense to borrow money if you're going to 'add value', e.g. sweat equity: for example if you use it to renovate a house or (if you're a business) to hire more staff. But the question was \""What guidelines do you use\"" and the answer is, \""I don't make passive investments with borrowed money.\"" My Dad did it, i.e. didn't repay his mortgage as soon as he could have: but that was because (back in the '70s) he had a long-term (government-sponsored) mortgage for about 1.5 % (designed to help first-time buyers or something like that), at a time when banks were paying higher interest rates on (ultra-safe) deposits."""
"""New vending route business, not sure how to determine taxes""","""Actually, calculating taxes isn't that difficult.  You will pay a percentage of your gross sales to state and local sales tax, and as a single-owner LLC your profits (after sales taxes) should pass through to your individual tax tax return (according to this IRS article. They are not cumulative since they have different bases (gross sales versus net profit). That said, when determining if your future business is profitable, you need to ask \""what aspects of the business can I control\""? Can you control how much each item sells for? Increasing your prices will increase your gross margins, which should be higher than your fixed and variable costs.  If your margins do not exceed your costs, then you will note be profitable. Note that as a vendor you are at a slight disadvantage to a retailer, since tax has to be baked in to your prices.  A retailer can advertise the pre-tax price, and pass-through sales tax at the point of sale.  However, people expect to pay more at a vending machine, so the disadvantage is very small (you aren't directly competing with retailers anyways)."""
"""Should I get cash from credit card at 0% for 8 months and put it on loans?""","""On the face, this appears a sound method to manage long run cumulative interest, but there are some caveats. Maxing out credit cards will destroy your credit rating.  You will receive no more reasonable offers for credit, only shady ones.  Though your credit rating will rise the moment you bring the balance back down to 10%, even with high income, it's easy to overshoot the 8 months, and then a high interest rate kicks in because of the low credit rating. Further, maxing out credit cards will encourage credit card lenders to begin cutting limits and at worse demand early payment. Now, after month 6 hits, your financial payment obligations skyrocket.  A sudden jolt is never easy to manage.  This will increase risk of missing a payment, a disaster for such hair line financing. In short, the probability of decimating your financial structure is high for very little benefit. If you are confident that you can pay off $4,000 in 8 months then simply apply those payments to the student loan directly, cutting out the middle man.  Your creditors will be pleased to see your total liabilities fall at a high rate while your utilization remains small, encouraging them to offer you more credit and lower rates. The ideal credit card utilization rate is 10%, so it would be wise to use that portion to repay the student loans. Building up credit will allow you to use the credit as an auxiliary cushion when financial disaster strikes.  Keeping an excellent credit rating will allow you to finance the largest home possible for your money.  Every percentage point of mortgage interest can mean the difference between a million USD home and a $750,000 one."""
"""US tax - effectively connected income""","""ECI is relevant to non-resident aliens who are engaged in trade or business in the US. For that, you have to be present in the US, to begin with, or to own a business or property in the US. So the people to whom it is relevant are non-resident aliens in the US or business\/property owners, not foreign contractors.  From the IRS: The following categories of income are usually considered to be   connected with a trade or business in the United States. You are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United States if you are temporarily present in the United States as a   nonimmigrant on an \""F,\"" \""J,\"" \""M,\"" or \""Q\"" visa. The taxable part of any   U.S. source scholarship or fellowship grant received by a nonimmigrant   in \""F,\"" \""J,\"" \""M,\"" or \""Q\"" status is treated as effectively connected   with a trade or business in the United States. If you are a member of a partnership that at any time during the tax year is engaged in a trade or business in the United States, you   are considered to be engaged in a trade or business in the United   States. You usually are engaged in a U.S. trade or business when you perform personal services in the United States. If you own and operate a business in the United States selling services, products, or merchandise, you are, with certain exceptions,   engaged in a trade or business in the United States. For example,   profit from the sale in the United States of inventory property   purchased either in this country or in a foreign country is   effectively connected trade or business income. Gains and losses from the sale or exchange of U.S. real property interests (whether or not they are capital assets) are taxed as if you   are engaged in a trade or business in the United States. You must   treat the gain or loss as effectively connected with that trade or   business. Income from the rental of real property may be treated as ECI if the taxpayer elects to do so."""
"""American living abroad and not working for an American company - tax reporting and bank accounts""","""The IRS taxes worldwide income of its citizens and green card holders.  Generally, for those Americans genuinely living\/working overseas the IRS takes the somewhat reasonable position of being in \""2nd place\"" tax-wise.  That is, you are expected to pay taxes in the country you are living in, and these taxes can reduce the tax you would have owed in the USA.  Unfortunately, all of this has to be documented and tax returns are still required every year.  Your European friends may find this quite surprising as I've heard, for instance, that France will not tax you if you go live and work in Germany.   A foreign company operating in a foreign country under foreign law is not typically required to give you a W-2, 1099, or any of the forms you are used to. Indeed, you should be paying taxes in the place where you live and work, which is probably somewhat different than the USA.  Keep all these records as they may be useful for your USA taxes as well.  You are required to total up what you were paid in Euros and convert them to US$.  This will go on the income section of a 1040.  You should be paying taxes in the EU country where you live.  You can also total those up and convert to US$.  This may be useful for a foreign tax credit. If you are living in the EU long term, like over 330 days\/year or you have your home and family there, then you might qualify for a very large exemption from your income for US tax purposes, called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.  This is explained in IRS Publication 54.  The purpose of this is primarily to avoid double taxation. FBAR is a serious thing.  In past years, the FBAR form went to a Financial Crimes unit in Detroit, not the regular IRS address.  Also, getting an extension to file taxes does not extend the deadline for the FBAR.   Some rich people have paid multi-million dollar fines over FBAR and not paying taxes on foreign accounts.  I've heard you can get a $10,000 FBAR penalty for inadvertent, non-willful violations so be sure to send those in and it goes up from there to $250k or half the value of the account, whichever is more.  You also need to know about whether you need to do FATCA reporting with your 1040.  There are indeed, a lot of obnoxious things you need to know about that came into existence over the years and are still on the law books -- because of the perpetual 'arms race' between the government and would be cheaters, non-payers and their advisors.  http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p54\/ http:\/\/americansabroad.org\/"""
"""Pros\/Cons of Buying Discounted Company Stock""","""Some other answers mention the ability to sell at grant. This is very important. If you have that ability, think about your guaranteed return. In my case, I get a 15% discount on the lowest 6 month window price from the last two years.  If you do the math, the worst case return can be calculated: 1) Money that from the beginning of the window, I make 15% for 6 months (30% annual return guaranteed) 2) Money at the end of the window (say the last month) is 15% for one month (180% annual return guaranteed) In the end, your average holding window for your money is about 3 months (you can calculate it exactly). At that rate, you have a guaranteed 60% annual return. You can't beat that anywhere, with a significant upside if your company stock is increasing. So, if your company has an instant sell at grant option, you have to be brain dead not to do it. If it takes time to get your shares, then you need to look at the volatility of the stock to see how big the chance of losing money is. To generalize to a formula (if that's what you want): WM = purchase window (in months); D = Discount Percentage; GR = Guaranteed Return GR = 12\/(WM\/2) * D = 6*D\/WM One last thing, If you are going to participate in ESPP, make you that you understand how to do your taxes yourself. I haven't found a tax person yet who does ESPP correctly (including an ex IRS agent), so I always have to do my taxes myself to make sure they get done correctly."""
"""Investor returns from crowdfunding""","""Crowdfunding can be a legitimate means of funding very small startups. It is an innovative, but obviously risky, method of raising small amounts of money. As such it is now regulated by the SEC under \""Regulation Crowdfunding\"" They have published guides for these types of business startups to help them with required disclosures and reporting requirements: https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/info\/smallbus\/secg\/rccomplianceguide-051316.htm Here's the introduction to the relevant regulatory authority of the SEC: Under the Securities Act of 1933, the offer and sale of securities must be registered unless an exemption from registration is available.  Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act of 2012 added Securities Act Section 4(a)(6) that provides an exemption from registration for certain crowdfunding transactions.[2]  In 2015, the Commission adopted Regulation Crowdfunding to implement the requirements of Title III.[3]  Under the rules, eligible companies will be allowed to raise capital using Regulation Crowdfunding starting May 16, 2016. It is obviously a new form of investment but you should be able to get historical data on the SEC's real time Edgar reporting system once there is some history. This is a search for all Form C's filed as of 12\/2\/16"""
"""Looking for good investment vehicle for seasonal work and savings""","""There are no risk-free high-liquidity instruments that pay a significant amount of interest.  There are some money-market accounts around that pay 1%-2%, but they often have minimum balance or transaction limits.   Even if you could get 3%, on a $4K balance that would be $120 per year, or $10 per month.  You can do much better than that by just going to $tarbucks two less times per month (or whatever you can cut from your expenses) and putting that into the savings account. Or work a few extra hours and increase your income. I appreciate the desire to \""maximize\"" the return on your money, but in reality increasing income and reducing expenses have a much greater impact until you build up significant savings and are able to absorb more risk.  Emergency funds should be highly liquid and risk-free, so traditional investments aren't appropriate vehicles for them."""
"""Should I buy a house or am I making silly assumptions that I can afford it?""","""Having convinced myself that there is no point of paying someone's   else mortgage Somewhat rhetorical this many years later, but I expect some other kid forcefed the obsession with propping up the housing market might be repeating the nonsense about \""paying someone else's mortgage\"" and read this. Will you be buying your own farm to grow your own food, or are you happy with people using the money you spend on food for a mortgage? How about clothes? Will you be weaving your own clothes because you don't want money you spend on clothes to pay someone else's mortgage? What's special about the money you pay for rent that you get annoyed at how someone else spends it? Don't get a mortgage just because you don't like the idea of how other people might spend the money that's no longer yours after you pay them with it. As an aside, at your age with your income and no debt, you could be sensibly investing a lot of money. If you did that for five years, you'd be in a much better position that you would be tying yourself to whatever current scheme the UK is using to desperately prop up house prices."""
"""Buying an investment property in Australia - what are the advantages and disadvantages of building a house vs buying an existing one?""","""When buying investment properties there are different levels of passive investment involved.  At one end you have those that will buy an investment property and give it to a real estate agent to manage and don't want to think of it again (apart from watching the rent come in every week). At the other end there are those that will do everything themselves including knocking on the door to collect the rent. Where is the best place to be - well somewhere in the middle. The most successful property investors treat their investment properties like a business. They handle the overall management of the properties and then have a team taking care of the day-to-day nitty gritty of the properties. Regarding the brand new or 5 to 10 year old property, you are going to pay a premium for the brand new. A property that is 5 years old will be like new but without the premium. I once bought a unit which was 2 to 3 years old for less than the original buyer bought it at brand new. Also you will still get the majority of the depreciation benefits on a 5 year old property. You also should not expect too much maintenance on a 5 to 10 year old property. Another option you may want to look at is Defence Housing. They are managed by the Department of Defence and you can be guaranteed rent for 10 years or more, whether they have a tenant in the property or not. They also carry out all the maintenance on the property and restore it to original condition once their contract is over. The pitfall is that you will pay a lot more for the management of these properties (up to 15% or more). Personally, I would not go for a Defence Housing property as I consider the fees too high and would not agree with some of their terms and conditions. However, considering your emphasis on a passive investment, this may be an option for you."""
"""ACH processing time of day""","""It depends on the bank and network. Banks are to provide outgoing data at the certain time for the processing by the central clearing house (the Federal Reserve system, for ACH), which then distributes incoming data back to the banks. All this has to be done between the closing of the business day and the opening of the next one. If the transaction hasn't completed the full path during that time - it will wait at the position it was stuck at until the next cycle - next night. That's why sometimes ACH transactions take more than 1 day to complete (if, for example, multiple Fed banks have to be involved)."""
"""Do you avoid tax when taking a home equity loan?""","""(credits to Joe's answer above which alluded to what I was not considering) You aren't \""bypassing\"" the tax liability if you invest in a home instead of, say, stocks. It's true stocks would be subject to tax during the year you cash in on them while the proceeds of a home equity loan would not affect your tax liability. HOWEVER, by taking on a new loan, you are liable for repayments. Those repayments would be made using your income from other sources, which IS taxable. So you can't avoid tax liability when financing your child's college education by using an equity line."""
"""Can you explain this options calls & puts quote table to me?""","""(Note: I am omitting the currency units.  While I strongly suspect it's US$ I don't know from the chart.  The system works the same no matter what the currency.) A call or a put is the right to sell (put) or buy (call) shares at a certain price on a certain day. This is why you see a whole range of prices.  Not all possible stock values are represented, the number of possibilities has to be kept reasonable.  In this case the choices are even units, for an expensive stock they may be spaced even farther apart than this. The top of the chart says it's for June.  It's actually the third Friday in the month, June 15th in this case.  Thus these are bets on how the stock will move in the next 10 days. While the numbers are per share you can only trade options in lots of 100. The left side of the chart shows calls.  Suppose you sell a call at 19 (the top of the chart)  The last such trade would have gotten you a premium of 9.70 per share (the flip side of this is when the third friday rolls around it will most likely be exercised and they'll be paying you only 19 a share for a stock now trading at something over 26.)  Note the volume, bid and ask columns though--you're not going to get 9.70 for such a call as there is no buyer.  The most anybody is offering at present is 7.80 a share. Now, lets look farther down in the chart--say, a strike price of 30.  The last trade was only .10--people think it's very unlikely that FB will rise above 30 to make this option worthwhile and thus you get very little for being willing to sell at that price.  If FB stays at 26 the option will expire worthless and go away.  If it's up to 31 when the 15th rolls around they'll exercise the option, take your shares and pay you 30 for them.  Note that you already gave permission for the trade by selling the call, you can't back out later if it becomes a bad deal. Going over to the other side of the chart with the puts: Here the transaction goes the other way, come the 15th they have the option of selling you the shares for the strike price.  Lets look at the same values we did before.  19?  There's no trading, you can't do it. 30?  Here you will collect 3.20 for selling the put.  Come the 15th they have the right to sell you the stock for 30 a share.  If it's still 26 they're certainly going to do so, but if it's up to 31 it's worthless and you pocket the 3.20 Note that you will normally not be allowed to sell a call if you don't own the shares in question.  This is a safety measure as the risk in selling a call without the stock is infinite.  If the stock somehow zoomed up to 10,000 when the 15th rolls around you would have to come up with the shares and the only way you could get them is buy them on the open market--you would have to come up with a million dollars.  If there simply aren't enough shares available to cover the calls the result is catastrophic--whoever owns the shares simply gets to dictate terms to you.  (And in the days of old this sometimes happened.)"""
"""The Asset Allocation Paradox""","""I recommend you take a look at this lecture (really, the whole series is enlightening), from Swenson. He identifies 3 sources of returns: diversification, timing and selection. He appears to discard timing and selection as impossible. A student kinda calls him out on this. Diversification reduces risk, not increase returns. It turns out they did time the market, by shorting .com's before the bubble, and real estate just before the downturn. In 1990, Yale started a \""Absolute Return\"" unit and allocated like 15 percent to it, mostly by selling US equities, that specializes in these sorts of hedging moves. As for why you might employ managers for specific areas, consider that the expense ratio Wall Street charges you or me still represent a very nice salary when applied to the billions in Yale's portfolio. So they hire internally to reduce expenses, and I'm sure they're kept busy. They also need people to sell off assets to maintain ratios, and figuring out which ones to sell might take specialized knowledge. Finally, in some areas, you functionally cannot invest without management. For example, Yale has a substantial allocation in private equity, and by definition that doesn't trade on the open market. The other thing you should consider is that for all its diversification, Yale lost 25 percent of their portfolio in 2009. For a technique that's supposed to reduce volatility, they seem to have a large range of returns over the past five years."""
"""Buying a house, how much should my down payment be?""","""As observed, there is no answer that will fit all, but below are some considerations: Your monthly requirement is 5000, so you have 3000 left to pay the monthly instalments (EMI). However, if you do pay 3000, you will have no money left for any other activities (holidays etc.) till your EMI is finished Set off a sum, let us say 500-1000, per month (you shall have to decide), for other expenses The rest of the money, in this case 2000-2500, you can pay as monthly EMI If you indicate that your monthly EMI to the bank, they will be able to tell you how much of loan you are eligible for and for how long the EMI would last. This is your benchmark If this loan amount is 750,000 or more, you do not need to put in your own money. So the decision then becomes how fast you want to pay off your loan and as accordingly you shall utilize your 500,000 However, if the EMI will not cover a loan of 750,000 (more likely case), you have options between the following: a. Max out on your loan that 2000-2500 EMI\/month (in terms of years as well as amount) can get you and put the rest from 500,000. b. Min your loan in terms of amount and time and put your entire 500,000 c. The middle ground is to balance between the loan and your own money, which is the best approach, there is no figure here that works for all, you have to take the decision based on your circumstances. However, in general, the shorter the loan term (in years) better it is as in aggregate you pay less money to the bank. If you are 1-2 months away from buying the house, one exercise you could do is to keep the EMI money in a separate bank account and see how you fare with the residual cash, this would give you a good reality check. Hope this helps, thanks"""
"""Do bond interest rate risk premiums only compensate for the amount investors might lose?""","""[...] are all bonds priced in such a way so that they all return the same amount (on average), after accounting for risk? In other words, do risk premiums ONLY compensate for the amount investors might lose? No. GE might be able to issue a bond with lower yield than, say, a company from China with no previous records of its presence in the U.S. markets. A bond price not only contains the risk of default, but also encompasses the servicability of the bond by the issuer with a specific stream of income, location of main business, any specific terms and conditions in the prospectus, e.g.callable or not, insurances against default, etc. Else for the same payoff, why would you take a higher risk? The payoff of a higher risk (not only default, but term structure, e.g. 5 years or 10 years, coupon payments) bond is more, to compensate for the extra risk it entails for the bondholder. The yield of a high risk bond will always be higher than a bond with lower risk. If you travel back in time, to 2011-2012, you would see the yields on Greek bonds were in the range of 25-30%, to reflect the high risk of a Greek default. Some hedge funds made a killing by buying Greek bonds during the eurozone crisis. If you go through the Efficient frontier theory, your argument is a counter statement to it. Same with individual bonds, or a portfolio of bonds. You always want to be compensated for the risk you take. The higher the risk, the higher the compensation, and vice versa. When investors buy the bond at this price, they are essentially buying a \""risk free\"" bond [...] Logically yes, but no it isn't, and you shouldn't make that assumption."""
"""Options tax treatment""","""You would not owe any taxes in the 2015 year, unless you got exercised and called away in 2015. The premium would be short term capital gains barring some other exception I'm not aware of, and if you retain a gain on the underlying shares then that would still be long term capital gains. If it gets called in say April 2016, is the premium+profit+dividends all long term capital gains for the year 2016? The profits are long term capital gains and the premium serves to lower your cost basis, dividends have their own conditions so you'll have to do separate research on that, fortunately they'll likely be negligible compared to the potential capital gains and options premium."""
"""Ongoing things to do and read to improve knowledge of finance?""","""The best learning technique for me is not to dredge through books in order to gain a better understanding of finance.  This is tedious and causes me to lose interest.  I'm not sure of your tolerance for this type of learning.  I tend to learn in small pieces.  Something piques my interest and I go off reading about that particular topic. May I suggest some alternate methods:"""
"""What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US?""","""The US Customs and Border Protection website states that there is no limit to the amount of currency that can be brought into or taken out of the US.   There is no limit on the amount of money that can be taken out of or brought into the United States. However, if a person or persons traveling together and filing a joint declaration (CBP Form 6059-B) have $10,000 or more in currency or negotiable monetary instruments, they must fill out a \""Report of International Transportation of Currency and Monetary Instruments\"" FinCEN 105 (former CF 4790). The CBP site also notes that failure to declare currency and monetary instruments in excess of $10,000 may result in its seizure. Further, the site states that the requirement to report currency on a FinCEN 105 does not apply to imports of gold bullion.  However, the legal website The Law Dictionary includes details of how money laundering laws may come into play here : As part of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, U.S. law enforcement agencies have significantly increased their vigilance over money laundering. To this effect, travelers who carry large amounts of cash without supporting documentation of its legitimate source may be subject to secondary inspections and seizure of funds. In some cases, law enforcement may confiscate cash in excess of $10,000 until supporting documents are produced. So far, I have described the \""official\"" position.  However, reading between the lines, I think it is fair to say that in the current climate if you show up at an entry point with a suitcase full of a large amount of cash you would face considerable scrutiny, regardless of any supporting documentation you may present. If you fail to present supporting documentation, then I think your cash would certainly be seized.  If you are a US resident, then you would be given the opportunity to obtain satisfactory documentation.  If you did present documentation, then I think your cash would be held for as long as it would take to verify the validity of the documentation.  Failure to present valid documentation would result in money laundering charges being brought against you and the matter would rest before the courts. If you are not a US resident, then failing to produce supporting documentation would mean your cash being seized and entry into the US would almost certainly be denied.  You would then have to deal with the situation from outside of the US.  If you did produce supporting documentation, then again I suspect the cash would be held for as long as it takes to verify the validity of the documentation.  Whether or not you were allowed to enter the US would depend on what other documentation you possess."""
"""The difference between Islamic Banks and Western Banks""","""To answer your first part, its not an opposition to profit. It's an opposition to usury - the practice of charging excessive interest on loans. There are extensive passages in the Qur'an condemning the practice, and in many cases \""excessive interest\"" is any interest. To the second part of the question, these may well be more risky investments. But if you're trying to build a strong and thriving community financial spirit, one might expect there to be significant social pressures to use the loaned money responsibly. Additionally, while it removes some of the penalty for failure, it doesn't remove the rewards for success. The incentive is still there to succeed. It's merely the penalty for failure is no longer financial ruination. It may also temper the incentive for banks to give money to riskier borrowers, but rather to prudently invest in ventures with an acceptable amount of risk. The question as to whether or not this is a \""house of cards\"" likely depends on the questioner. Whether or not this is also true for the western banking system likely remains to be seen, but it hasn't exactly been doing a sterling job of convincing me it isn't true for the past decade."""
"""If I have AD&D through my employer, should I STILL purchase term life insurance?""","""It probably does make sense for you to buy term life insurance separate from your employer, for a few reasons: There are a number of life insurance calculators on the web. Try two or three -- some of them ask different questions and can give you a range of answers regarding how much coverage you should have. Then take a look at some of the online quote sites -- there are a couple that don't require you to enter your personal information, just general age\/health\/zip code so you can get an accurate quote for a couple of different coverage levels without having to deal with a salesman yet. (It was my experience that these quotes were very close -- within $20\/year -- of what I was quoted through an agent.)  Using this information, decide how much coverage you need and can afford. If you're a homeowner, and the insurance company with whom you have your homeowner's policy offers life insurance, call them up and get a quote. They may be able to give you a discount because of your existing relationship; sanity check this against what you got from the quotes website."""
"""Mitigate Effects Of Credit With Tangible Money""","""Genius answer: Don't spend more than you make. Pay off your outstanding debts. Put plenty away towards savings so that you don't need to rely on credit more than necessary. Guaranteed to work every time.  Answer more tailored to your question: What you're asking for is not realistic, practical, logical, or reasonable. You're asking banks to take a risk on you, knowing based on your credit history that you're bad at managing debt and funds, solely based on how much cash you happen to have on hand at the moment you ask for credit or a loan or based on your salary which isn't guaranteed (except in cases like professional athletes where long-term contracts are in play).  You can qualify for lower rates for mortgages with a larger down-payment, but you're still going to get higher rate offers than someone with good credit.  If you plan on having enough cash around that you think banks would consider making you credit worthy, why bother using credit at all and not just pay for things with cash?  The reason banks offer credit or low interest on loans is because people have proven themselves to be trustworthy of repaying that debt. Based on the information you have provided, the bank wouldn't consider you trustworthy yet. Even if you have $100,000 in cash, they don't know that you're not just going to spend it tomorrow and not have the ability to repay a long-term loan. You could use that $100,000 to buy something and then use that as collateral, but the banks will still consider you a default risk until you've established a credit history to prove them otherwise."""
"""Did my salesman damage my credit? What can I do?""","""Hindsight is 20\/20, but I offer some suggestions for how this might have gone down. If you had told the bank what was going on they might have extended the terms of your loan until the truck was ready. Alternatively you might have taken the loan (was it secured on the truck?) and put the money in a savings account until the truck showed up, while asking the dealer to pay the interest on it until the truck showed up. Or you might asked the dealer to supply you with a rental truck until yours showed up. I'm not saying I would have thought of these under the circumstances, but worth trying."""
"""How to acquire skills required for long-term investing?""","""I would say that the three most important skills are: Note that some costs are hidden. So, for example, a mutual fund investing in other countries than where you live in may mean the investment target country charges a certain percentage of dividends going to the mutual fund. The mutual fund company doesn't usually want to tell you this. There may be clever financial instruments (derivatives) that can be used to avoid this, but they are not without their problems. If you diversify into equities at low cost, you will have a very wealthy future. I would recommend you to compare two options: ...and pick from these options the cheaper one. If your time has a high value, and you wish to take this value into account, I would say it is almost always far better option to choose an index fund. Whatever you do, don't pay for active management! It is a mathematical truth that before costs, actively managed investments will yield the same return than indexed investments. However, the costs are higher in active management, so you will have less total return. Don't believe that good historical return would imply good future return. However, if for some reason you see an index fund that continuously loses to the index more than by the amount of stated costs, beware!"""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""People's value of money is not always linear.  Consider an individual with $1000 in the bank.  I'm going to look at amounts of debt by orders of magnitude: Now its pretty easy to see a order of magnitude increase in impact from $100 to $1000, and it becomes slightly worse for the $10,000 case due to debt.  However, one more order of magnitude, going to $100,000, and suddenly it becomes hard to argue that there's a mere \""order of magnitude more hurt\"" than the $10,000 case.  From the cases I've read, those sorts of situations can be far far worse than the monetary cost could convey. Insurance companies are in a good position to absorb $100,000 of debt if something happens, far better position than the individual.  They rely on the central limit theorem: in general, they don't have to pay out all at once. The insurance companies have their limits too.  When hurricane Katrina came through, the insurance companies had a tremendously difficult time dealing with so many claims all at once.  Just like the individuals, they found a sudden change in how much value they had to put on their monetary debts!"""
"""Should I use regular or adjusted close for backtesting?""","""You would have to compare your backtesting to what you will be doing in real trading, and try to have the backtesting as close to your real trading as possible. Note: you may never get the backtesting to match your real trading exactly but you need to get as close as possible. The whole purpose of backtesting is to check if your trading strategies - your signals, entries and exits, and your stops - are profitable over various market conditions. As you would be using actual closes to do your real trading you should be using this to also do your backtesting. Rather than using adjusted data to get an idea of your total return from your backtesting, you can always add the value of the dividends and other corporate actions to the results from using the actual data. You may even find a way to add any dividends and other corporate action to your results automatically, i.e. any dividend amount added to your total return if the stock is held during the ex-dividend date. If you are using adjusted data in your backtesting this may affect any stops you have placed, i.e. it may cause your stop to be triggered earlier or later than in real trading. So you will need to determine how you will treat your stops in real trading.  Will you adjust them when there is corporate action such as dividends?  Or will you leave them constant until actual prices have gone up? If you will be leaving your stops constant then you should definitely be using actual data in your backtesting to better match your real trading."""
"""Does receiving a 1099-MISC require one to file a tax return even if he normally would not be required to file?""","""Does he need to file a tax return in this situation? Will the IRS be concerned that he did not file even if he received a 1099? No. However, if you don't file the IRS may come back asking why, or \""make up\"" a return for you assuming that the whole amount on the 1099-MISC is your net earnings. So in the end, I suspect you'll end up filing even though you don't have to, just to prove that you don't have to. Bottom line - if you have 1099 income (or any other income reported to the IRS that brings you over the filing threshold), file a return."""
"""Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?""","""According to the book of Hull, american and european calls on non-dividend paying stocks should have the same value. American puts, however, should be equals to, or more valuable than, european puts. The reason for this is the time value of money. In a put, you get the option to sell a stock at a given strike price. If you exercise this option at t=0, you receive the strike price at t=0 and can invest it at the risk-free rate. Lets imagine the rf rate is 10% and the strike price is 10$. this means at t=1, you would get 11.0517$. If, on the other hand, you did'nt exercise the option early, at t=1 you would simply receive the strike price (10$). Basically, the strike price, which is your payoff for a put option, doesn't earn interest. Another way to look at this is that an option is composed of two elements: The \""insurance\"" element and the time value of the option. The insurance element is what you pay in order to have the option to buy a stock at a certain price. For put options, it is equals to the payout= max(K-S, 0) where K=Strike Price and St= Stock price.  The time value of the option can be thought of as a risk-premium. It's difference between the value of the option and the insurance element. If the benefits of exercising a put option early (i.e- earning the risk free rate on the proceeds) outweighs the time value of the put option, it should be exercised early. Yet another way to look at this is by looking at the upper bounds of put options. For a european put, today's value of the option can never be worth more than the present value of the strike price discounted at the risk-free rate. If this rule isn't respected, there would be an arbitrage opportunity by simply investing at the risk-free rate. For an american put, since it can be exercised at any time, the maximum value it can take today is simply equals to the strike price. Therefore, since the PV of the strike price is smaller than the strike price, the american put can have a bigger value. Bear in mind this is for a non-dividend paying stock. As previously mentioned, if a stock pays a dividend it might also be optimal to exercise just before these are paid."""
"""Are 'per trade' fees charged on every order or just once per stock?""","""You will be hit every time, once every buy order and once every sell order. Commissions to the broker are paid every time they do something for you. This is true regardless if it is a security in which you are already invested. It is true regardless if you make or lose money. It is just as sure as death and taxes."""
"""Setting up a LLC for two partners in different states, what should we look into?""","""TL;DR: Get a tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) for tax issues, and a lawyer for the Operating Agreement, labor law and contract related issues. Some things are not suitable for DIY unless you know exactly what you're doing. We both do freelance work currently just through our personal names.   What kind of taxes are we looking into paying into the business   (besides setup of everything) compared to being a self proprietor?   (I'm seeing that the general answer is no, as long as income is <200k,   but not certain). Unless you decide to have your LLC taxed as a corporation, there's no change in taxes. LLC, by default, is a pass-through entity and all income will flow to your respective tax returns. From tax perspective, the LLC will be treated as a partnership. It will file form 1065 to report its income, and allocate the income to the members\/partners on schedules K-1 which will be given to you. You'll use the numbers on the K-1 to transfer income allocated to you to your tax returns and pay taxes on that. Being out of state, will she incur more taxes from the money being now   filtered through the business? Your employee couldn't care less about your tax problems. She will continue receiving the same salary whether you are a sole proprietor or a LLC, or Corporatoin. What kind of forms are we looking into needing\/providing when   switching to a LLC from freelance work? Normally we just get 1099's,   what would that be now? Your contract counterparts couldn't care less about your tax problems. Unless you are a corporation, people who pay you more than $600 a year must file a 1099. Since you'll be a partnership, you'll need to provide the partnership EIN instead of your own SSN, but that's the only difference. Are LLC's required to pay taxes 4 times per year? We would definitely   get an accountant for things, but being as this is side work, there   will be times where we choose to not take on clients, which could   cause multiple months of no income. Obviously we would save for when   we need to pay taxes, but is there a magic number that says \""you must   now pay four times per year\"". Unless you choose to tax your LLC as a corporation, LLC will pay no taxes. You will need to make sure you have enough withholding to cover for the additional income, or pay the quarterly estimates. The magic number is $1000. If your withholding+estimates is $1000 less than what your tax liability is, you'll be penalized, unless the total withholding+estimates is more than 100% of your prior year tax liability (or 110%, depending on the amounts). The LLC would be 50% 50%, but that work would not always be that. We   will be taking on smaller project through the company, so there will   be times where one of us could potentially be making more money. Are   we setting ourselves up for disaster if one is payed more than the   other while still having equal ownership? Partnerships can be very flexible, and equity split doesn't have to be the same as income, loss or assets split. But, you'll need to have a lawyer draft your operational agreement which will define all these splits and who gets how much in what case. Make sure to cover as much as possible in that agreement in order to avoid problems later."""
"""My ex sold our car that still had money owed ""","""It is a legal issue for two reasons. In the United States if both names were on the title both people would have had to sign the paperwork in order to transfer the title. If the car was collateral for the loan, then the bank would have had to be involved in the transaction. The portion of the check need to repay the loan would have had to have been made out to the bank. If the car was sold to a dealership, then paperwork must have been forged. If the car was sold to a person then it is possible that they were too naive to know what paperwork was required, but it is likely still fraud. You need legal advice to protect your money, and your credit score. They should also be able to tell you who needs to be contacted: DMV, the police, the dealership, the bank."""
"""How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house""","""Shop lots of houses.  Find at least three you want and start by offering a low price and working your way up.  Your risk is that houses you would have liked get bought by someone else while you are negotiating, that is how you discover how much you actually have to pay to get a house.   Brokers only get paid if a deal closes.  That is their incentive to get you a better price.  If they know you will buy a different house unless the one they are selling gets your business, then they will work to make that happen."""
"""What US taxes are due for US stock bought via ESPP when I was in USA and sold after I returned to India?""","""From an Indian Tax point of view, you can bring back all the assets acquired during the period you were NRI back to India tax free. Subject to a 7 years period. i.e. all the assets \/ funds \/ etc should be brought back to India within 7 years. It would still be treated as There are certain conditions \/ paperwork. Please consult a CA."""
"""Is there any kind of unsecured stock loan?""","""buy an option, they cost less and let you buy shares in the future at the price you see now. only if you plan to buy more than 100 shares of the stock at that future date though. better learn how to use options strategically first, which I won't go into. but this is indeed their purpose."""
"""Why would someone buy a way out-of-the-money call option that's expiring soon?""","""The most likely explanation is that the calls are being bought as a part of a spread trade.  It doesn't have to be a super complex trade with a bunch of buys or sells. In fact, I bought a far out of the money option this morning in YHOO as a part of a simple vertical spread.  Like you said, it wouldn't make sense and wouldn't be worth it to buy that option by itself."""
"""Does re-financing an FHA-insured mortgage incur the UFMIP again?""","""When you got your original HUD backed mortgage there were three options: monthly, annual and upfront payments. The plan is designed to insure the lender of the mortgage against your default. The plan is not expected to cover the mortgage for 30 years.  If you are in the early years of the mortgage, you may be owed a refund for the unused years. HUD has a Fact sheet discussing this, and a page to help you determine if they owe you a refund. If you are refinancing back into a HUD\/FHA mortgage they will not give you a refund, but will roll the refund back into your new loan. FHA to FHA Refinances: When an FHA loan is refinanced, the refund from the old premium may be applied toward the up-front premium required for the new loan. Note: Depending on the year of the original loan the government has different lengths they used for coverage and refunds. I suggest you use the webpage to determine if you are due a refund, or a roll over."""
"""Do common stocks and preferred stocks have any differences in terms of percentage of the company per unit they represent?""","""Typically, preferred shares come with one or both different benefits - a disproportionate share of votes, say 10 votes per share vs the normal 1, or a preferred dividend.  The vote preference is great for the owner(s) looking to go public, but not lose control of the company. Say, I am a Walton (of Walmart fame) and when I went public, I sold 80% of the (1000 share total) company. But, in creating the share structure, 20% of shares were assigned 10 votes each. 800 shares now trade with 800 votes, 200 shares have 10 votes each or 2000 votes. So, there are still the 1000 shares but 2800 votes. The 20% of shares now have 2000\/2800 or 71% of the total votes. So, my shares are just less than half ownership, but over 78% of votes.  Preferred dividend is as simple as that, buy Stock A for ownership, or (same company) Stock A preferred shares which have ownership and $1\/yr dividend.  Edited to show a bit more math. I use a simple example to call out a total 1000 shares. The percentages would be the same for a million or billion shares if 20% were a 10 vote preferred."""
"""Health Insurance and Disability Question""","""Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age."""
"""Is it possible to influence a company's actions by buying stock?""","""You can execute block trades on the options market and get exercised for shares to create a very large position in Energy Transfer Partners LP without moving the stock market. You can then place limit sell orders, after selling directly into the market and keep an overhang of low priced shares (the technical analysis traders won't know what you specifically are doing, and will call this 'resistance'). If you hit nice even numbers (multiples of 5, multiples of 10) with your sell orders, you can exacerbate selling as many market participants will have their own stop loss orders at those numbers, causing other people to sell at lower and lower prices automatically, and simultaneously keep your massive ask in effect. If your position is bigger than the demand then you can keep a stock lower. The secondary market doesn't inherently affect a company in any way. But many companies have borrowed against the price of their shares, and if you get the share price low enough they can get suddenly margin called and be unable to service their existing debt. You will also lose a lot of money doing this, so you can also buy puts along the way or attempt to execute a collar to lower your own losses. The collar strategy is nice because it is unlikely that other traders and analysts will notice what you are doing, since there are calls, puts and share orders involved in creating it. One person may notice the block trade for the calls initially, but nobody will notice it is part of a larger strategy with multiple legs. With the share position, you may also be able to vote on some things, but that solely depends on the conditions of the shares."""
"""How to calculate car insurance quote""","""Question 1: Yes Question 2: There is no simple formula. Car insurance is mostly Statistics, because you have so many millions of cases that the variance is really low. This also means that, because the cost can be estimated so precisely, it is difficult to make an offer better than the competitors. For that reason every insurance company makes there own, arbitrary, segmentation of the data which leads them identify low risk groups they can offer a bonus to. Common ones are type of car or and driving experience, but it could be anything that is not forbidden by anti-discrimination-laws. Also additional perks like towing insurance etc. may give them an opportunity do differentiate themselves or to make easy profit.  In fact it is a common tactic to offer prices that make close to no profit to fill up your book, then raise tariffs in then following years an make you profit with those who are to lazy to switch."""
"""Are credit histories\/scores international?""","""Some countries in European Union are starting to implement credit history sharing, for example now history from polish bureau BIK and German Schufa are mutually available. Similar agreements are planned between polish BIK and bureaus in the Netherlands and United Kingdom."""
"""Is it best to exercise options shares when they vest, or wait""","""To me it depends on things like your net worth, debt, and how other assets are invested.   Currently you have 25K invested in the company you work for.   If you have 100K in student loans, are a renter, and 12K in your 401K, then I would recommend exercising almost all of your options.  In that case you have a much to large part of your world wrapped up in your company. If you have 250K in your 401K, own a home and have an emergency fund with no debt then you are fine with letting it ride.  You can afford to absorb a loss of 25K without wrecking your net worth. More than likely, you are somewhere in between (just statistics speaking there).  So why not exercise some of them now with the purpose of improving your financial situation?  Say do a 1\/3 now and when they come available.   When 401ks were first invented people put almost all of their money in their company stock.  They lost just about everything when the company went down in value and were often a victim of layoffs exasperating the issue.  This is akin to the same situation.  Most financial advisers recommend against putting any 401K money to company stock, or at least limiting the amount."""
"""Renting or Buying an House""","""Some pros and cons to renting vs buying: Some advantages of buying: When you rent, the money you pay is gone. When you buy, assuming you don't have the cash to buy outright but get a mortgage, some of the payment goes to interest, but you are building equity. Ultimately you pay off the mortgage and you can then live rent-free. When you buy, you can alter your home to your liking. You can paint in the colors you like, put in the carpet or flooring you like, heck, tear down walls and alter the floor plan (subject to building codes and safety consideration, of course). If you rent, you are usually sharply limited in what alterations you can make. In the U.S., mortgage interest is tax deductible. Rent is not. Property taxes are deductible from your federal income tax. So if you have, say, $1000 mortgage vs $1000 rent, the mortgage is actually cheaper. Advantages of renting: There are a lot of transaction costs involved in buying a house. You have to pay a realtor's commission, various legal fees, usually \""loan origination fees\"" to the bank, etc. Plus the way mortgages are designed, your total payment is the same throughout the life of the loan. But for the first payment you owe interest on the total balance of the loan, while the last payment you only owe interest on a small amount. So early payments are mostly interest. This leads to the conventional advice that you should not buy unless you plan to live in the house for some reasonably long period of time, exact amount varying with whose giving the advice, but I think 3 to 5 years is common. One mitigating factor: Bear in mind that if you buy a house, and then after 2 years sell it, and you discover that the sale price minus purchase price minus closing costs ends up a net minus, say, $20,000, it's not entirely fair to say \""zounds! I lost $20,000 by buying\"". If you had not bought this house, presumably you would have been renting. So the fair comparison is, mortgage payments plus losses on the resale compared to likely rental payments for the same period."""
"""What forces cause a company to write down goodwill?""","""To understand the answer we first have to understand what Goodwill is. Goodwill in a companies balance sheet is an intangible asset that represents the extra value because of a strong brand name, good customer relations, good employee relations and any patents or proprietary technology. An article from The Economist explains this very well and actually talks about Time Warner directly - The goodwill, the bad and the ugly When one firm buys another, the target\u2019s goodwill\u2014essentially the   premium paid over its book value\u2014is added to the combined entity\u2019s   balance-sheet. Goodwill and other intangibles on the books of   companies in the S&P 500 are valued at $2.6 trillion, or 10% of their   total assets, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs. As the economy deteriorates and more firms trade down towards (or even   below) their book value, empire-builders are having to mark down the   value of assets they splashed out on in rosier times. A recently   announced $25 billion goodwill charge is expected to push Time Warner   into an operating loss for 2008, for instance. Michael Moran of   Goldman Sachs thinks such hits could amount to $200 billion or more   over the cycle. Investors have so far paid little attention to   intangibles, but as write-downs proliferate they are likely to become   increasingly wary of industries with a high ratio of goodwill to   assets, such as health care, consumer goods and telecoms. How bad things get will depend on the beancounters. American firms   used to be allowed to amortise goodwill over many years. Since 2002,   when an accounting-rule change ended that practice, goodwill has had   to be tested every year for impairment. In this stormy environment,   with auditors keener than ever to avoid being seen to go easy on   clients, companies are being told to mark down assets if there is any   doubt about their value. The sanguine point out that this has no effect on cashflow, since such   charges are non-cash items. Moreover, some investors take goodwill   write-offs with a pinch of salt, preferring to look past such   non-recurring costs and accept the higher \""normalised\"" earnings   numbers to which managers understandably cling. The largest companies   are thus able to survive thumping blows that might otherwise floor   them, such as the $99 billion loss that the newly formed but   ill-conceived AOL Time Warner, as it then was, reported for 2002. But   the impact can be all too real, as write-downs reduce overall book   value and increase leverage ratios, a particular concern in these   debt-averse times."""
"""How does historical data get adjusted for dividends, exactly?""","""I had  both closing price and adjusted price of Apple showing the same amount after \""download data\"" csv file was opened in excel. https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/AAPL\/history?period1=1463599361&period2=1495135361&interval=div%7Csplit&filter=split&frequency=1d Its frustrating. My last option was to get the dividends history of the stock and add back to the adjusted price to compute the total return for a select stock for the period."""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""Assuming you and your family always get along and everyone is happy with the situation... Should you become ill, die, or go on government benefits for some catastrophe, the government will look at all those funds as YOURS, and now your wonderful family is hurt by the estate tax and\/or expectations of how much of the bill you handle before support kicks in. Additionally, should you ever reach a point where you are married and then facing divorce (even if no fault of your own), all that investment is now up for grabs in equitable distribution.  So your family's entire investment fund is at risk."""
"""What is the minimum lot size (number of shares) for the London Stock Exchange?""","""1 lot is 100 shares on London stock exchange"""
"""How does a typical vesting timeline work with respect to employer contributions?""","""There are two dates that matter for vesting in this situation: If you left the company on 12\/31\/16, you would be entitled to none of the company contributions. If you left on 1\/1\/17, you would be entitled to all $20k. This is sometimes known as a cliff vesting schedule. Some companies do a stair step - 20% after year 1, 40% after year 2, etc. This is known as graded vesting. But, that is not the case based on the language here."""
"""How can I avoid international wire fees or currency transfer fees?""","""Be aware that ATM withdrawals often generate hidden fees, which are not obviously declared. Many banks operate e.g. with a currency exchange fee, giving you an exchange rate some 1-2% lower than actually applicable. If you withdraw larger amounts, such a currency exchange fee easily adds up to what you would have paid for a wire transfer, where you would get a better exchange rate. Although it's probably much hassle for you to change banks, another option may be to find a bank which operates both in France and the US. Banks with different national branches often offer cheap and fast wire transfers between same-bank accounts in different countries. E.g. Citibank used to offer such services, but I am not sure if they still serve private customers in France."""
"""Is there any online personal finance software without online banking? ""","""neobudget.com is a website that does exactly what you are describing. It is set up for electronically using the envelope system of budgeting.   Disclosure: neobudget was founded by a former coworker of mine."""
"""Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY?""","""The reason diversification in general is a benefit is easily seen in your first graph.  While the purple line (Betterment 100% Stock) is always below the blue line (S&P), and the blue line is the superior return over the entire period, it's a bit different if you retired in 2009, isn't it?  In that case the orange line is superior: because its risk is much lower, so it didn't drop much during the major crash.  Lowering risk (and lowering return) is a benefit the closer you get to retirement as you won't see as big a cumulative return from the large percentage, but you could see a big temporary drop, and need your income to be relatively stable (if you're living off it or soon going to).   Now, you can certainly invest on your own in a diverse way, and if you're reasonably smart about it and have enough funds to avoid any fees, you can almost certainly do better than a managed solution - even a relatively lightly managed solution like Betterment.  They take .15% off the top, so if you just did exactly the same as them, you would end up .15% (per year) better off. However, not everyone is reasonably smart, and not everyone has much in the way of funds. Betterment's target audience are people who aren't terribly smart about investing and\/or have very small amounts of funds to invest.  Plenty of people aren't able to work out how to do diversification on their own; while they probably mostly aren't asking questions on this site, they're a large percentage of the population.  It's also work to diversify your portfolio: you have to make minor changes every year at a minimum to ensure you have a nicely balanced portfolio.  This is why target retirement date portfolios are very popular; a bit higher cost (similar to Betterment, roughly) but no work required to diversify correctly and maintain that diversification."""
"""How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup?""","""if you bought gold in late '79, it would have taken 30 years to break even. Of all this time it was two brief periods the returns were great, but long term, not so much. Look at the ETF GLD if you wish to buy gold, and avoid most of the buy\/sell spread issues.  Edit - I suggest looking at Compound Annual Growth Rate and decide whether long term gold actually makes sense for you as an investor. It's sold with the same enthusiasm as snake oil was in the 1800's, and the suggestion that it's a storehouse of value seems nonsensical to me."""
"""Why index funds have different prices?""","""To add on to the other answers, in asking why funds have different price points one might be asking why stocks aren't normalized so a unit price of $196 in one stock can be directly compared to the same price in another stock.  While this might not make sense with AAPL vs. GOOG (it would be like comparing apples to oranges, pun intended, not to mention how would two different companies ever come to such an agreement) it does seem like it would make more sense when tracking an index.  And in fact less agreement between different funds would be required as some \""natural\"" price points exist such as dividing by 100 (like some S&P funds do). However, there are a couple of reasons why two different funds might price their shares of the same underlying index differently. Demand - If there are a lot of people wanting the issue, more shares might be issued at a lower price.  Or, there might be a lot of demand centered on a certain price range. Pricing - shares that are priced higher will find fewer buyers, because it makes it harder to buy round lots (100 shares at $100\/share is $10,000 while at $10\/share it's only $1000).  While not everyone buys stock in lots, it's important if you do anything with (standardized) options on the stock because they are always acting on lots.  In addition, even if you don't buy round lots a higher price makes it harder to buy in for a specific amount because each unit share has a greater chance to be further away from your target amount. Conversely, shares that are priced too low will also find fewer buyers, because some holders have minimum price requirements due to low price (e.g. penny) stocks tending to be more speculative and volatile. So, different funds tracking the same index might pick different price points to satisfy demand that is not being filled by other funds selling at a different price point."""
"""Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? ""","""I don't see how anyone could give you a hard-and-fast formula, unless they know where to get some applicable statistics. Because several factors here are not a straight calculation. If you don't replace the tires but keeping driving the car, what is the increased probability that you will get into an accident because of the bald tires? How much will bald tires vs new tires affect the selling price of the car? Presumably the longer you drive the car after getting new tires, the less increase this will give to the market value of the car. What's the formula for that? If you keep the car, what's the probability that it will have other maintenance problems? Etc. That said, it's almost always cheaper to keep your current car than to buy a new one. Even if you have maintenance problems, it would have to be a huge problem to cost more than buying a new car. Suppose you buy a $25,000 car with ... what's a typical new car loan these days? maybe 5 years at 5%? So your payments would be about $470 per month. If you compare spending $1000 for new tires versus paying $470 per month on a new car loan, the tires are cheaper within 3 months. The principle is the same if you buy with cash. To justify buying a new car you have to factor in the value of the pleasure you get from a new car, the peace of mind from having something more reliable, etc, mostly intangibles."""
"""what is the meaning of allowing FDI in Insurance and pension funds""","""Insurance in India is offered by Private companies as well [ICICI, Maxbupa, SBI, Max and tons of other companies].   These are priavte companies, as Insurance sectors one has to look for long term stability, not everyone can just open an Insurance company, there are certain capital requirements. Initially the shareholding pattern was that Indian company should have a majority shareholding, any foreign company can have only 26% share's. This limit has now been extended to 49%, so while the control of the private insurance company will still be with Indian's the foreign companies can invest upto 49%. It's a economic policy decission and the outcome whether positive or negative will be known after 10 years of implemenation :) Pro's: - Brings more funds into the Insurance segment, there by bringing strength to the company - Better global practise on risk & data modelling may reduce premium for most - Innovation in product offering - More Foreign Exchange for country that is badly needed.   Con's: - The Global companies may hike premium to make more profits. - They may come up with complex products that common man will not understand and will lead to loss - They may take back money anytime as they are here for profit and not for cause.   Pension today is offered only by Government Companies. There is a move to allow private companies to offer pension. Today life insurance companies can launch Pension schemes, however on maturity the annuity amount needs to be invested into LIC to get an annuity [monthly pension]."""
"""Is this trick enough to totally prevent bankrupcy in a case of a crash?""","""When you buy a stock, the worst case scenario is that it drops to 0.  Therefore, the most you can lose when buying a stock is 100% of your investment. When you short a stock, however, there's no limit on how high the stock can go.  If you short a stock at 10, and it goes up to 30, then you've lost 200% on your investment.  Therefore shorting stocks is riskier than buying stocks, since you can lose more than 100% of your investment when shorting. because the price might go up, but it will never be as big of a change as a regular price drop i suppose... That is not true.  Stocks can sometimes go up significantly (50-100% or more) in a very short amount of time on a positive news release (such as an earnings or a buyout announcement).  A famous example occurred in 2008, when Volkswagen stock quintupled (went up 400%) in less than 2 days on some corporate news: Porsche, for some reason, wants to control Volkswagen, and by building up its stake has driven up the price. Hedge funds, figuring the share price would fall as soon as Porsche got control and stopped buying, sold a lot of VW shares short. Then last weekend, Porsche disclosed that it owned 42.6 percent of the stock and had acquired options for another 31.5 percent. It said it wanted to go to 75 percent. The result: instant short-squeeze. The German state of Lower Saxony owns a 20 percent stake in VW, which it said it would not sell. That left precious few shares available for anyone else. The shorts scrambled to cover, and the price leaped from about \u20ac200, or about $265, to above \u20ac1,000."""
"""What does it mean for a company to have its market cap larger than the market size?""","""You are comparing two things that are not comparable.  The \""market size\"" would be the total annual revenue in one market, in this year.  The \""market caps\"" of a company is the number of shares multiplied by the share price. This should be equal to the total profit that the company is going to make through its life time, taking into account that you would get interest on an investment, so future profits have to be counted less accordingly.  So if the \""market size\"" is ten million dollars, and a company has four million revenue in that market with one million profit, and everyone thinks that company will continue making that profit for the next fifty years, then surely one million a year for the next 50 years is worth more than ten million.  That's if the market stands still. If the \""market size\"" is ten million, and we expect that market size to double for the next three years, then the market size is still ten million, but a company having a 40% share of a market growing at that speed is going to be worth a lot more!"""
"""Valuing a small business to invest in ""","""It should be pretty obvious that without knowing what sort of assets the company owns, and what sort of net earnings are being generated it's impossible to say what a $20k equity investment should get you in terms of ownership percentage.   With that said, you want to look at a few to several years of books, look for trends.  Some things to understand that might be subtle red flags: It's extremely common for early stage investors to essentially make loans rather than strictly buying shares.  In the worst case scenario creditors get to participate in liquidation proceedings before shareholders do.  You may be better off investing in this business via a loan that's convertible to equity at your discretion.   Single owner service companies are difficult because all of the net earnings go to the proprietor and that person maintains all of the relationships.  So taking something like 5 years of net earnings as the value of the company doesn't make much sense because you (or someone else) couldn't just step in and replace the owner.  Granted, you aren't contemplating taking over the business, but it negates using an X years of net earnings valuation method.  When you read about valuation there is a sort of overriding assumption that no single person could topple the operation which couldn't be farther from the truth in single employee service companies.  Additionally, understand that your investment in a single owner company hinges completely on one person's ability and willingness to work. It's really vital to understand the purpose of the funds.  Someone will be hired?  $20,000 couldn't be even six months of wages... Put things in to perspective with a pad, pen and calculator.  Don't invest in the pipe dream of a friend of yours, and DEFINITELY don't hand this person the downpayment for their new house.  The first rule of investing is \""don't lose money,\"" this isn't emotional, this is a dollars and cents pragmatic process. Why does the business need this money?  How will you be paid back?   Personally, I think it would be more gratifying to put $20k in a blender and watch it blend, this is probably a horrible investment.  The risk should just be left to credit card companies."""
"""Are there statistics showing percentage of online brokerage customers that are actually making a profit trading forex\/futures\/options?""","""Interactive Brokers advertises the percent of profitable forex accounts for its own customers and for competitors. They say they have 46.9% profitable accounts which is higher than the other brokers listed. It's hard to say exactly how this data was compiled- but I think the main takeaway is that if a broker actually advertises that most accounts lose money, it is probably difficult to make money. It may be better for other securities because forex is considered a very tough market for retail traders to compete in.  https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/en\/?f=%2Fen%2Ftrading%2Fpdfhighlights%2FPDF-Forex.php"""
"""Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT""","""Similar to @SoulsOpenSource's answer, I would suggest Venmo, which works like PayPal but is free for debit-card-to-debit-card transactions. More information here."""
"""Covered calls: How to handle this trade?""","""You are NOT responsible for liquidating the position.  You will either end up retaining your 100 sh. after expiration, or they will be called away automatically. You don't have to do anything.  Extending profitability can mean different things, but a major consideration is whether or not you want to hold the stock or not.  If so, you can buy back the in-the-money call and sell another one at-the-money, or further out. There are lots of options."""
"""Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \""Buy Low, Sell High\""?""","""Insofar as a 52 week high indicates a peak, yes.  However, the truth is that \""buying low and selling high\"" means \""Act a Fool!\"" You see, when you buy low, you are perceived to be buying total garbage - throwing your money away and conversely when selling high you are perceived to be a total idiot - selling a winner.  That's how people will see you when you are in fact buying low and\/or selling high, right?  It's those people that (mis)value the asset, right?  An asset is worth what the people will pay for it, right? ...And don't forget that holding a loser is MUCH easier than holding a winner. Good luck!"""
"""Calculate price to earning and price to sale value for given dataset""","""Too calculate these values, information contained in the company's financial statements (income, balance, or cashflow) will be needed along with the price.  Google finance does not maintain this information for BME.  You will need to find another source for this information or analyze another another symbol's financial section (BAC for example)."""
"""Beginner questions about stock market""","""First, welcome to Money.SE. If you are interested in saving and investing, this is a great site to visit. Please take the tour and just start to read the questions you find interesting.  1 - even though this is hypothetical, it scales down to an average investor. If I own 1000 shares of the 1 billion, am I liable if the company goes under? No. Stocks don't work that way. If all I have is shares, not a short position, not options, I can only see my investment go to zero.  2 - Here, I'd ask that you edit your country in the tags. I can tell you that my newborn (who is soon turning 17) had a stock account in her name when she was a few months old. It's still a custodian account, meaning an adult has to manage it, and depending on the state within the US, the age that it's hers with no adult, is either 18 or 21. Your country may have similar regional rules.  Also - each country has accounts specifically geared toward retirement, with different favorable rules regarding taxation. In the US, we have accounts that can be funded at any age, so long as there's earned income. My daughter started one of these accounts when she started baby sitting at age 12. She will have more in her account by the time she graduates college than the average retiree does. It's good for her, and awful for the general population that this is the case."""
"""What to do with your savings in Japan""","""As an alternative to investing you'll find at least some banks eg. Rakuten that will give you preferential interest rates(still 0.1% though) just for opening a free brokering account. As this is still your individual savings account your money is as safe as it was before opening your account. I certainly wouldn't buy to hold any stock or fund that is linked to the Nikkei right now. Income stocks outside of the 225 may be safer, but you'd still need to buy enough of them that their individual results don't affect your bottom line."""
"""What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers?""","""I too received a \""job offer\"" from this CENEO outfit but mine was a proof reading position.Supposedly,I was to edit the email they were sending to U.S. customers. They needed proof reading alright,I've never seen such atrocious grammar and syntax.Half the time I could not figure out what these polaks were trying to convey. Anyway,I was getting a whole page to \""proof read\"" daily and then, they sent me an email stating that the \""position\"" had been eliminated.I never got the money I was owed."""
"""I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment""","""I'm sorry you are going through this, but what you are dealing with is exactly is how cosigning works.  It is among other reasons why you should never cosign a loan for someone unless you are 100% prepared to pay the loan on their behalf. Unfortunately, the main \""benefit\"" to cosigning a loan is to the bank - they don't care who makes payments, only that someone does. It is not in their interest to educate purchasers who can easily get themselves into the situation you are in. What your options are depends a fair bit on the type of loan it is. The biggest problem is that normally as cosigner you cannot force your friend to do anything. If it is for a car, your best bet is to convince them to sell the car and hopefully recoup more than the cost of the loan. Many workplaces have some sort of free service to provide counseling\/guidance on this sort of thing. Look into your employee benefits as you may have some free services there. You can sue your friend in small claims court, but keep in mind: It also depends on how big the loan is relative to your income. While it might feel good to sue your friend in small claims court, if it's for $500 it probably isn't worthwhile - but if your friend just stopped paying off their $30k vehicle assuming you will pay for it, even though they can pay for it themselves?"""
"""Why is stock dilution legal?""","""Stock issuing and dilution is legal because there must be some mechanism for small companies to grow into big companies. A company sees a great investment opportunity.  It would be a perfect extension of their activities ... but they cannot afford it. To get the necessary money they can either take out a loan or issue shares. Taking a loan basically means that this is temporary, but the company will go back to being small when the loan is paid back. Issuing new shares basically means that the Board means that this growth is permanent and the company will be big for the foreseeable future. It is utterly necessary that companies have this option for raising cash, and therefore it is legal. As detailed in the other answers, you end up with a smaller percentage of a larger company, usually ending up with more or less the same value."""
"""What evidence exists for claiming that you cannot beat the market?""","""There seems to be a common sentiment that no investor can consistently beat the market on returns. What evidence exists for or against this? First off, even if the markets were entirely random there would be individual investors that would consistently beat the market throughout their lifetime entirely by luck.  There are just so many people this is a statistical certainty.  So let's talk about evidence of beating the market due to persistent skill. I should hedge by saying there isn't a lot of good data here as most understandably most individual investors don't give out their investment information but there are some ok datasets.  There is weak evidence, for instance, that the best individual investors keep outperforming and interestingly that the trading of individual investors can predict future market movements.  Though the evidence is more clear that individual investors make a lot of mistakes and that these winning portfolios are not from commonly available strategies and involve portfolios that are much riskier than most  would recommend. Is there really no investment strategy that would make it likely for this investor to consistently outperform her benchmark? There are so, many, papers (many reasonable even) out there about how to outperform benchmarks (especially risk-adjusted basis).  Not too mention some advisers with great track records and a sea of questionable websites.  You can even copy most of what Buffet does if you want. Remember though that the average investor by definition makes the average \""market\"" return and then pays fees on top of that.  If there is a strategy out there that is obviously better than the market and a bunch of people start doing it, it quickly becomes expensive to do and becomes part the market.  If there was a proven, easy to implement way to beat the market everyone would do it and it would be the market. So why is it that on this site or elsewhere, whenever an active trading strategy is discussed that potentially beats the market, there is always a claim that it probably won't work? To start with there are a large number of clearly bad ideas posed here and elsewhere.  Sometimes though the ideas might be good and may even have a good chance to beat the market.  Like so many of the portfolios that beat the market though and they add a lot of uncertainty and in particular, for this personal finance site, risk that the person will not be able to live comfortably in retirement. There is so much uncertainty in the market and that is why there will always be people that consistently outperform the market but at the same time why there will be few, if any, strategies that will outperform consistently with any certainty."""
"""Risks associated with investing in dividend paying stocks for short term income. Alternatives?""","""Your back of the envelope calculation shows an income of about 5.5% per year, which is much better than a bank. The risk of course is that in a few years when you want to sell the stock, the price may not be at the level you want. The question is what are you giving up with this plan. You have 80K in cash, will cutting it to 30K in cash make it harder for your business to survive? If your income from the business starts slowly, having that 50K in cash may be better. Selling the stock when the business is desperate for money may lock in losses."""
"""How can I find out what percentage the publicly traded shares (float) are of the total company?""","""I think you're looking for the public float: Public float or the unqualified term may also refer to the number of   outstanding shares in the hands of public investors as opposed to   company officers, directors, or controlling-interest investors.   Assuming the insider held shares are not traded, these shares are the   publicly traded ones. The float is calculated by subtracting   restricted shares from outstanding shares. As mentioned, Treasury stock is probably the most narrow definition of restricted stock (not publicly traded), but shares held by corporate officers or majority investors are often included in the definition as well. In any case, the balance sheet is indeed a good place to start."""
"""Where do countries \/ national governments borrow money from? ""","""Sovereign states borrow money explicitly in a two primary ways: A sovereign cannot be compelled to repay debt, and there isn't a judicial process like bankruptcy to erase debt. When sovereigns default, they negotiate new terms with creditors and pay back some fraction of the actual debt owed.  They can also print money to repay debt, which has other nasty consequences. But, while a state cannot be compelled to repay a debt, creditors cannot be compelled to loan money to the state either! Any enterprise of sufficient size needs access to capital via loans to meet daily obligations in anticipation of revenue -- even when times are good. Defaulting makes borrowing impossible or expensive, and is avoided. Regarding using your military to avoid repaying debt... remember what Napoleon said: \""An army travels on its stomach\"". Military campaigns are expensive... no borrowing ability means the soldiers don't get paid and the food, fuel and ammo don't get delivered. Smaller countries have other risks as well. Many nations are essentially forced to use US Dollars as a reserve currency, or are forced by the market to borrow money in a foreign currency. This creates a situation where any risk of non-payment results in a deep devaluation of the local currency. When your debt is denominated in dollars, these shifts can dramatically increase your debt obligations from a local currency point of view. You also run the risk that a larger or richer company will park warships in your harbor and seize assets as payment -- the US and Britain engaged in this several times during the 19th and 20th centuries. In general, not paying the bills has a cascading effect. Bad situations get worse, and they do so quickly."""
"""Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details?""","""No, they cannot refuse to provide you with the current balance or a balance history. The other answers point you to resources that are available to help you put pressure on the dealership. The bottom line is that you now know that you have the right to the details and to audit their recording of the transactions. You should now use that information and demand a better response in writing. If they have to give you a response in writing, they can't deny the answer they gave in a court of law later on. They understand this, and they will take you more seriously if you send a letter. Make sure to keep copies of the letter and send it with certified delivery."""
"""Any reason to keep around my account with my old, 'big' bank?""","""From my experience, payments from banks and other financial entities, such as loyalty programs, generally aren't as large as payments that go the other direction from consumer to bank. Thus, keeping a bank account open simply for some reward\/loyalty points may just be changing your behavior for the wrong reasons. The more important scenario is whether or not you have any automated ACH payments or whether your bank account is linked to other services. Perhaps the biggest tell that you're in the clear is when those transactions start occurring from your credit union account.  For example: If you had a direct deposit to your BMO bank account, make sure you see deposits start to appear in the credit union account. If you're making automatic withdraws to an online savings or brokerage account, make sure those transfers are stopped and that you instead see them coming out of your new credit union account. You shouldn't need to move the auto loan, but you will need to make sure you can pay it from the new account.  Some financial advisors, such as in this BankRate article titled, Lenders can tap bank account for mortgage, even recommend keeping liabilities and assets at different locations. If for whatever reason your financial situation turned bleak, it would be more difficult for the bank to help itself to what's in your checking account. To avoid getting nickel and dimed to death by \""payment processing fees\"", I tend to pay insurance bills yearly or semi-annually. Thus, consider if there is anything that may be coming due in the next 6 months. If so, you might want to get your new account hooked up while you still have all the routing numbers and account numbers in your head. It's a pain to dig this stuff up while also rushing to not be late. If all that is in order, close the account."""
"""Is there any sort of tax write off for unfulfilled pay checks?""","""Unfortunately, no.  Think about the numbers. If you work for me, and I pay you $1000, you owe tax on $1000. If you still work, but I don't pay you, you have no tax due, but there's no benefit for you to collect for my stealing your time."""
"""How does a TFSA work? Where does the interest come from?""","""As to where the interest comes from: The same place it comes from in other kinds of savings accounts. The bank takes the money you deposit and invests it elsewhere, traditionally by lending it out to others (hence the concept of a \""savings and loan\"" bank). They make a profit as long as the interest they give for \""borrowing\"" from you, plus the cost of administering the savings accounts and loans, is less than the interest they charge for lending to others. No, they don't have to pay you interest -- but if they didn't, you'd be likely to deposit your funds at another bank which did. Their ideal goal is to pay as little as possible without losing depositors, while charging as much as possible without losing borrowers. (yeah, I know, typo corrected) Why do they get higher interest rate than they pay you? Mostly because your deposits and interest are essentially guaranteed, whereas the folks they're lending to may be late paying or default on those loans. As with any kind of investment, higher return requires more work and\/or higher risk, plus (ususally) larger reserves so you can afford to ride out any losses that do occur."""
"""What to consider before buying (exercising) a family member's private company employee stock options, about to expire?""","""First, you mentioned your brother-in-law has \""$100,000 in stock options (fully vested)\"". Do you mean his exercise cost would be $100,000, i.e. what he'd need to pay to buy the shares? If so, then what might be the estimated value of the shares acquired? Options having vested doesn't necessarily mean they possess value, merely that they may be exercised. Or did you mean the estimated intrinsic value of those options (estimated value less exercise cost) is $100,000? Speaking from my own experience, I'd like to address just the first part of your question: Have you treated this as you would a serious investment in any other company? That is, have you or your brother-in-law reviewed the company's financial statements for the last few years? Other than hearing from people with a vested interest (quite literally!) to pump up the stock with talk around the office, how do you know the company is: BTW, as an option holder only, your brother-in-law's rights to financial information may be limited. Will the company share these details anyway? Or, if he exercised at least one option to become a bona-fide shareholder, I believe he'd have rights to request the financial statements \u2013 but company bylaws vary, and different jurisdictions say different things about what can be restricted. Beyond the financial statements, here are some more things to consider: The worst-case risk you'd need to accept is zero liquidity and complete loss: If there's no eventual buy-out or IPO, the shares may (effectively) be worthless. Even if there is a private market, willing buyers may quickly dry up if company fortunes decline. Contrast this to public stock markets, where there's usually an opportunity to witness deterioration, exit at a loss, and preserve some capital. Of course, with great risk may come great reward. Do your own due diligence and convince yourself through a rigorous analysis \u2014 not hopes & dreams \u2014 that the investment might be worth the risk."""
"""Reinvesting dividends and capital gains""","""First, do you get charged a commission or other fee for reinvesting?   Second, why would capital gains and dividends be grouped together? If the broker charges you for that run away. As Joe explained, it is done as a courtesy. Doesn't this mean if I sell the stock, the profit will be used to buy   that stock right back? No, this is only the capital gains distributions of funds. Lastly, there are two additional checkbox options I was hoping   somebody could explain: \""All equity positions currently held in this   account\"" and \""Future equity purchases, transfers, and deposits to this   account\"". \""All equity positions\"" means your selection will be valid for all the positions you already have. \""Future positions\"" means it will only affect future positions, not the ones you already have. For example: FOLLOW-UP: Looking around, some people suggest not doing this for   taxable accounts because it complicates cost basis reporting. Is this   a valid concern? Doesn't the brokerage handle that and send you the   information when you sell the stock? Yes, because you end up with tons of positions and you need to track the cost basis for each. Brokers are required to report cost-basis on 1099-B now, so its less of a problem, but before 2011 you'd have 10's of positions each year (if you have a monthly dividend, for example) each with different cost basis, and you'd usually sell them all at once. Go figure the gain. So the new 1099-B reporting regulations help a little on this, but it only kicks in for everything starting of 2013 IIRC. Fortunately, for some investments (mutual funds, mainly) you may chose averaging, but it has drawbacks as well."""
"""Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area?""","""Some of this is demand management.  The local BJ's wholesale club sells gas $0.10-0.15\/gallon less than the prevailing rate. Typically there are lines of 3-5 cars waiting for a pump during busy periods. People are price-conscious when buying gas, which draws crowds and the retailer actually wants a line -- the whole point of the gas station is to draw traffic to the warehouse club. Other gas stations have the opposite problem -- big crowds lead to fewer people buying food and drinks in the convenience store, which is where the business actually makes its money. They want a steady stream of people. In my area, there is a gas station that is on a busy intersection right off the highway ramp going to the airport. Their problem is that people returning rental cars used to swarm the gas station and cause traffic tie-ups on the road -- a problem averted by marking up the gas $0.30."""
"""What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \""emergencies\"" but are not covered by an Emergency Fund?""","""Extended illness\/disability that prevents you from being able to work. Edit: Leigh Riffel: So, why should this be expected, and how should it be planned for? Some of us may be fortunate enough that this never happens, but I've known enough unlucky people to have seen that it can and does happen. Prepare for it with:"""
"""Optimal pricing of close to zero marginal cost content""","""Software or any online service fits this category I suppose.  There are two apps I pay for that are \""free.\"" Evernote and Pandora.  Evernote is free for 40MB, $45\/yr for 500MB\/mo transfer. Pandora is free for 40hrs\/mo, $36\/yr unlimited. When I use a free product and hit the limit it's a sign to me that I value that product and the owners deserve to get paid. To me, both products provide value that's well above the cost they are asking. In this case, both products are annual subscriptions, but offer monthly as well.  You don't mention the type of product you have, the two I listed are similar in billing type, but very difference end uses. The question is - How do you provide value and make your customers want to pay you?  BTW - the ~$40\/yr give or take, seems a good price point. Under $50, it feels a fair price to pay for a useful product."""
"""Book capital losses in gnucash""","""According to the gnucash guide, losses are recorded as negative transactions against Income:Capital Gains.  I've followed this model in the past when dealing with stocks and commodities.  If on the other hand, you're talking about an asset which could normally follow a depreciation schedule, you might want to look at the section in the business guide dealing with asset depreciation."""
"""What could be the harm in sharing my American Express statements online?""","""If someone gains access to these data, he could use social engineering approach to impersonate you - i.e. call the American Express and ask tell he he is you and he lost the access to the account and he needs the access to be reset and sent to certain email, and if they doubt it's you he would send them the statement data, even on company letterhead (which he would be able to fake since he has the data from the statements, and AE has no idea how the authentic letterhead looks like). He could also do the opposite trick - like calling your assistant or even yourself and saying something like \""I'm from American Express, calling about the transaction at this-and-this date and this-and-this time, this amount, please confirm you are {your name} and your address is {your address}, I need to confirm something\"" - which would make it appear as he is really from AE since he knows all these details - and then ask you some detail he's missing \""for security\"" - like your birth date or last digits of SSID or anything like that - and then use these details to impersonate you to AE.  So putting all this info together where it can be accessed by strangers does have risks. It may not work out if both you and AE personnel are vigilant and follow instructions to the letter, but we know it not always so."""
"""Is it safe to take a new mortgage loan in Greece?""","""Please clarify your question. What do you mean by \""..loan in Greece\""? If you are referring to taking a mortgage loan to purchase residential property in Greece, there are two factors to consider: If the loan originates from a Greek bank, then odds are likely that the bank will be nationalized by the government if Greece defaults. If the loan is external (i.e. from J.P. Morgan or some foreign bank), then the default will certainly affect any bank that trades\/maintains Euros, but banks that are registered outside of Greece won't be nationalized. So what does nationalizing mean for your loan? You will still be expected to pay it according to the terms of the contract. I'd recommend against an adjustable rate contract since rates will certainly rise in a default situation. As for property, that's a different story. There have been reports of violence in Greece already, and if the country defaults, imposes austerity measures, etc, odds are there will be more violence that can harm your property. Furthermore, there is a remote possibility that the government can attempt to acquire your private property. Unlikely, but possible. You could sue in this scenario on property rights violations but things will be very messy from that point on. If Greece doesn't default but just exits the Euro Zone, the situation will be similar. The Drachma will be weak and confidence will be poor, and unrest is a likely outcome. These are not statements of facts but rather my opinion, because I cannot peek into the future. Nonetheless, I would advise against taking a mortgage for property in Greece at this point in time."""
"""Understanding how this interpretation of kelly criterion helps the trader""","""I don't know too much about the kelly criterion, but going by the other answers it sounds like it could be quite risky depending how you use it. I have been taught the first thing you do in trading is protect your existing capital and any profits you have made, and for this reason I prefer and use Position Sizing (PS). The concept with PS is that you only risk a small % of your capital on every trade, usually not more than 1%, however if you want to be very aggressive then not more than 2%. I use 1% of my capital for every trade. So if you are trading with an account of $40,000 and your risk R on every trade is 1%, then R = $400. As an example, say you decide to buy a stock at $10 and you work out your initial stop to be at $9.50, then our maximum risk R of $400 is divided by the stop distance of $0.50 to get your PS = $400\/$0.50 = 800 shares. If the price then drops after your purchase, your maximum loss (subject to no slippage) would be $400.  If the price moves up you would raise your stop until your potential loss becomes smaller and smaller and then becomes a gain once your stop moves above your initial purchase price. The aim is to make your gains be larger than your losses. So if your average loss is kept to 1R or less then you should aim to get your average gains to 2R, 3R or more. This would be considered a good trading system where you will make regular profits even with a win ratio of 50%."""
"""Can a US bank prevent you from making early payments to the principal on a home mortgage?""","""Many mortgages penalize early payment, and I assume it's possible to disallow it altogether. It makes sense why they don't want early payment. If you pay off the loan early, it is usually because you re-financed it to a loan with a lower rate. You would do this when the interest rate is low (lower than when you got your original loan). If you pay it off early, that means they will have to re-invest the money again, or they will lose money if they just have it sitting around. However, recall above that people pay it off early when the interest rate is low; that is the worst time for them to re-invest this into another mortgage, because the rate will not be as good for them as the one you were originally going to keep paying."""
"""How to measure the cost\/value of an Asset in the Financial Statement""","""I suggest that you use your own judgement on this. You can assign a reasonable percentage since it is impossible to monitor the hours using those assets. Example: 40 personal and 60 for business. It's really your call. I also suggest that you should be conservative on valuing the assets. Record the assets at it's lowest value. This is one of the most difficult scenarios in making your own financial statements. You can also use this approach, i will record the assets at its original cost then use a higher depreciation rate or double declining method of depreciation. If the assets have a depreciation rate of 20% per year (useful life of 5 years), i will make it 30%. the other 10% will add more expense and helps you not to overstate your Financial Statement. You can also use the residual value of the asset, but if you do this, you should figure out the reliable amount. I understand that this is not for tax reporting purposes. Therefore, there's no harm if you overstate your Financial statement. And even if you overstate, you can still adjust the cost of the asset. Along the way (in the middle of the year or year end), you will figure out the cost of the asset if it's over valued once the financial statement is done."""
"""How will a limit order be executed when the stock market opens if there is a large change from the price of the day before?""","""The next day the market opens trading at 10.50, You haven't specified whether you limit order for $10.10 is to buy or sell. When the trading opens next day, it follows the same process of matching the orders. So if you have put a limit order to buy at $10.10 and there is no sell order at that price, your trade will not go through. If you have placed a limit sell order at $10.10 and there is a buyer at or higher price, it would go through. The Open price is the price of the first trade of the day."""
"""United Kingdom: Where to save money for a property deposit""","""Ultimately you are as stuck as all other investors with low returns which get taxed. However there are a few possible mitigations. You can put up to 15k p.a. into a \""normal\"" ISA (either cash or stocks & shares, or a combination) if your target is to generate the depost over 5 years you should maximise the amount you put in an ISA. Then when you come to buy, you cash in that part needed to top up your other savings for a deposit - i.e. keep the rest in for long term savings. The help to buy ISA might be helpful, but yes there is a limit on the purchase price which in London will restrict you. Several banks are offering good interest on limited sums in current accounts - Santander is probably the best you can get 3% (taxed) on up to 20K - this is a good \""safe\"" return. Just open a 123 Account, arrange to pay out a couple of DDs and pay in \u00a3500 a month (you can take the \u00a3500 straight out again). I think Lloyds and TSB also offer similar but on much smaller ammounts. Be warned this strategy taken to the limit will involve some complexity checking your various accounts each month. After that you will end up trading better returns for greater risk by using more volatile stock market investments rather than cash deposits."""
"""Does a SIM only cell phone contract help credit rating?""","""I have never seen any of my mobile phone providers report any data to any credit agency. They tend to only do that if you don't pay on time. Maybe sometimes it helps, but from my experience over the last decade - it must be some very rare times."""
"""Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?""","""Don't compare investing with a roll of the dice, compare it with blackjack and the decision to stand or hit, or put more money on the table (double down or increase bet size) , based on an assessment of the state of the table and history.  A naive strategy of say \""always hitting to 16\"" isn't as awful as randomly hitting and standing (which, from time to to time will draw to 21 fair and square) , but there's a basic strategy that gets close to 50% and by increasing or decreasing bet based on counting face cards can get into positive expectations. Randomly buying and selling stock is randomly hitting.  Buying a market index fund is like always hitting to 16.  Determining an asset allocation strategy and periodically rebalancing is basic strategy.  Adjusting allocations based on business cycle and economic indicators is turning skill into advantage."""
"""Using business check to pay at retail""","""You can just buy the items personally and then submit an expense report to the company to get reimbursed. Keep all the receipts. Paying with a company check is also fine, but you might run into problems with stores not accepting checks."""
"""Why does Yahoo Finance and Google Finance not match historical prices?""","""The difference is that Yahoo is showing the unadjusted price that the security traded for on that date, while google is adjusting for price splits. This means that Google is showing how much you would have had to pay to get what is now one share. Since 1979, JNJ has split 3-for-1 once, and 2-for-1 four times. 3x2x2x2x2 = 48. If you bought 1 share at that time, you would now have 48 shares today. Yahoo is showing a price of $66 for what was then 1 share. $66\/48 = 1.375, which Google rounds to 1.38. You can see this if you get the prices from May 14-21, 1981. The stock split 3-for-1, and the price dropped from 108 to 36.38. Yahoo's adjusted close column has not been accurate since they re-wrote the Finance website. It now just represents the closing price. The other relevant field on Yahoo is the Adj. Close. This adjusts for splits, but also adjusts for dividends. Hence why this doesn't match either the Google or Yahoo numbers."""
"""What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?""","""Until you get some financial education, you will be vulnerable to people wanting your money.  Once you are educated, you will be able to live a tidy life off this-- which is exactly why this amount was awarded to you, rather than some other amount.    They gave you enough money.  This is not a lottery win.  I mean \""financial counselors\"" who will want to help you with strategies to invest your money.  Every one will promise your money will grow.   The latter case describes every full-service broker, e.g. what will happen if you walk into EdwardJones.  This industry has a long tradition of charmingly selling investments which significantly underperform the market, and making their money by kickbacks (sales commissions) from those investments (which is why they significantly underperform.)   They also offer products which are unnecessarily complex meant to confuse customers and hide fees. One mark of trouble is \""early exit\"" fees, which they need to recoup the sales commission they already paid out.  Unfortunately, one of those people is you.  You are treating this like a windfall, falling into old, often-repeated clich\u00e9 of \""lottery-win thinking\"".  \""Gosh, there's so much money there, what could go wrong?\""  This always ends in disaster and destitution, on top of your other woes.  It's not a windfall.  They gave you just enough money to live on - barely. Because these lawyers and judges do this all day every day, and they know exactly how much capital will replace a lifelong salary, and if anything you got cheated a bit.  Read on.   You don't want to feel like greedy Scrooge, hoarding every penny.  I get that.  But generous spending won't fix that.  What will is financial education, and once you have real understanding and certainty about your financial situation, you will be able to both provide for yourself and be giving in a sensible manner.   This stuff isn't taught in school.  If it was, there'd be a lot more millionaires, because wealth isn't about luck, it's about intelligent management of money.  Good advisers do exist. They're hard to find.  Good advisors work only one way: for a flat rate or hourly fee.  This is called a \""Fee-only advisor\"".  S\/he never takes commissions.  Beware of brokers who normally work on commission but will happily take an upfront fee.  Even if they promise to hand you their commission check, they're still recommending you into the same sub-par investments because that's their training! I get the world of finance is extremely confusing and it's hard to know where to start.  Just make one leap of faith with me: You can learn this.  One place it's not confusing: University endowments.  They get windfalls just like you, and they need to manage it to support them for a very long time, just like you.  Endowments are very closely watched by the smartest people in finance -- no lottery fever here. It's agreed by all that there is one best way to invest an endowment.  And it's mandatory by law.  An endowment is a chunk of money (say, $1.2 million) that must fund a purpose (say, a math professorship or \""chair\"") in perpetuity.  You're not planning to live quite that long, but when you're in your 20's, the investment strategy is the same.  The endowment is designed to generate income of some amount, on average, over the long term.  You can draw from the endowment even in \""down years\"".  The rule of thumb is 4-6% is a sustainable rate that won't overtax the endowment (usually, but you have to keep an eye on it). On $1.2M, that's $48,000 to $72,000 per year.  Not half bad.  See, I told you it could work.  Read Jane Austen?  Mister Darcy, referred to as a gentleman of 10,000 pounds -- meaning his assets were many times that, but they yield income of \u00a310,000 a year.  Same idea.  Keep in mind that you need to pay taxes. But if you plan your investments so you're holding them more than a year, you're in the much lower 0-10-15% capital gains tax bracket.  So, here's where I'd like you to go.   I would say more, but this will give you quite an education by itself.  Say you gave all your money to me.  And said \""Your nonprofit needs an executive director. Fund it. In perpetuity.\""  I'd say \""Thank you\"", \""you're right\"", and I'd create an endowment and invest it about like this.  That is fairly close to the standard mix you'll find in most endowments, because that is what's considered \""prudent\"" under endowment law (UPMIFA). I'd carry all that in a Vanguard or Fidelity account and follow Bogle's advice on limiting fees.  That said, dollar-cost-averaging is not a suicide pact, and bonds are ugly right now (for reason Suze Orman describes) and real estate seems really bubbly right now... so I'd back out of those for now.   I'd aim to draw about $60k\/year out of it or 5%, and on average, in the very long term, the capital should grow. I would adjust it downward somewhat if the next few years are a hard recession, to avoid taking too much out of the capital... and resist the urge to take more out in boom years, because that is your hedge against the next recession. Over 7% is not prudent per the law (absent very reasonable reasons). UPMIFA doesn't apply to you, but I'd act as if it did.  A very reasonable reason to take more than 7% would be to shift investment into a house for living in.  I would aim for a duplex\/triplex to also have income from the property, if the numbers made sense, which they often don't in California, but that's another question.  At your financial level -- never, never, never give cash to a charity.  You will get marked as a \""soft target\"" and every commercial fundraiser on earth will stalk you for the rest of your life. At your level, you open a Donor Advised Fund, and let the Fund do your giving for you.  Once you've funded it (which is tax deductible) you later tell them which charities to fund when.  They screen out fake charities and protect your identity. I discuss DAFs at length here.  Now when \""charities\"" harass you for an immediate handout, just tell them that's not how you support charities."""
"""What's the fuss about Credit Score \/ History?""","""Credit Unions have long advocated their services based on the fact that they consider your \""character.\""  Unfortunately, they are then at a loss to explain how they determine the value of your character, other than to say that you're buddies & play pool together so they'll give you a loan. Your Credit History \/ Score is as accurate a representation of your character in business dealings as can be meaningfully quantified.  It tracks your ability to effectively use and manage debt, and your propensity to pay it back responsibly or default on obligations.  While it isn't perfect, it is certainly one of the best means currently available for determining someone's trustworthiness when it comes to financial matters."""
"""Primary Residence to Investment Property - Changing PMI Terms""","""You could be in a bit of a bind.  I wouldn't push it any more until you read your loan papers very carefully. Going back to the lender for a refinance after you converted it to a rental (presumably without their knowledge) is risky.  I doubt they'd let you refinance anyway, as the house is underwater. If the loan is performing then I wouldn't think they'd look too hard for reasons to upset the flow of checks by calling the loan due, but if you brazenly advertise the change of property use to them they may reconsider. Read your loan papers carefully to see what they can do before you lean on them too much. As for managing the finances on that property, I'd build up a cushion to deal with the fact that your payment is going to shoot up considerably in year 8.  Also consider building up a side business to get another income stream going to compensate as well.  You have a little time before it shoots up."""
"""How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?""","""My primary concerns. There seems to still be a fair bit of distressed property (forclosures etc) on the market at current, which might well keep prices down for the next year or so that it takes to finish flushing that stuff out of the market.  The gist I get from most experts\/pundits is that There will be good deals around for while to come still I'd advise you wait.  Go ahead and do the math to figure out what total you WOULD be paying would be, and charge yourself that much a mohth for rent in your current place, pocketing the difference in a savings account.  You'll be able to get a feeling for what it's like to live with that kind of house payment, and if you can do it sans any room-mate (something you can't always count on)  If you can manage it, then you have a much more realistic idea of what you can afford, AND you'll have saved up a bunch of money to help with a down-payment in the process.  If for example your Mortgage plus taxes and insurance ends up running around say $1450 a month, plus another $150 for the HOA, well then, that's charging yourself $1600 a month for your 'rent' which means $1000 per month going into the bank, in two years that's nearly the same as what you have now in the $401K, and you'd have a really good idea if you can afford that much per month in housing costs. If you are bound and determined to do this now, then here's a few other things to consider. You might to shop around a bit to see how typical those HOA fees are.   Yeah you don't have the expense and hassle of needing to mow the lawn, paint the place etc  but still,  150 a month translates to around another 1.5 mortgage payments a year. You might be able to get around PMI by splitting the mortgage into two pieces and doing a 'purchase money second' of around 15-20% and 75-70% of the value for the main mortgage.  That way the LoanToValue on your primary loan is under 80%, which could be worthwhile even if the interest rate on that second loan is a little higher (at least it's deductible, paying PMI is just money lost to you) although trying to do any kind of creative financing these days is a lot trickier"""
"""Transferring money between two banks""","""Why? Because they can get away with it, of course. In short - why not? You may want to read the answers to this similar question (my answer is the one accepted by the OP). Who has the money? The banks, who else. I have found that some banks are capable of sending\/receiving ACH transfers faster than others. I have accounts in two banks, lets call them A and B. If I send money (push) from A to B, it may take several days. But if I decide to pull the money from A to B by originating the transaction through my account at B - the money arrives the next day! So the actual transfer only takes a night, one business day. Its just the direction that matters - if the bank has to give the money out, it will do all it can (including taking 2-3 days for \""processing\"") to keep the money as long as possible. But when another bank charges them - they have no choice but to pay. By the way, bank B behaves better - when I send the money from my account at B, it arrives to A the next day as well. Try a similar experiment. Instead of originating the transaction at the sender bank - try to originate it at the receiver bank, see how long it takes then for the money to appear on your account after it disappeared from the other one."""
"""What strike to choose if I want to sell weekly calls against a long LEAP put""","""What I do not get is why does the author choose to buy an ITM put. If   the goal was to not lose more than 5.6%, he could have chosen a out of   money put where the strike is ~6% OTM. The reason why he is buying a ITM put instead of a put 5-6% below the ATM price, is because he wants to only lose 5-6% after all fee's.  A put at 5-6% below ATM is not free, so it will not actually provide a 6% cushion, more likely 10%-15% maximum loss after it's cost is accounted for. You cannot rely on the strike alone to determine the level of protection you are buying.  Real world example.  SPY DEC 2017 195 strike put, costs $2150, it's about 6% OTM, but it costs roughly 10% of SPY $207, at best it would protect 85% of your net worth.   Strike - Costs = Protection  Did he choose an ITM put because he does not want to pay any time   premium? Does he not lose in wide bid-ask spreads what he gains by not   paying time premium? Nope, you were just misunderstanding how he calculated his protection. He wanted to protect 5-6% after the cost of the hedge. He 'needed' to select an ITM put because time premiums are so high that an OTM put wouldn't suffice."""
"""What would the broker do about this naked call option?""","""Yes, it can buy back the call, but much before stock hits the $30 mark.   Let us say you got 1$ from selling the call. So the total money in your account is 4$ + 1 $ = 5 $. When stock hits 10$ (your strike), the maintenance margin is 5$. As soon as stock goes past 10, your maintenance margin is violated. So broker will buy back your call (at least IB does that, it does not wait for a margin call). Now if the stock gapped up from 8 to 30,then yes, broker will buy it back at 30, so your account will have a negative balance. Assume the call cost 20$ when stock hit 30, your balance is: 5 - (30-10) = -15. Depending on broker, I suppose they will ask you to bring your account balance back up to positive. If they don't do that, they risk going out of business."""
"""Paying off a loan with a loan to get a better interest rate""","""I don't know what rates are available to you now, but yes, if you can refinance your car at a better rate with no hidden fees, you might save some money in interest. However, there are a couple of watchouts: Your original loan was a 6 year loan, and you have 5 years remaining.  If you refinance your car with a new 6 year loan, you will be paying on your car for 7 years total, and you will end up paying more interest even though your interest rate might have gone down.  Make sure that your new loan, in addition to having a lower rate than the old loan, does not have a longer term than what you have remaining on the original loan. Make sure there aren't any hidden fees or closing costs with the new loan.  If there are, you might be paying your interest savings back to the bank in fees. If your goal is to save money in interest, consider paying off your loan early.  Scrape together extra money every month and send it in, making sure that it is applied to the principal of your loan.  This will shorten your loan and save you money on interest, and can be much more significant than refinancing.  After your loan is paid off, continue saving the amount you were spending on your car payment, so you can pay cash for your next car and save even more."""
"""Do stock prices really go down by the amount of the dividend?""","""Ex-Dividend Price Behavior of Common Stocks would be a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and University of Minnesota if you want a source for some data. Abstract This study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. Such   price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some with and   some without arbitrageurs and\/or dividend capturers active. Our theory   predicts such mixing will result in a nonlinear relation between   percentage price drop and dividend yield - not the commonly assumed   linear relation. This prediction and another important prediction of   theory are supported empirically. In a variety of tests, marginal   price drop is not significantly different from the dividend amount.   Thus, over the last several decades, one-for-one marginal price drop   have been an excellent (average) rule of thumb."""
"""How can I set up a recurring payment to an individual (avoiding fees)?""","""A handful of well-known banks in the United States are part of the clearXchange network, which allows customers of those banks to move money amongst them. The clearXchange service is rebranded differently by each member bank. For example, Chase calls it QuickPay, while Wells Fargo calls it SurePay, and Capital One calls it P2P Payments.  To use clearXchange, the sender's bank must be part of the network. The recipient isn't required to be in the network, though if they are it makes things easier, as no setup is required on the recipient's end in that case. Otherwise, they must sign up on the clearXchange site directly. From what I can tell, most payments are fee-free within the network. I have repeating payments set up with Chase's QuickPay, and they do not charge fees."""
"""Possible to purchase multiple securities on 1 transaction?""","""No, this is not generally possible, as each security purchase is booked as a separate order => hence separate transaction. You can do this through purchasing of a fund, i.e.: purchasing one share of a ETF will get you a relative share of the ETF holdings, but the actual holdings are not up to you then."""
"""UK Limited Company paying third party medical costs""","""One possibility to consider would be making an arrangement with a registered UK charity where you would donate the necessary amount for the specific purpose of covering medical costs of that particular person. Charitable donations are expressly deductible from business profits.     Some charities may be genuinely interested in helping people from developing countries get quality medical help that's not available in those countries. There may be some organizations in the proposed beneficiary's country that have contacts among the UK charities. PS. I am not a lawyer or an accountant, nor do I claim to be either. The above is not a legal or accounting advice. Consider seeking professional assistance."""
"""Self-employed individual 401k self, match, and profit sharing contribution limits?""","""It seems I can make contributions as employee-elective, employer   match, or profit sharing; yet they all end up in the same 401k from my   money since I'm both the employer and employee in this situation. Correct. What does this mean for my allowed limits for each of the 3 types of   contributions? Are all 3 types deductible? \""Deductible\""? Nothing is deductible. First you need to calculate your \""compensation\"". According to the IRS, it is this: compensation is your \""earned income,\"" which is defined as net earnings   from self-employment after deducting both: So assuming (numbers for example, not real numbers) your business netted $30, and $500 is the SE tax (half). You contributed $17.5 (max) for yourself. Your compensation is thus 30-17.5-0.5=12. Your business can contribute up to 25% of that on your behalf, i.e.: $4K. Total that you can contribute in such a scenario is $21.5K. Whatever is contributed to a regular 401k is deferred, i.e.: excluded from income for the current year and taxed when you withdraw it from 401k (not \""deducted\"" - deferred)."""
"""Can I estimate other people's credit limit at the grocery store?""","""What you're referring to is Visa Easy Payment Services (VEPS). Other payment processors have similar programs. Basically, certain merchants (based on merchant category code - or MCC), are not required to obtain a signature under $50. This limit was raised to $50 from $25 last year. Here is the press release from Visa describing the increase, and the program in general."""
"""How should I begin investing real money as a student?""","""I started my account with $500 so I know where you're coming from.  For the words of caution, in about 2009 we entered a pretty significant bull market.  During this period you could basically buy almost any big name company and do pretty well for yourself.  So don't be too cocky about your ability to pick winners in the middle of a bull market.  Over the last few years you'd have to try pretty hard to consistently pick losers. I absolutely think you should put real money in the game when you have this sort of interest.  However, at your $400-600 level broker fees will eat any sort of active trading or short term profit you could muster.  Stock trading is not a great way to make money in the short term.  If you're looking to save for something specific you should put that money in a zero risk savings account.   You should do more research on brokers.  Find the lowest possible trade commission at an organization where you can meet the account opening minimum.  A $10 commission is 11% more than a $9 commission."""
"""Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?""","""In the United States, savings accounts generally have higher interest rates than checking or money market accounts.  Part of this is the government restriction on the number of automated transactions per month that can be done on a savings account: this is supposed to allow banks to lengthen the time frame of the cash part of their investments for savings.  This limit is why direct deposit of one's paycheck is almost always into a checking or money market account... and why many people have savings accounts, especially with Internet banks, because they pay significantly higher interest rates than brick and mortar banks."""
"""Clarify Microsoft's explanation of MIRR""","""The MIRR formula uses the finance rate to discount negative cash flows, but since the only negative cash flow in the example in in the current period, there's nothing to discount.  It's meant to solve problems with IRR like when there are both positive and negative cash flows, which can result in multiple answers for IRR.  The example they give isn't a good one for MIRR because it's a simple spend now, earn later scenario, which IRR is perfectly fine for. If you add a negative cashflow somewhere after the first one you'll see the answer change with difference financing rates."""
"""Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?""","""A lot of people have already explained that your assumptions are the issue, but I'll throw in my 2\u00a2. There are a lot of people who do the opposite of long term investing.  It's called high frequency trading.  I'd recommend reading the Wikipedia article for more info, but very basically, high frequency traders use programs to determine which stocks to buy and which ones to sell. An example program might be \""buy if the stock is increasing and sell if I've held it more than 1 second.\"""""
"""Will the stock market continue to grow forever?""","""Yes! Look at any graph or chart covering the last 100 years.  The graph goes up. It will continue to grow unless there is an extinction event and the population gets reduced.  Corporations will continue to grow to meet the needs of the ever expanding population."""
"""Online stock screener to find stocks that are negatively correlated to another stock\/index? ""","""SeekingAlpha has a section dedicated to Short ETFs as well as others. In there you will find SH, and SDS.  Both of which are inverse to the S&P 500.  Edit: I linked to charts that compare SH and SDS to SPY."""
"""Opening American credit cards while residing in the UK""","""To build a US credit record, you need a Social Security Number (SSN), which is now not available for most non-residents.   An alternative is an ITIN number, which is now available to non-residents only if they have US income giving a reason to file a US tax return (do you really want to get into all that...). Assuming you did have a reason to get a ITIN (one reason would be if you sold some ebooks via Amazon US, and need a withholding refund under the tax treaty), then recent reports on Flyertalk give mixed results on whether it's possible to get a credit card with an ITIN, and whether that would build a credit record.  It does sound possible in some cases.   A credit record in any other country would not help.  You would certainly need a US address, and banks are increasingly asking for a physical address, rather than just a mailbox. Regardless, building this history would be of limited benefit to you if you later became a US resident, at that point you would be eligible for a new SSN (different from the ITIN) and have to largely start again. If getting a card is the aim, rather than the credit record, you may find some banks that will offer a secured card (or a debit card), to non-residents, especially in areas with lots of Canadian visitors (border, Florida, Arizona).  You'd find it a lot easier with a US address though, and you'd need to shop around a lot of banks in person until you find one with the right rules.  Most will simply avoid anyone without an SSN."""
"""Pay down the student loan, or buy the car with cash?""","""Here's another way to look at this that might make the decision easier: Looking at it this way you can turn this into a financial arbitrage opportunity, returning 2.5% compared to paying cash for the vehicle and carrying the student loan.  Of course you need to take other factors into account as well, such as your need for liquidity and credit. I hope this helps!"""
"""How much accounting knowledge is needed to read financial statements of publicly traded companies?""","""From my experience you don't need knowledge of accounting to pick good stocks. The type of investing you are referring to is fundamental. This is finding out about the company, this websites should help you start off: http:\/\/en.tradehero.mobi\/how-to-choose-a-stock-fundamental-analysis\/ Investopedia will also be a useful website in techniques. A bit of knowledge in economics will be helpful in understanding how current affairs will affect a market, which will affect stock prices. However you need neither economics or accounting knowledge if you were to learn technical analysis, many doubt the workings of this technique, but in my experience it is easier to learn and practise. For example looking at charts from previous years it shows the last time there was a huge recession the dollar did well and commodities didn't. In this recession we are entering you can see the same thing happening. Read about the different techniques before limiting yourself to just looking at financial statements you may find a better technique suited to you, like these technical analysts: http:\/\/etfhq.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/02\/top-technical-analysts\/ Hope this helps."""
"""What happens when a calendar spread is assigned in a non-margin account?""","""I can't speak for all brokerages but the one I use requires cash accounts to have cash available to purchase the stock in this situation. With the cash available you would be able to purchase the stock if the option was exercised.  Hope this helps"""
"""As a minor in the UK do I need to pay taxes on self-employment income, and if so how?""","""As a minor you certainly can pay tax, the government wants its cut from you just like everyone else :-) However you do get the personal allowance like everyone else, so you won't have to pay income tax until your net income reaches \u00a310,800 (that's the figure for the tax year from April 2015 to April 2016, it'll probably change in future years). Once you're 16, you will also have to pay national insurance, which is basically another tax, at a lower threshold. The current rates are \u00a32.80\/week if you are making \u00a35,965 a year or more, and also 9% on any income above \u00a38,060 (up to \u00a342,385). Your \""net income\"" or \""profits\"" are the income you receive minus the expenses you have to support that income. Note that the expenses must be entirely for the \""business\"", they can't be for personal things. The most important thing to do immediately is to start keeping accurate records. Keep a list of the income you receive and also the expenses you pay for hardware etc. Make sure you keep receipts (perhaps just electronic ones) for the expenses so you can prove they existed later. Keep track of that net income as the year goes on and if it starts collecting at the rate you'd have to pay tax and national insurance, then make sure you also put aside enough money to pay for those when the bill comes. There's some good general advice on the Government's website here: https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/working-for-yourself\/what-you-need-to-do In short, as well as keeping records, you should register with the tax office, HMRC, as a \""sole trader\"". This should be something that anyone can do whatever their age, but it's worth calling them up as soon as you can to check and find out if there are any other issues. They'll probably want you to send in tax returns containing the details of your income and expenses. If you're making enough money it may be worth paying an accountant to do this for you."""
"""Long term investment for money""","""I'd open the Roth IRA account and fund for 2015 and 2016. For the very long term, I'd learn about index funds, specifically a low cost S&P mutual fund or ETF."""
"""Comparing option data between yahoo finance and CBOE for SPY options""","""The CBOE site, as well as some other sites and trading platforms, will show the bid\/ask and statistics for that option at each individual options exchange, in addition to statistics and the best bid\/offer across all exchanges. cboe.com: Delayed Quote Help lists what the single-letter codes mean. A is for the AMEX options exchange, B is for BOX, X is for PHLX, etc."""
"""Buying a home without a Real Estate Agent - Who should I get to do the paperwork?""","""Whether or not you use a real estate agent, at some stage most people use a lawyer to do the actual buying and selling and set up the agreements. If you've never dealt with a lawyer directly before it's probably because your agent has acted as a front-person for the lawyer. If you go to a lawyer and tell them what you want to do they will sort it out, and should tell you in advance how much it will cost. You and your friend will probably need one each."""
"""what is shareholders' Equity in balance sheets?""","""Shareholder's Equity consists of two main things: The initial capitalization of the company (when the shares were first sold, plus extra share issues) and retained earnings, which is the amount of money the company has made over and above capitalization, which has not been re-distributed back to shareholders. So yes, it is the firm's total equity financing-- the initial capitalization is the equity that was put into the company when it was founded plus subsequent increases in equity due to share issues, and retained earnings is the increase in equity that has occurred since then which has not yet been re-distributed to shareholders (though it belongs to them, as the residual claimants). Both accounts are credited when they increase, because they represent an increase in cash, that is debited, so in order to make credits = debits they must be credits. (It doesn't mean that the company has that much cash on hand, as the cash will likely be re-invested). Shareholder's Equity is neither an asset nor a liability: it is used to purchase assets and to reduce liabilities, and is simply a measure of assets minus liabilities that is necessary to make the accounting equation balance: Since the book value of stocks doesn't change that often (because it represents the price the company sold it for, not the current value on the stock market, and would therefore only change when there were new share issues), almost all changes in total assets or in total liabilities are reflected in Retained Earnings."""
"""How can I buy and sell the same stock on the same day?""","""Because it takes 3 business days for the actual transfer of stock to occur after you buy or sell to the next owner, your cash is tied up until that happens. This is called the settlement period. Therefore, brokers offer \""margin\"", which is a form of credit, or loan, to allow you to keep trading while the settlement period occurs, and in other situations unrelated to the presented question. To do this you need a \""margin account\"", you currently have a \""cash account\"". The caveat of having a retail margin account (distinct from a professional margin account) is that there is a limited amount of same-day trades you can make if you have less than $25,000 in the account. This is called the Pattern Day Trader (PDT) rule. You don't need $25k to day trade, you will just wish you had it, as it is easy to get your account frozen or downgraded to a cash account. The way around THAT is to have multiple margin accounts at different brokerages. This will greatly increase the number of same day trades you can make. Many brokers that offer a \""solution\"" to PDT to people that don't have 25k to invest, are offering professional trading accounts, which have additional fees for data, which is free for retail trading accounts. This problem has nothing to do with:  So be careful of the advice you get on the internet. It is mostly white noise. Feel free to verify"""
"""Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account""","""You don't state a long term goal for your finances in your message, but I'm going to assume you want to retire early, and retire well. :-) any other ideas I'm missing out on? A fairly common way to reach financial independence is to build one or more passive income streams.  The money returned by stock investing (capital gains and dividends) is just one such type of stream.  Some others include owning rental properties, being a passive owner of a business, and producing goods that earn long-term royalties instead of just an immediate exchange of time & effort for cash.    Of these, rental property is probably one of the most well-known and easiest to learn about, so I'd suggest you start with that as a second type of investment if you feel you need to diversify from stock ownership.  Especially given your association with the military, it is likely there is a nearby supply of private housing that isn't too expensive (so easier to get started with) and has a high rental demand (so less risk in many ways.)   Also, with our continued current low rate environment, now is the time to lock-in long term mortgage rates.  Doing so will reap huge benefits as rates and rents will presumably rise from here (though that isn't guaranteed.) Regarding the idea of being a passive business owner, keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean starting a business yourself.  Instead, you might look to become a partner by investing money with an existing or startup business, or even buying an existing business or franchise.  Sometimes, perfectly good business can be transferred for surprisingly little down with the right deal structure. If you're creative in any way, producing goods to earn long-term royalties might be a useful path to go down.  Writing books, articles, etc. is just one example of this.  There are other opportunities depending on your interests and skill, but remember, the focus ought to be on passive royalties rather than trading time and effort for immediate money.  You only have so many hours in a year.  Would you rather spend 100 hours to earn $100 every year for 20 years, or have to spend 100 hours per year for 20 years to earn that same $100 every year? .... All that being said, while you're way ahead of the game for the average person of your age ($30k cash, $20k stocks, unknown TSP balance, low expenses,) I'm not sure I'd recommend trying to diversify quite yet. For one thing, I think you need to keep some amount of your $30k as cash to cover emergency situations.  Typically people would say 6 months living expenses for covering employment gaps, but as you are in the military I don't think it's as likely you'll lose your job!  So instead, I'd approach it as \""How much of this cash do I need over the next 5 years?\""  That is, sum up $X for the car, $Y for fun & travel, $Z for emergencies, etc.  Keep that amount as cash for now. Beyond that, I'd put the balance in your brokerage and get it working hard for you now.  (I don't think an average of a 3% div yield is too hard to achieve even when picking a safe, conservative portfolio.  Though you do run the risk of capital losses if invested.)  Once your total portfolio (TSP + brokerage) is $100k* or more, then consider pulling the trigger on a second passive income stream by splitting off some of your brokerage balance.  Until then, keep learning what you can about stock investing and also start the learning process on additional streams.  Always keep an eye out for any opportunistic ways to kick additional streams off early if you can find a low cost entry.   (*) The $100k number is admittedly a rough guess pulled from the air.  I just think splitting your efforts and money prior to this will limit your opportunities to get a good start on any additional streams.  Yes, you could do it earlier, but probably only with increased risk (lower capital means less opportunities to pick from, lower knowledge levels -- both stock investing and property rental) also increase risk of making bad choices."""
"""Who sets the price and provides the quoted price values for stocks?""","""The \""price\"" is the price of the last transaction that actually took place. According to Motley Fool wiki: A stock price is determined by what was last paid for it. During market hours (usually weekdays from 9:30AM-4:00PM eastern), a heavily traded issue will see its price change several times per second. A stock's price is, for many purposes, considered unchanged outside of market hours. Roughly speaking, a transaction is executed when an offer to buy matches an offer to sell. These offers are listed in the Order Book for a stock (Example: GOOG at Yahoo Finance).  This is actively updated during trading hours. This lists all the currently active buy (\""bid\"") and sell (\""ask\"") orders for a stock, and looks like this:  You'll notice that the stock price (again, the last sale price) will (usually*) be between the highest bid and the lowest ask price. * Exception: When all the buy or sell prices have moved down or up, but no trades have executed yet."""
"""Can I use a different HSA than PayFlex that came with aetna?""","""There are some cases I'm aware of where a large employer will offer alternative HSA vendors, but this is not the norm as far as I'm aware, and would only be an option if your employer has already negotiated for this with your insurer. It's likely that this specific vendor is built in for the particular HSA product your employer has elected from Aetna. If this really ticks you off on principle, you can check if they offer a stable value fund. If so, you can essentially treat this money as part of your emergency fund, and somewhat reduce your own emergency fund and invest that money however you see fit."""
"""What resources can I use to try and find out the name of the manager for a given fund?""","""The fund prospectus is a good place to start."""
"""UK Resident exploring freelance work for a Swiss Company""","""If the firm treats you as an employee then they are treated as having a place of business in the UK and therefore are obliged to operate PAYE on your behalf - this rule has applied to EU States since 2010 and the non-EU EEA members, including Switzerland, since 2012. If you are not an employee then your main options are: An umbrella company would basically bill the client on your behalf and pay you net of taxes and NI.  You potentially take home a bit less than you would being 100% independent but it's a lot less hassle and potentially makes sense for a small contract."""
"""Are precious metals\/collectibles a viable emergency fund?""","""People normally hold precious metals as a protection against the whole system going down: massive inflation, lawlessness, etc.  If our whole government and financial system broke completely and we returned to a barter economy, then holding silver would likely turn out to be a good thing. However, precious metals are not very good hedges against individual calamity, like losing your job.  They are costly and inconvenient to sell and the price of these metals fluctuates wildly, so you could end up wanting to sell just when the metal isn't worth much. I'd say having some precious metal isn't unreasonable, but it should not make up a major portion of one's total net worth.  If you want protection against normal problems, especially as a person of limited means, start with an emergency savings account and paying down debt.  That way fixed costs will be less likely to turn an unfortunate turn of events into a personal catastrophe."""
"""Buying puts without owning underlying""","""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."""
"""Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \""highest interest\"" first?""","""Very good Ben, in a more simplistic form:  If debt was about math only, we would not have payday lenders, 21% + credit cards, or sub-prime car loans.  Yet these things are prevalent. Debt reduction is often about behavior modification.  As such small wins are necessary to keep going much like a 12 step program; or, gamification as Ben pointed out.   The funny thing is that if a person becomes and stays intense on a debt reduction program, interest rate \""inefficiency\"" is dwarfed by extra income or increased austerity."""
"""Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?""","""Be very careful with this.  When we tried this with furniture, they charged an \""administrative\"" fee to setup the account.  I believe it was about $75.  So if you defer interest for one year on a $1000 purchase and pay a $75 administrative fee, it's 7.5% interest. Also, they don't always send you a bill when it's due, they just let you go over the date when you could have paid it without paying interest, and then you owe interest from the date of purchase.  These plans are slimy.  Be careful."""
"""Can I buy and sell a house quickly to access the money in a LISA?""","""I've got \u00a3476,000 but the maximum house price is \u00a3450,000. What   happens to the \u00a326,000. Does it stay there with ~6% interest (and no bonus of course), and would be available when I retire at around 75 (there would be about \u00a3106,000 by then)? Yes, anything you don't withdraw for your house purchase stays in the Lifetime ISA and keeps growing there. Also you do keep the bonus on it, which was paid at the time you subscribed, unless you make a withdrawal before age 60. After age 60 you can withdraw and keep the bonus. Note that you need to be buying with a mortgage to be allowed to use the lifetime ISA money (without penalty). This is mentioned on the gov.uk website as well as in the actual regulations that establish lifetime ISAs (search for \""first time residential purchase\"" and look at clause (6)). That would mean you'd need to withdraw even less than the \u00a3450K and artificially borrow the rest. All that said, I suspect the \u00a3450K limit would be raised by 2049, given inflation. Can I buy a house and \""quickly\"" sell it again, to simply access the money, The regulations say that on completion of the purchase, you must \""occupy the land as their only or main residence\"" (there are a few exceptions, such as if it's still being built, or if you are at the time posted abroad by the government, but essentially you have to move in as soon as possible). There's no time limit stated in the regulations, so in theory you could move in and then sell quite fast, but personally I'd be nervous about this being seen as not genuinely intending it to be my main residence. In theory you could be prosecuted for fraud if you claimed a valid withdrawal when it wasn't, though given the wording of the regulations it looks like you'd be complying with the letter of the law."""
"""Creating S-Corp: Should I Name My Wife as a Director\/Shareholder?""","""There are many aspects to consider in deciding what sort of company you want to form. Instead of an S-corporation, you should determine whether it would be better to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC), Limited Partnership (LP) or even a professional company (PC). Littleadv is correct: There is minimal benefit in forming an S-corp with you and your wife as the shareholders, if you will be the only contributor-worker. There are costs associated with an S-corporation, or any corporation, that might outweigh benefits from more favorable tax treatment, or personal protection from liability: Filing fees and disclosure rules vary from state to state. For example, my father was a cardiologist who had no employees, other than my grandmother (she worked for free), in a state with income taxes (NM). He was advised that a PC was best in New Mexico, while an S-Corp was better in Florida (there are no personal income taxes in Florida).  The only way to know what to do requires that you consult an accountant, a good one, for guidance."""
"""How do you determine the dividend payout date for Mutual Funds?""","""Mutual funds generally make distributions once a year in December with the exact date (and the estimated amount) usually being made public in late October or November. Generally, the estimated amounts can get updated as time goes on, but the date does not change. Some funds (money market, bond funds, GNMA funds etc) distribute dividends on the last business day of each month, and the amounts are rarely made available beforehand. Capital gains are usually distributed once a year as per the general statement above. Some funds (e.g. S&P 500 index funds) distribute dividends towards the end of each quarter or on the last business day of the quarter, and capital gains once a year as per the general statement above. Some funds make semi-annual distributions but not necessarily at six-month intervals. Vanguard's Health Care Fund has distributed dividends and capital gains in March and December for as long as I have held it. VDIGX claims to make semi-annual distributions but made distributions three times in 2014 (March, June, December) and has made\/will make two distributions this year already (March is done, June is pending -- the fund has gone ex-dividend with  re-investment today and payment on 22nd). You can, as Chris Rea suggests, call the fund company directly, but in my experience, they are reluctant to divulge the date of the distribution (\""The fund manager has not made the date public as yet\"") let alone an estimated amount. Even getting a \""Yes, the fund intends to make a distribution later this month\"" was difficult to get from my \""Personal Representative\"" in early March, and he had to put me on hold to talk to someone at the fund before he was willing to say so."""
"""Return on asset (ROA) value for a stock is reported differently on Yahoo Finance and MarketWatch""","""Why there is this huge difference? I am not able to reconcile Yahoo's answer of 5.75%, even using their definition for ROA of: Return on Assets Formula: Earnings from Continuing Operations \/ Average Total Equity This ratio shows percentage of Returns to Total Assets of the company.   This is a useful measure in analyzing how well a company uses its   assets to produce earnings. I suspect the \""Average Total Equity\"" in their formula is a typo, but using either measure I cannot come up with 5.75% for any 12-month period. I can, however, match MarketWatch's answer by looking at the 2016 fiscal year totals and using a \""traditional\"" formula of Net Income \/ Average Total Assets: I'm NOT saying that MatketWatch is right and Yahoo is wrong - MW is using fiscal year totals while Yahoo is using trailing 12-month numbers, and Yahoo uses \""Earnings from Continuing Operations\"", but even using that number (which Yahoo calculates) I am not able to reconcile the 5.75% they give."""
"""Avoiding timing traps with long term index investing""","""1) The risks are that you investing in financial markets and therefore should be prepared for volatility in the value of your holdings. 2) You should only ever invest in financial markets with capital that you can reasonably afford to put aside and not touch for 5-10 years (as an investor not a trader). Even then you should be prepared to write this capital off completely. No one can offer you a guarantee of what will happen in the future, only speculation from what has happened in the past. 3) Don't invest. It is simple. Keep your money in cash. However this is not without its risks. Interest rates rarely keep up with inflation so the spending power of cash investments quickly diminishes in real terms over time. So what to do? Extended your time horizon as you have mentioned to say 30 years, reinvest all dividends as these have been proven to make up the bulk of long term returns and drip feed your money into these markets over time. This will benefit you from what is known in as  'dollar cost averaging' and will negate the need for you to time the market."""
"""Who creates money? Central banks or commercial banks? ""","""Scenario 1 is typically the better description. If commercial banks were allowed to simply \""create\"" money, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in now. In the U.S., the central bank is the Federal Reserve or Fed, and is the only entity (not the government, not the banks, not the people) that is allowed to create money \""out of thin air\"". It does this primarily by buying government debt. The government spends more than it takes in, and so to come up with the deficit, it issues bonds. The Fed buys a certain amount of these bonds, and simply prints the money (or more realistically authorized the electronic transfer of $X to the Treasury) which the government then spends. That places money in the hands of corporations and the people, who turn around and spend it. However, long-term, the interest charges on money borrowed from the Fed will actually remove money from the economy. The central banks, therefore, have to constantly make marginal changes to various monetary policy tools they have when the economy is just humming along. If they do nothing, then too much of a short-term increase in money supply will result in there being \""too much money\"" which makes an individual monetary unit worth less (inflation), while making money too hard to get will reduce the rate at which it's spent, reducing GDP and causing recessions. The exact scenario you describe is typically seen in cases where the government is running with a balanced budget, and the central bank thus can't give its \""new money\"" to the government to spend when it wants to increase the money supply. In that situation, the central bank instead lowers its lending rate, the percentage interest that it will charge on loans made to other banks, thereby encouraging those banks to borrow more of the money created by the central bank. Those banks will then use the money to make loans, invest in the market, etc etc which puts the money in the economy.  In the U.S., the Fed does have this tool as well, but increases or decreases in the \""Federal Funds Rate\"" are typically used to influence the rate that banks charge each other to borrow money, thus encouraging or discouraging this lending. A lowering in the interest rate makes banks more likely to borrow from each other (and from the Fed but the amount of money \""created\"" this way is a drop in the bucket compared to current \""quantitative easing\""), and thus increases the \""turnover\"" of the existing money in the economy (how many times a theoretical individual dollar is spent in a given time period)."""
"""Would an ESOP issue physical shares or stock options (call options) to participating employees?""","""Not necessarily.  The abbreviation \""ESOP\"" is ambiguous.  There are at least 8 variations I know of: You'll find references on Google to each of those, some more than others.  For fun you can even substitute the word \""Executive\"" for \""Employee\"" and I'm sure you'll find more.  Really. So you may be mistaken about the \""O\"" referring to \""options\"" and thereby implying it must be about options.  Or, you may be right.  If you participate in such a plan (or program) then check the documentation and then you'll know what it stands for, and how it works.  That being said: companies can have either kind of incentive plan: one that issues stock, or one that issues options, with the intent to eventually issue stock in exchange for the option exercise price. When options are issued, they usually do have an expiration date by which you need to exercise if you want to buy the shares. There may be other conditions attached. For instance, whether the plan is about stocks or options, often there is a vesting schedule that determines when you become eligible to buy or exercise. When you buy the shares, they may be registered directly in your name (you might get a fancy certificate), or they may be deposited in an account in your name. If the company is small and private, the former may be the case, and if public, the latter may be the case. Details vary. Check the plan's documentation and\/or with its administrators."""
"""Should I pay off my 401k loan or reinvest the funds elsewhere?""","""Pay the 401(k) loan back as soon as possible.  To be clear, the money from your 401(k) loan is no longer invested and working for you. It doesn't make sense to pull money out of your 401(k) investments and then invest it in something else. If you want to invest for retirement, pay back the loan and invest that money inside your 401(k).  If you leave your job, the 401(k) loan needs to be paid back in full, or else taxes and penalties will apply. If you have put the funds in an IRA, they won't be available to you should you need to pay back the loan early.  Instead of making a monthly payment to the 401(k) loan, pay off the loan and then make a monthly investment to an IRA."""
"""Credit cards: How is a cash advance different from a purchase? Why are the fees so high?""","""Essentially speaking, when you purchase goods worth $100 using your card, the store has to pay about $2 for the transaction to the company that operates that stores' credit card terminal.  If you withdraw cash from an ATM, you might be charged a fee for such a transaction. However, the ATM operator doesn't pay the credit processor such a transaction fee - thus, it is classified as a cash transaction.  Additionally, performing cash advances off a CC is a rather good indicator of a bad financial health of the user, which increase the risk of default, and in some institutions is a factor contributing to their internal creditworthiness assessment."""
"""TD Webbroker.ca did not execute my limit sell order even though my stock went .02 over limit""","""TD will only sell the stock for you if there's a buyer. There was a buyer, for at least one transaction of at least one stock at 96.66. But who said there were more? Obviously, the stocks later fell, i.e.: there were not that many buyers as there were sellers. What I'm saying is that once the stock passed\/reached the limit, the order becomes an active order. But it doesn't become the only active order. It is added to the list, and to the bottom of that list. Obviously, in this case, there were not enough buyers to go through the whole list and get to your order, and since it was a limit order - it would only execute with the limit price you put. Once the price went down you got out of luck.  That said, there could of course be a possibility of a system failure. But given the story of the market behavior - it just looks like you miscalculated and lost on a bet."""
"""Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?""","""To expand on what @fishinear and some others are saying:  The only way to look at it is that the parents have invested, because the parents get a % of the property in the end, rather than the original loan amount plus interest.  It is investment; it is not a loan of any kind.  One way to understand this is to imagine that after 20 years, the property triples in value (or halves in value).  The parents participate as if they had invested in 75% ownership of the property and the OP as if 25% ownership of the property. Note that with a loan, there is a (potentially changing) outstanding loan balance, that could be paid to end the loan (to pay off the loan), and there is an agreed upon an interest rate that is computed on the outstanding balance \u2014 none of those apply to this situation; further with a loan there is no % of the property: though the property may be used to secure the loan, that isn't ownership. Basically, since the situation bears none of the qualities of a loan, and yet does bear the qualities of investment, the parents have bought a % ownership of the property. The parents have invested in 75% of the real estate, and the OP is renting that 75% from them for: The total rent the OP is paying the parents for their 75% of the property is then (at least) $1012.50\/mo,  A rental rate of $1012.50\/mo for 75% of the property equates to a rental price of $1350\/mo for the whole property. This arrangement is only fair to both parties when the fair-market rental value of the whole property is $1350\/mo; it is unfair to the OP when the fair-market rental value of property is less, and unfair to the parents when the fair-market rental value of property is more.   Of course, the fair-market rental value of the property is variable over time, so the overall fairness would need to understand rental values over time. I feel like this isn't actually a loan if I can never build more equity in the condo. Am I missing something? No, it isn't a loan.  You and your parents are co-investing in real estate.  Further, you are renting their portion of the investment from them. For comparison, with a loan you have 100% ownership in the property from the start, so you, the owner, would see all the upside\/downside as the property valuation changes over time whether the loan is paid off or not. The borrower owes the loan balance (and interest) not some % of the property.  A loan may be secured by the property (using a lien) but that is quite different from ownership.  Typically, a loan has a payment schedule setup to reduce the loan balance (steadily) over time so that you eventually pay it off.  With a loan you gain equity % \u2014 the amount you own outright, free & clear \u2014 in two ways, (1) by gradually paying off the loan over time so the unencumbered portion of the property grows, and (2) if the valuation of the property increases over time that gain in equity % is yours (not the lenders).  However note that the legal ownership is all 100% yours from the start. Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home? You can evaluate whether you are being ripped off by comparing the $1350\/mo rate to the potential rental rate for the property over time (which will be a range or curve, and there are real estate websites (like zillow.com or redfin.com, others) to help estimate what fair-market rent might be). Are there similar deals like this...?  A straight-forward loan would have the borrower with 100% legal ownership from the start, just that the property secures the loan.  Whereas with co-investment there is a division of ownership % that is fixed from the start.   It is unusual to have both investment and loan at the same time where they are setup for gradual change between them.  (Investment and loan can certainly be done together but would usually be done as completely separate contracts, one loan, one investment with no adjustment between the two over time.) To do both investment and loan would be unusual but certainly be possible, I would imagine; however that is not the case here as being described.  I am not familiar with contracts that do both so as to take over the equity\/ownership\/investment over time while also reducing loan balance.  Perhaps some forms of rent-to-own work that way, something to look into \u2014 still, usually rent-to-own means that until the renter owns it 100%, the landlord owns 100%, rather than a gradual % transfer over time (gradual transfer would imply co-ownership for a long time, something that most landlords would be reluctant to do).   Transfer of any particular % of real estate ownership typically requires filing documents with the county and may incur fees.  I am not aware of counties that allow gradual % transfer with one single filing.  Still, the courts may honor a contract that does such gradual transfer outside of county filings. If so, what should I do? Explain the situation to your parents, and, in particular, however far out of balance the rental rate may be.  Decide for yourself if you want to rent vs. buy, and where (that property or some other).  If your parents are fair people, they should be open to negotiation.  If not, you might need a lawyer.   I suspect that a lawyer would be able to find several issues with which to challenge the contract. The other terms are important as well, namely gross vs. net proceeds (as others point out) because selling a property costs a % to real estate agents and possibly some taxes as well. And as the others have pointed out, if the property ultimately looses value, that could be factored in as well. It is immaterial to judging the fairness of this particular situation whether getting a bank loan would be preferable to renting 75% from the parents.  Further, loan interest rates don't factor into the fairness of this rental situation (but of course interest rates do factor into identifying the better of various methods of investment and methods of securing a place to live, e.g. rent vs. buy). Contributed by @Scott: If your parents view this as an investment arrangement as described, then you need to clarify with them if the payments being made to them are considered a \""buy out\"" of their share. This would allow you to gain the equity you seek from the arrangement. @Scott: Terms would have to be (or have been) declared to that effect; this would involve specifying some schedule and\/or rates.  It would have to be negotiated; this it is not something that could go assumed or unstated.  -- Erik"""
"""Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?""","""I'm not sure if someone else answered already in the same manner I will. I can't guarantee for sure if it's the same in the U.S.A. (it might since major credit cards companies like Visa\/MC\/AMEX are American companies) but in Canada having\/keeping unused CC is a disadvantage because of the following: Banks and financing companies look more at the total amount of credit available to you than at how much purchases you have on your cards. Ex: Let's say that you have the following: - Visa cc with $10,000 limit and $2000 worth of purchases (made more than 30 days ago) on it. - Mastercard cc with $10,000 limit as well and $1000 worth of purchases (less than 30 days old) - A major retail store cc with $2000 limit and $0 balance. Hypothetical situation: You want a bank loan to do some expensive house repairs and are looking for a lower interest rate than what your cc can offer. The bank will not care about the amount on the cards. They will add-up all the limits of your cc and treat your loan request as if ALL your cards were filled to their respective limit.  So in this case: they will consider you as being right now in debt of $10K+$10K+$2K = $22,000 instead of only $3000 and they might:  1. refuse you the loan 2. grant it only if you transfer all purchases on a single card and cancel all the others. 3. Once the $3000 is transferred on one of the cards (and the others cancelled), they can require that you reduce the limit of that card. Hope this helps!"""
"""Negatives to increased credit card spending limit? [duplicate]""","""There is another drawback, and this is why I keep a low-limit card for online purchases and another for carrying in risky\/unfamiliar situations (e.g. travelling) a small limit acts as as damage limitation in the event of theft. In theory you may not be liable if your card is stolen and used.  In practice you may be out of pocket for a considerable amount of time, and trying to spend large sums on an overlimit card will soon trip it up (especially if those large sums are out of the ordinary)"""
"""Calculate time to reach investment goals given starting balance?""","""Fairly straightforward to match the result from the calculator soup link.  There is a formula to calculate n from the future value s (using natural logs) In Excel This was derived as shown  To calculate n from the inflation-adjusted future value si requires using a solver since an algebraic formula cannot be formulated.  As demonstrated  Calculations done using Mathematica 7."""
"""How to manage paying expenses when moving to a weekly pay schedule and with a pay increase?""","""Unlike other responses, I am also not good with money.  Actually, I understand personal finance well, but I'm not good at executing my financial life responsibly.  Part is avoiding tough news, part is laziness. There are tools that can help you be better with your money.  In the past, I used YNAB (You Need a Budget).  (I'm not affiliated, and I'm not saying this product is better than others for OP.)  Whether you use their software or not, their strategy works if you stick with it.  Each time you get paid, allocate every dollar to categories where your budget tells you they need to be, prioritizing expenses, then bills, then debt reduction, then wealth building.  As you spend money, mark it against those categories.  Reconcile them as you spend the money.  If you go over in one category (eating out for example), you have to take from another (entertainment).  There's no penalties for going over, but you have to take from another category to cover it.  So the trick to all of it is being honest with yourself, sticking to it, recording all expenditures, and keeping priorities straight.   I used it for three months.  Like many others, I saved enough the first month to pay the cost of the software.  I don't remember why I stopped using it, but I wish I had not.  I will start again soon."""
"""How can I check my credit score?""","""Different states have different laws, check your local laws concerning credit. Some states even guarantee you to get one free credit report per year. If you recently apply for an apartment, a mortgage or denied a credit card or loan, you can usually get a free copy from whomever you authorized to pull your credit report. Sign up credit monitoring service, there are quite a few of these. Most credit card companies offer such service, Amex, Chase, Citibank, etc. It' costs around $10-$20 per month. If you sign up a service and pull your own credit report, it's considered a \""soft\"" pull which won't affect your score negatively."""
"""Is there a standard check format in the USA?""","""Nope, anything is that has the required information is fine.  At a minimum you need to have the routing number, account number, amount, \""pay to\"" line and a signature. The only laws are that it can't be written on anything illegal, like human skin, and it has to be portable, not carved on the side of a building ( for example) https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/notesandqueries\/query\/0,5753,-20434,00.html http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2013\/12\/people-actually-cash-big-novelty-checks-even-possible\/ That said, the MICR line and standard sizes will make things eaiser for they bank, but are hardly required.  You could write your check on notebook paper so long as it had the right information, and the bank would have to \""cash it\"". Keep in mind that a check is an order to the bank to give your money to a person and nothing more. You could  write it out in sentence form. \""Give Bill $2 from account 12344221 routing number 123121133111 signed _________\"" and it would be valid. In practice though, it would be a fight. Mostly the bank would try to urge you to use a standard check, or could hold the funds because it looks odd, till they received the ok from \""the other bank\"". But.... If you rant to fight that fight...."""
"""Why call option price increases with higher volatility""","""I agree that high volatility just means the underlying stock price fluctuates more, and it does not imply if the stock is going up or down. But a high volatility in the price of an underlying also means that there is a higher chance that the underlying price could reach extreme prices (albeit in either direction). However, if you purchased a call option then if the underlying price reached an extremely high value, then you will be richly rewarded. But if the underlying price reached an extremely low value, you won't lose any more than the initial premium that you paid. There is no additional risk on your side, it's capped to the premium that you paid for the call option. It's this asymmetric outcome (Heads - I win, Tails - I don't lose) combined with high volatility that means that call options will increase in value when the underlying price becomes more volatile. If the optionality wasn't there then the price wouldn't be related to the volatility of the underlying. But that would be called a Future or a Forward :-)"""
"""How does Value Averaging work in practice?""","""The way I've implemented essentially \""value averaging\"", is to keep a constant ratio between different investment types in my portfolio. Lets say (in a simple example), 25% cash, 25% REIT (real estate), 25% US Stock, 25% Foreign stock. Lets say I deposit a set $1000 per month into this account. If the stock portion goes up, it will look like I need more cash & REIT, so all of that $1000 goes into cash & the REIT portion to get them towards their 25%. I may spend months investing only in cash & the REIT while the stock goes up. Of course if the stock goes down, that $1000 per month goes into the stock accounts. Now you can also balance your account if you'd like, regularly selling stock (or the REIT), and making the account balanced. So if the stock goes down, you'd use the cash & REIT to purchase more stock. If the stock went up, you'd sell the stock, and buy REIT & leave more in cash."""
"""Why is retirement planning so commonly recommended?""","""You don't have to retire. But the US government and other national governments have programs that allow you to set aside money when you are young to be used when you are older.  To encourage you to do this, they reduce your taxes either now or when your are older. They also allow your employer to match your funds. In the US they have IRAs, 401Ks, and Social Security.  You are not required to stop working while tapping into these funds. Having a job and using these funds will impact your taxes, but your are not forbidden from doing both. Decades ago most retirement funds come from pensions and Social Security. Most people are going to reach their senior years without a pension, or with only a very small pension because they had one in one of their early jobs. So go ahead, gamble that you will not need to save for retirement. Then hope that decades later you were right about it, because you can't go back in time and fix your choice.  Some never save for retirement, either because they can't or they think they can't. Many that don't save end up working longer than they imagined. Some work everyday until they die, or are physically unable to work. Sometimes it is because they love the job, but often it is because they cannot afford to quit."""
"""How are various types of income taxed differently in the USA?""","""Long-term capital gains, which is often the main element of investment income for investors who are not high-frequency day traders, are taxed at a single rate that is often substantially below the marginal rate they would otherwise be taxed at, particularly for wealthy individuals. There are a few rationales behind this treatment; the two most common are that the government wants to encourage long-term investments (as opposed to short-term speculation), and that capital gains are a kind of double taxation (from one point of view) as they are coming from income that has already been taxed once before (as wage or ordinary income).  The latter in particular is highly controversial, but this is one of the more divisive political issues in the taxation front - one party would eliminate the tax entirely, the other would eliminate the difference. For most individuals, the majority of their long-term capital gains are taxed at 15% up to almost half of a million dollars total AGI, which is a fairly low rate - it's equivalent to the rate a taxpayer would pay on up to $37,000 in wage income (after deductions\/exemptions\/etc.).  You can see from this table in Wikipedia that it is much preferred to pay long-term capital gains rates when possible - at every point it's at least 10% lower than the tax rate for ordinary income. Ordinary income includes wages and many other sources of income - basically, anything that is not long term capital gains. Wage income is taxed at this rate, and also subject to some non-income-tax taxes (FICA and Medicare in particular); other sources of ordinary income are not subject to those taxes (including IRA income).  Short term capital gains are generally included in this bucket. Qualified Dividends are treated similarly to long-term capital gains (as they are of a similar nature), and taxed accordingly. The \""Net Investment Tax\"" is basically applying the Medicare tax to investment income for higher-income taxpayers ($125k single, $250k joint).  It's on top of capital gains rates for them.  It came about through the Affordable Care Act, and is one of the first provisions likely to be repealed by the new Congress (as it can be repealed through the budgeting provision).  It seems likely that 2017 taxes will not contain this provision."""
"""Why can't the Fed lower interest rates below zero?""","""If the Federal Reserve were to pay banks to hold money, they would need to get the money from somewhere to do so.  They would have three options: Go to Congress, and request and authorization of funds. As an quasi-independent entity, however, it would be both highly unorthodox for an institution to diminish its own authority by requesting funding, and politically difficult for the Congress to appropriate it. Transfer held-assets  After QE & QE2, the Fed is now the holder of several assets (mortgages and the like) that are already unorthodox for it to hold. It acquired these assets in the first place to soak up excess demand.  If these assets were transferred back to banks, it would have exactly the opposite effect - increasing supply and further suppressing the value of the assets they would be trying to shore up by lowering the interest rate. \""Print money\""  The fed could raise the money supply by issuing new bonds. This is inherently inflationary, and while pretty much everyone agrees this isn't bad in the short run, there is already widespread fear that in the long run, QE by itself is going to unleash massive inflation once growth returns anyway.  To keep \""pushing on this string\"" would only excerabate these fears, and quite likely turn it into a self-fufilling prophecy. In short, the Fed \""could\"" pay banks to hold money, but the political and economic consequences of raising the needed funds to do so would all undermine the institution or the desired effect."""
"""Technical Analysis not working""","""You cannot just read one book and some articles on Technical Analysis and some indicators and expect to be an expert and everything to just start falling into place and give you signals that will tell you when to buy and sell with precision and massive profits all the time.  It is like someone reading a book on how to drive a car and then expecting to drive flawlessly the first time they sit in the driver's seat, or someone reading a book on brain surgery and expecting to be able to operate on a live patient the next day. It looks like you are using 3 or 4 indicators to get daily buy and sell signals on a daily chart for an EFT you're looking to hold for decades. So firstly you are using short term indicators for a long term outlook. You need to decide what timeframe you plan to hold your investments for and use chart periods and indicators that suit that timeframe.  Secondly, each indicator can be used in a number of ways and the settings you use for each indicator can determine whether you get earlier or later signals. Also, you need to work out which indicators work well together and are complementary, compared to those that don't work well together and give conflicting signals. All this information will come together for you the more you read about and practice the art of Technical Analysis. If your timeframe is very long-term (decades) I would be using mainly a weekly chart, with a longer period MA, the ROC indicator and possibly some trend lines. Keep it simple. The price itself is very important too. You can determine when a trend is starting or has ended purely using the price. The definition of an uptrend is higher highs and higher lows, so on the weekly chart if there is a lower high followed by a lower low - this could be the end of the uptrend. If we get a lower low followed by a lower high - this again could be the end of the uptrend. These could be a good time to start getting cautious and maybe looking to sell. If you are using stop losses (which I recommend) this may be a good time to tighten your stops. Similarly, a downtrend is defined as lower lows and lower highs. If we get a higher low followed by a higher high it could be the end of the downtrend and maybe the start of an uptrend. This could be a good time to start getting ready to buy. You need to learn about how and where to set your buy and sell orders (including stops) and whether you wait for confirmation when you get a signal. All this takes some time, but the more you read, the more you attend live events and the more you practice the more they will become second nature. In order to get the best out of Technical Analysis you will need to learn, plan, practice and execute. A good book to help you prepare your trading plan is \""Smart Trading Plans\"" by Justine Pollard. One of my favourite books is \""The Complete Trading Course - Price Patterns, Strategies, Setups, and Execution Tactics\"" by Corey Rosenbloom. And another good book is \""Trade your Way to Financial Freedom\"" by Van Tharp."""
"""Financing a vehicle a few months before I expect to apply for a mortgage?""","""Usually, it's not a good idea as it will not only raise your debt to income ratios,  but also impact your credit scores. However, if you have extensive credit history, having owned a home or two for a while (read: 10-20 years), taken out multiple auto loans in the past and paid them satisfactory, your credit score may not take a big hit. Possibly ust 5-10 points or it can be 30-40 points. It really depends on the depth of your credit profile."""
"""Is it worth it to reconcile my checking\/savings accounts every month?""","""Banks make mistakes.  Reconciling your account with your bank statement is the way to catch the errors."""
"""Is an analyst's \""price target\"" assumed to be for 12 months out?""","""Most commonly, unless you read 'fair value target price,' an analyst's target price is a 12-month target price. Typically, there is a firm wide policy determining which time horizon to use. No analyst would provide an open ended target price, it doesn't make any sense (you discount cash flows to a certain period, adjust for inflation, etc). So there is always a time horizon."""
"""Is a 10 year old uncashed paycheck still good?""","""You probably can't deposit the check directly, but there are mechanisms in place to get your money through other means. In the US, all states and territories have an unclaimed property registry. Before you contact the company that wrote the check, you should check that registry in your state. You will have to provide proof that you are the intended recipient, having the original check in your possession should make that considerably easier."""
"""Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?""","""One of the reasons is also general distrust to the government. Another one is that there exist special interest group which profits from the complicated scheme, keep adding special cases, and has stronger financial situation that the opponents of such complex scheme. People do not trust government, or companies, to act in their best interests. So they (we) waste huge amount of time and\/or money to comply with byzantine income laws. In 2004 Democratic presidential primary, presidential candidate Wes Clark (who beyond being 4-star general has also master degree in economics from Oxford, and taught economics in West point) proposed similar scheme: for people with income under 50K, employer would do all the (simple) paperwork, if desired, and get return.  In the noise of the campaign, idea how to simplify taxes for half of the population was lost.  Funny how the only candidate in recent history who was both professor of economics (not MBA, which is about business and profits) and distinguished military hero, could not get any traction in Democratic party."""
"""New car: buy with cash or 0% financing""","""I'd finance the car (for 60 or 48 months), but stash enough money in a separate account so to guarantee the ability to pay it off in case of job loss. The rationales would be: Note that I'd only do this if the loan rate were very low (under 2%)."""
"""Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?""","""Another factor to consider, beyond the fact that growth and volatility go together, is that the times when many people will need to liquidate their investments will correlate with the times that many other people need to liquidate their investments, and such correlation will push down the immediate value of those investments. While certificates of deposit have penalties for early withdrawal, one can establish up front what the worst-case penalty would be for cashing it in at the most inopportune time.  By contrast, stocks offer no such assurance.  Stocks sometimes have weird downward spikes that may be short-lived, but if life circumstances force one to liquidate stocks during such a downward spike the \""penalty\"" can be much larger than on a CD."""
"""Are stocks suitable for mid term money storage?""","""You have several options depending on your tolerance for risk. Certainly open an investment account with your bank or through any of the popular discount brokerage services. Then take however much money you're willing to invest and start earning some returns! You can split up the money into various investments, too. A typical default strategy is to take any money you won't need for the long term and put it in an Index Fund like the S&P 500 (or a European equivalent). Yes, it could go down, especially in the short term, but you can sell shares at any time so you're only 2-3 days away at any time from liquidity. Historically this money will generate a positive return in the long run. For smaller time frames, a short-term bond fund often gives a slightly better return than a money market account and some people (like me!) use short-term bond funds as if it were a money market account. There is a very low but real risk of having the fund lose value. So you could take a certain percentage of your money and keep it \""close\"" in a bond fund. Likewise, you can sell shares at any time, win or lose and have the cash available within a couple days."""
"""Is stock trading based more on luck than poker playing? ""","""I assert not so. Even if we assume a zero sum game (which is highly in doubt); the general stock market curves indicate the average player is so bad that you don't have to be very good to have better that 50\/50 averages. One example: UP stock nosedived right after some political mess in Russia two years ago. Buy! Profit: half my money in a month. I knew that nosedive was senseless as UP doesn't have to care much about what goes on in Russia. Rising oil price was a reasonable prediction; however this is good for railroads, and most short-term market trends behave as if it is bad."""
"""Are there common stock price trends related to employee option plans?""","""Say I am an employee of Facebook and I will be able to sell stares at enough of a profit to pay of my mortgage and have enough money left to cover my living costs for many years. I also believe that there is a 95% chance that the stock price will go up in the next few years. Do I take a 5% risk, when I can transform my life without taking any risk?   (The USA tax system as explained by JoeTaxpayer increases the risk.)  So you have a person being very logical and selling stocks that they believe will go up in value by more than any other investment they could have.   It is called risk control. (Lot of people will know the above; therefore some people will delay buying stock until Lock Up expiration day hoping the price will be lower on that day.   So the price may not go down.)"""
"""Buying from an aggressive salesperson""","""As described by the other answers, there are pretty harmless explanations for that behaviour. You could be slightly worried because he gave you exceptionally good deals for both instruments, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe he simply prices all items way up to be able to give a great discount on either sale. You can't ever know; the actual price you pay in the end is what counts. What I would do: If I expect in advance (or if I notice during the negotiation) that I am put under pressure in this way, I usually try to do exactly the same, in reverse. That is, I take  a minute to explain up front that I will not, under any circumstance, buy right now, but that this is a purely informational event. I will make sure not to have my money\/card with me. Any high-end salesman worth his sale should have no problem with that at all. Money aside, you are shopping for something that will mean a lot to you. The salesman is not some peddler of arbitrary wares. Everybody understands that not only do you not want to pay too high a price, but also that you want to really get the item you want, and want to be happy with it for a long time. This is a tough decision, often, and if the salesman cannot, or does not want to respect that, then it would be a clear signal for me that dubious things are going on. In fact, you would probably be unhappier if you got the wrong item for a great price than if you got a great item for a slightly too-high price. That is something you should probably not tell the salesman ;), but can keep in mind. So getting the greatest deal of all times is probably not so high on your priority list."""
"""Pros & cons of buying gold directly vs. investing in a gold ETF like GLD, IAU, SGOL?""","""Owning physical gold (assuming coins): Owning gold through a fund:"""
"""No transaction fee ETF trades - what's the catch?""","""AFAIK, It's also possible that the ETF company is paying Ameritrade for every trade you make. Even if your brokerage doesn't make you pay a fee to trade ETFs, the company that created and runs the ETF is still making money when you purchase and use their ETFs. See \""What motivates each player?\"" at Yahoo Finance."""
"""How much total salary to allocate to defer $17,500 to 401(k)?""","""You're on the right track, and yes, that small difference is subject to income taxes. Do you use a payroll service? I do the same thing and use my payroll software to tweak the salary until the paycheck is just a few dollars every month (we run payroll once a month), with the rest going to the 401(k) and payroll taxes. So we're rounding up just a bit just so there's an actual paycheck with a positive number, and a bit does get withheld for fed\/state income tax.  Also keep in mind you can make a company match. If your plan is a solo 401(k) with just you and your wife as the sole employees, consider the 25% match for both of you. The match is not subject to payroll taxes because it is a company expense. IRS web page: http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/Retirement-Plans\/One-Participant-401(k)-Plans"""
"""That \""write your own mortgage\"" thing; how to learn about it""","""You are asking about a common, simple practice of holding the mortgage when selling a house you own outright. Typically called seller financing.  Say I am 70 and wish to downsize. The money I sell my house for will likely be in the bank at today's awful rates. Now, a buyer likes my house, and has 20% down, but due to some medical bills for his deceased wife, he and his new wife are struggling to get financing. I offer to let them pay me as if I were the bank. We agree on the rate, I have a lien on the house just as a bank would, and my mortgage with them requires the usual fire, theft, vandalism insurance. When I die, my heirs will get the income, or the buyer can pay in full after I'm gone.  In response to comment \""how do you do that? What's the paperwork?\"" Fellow member @littleadv has often posted \""You need to hire a professional.\"" Not because the top members here can't offer great, accurate advice. But because a small mistake on the part of the DIY attempt can be far more costly than the relative cost of a pro. In real estate (where I am an agent) you can skip the agent to hook up buyer\/seller, but always use the pro for legal work, in this case a real estate attorney. I'd personally avoid the general family lawyer, going with the specialist here."""
"""When is an IPO considered failure? ""","""Different stakeholders have different views of 'failure'. Maybe from Air Berlin's point of view it was a failure, but technically speaking it is not really possible to 'fail'. As long as all shares were purchased, which is a virtual guarantee since the investment banks who underwrite the IPO by and large must do to some extent, it will always be 'successful'. A decrease in value of shares immediately after IPO means that the investment bank who did the IPO for Air Berlin didn't match its IPO price with market expectations, causing shorts on the stock, and thus a decline. No failure per se."""
"""Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit?""","""First I would like to say, do not pay credit card companies in an attempt to improve your credit rating. In my opinion it's not worth the cash and not fair for the consumer. There are many great resources online that give advice on how to improve your credit score. You can even simulate what would happen to your score if you did \""this\"". Credit Karma - will give you your TransUnion credit score for free and offers a simulation calculator. If you only have one credit card, I would start off by applying for another simply because  $700 is such a small limit and to pay a $30 annual fee seems outrageous. Try applying with the bank where you hold your savings or checking account they are more likely to approve your application since they have a working relationship with you. All in all I would not go out of my way and spend money I would not have spent otherwise just to increase my credit score, to me this practice is counter intuitive. You are allowed a free credit report from each bureau, once annually, you can get this from www.annualcreditreport.com, this won't include your credit score but it will let you see what banks see when they run your credit report. In addition you should check it over for any errors or possible identity theft. If there are errors you need to file a claim with the credit agency IMMEDIATELY. (edit from JoeT - with 3 agencies to choose from, you can alternate during the year to pull a different report every 4 months. A couple, every 2.) Here are some resources you can read up on: Improve your FICO Credit Score Top 5 Credit Misconceptions  9 fast fixes for your credit scores"""
"""How do markets \""factor in\"" a future event?""","""At the most fundamental level, every market is comprised of buyers and selling trading securities. These buyers and sellers decide what and how to trade based on the probability of future events, as they see it. That's a simple statement, but an example demonstrates how complicated it can be. Picture a company that's about to announce earnings. Some investors\/traders (from here on, \""agents\"") will have purchased the company's stock a while ago, with the expectation that the company will have strong earnings and grow going forward. Other agents will have sold the stock short, bought put options, etc. with the expectation that the company won't do as well in the future. Still others may be unsure about the future of the company, but still expecting a lot of volatility around the earnings announcement, so they'll have bought\/sold the stock, options, futures, etc. to take advantage of that volatility.  All of these various predictions, expectations, etc. factor into what agents are bidding and asking for the stock, its associated derivatives, and other securities, which in turn determines its price (along with overall economic factors, like the sector's performance, interest rates, etc.) It can be very difficult to determine exactly how markets are factoring in information about an event, though. Take the example in your question. The article states that if market expectations of higher interest rates tightened credit conditions... In this case, lenders could expect higher interest rates in the future, so they may be less willing to lend money now because they expect to earn a higher interest rate in the future. You could also see this reflected in bond prices, because since interest rates are inversely related to bond prices, higher interest rates could decrease the value of bond portfolios. This could lead agents to sell bonds now in order to lock in their profits, while other agents could wait to buy bonds because they expect to be able to purchase bonds with a higher rate in the future.  Furthermore, higher interest rates make taking out loans more expensive for individuals and businesses. This potential decline in investment could lead to decreased revenue\/profits for businesses, which could in turn cause declines in the stock market. Agents expecting these declines could sell now in order to lock in their profits, buy derivatives to hedge against or ride out possible declines, etc. However, the current low interest rate environment makes it cheaper for businesses to obtain loans, which can in turn drive investment and lead to increases in the stock market. This is one criticism of the easy money\/quantitative easing policies of the US Federal Reserve, i.e. the low interest rates are driving a bubble in the stock market. One quick example of how tricky this can be. The usual assumption is that positive economic news, e.g. low unemployment numbers, strong business\/residential investment, etc. will lead to price increases in the stock market as more agents see growth in the future and buy accordingly. However, in the US, positive economic news has recently led to declines in the market because agents are worried that positive news will lead the Federal Reserve to taper\/stop quantitative easing sooner rather than later, thus ending the low interest rate environment and possibly tampering growth.  Summary: In short, markets incorporate information about an event because the buyers and sellers trade securities based on the likelihood of that event, its possible effects, and the behavior of other buyers and sellers as they react to the same information. Information may lead agents to buy and sell in multiple markets, e.g. equity and fixed-income, different types of derivatives, etc. which can in turn affect prices and yields throughout numerous markets."""
"""Calculate a weekly payment on a loan when payment is a month away""","""You'd have to look at the terms of the loan to be sure, but if the interest compounds weekly then you'd have to calculate the effect of 3 compounding periods, then compute for weekly payments. The balance after 3 weeks would be: Using Excel's PMT function for that principal balance, I get a weekly payment of $189.48.   If the interest doesn't compound, the principal balance will be about $8888.37 and the weekly payment would be $189.85. Note, however, that the terms of the loan could be completely customized, so you'd need to be sure that the payment and the amortization schedule make sense to you before you agree to the loan.  Since the interest is very high, I suspect this is a \""no credit needed\"" car loan which are notorious for unfavorable (to the borrower) terms."""
"""Buy securities at another stock exchange""","""In a simple statement, no doesn't matter. Checked on my trade portal, everything lines up. Same ISIN, same price(after factoring in FX conversions, if you were thinking about arbitrage those days are long gone).  But a unusual phenomenon I have observed is, if you aren't allowed to buy\/sell a stock in one market and try to do that in a different market for the same stock you will still not be allowed to do it. Tried it on French stocks as my current provider doesn't allow me to deal in French stocks."""
"""If a employers supposed to calulate drive time pay with your weekly gross pay""","""Reimbursements for business expenses are generally not taxable, but the commute from home to the job and back is not considered business travel and if they're paying for that it is taxable income. I don't think carpooling changes that, but I am not a tax lawyer or accountant. The rest of your questions seem to be company policy issues. There is no \""should\"" here. You aren't required to pick up the other guys, but he isn't required to reimburse those miles (or employ you) so think carefully about your priorities before pushing back. Never invoke what thou canst not banish."""
"""The Benefits\/Disadvantages of using a credit card""","""Note: this answer is true for the UK, other places may vary. There are a couple of uses for credit cards.  The first is to use them in a revolving manner, if you pay off the bill in full every time you get one then with the vast majority of cards you will pay no interest, effecitvely delay your expenses by a month, build your credit rating and with many credit cards you can also get rewards. Generally you should wait until the bill comes to pay it off. This ensures that your usage is reported to the credit ratings agencies. In general you should not draw out cash on credit cards as there is usually a fee and unlike purchases it will start acruing interest immediately. The second is longer term borrowing. This is where you have to be careful. Firstly the \""standard\"" rate on most credit cards is arround 20% APR which is pretty high. Secondly on many cards once you are carrying a balance any purchases start acruing interest immediately. However many credit cards offer promotional rates. In contrast to the standard rates which are an expensive way to borrow the promotional rates often allow you to borrow at 0% APR for some period. Usually when it comes to promotional rates you get the best deal by opening a new credit card and using it immediately.  Ideally you should plan to pay off the card before the 0% period ends, if you can't do that then a balance transfer may be an option but be aware than in a few years the market for credit cards may (or may not) have changed. Whatever you do you should ALWAYS make sure to pay at least the minimum payment and do so on time. Not doing so may trigger steep fees, loss of promotional interest rates. There is a site called moneysavingexpert that tracks the best deals."""
"""When the Reserve Bank determines the interest rates, do they take the house prices into account?""","""The setting of interest rates (or \""repurchase rates\"") varies from country to country, as well as with the independence of the central bank. There are a number of measurements and indices that central bankers can take into account: This is a limited overview but should give an indication of just how complex tracking inflation is, let alone attempting to control it.  House prices are in the mix but which house or which price? The choice of what to measure faces the difficulty of attempting to find a symmetrical basket which really affects the majority regularly (and not everyone is buying several new houses a year so the majority are ring-fenced from fluctuations in prices at the capital end, but not from the interest-rate end). And this is only when the various agencies (Statistics, Central Bank, Labour, etc.) are independent.  In countries like Venezuela or Argentina, government has taken over release of such data and it is frequently at odds with individual experience. Links for the US: And, for Australia:"""
"""Do the tax consequences make it worth it for me to hold ESPP stock?""","""Your gain is $1408. The difference between 32% of your gain and 15% of your gain is $236.36 or $1.60 per share. If you sell now, you have $3957.44 after taxes.  Forget about the ESPP for a moment. Are you be willing to wager $4000 on the proposition that your company's stock price won't go down more than $1.60 or so over the next 18 months? I've never felt it was worth it. Also, I never thought it made much sense to own any of my employer's stock. If their business does poorly, I'd prefer not to have both my job and my money at risk. If you sell now: Now assuming you hold for 18 months, pay 15% capital gains tax, and the stock price drops by $1.60 to $23.40:"""
"""What are the pros and cons of investing in a closed-end fund?""","""One advantage not pointed out yet is that closed-end funds typically trade on stock exchanges, whereas mutual funds do not.  This makes closed-end funds more accessible to some investors. I'm a Canadian, and this particular distinction matters to me.  With my regular brokerage account, I can buy U.S. closed-end funds that trade on a stock exchange, but I cannot buy U.S. mutual funds, at least not without the added difficulty of somehow opening a brokerage account outside of my country."""
"""How can all these countries owe so much money?  Why & where did they borrow it from?""","""Others have pointed out that the entities loaning money to the government are typically people and institutions.  Recently, however, the US federal government borrowings were largely funded by money printed by the Federal Reserve.  The government had to borrow $1.1 trillion from October, 2010 through June, 2011.  During this period the FED printed around $0.8 trillion new dollars to purchase US debt.  Thus, the US government was not borrowing money from people, it was being funded by money printing.  The central bankers call this \""quantitative easing\""."""
"""Cashing a cheque on behalf of someone else""","""If the cheque is not crossed, then your friend can write \""payable to [your name]\"" above his signature when he endorses it. If it is crossed, you'll have to deposit it into his account. Given that one can deposit cheques at ATMs, this shouldn't require his presence. Just make sure he endorses it before you leave! It also might take a few more days to clear."""
"""Settling before T+3?""","""The T+3 settlement date only affects cash accounts.  In a cash account, you need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your funds to be available to make your next trade.  But if you convert your cash account into a margin account, then you do not need to wait until the T+3 settlement date for your next trade - your broker will allow you to make another trade immediately."""
"""How can cold-callers know about my general financial status""","""Just a note about cold callers: I own a phone which I use solely for software development purposes. It has a SIM card that I bought for \u00a30.99 on eBay (needed to activate the phone). Nobody knows that there is any relationship between me and that phone or it's phone number. I have never paid any phone charges, and I cannot make phone calls with that phone. As I said, it is just used for software development purposes.  I get phone calls from cold callers on that phone. Not only do they not know anything about my financial situation, they know nothing and cannot know anything about who I am. They tell me that I was recently involved in an accident and I am likely to get compensation. Yet they don't know my name, my address, anything. Lucky enough, my real business mobile phone is so far not on their radar.  It is most likely that they know absolutely nothing about you, but have a lot of practice in being convincing if they get you to talk to them."""
"""Theoretically, if I bought more than 50% of a company's stocks, will I own the company?""","""The usual pattern is that shareholders don't run companies in a practical sense, so \""if someone was just simply rich to buy > 50%, but does not know how to handle the company\"" doesn't change anything. In large companies, the involvement of shareholders is limited to a few votes on key issues such as allocating profit (how much to keep in company vs pay in dividends) and choosing board members. And board members also don't run the company - they oversee how the company is being run, and choose executives who will actually run the company. If a rich person simply buys 50% and doesn't desire to get personally involved, then they just vote for whatever board members seem apropriate and forget about it."""
"""Why are options created?""","""In general economic theory, there are always two markets created based on a need for a good; a spot market (where people who need something now can go outbid other people who need the same thing), and a futures market (where people who know they will need something later can agree to buy it for a pre-approved price, even if the good in question doesn't exist yet, like a grain crop). Options exist as a natural extension of the futures market. In a traditional future, you're obligated, by buying the contract, to execute it, for good or ill. If it turns out that you could have gotten a lower price when buying, or a higher price when selling, that's tough; you gave up the ability to say no in return for knowing, a month or three months or even a year in advance, the price you'll get to buy or sell this good that you know you need. Futures thus give both sides the ability to plan based on a known price, but that's their only risk-reduction mechanism. Enter the option. You're the Coors Brewing Company, and you want to buy 50 tons of barley grain for delivery in December in order to brew up for the Super Bowl and other assorted sports parties. A co-op bellies up to close the deal. But, since you're Coors, you compete on price with Budweiser and Miller, and if you end up paying more than the grain's really worth, perhaps because of a mild wet fall and a bumper crop that the almanac predicts, then you're going to have a real bad time of it in January. You ask for the right to say \""no\"" when the contract falls due, if the price you negotiate now is too high based on the spot price. The co-op now has a choice; for such a large shipment, if Coors decided to leave them holding the bag on the contract and instead bought it from them anyway on a depressed spot market, they could lose big if they were counting on getting the contract price and bought equipment or facilities on credit against it. To mitigate those losses, the co-op asks for an option price; basically, this is \""insurance\"" on the contract, and the co-op will, in return for this fee (exactly how and when it's paid is also negotiable), agree to eat any future realized losses if Coors were to back out of the contract.  Like any insurance premium, the option price is nominally based on an outwardly simple formula: the probability of Coors \""exercising\"" their option, times the losses the co-op would incur if that happened. Long-term, if these two figures are accurate, the co-op will break even by offering this price and Coors either taking the contract or exercising the option. However, coming up with accurate predictions of these two figures, such that the co-op (or anyone offering such a position) would indeed break even at least, is the stuff that keeps actuaries in business (and awake at night)."""
"""Friend was brainwashed by MLM-\/ponzi investment scam. What can I do?""","""As others have stated, it will be very difficult for you to turn your friend around. He has already demonstrated great commitment. What can I do? There may be other people (perhaps mutual friends of you and this man) who are in danger. He may try to get them into this (as he apparently tried to with you). If this was me, I would try to warn the mutual friends of me and him. It's easier to get to them before they have been exposed to the brainwashing. So I would: Yes, I realize this means you're going behind his back, talking to his friends, etc. But I believe these people also deserve to be warned. They are in danger of being adversely affected by what he is doing."""
"""What is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home?""","""Title insurance protects you from losing rights to your property in case of a court decision. Let's look at an example I recently found in local newspapers. One old woman sold her apartment to person A. The deed was attested by a notary public who verified that indeed in was that old woman putting her signature on the deed. Then person A sold the apartment to person B, etc, then after several deals some unfortunate Buyer bought that apartment. The deal looked allright, so he's got a mortgage to pay for the apartment. Later it turned out that the old lady died three months before she \""sold\"" the apartment and the notary public was corrupt. Old lady's heirs filed a lawsuit and the deal was void. So the ultimate Buyer lost all rights to the apartment although he purchased it legally. This is the case when title insurance kicks in. You need one if there's a chance for a deal to be deemed void."""
"""Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks?""","""Because they receive compensation (generally interest + dividends) for loaning out the shares. I own an asset X.   Somebody else wants to borrow asset X for some time period.   I agree to loan them asset X in return for some form of compensation (generally a rate of interest plus, in this specific case, any dividend payments).  The reasons why I own asset X, and why they want to borrow asset X are irrelevant to the transaction. The only relevant points are the amount of compensation and the risk that they might default on the loan. This applies equally well to shares as to money or any other kind of loan-able asset."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""I think playing certain kinds of lottery is as economically sound as buying certain kinds of insurance.  A lottery is an inverted insurance. Let me elaborate.  We buy insurance for at least two reasons. The first one is clear: We pay a fee to protect ourselves from a risk which we don't want to (or cannot) bear. Although on average buying insurance is a loss, because we pay all the insurance's office buildings and employee's salaries, it still is a reasonable thing to do. (But it should also be clear that it is unreasonable to buy insurance for risks one could easily bear oneself.) The second reason to buy insurance is that it puts us at ease. We don't have to be afraid of theft or of a mistake we make which would make us liable or of water damage to our house. In that sense we buy freedom of sorrow for a fee, even if the damage wouldn't in fact ruin us. That's totally legitimate. Now I want to make the argument that buying a lottery ticket follows the same logic and is therefore not economically unreasonable at all. While buying a lottery ticket is on average a loss, it provides us with a chance to obtain an amount of money we would normally never get. (Eric Lippert made this argument already.) The lottery fee buys us a small chance of something very valuable, much as the insurance frees us from a small risk of something very bad. If we don't buy the ticket, we may have 0% chance of becoming (extremely) rich. If we buy one, we clearly have a chance > 0%, which can be considered an improvement. (Imagine you'd have a 0.0000001% chance to save the life of a loved one with a ticket who'd be 100% doomed otherwise. You'd bite.) Even the second argument, that an insurance puts us at ease, can be mirrored for lotteries. The chance to win something may provide entertainment in our otherwise dull everyday life. Considering that playing the lottery only makes sense for the chance to obtain more money than otherwise possible, one should avoid lotteries which have lots of smaller prizes because we are not really interested in those. (It would be more economical to save the money for smaller amounts.) We ideally only want lotteries which lean on the big money prizes."""
"""Books, Videos, Tutorials to learn about different investment options in the financial domain""","""Those are some very broad questions and I don't think I can answer them completely, but I will add what I can. Barron's Finance and Investment Handbook is the best reference book I have found. It provides a basic description\/definition for every type of investment available. It covers stocks, preferred stocks, various forms of bonds as well as mortgage pools and other exotic instruments. It has a comprehensive dictionary of finance terms as well. I would definitely recommend getting it.  The question about how people invest today is a huge one. There are people who simply put a monthly amount into a mutual fund and simply do that until retirement on one side and professional day traders who move in and out of stocks or commodities on a daily basis on the other."""
"""Why do people buy new cars they can not afford? ""","""Two reasons: Many people make lots of financial decisions (and other kinds of decisions) without actually running any numbers to see what is best (or even possible).  They just go with their gut and buy things they feel like buying, without making a thoroughgoing attempt to assess the impact on their finances.  I share your bafflement at this, but it is true. A sobering example that has stuck with me can be found in this Los Angeles Times story from a few years ago, which describes a family spending $1000 more than their income every month, while defaulting on their mortgage and dipping into their 7-year-old daughter's savings account to cover the bills --- but still spending $275 a month on \""beauty products and services\"" and $200 a month on pet expenses. Even to the extent that people do take finances into account, finances are not the only thing they take into account.  For many people, driving a car that is new, looks nice and fresh, has the latest features, etc., is something they are willing to pay money for.  Your question \""why don't people view a car solely as a means of transportation\"" is not a financial question but a psychological one.  The answer to \""why do people buy new cars\"" is \""because people do not view cars solely as a means of transportation\"". I recently bought a used car, and while looking around at different ones I visited a car lot.  When the dealer heard which car I was interested in, he said, \""So, I guess you're looking for a transportation car.\""  I thought to myself, \""Duh.  Is there any other kind?\""  But the fact that someone can say something like that indicates that there are many people who are looking for something other than a \""transportation car\""."""
"""Why are there hidden bids and offers in the US stock market for the more illiquid stocks?""","""Certain brokers allow for hidden orders to be placed in the market. It is as simple as that. Refer to Interactive Brokers as one example. If you press on the \"" i \"" next to \""Hidden\"" you will get the following description.  Some brokers may represent the hidden orders by an * next to the price level. Sometimes large orders are place as these hidden orders to avoid large movements in the stock price (especially if the stock is illiquid as per your observation)."""
"""How come we can find stocks with a Price-to-Book ratio less than 1?""","""Note that the formula for Price to Book ratio is:  Stock Price \/ {[Total Assets - (Intangible Assets + Liabilities)] \/ Stock Outstanding}  http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/p\/price-to-bookratio.asp  http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/fundamental\/03\/112603.asp  There's a number of factors that could lead to a lower than 1. The primary reason, imho, could be the company is in a state of retiring stock with debt. The company is selling penny stocks (only to get people more interested in it's later development) which are inherently undervalued. There may be other reasons, but definitely check out both articles."""
"""Does bull\/bear market actually make a difference?""","""Who are the losers going to be? If you can tell me for certain which firms will do worst in a bear market and can time it so that this information is not already priced into the market then you can make money. If not don't try. In a bull market stocks tend to act \""normally\"" with established patterns such as correlations acting as expected and stocks more or less pricing to their fundamentals. In a bear market fear tends to overrule all of those things. You get large drops on relatively minor bad news and modest rallies on even the best news which results in stocks being undervalued against their fundamentals. In the crash itself it is quite easy to make money shorting. In an environment where stocks are undervalued, such as a bear market, you run the risk that your short, no matter how sure you are that the stock will fall, is seen as being undervalued and will rise. In fact your selling of a \""losing\"" stock might cause it to hit levels where value investors already have limits set. This could bring a LOT of buyers into the market. Due to the fact that correlations break down creating portfolios with the correct risk level, which is what funds are required to do not only by their contracts but also by law to an extent, is extremely difficult. Risk management (keeping all kinds to within certain bounds) is one of the most difficult parts of a manager's job and is even difficult in abnormal market conditions. In the long run (definitions may vary) stock prices in general go up (for those companies who aren't bankrupted at least) so shorting in a bear market is not a long term strategy either and will not produce long term returns on capital. In addition to this risk you run the risk that your counterparty (such as Lehman brothers?) will file for bankruptcy and you won't be able to cover the position before the lender wants you to repay their stock to them landing you in even more problems."""
"""How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks?""","""There's something very important no one else has mentioned... times when the stock market falls dramatically are often the times when you're most likely to lose your job, and when it's hardest to get loans.  So if you ever do need your emergency fund, it will more than likely be related to a dip in the stock market."""
"""Can I use same stock broker to buy stocks from different stock markets?""","""Most stock brokers are \""full service\"" brokers. That is to say that you can so the same broker to buy different types of stocks, bonds, options, etc. in different markets. Some brokers are very specialized and won't allow you to do that. But those are probably brokers you don't want to use."""
"""Is there a time limit to cover an open short position? [duplicate]""","""There are situations where you can be forced to cover a position, particular when \""Reg SHO\"" (\""regulation sho\"") is activated. Reg SHO is intended to make naked short sellers cover their position, it is to prevent abusive failure to delivers, where someone goes short without borrowing someone else's shares. Naked shorting isn't a violation of federal securities laws but it becomes an accounting problem when multiple people have claims to the same underlying assets. (I've seen companies that had 120% of their shares sold short, too funny, FWIW the market was correct as the company was worth nothing.) You can be naked short without knowing it. So there can be times when you will be forced to cover. Other people being forced to cover can result in a short squeeze. A risk. The other downside is that you have to pay interest on your borrowings. You also have to pay the dividends to the owner of the shares, if applicable. In shorter time frames these are negligible, but in longer time frames, such as closer to a year or longer, these really add up. Let alone the costs of the market going in the opposite direction, and the commissions."""
"""Should I fund retirement with a static asset allocation or an age based glide path?""","""The thing about the glide path is that the closer you're to the retirement age, the less risk you should be taking with your investments. All investments carry risk, but if you invest in a volatile stock market at the age of 20 and lose all your retirement money - it will not have the same effect on your retirement as if you'd invest in a volatile stock market at the age of 65 and then lose all your retirement money. Static allocation throughout your life without changing the risk factor, will lead you to a very conservative investment path, which would mean you're not likely to lose your investments, but you're not likely to gain much either. The point of the glide path is to allow you taking more risks early with more chances of higher gains, but to limit your risks down the road, also limiting your potential gains. That is why it is always suggested to start your retirement funds early in your life, to make sure you have enough time to invest in potentially high return stocks (with high risk), but when you get close to your retirement age, it is advised to do exactly the opposite. The date-targeted funds do that for you, but you can do it on your own as well. As to the academic research - you don't need to go that far. Just look at the graphs to see that over long period investments in stocks give much better return than \""conservative\"" bonds and treasuries (especially when averaging the investments, as it usually is with the retirement funds), but over a given short period, investments in stocks are much more likely to significantly lose in value."""
"""Ways to establish credit history for international student""","""I think you should try to talk with the credit union at your campus first, they may have offer you a credit card even you don't have any credit history."""
"""US Dollar Index: a) where are long term charts;  also b) is it available on Google Finance by any chance? ""","""a) the quick answer to your correlation is quantitative easing. basically the central bank has been devaluing the US dollar, making the prices of all goods increase (including stocks.)  the stock market appear to have recovered from 2009 lows but its mainly an illusion. anyway the QE packages are very known when the correlation is not there, that means other meaningful things are happening such as better corporate earnings and real growth. b) the thinkorswim platform has charts for dollar futures, symbol \/dx"""
"""What variety of hedges are there against index funds of U.S. based stocks?""","""The only way to hedge a position is to take on a countervailing position with a higher multiplier as any counter position such as a 1:1 inverse ETF will merely cancel out the ETF it is meant to hedge yielding a negative return roughly in the amount of fees & slippage. For true risk-aversion, continually selling the shortest term available covered calls is the only free lunch.  A suboptimal version, the CBOE BuyWrite Index, has outperformed its underlying with lower volatility. The second best way is to continually hedge positions with long puts, but this can become very tax-complicated since the hedged positions need to be rebalanced continually and expensive depending on option liquidity. The ideal, assuming no taxes and infinite liquidity, is to sell covered calls when implied volatility is high and buy puts when implied volatility is low."""
"""Selling To Close""","""At the higher level - yes. The value of an OTM (out of the money) option is pure time value. It's certainly possible that when the stock price gets close to that strike, the value of that option may very well offer you a chance to sell at a profit. Look at any OTM strike bid\/ask and see if you can find the contract low for that option. Most will show that there was an opportunity to buy it lower at some point in the past.  Your trade. Ask is meaningless when you own an option. A thinly traded one can be bid $0 \/ask $0.50. What is the bid on yours?"""
"""Vanguard ETF vs mutual fund""","""Where are you planning on buying this ETF?  I'm guessing it's directly through Vanguard?  If so, that's likely your first reason - the majority of brokerage accounts charge a commission per trade for ETFs (and equities) but not for mutual funds.   Another reason is that people who work in the financial industry (brokerages, mutual fund companies, etc) have to request permission for every trade before placing an order.  This applies to equities and ETFs but does not apply to mutual funds.  It's common for a request to be denied (if the brokerage has inside information due to other business lines they'll block trading, if a mutual fund company is trading the same security they'll block trading, etc) without an explanation.  This can happen for months.  For these folks it's typically easier to use mutual funds. So, if someone can open an account with Vanguard and doesn't work in the financial industry then I agree with your premise.  The Vanguard Admiral shares have a much lower expense, typically very close to their ETFs. Source:  worked for a brokerage and mutual fund company"""
"""How do I know when I am financially stable\/ready to move out on my own?""","""One major concern with moving out on your own is can you afford rent each month, be it an apartment or a house payment. You'll hear people say that anywhere from 25% to 40% of your monthly after-tax income should go to housing. 40% seems very high to me and quite risky. I'd go for closer to 30% of your monthly after-tax income and not any higher, but that's just my opinion.  I had a friend that moved out of his parents house about the same time that I did. He bought himself a house, and then he immediately started looking for roommates to help pay for his house. It really was a good idea, and I wish that I'd been in a position to do the same, because I'm sure that it saved him a lot of money for the first couple of years. Apart from that, my only advise would be to get a house if you can afford it. 1) Interest rates are very low right now, and 2) if you're paying rent to someone (for an apartment or whatever) then you're just throwing your hard-earned money away. Good luck!"""
"""Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?""","""when you contribute to a 401k, you get to invest pre-tax money. that means part of it (e.g. 25%) is money you would otherwise have to pay in taxes (deferred money) and the rest (e.g. 75%) is money you could otherwise invest (base money).  growth in the 401k is essentially tax free because the taxes on the growth of the base money are paid for  by the growth in the deferred portion.  that is of course assuming the same marginal tax rate both now and when you withdraw the money. if your marginal tax rate is lower in retirement than it is now, you would save even more money using a traditional 401k or ira. an alternative is to invest in a roth account (401k or ira). in which case the money goes in after tax and the growth is untaxed.  this would be advantageous if you expect to have a higher marginal tax rate during retirement. moreover, it reduces tax risk, which could give you peace of mind considering u.s. marginal tax rates were over 90% in the 1940's. a roth could also be advantageous if you hit the contribution limits since the contributions are after-tax and therefore more valuable. lastly, contributions to a roth account can be withdrawn at any time tax and penalty free. however, the growth in a roth account is basically stuck there until you turn 60. unlike a traditional ira\/401k where you can take early retirement with a SEPP plan. another alternative is to invest the money in a normal taxed account.  the advantage of this approach is that the money is available to you whenever you need it rather than waiting until you retire.  also, investment losses can be deducted from earned income (e.g. 15-25%), while gains can be taxed at the long term capital gains rate (e.g. 0-15%). the upshot being that even if you make money over the course of several years, you can actually realize negative taxes by taking gains and losses in different tax years. finally, when you decide to retire you might end up paying 0% taxes on your long term capital gains if your income is low enough (currently ~50k$\/yr for a single person). the biggest limitation of this strategy is that losses are limited to 3k$ per year. also, this strategy works best when you invest in individual stocks rather than mutual funds, increasing volatility (aka risk). lastly, this makes filing your taxes more complicated since you need to report every purchase and sale and watch out for the \""wash sale\"" rules. side note: you should contribute enough to get all the 401k matching your employer offers.  even if you cash out the whole account when you want the money, the matching (typically 50%-200%) should exceed the 10% early withdrawal penalty."""
"""What does quantitative easing 2 mean for my bank account?""","""IMO, QE2 will likely have no perceptible impact in the near term. Keeping all of your savings in a bank guarantees that you will lose money to inflation & taxes. I'd suggest consulting a financial advisor -- preferably someone who understands issues facing someone with assets in the US and Canada. In terms of what portion of your savings should be in USD vs. CAD, that's going to depend on your situation. I'd probably want more assets in the place that I'm living in for the next several years."""
"""How do I know if refinance is beneficial enough to me?""","""When evaluating a refinance, you need to figure out the payback time. Refinancing costs money in closing costs. The payback time is the time it takes to recover the closing costs with the amount of money you are saving in interest.  For example, if the closing costs are $2,000, your payback time is 2 years if it takes 2 years to save that amount in interest with the new interest rate vs. the old one.  To estimate this, look at the difference in interest rate between your mortgage and the new one, and your mortgage balance. For example, let's say that you have $100,000 left on your mortgage, and the new rate is 1% lower than your current rate. In one year, you will save roughly $1,000 in interest. If your closing costs are $2,000, then your payback time is somewhere around 2 years. If you plan on staying in this house longer than the payback time, then it is beneficial to refinance.  There are mortgage refinance calculators online that will calculate payback time more precisely.  One thing to watch out for: when you refinance, if you expand the term of your mortgage, you might end up paying more interest over the long term, even though your rate is less and your monthly payment is less. For example, let's say you currently have 8 years left on a 15-year mortgage. If you refinance to a new 15-year mortgage, your monthly payment will go down, but if you only pay the new minimum payment for the next 15 years, you could end up paying more in interest than if you had just continued with your old mortgage for the next 8 years. To avoid this, refinance to a new mortgage with a term close to what you have left on your current mortgage. If you can't do that, continue paying whatever your current monthly payment is after you refinance, and you'll pay your new mortgage early and save on interest."""
"""Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?""","""For one thing fund managers, even fund management companies, own less money than their clients put together. On the whole they simply cannot underwrite 50% of the potential losses of the funds they manage, and an offer to do so would be completely unsecured. Warren Buffet owns about 1\/3 of Berkshire Hathaway, so I suppose maybe he could do it if he wanted to, and I won't guess why he prefers his own business model (investing in the fund he manages, or used to manage) over the one you propose for him (keeping his money in something so secure he could use it to cover arbitrary losses on B-H). Buffett and his investors have always felt that he has sufficient incentive to see B-H do well, and it's not clear that your scheme would provide him any useful further incentive. You say that the details are immaterial. Supposing instead of 50% it was 0.0001%, one part in a million. Then it would be completely plausible for a fund manager to offer this: \""invest 50 million, lose it all, and I'll buy dinner to apologise\"". But would you be as attracted to it as you would be to 50%? Then the details are material. Actually a fund manager could do it by taking your money, putting 50% into the fund and 50% into a cash account. If you make money on the fund, you only make half as much as if you'd been fully invested, so half your profit has been \""taken\"" when you get back the fund value + cash. If you lose money on the fund, pay you back 50% of your losses using the cash. Worst case scenario[*], the fund is completely wiped out but you still get back 50% of your initial investment. The combined fund+cash investment vehicle has covered exactly half your losses and it subtracts exactly half your profit. The manager has offered the terms you asked for (-50% leverage) but still doesn't have skin the game. Your proposed terms do not provide the incentive you expect. Why don't fund managers offer this? Because with a few exceptions 50% is an absurd amount for an investment fund to keep in cash, and nobody would buy it. If you want to use cash for that level of inverse leverage you call the bank, open an account, and keep the interest for yourself. You don't expect your managed fund to do it. Furthermore, supposing the manager did invest 100% of your subscription in the fund and cover the risk with their own capital, that means the only place they actually make any profit is the return on a risk that they take with their capital on the fund's wins\/losses. You've given them no incentive to invest your money as well as their own: they might as well just put their capital in the fund and let you keep your money. They're better off without you since there's less paperwork, and they can invest whatever they like instead of carefully matching whatever money you send them. If you think they can make better picks than you, and you want them to do so on your behalf, then you need to pay them for the privilege. Riding their coattails for free is not a service they have any reason to offer you. It turns out that you cannot force someone to expose themselves to a particular risk other than by agreeing that they will expose themselves to that risk and then closely monitoring their investment portfolio. Otherwise they can find ways to insure\/hedge the risk they're required to take on. If it's on their books but cancelled by something else then they aren't really exposed. So to provide incentive what we normally want is what Buffett does, which is for the fund manager to be invested in the fund to keep them keen, and to draw a salary in return for letting you in[**]. Their investment cannot precisely match yours because the fund manager's capital doesn't precisely match your capital. It doesn't cover your losses because it's in the same fund, so if your money vanishes the fund manager loses too and has nothing to cover you with. But it does provide the incentive. [*] All right, I admit it, worst case scenario there's a total banking collapse, end of civilization as we know it, and the cash account defaults. But then even in your proposed scheme it's possible that whatever assets the fund manager was using as security could fail to materialise. [**] So why, you might ask, do individual fund managers get bonuses in return for meeting fixed targets instead of only being part-paid in shares in their own fund whose value they can then maximise? I honestly don't know, but I suspect \""lots of reasons\"". Probably the psychology of rewarding them for performance in a way that compares with other executive posts or professions they might take up instead of fund management. Probably the benefit to the fund itself, which wants to attract more clients, of beating certain benchmarks. Probably other things including, frankly, human error in setting their compensation packages."""
"""Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed?""","""The basic idea is that the average person can't deduct health care costs unless they're really onerous. But a business can, and as a self-employed person, you can deduct those costs from the businesses earnings... as long as the business is really generating enough profit to cover the health insurance costs. That's why most people get their health insurance from their employer, actually. The relevant IRS rules say: \""You may be able to deduct premiums paid for medical and dental insurance and qualified long-term care insurance for you, your spouse, and your dependents if you are... A self-employed individual with a net profit reported on Schedule C (Form 1040).\"" For 2010, thanks to the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, you can even deduct the premium from your income before deducting the self-employment tax (Source). I'm sure that when you get your tax returns and instructions for 2010 this will all be spelled out."""
"""How to minimise the risk of a reduction in purchase power in case of Brexit for money held in a bank account?""","""GBP has already lost part of his value just because of the fear of Brexit. An actual Brexit may not change GBP as much as expected, but a no-Brexit could rise GBP really a lot."""
"""Income Tax and Investments""","""Unless you make those investments inside a tax-deferred account, you will have to pay income-taxes on that money this year. Because you made that money through your own business, you will also have payroll taxes due on that money this year."""
"""Renters Liability in Case of Liability Claims for Property Damage or Fire""","""The truth is anyone can sue anyone for anything.  So yes you could be sued, but the more important part to measure is the probability of success.   While this is probably more of a legal stack exchange question, in order for a successful suit there has to be proven at least some negligence on your part in the situation you cite.  The very fact that the landlord is not willing to turn on the heat is probably enough to absolve you from any liability.  Once you go down to a local store and purchase a UL certified heater then a suit would have a very low probability of success.   Perhaps a case could be made if you made your own heater and it burned down the house.  But that would require finding a jury that is sympathetic to landlords that will not provide heat for their tenants (highly unlikely). Could the landlord sue the heater company?  Yes and would likely receive an out of court settlement.   Even in the case that liability can be proven on your part, it is very unlikely you would be targeted.  These type of suits target \""deep pockets\"" or those with wealth.  Unless something is specifically known about you having a high level of net worth a civil suit will not be brought against a \""room renter\"" because of the lack of funds.  People in your demographic tend not to have a lot of money.  (No offense intended, I was there myself once.)  In the case that you do have a high net worth, then get renters insurance and possibly an umbrella policy.  It is a small price to pay to protect a significant amount of assets.   If I was in your shoes here is what I would do:"""
"""Shorting Stocks And Margin Account Minimum""","""First, you are not exactly \""giving\"" the brokerage $2000. That money is the margin requirement to protect them in the case the stock price rises. If you short 200 shares as in your example and they are holding $6000 from you then they are protected in the event of the stock price increasing to $30\/share. Sometime before it gets there the brokerage will require you to deposit more money or they will cover your position by repurchasing the shares for your account. The way you make money on the short sale is if the stock price declines. It is a buy low sell high idea but in reverse. If you believe that prices are going to drop then you could sell now when it is high and buy back later when it is lower. In your example, you are selling 200 shares at $20 and later, buying those at $19. Thus, your profit is $200, not counting any interest or fees you have paid. It's a bit confusing because you are selling something you'll buy in the future. Selling short is usually considered quite risky as your gain is limited to the amount that you sold at initially (if I sell at $20\/share the most I can make is if the stock declines to $0).  Your potential to lose is unlimited in theory. There is no limit to how high the stock could go in theory so I could end up buying it back at an infinitely high price. Neither of these extremes are likely but they do show the limits of your potential gain and loss.  I used $20\/share for simplicity assuming you are shorting with a market order vs a limit order. If you are shorting it would be better for you to sell at 20 instead of 19 anyway. If someone says I would like to give you $20 for that item you are selling you aren't likely to tell them \""no, I'd really only like $19 for it\"""""
"""Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income?""","""My family instilled in me early on that hard work was important, and the output of that work was its reward. My grandparents really made in impression with me about telling the truth and being fair (probably after I was busted for lying and cheating about something) -- I remember my grandfather talking about the solem trust associated with shaking hands over something. I remember opening a savings account at school on bank day and being really excited about the interest accruing... but my folks never really allowed us to spend it on toys or other stuff. I didn't really think about money at all until I was probably about 10 or 11, when I started watching \""Wall Street Week\"" on PBS with my dad on Friday night and bombarding him with dozens of questions. Then games like Sim City really got me going... my grandmother was always amazed that I was talking about bonding construction projects. I think that before 10 or so, kids needn't concern themselves with money, but should understand responsibility, the rewards that come from working hard, and the consequences for not doing so."""
"""How do stocks like INL (traded in Frankfurt) work?""","""They don't have to track each other, it could just be listed on more than one exchange.  The price on one exchange does not have to match or track the price on the other exchange. This is actually quite common, as many companies are listed on two or more exchanges around the world."""
"""Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage?""","""By definition, an IPO'd stock is publicly traded, and you can buy shares if you wish. There's often an excitement on the first day that doesn't carry over to the next days or weeks.  The opening price may be well above the IPO price, depending on that demand."""
"""Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund""","""I was going to ask, \""Do you feel lucky, punk?\"" but then it occurred to me that the film this quote came from, Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, is 43 years old.  And yet, the question remains. The stock market, as measured by the S&P has returned 9.67%  compounded over the last 100 years. But with a standard deviation just under 20%, there are years when you'll do better and years you'll lose. And I'd not ignore the last decade which was pretty bad, a loss for the decade.  There are clearly two schools of thought. One says that no one ever lost sleep over not having a mortgage payment. The other school states that at the very beginning, you have a long investing horizon, and the chances are very good that the 30 years to come will bring a return north of 6%. The two decades prior to the last were so good that these past 30 years were still pretty good, 11.39% compounded.  There is no right or wrong here. My gut says fund your retirement accounts to the maximum. Build your emergency fund. You see, if you pay down your mortgage, but lose your job, you'll still need to make those payments. Once you build your security, think of the mortgage as the cash side of your investing, i.e. focus less on the relatively low rate of return (4.3%) and more on the eventual result, once paid, your cash flow goes up nicely.   Edit - in light of the extra information you provided, your profile reads that you have a high risk tolerance. Low overhead, no dependents, and secure employment combine to lead me to this conclusion. At 23, I'd not be investing at 4.3%. I'd learn how to invest in a way I was comfortable with, and take it from there.  Disclosure (Updated) - I am older, and am semi-retired. I still have some time left on the mortgage, but it doesn't bother me, not at 3.5%. I also have a 16 year old to put through college but her college account i fully funded."""
"""Buy securities at another stock exchange""","""Really arbitrage means that, currency risk aside, it shouldn't matter which exchange you buy on in price terms alone. Arbitrage will always make sure that the prices are equivalent otherwise high frequency traders can make free money off the difference. In practical terms liquidity and brokerage costs usually make trading on the \""home\"" exchange more worthwhile as any limit orders etc will be filled at a better price as you will more easily find a counterparty to your trade. Obviously that will only be an issue where your quantity is significant enough to move the market on a given exchange. The volume needed to move a market is dependent upon the liquidity of the particular stock."""
"""Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income?""","""I don't know if it counts as a formal answer, but Dale Carnegie has  always preached that income is related to how well you treat and get  along with other people. His observation is that the highest paid  people are those with the best people skills, because the ability to  manage other people has higher value than singular ability.  Conversely, people making minimum wage often work \""harder\"" than people  making more money.  The old saw about \""work smart, not hard\"" is a bit trite. In many  fields, efficiency is valued over \""hard work\""."""
"""Why invest in IRA while a low-cost index fund is much simpler?""","""Lots of good answers.  I'll try and improve by being more brief.  For each option you will pay different taxes: Index Fund:   Traditional IRA Roth IRA You can see that the Roth IRA is obviously better than investing in a taxable account.  It may not be as obvious that the traditional IRA is better as well.  The reason is that in the traditional account you can earn returns on the money that otherwise would have gone to the government today.  The government taxes that money at the end, but they don't take all of it. In fact, for a given investment amount X and returns R, the decision of Roth vs Traditional depends only on your tax rate now vs at retirement because X(1-tax)(1+R_1)(1+R_2)...(1+R_n) = X(1+R_1)(1+R_2)...(1+R_n)(1-tax) The left hand side is what you will have at retirement if you do a Roth and the right hand side is what you will have at retirement if you do traditional.  Only the tax rate differences between now and retirment matter here.  An index fund investment is like the left hand side but has some additional tax terms on your capital gains.  It's clearly worse than either."""
"""Is it a bad idea to buy a motorcycle with a lien on it?""","""It's extra work for you to purchase a vehicle that has an outstanding lien on it. It's not uncommon, but there are things to take care of and watch out for. Really, all it means is that the vehicle you're trying to purchase hasn't been paid for in full by the current owner. Where things can get dodgy is ensuring that all outstanding debts are paid against the vehicle at the time you take ownership of it, otherwise the owners of those debts could still reclaim the vehicle.  Here's a good article about making this kind of purchase."""
"""Is there a return-on-investment vs risk graph anywhere?""","""Yes, there is a very good Return vs Risk graph put out at riskgrades.com.  Look at it soon, because it will be unavailable after 6-30-11.  The RA (return analysis) graph is what I think you are looking for. The first graph shown is an \""Average Return\"", which I was told was for a 3 year period.  Three period returns of 3, 6 and 12 months, are also available.  You can specify the ticker symbols of funds or stocks you want a display of.  For funds, the return includes price and distributions (total return), but only price movement for stocks - per site webmaster. I've used the graphs for a few years, since Forbes identified it as a \""Best of the Web\"" site.  Initially, I found numerous problems with some of the data and was able to work with the webmaster to correct them.  Lately though, they have NOT been correcting problems that I bring to their attention.  For example, try the symbols MUTHX, EDITX, AWSHX and you'll see that the Risk Grades on the graphs are seriously in error, and compress the graph results and cause overwriting and poor readability. If anyone knows of a similar product, I'd like to know about it.  Thanks,  George"""
"""Good at investing - how to turn this into a job?""","""Staying in Idaho, you could pursue some additional degree and try to get a job with a bank in the area as an investment advisor of some sort. However, I have doubts as to whether or not you'd be able to employ your creativity and test your own instincts in that sort of a position. If you really want to get into the big-money investment sector, I'd suggest a move to a financial hub (Chicago, New York, San Francisco) and getting a job programming for a big firm. After obtaining some experience there, you may be able to transfer to a more investment-oriented position (at the same firm or another) and from there to a position where you can unleash your talent (assuming you have some). Putting a degree in finance somewhere in the mix would help too. Consider the following. You want to make $50,000\/yr (low) by running a fund with a 1% expense ratio (high) investing other peoples' money... you're dealing with at least $5 million. That's a good chunk of change. To be entrusted with that kind of money is kind of a big deal, and you'll need to get some people to believe in your capabilities. You're not likely to get that kind of trust working out of Boise. Even if you're just doing research for some fund manager, you're not likely to find too many of those in Boise either."""
"""Won an incentive trip in 2013, left employer in 2014, received an earning statement with no cash but a huge tangible bonus listed""","""I had experience working for a company that manufactures stuff and giving products to the employees. The condition was to stay employed for a year after the gift for the company to cover its cost (I think they imputed the tax), otherwise they'd add the cost to the last paycheck (which they did when I left). But they were straight-forward about it and I signed a paper acknowledging it. However, in your case you didn't get a product (that you could return when leaving if you didn't want to pay), but rather a service. The \""winning\"" trip was definitely supposed to be reported as income to you last year. Is it okay for them to treat me differently than the others for tax purposes? Of course not. But it may be that some strings were attached to the winning of the incentive trip (for example, you're required to stay employed for X time for the company to cover the expense). See my example above. Maybe it was buried somewhere in small letters. Can they do this a year after the trip was won and redeemed? As I said - in this case this sounds shady. Since it is a service which you cannot return - you should have been taxed on it when receiving it. Would the IRS want to know about this fuzzy business trip practice? How would I report it?  Here's how you can let them know. Besides now understanding the new level of slime from my former   employer is there anything else I should be worried about? Could they   do something like this every year just to be annoying? No, once they issued the last paycheck - you're done with them. They cannot issue you more paychecks after you're no longer an employee. In most US States, you are supposed to receive the last paycheck on your last day of work, or in very close proximity (matter of weeks at most)."""
"""Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?""","""It seems to be that your main point is this: No matter what, my chances cannot be worse than random and if my trading system has an edge that is greater than the percentage of the transaction that is transaction cost, then I am probabilistically likely to make a profit? In general, yes, that is true, but... Consider this very bad strategy: Buy one share of stock and sell it one minute later, and repeat this every minute of the day. Obviously you would bleed your account dry with fees. However, even this horrible strategy still meets your criteria because: if this bad strategy had an edge beyond the transaction fees you would likely still make a profit. In other words, your conclusion reduces to an uninteresting statement: If there were no transactions fees, then if your trading system has an edge then you will likely make a profit. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but IMHO, that statement, and others made in the question are just obvious things stated in convoluted ways. I don't want to discourage you from thinking about these things though. I personally really enjoy these type of thought experiments. I just feel you missed the mark on this one..."""
"""In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?""","""You're looking at this too rationally. People can not resist eating junk food, especially when they have to sit for 2-3 hours to watch a movie. It's pure biology, not economics. People don't always act according to economic logic."""
"""What is the proper way to report additional income for taxes (specifically, Android development)?""","""If this is truly hobby income (you do not intend to operate as a business and don't have a profit motive) then report the income on Line 21 (\""other income\"") of form 1040.  If this is a business, then the income and expenses belong on a Schedule C to form 1040. The distinction is in the treatment of profits and losses - your net profits on a business are subject to self-employment tax, while hobby income is not. Net losses on a business are deductible against other income; net losses on a hobby are miscellaneous itemized deductions in the \""2%\"" box on Schedule A.  From a tax point of view, selling apps and accepting donations are different. Arguably, donations are gifts; gifts are not taxable income.  The hobby\/business and income\/gift distinctions are tricky. If the dollar amounts are small, nobody (including the IRS) really cares. If you start making or losing a lot of money, you'll want to get a good tax person lined up who can help you decide how to characterize these items of income and expens, how to put them on your return, and how to defend the return on audit if necessary."""
"""What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago?""","""Get an advanced degree.  This should increase your earning power.  Also learn how to use a computer, this should also tend to increase your earning power."""
"""Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money?""","""How is it possible for the average investor to underperform the market? The \""average\"" investor probably makes some bad decisions. You also might need to take transaction costs into play (including borrowing on margin), so that there's a natural \""erosion\"" of returns across the market.  Meaning if transaction\/borrowing costs are 1%, and the market return is 5%, the \""average investor\""  Alternatively, if by \""average\"" they mean the average of the population, not weighted by amount, it's plausible that the mass of smaller investors perform slightly worse than the smaller number of large investors (and have larger relative transaction costs), thus having a lower average on a per-capita basis. Doesn't the fact that investors can consistently underperform the market by making poor decisions, imply that an investor could consistently outperform the market by making the opposite decisions? No.  If my investment decisions cause me to earn only a 10% return compared to the \""average\"" 12% return, then making the opposite decision will cause me to lose 10%, not to make 14%."""
"""What is the difference between a scrip dividend and a stock split?""","""Firstly a stock split is easy, for example each unit of stock is converted into 10 units.  So if you owned 1% of the company before the stock split, you will still own 1% after the stock split, but have 10 times the number of shares.   The company does not pay out any money when doing this and there is no effect on tax for the company or the share holder. Now onto stock dividend\u2026 When a company make a profit, the company gives some of the profit to the share holders as a dividend; this is normally paid in cash.  An investor may then wish to buy more shares in the company using the money from the dividend.      However buying shares used to have a large cost in broker charges etc. Therefore some companies allowed share holders to choose to have the dividend paid as shares.   The company buys enough of their own shares to cover the payout, only having one set of broker charges and then sends the correct number of shares to each share holder that has opted for a stock dividend.  (Along with any cash that was not enough to buy a complete share.) This made since when you had paper shares and admin costs where high for stock brokers.   It does not make sense these days. A stock dividend is taxed as if you had been paid the dividend in cash and then brought the stock yourself."""
"""Can I buy stocks directly from a public company?""","""Yes, you often can buy stocks directly from the company at little or no transaction cost.  Many companies have either a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) or a Direct Stock Plan (DSP).  With these plans, you purchase shares directly from the company (although, often there is a third party transfer agent that handles the transaction), and the stock is issued in your name.  This differs from purchasing stock from a broker, where the stock normally remains in the name of the broker. Generally, in order to begin participating in a DRIP, you need to already be a registered stockholder.  This means that you need to purchase your first share of stock outside of the DRIP, and get it in your name.  After that, you can register with the DRIP and purchase additional shares directly from the company.  If the company has a DSP, you can begin purchasing shares directly without first being a stockholder. With the advent of discount brokers, DRIPs do not save as much money for regular investors as they once did.  However, they can still sometimes save money for someone who wants to purchase shares on a regular basis over even a discount broker. If you are interested in DRIPs and DSPs and want to learn more, there is an informative website at dripinvesting.org that has lots of information on which DRIPs are available and how to get started."""
"""What price can *I* buy IPO shares for?""","""If you participate in an IPO, you specify how many shares you're willing to buy and the maximum price you're willing to pay. All the investors who are actually sold the shares get them at the same price, and the entity managing the IPO will generally try to sell the shares for the highest price they can get. Whether or not you actually get the shares is a function of how many your broker gets and how your broker distributes them - which can be completely arbitrary if your broker feels like it. The price that the market is willing to pay afterward is usually a little higher. To a certain extent, this is by design: a good deal for the shares is an incentive for the big (million\/billion-dollar) financiers who will take on a good bit of risk buying very large positions in the company (which they can't flip at the higher price, because they'd flood the market with their shares and send the price down).  If the stock soars 100% and sticks around that level, though, the underwriting bank isn't doing its job very well: Investors were willing to give the company a lot more money. It's not \""stealing\"", but it's definitely giving the original owners of the company a raw deal. (Just to be clear: it's the existing company's owners who suffer, not any third party.) Of course, LinkedIn was estimated to IPO at $30 before they hiked it to $45, and plenty of people were skeptical about it pricing so high even then, so it's not like they didn't try. And there's a variety of analysis out there about why it soared so much on the first day - fewer shares offered, wild speculative bubbles, no one could get a hold of it to short-sell, et cetera. They probably could have IPO'd for more, but it's unlikely there was, say, $120\/share financing available: just because one sucker will pay the price doesn't mean you can move all 7.84 million IPO shares for it."""
"""It's possible to short a stock without paying interest?""","""It is possible and it depends on your strategy. As short selling interest rates are annual and levied monthly at a prorated rate. Interest rates are also low in general, with the exception of hard to borrow stocks. Therefore you can maintain a short position for weeks on end and notice nothing. Months even, if the position itself has already gained in your favor. There is no additional fee for opening the short position. Although some brokers have a \""locate\"" fee, if it is hard to borrow the stock and they need to go find some shares to short. So you can do it as much as you like."""
"""How do brokerage firms make money?""","""Regarding \""Interest on idle cash\"",  brokerage firms must maintain a segregated account on the brokerage firm's books to make sure that the client's money and the firm's money is not intermingled, and clients funds are not used for operational purposes. Source.   Thus, brokerage firms do not earn interest on cash that is held unused in client accounts. Regarding \""Exchanges pay firm for liquidity\"", I am not aware of any circumstances under which an exchange will pay a brokerage any such fee.  In fact, the opposite is the case.  Exchanges charge participants to transact business. See : How the NYSE makes money Similarly, market makers do not pay a broker to transact business on their behalf.  They charge the broker a commission just like the broker charges their client a commission.  Of course, a large broker may also be acting as market maker or deal directly with the exchange, in which case no such commission will be incurred by the broker.  In any case, the broker will pay a commission to the clearing house."""
"""Best return on investment for new home purchase""","""Trying to determine what the best investment option is when buying a home is like predicting the stock market. Not likely to work out. Forget about the \""investment\"" part of buying a home and look at the quality of life, monthly\/annual financial burden, and what your goals are. Buy a home that you'll be happy living in and in an area you like. Buy a home with the plan being to remain in that home for at least 6 years. If you're planning on having kids, then buy a home that will accommodate that. If you're not planning on living in the same place at least 6 years, then buying might not be the best idea, and certainly might not be the best \""investment\"". You're buying a home that will end up having emotional value to you. This isn't like buying a rental property or commercial real estate. Chances are you won't lose money in the long run, unless the market crashes again, but in that case everyone pretty much gets screwed so don't worry about it.  We're not in a housing market like what existed in decades past. The idea of buying a home so that you'll make money off it when you sell it isn't really as reliable a practice as it once was. Take advantage of the ridiculously low interest rates, but note that if you wait, they're not likely to go up by an amount that will make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.  My family and I went through the exact same thought process you're going through right now. We close on our new house tomorrow. We battled over renting somewhere - we don't have a good rental market compared to buying here, buying something older for less money and fixing it up - we're HGTV junkies but we realized we just don't have the time or emotional capacity to deal with that scenario, or buying new\/like new. There are benefits and drawbacks to all 3 options, and we spent a long time weighing them and eventually came to a conclusion that was best for us.  Go talk to a realtor in your area. You're under no obligation to use them, but you can get a better feel for your options and what might best suit you by talking to a professional. For what it's worth, our realtor is a big fan of Pulte Homes in our area because of their home designs and quality. We know some people who have bought in that neighborhood and they're very happy. There are horror stories too, same as with any product you might buy."""
"""Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically?""","""Glad my question got bumped. I took it as a sign to get a solid answer out of Schwab. First the rep gave me the same line that it was impossible to provide paperless statements for a 401(k) plan because of \""regulations\"". I pressed the issue and got this from the rep: I just spoke with our dedicated small business plan team. They told me   that there are regulations that state that a Qualified Plan, such as   this, require to have a statement sent. It is a Schwab policy that we   have decided to only allow paper statements for this account type. So to clarify, it is a Schwab business decision to have the statements   available only by mail. Hope someone from Schwab with some authority sees this post and is pushed toward helping change their policy. I can't imagine what a colossal waste of paper, postage, and hassle it is for everyone involved."""
"""When are investments taxed?""","""An investment is sold when you sell that particular stock or fund. It doesn't wait until you withdraw cash from the brokerage account. Whether an investment is subject to long term or short term taxes depends on how long you held that particular stock. Sorry, you can't get around the higher short term tax by leaving the money in a brokerage account or re-investing in something else. If you are invested in a mutual fund, whether it's long or short term depends on when you buy and sell the fund. The fact that the fund managers are buying and selling behind your back doesn't affect this. (I don't know what taxes they have to pay, maybe you really are paying for it in the form of management fees or lower returns, but you don't explicitly pay the tax on these \""inner\"" transactions.) Your broker should send you a tax statement every year giving the numbers that you need to fill in to the various boxes of your income tax form. You don't have to figure it out. Of course it helps to know the rules. If you've held a stock for 11 1\/2 months and are planning to sell, you might want to consider waiting a couple of weeks so it becomes a long term capital gain rather than short term and thus subject to lower tax."""
"""One Share Stock Reverse Split""","""Any time there is a share adjustment from spin-off, merger, stock split, or reverse slit; there is zero chance for the stockholders to hang on to fractional shares. They are turned into cash.   For the employees in the 401K program or investors via a mutual fund or ETF this isn't a problem. Because the fraction of a share left over is compared to the thousands or millions of shares owned by the fund as a collective. For the individual investor in the company this can be a problem that they aren't happy about.  In some cases the fractional share is a byproduct that will result from any of these events. In the case of a corporate merger or spin-off most investors will not have an integer number of shares, so that fraction leftover that gets converted to cash isn't a big deal. When they want to boost the price to a specific range to meet a regulatory requirement, they are getting desperate and don't care that some will be forced out. In other cases it is by design to force many shareholders out. They want to go private. They to 1-for-1000 split. If you had less than 1000 shares pre-split then you will end up with zero shares plus cash. They know exactly what number to use. The result after the split is that the number of investors is small enough they they can now fall under a different set of regulations. They have gone dark, they don't have to file as many reports, and they can keep control of the company.  Once the Board of Directors or the majority stockholders votes on this, the small investors have no choice."""
"""Is UK house price spiral connected to debt based monetary system? ""","""There are a few factors at work here, supply and demand being the main one. The Office for National Statistics has some good information: http:\/\/visual.ons.gov.uk\/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk\/ Supply has historically struggled to compete with demand in the UK and this situation has been exacerpated since the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.  She set up a variety of schemes to encourage people to own their own home, such as tax relief (MIRAS) and since then home ownership in the UK has increased dramatically. The then conservative government also set up the \""right to buy\"" scheme (in 1980) that allowed council tenants to purchase their council houses at a discounted rate.  The effect of this was to increase the number of home owners whilst reducing the amount of housing available for councils to rent to new tenants.  Anecdotal evidence (I can't find a documented source to back this up) suggests that councils did not build sufficient new homes to replace those purchased by their ex-tenants. The population of the UK has also increased, by around 10 million since 1980 (around 20%) and this has pushed up demand for housing.  House building in the UK has not kept pace with these factors that has led to a shortage of supply that has pushed up prices. http:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/ons\/rel\/pop-estimate\/population-estimates-for-uk--england-and-wales--scotland-and-northern-ireland\/2013\/sty-population-changes.html There's another factor at play here as well.  If you go back to the 1970s around 53% of women would go out to work but in 2013 this figure increased to 67% as it became more common for households to have double incomes.  This extra supply of cash also pushed up house prices. http:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/ons\/dcp171776_328352.pdf Your question regards a debt based monetary system is not entirely clear, but there are limitations put onto how much money people can borrow that are potentially limiting how much house prices can rise by.  Today most lenders are more conservative in how much they will lend but this wasn't the case in the mid 2000s when house prices rose very quickly.   Lenders are more cautious today after the crash of the late 2000s, but things are begining to relax again and they are starting to lend more which could in turn lead to further house price rises in line with what was seen in the 2000s. Recessions have coincided with house prices falling back or at least being stable.  In the 1980s house prices trebled from 1980 to 1988 but then fell back a little as the recession hit, before starting to rise again in 1997.  This rise was sustained until 2008 during which time prices trebled again.  Based on this you could assume prices will treble again as we come out of the recession, as long as this is sustained for 8 years or so. However, as the potential for more households to become double income is reduced (high female employment already) and wages are unlikely to raise that quickly, this may not be realistic, unless the mortgage lenders become extremely lax, to the point of reckless! To answer your other question, about the affordability of housing, this will be based on the level of wages in the UK and how strict or lax the lenders are, also taking into effect the availability of housing for purchase.  If wages rise, house prices will rise, if lenders are willing to lend more money, house prices will rise and if demand continues to outrstip supply, prices will rise. None of the major UK political parties are likely to solve the problems of population growth and not enough houses being built so it is likely prices will rise but you could argue that they are not far off a peak based on current wages and lenders attitudes.  If the UK economy continues to recover from the recession, it is possible they will fuel another housing boom by lending ever increasing salary multiples as happened in the 2000s, unless there is government intervention, ie regulation of the lenders."""
"""Is an Income Mutual Fund a good alternative to a savings account?""","""The value will certainly fluctuate up and down (but on average gain more than a savings account), but so long as you have enough liquid assets for emergencies, then yes, it's a perfectly good alternative to savings accounts. how risky, in general, are Index Income Funds. How are you defining \""risk\""? If you mean \""probability that I'll lose it all\"" then it's virtually zero.  If you mean \""how much the value can fluctuate\"" then it's certainly not risk-free, but it has less volatility that individual stocks.  If you take the S&P 500 as a proxy, you might expect the change in value over any given year to fluctuate between -30% (like 2008) and +40%, with an average change of around 8%. There will be funds that have less volatility, but produce less return, and funds that have more volatility but higher average returns."""
"""Are there any ETFs that follow the \""Dogs of the Dow\"" allocation?""","""Google is your friend. If you buy me a beer, I might be as well. By the way DOD is the ticker.  Dogs of the Dow ETF"""
"""Moving savings to Canada?""","""Yes, you can put assets in Canadian banks.  Will it protect your wealth to a greater extent than the FDIC protection provided by the US Government? Probably not. If you do business or spend significant time in Canada, then having at least some money in Canada makes sense. Otherwise, you're trying to protect yourself against some outlying risk of a US banking collapse, while subjecting yourself to a very real currency exchange risk."""
"""What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate]""","""As a thought experiment I suppose we can ask where dividends came from and what would be different if they never existed. The VOC or Dutch East India Companywas the first to IPO, sell shares and also have a dividend.   There had been trade entrepot before the VOC, the bulk cog (type of sea-going ship) trade in the Hanseatic League, but the VOC innovation was to pool capital to build giant spice freighters - more expensive than a merchant partnership could likely finance (and stand to lose at sea) on their own but more efficient than the cogs and focused on a trade good with more value.  The Dutch Republic became rich by this capital formed to pursue high value trade. Without dividends this wouldn't have been an innovation in seventeenth century Europe and enterprises would be only as large as say the contemporary merchant family networks of Venice could finance.  So there could be large partnerships, family businesses and debt financed ventures but no corporations as such."""
"""What is the best way to make a bet that a certain stock will go up in the medium term?""","""You could try to refine your options strategy:  For instance you could buy the USD 750 call option(s) you mentioned and at the same time sell (short) call options with a higher strike price, which is above the share price level you expect that Apple will trade at in one year (for instance USD 1,100).  By doing this, you would receive the premium of the call option(s) with the higher option, which in turn would help you finance buying your USD 750 call(s). The net effect of this trading strategy would be that you would give up the extra profit you would earn if Apple would rose above USD 1,100 (the strike price of the call option sold short). Your total risk would be even less than with your actual strategy (in my view)."""
"""Who maintains receipt for employee expense reimbursements?""","""In the normal course of events, you should receive a separate check for the amount of the purchase, and that amount should not be included in your wages as shown on your W-2 statement.  If the amount is included on your paycheck, it should still be listed separately as a non-taxable item, not as part of wages paid.  In other words, the IRS should not even be aware that this money  was paid to you, there is no need to list the amount anywhere on your  income tax return, and if you are paranoid about the matter, staple the stub attached to the reimbursement to a copy of your bank statement showing that you deposited the money into your account and save it in your file of tax papers for the year, just in case the IRS audits you and requires you to document every deposit in your checking account.  The amount is a business expense that is deductible on your employer's tax return, and your employer is also required to keep documentation that the  employee expense reimbursement plan is running as per IRS rules (i.e., the employer is not slipping money to you \""under the table\"" as a reimbursement instead of paying you wages and thus avoiding the employer's share of FICA taxes etc) and that is why your employer needs the store receipt, not a hand-written note from you, to show the IRS if the IRS asks. You said you paid with \""your own cash\"" but in case this was not meant literally and you paid via credit card or debit card or check, then any mileage award, or points, or cash back for credit card use are yours to keep tax-free, and any interest charges  (if you are carrying a revolving balance or paid through your HELOC) or  overdraft or bounced check fees are yours to pay."""
"""How long do credit cards keep working after you disappear?""","""Generally speaking the bank accounts and credit card accounts remain open.  Banks and the credit card companies don't monitor public records on a daily basis.  Instead, whoever is handling your estate will need to obtain copies of your death certificate and they will then search your paper records to identify all accounts (reason to get your act together - there are books on the subject).  The executor will work with the banks and card companies to make sure all your charges and payments clear (common to have them open for months or even a year) and to make close or transfer autopays.  They will make sure to notify the credit agencies to flag your accounts so no new accounts can be created.  MANY copies of the death certicates are needed."""
"""Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? ""","""This is largely a cultural issue. I would be appalled at the very idea that my parents would charge me interest for lending me money. Just as they would be appalled if I were to do so if lending them money. I find the idea of attempting to make money off of your children fundamentally wrong.  I realize that you only want to do this to teach them, that you have their best interests in mind and not your own profit. Nevertheless, what will actually happen were you to charge them interest is that you would accrue a monetary gain at the expense of your children. Is that really something you would be comfortable with? Now, as I stated at the beginning, this is clearly a cultural issue. Based on the other answers here, many cultures, probably including your own, find nothing wrong with this. I've even heard of people charging their adult children rent when they come home for the holidays, something that is completely baffling to me.  The point I am trying to make is that asking other people's opinions on whether you should do this is not very useful unless those people share your own cultural background. My family and culture are such that the idea of charging interest to one's family members seems downright immoral to me. Given that you are asking here, it seems like you might be on the fence about it yourself. However, I freely admit that my answer is colored by my own cultural prejudices and may very well not be applicable to you.  Still, ask yourself, is a relatively small amount of money in the grand scheme of things\u2014or, for that matter, an entire fortune\u2014worth jeopardizing your relationship with your children? Do you really believe that having their parents retroactively charge them interest for a loan will somehow teach them something about the \""real world\"" that your already adult children don't know? One of the main reasons they came to you and didn't go to a bank is precisely that they expected the loan to be interest free.  So, sure, tell them that you won't lend any more until they repay what they owe. Even better, sit them down and have an honest, adult conversation, explaining that the absence of the money they owe is making itself felt in your household and work out a way they can repay you.  What, in my opinion, you most certainly shouldn't do is treat your relationship with your children as a regular business transaction. It isn't and I am sure you don't want it to be."""
"""If you want to trade an equity that reflects changes in VIX, what is a good proxy for it?""","""I'd look at VXX, I believe it closely tracks what you are looking to do. http:\/\/www.ipathetn.com\/product\/VXX\/ However, as already noted in other responses, this isn't trading VIX itself (in fact it is impossible to do so).  Instead, this ETF gives exposure to short-term SP500 futures contracts, which in theory should be very correlated to market volatility."""
"""What is the tax treatment of scrip dividends in the UK?""","""The HMRC website would explain it better to you. There is a lot of factors and conditions involved, so refer to the HMRC website for clarification. If your question had more details, it could have been easy to pinpoint the exact answer. Do I declare the value of shares as income Why would you do that ? You haven't generated income from that yet(sold it to make a profit\/loss), so how can that be declared as income."""
"""What are the advantages of a Swiss bank account?""","""This doesn't answer your question, but as an aside, it's important to understand that your second and third bullet points are completely incorrect; while it used to be true that Swiss bank accounts often came with \""guarantees\"" of neutrality and privacy, in recent years even the Swiss banks have been caving to political pressure from many sides (especially US\/Obama), with regards to the most extreme cases of criminals. That is to say, if you're a terrorist or a child molester or in possession of Nazi warcrime assets, Swiss banks won't provide the protection you're interested in. You might say \""But I'm not a terrorist or a pervert or profiteering of war crimes!\"" but if you're trying so hard to hide your personal assets, it's worth wondering how much longer until Swiss banks make further concessions to start providing information on PEOPLE_DOING_WHAT_YOU_ARE_DOING. Not to discourage you, this is just food for thought. The \""bulletproof\"" protection these accounts used to provide has been compromised. I work with online advertising companies, and a number of people I know in the industry get sued on a regular basis for copyright or trademark infringement or spamming; most of these people still trust Swiss bank accounts, because it's still the best protection available for their assets, and because Swiss banks haven't given up details on someone for spamming... yet."""
"""How to negotiate when you have something to give back?""","""NEVER combine the negotiations for trade-in of an old car and purchase of a new one (and\/or financing), if you can avoid doing so. Dealers are very good at trading off one against the other to increase their total profit, and it's harder for you to walk away when you have to discard the whole thing. These are separate transactions, each of which can be done with other parties.  Treat them as such."""
"""Is VAT applied when a tradesman charges for materials?""","""The plumber will apply for and receive a refund of the amount of VAT he paid on the purchase amount.  That's the cornerstone of how VAT works, as opposed to a sales tax.  So for example: (Rounded approximate amounts for simplicity) Now, at each point, the amount between (original cost VAT) and (new VAT) is refunded.  So by the end, a total of \u00a33 VAT is paid on the pipe (not \u00a36.2); and at each point the business 'adding value' at that stage pays that much.  The material company adds \u00a31 value; the producer adds \u00a34 value; the supplier adds \u00a35 value; the plumber adds \u00a35 value.   Each pays some amount of VAT on that amount, typically 20% unless it's zero\/reduced rated.  So the pipe supplier pays \u00a31 but gets a \u00a30.2 refund, so truly pays \u00a30.8.  The plumber pays \u00a33 (from your payment) but gets a \u00a32 refund.   So at each level somebody paid a bit, and then that bit is then refunded to the next person up the ladder, with the final person in the chain paying the full amount.  The \u00a30.2 is refunded to the producer, the \u00a31 is refunded to the supplier, the \u00a32 is refunded to the plumber."""
"""Should I file taxes or Incorperate a personal project?""","""There are two reasons for incorporating a business in Canada - limiting liability and providing some freedom in structuring your taxes. Since you are asking about taxes, I will restrict myself to that topic. First of all, remember that if you don't make much money, there isn't much tax to save by clever structuring of your affairs. And if you do incorporate, you will pay taxes as a corporation, and pay taxes again on your salary paid from that corporation. It can still be advantageous, because the small business tax rate is less that the higher tax brackets of personal taxes, and you don't have to pay out all of the profit as salary. If you don't incorporate, you still must pay taxes on your net income from the business. (See brian's answer.) Definitely keep track of your income and expenses, even if you don't plan on making money, in case you get audited. If the CRA wants to call your hobby a business, you will need to show that you haven't made any profit. I am just giving you a few bits of advice because this subject is complicated. Too complicated for an answer on this site. If you are still interested, go to your local library and get some books on the subject."""
"""Why are estimated taxes due \""early\"" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only?""","""There are too many nuances to the question asked to explore fully but here are a few points to keep in mind. If you are a cash-basis taxpayer (most individuals are), then you are not required to pay taxes on the money that has been billed but not received as yet.  If you operate on an accrual basis, then the income accrues to you the day you perform the service and not on the day you bill the client. You can make four equal payments of estimated tax on the due dates, and if these (together with any income tax withholding from wage-paying jobs) are at least 90% of your tax liability for that year, then you owe no penalties for underpayment of tax regardless of how your income varied over the year. If your income does vary considerably over the year (even for people who only have wages but who invest in mutual funds, the income can  vary quite a bit since mutual funds typically declare dividends and capital gains in December), then you can pay different amounts in each quarterly installment of estimated tax. This is called the annualization method (a part of Form 2210 that is best avoided unless you really need to use it).  Your annualized income for the payment due on June 15 is 2.4 = 12\/5 times your taxable income through May 31. Thus, on Form 2210, you are allowed to assume that your average monthly taxable income  through May 31 will continue for the rest of the year. You then compute the tax due on that annualized income and you are supposed to have paid at least 45% of that amount by June 15. Similarly for September 15 for which you look at income through August 31, you use a multiplier of 1.5 = 12\/8 and need to pay 67.5% of the tax on the annualized income, and so on.  If you miscalculate these numbers and pay too little tax in any installment, then you owe penalties for that quarter.  Most people find that guesstimating the tax due for the entire year and paying it in equal installments is simpler than keeping track of nuances of the annualized method. Even simpler is to pay 100% of last year's tax in four equal installments (110% for high earners) and then no penalty is due at all. If your business is really taking off and your income is going to be substantially higher in one year, then this 100%\/110% of last year's tax deal could allow you to postpone a significant chunk of your tax bill till April 15."""
"""Estate taxes and the top 1 percent by net worth""","""There are two main reasons for the difference between these two numbers: While there are a few people that are wildly wealthy, most of the people with more than 10 million have between 10-50 million dollars.  These people shield most of their estate and in the end the tax only effects a small portion of even the wealthy."""
"""Bollinger Bands and TRENDING market""","""If upper and bollinger bands either converge (both bands are getting more and more close together) or diverge (both bands are getting more and more away from each other), does that mean the market is TRENDING? The answer is no. The divergence or convergence of BB-upper & lower band does not indicate if the market is trending or not. It only indicated if volatility is increasing or decreasing. Or is market trending only in case if both bands, upper and lower, are parallel and at the same time NOT horizontal? The answer is yes. To understand the reason consider that BB is constructed from a central Moving Average along with standard deviation. Upper Band=MA+2*SD, Lower Band=MA-2*SD. A moving average is a trend following indicator and volatility has nothing to do with trend (as SD only measures the price movement around the mean). Which essentially means BB has trend following qualities. The upper and lower bands remain more or less parallel in between band contraction and expansion. Refer below:   You shall see distinctly phases when BB bands are not parallel and are parallel and not horizontal. As mentioned above, when BB bands are expanding or contracting they do not give indication of the trend direction. When they are parallel, close or apart and not horizontal, they provide a good directional bias through the general slope. Though a more effective method to determine trend and its direction is the central MA of BB. Again, refer below:  Here you can see that some portion of the bands are parallel and more or less horizontal. The price action would tell you that the stock is now range-bound as opposed to trending. The primary use of the BB bands are to gauge volatility as @misantroop stated. The primary trend direction is usually derived from the central MA."""
"""Can a wealthy investor invest in or make a deal with a company before it goes public \/ IPO?""","""Yes, it is common for investors to make equity investments in technology companies pre-IPO.  There are technology incubators like Y Combinator that exist to make \""angel\"" investments, which are early-stage equity investments in private technology companies (these investments are sometimes in notes that are convertible to equity, but are very similar to a stock investment).  Wealthy individuals can also make angel investments (e.g. Peter Thiel made a $500K investment in Facebook in 2004 for 10.2% of the company).  Additionally, venture capital firms exist to make equity investments in private companies.  In the US, you need to be an Accredited Investor to make private equity investments (income greater than $200K or net worth greater than $1 million), but you probably need a lot more money than the minimum and connections to get in on these deals in reality."""
"""Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options?""","""Matthew - what was the stock price and strike price of the option when you did this? I've never seen an at-the-money strike with only a month to run have a price 25% of the underlying stock. Jaydles covers the variables really well in his answer."""
"""Why can't a US state default, but a EU state can?""","""US or EU states are sovereigns which cannot go bankrupt. US states have defaulted in the 1840's, but in most of those cases creditors were eventually repaid in full. (I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that Indiana was an exception with regard to costs incurred building a canal system) The best modern example of a true near-default was New York City in the late 1970's. Although New York City isn't a state, the size and scope of its finances is greater than many US states. What happened then in a nutshell: Basically, a default of a major state or a city like NYC where creditors took major losses would rock the financial markets and make it difficult for all states to obtain both short and long term financing at reasonable rates. That's why these entities get bailed out -- if Greece or California really collapse, it will likely create a domino effect that will have wide reaching effects."""
"""Why do people buy stocks at higher price in merger?""","""Microsoft wants to buy a majority in the stock. To accomplish that, they have to offer a good price, so the current share owners are willing to sell. Just because the CEO of LinkedIN agreed to the deal doesn't really mean much, only that he is willing to sell his shares at that price. If he does not own 50%, he basically cannot complete the deal; other willing sellers are needed. If Microsoft could buy 50+% of the shares for the current market price, they would have just done that, without any negotiations. That is called a hostile take-over."""
"""Risk to Reward Ratio Calculation""","""If you plan to take profit at $1.00 then your profit will be $40. Then, if you set your stop at $0.88 then your loss if you get stopped will be $20.  So your Reward : Risk = 2:1.  Note, that this does not take into account brokerage in and out and any slippage from the price gapping past your stop loss."""
"""How can I calculate how much an option would be worth after X days if the underlying stock changed by +\/- $Y?""","""You'd need to know the delta and the theta of the option. You can either calculate them yourself using a model like Black-Scholes (assuming you have a market price and can imply a volatility, and know the other factors that go into the model) or, you can see if your broker quotes \""greeks\"" as well (mine does). The delta is the sensitivity (rate of change in value) to the underlying stock price, and the theta is the sensitivity to time passing (usually expressed in $\/day).  So if your option has a delta of .5 and a theta of -.04, when one day passes and the underlying stock goes up $3, the option will gain roughly $1.50 due to the underlying stock price and lose $0.04 due to time passing."""
"""What is 'consolidating' debt and why do people do it?""","""This can mean a few things to me.  Some of which has been mentioned already. It can mean one (or all) of the following to me: You take out a new credit card and transfer ALL other credit balances to it. (Only good if you destroy the others, this is a 0% offer, AND you plan on paying this card off furiously.) You do the loan thing mentioned earlier. You go to a credit consolidation service who will handle your paying your payments and you send them one payment each month.  (Highly discourage using them.  A majority of them are shady, and won't get do what they say they will do.  Check Better Business Bureau if you find yourself considering them as an option.) In the first two cases, you are just reducing the number of hands reaching into your bank account.  But keep in mind, doing this is not the same as paying off debt.  You can't borrow your way out.  You can do this as part of your plan, but do so CAREFULLY."""
"""What happened when the dot com bubble burst?""","""The dot.com companies were purveyors of the Internet, then a \""new\"" technology around 2000. Everyone \""knows\"" that such a new technology will change the economy and society. What people didn't know at the time was WHICH companies would be the leaders\/beneficiaries of such change. So investors pushed up the stock prices of ALMOST ALL companies in the \""space.\"" Any ONE (or two or three) companies can benefit from such a new technology. But not ALL of them can: It's something called the \""fallacy of composition.\"" That is, there can be one or two Googles (or Microsoft of a previous era), but not 100 of them. Most of the other 98 will go bust. Those were victims of the bubble that affected all, including the successful ones. It's a bit like the California gold rush. Maybe one of 10 miners got \""rich\"" (or at least moderately wealthy). The other 90% died heartbroken, trying."""
"""Different ways of looking at P\/E Ratio vs EPS""","""Check your math... \""two stocks, both with a P\/E of 2 trading at $40 per share lets say, and one has an EPS of 5 whereas the other has an EPS of 10 is the latter a better purchase?\"" If a stock has P\/E of 2 and  price of $40 it has an EPS of $20. Not $10. Not $5."""
"""In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter?""","""Revenue Canada allows for some amount of tax deferral via several methods. The point is that none of them allow you to avoid tax, but by deferring from years when you have high income to years when you have lower income allows you to realize less total tax paid due to the marginal rate for personal income tax. The corporate dividend approach (as explained in another answer) is one way. TFSAs are another way, but as you point out, they have limits.  Since you brought TFSAs into your question: About the best and easiest tax deferral option available in Canada is the RRSP. If you don't have a company pension, you can contribute something like 18% of your income. If you have a pension plan, you may still be able to contribute to an RRSP as well, but the maximum contribution amount will be lower. The contribution lowers your taxable income which can save you tax. Interest earned on the equity in your RRSP isn't taxed. Tax is only paid on money drawn from the plan because it is deemed income in that year. They are intended for retirement, but you're allowed to withdraw at any time, so if you have little or no income in a year, you can draw money from your RRSP. Tax is withheld, which you may or may not get back depending on your taxable income for that year. You can think of it as a way to level your income and lower your legitimate tax burden"""
"""What are good games to play to teach young children about saving money?""","""I found this great resource at MarketWatch.com - a listing on online games that help parents teach kids about saving and finance, set up by age group. Here's an example of some of the content: For children six to nine: www.fleetkids.com, sponsored by the Fleet Bank, has great games -- like \""Buy lo, Sell hi\"" and \""Chunka Change\"" -- that teach kids about spending and saving. Kids can compete for prizes such as computers and backpacks for their schools."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""Over a period of time greater than 10 years (keep in mind, 2000-2009 ten year period fails, so I am talking longer) the market, as measured by the S&P 500, was positive. Long term, averaging more than 10%\/yr.  At a 1 year horizon, the success is 67 or so percent. It's mostly for this reason that those asking about investing are told that if they need money in a year or two, to buy a house for instance, they are told to stay out of the market.  As the time approaches one day or less, the success rate drops to 50\/50. The next trade being higher or lower is a random event.  Say you have a $5 commission. A $10,000 trade buy\/sell is $10 for the day. 250 trading days costs you $2500 if you get in and out once per day. You need to be ahead 25% for the year to break even.  You can spin the numbers any way you wish, but in the end, time (long time spans) is on your side."""
"""Brent crude vs. USD market value ""","""I don't think the two are particularly linked.  While Brick is right in that the price of oil is denominated in dollars, I don't think that's responsible for most of the movement here. Oil has been weak for intrinsic reasons related to oil: supply\/demand imbalance, largely.  (Oil also was way over-priced back when it was > $100 a barrel; a lot of that was due to worries about instability in the Middle East.) The dollar has been strong for other, separate intrinsic reasons.  The American economy has had a stronger rebound than Europe or Asia; while we were hit hard in the 2008 recession, we rebounded pretty quickly from a whole-economy point of view (we still have a lot of weaknesses in terms of long-term unemployment, but that doesn't seem to be hurting our productivity much).   Pick another time period, and you won't necessarily see the same matching path (and I would even say that those paths don't match particularly well).  Marketwatch covered this for example; other sites show similar things.  There is a weak correlation, but only in the short term, or for specific reasons."""
"""Why do only a handful of Canadian companies have options trading on their stocks?""","""First, your question contains a couple of false premises: Options in the U.S. do not trade on the NYSE, which is a stock exchange.  You must have been looking at a listing from an options exchange. There are a handful of options exchanges in the U.S., and while two of these have \""NYSE\"" in the name, referring to \""NYSE\"" by itself still refers to the stock exchange. Companies typically don't decide themselves whether options will trade for their stock.  The exchange and other market participants (market makers) decide whether to create a market for them. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) is also a stock exchange.  It doesn't list any options.  If you want to see Canadian-listed options on equities, you're looking in the wrong place. Next, yes, RY does have listed options in Canada. Here are some.  Did you know about the Montreal Exchange (MX)?  The MX is part of the TMX Group, which owns both the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the Montreal Exchange. You'll find lots of Canadian equity and index options trading at the MX.  If you have an options trading account with a decent Canadian broker, you should have access to trade options at the MX. Finally, even considering the existence of the MX, you'll still find that a lot of Canadian companies don't have any options listed.  Simply: smaller and\/or less liquid stocks don't have enough demand for options, so the options exchange & market makers don't offer any. It isn't cost-effective for them to create a market where there will be very few participants."""
"""Pay off credit card debt or earn employer 401(k) match?""","""Mathwise, I absolutely agree with the other answers.  No contest, you should keep getting the match.  But, just for completeness, I'll give a contrarian opinion that is generally not very popular, but does have some merit.   If you can focus on just one main financial goal at a time, and throw every extra dollar you have at that one focus (i.e., getting out of debt, in your case), you will make better progress than if you're trying to do too many things at once.  Also, there something incredibly freeing about being out of debt that has other beneficial impacts on your life. So, if you can bring a lot of focus to the credit card debt and get it paid off quickly, it may be worth deferring the 401(k) investing long enough to do that, even though it doesn't make as much mathematical sense.  (This is essentially what Dave Ramsey teaches, BTW.)"""
"""How to get started with savings, paying off debt, and retirement?""","""I agree with the other answers here.  You need to pay off your debts first, so that you can take the money you would have been spending on debt payments and make retirement contributions instead.  The longer they hang around, the more you pay in interest and the more they are a risk to you.  Imagine if you or your spouse were laid off, which is better scenario: having to pay for your necessities plus debts or your necessities alone?  Just focus on one goal at a time, and you will do well. And the best way for you and your new spouse is to have the same financial goals and a huge part of that agreeing on a budget each month and being flexible.  Don't use it to control your spouse, you each have a vote.  I have not used Vangaurd, but have heard good things about them.  I would do some research before investing with them or anyone else for that matter. What you want to find when it comes to investing is someone with the heart of a teacher, not a product peddler.  If you have someone who is pushing financial products, without explaining (A) how they work, and (B) how they fit your situation, then RUN AWAY and find someone else who will do those two things."""
"""Why do stores and manufacturers use mail in rebates? A scam, or is there a way to use them effectively?""","""It's an effective way to achieve market segmentation without having to ask your customers how rich they are, and you get the benefit of finding out additional information like their address, email etc. The principle is similar to coupons on cereal boxes, anybody can get the rebate\/discount if they go to the effort, but people who are cash rich\/time poor are less likely to do so than those that really need the money. Joel Spolsky wrote about this and various other pricing mechanisms a while back, I like to reference the article every few weeks. It's well worth a read. Now, if you're retired and living off of social security, $7 an hour sounds pretty good, so you do it, but if you're a stock analyst at Merrill Lynch getting paid $12,000,000 a year to say nice things about piece-of-junk Internet companies, working for $7 an hour is a joke, and you're not going to clip coupons. Heck, in one hour you could issue \""buy\"" recommendations on ten piece-of-junk Internet companies! So coupons are a way for consumer products companies to charge two different prices and effectively segment their market into two. Mail-in rebates are pretty much the same as coupons, with some other twists like the fact that they reveal your address, so you can be direct marketed to in the future."""
"""What is network marketing? ""","""Network Marketing (also called multi-level marketing) isn't necessarily a skill that you learn in a course. It's a type of business model that's used by companies like Avon, Southern Living, Mary Kay, etc. It's also used in many scams (called pyramid schemes, but the aforementioned companies are using the pyramid structure, too). A lot. See here for a high-level explanation (pay attention to the pyramid scheme bit): http:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/encyclopedia\/network-marketing If you want to get into a Network Marketing venture, join a reputable company and start doing it. They will provide you with all of the training you need. Your \""manager\"" will make money based on how well you do. If you can in turn recruit other individuals to start selling, then you make money off their sales, and you \""manager\"" makes money off their sales. Hence the pyramid label.  Reputable companies charge very little to join, you set your own schedule, and don't have any hard quotas to live up to. Do your research! If they make you a promise that sounds too good to be true, it is."""
"""Is laminate flooring an \""Improvement\"" or \""Depreciable Property\""?""","""Aesthetics aside, laminate floor is attached to the floor and as such is a part of the building. So you depreciate it with the building itself, similarly to the roof. I believe the IRS considers these permanently attached because the foam itself is permanently attached, and is a part of the installation. To the best of my knowledge, the only flooring that is considered as a separate unit of property is tucked-in carpet or carpet pads (typically installed in commercial buildings, not homes). Everything else you'll have to prove to be an independent separate unit of property. Technically, you can take the tucked in carpet, and move it elsewhere as-is and be able to install it there assuming the size fits. You cannot do it with the foam (at the very least you'll need a new foam cover in the new location since you cannot take the foam with you from the old one). That's the difference between a \""separate unit of property\"" and \""part of the building\"". Note that the regulations in this area have changed significantly starting of 2014, so you may want to talk to a professional."""
"""How does high frequency trading work if money isn't available for 2-3 days after selling?""","""Purchases and sales from the same trade date will both settle on the same settlement date. They don't have to pay for their purchases until later either. Because HFT typically make many offsetting trades -- buying, selling, buying, selling, buying, selling, etc -- when the purchases and sales settle, the amount they pay for their purchases will roughly cancel with the amount they receive for their sales (the difference being their profit or loss). Margin accounts and just having extra cash around can increase their ability to have trades that do not perfectly offset. In practice, the HFT's broker will take a smaller amount of cash (e.g. $1 million) as a deposit of capital, and will then allow the HFT to trade a larger amount of stock value long or short (e.g. $10 million, for 10:1 leverage). That $1 million needs to be enough to cover the net profit\/loss when the trades settle, and the broker will monitor this to ensure that deposit will be enough."""
"""If someone gives me cash legally, can my deposit trigger an audit for them?""","""Am I right to worry about both of these? Of course. Who carries $75K in cash for no good reason? Your friend got the cash from somewhere, didn't he? If its legit - there's paper trail to show. Same for your parents. If you\/they can show the legit paper trail - there's nothing to worry about, the hassle, at worse, is a couple of letters to the IRS. If the money is not legit (your friend is selling crack to the kids in the hood and your parents robbed a 7\/11 to give you the money, for example) - there may be problems."""
"""Buying a house for a shorter term""","""When on this topic, you'll often hear general rules of thumb. And, similar to the 'only buy stocks if you plan to hold more than X years' there are going to be periods where if you buy at a bottom right before the market turns up, you might be ahead just months after you buy. I'd say that if you buy right, below market, you're ahead the day you close.  Edit - I maintain, and have Schiller providing supporting data) that real estate goes up with inflation in the long term, no more, no less. If the rise were perfectly smooth, correlated 100% month to month, you'd find it would take X years to break even to the costs of buying, commission and closing costs. If we call that cost about 8%, and inflation averages 3, it points to a 3 year holding period to break even. But, since real estate rises and falls in the short term, there are periods longer than 4 years where real estate lags, and very short periods where it rises faster than the costs involved.  The buy vs rent is a layer right on top of this. If you happen upon a time when the rental market is tight, you may buy, see the house decline 10% in value, and when the math is done, actually be ahead of the guy that rented."""
"""New company doesn't allow 401k deposits for 6 months, what to do with money I used to deposit?""","""I would open a taxable account with the same custodian that manages your Roth IRA (e.g., Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.). Then within the taxable account I would invest the extra money in low cost, broad market index funds that are tax efficient. Unlike in your 401(k) and Roth IRA, you will now have tax implications if your funds produce dividends or realize a capital gain. That is why tax-efficient funds are important to minimize this as much as possible.  The 3-fund portfolio is a popular choice for taxable accounts because of simplicity and the tax efficiency of broad market index funds that are part of the three fund portfolio. The 3-fund portfolio normally consists of Depending on your tax bracket you may want to consider municipal bonds in your taxable instead of taxable bonds if your tax bracket is 25% or higher.  Another option is to forgo bonds altogether in the taxable account and just hold bonds in retirement accounts while keeping tax efficient domestic and international tock funds in your taxable account. Then adjust the bond portion upward in your retirement accounts to account for the additional stocks in your taxable accounts. This will maintain the asset allocation that you've already chosen that is appropriate for your age and goals."""
"""Possible Risks of Publicizing Personal Stock Portfolio""","""I am considering making my investment history publicly available online What is the benefit you are looking for by doing this? Just to establish that you are a successful investor, so in long run can predict things ... have tons of followers? If so yes. Go ahead. Updates to the portfolio would have to be near real-time than post facto else no one will believe you and it would be useless. are there any reasons (legal, personal, etc.) not to publicize my personal investment history legal, depends on country; I can't think any [check the agreement with your broker \/ depository] on how much can be displayed. i.e. they may forbid from revealing contract ref \/ or some other details. On Personal front, it depends who takes a liking to your stuff.  Relatives: They know you are making huge profits and may want to borrow stuff ... or queue up to you requesting to make similar huge profits for them; only to realize when there is loss they blame you ... this can strain relationships. Friends: Although close friends may have a general idea, if you are too successful and it shows; it can have its own set of issues to deal with. Colleagues \/ Manager: If you are too successful, it may mean you may notionally be earning more than them ... they would start unconsciously monitoring your behaviour ... this guy spends all day in office researching for stocks and doesn't work. That way he knows how to pick good stock ... he is wasting company time. The same happens if you are loosing stock ... a unrelated bad day you are having maybe equated to loss in stocks. Depending on the job \/ roles, they may move you to different role as the perceived risk of you swindling goes up. Generally important work doesn't get assigned, as it would be assumed that if you are successful in investing, you may quite soon and start full time into it. Identify Theft: As mentioned by keshlam, to much data one can easily risk identity theft. Realize phone banking to get some routine stuff just asks for basic details [that are available on face book] and few recent debits \/ credits to the account. This will be easy see the trades you have done. None of us here are expert identity theifs. But the real one have tons of way t"""
"""Are there capital gains taxes or dividend taxes if I invest in the U.S. stock market from outside of the country?""","""I believe that tax will be withheld (at 30%?) on dividends paid to non-residents.  You can claim it back if your country has a tax treaty with the USA, but you will need to file.  You probably also need to file a W-series withholding form (eg a W9-BEN). Interesting question.  I would like to hear a more definitive answer."""
"""Stock Option Value correlated to net worth of company""","""There are a LOT of variables at play here, so with the info you've provided we can't give you an exact answer.  Generally speaking, employee options at a startup are valued by a 409a valuation (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internal_Revenue_Code_section_409A) once a year or more often.  But it's entirely possible that the company split, or took a round of funding that reduced their valuation, or any other number of things.   We'd need a good bit more information (which you may or may not have) to really answer the question."""
"""How is Butterfly Trade Strategy good if the mid Strike price is already past?""","""One way to look at a butterfly is to break it into two trades. A butterfly is actually made up of two verticals... One is a debit vertical: buy 490 put and sell the 460 put.  The other is a credit vertical: sell a 460 put and buy a 430 put.  If someone believes Apple will fall to 460, that person could do a few things. There are other strategies but this just compares the three common ones: 1) Buy a put. This is expensive and if the stock only goes to 460 you overpay for it. 2) Buy a put vertical. This is less expensive because you offset the price of your put. 3) Buy a butterfly. This is cheapest of the three because you have the vertical in #2 as well as a credit vertical on top of that to offset your cost.  The reason why someone would use the butterfly is to pay less upfront while capitalizing on a fall to 460. Of the three, this would be the better strategy to use if that happens. But REMEMBER that this only applies if the trader is right and it goes to 460. There is always a trade off for every strategy that the trader must be aware of. If the trader is wrong, and Apple goes to say 400, the put (#1) would make the most money and the butterfly(#3) would lose money while the vertical (#2) would still gain. So that is what you're sacrificing to get the benefits of the butterfly. Also helps to draw a diagram to compare the strategies."""
"""Buying & Selling Call Options""","""If you sold bought a call option then as you stated sold it to someone else what you are doing is selling the call you bought. That leaves you with no position.  This is the case if you are talking about the same strike, same expiration."""
"""Was this bill forgotten by a medical provider, and do notices need to be sent before collections?""","""Sometimes I think a question like this is one of moral versus legal.  The reality is that you know you owe the money because you received the services.  You're right that the bill should have been sent to you, and the natural urge for many people is to just count it in the win column when things like this happen and there's the chance to avoid paying. I suppose my question for you is, are you comfortable with the notion that you are not paying something that your heart of hearts tells you should be paid?  If roles were reversed and you, as a business owner, had forgotten to bill something for which you were rightfully due payment, wouldn't you hope they'd have the integrity to pay you anyway? The legal side of this can be a bit trickier, and much depends on the state you're in (assuming you're in the U.S.) because some have stiffer consumer collection and protection laws than others.  The rehab center could, when doing an audit of its accounts, discover that you didn't pay for these.  They could take the polite course of action and call you with a gentle reminder or send a bill, or they could be not so nice about it.  Either way, they can't send anything to collections for which you haven't been presented a bill and demonstrated an unwillingness to pay.  There's a process in place, regardless of the state, so they can't just automatically put it into collections. I will close with this question for you: did the rehab center help you with what you needed, and are you healthier and better because of their care?  If so, pay the bill.  That's my advice.  Keep in mind that unpaid medical costs just raise the prices for everyone else, because these providers will make up for the loss somewhere. I hope this helps. Good luck!"""
"""Anticipating being offered stock options in a privately held company upon employment. What questions should I ask?""","""The company doesn't necessarily have to go public. They can also be worth money if the company is acquired. Also keep in mind that even if the company does eventually go public, your shares can essentially be wiped out by a round of pre-IPO funding that gives the company a low valuation. You could ask:"""
"""Where does the stock go in a collapse?""","""If we can agree that 2010 was closer to the low of 2009 than 2007 then the rich did all the buying while the super-rich did all the selling. http:\/\/www2.ucsc.edu\/whorulesamerica\/power\/wealth.html Looks like the rich cleaned up during the Tech Crash too, but it looks like the poor lost faith. That limited data makes it look like the best investors are the rich. Market makers are only required by the exchanges to provide liquidity, bids & asks.  They aren't required to buy endlessly. In fact, market makers (at least the ones who survive the busts) try to never have a stake in direction.  They do this by holding equal inventories of long and shorts.  They are actually the only people legally allowed to naked short stock: sell without securing shares to borrow.  All us peons must secure borrowed shares before selling short. Also, firms involved in the actual workings of the market like bookies but unlike us peons who make the bets play by different margin rules.  They're allowed to lever through the roof because they take on low risk or near riskless trades and \""positions\"" (your broker, clearing agent, etc actually directly \""own\"" your financial assets and borrow & lend them like a bank). http:\/\/www.finra.org\/web\/groups\/industry\/@ip\/@reg\/@notice\/documents\/notices\/p004001.pdf This is why market makers can be assumed not to load up on shares during a decline; they simply drop the bids & asks as their bids are hit."""
"""How to sell a stock in a crashing market?""","""Your question contains a faulty assumption: During crashes and corrections the amount of sellers is of course higher than the amount of buyers, making it difficult to sell stocks. This simply isn't true.  Every trade has two sides; thus, by definition, for every seller there is buyer and vice versa.  Even if we broaden the definition of \""buyers\"" and \""sellers\"" to mean \""people willing to buy (or sell) at some price\"", the assumption still isn't true.  When a stock is falling it is generally not because potential buyers are exiting the market; it is because they are revising the prices they are willing to buy at downward.   For example, say there are a bunch of orders to buy Frobnitz Consolidated (DUMB) at $5. Suppose DUMB announces a downward revision to its earnings guidance. Those people might not be willing to buy at $50 anymore, so they'll probably cancel their $50 buy orders.  However, just because DUMB isn't worth as much as they thought it was, that doesn't mean it's completely worthless.  So, those prospective buyers will likely enter new orders at some lower value, say, $45.  With that, the value of DUMB has just dropped by $5, a 10% correction.  However, there are still plenty of buyers, and you can still sell your DUMB holdings, if you're willing to take $45 for them. In other words, the value of a security is not determined by the relative numbers of buyers and sellers.  It is determined by the prices those buyers and sellers are willing to pay to buy or accept to sell.  Except for cases of massive IT disruptions, such as we saw in the \""flash crash\"", there is always somebody willing to buy or sell at some price."""
"""Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \""highest interest\"" first?""","""If you have a debt that has very low interest now, but you are aware that it's not going to stay that way (0% introductory APR on a credit card, for example), it can make sense to pay that off before the higher rate kicks in."""
"""If there's no volume discount, does buying in bulk still make sense?""","""Instead of buying in bulk, I invest the money in equity mutual funds, for an expected return of 12%, which is more than inflation. So, I make more returns. But at the cost of a slight risk, which I'm comfortable with."""
"""Multi-user, non-US personal finance and budget software ""","""My wife and I have been ridiculously happy with YNAB. It's not \""online,\"" but syncs across our phones & computers using Dropbox. It supposedly supports different locales and currencies, but I have never needed to try that out."""
"""Calculate a weekly payment on a loan when payment is a month away""","""At time = 0, no interest has accrued. That's normal. And the first payment is due after a month, when there's a month's interest and a bit of principal due.  Note - I missed weekly payments. You'd have to account for this manually, add a month's interest, then calculate based on weekly payments."""
"""How come the government can value a home more than was paid for the house?""","""The property tax valuation and the fair market price are NOT one and the same.  They track each other, correlate to each other, but are almost NEVER the same number. In some parts of the USA, a municipality has to re-assess property tax values every ten years.  In these places, the tax value of a property is on something like a 10-year moving average, NOT on the volatile daily market price. EDIT:  It is easy to fall into the \""trap\"" of thinking that property tax valuation is intended to represent fair market value.  It's INTENT is to provide an accurate (or, as accurate as possible) RELATIVE VALUATION of your property compared to the other properties in the municipality. The sum of all the property values is the tax base of the municipality.  When the town budget (which is paid in part via property taxes) is set, the town simply divides the tax base into the budget total to arrive at the ratio of tax-to-collect, to the tax base, also called the \""tax rate per thousand dollars of valuation.\""  i.e. if the town tax base is US$10,000,000, and the town budget is US$500,000, then the ratio is 0.05, or $50 per thousand dollars of valuation.  If your property is assessed at US$100,000, then you would pay 100 x $50, or $5000 in property taxes that year. Since this is the goal of the property tax valuation, NOT deciding what your house is worth on the open market, then we are left with the question of \""why use the market value of a house for property assessment?\"" and the answer is that of all the various schemes and algorithms you can try, \""fair market value\"" is the easiest and most accurate...IF TIME FLUCUTATIONS ARE TAKEN OUT.  For example, if I buy a house in a development for $250,000 today, and next summer the housing market crashes, and you buy the identical house next door to me for $150,000, it does NOT stand to reason that you should pay less taxes than me, because your house is \""worth\"" $100,000 less.  In fact, BOTH our houses are worth $100,000 less. What matters most in property tax valuation isn't the actual number, but rather, is YOUR valuation the same as other essentially similar properties in your tax base?  Getting the RELATIVE ratio of value between you and your neighbors correct is the goal of property tax valuation."""
"""Investing thought experiment ""","""The market cap always reflect the company's equity.  Except that you cannot fix a stock price in a free market.  A company with such profit pattern would have stock price behave like present value of a perpetuity (future income stream discounted by risk free rate) Since your assumption is unachievable, there is no point in determining the logic."""
"""What does \""interest rates\"", without any further context, generically refer to?""","""When \""people say\"", each person is referring to whatever he\/she is looking at.  Interest rates tend to move roughly the same, but often there is a bias regarding long vs. short term.  In the US right now, short term interest rates are very low but there is a lot of chatter saying they will rise in the future.  The differential between long term rates and short term rates is high compared to historical norms, suggesting that the market believes this chatter.  You can also look at the differences in rates between different quality levels.  If the economy is improving, the difference in rate for lower rated debt vs. higher rated debt decreases as people think the chance of businesses failing is decreasing. Right now, any interest rate you look at is well below long term historical averages, so asserting that interest rates are low is quite safe."""
"""Why would you not want to rollover a previous employer's 401(k) when changing jobs?""","""The biggest reason why one might want to leave 401k money invested in an ex-employer's plan is that the plan offers some superior investment opportunities that are not available elsewhere, e.g. some mutual funds that are not open to individual investors such as S&P index funds for institutional investors (these have expense ratios even smaller than the already low expense ratios of good S&P index funds) or \""hot\"" funds that are (usually temporarily) closed to new investors, etc. The biggest reason to roll over 401k money from an ex-employer's plan to the 401k plan of a new employer is essentially the same: the new employer's plan offers superior investment opportunities that are not available elsewhere. Of course, the new employer's  401k plan must accept such roll overs. I do not believe that it is a requirement that a 401k plan must accept rollovers, but rather an option that a plan can be set up to allow  for or not.  Another reason to roll over 401k money from one plan to another  (rather than into an IRA) is to keep it safe from creditors. If you are  sued and found liable for damages in a court proceeding, the plaintiff can come after IRA assets but not after 401k money.  Also, you can take a loan from the 401k money (subject to various rules about how much can be borrowed, payment requirements etc) which you cannot from an IRA. That being said, the benefits of keeping 401k money as 401k money must be weighed against the usually higher administrative costs and usually poorer and more limited choices of investment opportunities  available in most 401k plans as Muro has said already."""
"""How is a Condominium \/ Apartment Building fiscally identified?""","""In such cases, it has a EIN, like any business would. Even absent the rent you suggest, the condo should have reserve funds, similar to an individual's emergency account, only more codified as to level and flows. These funds should be earning interest."""
"""What do the points in a stock market index epresent?""","""The All Ords Index consists of the 500 largest companies by market capitalisation listed on the Australia Stock Exchange.  Each stock in the All Ords. Index is given a weighting based on its market capitalisation. As the price of the stocks within the All Ords. Index change, so does the points on the index itself.  The Index is more sensitive to changes in the larger capitalised stocks due to their larger weighting in the Index. Example: If a company has a weighting of 10% and its price goes up by 10%, and all other stocks in the Index don't go up or down, then this will cause the All Ords Index to go up by 1% (10% of 10%)."""
"""15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15""","""If the interest rate in both mortgages is the same, then yes, you will end up paying the same amount in interest if both are paid off in 15 years. However, in practice, almost always a 15-year mortgage will have a much lower interest rate that a 30-year mortgage. Also, if you are thinking of taking out a 30-year mortgage with the intention of paying it off early, make sure it does not have an early payment penalty; this is a penalty the bank will charge you if you pay back the loan early."""
"""Where does the money go when I buy stocks?""","""When you buy a share of stock, you are almost always buying from someone who previously purchased that share and now wants to sell it. The money -- minus broker's fee -- goes to that other investor, which may be a person, a company (rarely the company that issued the stock, but that will occasionally be the case), an investment fund, the \""market maker\"" for that stock (websearch for definition of that term), or anyone else. They owned a small percentage of the company; you bought it from them and gave them the money for it, just as you would buy anything else. You don't know or care who you bought from; they don't know or care who they sold to; the market just found a buyer and seller who could agree on the price. There are a very few exceptions to that. The company may repurchase some of its own shares and\/or sell them again, depending on its own financial needs and obligations. For example, my own employer has to purchase its own shares periodically so it has enough on hand to sell to employees at a slight discount  through the Employee Stock Ownership Program. But you generally don't know that's who you're selling to; it happens like any other transaction. And during the Initial Public Offering, if you're lucky\/privileged enough to get in on the first wave of purchases, you're buying from the investment bank that's managing this process ... though that's an almost vanishingly rare case for \""retail\"" investors like us; we're more likely to get the shares after someone has already pushed the price up a bit. But really, when you buy a share the money goes to whoever you bought it from, and that's all you can know or need to know."""
"""When to trade in a relatively new car for maximum value""","""I love giving non-answer answers.  It will depend on you.  Suppose you are embarrassed by driving older cars, your significant other doesn't like having you drive an older car, you don't really maintain the car well, it develops a variety of problems, acquires a few dents and you really worry about reliability.  Then the value of the car will probably drop rather quickly below the blue book value and you should sell it. On the other hand, if you don't care how the car looks, it runs pretty well (fewer repairs than you would expect), you maintain it yourself (aka cheaply) and do a good job at that, and have plenty of friends who owe you a favor and will give you a ride if your car won't start, there will probably never be a time that the value to you drops below the 'official' blue book value (what others will pay), so you would drive it until the engine drops out of the chassis.  The blue book value represents some kind of rough consensus about what a car of that age and exterior condition is worth to the typical person; it will be the discrepancy between the 'typical' person and you that determines whether you'll sell. An illustration of this:  I know a few people who (1) don't care what their car looks like and (2) are very handy at repairs.  These people started out by buying cheap used cars and ran them until they basically fell to pieces.  However, even though their 'taste' in cars didn't changes, as their incomes increased, it finally reached the point where doing their own repairs was too much of a time sink, so the value of really old cars dropped in their minds and they shifted to buying newer cars and selling them before they completely fell apart.  That's why this is a hard question to answer."""
"""What's the best way to make money from a market correction?""","""A lot of people here talk about shorting stocks, buying options, and messing around with leveraged ETFs. While these are excellent tools, that offer novel opportunities for the sophisticated investor, Don't mess around with these until you have been in the game for a few years. Even if you can make money consistently right out of the gate, don't do it. Why? Making money isn't your challenge, NOT LOSING money is your challenge. It's hard to measure the scope of the risk you are assuming with these strategies, much less manage it when things head south. So even if you've gotten lucky enough to have figured  out how to make money, you surely haven't learned out how to hold on to it. I am certain that every beginner still hasn't figured out how to comprehend risk and manage losing positions. It's one of those things you only figure out after dealing with it. Stocks (with little to no margin) are a great place to learn how to lose because your risk of losing everything is drastically lower than with the aforementioned tools of the sophisticated investor. Despite what others may say you can make out really well just trading stocks.  That being said, one of my favorite beginner strategies is buying stocks that dip for reasons that don't fundamentally affect the company's ability to make money in the mid term (2 quarters).  Wallstreet loves these plays because it shakes out amateur investors (release bad news, push the stock down shorting it or selling your position, amateurs sell, which you buy at a discount to the 'fair price'.) A good example is Netflix back in 2007. There was a lawsuit because netflix was throttling movie deliveries to high traffic consumers. The stock dropped a good chunk overnight.  A more recent example is petrobras after their huge bond sale and subsequent corruption scandal. A lot of people questioned Petrobras' long-term ability to maintain sufficient liquidity to pay back the loans, but the cashflow and long term projections are more than solid. A year later the stock was pushed further down because a lot of amateur Brazilians invest in Petrobras and they sold while the stock was artificially depressed due to a string of corruption scandals and poor, though temporary, economic conditions. One of my favorite plays back in 2008-2011 was First Solar on the run-up to earnings calls. Analysts would always come out of these meetings downgrading the stock and the forums were full of pikers and pumpers claiming heavy put positions. The stock would go down considerably, but would always pop around earnings. I've made huge returns on this move. Those were the good ole days. Start off just googling financial news and blogs and look for lawsuits and\/or scandals. Manufacturing defects or recalls. Starting looking for companies that react predictably to certain events. Plot those events on your chart. If you don't know how to back-test events, learn it.  Google Finance had a tool for that back in the day that was rudimentary but helpful for those starting out. Eventually though, moreso than learning any particular strategy, you should learn these three skills: 1) Tooling: to gather, manipulate, and visualize data on your own.  These days automated trading also seems to be ever more important, even for the small fish. 2) Analytical Thinking learn to spot patterns of the three types:  event based (lawsuits, arbitrage, earnings etc), technical (emas, price action, sup\/res), or business-oriented (accounting, strategy, marketing). Don't just listen to what someone else says you should do at any particular moment, critical thinking is essential. 3) Emotions and Attitude: learn how to comprehend risk and manage your trigger finger. Your emotions are like a blade that you must sharpen every day if you want to stay in the game. Disclaimer: I stopped using this strategy in 2011, and moved to a pure technical trading regime. I've been out totally out of the game since 2015."""
"""How to avoid getting back into debt?""","""With your windfall, you've been given a second chance. You've become debt free again, and get to start over. Here is what I would recommend from this point on: Decide that you want to remain debt free. It sounds like you've already done this, since you are asking this question. Commit to never borrowing money again. It sounds overly simplistic, but if you stop using your credit cards to spend money you don't have and you don't take out any loans, you won't be in debt.  Learn to budget. Here is what is going to make being debt free possible. At the beginning of each month, you are going to write down your income for the month. Then write down your expenses for the month. Make sure you include everything. You'll have fixed monthly expenses, like rent, and variable monthly expenses, like electricity and phone. You'll also have ongoing expenses, like food, transportation, and entertainment. You'll have some expenses, like tuition, which doesn't come up every month, but is predictable and needs to be paid. (For these, you'll can set aside part of the money for the expense each month, and when the bill comes, you'll have the funds to pay it ready to go.) Using budgeting software, such as YNAB (which I recommend) will make this whole process much easier. You are allowed to change your plan if you need to at any time, but do not allow yourself to spend any money that is not in the plan.  Take action to address any issues that become apparent from your budget. As you do your budget, you will probably struggle, at first. You will find that you don't have enough income to cover your expenses. Fortunately, you are now armed with data to be able to tackle this problem. There are two causes: either your expenses are too high, or your income is too low.  Cut your expenses, if necessary. Before you had a written budget, it was hard to know where your money went each month. Now that you have a budget, it might be apparent that you are spending too much on food, or that you are spending too much on entertainment, or even that a roommate is stealing money. Do what you need to do to cut back the expenses that need cutting.  Increase your income, if necessary. You might find from your budget that your expenses aren't out of line. You live in as cheap a place as possible, you eat inexpensively, you don't go out to eat, etc. In this case, the problem isn't your spending, it is your income. In order to stay out of debt, you'll need to increase your income (get a job). I know that you said that this will slow your studies, but because you are now budgeting, you have an advantage you didn't have before: you now know how short you are each month. You can take a part time job that will earn you just enough income to remain debt free while maximizing your study time.  Build up a small emergency fund. Emergencies that you didn't plan for in your budget happen. To remain debt free, you should have some money set aside to cover something like this, so you don't have to borrow when it comes up. The general rule of thumb is 3 to 6 months of expenses, but as a college kid with low expenses and no family to take care of, you won't need a huge fund. $500 to $1000 extra in the bank to cover an unexpected emergency expense could be all it takes to keep you debt free."""
"""How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money?""","""An LLC is a pass-through entity in the USA, so profits and losses flow through to the individual's taxes.  Thus an LLC has a separate TIN but the pass-through property greatly simplifies tax filings, as compared to the complicated filings required by C-corps."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""A lot of these answers are really weak. The expected value is pretty much the answer.  You have to also though, especially as many many millions of tickets are purchased--make part of the valuation the odds of the jackpot being split x ways. So about 1 in 290--> the jackpot needs to be a take-home pot of $580 million for the $2 ticket. Assume the average # of winners is about 1.5 so half the time you're going to split the pot, bringing the valuation needed for the same jackpot to be $870 million. It's actually somewhat not common to have split jackpots because the odds are very bad + many people pick 'favourite numbers'."""
"""Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries""","""Your friends are overlooking a couple of problems with house prices and salaries being out of whack: Home 'equity' is a paper gain unless you realize it by selling the house. If you don't, but use the 'home ATM', all you're doing is piling up more debt that's secured on an asset that has downside risk. Ask anybody who's refinanced their house to buy a new boat or SUV in 2006\/2007. In other words you're remortgaging the chickens before the eggs hatched. Of course they're also forgetting that all this debt will have to be paid back at some point, and that usually takes income, not equity. In a certain sense the housing market is a pyramid scheme that requires an influx of new buyers to maintain prices. Very simply, if you can't sell your house to buy a bigger one because the first time buyer you're trying to sell it to can't afford the down payment or the payment on the mortgage, then you can't sell your house to buy a bigger\/better\/nicer one and the next person in the chain can't sell his\/hers. Cue the domino effect. House prices are only sustainable if people actually can afford to buy houses and if there's a massive disconnect between house prices and salaries, then house prices will fall eventually. It might just take a little longer depending on the amount of creative financing options that will eventually dry up."""
"""Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?""","""I kind of hate piling on with another opinion, but this is too long for a comment. I did what you are thinking of doing, I would at least try renting it for a couple years so long as: The primary risks of renting are mostly related to unexpected costs and bad tenants, you've got a very healthy income, so as long as you maintain a nice emergency fund it doesn't sound like keeping this property as a rental will be too much risk. If the rental market is strong where your house is, then you have a better chance of avoiding bad tenants. I like to keep my rent a little lower than the max I think it could go for, to attract more applications and hopefully find someone who will be a good longer term tenant. Tax-free gains So long as you lived in your house 2 of the last 5 years, you can sell without paying capital gains tax on your profit, so you could try renting it for 2 years and then sell. That was a key for me when I converted my first house to a rental. I liked that flexibility, there's still the typical renting risks associated, but it's not a lifelong commitment. You can get 2 years of increased equity\/appreciation tax-free, or you could find you enjoy it and keep it for the long haul."""
"""Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?""","""The issue is the time frame. With a one year investment horizon the only way for a fund manager to be confident that they are not going to lose their shirt is to invest your money in ultra conservative low volatility investments. Otherwise a year like 2008 in the US stock market would break them. Note if you are willing to expand your payback time period to multiple years then you are essentially looking at an annuity and it's market loss rider. Of course those contacts are always structured such that the insurance company is extremely confident that they will be able to make more in the market than they are promising to pay back (multiple decade time horizons)."""
"""I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it?""","""I am co-owner of a business, and we incorporated federally.  (Mostly to limit liability.)  There is some excellent information above, and most of my wisdom I got from a trusted lawyer and accountant (find experts you trust in these two areas, they will prove invaluable in so many areas.)   The one point I would add is that if you decide to incorporate, you can do so federally or provincially.  We were all set to go provincially, when our lawyer asked \""Is there any chance you might move the business?  Any chance you might want to do work in other provinces?  What about next year?  Five years?\""  If you are going through the expenses to set up a corporation, consider doing so federally, the extra costs were insignificant, but someday you might be glad you don't have to start from scratch.  In this day and age, many people end up moving out of province for work, family concerns, etc."""
"""F-1 student investing in foreign markets""","""You cannot have off-campus employment in your first year, but investments are considered passive income no matter how much time you put into that effort. Obviously you need to stay enrolled full-time and get good enough grades to stay in good standing academically, so you should be cautious about how much time you spend day trading. If the foreign market is also active in a separate time zone, that may help you not to miss class or otherwise divert your attention from your investment in your own education. I have no idea about your wealth, but it seems to me that completing your degree is more likely to build your wealth than your stock market trades, otherwise you would have stayed home and continued trading instead of attending school in another country."""
"""What is an \""International Equity\""?""","""International equity are considered shares of companies, which are headquartered outside the United States, for instance Research in Motion (Canada), BMW (Germany), UBS (Switzerland). Some investors argue that adding international equities to a portfolio can reduce its risk due to regional diversification."""
"""What bonds do I keep and which do I cash, why is the interest so different""","""Bonds released at the same time have different interest rates because they have different levels of risks and liquidity associated.  Risk will depend on the company \/ country \/ municipality that offers the bond: their financial position, and their resulting ability to make future payments & avoid default. Riskier organizations must offer higher interest rates to ensure that investors remain willing to loan them money. Liquidity depends on the terms of the loan - principal-only bonds give you minimal liquidity, as there are no ongoing interest payments, and nothing received until the bond's maturity date. All bonds provide lower liquidity if they have longer maturity dates. Bonds with lower liquidity must have higher returns to compensate for the fact that you will have to give up your cash for a longer period of time. Bonds released at different times will have different interest rates because of what the general 'market rate' for interest was in those periods. ie: if a bond is released in 2016 with interest rates approaching 0%, even a high risk bond would have a lower interest rate than a bond released in the 1980s, when market rates were approaching 20%. Some bonds offer variable interest tied to some market indicator - those will typically have higher interest at the time of issuance, because the bondholder bears some risk that the prevailing market rate will drop. Note regarding sale of bonds after market rates have changed: The value of your bonds will fluctuate with the market. If a bond was offered with 1% interest, and next year interest rates go up and a new identical bond is offered for 2% interest, when you sell your old bond you will take a loss, because the market won't want to pay full price for it anymore. Whether you should sell lower-interest rate bonds depends on how you feel about the factors above - do you want junk bonds that have stock-like levels of returns but high risks of default, maturing in 30 years? Or do you want AAA+ Bonds that have essentially 0% returns maturing in 30 days? If you are paying interest on debt, it is quite likely that you could achieve a net income benefit by selling the bonds, and paying off debt [assuming your debt has a higher interest rate than your low-rate bonds]. Paying off debt is sometimes referred to as a 'zero risk return', because essentially there is no real risk that your lender would otherwise go bankrupt. That is, you will owe your bank the car loan until you pay it, and paying it is the only thing you can do to reduce it.  However, some schools of thought suggest that maintaining savings + liquid investments makes sense even if you have some debt, because cash + liquid investments can cover you in some emergencies that credit cards can't help you with. ie: if you lose your job, perhaps your credit could be pulled and you would have nothing except for your liquid savings to tide you over. How much you should save in this way is a matter of opinion, but often repeated numbers are either 3 months or 6 months worth [which is sometimes taken as x months of expenses, and sometimes as x months of after-tax income]. You should look into this issue further; there are many questions on this site that discuss it, I'm sure."""
"""Rental Property - have someone look for you""","""Many real estate agents will assist with an apartment hunt, for a suitable fee. In a hot market that may be worth the money. Then again, my best finds were always through co-workers, after the first two."""
"""ACH debit blocks\/filters on consumer account""","""The technical feature exists to (1)block all ACH activity, (2)block all ACH credits, or (3)block all ACH debits attempting to post to the deposit account.  The large financial institutions will not deviate from their company policies and won't offer something like this for a personal account.  The smaller institutions and credit unions are much more willing to discuss options.  Especially if you maintain a large deposit balance or have many products with the institution, you might convince them this feature is very important and insist they block all ACH activity on your account. This feature is used frequently on controlled asset accounts where the balance must be frozen for a variety of reasons."""
"""What is the term for the quantity (high price minus low price) for a stock?""","""It is known as the range or the price spread of the stock. You can read more about it here http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/r\/range.asp"""
"""Who receives the money when one company buys another?""","""Shareholders of Monsanto  will get the money from Bayer. Shareholders are independent people or entities. Think of Monsanto  as a thing that shareholders had. This thing is now being purchased by Bayer"""
"""Moving savings to Canada?""","""The simplest, most convenient way I know of to \""move your savings to Canada\"" is to purchase an exchange-traded fund like FXC, the CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar Trust, or a similar instrument. (I identify this fund because I know it exists, not because I particularly recommend it.) Your money will be in Canadian currency earning Canadian interest rates. You will pay a small portion of that interest in fees. Since US banks are already guaranteed by the FDIC up to $250,000 per account, I don't really think you avoid any risks associated with the failure of an individual bank, but you might fare better if the US currency is subject to inflation or unfavorable foreign-exchange movements - not that such a thing would be a direct risk of a bank failure, but it could happen as a result of actions taken by the Federal Reserve under the auspices of aiding the economy if the economy worsens in the wake of a financial crisis - or, for that matter, if it worsens as a result of something else, including legislative, regulatory, or executive policies. Read the prospectus to understand additional risks with this investment. One of them is foreign-exchange risk. If the US economy and currency strengthen relative to the Canadian economy and its currency, you may lose substantial amounts of purchasing power. Additionally, one of the possible results of a financial crisis is a \""flight to safety\""; the global financial markets still seem to think the US dollar is pretty safe, and they may bid it up as they have done in the past, resulting in losses to your position (at least in the short term). I do not personally recommend moving all your savings to Canada, especially if it deprives you of income from more profitable investments over the long term, but moving some of your savings to Canada at least isn't a stupid idea, and it may turn out to be somewhat profitable. Having some Canadian currency is also a good idea if you plan to spend the money that you are saving on Canadian goods in the intermediate future."""
"""Do companies only pay dividends if they are in profit?""","""Yes the company can still pay dividends even if they aren't making a profit. 1) If the firm has been around, it might have made profits in the past years, which it might be still carrying (check for retained earnings in the financial statements). 2) Some firms in the past have had taken up debt to return the money to shareholders as dividends. 3) It might sell a part of it's assets and return the gain as dividends. 4) They might be bought by some other firm, which returns cash to shareholders to keep them happy. It pays to keep an eye on the financial statements of the company to check how much liquid money they might be carrying around to pay shareholders as dividends. They can stop paying dividends whenever they want. Apple didn't pay a dividend while Steve Jobs was around, even though they were making billions in profits. Many companies don't pay dividends because they find it more beneficial to continue investing in their business rather than returning money to shareholders."""
"""How would bonds fare if interest rates rose?""","""1. Interest rates What you should know is that the longer the \""term\"" of a bond fund, the more it will be affected by interest rates. So a short-term bond fund will not be subject to large gains or losses due to rate changes, an intermediate-term bond fund will be subject to moderate gains or losses, and a long-term bond fund will be subject to the largest gains or losses. When a book or financial planner says to buy \""bonds\"" with no other qualification, they almost always mean investment-grade intermediate-term bond funds (or for individual bonds, the equivalent would be a bond ladder averaging an intermediate term). If you want technical details, look at the \""average duration\"" or \""average maturity\"" of the bond fund; as a rough guide, if the duration is 10, then a 1% change in interest rates would be a 10% gain or loss on the fund. Another thing you can do is look at long-term (10 years or ideally longer) performance history on some short, intermediate, and long term bond index funds, and you can see how the long term funds bounced around more. Non-investment-grade bonds (aka junk bonds or high yield bonds) are more affected by factors other than interest rates, including some of the same factors (economic booms or recessions) that affect stocks. As a result, they aren't as good for diversifying a portfolio that otherwise consists of stocks. (Having stocks, investment grade bonds, and also a little bit in high-yield bonds can add diversification, though. Just don't replace your bond allocation with high-yield bonds.) A variety of \""complicated\"" bonds exist (convertible bonds are an example) and these are tough to analyze. There are also \""floating rate\"" bonds (bank loan funds), these have minimal interest rate sensitivity because the rate goes up to offset rate rises. These funds still have credit risks, in the credit crisis some of them lost a lot of money. 2. Diversification The purpose of diversification is risk control. Your non-bond funds will outperform in many years, but in other years (say the -37% S&P 500 drop in 2008) they may not. You will not know in advance which year you'll get. You get risk control in at least a few ways. There's also an academic Modern Portfolio Theory explanation for why you should diversify among risky assets (aka stocks), something like: for a given desired risk\/return ratio, it's better to leverage up a diverse portfolio than to use a non-diverse portfolio, because risk that can be eliminated through diversification is not compensated by increased returns. The theory also goes that you should choose your diversification between risk assets and the risk-free asset according to your risk tolerance (i.e. select the highest return with tolerable risk). See http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Modern_portfolio_theory for excruciating detail. The translation of the MPT stuff to practical steps is typically, put as much in stock index funds as you can tolerate over your time horizon, and put the rest in (intermediate-term investment-grade) bond index funds. That's probably what your planner is asking you to do. My personal view, which is not the standard view, is that you should take as much risk as you need to take, not as much as you think you can tolerate: http:\/\/blog.ometer.com\/2010\/11\/10\/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund\/ But almost everyone else will say to do the 80\/20 if you have decades to retirement and feel you can tolerate the risk, so my view that 60\/40 is the max desirable allocation to stocks is not mainstream. Your planner's 80\/20 advice is the standard advice. Before doing 100% stocks I'd give you at least a couple cautions: See also:"""
"""Good book-keeping software?""","""You can try Wave Accounting. Its a free software for Small Business and web-based. http:\/\/waveaccounting.com\/"""
"""Is there a resource for knowing when Annual and Quarterly Reports are coming out? ""","""https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=quarterly+and+annual+financial+report+calendar&oq=quarterly+and+annual+financial+report+calendar&aqs=chrome..69i57.9351j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 The third result on Google is: https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/markets\/earnings-calendar\/us The fourth result on Google is: https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/calendar\/earnings"""
"""Investing in stocks with gross income (not yet taxed) cash from contract work?""","""You need to report the income from any work as income, regardless of if you invest it, spend it, or put it in your mattress (ignoring tax advantaged accounts like 401ks).  You then also need to report any realized gains or losses from non-tax advantaged accounts, as well as any dividends received.  Gains and losses are realized when you actually sell, and is the difference between the price you bought for, and the price you sold for.  Gains are taxed at the capital gains rate, either short-term or long-term depending on how long you owned the stock.   The tax system is complex, and these are just the general rules.  There are lots of complications and special situations, some things are different depending on how much you make, etc.  The IRS has all of the forms and rules online.  You might also consider having a professional do you taxes the first time, just to ensure that they are done correctly.  You can then use that as an example in future years."""
"""Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface?""","""Some banks would allow you to export your transactions as CSV (they call it Excel export, but in many cases it's actually just CSV). However, I would not expect any bank to bother with creating anything like command-line access - return on such investment would be too low.  There are other ways to get information out of the banks, I'm sure - providers like Yodelee must be using something to fetch financial data - but those usually not for general public access.  Also, you can use something like mint.com to aggregate you banking data if you bank doesn't do good export and then export it from there. They have CSV export too.  If you need to do any actions though, I don't think there's anything like you are looking for."""
"""Is it legal to charge interest on interest?""","""Yes it most cases it is legal. Plus depending on how you look at it, the last payment of 1000 can be principal paid and interest was paid in initial installments."""
"""Why do stores and manufacturers use mail in rebates? A scam, or is there a way to use them effectively?""","""Some notable percentage of buyers won't even try to do the rebate, or will forget - so it's a [relatively] cheap incentive to the consumer than most will miss out on."""
"""Creating S-Corp: Should I Name My Wife as a Director\/Shareholder?""","""If you're creating an S-Corp for consulting services that you personally are going to provide, what would it give her to have 50% of the corporation when you're dead? Not to mention that you can just add it to your will that the corporation stock will go to her, and it will be much better (IMHO, talk to a professional) since she'll be getting stepped-up basis. Why aren't you talking to a professional before making decisions? It doesn't sound like a good way to conduct business."""
"""How Does A Special Memorandum Account Work""","""The Margin Account holds the funds that are MUST for any margin trades. Any funds excess of the MUST for margin trades are kept in the SMA account. These funds can be used for further Margin trades in new securities [funds get transfered into the Margin Account]. They cannot be used to met the Shortfall due to margin calls on existing trades. New funds need to be arranged. More at http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Special_memorandum_account"""
"""How to incorporate dividends while calculating annual return of a Stock""","""You simply add the dividend to the stock price when calculating its annual return. So for year one, instead of  it would be"""
"""Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS""","""Etiquette or not, it is hurting the seller. The transaction fees have usually minimums, so if the actual transaction is below the minimum - they'll pay larger fee on the transaction (relatively). As an example, assume minimum fee for a debit card swipe is 20 cents, or 2% of the transaction. For a transaction of $10 and above, the fee will be 2% of the transaction. But for $1.67, the fee becomes 12% of the transaction. 6 times more expensive for the seller. Basically, the sale was most likely at a loss for them (they usually have very low margins, especially for a \""dollar\"" store). So take that into account as well."""
"""Standardized loan options to purchase employee stock options""","""What you want is a cashless transaction. It's part of the normal process. My employer gives me 1000 options at $1, I never need to come up with the money, the shares are bought and sold in one set of transactions, and if the stock is worth $10, I see $9000 less tax withholding, hit the account. No need for me to come up with that $1000."""
"""Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?""","""If you pay 20% tax now and none later or if you pay no tax now and 20% later, it doesn't make a difference.  Mathematically, it's the same. You have to guess about which tax rate (now vs later) will be higher for you in order for you to make the best choice.  Predicting tax rates 40 years in advance is hard.  Everybody pretends like they can do this accurately. I would suggest going half and half. If you have 20k and put half in pre-tax (10k in) and half in post-tax (only 8k in) you end up with 18k total in which is right in the middle of where you would be if you went with the whole 20k in either extreme.  It would also leave you owing 2k in tax rather than the possible 4k in tax if you had gone with all pre-tax. When you split down the middle, you are guaranteed to have 50% in the \""right\"" side, the side with the best outcome. Being guaranteed to be 50% on the right side is pretty good compared to maybe being 100% on the wrong side."""
"""How to share income after marriage and kids?""","""My own personal point of view. I earn about twice what my wife to be earns. We are planning on getting married next year.  I ultimately do all the finances (basically because she hates that kind of thing) not because I'm in charge or whatever. To work out how we do this I wrote a spreadsheet:  At the top it has my monthly pay in one column and her's in another. I add all our bills (against me initally). At the bottom I have a total of both of our \""spending money\"". Spending money is wage - bills - savings I then move money out of my column into her column. My goal is that we pay all the bills and save a decent amount and have roughly the same amount to spend each month. So each persons spending money should be roughly equal. I then fine tune this as things change (if we get a pay rise we alter it, if a bill goes up or down we alter it) To manage this we have 4 accounts, a joint account to pay bills (both give a set amount to each mont), a savings acount (both give a set amount to each month) and our own accounts (where we get paid and where our spending money lives). Like everyone else says, this seems fair to me. I don't earn more, we both earn \""an amount\"" and this should be split equally."""
"""After consulting HR Block, are you actually obligated to file your taxes with them, if they've found ways to save you money?""","""This is a legal issue, or possibly an ethical issue, and not really a finance issue. And I am not a lawyer. But for what it's worth: Did you sign a written contract with H&R Block? If so, then the terms of that contract would govern. If you signed a contract saying that you agree to file your taxes through them if they meet such-and-such conditions, and they met these conditions, then you are legally obligated. If there was no written contract, then I think any court would take the conversation between you and H&R Block as an oral contract. If H&R Block said, basically, \""Okay, we'll calculate what we think your taxes are, and if we come up with something better than what you had before, then you agree to file your taxes through us\"", and you said \""Oh, okay\"", then that's an oral contract. You agreed to their conditions. Legally, oral contracts are just as binding as written contracts. The only difference is that it is difficult to prove exactly what was said. If you really did agree to these conditions, I suppose you could lie and say you didn't and then try to convince a court that they are the ones lying. Obvious ethical problems there. There are also implied contracts. If HRB's advertising or paperwork says that you're agreeing to file through them if they meet the conditions, I thing that a court would likely rule that you implicitly agreed to their terms by doing the review. In any case, when you go to some place like HRB mostly what you are paying for is their knowledge and expertise. So if they give you the benefit of their expertise -- they tell you how to reduce your taxes -- and then you don't pay them, that seems rather unethical to me. The situation is muddied by the fact that you paid $100 for the review. Is that paying for the basic information, the \""tax tip\"", and paying for them to file is then a contract for additional work? Under some circumstances I'd say yes, that's additional work and thus an additional contract, so in the absence of a contract obligating me, I don't have to do that. The catch in this case is that at that point they must have already pretty much taken all your information and filled out all the forms. All that's left is to press the \""send\"" button and submit the return, right?"""
"""Principal 401(k) managed fund fees, wow. What can I do?""","""Your employer could consider procuring benefits via a third party administrator, which provides benefits to and bargains collectively on behalf of multiple small companies.  I used to work for a small start-up that did exactly that to improve their benefits across the board, including the 401k.  The fees were still higher than buying a Vanguard index or ETF directly, but much better than the 1% you're talking about.   In the meantime, here's my non-professional advice from personal experience and hindsight: If you're in a low\/medium tax bracket and your 401k sucks, you might be better off to pay the tax up front and invest in a taxable account for the flexibility (assuming you're disciplined enough that you don't need the 401k to protect you from yourself).  If you max out a crappy 401k today, you might miss a better opportunity to contribute to a 401k in the future.  Big expenses could pop up at exactly the same time you get better investment options.   Side note: if not enough employees participate in the 401k, the principals won't be able to take full advantage of it themselves.  I think it's called a \""nondiscrimination test\"" to ensure that the plan benefits all employees, not just the owners and management.  So voting with your feet might be the best way to spark improvement with your employer.  Good luck!"""
"""Should I replace bonds in a passive investment strategy""","""The fact that some asset (in this case corporate bonds) has positive correlation with some other asset (equity) doesn't mean buying both isn't a good idea.  Unless they are perfectly correlated, the best risk\/reward portfolio will include both assets as they will sometimes move in opposite directions and cancel out each other's risk.  So yes, you should buy corporate bonds.  Short-term government bonds are essentially the risk-free asset.  You will want to include that as well if you are very risk averse, otherwise you may not.  Long-term government bonds may be default free but they are not risk free.  They will make money if interest rates fall and lose if interest rates rise.  Because of that risk, they also pay you a premium, albeit a small one, and should be in your portfolio. So yes, a passive portfolio (actually, any reasonable portfolio) should strive to reduce risk by diversifying into all assets that it reasonably can.  If you believe the capital asset pricing model, the weights on portfolio assets should correspond to market weights (more money in bonds than stocks).  Otherwise you will need to choose your weights.  Unfortunately we are not able to estimate the true expected returns of risky assets, so no one can really agree on what the true optimal weights should be.  That's why there are so many rules of thumb and so much disagreement on the subject.  But there is little or no disagreement on the fact that the optimal portfolio does include risky bonds including long-term treasuries. To answer your follow-up question about an \""anchor,\"" if by that you mean a risk-free asset then the answer is not really.  Any risk-free asset is paying approximately zero right now.  Some assets with very little risk will earn a very little bit more than short term treasuries, but overall there's nowhere to hide--the time value of money is extremely low at short horizons.  You want expected returns, you must take risk."""
"""Purchasing a home using collateral""","""Since you only own half of the house, you would most likely need the cooperation of whoever owns the other half in order to use it as collateral for a loan, but if you can do that, there's no reason you couldn't do what you're talking about.  The complication is that if you default on the loan, the bank isn't going to seize half of the house.  They'll repossess the entire house, sell it, and take what they're owed out of the proceeds, leaving you and whoever owns the other 50% to fight over the remnants. Even if the owner of the other half is family, they may be hesitant to risk losing the house if you don't pay your mortgage, so this could be a dicey conversation."""
"""Is technical analysis based on some underlying factors in the market or do they work simply because other people use them?""","""Technical Analysis assumes that the only relevant number(s) regarding a security is (are) price (and price momentum, price patterns, price harmonics, price trends, price aberrations, etc.). Technical is all based on price. Technical is not based on any of the fundamentals.  Technical Analysis is for traders (speculators) not for long term investors. A long term investor is more concerned with the dividend payment history and such similar data as he makes his money from the dividend payments not from the changes in price (because he buys and holds, not buy low sell high)."""
"""Is there a rule that a merchant must identify themself when making a charge""","""In some case the customer wants the name to be cryptic or misleading. They don't want to advertise the true nature of the business they visited. In other cases the transaction may be reported through another business. A few years ago the local PTA was having a silent auction as a fundraiser. A local business allowed the PTA to use their credit card reader to process transactions over a certain amount. Of course when the credit card statement arrived it looked like you spent $500 at the florist. I have seen PayPal listed when donating to some small charities.  I have noted another case where confusion can occur. I used a debit card to buy a soda from a vending machine: the name and location were the name of the vending machine company and the location of their main office. It didn't say  soda machine city A. It said Joe's vending company city B. In most cases the business and the credit card company want to make it easy to identify the transactions to keep the cost of research and charge backs to a minimum."""
"""Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve?""","""Let's just focus on the \""why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients part\"" and forget the central bank for a moment. I'm a guy. I have a wife and two kids. They have this pesky habit of wanting to buy stuff. When I get paid, I could just get a check, cash it, stuff it under a mattress, and pull it out when I need it. Hey that worked for a long time didn't it? But sometimes it's nice to write checks. (Just kidding, that's so gauche...) I use my debit card. I use my credit cards, but they need to be paid somehow. My light and phone bills need to be paid too. If only there were someone out there who could facilitate this transfer of money between me, the private client and the merchants I'm forced to spend my money at. Now some of those merchants have plans. Light bills I can pay at my grocer if I choose. But most of the other's don't. Luckily I have a bank that's willing to do this, for a fee. So basically they do it because there's a void in the market if they don't. I don't know if it's true what they say about supply creating its own demand, but it certainly is true that demand creates supply!"""
"""Put idle savings to use while keeping them liquid""","""I would suggest a high interest checking account if you qualify, or if you don't, an Investor's Deposit Account (IDA)."""
"""How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee?""","""I would not assume they would pay for any benefits. You will be responsible for paying entirely for health insurance and social security and Medicare. This move is most likely not in your best interests. At a minimum, I would charge double your current hourly rate and would charge for all hours worked including time and half for overtime.  3 times is actually probably a better choice if you want to cover holidays (which they will not pay you for), vacation time, etc. I know when I did project bids, we always priced at 2-3 times the salary we paid the employees."""
"""Value of a call option spread""","""I think you're missing the fact that the trader bought the $40 call but wrote the $45 call -- i.e. someone else bought the $45 call from him.  That's why you have to subtract 600-100.  At expiration, the following happens: So $600 + -$100 = $500 total profit. Note: In reality he would probably use the shares he gets from the first call to satisfy the shares he owes on the second call, so the math is even simpler:"""
"""Should I exclude bonds from our retirement investment portfolio if our time horizon is still long enough?""","""Having cash and bonds in your portfolio isn't just about balancing out the risk and volatility inherent in equities. Consider: If you are 100% invested in equities and the market declines by 30%, you'll be hard pressed to come up with additional money to \""buy low\"". You'll miss out on the rebalancing bonus. But, if you make a point of keeping some portion of your portfolio in cash and bonds, then when the market has such a decline (and it will), you'll be able to rebalance your portfolio back to target weights \u2014 i.e. redeploy some of your cash and bonds into equities to take advantage of the lower prices."""
"""How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old""","""Make sure you have a budget, there is a pretty cool budget tracker that you can download here (it works in excel and is easy to use).  The important thing is to not only make a budget but also keep in touch and track your budget, some free ebooks and other investment ebooks too.  Just start with the budget tracker: http:\/\/www.futureassist.com.au\/young-to-mid-life Focus on paying off debt first Next look at ETF's (Exchange Traded Funds) as a possible investment option - this is an Australian Government Website but ETF's all work in the same way:  https:\/\/www.moneysmart.gov.au\/investing\/managed-funds\/exchange-traded-funds-etfs"""
"""Indian citizen working from India as freelancer for U.S.-based company. How to report the income & pay tax in India?""","""There is no reason for you to open a firm. However, it will help you, if you operate separate bank account for business and personal purposes. You can run your business as proprietorship business. Your inward remittance is your income. You can deduct payment made to your colleagues as salary. You should pay them by way of cheques or bank transfer only. You are also entitled to deduct other business expenses provided you keep proper receipt of the same such as broadband connection charges, depreciation on equipment and more importantly, rent on your house. If your total receipt from such income exceeds INR 60,00,000 you will need to withhold tax on payment made to your colleagues as also subject to audit of your accounts. If you want to grow your business, suggest you should take an Import \/ Export Code in your own name.  You can put any further question in this regard."""
"""Investing $50k + Real Estate""","""Get rid of the lease and buy a used car. A good buy is an Audi because they are popular, high-quality cars. A 2007 Audi A4 costs about $7000. You will save a lot of money by dumping the lease and owning. Go for quality. Stay away from fad cars and SUVs which are overpriced for their value. Full sized sedans are the safest cars. The maintenance on a high-quality old car is way cheaper than the costs of a newer car. Sell the overseas property. It is a strong real estate market now, good time to sell. It is never good to have property far away from where you are. You need to have a timeline to plan investments. Are you going to medical school in one year, three years, five years? You need to make a plan. Every investment is a BUY and a SELL and you should plan for both. If your business is software, look for a revenue-generating asset in that area. An example of a revenue-generating asset is a license. For example, some software like ANSYS has license costs in the region of $30,000 annually. If you broker the license, or buy and re-sell the license you can make a good profit. This is just one example. Use your expertise to find the right vehicle. Make sure it is a REVENUE-GENERATING ASSET."""
"""Do I need another health insurance policy?""","""I understand that if I have multiple health insurance policies, I can only make claim from only one of them if ever I incur medical expenses (I'm from the Philippines). In the US, you cannot simultaneously submit a claim for payment of a medical bill, or request reimbursement for a bill already paid, to multiple insurance companies, but if you are covered by more  than one policy, then any part of a claim not paid by one company  can be submitted to another company that is also covering you. In fact, if you have employer-paid or employer-provided coverage, most  insurance companies will want your employer-provided insurance company  to be billed first, and will cover whatever is not paid by the employer coverage. For example, if the employer coverage pays 80% of your doctor's bill, the private insurance will pay the remaining 20%. But, the private  insurance policies are also quite expensive.  Some professional groups in the US offer major medical coverage to  their US members, and might be offering this to non-US members as well (though I suspect not).  These policies have large deductibles so that coverage kicks in only when the total medical expenses in that year (whether wholly or partially reimbursed, or not reimbursed at all) exceed the large deductible.  These types of policies actually pay out to only a few people - if you have more than, say, $20,000 of medical expenses in a year, you have been quite ill,  and thus the premiums are usually much smaller than full-fledged coverage  insurance policies which pay out much more frequently because of much smaller deductibles."""
"""Online Personal finance with QIF import ""","""Unfortunately I don't think any of the online personal finance applications will do what you're asking. Most (if not all) online person finance software uses a combination of partnerships with the banks themselves and \""screen scraping\"" to import your data. This simplifies things for the user but is typically limited to whenever the service was activated. Online personal finance software is still relatively young and doesn't offer the depth available in a desktop application (yet). If you are unwilling to part with historical data you spent years accumulating you are better off with a desktop application. Online Personal Finance Software Pros Cons Desktop Personal Finance Software Pros Cons In my humble opinion the personal finance software industry really needs a hybrid approach. A desktop application that is synchronized with a website. Offering the stability and tools of a desktop application with the availability of a web application."""
"""Should I buy a house or am I making silly assumptions that I can afford it?""","""The (interest bearing) mortgage of \u00a3300,000 would be SIX times your salary. That's a ratio that was found in Japan, and (I believe) was a main reason for their depressed economy of the past two decades. Even with an interest free loan of nearly \u00a3150,000, it would be a huge gamble for someone of your income. Essentially, you are gambling that 1) your income will \""grow\"" into your mortgage, (and that's counting income from renting part of the property) or 2) the house will rise in value, thereby bailing you out. That was a gamble that many Americans took, and lost, in the past ten years. If you do this, you may be one of the \""lucky\"" ones, you may not, but you are really taking your future in your hands.  The American rule of thumb is that your mortgage should be no more than 2.5-3 times income, that is maybe up to \u00a3150,000. Perhaps \u00a3200,000 if \u00a350,000 or so of that is interest free. But not to the numbers you're talking about."""
"""Little hazy on how the entire RSU's and etrade works""","""(I'm assuming the tag of United-states is accurate) Yes, the remaining amount is tax free -- at the current price.  If you sell at exactly the original price, there is no capital gain, no capital loss.  So you've already payed the taxes. If you sell and there is a capital gain of $3000, then you will pay taxes on the $3000.  If 33% is your marginal tax rate, and if you held the stock for less than a year, then you will keep $7000 and pay taxes of $1000.  Somehow, I doubt your marginal tax rate is 33%. If you hold the stock for a year after eTrade sold some for you to pay taxes, then you will pay 15% on the gain -- or $450. eTrade sold the shares to pay the taxes generated by the income.  Yes, those shares were considered income.  If you sell and have a loss, well, life sucks.  However, if you sell something else, you can use the loss to offset the other gain.  So if you sell stock A for a loss of $3000, and sell stock B at a gain of $4000, then you pay taxes on the net of $1000."""
"""Does high inflation help or hurt companies with huge cash reserves?""","""This is a reasonable question about inflation.  I would just like to note that inflation is nearly zero at the moment.  And interest rates are very low.  For a stable enterprise, borrowing cash is very easy right now.  Naturally, things could change in a year.  But the reason a company like Microsoft (but not just them) might hoard cash right now is that it gives them weight for buying up smaller firms, muscling rivals, and signaling their comfort level with the way things look for them.  It could also be because they are out of ideas for what to invest in, and\/or are waiting for conditions to change before making any big decisions.  But with an interest rate at close to zero, and an inflation rate at close to zero, at the moment, inflation is not going to be a consideration in evaluating such a company."""
"""Where can you find dividends for Australian Stock Market Shares (ASX) for more than 2 years of data? ""","""It's difficult to compile free information because the large providers are not yet permitted to provide bulk data downloads by their sources.  As better advertising revenue arrangements that mimic youtube become more prevalent, this will assuredly change, based upon the trend. The data is available at money.msn.com.  Here's an example for ASX:TSE.  You can compare that to shares outstanding here. They've been improving the site incrementally over time and have recently added extensive non-US data.  Non-US listings weren't available until about 5 years ago. I haven't used their screener for some years because I've built my own custom tools, but I will tell you that with a little PHP knowledge, you can build a custom screener with just a few pages of code; besides, it wouldn't surprise me if their screener has increased in power.  It may have the filter you seek already conveniently prepared. Based upon the trend, one day bulk data downloads will be available much like how they are for US equities on finviz.com.  To do your part to hasten that wonderful day, I recommend turning off your adblocker on money.msn and clicking on a worthy advertisement.  With enough revenue, a data provider may finally be seduced into entering into better arrangements.  I'd much rather prefer downloading in bulk unadulterated than maintain a custom screener. money.msn has been my go to site for mult-year financials for more than a decade.  They even provide limited 10-year data which also has been expanded slowly over the years."""
"""Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?""","""The difference is downside risk. Your CD, assuming you are in the US and the CD is purchased from a deposit bank, will be FDIC insured, your $10,000 is definitely coming back to you.  Your stock portfolio has no such guarantee and can lose money.  Your potential upside is theoretically correlated to the risk that some or all of your money may not be returned to you."""
"""How do you declare an interest free loan?""","""In principle, the US taxes both income and gifts. Simply thinking good thoughts is not necessarily sufficient to avoid filing or payment obligations. Giving somebody money with no repayment date, no interest, and no enforceable note looks an awful lot like either income or a gift. A loan normally has interest, money sitting in a savings account is insured, and other investments generally have an expected return.  Why would somebody give a loan with no interest, with only flexible or informal payment expectations, in a way where it has neither deposit insurance nor any expectation of net returns?  That looks a lot like a gift - at the very least, a gift of the time value and the default risk. The IRS definitely polices loan rates. The latest release is Revenue Ruling 2014-13. The AFR is useful for tax concepts such as Original Issue Discount (when issuers sell low-interest or no-interest bonds or loans at less than face value, attempting to recharacterize interest income as return of principal), various grantor trusts (e.g. GRATs), and so forth.  It's a simple way for the IRS to link to market rates of interest. Documentation and sufficient interest, as well as clear payment schedule (and maybe call or demand rights) make it a bona fide loan.  There is no real way for the IRS to distinguish between an informal arrangement and a post-hoc lie to conceal a gift.  Moreover, an undocumented loan is generally difficult to enforce, so it looks less like a true loan. The lender declares the interest payments as income on his Form 1040, line 8a and if necessary Schedule B."""
"""Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account?""","""In a year with no income, the best advice is to convert existing IRA money to Roth. This lets you take advantage of the 'zero' bracket, the combination of your exemption and standard deduction. This adds to $10,300 for a single person.  Other than that, if you are determined to take the money out, just do it. There would be a 10% penalty of the growth, but the original deposit comes out tax free anyway.  Edit - There's a rule that if you sell your entire Roth account (i.e. all Roth accounts, you can't pick one of a few) and have a loss, you can take that loss. (Per Dilip's comment, this strategy is pretty moot, it's not a loss taken against other income as a stock loss would potentially be))"""
"""Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?""","""The upvoted answers fail to note that dividends are the only benefit that investors collectively receive from the companies they invest in. If you purchase a share for $100, and then later sell it for $150, you should note that there is always someone that purchases the same share for $150. So, you get $150 immediately, but somebody else has to pay $150 immediately. So, investors collectively did not receive any money from the transaction. (Yes, share repurchase can be used instead of dividends, but it can be considered really another form of paying dividends.) The fair value of a stock is the discounted value of all future dividends the stock pays. It is so simple! This shows why dividends are important. Somebody might argue that many successful companies like Berkshire Hathaway do not pay dividend. Yes, it is true that they don't pay dividend now but they will eventually have to start paying dividend. If they reinvest potential dividends continuously, they will run out of things to invest in after several hundred years has passed. So, even in this case the value of the stock is still the discounted value of all future dividends. The only difference is that the dividends are not paid now; the companies will start to pay the dividends later when they run out of things to invest in. It is true that in theory a stock could pay an unsustainable amount of dividend that requires financing it with debt. This is obviously not a good solution. If you see a company that pays dividend while at the same time obtaining more cash from taking more debt or from share issues, think twice whether you want to invest in such a company. What you need to do to valuate companies fairly is to estimate the amount of dividend that can sustain the expected growth rate. It is typically about 60% of the earnings, because a part of the earnings needs to be invested in future growth, but the exact figure may vary depending on the company. Furthermore, to valuate a company, you need the expected growth rate of dividends and the discount rate. You simply discount all future dividends, correcting them up by the expected dividend growth rate and correcting them down by the discount rate."""
"""Best buying price on stock marketing based on market depth detail (CSE atrad tool)""","""When I first started working in finance I was given a rule of thumb to decide which price you will get in the market: \""You will always get the worst price for your deal, so when buying you get the higher ask price and when selling you get the lower bid price.\"" I like to think of it in terms of the market as a participant who always buys at the lowest price they can (i.e. buys from you) and sells at the highest price they can. If that weren't true there would be an arbitrage opportunity and free money never exists for long."""
"""Why don't SPY, SPX, and the e-mini s&p 500 track perfectly with each other?""","""I thought the other answers had some good aspect but also some things that might not be completely correct, so I'll take a shot. As noted by others, there are three different types of entities in your question:  The ETF SPY, the index SPX, and options contracts. First, let's deal with the options contracts.  You can buy options on the ETF SPY or marked to the index SPX.  Either way, options are about the price of the ETF \/ index at some future date, so the local min and max of the \""underlying\"" symbol generally will not coincide with the min and max of the options.  Of course, the closer the expiration date on the option, the more closely the option price tracks its underlying directly.  Beyond the difference in how they are priced, the options market has different liquidity, and so it may not be able to track quick moves in the underlying. (Although there's a reasonably robust market for option on SPY and SPX specifically.) Second, let's ask what forces really make SPY and SPX move together as much as they do.  It's one thing to say \""SPY is tied to SPX,\"" but how?  There are several answers to this, but I'll argue that the most important factor is that there's a notion of \""authorized participants\"" who are players in the market who can \""create\"" shares of SPY at will.  They do this by accumulating stock in the constituent companies and turning them into the market maker.  There's also the corresponding notion of \""redemption\"" by which an authorized participant will turn in a share of SPY to get stock in the constituent companies. (See http:\/\/www.spdrsmobile.com\/content\/how-etfs-are-created-and-redeemed and http:\/\/www.etf.com\/etf-education-center\/7540-what-is-the-etf-creationredemption-mechanism.html) Meanwhile, SPX is just computed from the prices of the constituent companies, so it's got no market forces directly on it.  It just reflects what the prices of the companies in the index are doing. (Of course those companies are subject to market forces.) Key point: Creation \/ redemption is the real driver for keeping the price aligned.  If it gets too far out of line, then it creates an arbitrage opportunity for an authorized participant.  If the price of SPY gets \""too high\"" compared to SPX (and therefore the constituent stocks), an authorized participant can simultaneously sell short SPY shares and buy the constituent companies' stocks.  They can then use the redemption process to close their position at no risk.  And vice versa if SPY gets \""too low.\"" Now that we understand why they move together, why don't they move together perfectly.  To some extent information about fees, slight differences in composition between SPY and SPX over time, etc. do play.  The bigger reasons are probably that (a) there are not a lot of authorized participants, (b) there are a relatively large number of companies represented in SPY, so there's some actual cost and risk involved in trying to quickly buy\/sell the full set to capture the theoretical arbitrage that I described, and (c) redemption \/ creation units only come in pretty big blocks, which complicates the issues under point b. You asked about dividends, so let me comment briefly on that too.  The dividend on SPY is (more or less) passing on the dividends from the constituent companies. (I think - not completely sure - that the market maker deducts its fees from this cash, so it's not a direct pass through.)  But each company pays on its own schedule and SPY does not make a payment every time, so it's holding a corresponding amount of cash between its dividend payments.  This is factored into the price through the creation \/ redemption process.  I don't know how big of a factor it is though."""
"""(Theoretical) Paying credit cards with other credit cards""","""A \""balance transfer\"" is paying one credit card with another.  You probably get offers in the mail to do this all of the time.  As other posters have noted, however, this usually comes with finance fees rather than the rewards that you get for normal purchases because it's written into your credit card agreement as a different class of transaction with different rules. I'm not sure if it's urban legend or true, but I have heard stories that suggest there were some \""loop holes\"" in the earliest credit card reward plans that allowed for something like what you want.  I doubt that any plan ever allowed exactly what you've written, but I've heard stories about people buying gift cards from merchants and then using the gift cards to pay their bill.  This loop hole (if it ever existed) is closed now, but it would have allowed for essentially infinite generation of rewards at no cost to the cardholder.  The banks and credit card companies have a lot of years of experience at this sort of thing now, so the threshold for you finding something that works and conforms with the cardholder agreement is pretty small."""
"""Account that is debited and account that is credited""","""Strictly speaking the terms arise from double entry book keeping terminology, and don't exactly relate to their common English usage, which is part of the confusion. All double entry book keeping operations consist of a (debit, credit) tuple performed on two different books (ledgers).  The actual arithmetic operation performed by a debit or a credit depends on the book keeping classification of the ledger it is performed on. Liability accounts behave the way you would expect - a debit is subtraction, and a credit is addition. Asset accounts are the other way around, a debit is an addition, and a credit is a subtraction.  The confusion when dealing with banks, partly comes from this classification, since while your deposit account is your asset, it is the bank's liability. So when you deposit 100 cash at the bank, it will perform the operation (debit cash account (an asset), credit deposit account). Each ledger account will have 100 added to it. Similarly when you withdraw cash, the operation is (credit cash, debit deposit). However the operation that your accountant will perform on your own books, is the opposite, since the cash was your asset, and now the deposit account is. For those studying math, it may also help to know that double entry book keeping is one of the earliest known examples of a single error detection\/correction algorithm."""
"""Ethics and investment""","""Domini offers such a fund.  It might suit you, or it might include things you wish to avoid. I'm not judging your goals, but would suggest that it might be tough to find a fund that has the same values as you. If you choose individual stocks, you might have to do a lot of reading, and decide if it's all or none, i.e. if a company seems to do well, but somehow has an tiny portion in a sector you don't like, do you dismiss them? In the US, Costco, for example, is a warehouse club, and treats employees well. A fair wage, benefits, etc. But they have a liquor store at many locations. Absent the alcohol, would you research every one of their suppliers?"""
"""Why is there two currencies in Venezuela's money?""","""Venezuela is a command economy, and one that isn't doing terribly well right now, with rampant inflation in the several hundred percent range.  As such, they've tried to limit or eliminate exchanges between their currency and foreign currencies. Currently, they allow a limited amount of exchange at fixed rates (according to a Bloomberg article, those vary between 6.3, 13.5, and 200) for certain purchases, and then otherwise disallow exchange between the currencies.  However, there is a black market (illegal in Venezuela, but legal in the US) which allows the price to float, and is much higher - 800 or so according to that article from last year.  A recent Valuewalk article lists the black market rate at closer to 900, and slightly different official rates.  It's worth a read as it explains the different official rates in detail: Currently there are four exchange rates: First is the official one,   called CENCOEX, and which charges 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. It is   only intended for the importation of food and medicine. The next two exchange rates are SICAD I (12 bolivars per dollar) and   SICAD 2 (50 bolivars per dollar); they assign dollars to enterprises   that import all other types of goods. Because of the fact that US   dollars are limited, coupons are auctioned only sporadically; usually   weekly in the case of SICAD 1 and daily for SICAD 2. However, due to   the economic crisis, no dollars have been allocated for these foreign   exchange transactions and there hasn\u2019t been an auction since August   18, 2015. As of November 2015, the Venezuelan government held only $16   billion in foreign exchange reserves, the lowest level in over ten   years, and an amount that will dry up completely in four years time at   the current rate of depletion. The last and newest exchange rate is the SIMADI, currently at 200   bolivars per dollar. This rate is reserved for the purchase and sale   of foreign currency to individuals and businesses."""
"""W8-BEN for an Indian Citizen""","""For filling out the W8-BEN form, please refer to the instructions in the document named: Instructions for Form W-8BEN  Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding and Reporting"""
"""How should I be investing in bonds as part of a diversified portfolio?""","""Buy a fund of bonds, there are plenty and are registered on your stockbroker account as 'funds' rather than shares. Otherwise, to the individual investor, they can be considered as the same thing. Funds (of bonds, rather than funds that contain property or shares or other investments) are often high yield, low volatility. You buy the fund, and let the manager work it for you. He buys bonds in accordance to the specification of the fund (ie some funds will say 'European only', or 'global high yield' etc) and he will buy and sell the bonds regularly. You never hold to maturity as this is handled for you - in many cases, the manager will be buying and selling bonds all the time in order to give you a stable fund that returns you a dividend. Private investors can buy bonds directly, but its not common.  Should you do it? Up to you. Bonds return, the company issuing a corporate bond will do so at a fixed price with a fixed yield. At the end of the term, they return the principal. So a 20-year bond with a 5% yield will return someone who invests \u00a310k, \u00a3500 a year and at the end of the 20 years will return the \u00a310k. The corporate doesn't care who holds the bond, so you can happily sell it to someone else, probably for \u00a310km give or take. People say to invest in bonds because they do not move much in value. In financially difficult times, this means bonds are more attractive to investors as they are a safe place to hold money while stocks drop, but in good times the opposite applies, no-one wants a fund returning 5% when they think they can get 20% growth from a stock."""
"""Calculating the profit earned from a leveraged futures contract""","""I'm not entirely sure about some of the details in your question, since I think you meant to use $10,000 as the value of the futures contract and $3 as the value of the underlying stock. Those numbers would make more sense. That being said, I can give you a simple example of how to calculate the profit and loss from a leveraged futures contract. For the sake of simplicity, I'll use a well-known futures contract: the E-mini S&P500 contract. Each E-mini is worth $50 times the value of the S&P 500 index and has a tick size of 0.25, so the minimum price change is 0.25 * $50 = $12.50.  Here's an example. Say the current value of the S&P500 is 1,600; the value of each contract is therefore $50 * 1,600 = $80,000. You purchase one contract on margin, with an initial margin requirement1 of 5%, or $4,000. If the S&P 500 index rises to 1,610, the value of your futures contract increases to $50 * 1,610 = $80,500. Once you return the 80,000 - 4,000 = $76,000 that you borrowed as leverage, your profit is 80,500 - 76,000 = $4,500.  Since you used $4,000 of your own funds as an initial margin, your profit, excluding commissions is 4,500 - 4,000 = $500, which is a 500\/4000 = 12.5% return. If the index dropped to 1,580, the value of your futures contract decreases to $50 * 1,580 = $79,000. After you return the $76,000 in leverage, you're left with $3,000, or a net loss of (3,000 - 4000)\/(4000) = -25%. The math illustrates why using leverage increases your risk, but also increases your potential for return. Consider the first scenario, in which the index increases to 1,610. If you had forgone using margin and spent $80,000 of your own funds, your profit would be (80,500 - 80,000) \/ 80000 = .625%. This is smaller than your leveraged profit by a factor of 20, the inverse of the margin requirement (.625% \/ .05 = 12.5%). In this case, the use of leverage dramatically increased your rate of return.  However, in the case of a decrease, you spent $80,000, but gained $79,000, for a loss of only 1.25%. This is 20 times smaller in magnitude than your negative return when using leverage. By forgoing leverage, you've decreased your opportunity for upside, but also decreased your downside risk. 1) For futures contracts, the margin requirements are set by the exchange, which is CME group, in the case of the E-mini. The 5% in my example is higher than the actual margin requirement, which is currently $3,850 USD per contract, but it keeps the numbers simple. Also note that CME group refers to the initial margin as the performance bond instead."""
"""How can I deposit a check made out to my business into my personal account?""","""If you're a sole proprietor there's no reason to have a separate business account, as long as you keep adequate records, as you are one and the same for tax purposes. My husband and I already have 5 accounts and a mortgage with one bank. I don't see the need to open up yet another account.  As a contracted accountant, I don't need to write business checks, and my expenses are minimal. As long as I have an present my assumed business name certificate and ID, there's no reason for a bank not to deposit into my personal account."""
"""Pay off credit card debt or earn employer 401(k) match?""","""I would definitely be putting in enough to get the most out of the match.  Only reasons I can think of not too would be: Other than that, not investing in the 401(k) is turning down free money. Edit based on feedback in comments. The only time I would advocate number 1 is if you are intensely committed to getting out of debt, were on a very tight budget and had eliminated all non-essential spending. In that situation only, I think the mental benefit of having that last debt paid off would be worth more than a few dollars in interest."""
"""Does implied volatility always rise as earnings announcements approach?""","""Changes in implied volatility are caused by many things, of course, and it is tough to isolate the effect you are describing, but let's try to generalize for a moment. Implied volatility is generally a measure of how much expect uncertainty there is about the future price of the stock.  Uncertainty generally is higher in periods including earnings announcements because it is significant new information about the company's fortunes can make for significant changes in the price. However, you could easily have the case where the earnings are good and for some reason the market is very certain that the earnings will be good and near a certain level.  In that case the price would rise, but the implied volatility could well be lower because the market believes that there will be no significant new information in the earnings announcement."""
"""Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses?""","""Which of these categories are emergency funds meant to cover? Emergency funds are for emergencies, which to me means expenses that are unanticipated and can't be covered out of \""normal\"" cash-flow.  Oil changes are not an \""emergency\"" and should be part of your normal budget.  Car\/house repairs and doctor visits might be an emergency depending on the severity and the urgency (e.g. do I need to fix this now or can I save up and fix it?) For known, predictable expenses that are infrequent (Christmas, birthdays, car insurance, home insurance\/taxes if it's not part of your mortgage payment), I use an escrow account.  I calculate how much I'll need for all of those things put together over the year and set aside a fixed amount each paycheck to ensure that I have enough to cover each item.  You could do something similar for minor doctor visits, car repairs, etc.  Estimate how much you might spend and set aside some money each month. If you find you're spending more than you thought, just increase the amount.  You can use envelopes for each type of expense, have a separate checking account for those, whatever.  The point is to set it aside and make sure you have enough left over to cover your known expenses. The whole point of an emergency fund is to be able to pay cash for emergencies rather than borrowing to pay them and dealing with interest, late fees, etc."""
"""How long do you have to live somewhere to be a resident for tax purposes?""","""If you are going to be trying clever stuff with taxes in different place, you probably need a professional. Different countries definitely have different laws on the subject.  For example (several years ago) the UK considered you absent from the UK for tax purposes from the day you left, provided you were gone for a year, whereas Canada didn't charge you tax as long as you were not in the country for six months in the year. A carefully timed move enabled me to not pay tax at all for six months because I wasn't resident anywhere. Also it was irrelevant whether I intended to stay or not."""
"""Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? ""","""No, fractional reserve banking isn't a scam. A simple exercise: replace dollars with time. You're trading some time now for time in the future, plus a bit of extra time. This is only a problem if you promise your entire life away, which we've helpfully outlawed. Once you realize that wealth is the result of human labor, and that money is simply a unit of account for it, it becomes far easier to see how simplistic models don't match reality."""
"""I need a car for 2 years. Buy or lease (or something else)?""","""Any one of your three options is viable and has its advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I would go for the used option, but I am can-do kind of person. If you don't like micro-managing a car, you may prefer leasing. A new car is sort of the middle of the road option. Leasing will be most expensive and most liability. If you have an accident, the leasing arrangements are designed to extract money from you... heavily. Even a minor accident can require you to pay for expensive repairs, usually much more expensive than if you had your own car fixed. So, not only will you pay more per month, but your accident liability will be a lot higher. With your own car, you will need to sell it (or bring it back to the UK) obviously. A used car will be the cheapest option. A non-descript used car from the local area can also make you \""blend in\"" and be less like to be targeted by a criminal as an outsider. As long as you stay away from dealers and buy the car from a private person of good reputation, you have an odds-on chance of getting a decent car. Make sure you check out the person and make sure they are \""real\"". Some dealers, called \""curbstoners\"", try to pretend to be original owners. You can always spot such frauds because the title will be new. Make sure the same owner has had the car for at least 3-4 years and that it says that on the title. Also, try to buy from somebody who is financially well off--they have less reason to try to screw you. Students, people under 30 and working class are bad people to buy from. Married professionals over age 35 are the right kind of person to buy from."""
"""How do I notify the IRS of a new member to an LLC?""","""You don't need to notify the IRS of new members, the IRS doesn't care (at this stage). What you do need, if you have a EIN for a single-member LLC, is to request a new EIN since your LLC is now a partnership (a different entity, from IRS perspective). From now on, you'll need to file form 1065 with the IRS in case of business related income, on which you will declare the membership distribution interests on Schedules K-1 for each member."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""Question: Does a billion dollars make you 1,000 times more happy than a million dollars? Answer: It doesn't.  What counts is not the amount of money, but the subjective improvement that it makes to your life. And that improvement isn't linear, which is way the expected value of the inrease in your happiness \/ welfare \/ wellbeing is negative.  The picture changes if you consider that by buying a ticket you can tell yourself for one week \""next week I might be a billionaire\"". What you actually pay for is not the expected value of the win, but one week of hope of becoming rich."""
"""Why is auto insurance ridiculously overpriced for those who drive few miles?""","""One reason is because car insurance is mandated. Mandated insurance means the government is forcing people to purchase it, which also means that everyone must have the opportunity to purchase it at a reasonable cost, even if the insurer would normally not choose to insure them. In mandated industries, risk pools are formed which means that as a whole, lower risk members partially subsidize higher risk members. In mandated industries that have a large risk variance, the insurance system would break down if everyone was charged their \""fair share\"" because high risk members would be unable to afford a policy. (This is even more prominent with health insurance than car insurance because the difference in risk is vastly greater.) On a positive note, perhaps you may get a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that you are helping out others \""in need\""."""
"""What questions should I ask a mortgage broker when refinancing a condo in Wisconsin?""","""Its a huuuuuuuuuuuge topic, and to answer your question in full will require a book, with a small booklet of legal advice attached to it. I'm not going to write it here, but I'll give you some very specific points to start your research with: ARM\/Baloon - big NO NO. Don't touch that. Get rid of those you have any way you can, and then never ever do it again. That's the kind of crap that got us into the housing bubble mess to begin with. Especially with the rates as low as now, the only future with ARM\/Baloon is that you're going to pay more, way more, than your initial period payments. Rates - the rates now are very low. They were even lower 12-24 months ago, but are still extremely low. Make sure you get a fixed rate loan, in order to lock these rates in for the remainder of the loan. Any ARM loan will have higher rates in the future. So go with FIXED RATE. Period - fixed rate loans are given for periods up to 30 years. The shorter the period, the lower the rate. However, at the level they're now, you're practically getting money for free (the APR is comparable to the inflation) even for 30 yr\/fixed loans. PMI - private mortgage insurance - since you don't have much equity, the lender is likely to require you paying PMI. This is a significant amount of money you pay until you have at least 20% equity. It changes from lender to lender, so shop around and compare. Government assistance - that's what the broker was referring to. There were programs allowing people refinance even under-water mortgages. Check what programs are still available in your area. Some banks will not refinance with less than 20% equity, but some government assistance programs may help you get a loan even if you don't have enough equity. Closing fees and points - that's the money out of your pocket. Shop around, these vary wildly. Generally, Credit Unions, being non-profits, are cheaper on this item specifically, while comparable to big banks on everything else."""
"""What's a good free checking account? ""","""Online banks are the future. As long as you don't need a clerk to talk to (and why would you need?) there's nothing you can't do with an online bank that you can with a brick and mortar robbers. I use E*Trade trading account as a checking account (it allows writing paper checks, debit card transactions, ACH in\/out, free ATM, etc). If you don't need paper checks that often you can use ING or something similar. You can always go to a local credit union, but those will wave the fee in exchange for direct deposit or high balance, and that you can also get from the large banks as well, so no much difference there. Oh where where did Washington Mutual go...."""
"""What standards should I expect of my CPA when an error was made?""","""What is the right way to handle this? Did you check the forms? Did the form state $0 tax due on the FTB LLC\/Corp form (I'm guessing you operate as LLC\/Corp, since you're dealing with the Franchise Tax)? The responsibility is ultimately yours. You should cross check all the numbers and verify that they're correct. That said, if the CPA filled the forms incorrectly based on your correct data - then she made a mistake and can be held liable. CPA filing forms from a jurisdiction on the other end of the country without proper research and knowledge may be held negligent if she made a grave mistake. You can file a law suit against the CPA (which will probably trigger her E&O insurance carrier who'll try to settle if there's a good chance for your lawsuit to not be thrown away outright), or complain to the State regulatory agency overseeing CPAs in the State of her license. Or both. Am I wrong for expecting the CPA should have properly filled out and filed my taxes? No, but it doesn't shift the responsibility from you. How can I find out if the CPA has missed anything else? Same as with doctors and lawyers - get a second opinion. Preferably from a CPA licensed in California. You and only you are responsible for your taxes. You may try to pin the penalties and interest on the CPA if she really made a mistake. California is notorious for very high LLC\/Corp franchise tax (cost of registering to do business in the State). It's $800 a year. You should have read the forms and the instructions carefully, it is very prominent. It is also very well discussed all over the Internet, any search engine would pop it up for you with a simple \""California Franchise Tax for LLC\/Corp\"" search. CA FTB is also very aggressive in assessing and collecting the fee, and the rules of establishing nexus in CA are very broad. From your description it sounds like you were liable for the Franchise tax in CA, since you had a storage facility in CA. You may also be liable for sales taxes for that period."""
"""How does a stake sale affect a company's stock price?""","""Is it normal for such transactions to create new outstanding shares? Yes a company can create new shares or a Majority share holder can sell some of his stake or it can be a mix of both. how will this news affect the short-term and long-term price of the company's stock? This is opinion based and not apt for this site. It can be positive or negative depending on how the market reacts to the news."""
"""What are the options for a 19-year-old college student who only has about $1000?""","""$1000 is not that much, and I think the best you can do with them is keeping them in a high-yield savings account (look at the online savings accounts that give 1% and more, not the regular bank savings accounts which are worthless). If you need money all of a sudden (for a school book, or rent, or bills, or some other emergency expense), you don't want to deal with selling stocks or funds (which may be at loss) or breaking into your CD's. It is usually considered a good practice to keep cash that would keep you afloat for 5-6 months in savings or some cash equivalent, as an emergency fund."""
"""What size \""nest egg\"" should my husband and I have, and by what age?""","""I would focus first on maxing out your RRSPs (or 401k) each year, and once you've done that, try to put another 10% of your income away into unregistered long term growth savings. Let's say you're 30 and you've been doing that since you graduated 7 years ago, and maybe you averaged 8% p.a. return and an average of $50k per year salary (as a round number).  I would say you should have 60k to 120k in straight up investments around age 30.  If that's the case, you're probably well on your way to a very comfortable retirement."""
"""How do banks lose money on foreclosures?""","""Someone has to hand out cash to the seller. Even if no physical money changes hands (and I've bought a house; I can tell you a LOT of money changes hands at closing in at least the form of a personal check), and regardless of exactly how the bank accounts for the actual disbursement of the loan, the net result is that the buyer has cash that they give the seller, and are now in debt to the bank for least that amount (but, they now have a house). Now, the bank probably didn't have that money just sitting in its vault. Money sitting in a vault is money that is not making more money for the bank; therefore most banks keep only fractionally more than the percentage of deposit balances that they are required to keep by the Feds. There are also restrictions on what depositors' money can be spent on, and loans are not one of them; the model of taking in money in savings accounts and then loaning it out is what caused the savings and loan collapse in the 80s. So, to get the money, it turns to investors; the bank sells bonds, putting itself in debt to bond holders, then takes that money and loans it out at a higher rate, covering the interest on the bond and making itself a tidy profit for its own shareholders. Banks lose money on defaults in two ways. First, they lose all future interest payments that would have been made on the loan. Technically, this isn't \""revenue\"" until the interest is calculated for each month and \""accrues\"" on the loan; therefore, it doesn't show on the balance sheet one way or the other. However, the holders of those bonds will expect a return, and the banks no longer have the mortgage payment to cover the coupon payments that they themselves have to pay bondholders, creating cash flow problems. The second, and far more real and damaging, way that banks lose money on a foreclosure is the loss of collateral value. A bank virtually never offers an unsecured \""signature loan\"" for a house (certainly not at the advertised 3-4% interest rates). They want something to back up the loan, so if you disappear off the face of the earth they have a clear claim to something that can help them recover their money. Usually, that's the house itself; if you default, they get the house from you and sell it to recover their money. Now, a major cause of foreclosure is economic downturn, like the one we had in 2009 and are still recovering from. When the economy goes in the crapper, a lot of things we generally consider \""stores of value\"" lose that value, because the value of the whatzit (any whatzit, really) is based on what someone else would pay to have it. When fewer people are looking to buy that whatzit, demand drops, bringing prices with it. Homes and real estate are one of the real big-ticket items subject to this loss of value; when the average Joe doesn't know whether he'll have a job tomorrow, he doesn't go house-hunting. This average Joe may even be looking to sell an extra parcel of land or an income property for cash, increasing supply, further decreasing prices. Economic downturn can often increase crime and decrease local government spending on upkeep of public lands (as well as homeowners' upkeep of their own property). By the \""broken window\"" effect, this makes the neighborhood even less desirable in a vicious cycle. What made this current recession a double-whammy for mortgage lenders is that it was caused, in large part, by a housing bubble; cheap money for houses made housing prices balloon rapidly, and then when the money became more expensive (such as in sub-prime ARMs), a lot of those loans, which should never have been signed off on by either side, went belly-up. Between the loss of home value (a lot of which will likely turn out to be permanent; that's the problem with a bubble, things never recover to their peak) and the adjustment of interest rates on mortgages to terms that will actually pay off the loan, many homeowners found themselves so far underwater (and sinking fast) that the best financial move for them was to walk away from the whole thing and try again in seven years. Now the bank's in a quandary. They have this loan they'll never see repaid in cash, and they have this home that's worth maybe 75% of the mortgage's outstanding balance (if they're lucky; some homes in extremely \""distressed\"" areas like Detroit are currently trading for 30-40% of what they sold for just before the bubble burst). Multiply that by, say, 100,000 distressed homes with similar declines in value, and you're talking about tens of billions of dollars in losses. On top of that, the guarantor (basically the bank's insurance company against these types of losses) is now in financial trouble themselves, because they took on so many contracts for debt that turned out to be bad (AIG, Fannie\/Freddie); they may very well declare bankruptcy and leave the bank holding the bag. Even if the guarantor remains solvent (as they did thanks to generous taxpayer bailouts), the bank's swap contract with the guarantor usually requires them to sell the house, thus realizing the loss between what they paid and what they finally got back, before the guarantor will pay out. But nobody's buying houses anymore, because prices are on their way down; the only people who'd buy a house now versus a year from now (or two or three years) are the people who have no choice, and if you have no choice you're probably in a financial situation that would mean you'd never be approved for the loan anyway. In order to get rid of them, the bank has to sell them at auction for pennies on the dollar. That further increases the supply of cheap homes and further drives down prices, making even the nicer homes the bank's willing to keep on the books worth less (there's a reason these distresed homes were called \""toxic assets\""; they're poisonous to the banks whether they keep or sell them). Meanwhile, all this price depression is now affecting the people who did everything right; even people who bought their homes years before the bubble even formed are watching years of equity-building go down the crapper. That's to say nothing of the people with prime credit who bought at just the wrong time, when the bubble was at its peak. Even without an adjusting ARM to contend with, these guys are still facing the fact that they paid top dollar for a house that likely will not be worth its purchase price again in their lifetime. Even with a fixed mortgage rate, they'll be underwater, effectively losing their entire payment to the bank as if it were rent, for much longer than it would take to have this entire mess completely behind them if they just walked away from the whole thing, moved back into an apartment and waited it out. So, these guys decide on a \""strategic default\""; give the bank the house (which doesn't cover the outstanding balance of course) and if they sue, file bankruptcy. That really makes the banks nervous; if people who did everything right are considering the hell of foreclosure and bankruptcy to be preferable to their current state of affairs, the bank's main threat keeping people in their homes is hollow. That makes them very reluctant to sign new mortgages, because the risk of default is now much less certain. Now people who do want houses in this market can't buy them, further reducing demand, further decreasing prices... You get the idea. That's the housing collapse in a nutshell, and what banks and our free market have been working through for the past five years, with only the glimmer of a turnaround picking up home sales."""
"""Tax implications of corporate housing""","""If the employer provides housing to the employee, the employer has to identify whether it is taxable or not. If it is - the amounts would be added to the taxable income on your W2. All the withholding and FICA tax calculations will be performed based on that taxable income. If the employer fails to do that, and you get audited, you can be left on the hook for the unpaid taxes on the unreported income. In some cases, employee housing is a non-taxable fringe benefit, in others it is taxable. Your tax adviser will help identify which case applies to you. After you added in a comment that you're trying to see if you should be asking your boss to pay your personal expenses vs. giving you a raise - as I said in the comments, your personal expenses are not deductible neither for you nor for anyone else. If your boss pays your rent instead of a raise - its taxable income for you."""
"""Which type of investments to keep inside RRSP?""","""Everything else can be held inside or outside your registered account depending on your investment or tax needs"""
"""How are mortgage payments decided? [duplicate]""","""It's so that your total mortgage payment stays the same every month. Obviously, the interest due each month decreases over time, as part of the principal is paid off each month, and so if the proportion of interest and principal repayments were to stay the same then your first payment would be very large and your last payment would be almost nothing."""
"""The best credit card for people who pay their balance off every month""","""I'm not going to recommend a specific card.  New card offers pop up all the time.  My answer would be out of date in a month! As a general rule, if you pay off your balance every month, you should be looking at a cash-back or a rewards card. Cash-back cards will give you some money (say 1%) of every dollar you spend.  Some will give you larger amounts of cash-back for certain types of spending (e.g. groceries). With a Rewards card, you usually get \""points\"" or \""airline miles\"", which can be redeemed for merchandise, flights around the wold, concert tickets, etc. With these types of cards, it makes sense to do as much of your spending as possible with the cards, so you can maximize the benefits. Which specific card is best will depend on your shopping habits, and which bank is offering the best deal that week.  I recommend you start at http:\/\/www.creditcards.com to compare card offerings.  For cash-back cards, you can also go to http:\/\/www.creditcardtuneup.com, enter some details of your spending, and see which one will give you the most cash back."""
"""Missing 401(k) dividends""","""Your investment is probably in a Collective Investment Trust. These are not mutual funds, and are not publicly traded. I.e. they are private to plan participants in your company. Because of this, they are not required* to distribute dividends like mutual funds. Instead, they will reinvest dividends automatically, increasing the value of the fund, rather than number of shares, as with dividend reinvestment. Sine you mention the S&P 500 fund you have tracks closely to the S&P Index, keep in mind there's two indexes you could be looking at: Without any new contributions, your fund should closely track the Total Return version for periods 3 months or longer, minus the expense ratio. If you are adding contributions to the fund, you can't just look at the start and end balances. The comparison is trickier and you'll need to use the Internal Rate of Return (look into the XIRR function in Excel\/Google Sheets). *MFs are not strictly required to pay dividends, but are strongly tax-incentivized to do so, and essentially all do."""
"""Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money?""","""For some studies on why investors make the decisions they do, check out  For a more readable, though less rigorous, look at it, also consider Kahneman's recent book, \""Thinking, Fast and Slow\"", which includes the two companion papers written with Tversky on prospect theory. In certain segments (mostly trading) of the investing industry, it is true that something like 90% of investors lose money. But only in certain narrow segments (and most folks would rightly want traders to be counted as a separate beast than an 'investor').  In most segments, it's not true that most investors lose money, but it still is true that most investors exhibit consistent biases that allow for mispricing. I think that understanding the heuristics and biases approach to economics is critical, both because it helps you understand why there are inefficiencies, and also because it helps you understand that quantitative, principled investing is not voodoo black magic; it's simply applying mathematics for the normative part and experimental observations for the descriptive part to yield a business strategy, much like any other way of making money."""
"""Do Americans really use checks that often?""","""Sorry for this late reply.  I currently live in Iceland (I am a United Statesian). People here told me they thought checks were just something that were in movies. I was amazed by this. So here are some reasons that I see to being why it works still in the usa. 1. Social Security system. Most Euro, Nordic countries have their lives, bank accounts, ect tied to their 'Social Security' number and that number is not top secret like it is in the USA. In fact here in Iceland you throw your number around to anyone who wants it because they cant do anything with it but pay you money really. 2. Banks. In the USA there are millions, MILLIONS of small town banks. That means that doing direct deposits or transfers is much much harder to achieve. Example: Iceland has two banks. The most common way of loaning a friend money or paying for that hotel room if you forgot to bring cash or your card is to say 'Give me your SSN and I will transfer to you'. It takes about 30 seconds to do a funds transfer. In the USA you can't do that. They would think you are lying or not want to give they bank info or because of the fees from small town banks it would be pointless. Also a lot of these small banks will not accept direct deposit (I had a bank growing up that still does not) These are some of the main reasons that I think cause the flow of checks in the usa."""
"""When is Cash Value Life Insurance a good or bad idea?""","""Here's what I'd consider:"""
"""Freelancer in India working for Swiss Company""","""As you are earning an income by working in India, you are required to pay tax in India. If you contract is of freelance, then the income earned by you has to be self declared and taxes paid accordingly. There are some expenses one can claim, a CA should be able to guide you.   Not sure why the Swiss comapny is paying taxes?. Are they depositing this with Income Tax, India, do they have a TAN Number. If yes, then you don't need to pay tax. But you need to get a statement from your company showing the tax paid on behalf of you. You can also verify the tax paid on your behalf via \""http:\/\/incometaxindia.gov.in\/26ASTaxCreditStatement.asp\"" you cna register. Alternatively if you have a Bank Account in India with a PAN card on their records, most Banks provide a link to directly see"""
"""Will the popularity of index funds cause a pricing bubble in the stocks that make up an index?""","""With regard to commodity futures, a paper released in January 2010 by Aulerich, Irwin, and Garcia, concluded that index funds have essentially no impact on commodity futures. Looking at stocks, a stock that gets included in a major index does increase in price. It increases its turnover by 27% and increases its price by between 2.7% and 5.5%, according to information cited by Kula in this paper, though it looks like the price increase tends to happen in the lead up to the stock being included. Interestingly, I have read an article but cannot now locate it, which states that there's a measurable, albeit fairly small, price bubble on stocks included in common indexes, on Monday mornings, Friday afternoons, and at the start and end of the month. That is, the times when mutual funds are most likely to rebalance their holdings. This almost certainly applies to a lesser extent to other stocks, too. My understanding is that the price difference was very small, however. Generally speaking, stocks which make part of well-known indexes will tend to be in higher demand than stocks which do not. It remains the case that almost all actively-managed mutual funds are unable to consistently beat the indexes, even with this taken into account."""
"""What happens if I just don't pay my student loans?""","""Same thing as for any debt: bank sues you, you lose, you are in an even deeper hole because you now owe them for the cost of the court case, your credit rating goes into the toilet, you may even have trouble retaining\/finding a job. Being stupid is always more expensive."""
"""Sales Tax: Rounded Then Totaled or Totaled Then Rounded?""","""Taxes should not be calculated at the item level. Taxes should be aggregated by tax group at the summary level. The right way everywhere is LINE ITEMS SUMMARY PS:If you'd charge at the item level, it would be too easy to circumvent the law by splitting your items or services into 900 items at $0.01 (Which once rounded would mean no tax). This could happen in the banking or plastic pellets industry."""
"""How to get 0% financing for a car, with no credit score?""","""Is it possible to get a 0% interest rate for car loan for used car in   US? Possible? Yes. It's not illegal. Likely? Not really. $5K is not a very high amount, many banks won't even finance it at all, regardless of your credit score. I suggest you try local credit unions, especially those that your employer is sponsoring (if there are any). Otherwise, you will probably get horrible rates, but for 3 months - you can just take whatever, pay the 3 months interest and get rid of the loan as soon as you're able."""
"""What are the advantages\/disadvantages of a self-directed IRA?""","""The main advantage and disadvantage I can see in a scenario like this are - how savvy and good an investor are you? It's a good way to create below-market average returns if you're not that good at investing and returns way above market average if you are..."""
"""Info about managment compansation schemes in publicly traded companies""","""Compensation information is available in the annual reports (10-k filings) which are available from the SEC EDGAR system or, generally, the company's website.  Additionally, insider transactions are reported to the SEC so you can see when an insider buys or sells stock or exercises options received as compensation. Background: Nowadays board and officers seem to secretly steal money from shareholders through options and other ways. The stock buybacks that people think should boost the earnings per stock is in reality issued back to the management of the company and is a more stealth way to take money from the company compared to take higher salaries. ... How do you know this is happening if you don't know where to go to get the data needed to determine whether or not this is happening?  Do you really think company share buybacks involve just the amount of shares to pay an executive?  Apple has bought back $117,000,000,000 worth of shares from the fourth quarter 2012 through the second quarter 2016, and paid a pretty substantial amount in dividends over the same period.  Do you really think these shares were simply handed to the executives?  The huge pension funds and other huge investors would not let this slide for very long if it were even close to being true. Don't come to an unfounded conclusion then seek data to prove your position.  Look at and analyze data THEN come to a conclusion."""
"""Debit card funds on preauthorization hold to paypal: can it be used for another transaction?""","""Imagine the following scenario: You have a credit limit of $1000 and you want to by a tablet from a store. It costs $600. You then walk next door and buy a TV for $600. You would expect that you would go over your limit and the second transaction will be rejected. As long as that hold is in place, you don't have access to those blocked funds. That makes sure that you can't promise to pay more than you have funds on the card. Holds can get in the way if you are close to your credit limit. People run into this problem if they reserve a hotel room, rent a car, or purchase gasoline. The hold is set at a specific level to make sure you have enough funds for the typical transaction. This distance between vendors is not relevant. The bank is blocking funds based on a request from a vendor. They have to block the funds because you might use the multiple times in the same store. It is possible that the card company might release the hold based on the request by the vendor, but they generally don't.  If this is a debit card linked to a bank account, the bank can have access to the overdraft system or a linked savings account. If is is a credit card they can decide to to increase your credit limit, and offer you what is essentially a loan. Plus they can hit you with fees. But if the card is a prepaid debit card or gift card they don't want to allow you to go beyond your limit.  If this is a card that you plan on recharging, you could put extra funds on the card to allow both the old hold and the new hold to co-exist."""
"""Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?""","""To keep the math simple, say you are in the 25% federal tax bracket. Your 4% mortgage effectively costs you 3%. Did Mr Advisor tell you what he suggests investing the money in? Borrowing at 3% net to put the money in .1% CDs makes little sense. And for most people, investing it in the stock market hoping to come out ahead, also makes little sense.  Credentials or not, people like him give humans a bad name, and make me love my dog even more. I'd stay far away from this guy. Very far away.  Edit - on further reflection (seeing mhoran's reference to $100K) it occurred to me that once a house is paid off, the only deductions allowed is for the first $100K of new mortgage or HELOC, absent a renovation or improvement of some kind. Given the limit and current 4% rates, it would seem to me that a rich retiree paying a fortune in taxes, isn't going to benefit much for a $4000 deduction."""
"""Why do some online stores not ask for the 3-digit code on the back of my credit card?""","""Given that the laws on consumer liability for unauthorized transactions mean no cost in most cases, the CVV is there to protect the merchant.  Typically a merchant will receive a lower cost from their bank to process the transaction with the CVV code versus without. As far as the Netflix case goes, (or any other recurring billing for that matter) they wouldn't care as much about it because Visa\/MC\/Amex regulations prohibit storage of the CVV.  So if they collect it then it's only used for the first transaction and renewals just use the rest of the card info (name, expiration date, address). Does the presence of CVV indicate the merchant has better security?  Maybe, maybe not.  It probably means they care about their costs and want to pay the bank as little as possible to process the transaction."""
"""Living in my own rental property""","""When you live in your own rental property, it no longer counts as your 'rental property'. It becomes your own living property and legally you cannot get tax benefits."""
"""Can you deduct hobby expenses up to hobby income in Canada?""","""Yes, your business needs to be in the business of making money in order for you to deduct the expenses associated with it. I suppose in theory this could mean that if you take in $10,000 and spend $30,000 every year, you not only don't get a net deduction of $20,000 (your loss) but you have to pay tax on $10,000 (your revenue). However this is super fixable. Just only deduct $9500 of your expenses. Tada! Small profit.For all the gory details, including how they consider whether you have an expectation of profits, see http:\/\/www.cra-arc.gc.ca\/E\/pub\/gl\/p-176r\/p-176r-e.html This \""expectation of profit\"" rule appears to apply to things like \""I sell home d\u00e9cor items (or home decorating advice) and therefore need to take several multi week trips to exotic vacation destinations every year and deduct them as business expenses.\"" If you're doing woodworking or knitting in your home and selling on Etsy you don't particularly have any expenses. It's hard to imagine a scenario where you consistently sell for less than the cost of materials and then end up dinged on paying tax on revenue."""
"""Can zero-coupon bonds go down in price?""","""Let's say today you buy the bond issued by StateX at 18$. Let's say tommorow morning the TV says that StateX is going towards default (if it happens it won't give you back not even the 18$ you invested). You (and others that bought the same bond like you) will get scared and try to sell the bond, but a potential buyer won't buy it for 18$ anymore they will risk maximum couple of bucks, therefor the price of your bond tomorrow is worth 2$ and not 18 anymore. Bond prices (even zero coupon ones) do fluctuate like shares, but with less turbolence (i.e. on the same period of time, ups and downs are smaller in percentage compared to shares) EDIT: Geo asked in the comment below what happens to the bond the FED rises the interest. It' very similar to what I explained above. Let's say today you buy the bond just issued by US treasury at 50$. Today the FED rewards money at 2%, and the bond you bought promised you a reward of 2% per year for 10 years (even if it's zero coupon, it will give you almost the same reward of one with coupons, the only difference is that it will give you all the money back at once, that is when the bond expires). Let's say tommorow morning the TV says that FED decided to rise the interest rates, and now on it lends money rewarding a wonderful 4% to investors. US treasury will also have to issue bonds at 4%. You can obviously keep your bond until expiration (and unless US goes default you will get back all your money until the last cent), but if you decide to sell your bond, you will find out that people won't be willing to pay 50$ anymore because on the market they can now buy the same type of bond (for the same period of time, 10 years) that give them 4% per year and not a poor 2% like yours. So people will be willing to pay maximum 40$ for your bond or less."""
"""How do credit card banks detect fraudulent transactions without requiring a travel advisory?""","""One bank is more willing to risk losses and customer hassle in exchange for lower processing costs than the other bank is. It's strictly a business decision. Regarding how they detect suspicious transactions: Patten detection based on your past usage history. I've gotten calls asking me to confirm that I just placed a large order with a company I'd never bought from before, or in a country that I haven't previously visited, or..."""
"""Investing in commodities, pros and cons?""","""Another disadvantage is the inability to value commodities in an accounting sense. In contrast with stocks, bonds and real estate, commodities don't generate cash flows and so any valuation methodology is by definition speculative. But as rhaskett notes, there are diversification advantages. The returns for gold, for instance, tend to exhibit low\/negative correlation with the performance of stocks. The question is whether the diversification advantage, which is the primary reason to hold commodities in a multi-asset class portfolio through time, overcomes the disadvantages? The answer... maybe."""
"""How much of my capital should I spend on subscribing to a stock research company?""","""To complement farnsy's answer, I want to warn people against market prediction scams. If they give uniformly distributed buy\/sell predictions to 256 people, one of them will get eight correct predictions in a row. They are trading a few cents of Amazon server time for 3% of your capital."""
"""Short-term robots and long-term investors in the stock market""","""Consider the price history to be the sum of short term movements and long term movements. If you hold a stock for a long time you will benefit (or lose) from its long term movement.  If a sufficiently large and very good short term trader existed he would tend to reduce short term volatility, eventually to nearly zero. At that point, the price would rise gently over the course of the day in line with the long term variation in price. Presumably robot traders will increase the time horizon of their trades when they have exhausted the gains they can make from short term trades."""
"""Unemployment Insurance Through Options""","""Options do act, somewhat, like insurance.... However.... An insurance policy will not have such short term expiration time frames. A 20 year term life insurance policy can be thought of as insurance with an expiration. But the expiration on options is in weeks, not decades.  So (IMO) options make terrible insurance policies because of the very short term expirations they have."""
"""If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?""","""I haven't seen any of the other answers address this point \u2013 shares are (a form of) ownership of a company and thus they are an entitlement to the proceeds of the company, including proceeds from liquidation. Imagine an (extreme, contrived) example whereby you own shares in a company that is explicitly intended to only exist for a finite and definite period, say to serve as the producers of a one-time event. Consider a possible sequence of major events in this company's life: So why would the shares of this hypothetical company be worth anything? Because the company itself is worth something, or rather the stuff that the company owns is worth something, even (or in my example, especially) in the event of its dissolution or liquidation. Besides just the stuff that a company owns, why else would owning a portion of a company be a good idea, i.e. why would I pay for such a privilege? Buying shares of a company is a good idea if you believe (and are correct) that a company will make larger profits or capture more value (e.g. buy and control more valuable stuff) than other people believe. If your beliefs don't significantly differ from others then (ideally) the price of the companies stock should reflect all of the future value that everyone expects it to have, tho that value is discounted based on time preference, i.e. how much more valuable a given amount of money or a given thing of value is today versus some time in the future. Some notes on time preference: But apart from whether you should buy shares in a specific company, owning shares can still be valuable. Not only are shares a claim on a company's current assets (in the event of liquidation) but they are also claims on all future assets of the company. So if a company is growing then the value of shares now should reflect the (discounted) future value of the company, not just the value of its assets today. If shares in a company pays dividends then the company gives you money for owning shares. You already understand why that's worth something. It's basically equivalent to an annuity, tho dividends are much more likely to stop or change whereas the whole point of an annuity is that it's a (sometimes) fixed amount paid at fixed intervals, i.e. reliable and dependable. As CQM points out in their answer, part of the value of stock shares, to those that own them, and especially to those considering buying them, is the expectation or belief that they can sell those shares for a greater price than what they paid for them \u2013 irrespective of the 'true value' of the stock shares. But even in a world where everyone (magically) had the same knowledge always, a significant component of a stock's value is independent of its value as a source of trading profit. As Jesse Barnum points out in their answer, part of the value of stocks that don't pay dividends relative to stocks that do is due to the (potential) differences in tax liabilities incurred between dividends and long-term capital gains. This however, is not the primary source of value of a stock share."""
"""Cons of withdrawing money from an Roth IRA account?""","""First thing to note is that contributions (i.e. the total of all the amounts that you directly contributed into Roth IRA at any point in time) to a Roth IRA can be withdrawn at any time, without needing any reason, without any tax or penalty. Early withdrawal (early because you are under 59.5) of earnings, on the other hand, will incur tax and penalty. (I didn't go into withdrawal of conversions as those are a little more complex.) When you withdraw, contributions come out first, so as long as you don't withdraw more than the amount of past contributions, you won't have any tax or penalty. And if it's not going to have tax, it doesn't really matter if you do it this year or next year. If you need to dip into the earnings, however, then maybe it would be better to do this year so it will be taxed at lower rates."""
"""Should I exclude bonds from our retirement investment portfolio if our time horizon is still long enough?""","""I've had the same thoughts recently and after reading Investing at Level 3 by James Cloonan I believe his thesis that for the passive investor you're giving up too much if you're not 100% in equities. He is clear to point out that you need to be well aware of your withdrawal horizons and has specific tactics for shifting the portfolio when you know you must have the money in the next five years and wouldn't want to pull money out when you're at a market low. The kicker for me was shifting your thought to a plotting a straight line of reasonable expectations on your return. Then you don't worry about how far down you are from your high (or up from your low) but you measure yourself against the expected return and you'll find some real grounding. You're investing for the long term so you're going to see 2-3 bear markets. That isn't the the time to get cold feet and react. Stay put and it will come back. The market gets back to the reasonable expectations very quickly as he confirms in all the bear markets and recessions of any note. He gives guidelines for a passive investing strategy to leverage this mentality and talks about venturing into an active strategy but doesn't go into great depth. So if you're looking to invest more passively this book may be enough to get you rolling with thinking differently than the traditional 70\/30 split."""
"""How websites like Google have access to stock market data? ""","""At the bottom of Yahoo! Finance's S & P 500 quote Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE, and NYSE MKT. See also delay   times for other exchanges. All information provided \""as is\"" for   informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or   advice. Neither Yahoo! nor any of independent providers is liable for   any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any   actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. By   accessing the Yahoo! site, you agree not to redistribute the   information found therein. Fundamental company data provided by Capital IQ. Historical chart data   and daily updates provided by Commodity Systems, Inc. (CSI).   International historical chart data, daily updates, fund summary, fund   performance, dividend data and Morningstar Index data provided by   Morningstar, Inc. Orderbook quotes are provided by BATS Exchange. US   Financials data provided by Edgar Online and all other Financials   provided by Capital IQ. International historical chart data, daily   updates, fundAnalyst estimates data provided by Thomson Financial   Network. All data povided by Thomson Financial Network is based solely   upon research information provided by third party analysts. Yahoo! has   not reviewed, and in no way endorses the validity of such data. Yahoo!   and ThomsonFN shall not be liable for any actions taken in reliance   thereon. Thus, yes there is a DB being accessed that there is likely an agreement between Yahoo! and the providers."""
"""Form as LLC or S Corp to reduce tax liability""","""An LLC or an S corp will result in the same tax obligations because both are pass-through tax entities. An LLC is more flexible for the situation you describe because the member and manager responsibilities can be detailed in the operating agreement. You really should get a business attorney to help you get your operating agreement in order. There's also a startups beta site on Stack Exchange that may be able to help you with questions about ways to handle your operating agreement."""
"""Who can truly afford luxury cars?""","""In many (most?) cases, luxury cars are leased rather than purchased, so the payments on even an expensive car might not be as high as you'd expect. For simplicity, take a $100,000 car. If you were to buy that in cash or do a standard five-year auto loan, that would be incredibly expensive for all but the wealthiest of people. But a lease is different. When you lease a car, you are financing the car's depreciation over the lease term. So, let's suppose that you're signing up for a three-year lease. The car manufacturer will make an estimate of what that car will be worth when you bring it back in three years (this is called the residual value). If this number is $80,000, that means the lessee is only financing the $20,000 difference between the car's price and its residual value after three years - rather than the full $100,000 MSRP. At the end of the lease, he or she just turns the car back in. Luxury cars are actually especially amenable to leasing because they have excellent brand power - just because of the name on the hood, there are many people who would be happy to pay a lot for a three-year-old Mercedes or BMW. With a mid- or low-range car, the brand is not as powerful and used cars consequentially have a lower residual value (as a percentage of the MSRP) than luxury cars. So, don't look at an $80,000 luxury car and assume that the owner has paying for the entire $80,000."""
"""If I want a Credit Card offered through a different Credit Union should I slowly transition my banking to that CU?""","""As has been stated, you don't need to actively bank with a credit union to apply for one of their credit cards. That said, one benefit to having account activity, and significant capital with a CU, is to increase the likelihood of having a larger credit line granted to you, when you do apply. If you are going to use the card sparingly however, then this is a non issue. That said, if you really want to maximize card benefits, then you want to look for cards with large sign up bonuses (e.g. Chase Sapphire, or Ink Bold if you have a business) and sign up exclusively for those bonuses. These cards offer rewards in excessive value of $1000 in travel services (hotels\/plane tickets), or $500 cash back if you prefer straight cash back redemptions. If you prefer to keep it really simple, you can sign up for a cash back card, like the Amex Fidelity, which offers 2% cash back everywhere, with no annual fee (albeit the cash back is through their investment account, which you don't actually have to 'invest' with). Personally, I have the Penfed card, and use it exclusively for gas (5% cash back). I also have a Charles Schwab bank account, which I keep funded exclusively for ATM withdrawals (free ATM usage, worldwide, 100% fee reimbursement). I use the accounts exclusively for the benefit they provide me, and no more and have never had an issue. I also have 3 dozen other credit cards which I signed up for exclusively for the sign up bonus, but that's outside the scope of this question. I only mention it because you seem to believe it is difficult to get approved for a new credit line. If your credit is good however, you won't have a problem.  For a small idea, of how to maximize credit card bonus categories, I would advise you read this. As mentioned in the article, its possible to get rewards almost everywhere you shop. In short, anytime you use cash, you are missing out on a multitude of benefits a credit card offers you (e.g. see the benefits of a visa signature card) in addition to points\/cash back."""
"""Can I rely on my home equity to finance large home repairs?""","""Yes, a HELOC is great for that. I just had my roof done last month (~$15K, \""ugh\"") and pretty much every major contractor in my area had a 0% same-as-cash for at least 12 months. So that helps - any balance that I don't bank by 11\/15\/2015 will be on the HELOC."""
"""How to share income after marriage and kids?""","""I can only share with you my happened with my wife and I. First, and foremost, if you think you need to protect your assets for some reason then do so. Be open and honest about it. If we get a divorce, X stays with me, and Y stays with you.  This seems silly, even when your doing it, but it's important. You can speak with a lawyer about this stuff as you need to, but get it in writing. Now I know this seems like planning for failure, but if you feel that foo is important to you, and you want to retain ownership of foo no mater what, then you have to do this step. It also works both ways. You can use, with some limitations, this to insulate your new family unit from your personal risks. For example, my business is mine. If we break up it stays mine. The income is shared, but the business is mine. This creates a barrier that if someone from 10 years ago sues my business, then my wife is protected from that. Keep in mind, different countries different rules. Next, and this is my advise. Give up on \""his and hers\"" everything. It's just \""ours\"". Together you make 5400\u20ac decide how to spend 5400\u20ac together. Pick your goals together. The pot is 5400\u20ac. End of line. It doesn't matter how much from one person or how much from another (unless your talking about mitigating losses from sick days or injuries or leave etc.). All that matters is that you make 5400\u20ac. Start your budgeting there.  Next setup an equal allowance. That is money, set aside for non-sense reasons. I like to buy video games, my wife likes to buy books. This is not for vacation, or stuff together, but just little, tiny stuff you can do for your self, without asking  \""permission\"". The number should be small, and equal. Maybe 50\u20ac.  Finally setup a budget. House Stuff 200\u20ac, Car stuff 400\u20ac. etc. etc. then it doesn't matter who bought the house stuff. You only have to coordinate so that you don't both buy house stuff. After some time (took us around 6 months) you will find out how this works and you can add on some rules. For example, I don't go to Best Buy alone. I will spend too much on \""house stuff\"". My wife doesn't like to make the budget, so I handle that, then we go over it. Things like that."""
"""Investment strategy for retired couple""","""You need to have them consult with a financial adviser that has a focus on issues for seniors. This is because they are beyond the saving for retirement phase and are now in the making-their-money-last phase. They also have issues related to health insurance, IRA RMDs, long term care insurance. The adviser will need to review what they have and determine how to make sure it is what they need. It is great idea for you to go along with them so you can understand what needs to be done. You will want an adviser that charges you a fee for making the plan, not one that makes a commission based on what products you buy or invest in."""
"""How is initial stock price (IPO) of a stock determined""","""Who determines company value at IPO? The Owners based on the advice from Lead Bankers and other Independent auditors who would determine the value of the company at the time of listing. At times instead of determining a fixed price a range is given [lower side and higher side]. The Market participants [FI \/ Institutional Investor Segments] then decide the price by bidding at an amount. There are multiple aspects in play that help stabalize the IPO and roles of various parties. A quick read of question with IPO tag is recommended Edits: Generally at a very broad level, one of the key purpose of the IPO is to either encash Owner equity [Owner wants some profits immediately] or Raise additional Capital. More often it is a mix of both. If the price is too low, one loose out on getting the true value, this would go to someone else. If the price is too high, then it may not attract enough buyers or even there are buyers, there is substantial -ve sentiment. This is not good for the company. Read the question From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well?  This puts determining the price of IPO more in the realm of art than science. There are various mechanism [Lead bankers, Institutional Investors, Underwriters] the a company would put in place to ensure the IPO is success and that itself would moderate the price to realistic level. More often the price is kept slightly lower to create a positive buzz about the stock."""
"""How do you quantify investment risk?""","""The question is: how do you quantify investment risk? As Michael S says, one approach is to treat investment returns as a random variable. Bill Goetzmann (Yale finance professor) told me that if you accept that markets are efficient or that the price of an asset reflects it's underlying value, then changes in price represent changes in value, so standard deviation naturally becomes the appropriate measure for riskiness of an asset. Essentially, the more volatile an asset, the riskier it is. There is another school of thought that comes from Ben Graham and Warren Buffett, which says that volatility is not inherently risky. Rather, risk should be defined as the permanent loss of capital, so the riskiness of an asset is the probability of a permanent loss of capital invested.  This is easy to do in casino games, based on basic probability such as   roulette or slots. But what has been done with the various kinds of   investment risks? My point is saying that certain bonds are \""low risk\""   isn't good enough; I'd like some numbers--or at least a range of   numbers--and therefore one could calculate expected payoff (in the   statistics sense). Or can it not be done--and if not, why not? Investing is more art than science. In theory, a Triple-A bond rating means the asset is riskless or nearly riskless, but we saw that this was obviously wrong since several of the AAA mortgage backed securities (MBS) went under prior to the recent US recession. More recently, the current threat of default suggests that bond ratings are not entirely accurate, since US Treasuries are considered riskless assets.  Investors often use bond ratings to evaluate investments - a bond is considered investment grade if it's BBB- or higher. To adequately price bonds and evaluate risk, there are too many factors to simply refer to a chart because things like the issuer, credit quality, liquidity risk, systematic risk, and unsystematic risk all play a factor.  Another factor you have to consider is the overall portfolio. Markowitz showed that adding a riskier asset can actually lower the overall risk of a portfolio because of diversification. This is all under the assumption that risk = variance, which I think is bunk.  I'm aware that Wall Street is nothing like roulette, but then again   there must be some math and heavy economics behind calculating risk   for individual investors. This is, after all, what \""quants\"" are paid   to do, in part. Is it all voodoo? I suspect some of it is, but not all   of it. Quants are often involved in high frequency trading as well, but that's another note. There are complicated risk management products, such as the Aladdin system by BlackRock, which incorporate modern portfolio theory (Markowitz, Fama, Sharpe, Samuelson, etc) and financial formulas to manage risk.  Crouhy's Risk Management covers some of the concepts applied.  I also tend to think that when people point to the last x number of   years of stock market performance, that is of less value than they   expect. Even going back to 1900 provides \""only\"" 110 years of data, and   in my view, complex systems need more data than those 40,500 data   points. 10,000 years' worth of data, ok, but not 110. Any books or articles that address these issues, or your own informed   views, would be helfpul. I fully agree with you here. A lot of work is done in the Santa Fe Institute to study \""complex adaptive systems,\"" and we don't have any big, clear theory as of yet. Conventional risk management is based on the ideas of modern portfolio theory, but a lot of that is seen to be wrong. Behavioral finance is introducing new ideas on how investors behave and why the old models are wrong, which is why I cannot suggest you study risk management and risk models because I and many skilled investors consider them to be largely wrong. There are many good books on investing, the best of which is Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor. Although not a book on risk solely, it provides a different viewpoint on how to invest and covers how to protect investments via a \""Margin of Safety.\"" Lastly, I'd recommend Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein, which covers the history of risk and risk analysis. It's not solely a finance book but rather a fascinating historical view of risk, and it helps but many things in context. Hope it helps!"""
"""Where to invest proceeds from home sale to be used to buy new house within five years?""","""For a two year time frame, a good insured savings account or a low-cost short-term government bond fund is most likely the way I would go. Depending on the specific amount, it may also be reasonable to look into directly buying government bonds. The reason for this is simply that in such a short time period, the stock market can be extremely volatile. Imagine if you had gone all in with the money on the stock market in, say, 2007, intending to withdraw the money after two years. Take a broad stock market index of your choice and see how much you'd have got back, and consider if you'd have felt comfortable sticking to your plan for the duration. Since you would likely be focused more on preservation of capital than returns during such a relatively short period, the risk of the stock market making a major (or even relatively minor) downturn in the interim would (should) be a bigger consideration than the possibility of a higher return. The \""return of capital, not return on capital\"" rule. If the stock market falls by 10%, it must go up by 11% to break even. If it falls by 25%, it must go up by 33% to break even. If you are looking at a slightly longer time period, such as the example five years, then you might want to add some stocks to the mix for the possibility of a higher return. Still, however, since you have a specific goal in mind that is still reasonably close in time, I would likely keep a large fraction of the money in interest-bearing holdings (bank account, bonds, bond funds) rather than in the stock market. A good compromise may be medium-to-high-yield corporate bonds. It shouldn't be too difficult to find such bond funds that can return a few percentage points above risk-free interest, if you can live with the price volatility. Over time and as you get closer to actually needing the money, shift the holdings to lower-risk holdings to secure the capital amount. Yes, short-term government bonds tend to have dismal returns, particularly currently. (It's pretty much either that, or the country is just about bankrupt already, which means that the risk of default is quite high which is reflected in the interest premiums demanded by investors.) But the risk in most countries' short-term government bonds is also very much limited. And generally, when you are looking at using the money for a specific purpose within a defined (and relatively short) time frame, you want to reduce risk, even if that comes with the price tag of a slightly lower return. And, as always, never put all your eggs in one basket. A combination of government bonds from various countries may be appropriate, just as you should diversify between different stocks in a well-balanced portfolio. Make sure to check the limits on how much money is insured in a single account, for a single individual, in a single institution and for a household - you don't want to chase high interest bank accounts only to be burned by something like that if the institution goes bankrupt. Generally, the sooner you expect to need the money, the less risk you should take, even if that means a lower return on capital. And the risk progression (ignoring currency effects, which affects all of these equally) is roughly short-term government bonds, long-term government bonds or regular corporate bonds, high-yield corporate bonds, stock market large cap, stock market mid and low cap. Yes, there are exceptions, but that's a resonable rule of thumb."""
"""How can I find the historical stock price for a specific stock on a specific date?""","""A quick search showed me that UEP merged into Ameren on Dec 31, 1997, and Ameren still exists today.  So I took a look at Ameren's Investor Relations website.   Unfortunately, they don't provide historical stock prices prior to Ameren forming, so starting with 1998.  However, I've had good luck in the past emailing a company's investor relations contact and asking for data like this that isn't on the website.  It's reasonably likely they'll have internal records they could look it up within."""
"""How much can I withdraw from Betterment and be considered long-term investment?""","""No matter what, you owe taxes on the gains, known as capital gains. How much, depends on how long you invested it for. In your example, each month is treated separately - each month you contribute starts a new clock on that set of investments. If you hold it for longer than a year, the taxes are treated as long-term, and less than a year is short-term. Short term taxes are at your marginal rate, and long term taxes are different, usually 15%. https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/taxtopics\/tc400\/tc409"""
"""How to get a credit card as a minor?""","""In general, minors cannot enter into legally binding contracts --   which is what credit accounts are -- so an individually held card is   probably not an option for you right now. You will not be approved for a credit card because you are minor. The only option credit card wise for you is for your parents to add you on as an authorized user onto their accounts. The upside is that you and your parents can work out a monthly payment for the amount you spend on your equipment, the downside is that if your parents don't pay their credit card bill, your credit score\/report can be negatively affected. (This also depends on the bank, however, all the banks I bank with report monthly payment activities on authorized users' credit reports as well. There might be a bank that doesn't.)  In terms of credit cards, there is nothing you can do. What you could do as the comments have suggested is either save up money for the equipment you want, or buy something cheaper."""
"""What is a \""fiat\"" currency? Are there other types of currency?""","""fiat in Latin means \""let it be\"" or \""let it happen\"" - as in \""fiat lux!\"" meaning \""let there be light!\"". Thus, fiat money means money that are created by the government decree - they would be random worthless pieces of paper otherwise, so the government says \""let this paper be worth $100\"" and it becomes $100. Non-fiat money have some value that is beyond declaration - e.g., gold coin has the value of gold that is made of. Since 1971, almost all world currencies are fiat money."""
"""How do dividend reinvestment purchases work?""","""Many brokers administer their own dividend reinvestment plans.  In this case, on dividend payment date, they automatically buy from the market on behalf of their reinvestment customers, and they administer all fractional shares across all customers.  All of your shares are in the broker's street name anyway, the fractional share is simply in their account system.   The process is well documented for several common online brokers; so any specific questions you may have about differences in policies or implementation should be directed to your broker:  https:\/\/us.etrade.com\/e\/t\/estation\/help?id=1301060000 https:\/\/www.tdameritrade.com\/retail-en_us\/resources\/pdf\/TDA208.pdf"""
"""Can value from labor provided to oneself be taxed?""","""The basis of the home is the cost of land and material. That's it.  Your time isn't added to basis. No different than if you spend 1000 hours in a soup kitchen. You deduct miles for your car and expenses you can document but you can't deduct your time.  Over 2 years, you could have a gain up to $500K per married couple and pay no tax."""
"""Advantages of Shareholder over Director in new Company""","""I know the general principles of acting as a director in a company, and am familiar with the rights of shareholders. In the last ten years or so, I believe Australia has introduced legislation that strongly punishes those directors who do not act in a professional or prudent manner. While I will of course attempt to fulfill the duties required - I am new to conducting business at this level, and am concerned about mistakenly breaching some unknown rule\/law and being subject to repercussions that I just don't know about. As you have already stated, the key to being director in a company is the additional responsibility. Legally you can be held in breach. At the same time you will be able to influence your decision much better if you a director and thus safeguard your interest. If you are only a shareholder, you cannot be held responsible for decision by company, individual malpractice may still be applicable, but this is less of a risk. However over a period of time, the board can take certain decision that may marginalize your holding in the company."""
"""How can one get their FICO\/credit scores for free? (really free)""","""As of 2014, this answer is deprecated. Read answer here for recent developments up to January 2015.  You can get a free credit report yearly, but you don't get your credit score, just the content of your report. This is useful to make sure your credit history is correct, etc. To get that, visit annualcreditreport.com. Another site which will give you your score for free, really free with no strings attached, is creditkarma.com, which gives you your TransUnion credit score and full TransUnion credit report. The site is run by TransUnion and supported via advertising. At this point Equifax and Experian offer similar services via subscription, but not for free. Update 8\/14\/2015: CreditKarma now offers the Equifax information as part of their service."""
"""Why does financial investor bother to buy derivatives and then hedge the position?""","""There are a number reasons to hedge a position.  Here are some of the more common:"""
"""Why are big companies like Apple or Google not included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index?""","""That is a pretty exclusive club and for the most part they are not interested in highly volatile companies like Apple and Google. Sure, IBM is part of the DJIA, but that is about as stalwart as you can get these days. The typical profile for a DJIA stock would be one that pays fairly predictable dividends, has been around since money was invented, and are not going anywhere unless the apocalypse really happens this year. In summary, DJIA is the boring reliable company index."""
"""Is this investment opportunity problematic?""","""Every time I have loaned money to family members I have never gotten the money back. If they can't make the down payment, they should not be taking out the loan. It's a bad idea to loan money to friends, because when they can't pay you back (which might be forever) they avoid you. So, you lose both your money and your friends."""
"""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money?""","""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money? Not normally.* The stock market as a whole, on average, increases in value over time. So if we make the claim that the market is a zero-sum game, and you only make money if other people lose money, that idea is not sustainable. There aren't that many people that would keep investing in something only to continue to lose money to the \""winners.\"" The stock market, and the companies inside it, grow in value as the economy grows. And the economy grows as workers add value with their work.  Here's an analogy: I can buy a tree seed for very little and plant it in the ground. If I do nothing more, it probably won't grow, and it will be worth nothing. However, by taking the time to water it, fertilize it, weed it, prune it, and harvest it, I can sell the produce for much more than I purchased that seed for. No one lost money when I sell it; I increased the value by adding my effort.  If I sell that tree to a sawmill, they can cut the tree into usable lumber, and sell that lumber at a profit. They added their efforts and increased the value.  A carpenter can increase the value even further by making something useful (a door, for example). A retail store can make that door more useful by transporting it to a location with a buyer, and a builder can make it even more useful by installing it on a house.  No one lost any money in any of these transactions. They bought something valuable, and made it more valuable by adding their effort.  Companies in the stock market grow in value the same way. A company will grow in value as its employees produce things. An investor provides capital that the company uses to be able to produce things**, and as the company grows, it increases in value. As the population increases and more workers and customers are born, and as more useful things are invented, the economy will continue to grow as a whole.  * Certainly, it is possible, even common, to profit from someone else's loss.  People lose money in the stock market all the time.  But it doesn't have to be this way.  The stock market goes up, on average, over the long term, and so long term investors can continue to make money in the market even without profiting from others' failures. ** An investor that purchases a share from another investor does not directly provide capital to the company.  However, this second investor is rewarding the first investor who did provide capital to the company.  This is the reason that the first investor purchased in the first place; without the second investor, the first would have had no reason to invest and provide the capital.  Relating it to our tree analogy: Did the builder who installed the door help out the tree farmer?  After all, the tree farmer already sold the tree to the sawmill and doesn't care what happens to it after that.  However, if the builder had not needed a door, the sawmill would have had no reason to buy the tree."""
"""Does setting up a company for your own improves credibility?""","""The key here is that you are defacto running your own company no matter if you acknowledge it or not.  In the end these questions have the goal of deciding if you can and will repay the loan.  Presumably you filed taxes on your income.  These can be shown to the loan officer as proof you have the ability to repay your loan. Running your freelancing as a business has advantages of being able to deduct normal expenses for running the business from your revenue. I am not sure how business cards improves your credit worthiness as they can be had for $10 in about an hour."""
"""How to file income tax returns for profits from ESPP stock?""","""I did this for the last tax year so hopefully I can help you. You should get a 1099-B (around the same time you're getting your W-2(s)) from the trustee (whichever company facilitates the ESPP) that has all the information you need to file. You'll fill out a Schedule D and (probably) a Form 8949 to describe the capital gains and\/or losses from your sale(s). It's no different than if you had bought and sold stock with any brokerage."""
"""No trading data other than close for a stock on a given date""","""There are several reasons why this may happen and I will update as I get more information from you. Volumes on that stock look low (supposing that they are either in a factor between 1s and 1000s) so it could well be that there was no volume on that day. If no trades occur then open, high and low are meaningless as they are statistics based on trades that occur that day and no trades occur. Remember that there has to be volume to get a price. The stock may have been frozen by either the exchange or the company for the day. This could be for various reasons including to prevent some illegal activity. In that case no trades were made because the market for that stock was closed. Another possibility is that all trades that day were cancelled by the exchange. The exchange may cancel all trades if there is unusual, potentially fraudulent or other illegal activity on the stock. In this case the last price for that day existed but was rolled back by the exchange and never occurred. This is a rare situation. Although I can't find any holidays on that date it is possible that this is how your data provider marks market holidays. It would be valid to ignore the data in that case as being from a non-market day. I cannot tell if this is possible without knowing exchange information. There is a possibility that some data providers don't receive data for a day or that it gets corrupted. It may be worth checking another source to ensure the integrity of the data that you are receiving. Whichever reason is true, the data provider has made the close equal to the previous day's close as no price movements occurred. Strictly the closing price is the price of the last trade made for that day and so should be null (and open, high and low should be null too and not 0 otherwise the price change on day is very large!). Therefore, to keep integrity, you have a few choices:"""
"""Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings?""","""0% furniture loans can hurt your credit rating. I was told by a bank mortgage officer (sorry I can't cite a document) that credit rating algorithms consider \""consumer\"" loans like 0% appliance loans and certain store-specific credit cards as a negative factor, lowering your overall score. The rationalization given was that that taking that type of credit is an indicator that you have zero cash reserves. The actual algorithms are proprietary, so I don't know how you could verify this. If true, it runs counter to the conventional wisdom that getting credit and then paying it off builds your credit score."""
"""Are car buying services worth it?""","""The buying service your credit union uses is similar to the one my credit union uses. I have used their service several times. There is no direct cost to use the service, though the credit union as a whole might have a fee to join the service. I have used it 4 times over the decades. If you know what make and model you want to purchase, or at least have it narrowed down to just a few choices, you can get an exact price for that make, model, and options. You do this before negotiating a price. You are then issued a certificate. You have to go to a specific salesman at a specific dealership, but near a large city there will be several dealers to pick from.  There is no negotiating at the dealership. You still have to deal with a trade in, and the financing option: dealer, credit union, or cash. But it is nice to not have to negotiate on the price. Of course there is nobody to stop you from using the price from the buying service as a goal when visiting a more conveniently located dealership, that is what I did last time. The first couple of times I used the standard credit union financing, and the last time I didn't need a loan. Even if you don't use the buying service, one way to pay for the car is to get the loan from the credit union, but get the rebate from the dealer. Many times if you get the low dealer financing you can't get the rebate. Doing it this way actually saves money. Speaking of rebates see how the buying service addresses them. The big national rebates  were still honored during at least one of my purchases. So it turned out to be the buying service price minus $1,000. If your service worked like my experience, the cost to you was a little time to get the price, and a little time in a different dealer to verify that the price was good."""
"""What is the future of 401(k) in terms of stability and reliability?""","""Let's pretend that the author of that article is not selling anything and is trying to help you succeed in life.  I have nothing against sales, but that author is throwing out a lot of nonsense to sell his stuff and is creating a state of urgency so that people adopt this mindset.  It's clever and it obviously works. From a pure time perspective, most people won't make enough money to run their own business and be as profitable as if they worked for a company.  This is a reality that few want to acknowledge.  If you invested in yourself and your career with the same discipline and urgency as an entrepreneur, most people would be better off at a company when you consider the benefits and the fact that employees have a full 7.5% of social security paid by their employer (entrepreneurs see the full 15% while employees don't).  Why do I start here, because this author isn't telling you that the more people take his advice, the more their earnings will regress to the mean or below.  In fact, most of my entrepreneur friends have to go back to work when their reality fails after they burn through their savings. 401ks are not a perfect system, but there are more 401k millionaires now than ever before this, and people who give the author's advice are always looking to avoid doing what they need to do - save for retirement.  Most people I know sadly realize this in their 50s, when it's too late, and start trying to \""catch up.\""  I don't blame the author for this, as he knows his article will appeal to younger people who don't have the wisdom to see that his advice hasn't been great for most.  The reality is that for most people 401ks will provide tax advantaged savings that you can use when you're older; taxes will eat at your earnings, so these accounts really help. Finally, look at the article again especially the part you quote.  He says inflation will carve out what you save, yet inflation is less than 2%.  Where is he getting this from?  In the past decade, we've seen numerous deflationary spirals and the market overall has come back from the fall in 2009.  Again, this isn't \""good enough\"" for this author, so buy his stuff to learn how to succeed!  There have been numerous decades (50s,70s) that were much worse for investors than this past one."""
"""Rent or buy with 0 down""","""Whether or not you choose to buy is a complicated question.  I will answer as \""what you should consider\/think about\"" as I don't think \""What should I do\"" is on topic. First off, renting tends to look expensive compared to mortgages until you factor in the other costs that are included in your rent. Property taxes.  These are a few grand a year even in the worst areas, and tend to be more.  Find out what the taxes are ahead of time.  Even though you can often deduct them (and your interest), you're giving up your standard deduction to do so - and with the low interest regime currently, unless your taxes are high you may not end up being better off deducting them. Home insurance. This depends on home and area, but is at least hundreds of dollars per year, and could easily run a thousand.  So another hundred a month on your bill (and it's more than renter's insurance by quite a lot). Upkeep costs for the property.  You've got a lot of up-front costs (buy a lawnmower, etc. types of things) plus a lot of ongoing costs (general repair, plumbing breaks, electrical breaks, whatnot).   Sales commission, as Scott notes in comments.  When you sell, you're paying about 6% commission; so you won't be above water, if housing prices stay flat, until you've paid off 6% of your loan value (plus closing costs, another couple of percent).  You hit the 90% point on a 15 year about year 2, but on a 30 year you don't hit it until about year 5, so you might not be above water when you want to sell. Risk of decrease in value. Whenever you buy property, you take on the risk of losing value as well as the potential of gaining value.  Don't assume that because prices are going up they will continue to; remember that a lot of investors are well aware of possible profits from rising prices and will be buying (and driving prices up) themselves.  2008 was a shock to a lot of people, even in areas where it seemed like prices should've still gone up; you never know what's going to happen.  If you buy a house for 20% or so down, you have a bit of a safety net (if it drops 10-20% in value, you're still above water, though you do of course lose money), while if you buy it for 0% down and it drops 20% in value, you won't be able to sell (at all) for years. All that together means you should really take a hard look at the costs and benefits, make a realistic calculation including all actual costs, and then make a decision. I would not buy simply because it seems like a good idea to not pay rent.  If you're unable to make any down payment, then you're also unable to deal with the risks in home ownership - not just decrease in value, but when your pipe bursts and ruins your basement, or when the roof needs a replacement because a tree falls on it.  Yes, home insurance helps, but not always, and the deductible will still get you. Just to have some numbers: For my area, we pay about $8000 a year in property taxes on a $280k house ($200k mortgage), $1k a year in home insurance, so our escrow payment is about $750 a month.  A 15 year for $200k is about $1400 a month, so $2200 or so total cost.  We do live in a high property tax area, so someone in lower tax regimes would pay less - say 1800-1900 - but not that cheap.  A 30 year would save you 500 or so a month, but you're still not all that much lower than rent."""
"""How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?""","""Most 0% interest loans have quite high interest rates that are deferred. If you are late on a payment you are hit with all the deferred interest. They're banking on a percentage of customers missing a payment.  Also, this is popular in furniture\/car sales because it's a way to get people to buy who otherwise wouldn't, they made money on the item sale, so the loan doesn't have to earn them money (even though some will). Traditional banks\/lenders do make money from interest and rely on that, they would have to rely on fees if interest were not permitted."""
"""How do historically low interest rates affect real estate prices?""","""Interest rates do generally affect house prices but other factors do too, especially the unemployment rate. However, everything else being equal, when interest rates drop, it makes the borrowing of money cheaper so tends to stimulate the economy and the housing market, increasing the demand for houses and generally causes house prices to increase (especially if the supply of new housing doesn't increase with the demand). When interest rates go up the opposite happens. Usually interest rates go down in order to stimulate  a slowing economy and interest rates go up to slow down an overheated economy. Regarding your situation you are able to get a 30 year fixed rate at today\u2019s interest rates (in Australia the longest fixed rate you can get is for 10 years and the rate is usually 1 or 2 percent higher than the standard variable rate. Most people here go for the variable rate or a fixed rate of between 1 to 3 years). This means that even if rates do go up in the future you won't be paying a higher rate, which is a positive for you. You are buying the house to live in so as long as you can keep making the repayments you should not be too worried if the price of the house drops sometime in the future, because if your house has dropped and you want to sell to buy another house to live in, then that house would have also dropped relative to yours (give or take). So your main worry is that rates will go up causing both house prices to fall and unemployment to rise, and you yourself losing your job and eventually your house. It is a risk, but what you need to consider is if you can manage that risk. Firstly, I believe rates won't be going up in the US for a number of years, and if and when they do start going up they will most probably start going up slowly. So you have some time on your side. Secondly, what can you do between now and when interest rates do start going up in a few years: Try to put more saving away to increase your safety net from 6 months to 12 months or more, or make extra repayments into your home loan so that you are ahead if things do go wrong. If you are worried that you could lose your job, what can you do to reduce your chances of losing your job or increasing your chances of getting a new job quickly if you do lose it? Improve your current skills, get new skills, become an invaluable employee, or look at possible opportunities to start your own business. Do your own research on the types of houses you are looking at buying, the more houses you look at the better prepared you will be when the right house at the right price comes along, and the less chance that you will be rushed into buying what might be an overpriced house. So to sum it up; do as much research as you can, have an understanding of what your risks are and how you are going to manage those risks."""
"""A little advice please\u2026car loan related""","""Let's assess the situation first, then look at an option: This leaves you with about $1,017\/mo in cash flow, provided you spend money on nothing else (entertainment, oil changes, general merchandise, gifts, etc.) So I'd say take $200\/mo off that as \""backup\"" money. Now we're at $817\/mo.  Question: What have you been doing with this extra $800\/mo? If you put $600\/mo of that extra towards the 10% loan, it would be paid off in 12 months and you would only pay $508 in interest. If you have been saving it (like all the wisest people say you should), then you should have plenty enough to either pay for a new transmission or buy a \""good enough\"" car outright.  10% interest rate on a vehicle purchase is not very good. Not sure why you have a personal loan to handle this rather than an auto loan, but I'll guess you have a low credit score or not much credit history.  Cost of a new transmission is usually $1,700 - $3,500. Not sure what vehicle we're talking about, so let's make it $3,000 to be conservative.  At your current interest rate, you'll have paid another $1,450 in interest over the next 33 months just trying to pay off your underwater car.  If you take your old car to a dealership and trade it in towards a \""new to you\"" car, you might be able to roll your existing loan into a new loan. Now, I'm not sure when you say personal loan if you mean an official loan from a bank or a personal loan from a friend\/family-member, so that could make a difference. I'm also not sure if a dealership will be willing to recognize a personal loan in the transaction as I'd wager there's no lien against the vehicle for them to worry about. But, if you can manage it, you may be able to get a lower overall interest rate. If you can't roll it into a new financing plan, then you need to assess if you can afford a new loan (provided you even get approved) on top of your existing finances. One big issue that will affect interest rates and approvals will be your down payment amount. The higher it is, the better interest rate you'll receive. Ultimately, you're in a not-so-great position, but if your monthly budget is as you describe, then you'll be fine after a few more years. The perils of buying a used car is that you never know what might happen. What if you don't repair your existing car, buy another car, and it breaks down in a year? It's all a bit of a gamble. Don't let your emotions get in the way of making a decision. You might be frustrated with your current vehicle, but if $3,000 of repairs makes it last 3 more years, (by which time your current loan should be paid off), then you'll be in a much better spot to finance a newer vehicle. Of course it would be much better to save up cash over that time and buy something outright, but that's not always feasible.  Would you rather fix up your current car and keep working to pay down the debt, or, would you rather be rid of the car and put $3,000 down on a \""new to you\"" car and take on an additional monthly debt? There's no single right answer for you. First and foremost you need to assess your monthly cash flow and properly allocate the extra funds. Get out of debt as soon as reasonably possible."""
"""Figuring out an ideal balance to carry on credit cards [duplicate]""","""One key point that other answers haven't covered is that many credit cards have a provision where if you pay it off every month, you get a grace period on the interest.  Interest doesn't accrue at all unless you rollover a non-zero balance.  But if you do, you pay interest on the average balance, not the rolled-over balance, for the entire month. You have to ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish with your credit history? Are you trying to maximize your \""buying power\"" (really, leverage)?  Or are you trying to make sure that you get the best terms on a moderately sized loan (house mortgage, car note)? As JohnFx and losthorse already noted, it's in the banker's best interest to maximize the profit they make off of you.  Of course, that is not in your best interest. Keeping a credit card balance from month to month definitely feeds the greedy nature of the financing beast.  And makes them willing to take more risks, because the returns are also higher.  But those returns cost you. If you are planning to get sensible loans in the future, that you can comfortably afford, you won't need a maxed credit score.  You won't get the largest loan amounts, but because you are doing the sensible thing and making a large down payment, the risk is also very low and you'll find lenders willing to give you a low interest rate.  Because even though the reward is lower than the compulsive purchaser who pays an order of magnitude more in financing fees, the return\/risk ratio is still very favorable to the bank. Don't play the game that maximizes their return.  That happens when you have a loan of maximum size, high interest rate, and struggle to make payments, end up missing a couple and paying late fees, or request forbearance which compounds the interest. Play to minimize risk."""
"""How to share income after marriage and kids?""","""My suggestion would be that you're looking at this the wrong way, though for good reasons.  Once you are a family, you should - and, in most cases I've seen, will - think of things differently than you do now. Right now, your post above is written from a selfish perspective.  Not to be insulting, and not implying selfish is a bad thing - I don't mean it negatively.  But it is how you're defining this problem: from a self-interested, selfish point of view.  \""Fair\"" and \""unfair\"" only have meaning from this point of view; something can only be unfair to you if you come from a self-centered viewpoint. Try to think of this from a family-centric viewpoint, and from your significant other's point of view. You're absolutely right to want both of you to be independent financially as far as is possible; but think about what that means from all three points of view (your family's, yours, and hers)? Exactly what it means will depend on the two of you separately and together, but I would encourage you to start with a few basics that make it likely you'll find a common ground: First of all, ensure your significant other has a retirement account of her own that is funded as well as yours is.  This will both make life easier if you split up, and give her a safety net if something happens to you than if you have all of the retirement savings.  I don't know how your country manages pensions or retirement accounts, but figure out how to get her into something that is as close to equal to yours as possible. Make sure both of you have similar quality credit histories.  You should both have credit cards in your own names (or be true joint owners of the accounts, not just authorized users, where that is possible), and both be on the mortgage\/etc. when possible.  This is a common issue for women whose spouse dies young and who have no credit history.  (Thanks @KateGregory for reminding me on this one) Beyond that, work out how much your budget allows for in spending money for the two of you, and split that equally.  This spending money (i.e., \""fun money\"" or money you can do whatever you like with) is what is fundamentally important in terms of financial independence: if you control most of the extra money, then you're the one who ultimately has control over much (vacations, eating out, etc.) and things will be strained.  This money should be equal - whether it is literally apportioned directly (each of you has 200 a month in an account) or simply budgeted for with a common account is up to you, whatever works best for your personal habits; separate accounts works well for many here to keep things honest. When that money is accounted for, whatever it is, split the rest of the bills up so that she pays some of them from her income.  If she wants to be independent, some of that is being in the habit of paying bills on time.  One of you paying all of the bills is not optimal since it means the other will not build good habits.  For example, my wife pays the warehouse club credit card and the cell phone bill, while I pay the gas\/electric utilities. Whatever doesn't go to spending money and doesn't go to the bills she's personally responsible for or you're responsible for (from your paycheck) should go to a joint account.  That joint account should pay the larger bills - mortgage\/rent, in particular - and common household expenses, and both of you should have visibility on it.  For example, our mortgage, day-care costs, major credit card (which includes most of our groceries and other household expenses) come from that joint account. This kind of system, where you each have equal money to spend and each have some household responsibilities, seems the most reasonable to me: it incurs the least friction over money, assuming everyone sticks to their budgeted amounts, and prevents one party from being able to hold power over another. It's a system that seems likely to be best for the family as a unit.  It's not \""fair\"" from a self-centered point of view, but is quite fair from a family-centered point of view, and that is the right point of view when you are a family, in my opinion. I'll emphasize here also that it is important that no one party hold the power, and this is set up to avoid that, but it's also important that you not use your earning power as a major arguing point in this system.  You're not \""funding her lifestyle\"" or anything like that: you're supporting your family, just as she is.  If she were earning more than you, would you cut your hours and stay at home?  Trick question, as it happens; regardless of your answer to that question, you're still at the same point: both of you are doing the thing you're best suited for (or, the thing you prefer).  You're both supporting the family, just in different ways, and suggesting that your contribution is more valuable than hers is a great way to head down the road to divorce: it's also just plain incorrect.  My wife and I are in almost the identical situation - 2 kids, she works part time in the biological sciences while spending plenty of time with the kids, I'm a programmer outearning her significantly - and I can tell you that I'd more than happily switch roles if she were the bread earner, and would feel just as satisfied if not more doing so. And, I can imagine myself in that position, so I can also imagine how I'd feel in that position as far as how I value my contribution."""
"""When to start investing in an index fund? Wait for a bear market, use dollar cost-averaging, or another approach?""","""The fact that you are choosing index fund means you are surely not one of those investors who can correctly judge dips. But buying on dips is still important. You can use a method called Dollar Value Averaging. It is better than Dollar Cost Averaging. Just make sure you apply a lower limit and an upper limit to be more predictable. Suppose you have 10000 to invest. Use limits like minimum 200 investment when index is high, maximum 600 investment when index is down and when index gives normal returns, invest 400. Do this for about 2 years. More than 2 years is not recommended. I myself use this method and benefit a lot."""
"""Should you always max out contributions to your 401k?""","""While tax deferral is a nice feature, the 401k is not the Holy Grail.  I've seen plenty of 401k's where the investment options are horrible: sub-par performance, high fees, limited options.   That's great that you've maxed out your Roth IRA.  I commend you for that.   As long as the investment options in your 401k are good, then I would stick with it."""
"""Will I be able to purchase land?""","""Here are some important things to think about.  Alan and Denise Fields discuss them in more detail in Your New House. Permanent work.  Where do you want to live?  Are there suitable jobs nearby?  How much do they pay? Emergency fund.  Banks care that you have \""reserves\"" (and\/or an unsecured line of credit) in case you have a run of bad luck.  This also helps with float the large expenses when closing a loan. Personal line of credit. Who are you building for?  If you are not married, then you should consider whether building a home makes that easier, or harder.  If you hope to have kids, you should consider whether your home will make it easier to have kids, or harder.  If you are married (or seriously considering it), make sure that your spouse helps with the shopping, and is in agreement on the priorities and choices.  If you are not married, then what will you do if\/when you get married?  Will you sell?  expand?  build another house on the same lot?  rent the home out? Total budget.  How much can the lot, utilities, permits, taxes, financing charges, building costs, and contingency allowance come to?  Talk with a banker about how much you can afford.  Talk with a build-on-your-lot builder about how much house you can get for that budget.  Consider a new mobile or manufactured home.  But if you do choose one, ask your banker how that affects what you can borrow, and how it affects your rates and terms.  Talk with a good real estate agent about how much the resale value might be. Finished lot budget. How much can you budget for the lot, utilities, permits required to get zoning approval, fees, interest, and taxes before you start construction? Down payment.  It sounds like you have a plan for this. Loan underwriting.  Talk with a good bank loan officer about what their expectations are.  Ask about the \""front-end\"" and \""back-end\"" Debt-To-Income ratios.  In Oregon, I recommend Washington Federal for lot loans and construction loans.  They keep all of their loans, and service the loans themselves.  They use appraisers who are specially trained in evaluating new home construction.  Their appraisers tend to appraise a bit low, but not ridiculously low like the incompetent appraisers used by some other banks in the area.  (I know two banks with lots of Oregon branches that use an appraiser who ignores 40% of the finished, heated area of some to-be-built homes.)  Avoid any institution (including USAA and NavyFed) that outsources their lending to PHH. Lot loan.  In Oregon, Washington Federal offers lot loans with 30% down payments, 20-year amortization, and one point, on approved credit.  The interest rate can be a fixed rate, but is typically a few percentage points per year higher than for a mortgage secured by a permanent house.  If you have the financial wherewithal to start building within two years, Washington Federal also offers short-term lot loans.  Ask about the costs of appraisals, points, and recording fees. Rent.  How much will it cost to rent a place to live, between when you move back to Oregon, and when your new home is ready to move into? Commute.  How much time will it take to get from your new home to work?  How much will it cost?  (E.g., car ownership, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, taxes, fuel?  If public transportation is an option, how much will it cost?) Lot availability.  How many are there to choose from?  Can you talk a farmer into selling off a chunk of land?  Can you homestead government land?  How much does a lot cost?  Is it worth getting a double lot (or an extra large lot)? Utilities. Do you want to live off the grid?  Are you willing to make the choices needed to do that?  (E.g., well, generator, septic system, satellite TV and telephony, fuel storage)  If not, how much will it cost to connect to such systems?  (For practical purposes, subtract twice the value of these installation costs from the cost of a finished lot, when comparing lot deals.) Easements. These provide access to your property, access for others through your property, and affect your rights.  Utility companies often ask for far more rights than they need.  Until you sign on the dotted line, you can negotiate them down to just what they need.  Talk to a good real estate attorney. Zoning. How much will you be allowed to build?  (In terms of home square footage, garage square footage, roof area, and impermeable surfaces.)  How can the home be used?  (As a business, as a farm, how many unrelated people can live there, etc.)  What setbacks are required?  How tall can the building(s) be?  Are there setbacks from streams, swamps, ponds, wetlands, or steep slopes? Choosing a builder.  For construction loans, banks want builders who will build what is agreed upon, in a timely fashion.  If you want to build your own house, talk to your loan officer about what the bank expects in a builder. Plansets and permits.  The construction loan process. If you hire a general contractor, and if you have difficulties with the contractor, you might be forced to refuse to accept some work as being complete.  A good bank will back you up.  Ask about points, appraisal charges, and inspection fees. Insurance during construction.  Some companies have good plans -- if the construction takes 12 months or less.  Some (but not all) auto insurance companies also offer good homeowners' insurance for homes under construction.  Choose your auto insurance company accordingly. Property taxes. Don't forget to include them in your post-construction budget. Homeowners' insurance.  Avoid properties that need flood insurance.  Apply a sanity check to flood maps -- some of them are unrealistic.  Strongly consider earthquake insurance.  Don't forget to include these costs in your post-construction budget. Energy costs.  Some jurisdictions require you to calculate how large a heating system you need.  Do not trust their design temperatures -- they may not allow for enough heating during a cold snap, especially if you have a heat pump.  (Some heat pumps work at -10\u00b0F -- but most lose their effectiveness between 10\u00b0F and 25\u00b0F.)  You can use these calculations, in combination with the number of \""heating degree days\"" and \""cooling degree days\"" at your site, to accurately estimate your energy bills.  If you choose a mobile or manufactured home, calculate how much extra its energy bills will be. Home design.  Here are some good sources of ideas: A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander.  Alexander emphasizes building homes and neighborhoods that can grow, and that have niches within niches within niches. The Not-So-Big House, by Sarah Susanka.  This book applies many Alexander's design patterns to medium and large new houses. Before the Architect.  The late Ralph Pressel emphasized the importance of plywood sheathing, flashing, pocket doors, wide hallways, wide stairways, attic trusses, and open-truss or I-joist floor systems.  Lots of outlets and incandescent lighting are good too.  (It is possible to have too much detail in a house plan, and too much room in a house.  For examples, see any of his plans.) Tim Garrison, \""the builder's engineer\"".  Since Oregon is in earthquake country -- and the building codes do not fully reflect that risk -- emphasize that you want a building that would meet San Jose, California's earthquake code."""
"""How do used vehicle exchange programs at car dealerships work?""","""Yikes! Not always is this the case... For example, you purchased a new car with an interest rate of 5-6%or even higher... Why pay that much interest throughout the loan. Sometimes trading in the vehicle at a lower rate will get you a lower or sometimes the same payment even with an upgraded (newer\/safer technology) design. The trade off? When going from New to New, the car may depreciate faster than what you would save from the interest savings on a new loan. Sometimes the tactics used to get you back to the dealership could be a little harsh, but if you do your research long before you inquire, you may come out on the winning end. Look at what you're paying in interest and consider it a \""re-finance\"" of your car but taking advantage of the manufacturer's low apr special to off-set the costs."""
"""Do I need to file taxes jointly with my girlfriend if we live together?""","""If you pay her rent, how do you differ from a tenant in the eyes of the law? I ask this to show that you are in a business relationship first and foremost. If you don't want to file jointly, there is nothing compelling about your situation to force it. (Grant you, in most countries, there is a benefit to filing jointly) but here, I would argue it would be difficult to make the case. There are, to the best of my knowledge, no laws barring opposite sex landlord-tenant rental situations.  Furthermore, there are no laws barring romantic relationships amongst landlords and tenants.  Indeed, you would need to prove your relationship in some fashion for it to even be considered. In establishing a date of separation from my soon-to-be-ex-wife, for example, I merely needed to prove that we were not \""presenting ourselves as husband and wife.\""  Once I showed that we didn't sit together at church and that she was attending parties I wasn't, that was sufficient. Proving you are in a relationship is actually a lot harder than proving you're not."""
"""How do I adjust to a new social class?""","""I live in one of the highest cost of living areas in my country.  For the cost of less than half the down payment my spouse and I have saved up for a house we could easily buy a home in most of the lower cost of living areas (and several homes in, say, Detroit). As for the rest of your question, though, we've chosen not to live that way.  Because, like all high cost of living areas, ours is near a city there are more free and inexpensive things to do than you would think at first.  While others in our area think a great time is pre-gaming drinks at a nice bar, an expensive restaurant, then some more drinks we've taught ourselves how to make great meals from scratch using sale and inexpensive ingredients from the grocery store and often do that on weekends, topped off by a movie from the redbox that we promptly return the next day.  We have chosen friends who will hang out with us over potluck dinners and board games instead of out on the town.  On weekend days we visit free museums, do hikes, wander around revitalized downtown strips, or play at the local parks.  Our groceries, as I mentioned, are sale items or use coupons and we go for less expensive meats and produce.  We visit our local farmer's market for fun, not to buy the expensive produce.  We might find ourselves wandering through the mall to window shop, but when it comes time to actually buy clothing or goods for the apartment we shop around for up to months to find a good deal. Plenty of our friends have money enough to spend, and the most debt they are usually wallowing in is a big car payment, no consumer debt.  At the same time I have trouble imagining some of them buying a house any time soon, because they simply can't be saving all that much (since I know their incomes).  They may eventually be able to afford a condo and ride rising housing prices to a townhome and then a house - it's what lots of people do around here, loosing buckets money in realtor fees and closing costs along the way.  Even with these choices, it's hard to view my friends as selfish knowing that most of them give around 10% of their income to charity. There are probably plenty of people around here swimming in debt (somebody recently asked in a Q&A with the local paper editors how she could stop going to the city's most expensive restaurants and start living within her means when she only liked expensive places), but lots of folks can stretch themselves and afford to get by while wasting a lot of money.  It's not what my spouse and I have chosen to do, because we want to be able to live very responsibly and plan for a rainy day, but the longer you live with and around the money that tends to permeate high cost of living areas, the more it will seem normal to you. Also, if it's really $1000\/mo for a 2 br. apartment, your cost of living is still lower than mine is. If I were you I wouldn't try to acclimate myself to the spendy habits of your surroundings.  Instead I'd find friends who are frugal and work on maintaining your good financial habits.  If you ever want one of those $4, $5, or $6K (plus!) houses, you're going to need them."""
"""Less than a year at my first job out of college, what do I save for first?""","""On paper the whole 6 months living costs sounds (and is) great, but in real life there are a lot of things that you need to consider. For example, my first car was constantly falling apart and was an SUV that got 16MPG. I have to travel for work (about 300 miles per week) so getting a sedan that averages close to 40MPG saves me more in gas and maintenance than the monthly payment for the new car costs. When our apartment lease was up, the new monthly rent would have been $1685 per month, we got a 30 year mortgage with a monthly payment of $1372. So buying a house actually let us put aside more each month. We have just under 3 months of living expenses set aside (1 month in liquid assets, 2 months in a brokerage account) and I worry about it. I wish we had a better buffer, but in our case the house and car made more sense as an early investment compared to just squirreling away all our savings. Also, do you have any debt? Paying off debt (student loans, credit card debt, etc.) should often take top priority. Have some rainy day funds, of course, but pay down debts, and then create a personal financial plan for what works best in your situation. That would be my suggestion."""
"""Which technical indicators are suitable for medium-term strategies?""","""Speaking from stock market point of view, superficially, TA is similarly applicable to day trading, short term, medium term and long term. You may use different indicators in FX compared to the stock market, but I would expect they are largely the same types of things - direction indicators, momentum indicators, spread indicators, divergence indicators. The key thing with TA or even when trading anything, is that when you have developed a system, that you back test it, to prove that it will work in bear, bull and stagnant markets. I have simple systems that are fine in strong bull markets but really poor in stagnant markets. Also have a trading plan. Know when you are going to exit and enter your trades, what criteria and what position size. Understand how much you are risking on each trade and actively manage your risk. I urge caution over your statement ... one weakened by parting the political union but ought to bounce back ... We (my UK based IT business) have already lost two potential clients due to Brexit. These companies are in FinServ and have no idea of what is going to happen, so I would respectfully suggest that you may have less knowledge than professionals, who deal in currency and property ... but one premise of TA is that you let the chart tell you what is happening. In any case trade well, and with a plan!"""
"""Starting a new job. Help me with retirement\/debt planning please!""","""I would go with your alternative idea: get rid of the debt as fast as possible.    You have $32k of debt. It's a lot, but with your new $90k salary, do you think you could get rid of it all in 12 months? See if you can make that happen. Once the debt is gone, you'll be in a position to invest as much as you want and keep all your gains. You are worried about sacrificing future money in your investments, but if you eliminate the debt over the next year, this will be minimized. Just lose the debt."""
"""How to Buy \""Exotic\"" Bonds as a Low Net Worth Individual?""","""There are discount brokers which charge lower fees, which ones are accessible to you will depend on your country. Here's a list for the USA: https:\/\/the-international-investor.com\/comparison-tables\/online-discount-stock-brokers-comparison-table But seriously, as a \""low net worth individual\"", the last thing you should be doing is gamble away that money - and that's what buying junk bonds is: gambling, not investing. They're called \""junk bonds\"" for a reason, namely that the well-considered opinion of most investors is that there is a high probability of the issuer defaulting on them, which means that the invested money is lost."""
"""What's the most correct way to calculate market cap for multi-class companies?""","""From their 10-K pulled directly from Edgar:  As of October 22, 2015, there were 291,327,781 shares of Alphabet   Inc.\u2019s (the successor issuer pursuant to Rule 12g-3(a) under the   Exchange Act as of October 2, 2015) (Alphabet) Class A common stock   outstanding, 50,893,362 shares of Alphabet's Class B common stock   outstanding, and 345,504,021 Alphabet's Class C capital stock   outstanding. From here just do the math. The shares outstanding are listed on the first page of the 10-Q and 10-K reports. Edit: I believe Class B shares in this instance are not traded on the market and therefore would not be included."""
"""Apartment Security Deposit refunds in Maryland""","""In Maryland, a landlord must hold your security deposit in an escrow account and pay you interest when returning the deposit.  The interest is simple interest; it does not compound. The interest rate that they must pay has changed over the last 43 years.  Before October 1, 2004, the rate was 4%.  Until January 1, 2015, the rate was 3%.  Currently, the rate is 1.5% OR the simple interest rate accrued at the daily U.S. Treasury yield curve rate for one year, as of the first business day of each year, whichever is greater.  (This year, the rate is 1.5%.)  Maryland's Department of Housing and Community Development has a Security Deposit Calculator for easy calculation of this interest; however, it only works for deposits since January 1, 2015. It is unclear to me whether the interest rate in effect is the one that was in place when the security deposit was made, or if the rate changes over the years.   At most, if you get 4% interest every year, I would expect you to receive $429.76, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 43).  The interest is accrued every 6 months, so you would not get any interest for the 3 months that you rented in your 44th year. (With the new law that took effect this year, interest is accrued monthly.) At least, if the interest rate changes with the new laws, I would expect you to receive $413.18, which is $158 + ($158 * 4% * 32.5) + ($158 * 3% * 10.25) + ($158 * 1.5% * 0.5). Some text on the Security Deposit Calculator suggests that the laws for Prince George's County are different than the rest of the state.  If you are in that county, you'll need to check the local ordinances to see what security deposit policies apply."""
"""Are Index Funds really as good as \""experts\"" claim?""","""I actually love this question, and have hashed this out with a friend of mine where my premise was that at some volume of money it must be advantageous to simply track the index yourself. There some obvious touch-points: Most people don't have anywhere near the volume of money required for even a $5 commission outweigh the large index fund expense ratios. There are logistical issues that are massively reduced by holding a fund when it comes to winding down your investment(s) as you get near retirement age. Index funds are not touted as categorically \""the best\"" investment, they are being touted as the best place for the average person to invest. There is still a management component to an index like the S&P500.  The index doesn't simply buy a share of Apple and watch it over time.  The S&P 500 isn't simply a single share of each of the 500 larges US companies it's market cap weighted with frequent rebalancing and constituent changes.  VOO makes a lot of trades every day to track the S&P index, \""passive index investing\"" is almost an oxymoron. The most obvious part of this is that if index funds were \""the best\"" way to invest money Berkshire Hathaway would be 100% invested in VOO.  The argument for \""passive index investing\"" is simplified for public consumption.  The reality is that over time large actively managed funds have under-performed the large index funds net of fees.  In part, the thrust of the advice is that the average person is, or should be, more concerned with their own endeavors than they are managing their savings.  Investment professionals generally want to avoid \""How come I my money only returned 4% when the market index returned 7%?  If you track the index, you won't do worse than the index; this helps people sleep better at night. In my opinion the dirty little secret of index funds is that they are able to charge so much less because they spend $0 making investment decisions and $0 on researching the quality of the securities they hold.  They simply track an index; XYZ company is 0.07% of the index, then the fund carries 0.07% of XYZ even if the manager thinks something shady is going on there. The argument for a majority of your funds residing in Mutual Funds\/ETFs is simple, When you're of retirement age do you really want to make decisions like should I sell a share of Amazon or a share of Exxon?  Wouldn't you rather just sell 2 units of SRQ Index fund and completely maintain your investment diversification and not pay commission?  For this simplicity you give up three basis points?  It seems pretty reasonable to me."""
"""If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real? ""","""This is a extremely complicated subject, but I assume you want a very simple answer (otherwise I'm not qualified to answer). The value of most currencies is closely tied to the economy of the county, so if China were to print a huge amount of yuan, then since the value of their economy has not really changed, the international currency markets would devalue the yuan to compensate. (This is rather like, if have shares in, say Apple, and they were to issue an extra billion shares, then the value of your shares would fall (by half), rather than for Apple to be suddenly be worth twice as much) Print too many notes and your currency basically becomes almost worthless, which is what happened to the Zimbabwean dollar. I like the idea of China skipping crate loads of actual yuan or dollars notes to America, but in practice, the borrowing is just a paper exercise, rather like an IOU. As to whether America owes Yuan or dollars, the answer is whatever has been agreed. Assuming the currencies are fairly stable, then since each country has more control over their own currency, it is natural for them to prefer their own currency. However, if America believes the value of the dollar will increase, they may prefer to pay back in Yuan (costing them less dollars), and if China believes the value of the dollar will decrease they may agree to that."""
"""What factors make someone buy or sell a stock?""","""Stock price is determined by the buyers and sellers, correct? Correct! \""Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it\""-Publius Syrus What causes people to buy or sell? Is it news? earnings? stock analysis and techniques? All of these things influence investors' perception of how much a stock is worth. If AMZN makes a lot of money one quarter, then the price might go up. But maybe public perception of AMZN changes because of a large scandal. This could cause the share price to decline even with the favorable earnings report. Why do these 'good' or 'bad' news make people want to buy\/sell a stock? People invest to make money. If it looks like a company is going to take a turn for the worst, people will sell. If it looks like the company has a bright, cash-laden future in front of them, people will buy. News is one of the many factors people use to determine how well a company will do. Theoretically could a bunch of people short AMZN and drive down the price regardless of how well it is doing? Say investors wanted to boycott AMZN in order to drive down the cost and get some cheap shares. This is pretty silly, but say for the sake of the argument that everyone who owned AMZN decided to sell their shares and no other investor was willing to buy the shares for less than $0.01, then AMZN shares would be \""worth\"" $0.01 in that aspect. That is extremely unlikely to happen, though, for two reasons:"""
"""How to approach building credit without a credit card""","""Keep in mind that credit takes time to build.   Your best short-term solution is to save enough cash to put enough of a down-payment that the lower loan-to-value ratio outweighs the lack of credit history.  If there's enough equity to ensure that the bank will get their money back if they have to foreclose, you will have a better chance of securing financing. In addition, the stability and consistency of your employment may also be a factor that makes it difficult for you to get a loan without a substantial down-payment. Finally, don't ignore the risk present in resting a property that you have a loan on.  Make sure you have a plan in place to pay your payments if the other half goes unrented for several months, or you risk losing the entire property. My advice is to rent somewhere else for enough time that you can save up a lot of cash to purchase a duplex rather than getting in a rush and doing something unwise (like apply for a bunch of credit cards you don't need)."""
"""Are there any countries where citizens are free to use any currency?""","""Wikipedia has a list of countries which ban foreign exchange use by its citizens.  It's actually quite short but does include India and China. Sometimes economic collapse limits enforcement.  For example, after the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar (and its government running out of sufficient foreign exchange to buy the paper necessary to print more), the state turned a blind eye as the US dollar and South African rand became de facto exchange. Practicality will limit the availability of foreign exchange even in free-market economies.  The average business can't afford to have a wide range of alternative currencies sitting around.  Businesses which cater to large numbers of addled tourists sometimes offer one or two alternative currencies in the hopes of charging usurous rates of exchange.  Even bureaux de change sometimes require you to order your \""rarer\"" foreign exchange in advance. So, while it may be legal, it isn't always feasible."""
"""Pros\/cons of borrowing money using a mortgage loan and investing it in a low-fee index fund?""","""Essentially, what you're describing is a leveraged investment.  As others noted, the question is how confident you can be that (a) the returns on the investment will exceed what you're paying in interest, and (b) that if you lose the bet you'll still be able to pay off the loan without severely injuring yourself.  I did essentially this when I bought my house, taking out a larger loan than necessary and leaving more money in my investments, which had been returning more than the mortgage's interest rate. I then got indecently lucky during the recession and was able to refinance down to under 4%, which I am very certain my investment will beat. I actually considered lengthening the term of the loan for that reason, or borrowing a bit more, but decided not to double down on the bet; that was my own risk-comfort threshold. Know exactly what your risks are, including secondary effects of these risks. Run the numbers to see what the likely return is. Decide whether you like the odds enough to go for it."""
"""What are the advantages\/disadvantages of a self-directed IRA?""","""This type of account will sell you just enough rope to hang yourself.  Gold is at $1400 or so. Were you around when it first hit $800 in '79\/'80? I was. No one was saying \""sell\"" only forecasts of $2000. If you bought and held, you've still not broken even to inflation let alone simple market returns."""
"""Reconciling transactions reimbursing myself for expenses as self-employed (UK)""","""Any money that ScottMcGready gives to the company is a personal loan that must be repaid by the company at some point without tax consequences. Any money that the company gives to ScottMcGready is either salary (Scott pays income tax, company counts this as cost), or a dividend (Scott pays dividend tax), or a loan (Scott must repay the loan)."""
"""Over how much time should I dollar-cost-average my bonus from cash into mutual funds?""","""The OP invests a large amount of money each year (30-40k), and has significant amount already invested. Some in the United States that face this situation may want to look at using the bonus to fund two years worth of IRA or Roth IRA.  During the period between January 1st and tax day they can put money into a IRA or Roth IRA for the previous year, and for the current year. The two deposits might have to be made separately, because the tax year for each deposit must be specified. If the individual is married, they can also fund their spouses IRA or Roth IRA.  If this bonus is this large every year, the double deposit can only be done the first time, but if the windfall was unexpected getting the previous years deposit done before tax day could be useful.  The deposits for the current year could still be spread out over the next 12 months. EDIT: Having thought about the issue a little more I have realized there are other timing issues that need to be considered."""
"""Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea?""","""Normally interest only mortgages are taken incase one planning to sell off the property after a few years and purchase of the property is for investment. In such a case instead of burdening oneself with a huge EMI, one opts for an interest only mortgage, and towards the end of the term, sell off the house at profit and repay back the entire principal.  I am not to sure if interest only mortgages are encouraged for properties you plan to live in. Although I do not know about the ING scheme, normally there is no prepayment option on interest only mortgages, its Bank way of earning a fixed income for the contracted period and thats the reason why the interest rates are lower than a regular mortgage. If you do the math, you may be paying more in total interest than on a regular mortgage."""
"""What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?""","""It can be a good thing for the bank to refinance your loan for you - since you will be keeping the loan at that particular institution.  This gives them more time to enjoy the free money you pay them in interest for the remaining life of the loan. Banks that offer \""No closing costs\"" are betting that mortgage payers will move their mortgage to get the lower interest rates - and whomever holds the loan, gets the interest payments."""
"""Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \""highest interest\"" first?""","""It may be the case that some of your debts have a flat regular fee in addition to the interest, which will go away when the debt is completely paid. For example, my mortgage has an approximately $400\/year \""package fee\"" as well as its (quite low) interest. When I finish paying the mortgage, I won't have to pay that fee anymore, so it is theoretically possible that spending extra money on paying off my mortgage would be better than spending it on paying off some other debt. I think it's unlikely that it would actually ever be my optimal move in practice, but the point is, there may be an advantage, financial or otherwise, to getting rid of a particular debt, other than merely removing the burden of interest. Those are special situations, though, and in the majority of cases, starting with the highest interest loan will be the right move."""
"""Just getting started and not sure where to go from here""","""There's a lot going on here. I'd be making the maximum ($5500 for a single person under 50) contribution to the Roth IRA each year. Not too late to put in for 2014 before Wednesday, 4\/15.  Not out of your income, but from the T Rowe Price account. As long as you have earned income, you can make an IRA deposit up to the limit, 5500, or up to that income. The money itself can come from other funds. Just explain to Dad, you're turning the money into a long term retirement account. I doubt that will trouble him.  Aside from that, too much will change when you are out of school. At 18, it's a matter of learning to budget, save what you can, don't get into debt for stupid things. (Stupid, not as I would judge, but as the 25 year old you will judge.)"""
"""Accidentally opened a year term CD account, then realized I need the money sooner. What to do?""","""I did find this information from the US Department of the Treasury: What are the penalties for withdrawing money early from a Time Certificate of Deposit (CD)? Federal law stipulates that all time certificates of deposit (CD) that are cashed out early are subject to a minimum penalty. If you withdraw an amount within the first six days after deposit, the penalty consists of at least seven days' simple interest. Other than that, national banks can set their own penalties; there is no maximum. Additionally, you may want to review the Account Agreement that the bank provided when you opened the account, as it explains the early withdrawal penalties. Check the paperwork to see if there is a short period at the start where the penalty is minimal. Each bank can set their own rules for the maximum penalty. Some base it on x months interest, some as a percentage of the CD, others may use a more complex formula."""
"""How can I get the most value from my employer's ESPP?""","""A 15% discount is a 17.6% return. (100\/85 = 1.176). For a holding period that's an average 15.5 days, a half month. It would be silly to compound this over a year as the numbers are limited.  The safest way to do this is to sell the day you are permitted. In effect, you are betting, 12 times a year, that the stock won't drop 15% in 3 days. You can pull data going back decades, or as long as your company has been public, and run a spreadsheet to see how many times, if at all, the stock has seen this kind of volatility over 3 day periods. Even for volatile stocks, a 15% move is pretty large, you're likely to find your stock doing this less than once per year. It's also safest to not accumulate too many shares of your company for multiple reasons, having to do with risk spreading, diversification, etc.  2 additional points -  the Brexit just caused the S&P to drop 4% over the last 3 days trading. This was a major world event, but, on average we are down 4%. One would have to be very unlucky to have their stock drop 15% over the specific 3 days we are discussing.  The dollars at risk are minimal. Say you make $120K\/yr. $10K\/month. 15% of this is $1500 and you are buying $1765 worth of stock. The gains, on average are expected to be $265\/mo. Doesn't seem like too much, but it's $3180 over a years' time. $3180 in profit for a maximum $1500 at risk at any month's cycle."""
"""Need a loan to buy property in India. What are my options?""","""In USA, if you take a personal loan, you will probably get rates between 8-19%. It is better that you take a loan in India, as home loan rates are about 10.25%(10.15% is the lowest offered by SBI).  This might not be part of the answer, but it is safer to hold USD than Indian rupees as India is inflating so much that the value of the rupee is always going lower(See 1970 when you could buy 1 dollar for 7 rupees). There might be price fluctuations where the rupee gains against the dollar, but in the long run, I think the dollar has much more value(Just a personal opinion). And since you are taking a home loan, I am assuming it will be somewhere between 10-20 years. So, you would actually save a lot more on the depreciating rupee, than you would pay interest. Yes, if you can get a home loan in USA at around 4%, it would definitely be worth considering, but I doubt they will do that since they would not know the actual value of the property. Coming to answer your question, getting a personal loan for 75k without keeping any security is highly unlikely. What you can do since you have a good credit score, is get a line of credit for 20-25k as a backup, and use that money to pay your EMI only when absolutely required. That way, you build your credit in the United States, and have a backup for around 2 years in India in case you fail to pay up. Moreover, Line of credits charge you interest only on the amount, you use. Cheers!"""
"""Should I buy or lease a car given that its not a super luxury car and I only drive 15 miles\/d on avg?""","""Cars depreciate and lose value the second you drive off the lot. Why lose money?  Foreign cars require too much maintenance. What will kill your wallet will be the maintenance on the car, not the payment. Think tires, oil changes, spark plug changes, transmission oil changes, filter changes, brake changes, cost of maintaining is the expensive part. Call the dealer speak to the servicing dept, and go to town. Ask away what all this costs. Basic stuff you expect to have, and find out what the cost of owning that car. Then ask yourself, \""should I buy it?\""."""
"""PayPal wants me to \""add a bank account\"", another funding source. Credit card isn't working. Why?""","""Visit paypalblows.org to find out more reasons. PayPal wants your bank account info on file before they allow you to take payment. So setup a bank account strictly for this service, and if they give you trouble or suspend your account, simply never use them again and tell others of your experience.  I think the only reason why PayPal wants a bank account is so they can dip into it and take chargeback money."""
"""Can a stop loss order be triggered by random price?""","""Typically this isn't a random order- having a small volume just means it's not showing on the chart, but it is a vlid price point. Same thing would've happened if it would've been a very large order that shows on the chart. Consider also that this could have been the first one of many transactions that go far below your stop point - would you not have wanted it to be executed then, at this time, as it did? Would you expect the system to look into future and decide that this is a one time dip, and not sell; versus it is a crash, and sell? Either way, the system cannot look in the future, so it has no way to know if a crash is coming, or if it was a short dip; therefore the instrcutions are executed as given - sell if any transfer happens below the limit. To avoid that (or at least reduce the chance for it), you can either leave more distance (and risk a higher loss when it crashes), or trade higher volumes, so the short small dip won't execute your order; also, very liquid stocks will not show such small transaction dips."""
"""Should I finance a used car or pay cash?""","""I'd pay cash.  Car loans are amortized, so sometimes you can get upside-down on the loan between 18-30 months because you are pre-paying interest. This can get you into trouble if you get into an accident. Given the low rate and the type of car you're buying, you're probably fine either way."""
"""Why could the serious financial woes of some EU member states lead to the end of the Euro?""","""The Euro is a common currency between various countries in Europe.  This means that individual countries give up their traditional sovereign control of their own currency, and cede that control to the EU. Such a system has many advantages, but it also means that individual countries cannot deal with their unique situations as easily.  For instance, if the US were a part of the EU, then the Fed couldn't issue $600B the way they are to bolster the economy. The danger to the Euro is that countries will withdraw their participation in order to micromanage their economies more effectively.  If a major country withdraws its participation, it could start a domino effect where many countries withdraw so that they too can manage their economies more effectively.  As more countries withdraw, a shared currency becomes less and less appealing."""
"""What is the effect of dividends on the futures price of an index""","""A futures contract is based upon a particular delivery date.  In the case of a stock index futures contract is a cash settled futures contract based upon the stock index value at a particular point in time (i.e. this is when the final settlement is determined). In your example, the S&P 500 (SPX) is a price return index - that is, it is not affected by dividends and therefore dividends are not incorporated into the index value.  Dividends will affect the price of the constituent stocks (not necessarily by the same amount as the dividend) so they do have influence on the stock index value.  Since the dividends are known ahead of time (or at least can be estimated), this has already been factored into the futures price by the market. In terms of the impact of a dividend by AAPL, AAPL is approximaetely 3.6% of the index.  Apple pays out dividends 4 times a year (currently paying out $0.52 dividends).  Assuming the market is otherwise steady and AAPL drops by $0.52 due to the dividend and Apple is priced at around $105, this would result in a drop in the index of 0.0178% or around 0.35 points. Interesting fact:  There are some futures contracts that are based upon Total Return indexes, such as the German DAX and the above logic would need to be reversed."""
"""Do stock prices drop due to dividends?""","""Yes, the stock price drops on the ex-dividend date by roughly the amount of the dividend. There is even academic research testing this and confirming that the popular rule of thumb works well."""
"""Options revisited: Gold fever""","""gold is incredibly volatile, I tried spreadbetting on it.  During the month of its highest gain, month beginning to month end, I was betting it would go up - and I still managed to lose money. It went down so much, that my stop loss margin would kick in.   Don't do things with gold in the short term its a very small and liquid market. My advice with gold, actually buy some physical gold as insurance."""
"""Diversification reduces risk, but does this base on the assumption that expected return of each asset is always in proportion to its risk?""","""If you are diversifying just for diversification purposes then all you are doing is averaging down your returns. You shouldn't just buy two securities because you think it is safer than putting all your money into one. A better method is to use money management and position sizing to limit your risk and exposure in any one security. You should know what your maximum risk is before you buy any security and know when it is time to get out of it. There are better ways to manage your risk. Don't put all your eggs in the one basket - yes, but don't diversify just for diversification purposes."""
"""Can I depreciate a car given to me?""","""That seems to indicate that you can in fact depreciate a vehicle given   to you? Section 1015 discusses the calculation of basis for gifted property, it says nothing about depreciation. Personal property cannot be depreciated for tax purposes unless it is used for business purposes. So unless you drive your car as part of your sole-proprietor business, you cannot depreciate it, be it a gift or a car you purchased yourself. If you can depreciate the car, then sec. 1015 is used to calculate the basis for the depreciation."""
"""Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers?""","""There really isn't any good ways that I'm aware of. (The exception is in New York or California, where hospitals must post prices.) The law sets price floors on many procedures by setting Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates. As a result, the \""list price\"" for a given procedure is dramatically inflated, and various health insurers negotiate rates somewhere in the middle. I'd recommend talking to the business offices or financial counselors at medical groups that you do business with. Ask about \""self pay discounts\"" or other programs appropriate for folks in your position."""
"""I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget?""","""It's simple, really: Practice. Fiscal responsibility is not a trick you can learn look up on Google, or a service you can buy from your accountant.  Being responsible with your money is a skill that is learned over a lifetime.  The only way to get better at it is to practice, and not get discouraged when you make mistakes."""
"""How to plan in a budget for those less frequent but mid-range expensive buys?""","""I use a \""sinking\"" fund.  If you want to buy a $1000 bicycle, you put $100 per month into a savings account.   10 months from now, you can buy your $1000 bicycle. If you get a $500 windfall, you can either put it in the sinking fund and buy the item earlier.  If you lose some income, you can put $50 per month in the fund."""
"""What is a normal amount of money to spend per week on food\/entertainment\/clothing?""","""Zero? Ten grand? Somewhere in the middle? It depends. Your stated salary, in U.S. dollars, would be high five-figures (~$88k). You certainly should not be starving, but with decent contributions toward savings and retirement, money can indeed be tight month-to-month at that salary level, especially since even in Cardiff you're probably paying more per square foot for your home than in most U.S. markets (EDIT: actually, 3-bedroom apartments in Cardiff, according to Numbeo, range from \u00a3750-850, which is US$1200-$1300, and for that many bedrooms you'd be hard-pressed to find that kind of deal in a good infield neighborhood of the DFW Metro, and good luck getting anywhere close to downtown New York, LA, Miami, Chicago etc for that price. What job do you do, and how are you expected to dress for it? Depending on where you shop and what you buy, a quality dress shirt and dress slacks will cost between US$50-$75 each (assuming real costs are similar for the same brands between US and UK, that's \u00a330-\u00a350 per shirt and pair of pants for quality brands). I maintain about a weeks' wardrobe at this level of dress (my job allows me to wear much cheaper polos and khakis most days and I have about 2 weeks' wardrobe of those) and I typically have to replace due to wear or staining, on average, 2 of these outfits a year (I'm hard on clothes and my waistline is expanding). Adding in 3 \""business casual\"" outfits each year, plus casual outfits, shoes, socks, unmentionables and miscellany, call it maybe $600(\u00a3400)\/year in wardrobe. That doesn't generally get metered out as a monthly allowance (the monthly amount would barely buy a single dress shirt or pair of slacks), but if you're socking away a savings account and buying new clothes to replace old as you can afford them it's a good average. I generally splurge in months when the utilities companies give me a break and when I get \""extra\"" paychecks (26\/year means two months have 3 checks, effectively giving me a \""free\"" check that neither pays the mortgage nor the other major bills). Now, that's just to maintain my own wardrobe at a level of dress that won't get me fired. My wife currently stays home, but when she worked she outspent me, and her work clothes were basic black. To outright replace all the clothes I wear regularly with brand-new stuff off the rack would easily cost a grand, and that's for the average U.S. software dev who doesn't go out and meet other business types on a daily basis. If I needed to show up for work in a suit and tie daily, I'd need a two-week rotation of them, plus dress shirts, and even at the low end of about $350 (\u00a3225) per suit, $400 (\u00a3275) with dress shirt and tie, for something you won't be embarrassed to wear, we're talking $4000 (\u00a32600) to replace and $800 (\u00a3520) per year to update 2 a year, not counting what I wear underneath or on the weekends. And if I wore suits I'd probably have to update the styles more often than that, so just go ahead and double it and I turn over my wardrobe once every 5 years. None of this includes laundering costs, which increase sharply when you're taking suits to the cleaners weekly versus just throwing a bunch of cotton-poly in the washing machine. What hobbies or other entertainment interests do you and your wife have? A movie ticket in the U.S. varies between $7-$15 depending on the size of the screen and 2D vs 3D screenings. My wife and I currently average less than one theater visit a month, but if you took in a flick each weekend with your wife, with a decent $50 dinner out, that's between $260-$420 (\u00a3165-270) monthly in entertainment expenses. Not counting babysitting for the little one (the going rate in the US is between $10 and $20 an hour for at-home child-sitting depending on who you hire and for how long, how often). Worst-case, without babysitting that's less than 5% of your gross income, but possibly more than 10% of your take-home depending on UK effective income tax rates (your marginal rate is 40% according to the HMRC, unless you find a way to deduct about \u00a330k of your income). That's just the traditional American date night, which is just one possible interest. Playing organized sports is more or less expensive depending on the sport. Soccer (sorry, football) just needs a well-kept field, two goals and and a ball. Golf, while not really needing much more when you say it that way, can cost thousands of dollars or pounds a month to play with the best equipment at the best courses. Hockey requires head-to-toe padding\/armor, skates, sticks, and ice time. American football typically isn't an amateur sport for adults and has virtually no audience in Europe, but in the right places in the U.S., beginning in just a couple years you'd be kitting your son out head-to-toe not dissimilar to hockey (minus sticks) and at a similar cost, and would keep that up at least halfway through high school. I've played them all at varying amateur levels, and with the possible exception of soccer they all get expensive when you really get interested in them. How much do you eat, and of what?. My family of three's monthly grocery budget is about $300-$400 (\u00a3190-\u00a3260) depending on what we buy and how we buy it. Americans have big refrigerators (often more than one; there's three in my house of varying sizes), we buy in bulk as needed every week to two weeks, we refrigerate or freeze a lot of what we buy, and we eat and drink a lot of high-fructose corn-syrup-based crap that's excise-taxed into non-existence in most other countries. I don't have real-world experience living and grocery-shopping in Europe, but I do know that most shopping is done more often, in smaller quantities, and for more real food. You might expect to spend \u00a3325 ($500) or more monthly, in fits and starts every few days, but as I said you'd probably know better than me what you're buying and what it's costing. To educate myself, I went to mysupermarket.co.uk, which has what I assume are typical UK food prices (mostly from Tesco), and it's a real eye-opener. In the U.S., alcohol is much more expensive for equal volume than almost any other drink except designer coffee and energy drinks, and we refrigerate the heck out of everything anyway, so a low-budget food approach in the U.S. generally means nixing beer and wine in favor of milk, fruit juices, sodas and Kool-Aid (or just plain ol' tap water). A quick search on MySupermarkets shows that wine prices average a little cheaper, accounting for the exchange rate, as in the States (that varies widely even in the U.S., as local and state taxes for beer, wine and spirits all differ). Beer is similarly slightly cheaper across the board, especially for brands local to the British Isles (and even the Coors Lite crap we're apparently shipping over to you is more expensive here than there), but in contrast, milk by the gallon (4L) seems to be virtually unheard of in the UK, and your half-gallon\/2-liter jugs are just a few pence cheaper than our going rate for a gallon (unless you buy \""organic\"" in the US, which carries about a 100% markup). Juices are also about double the price depending on what you're buying (a quart of \""Innocent\"" OJ, roughly equivalent in presentation to the U.S. brand \""Simply Orange\"", is \u00a33 while Simply Orange is about the same price in USD for 2 quarts), and U.S.-brand \""fizzy drinks\"" are similarly at a premium (\u00a31.98 - over $3 - for a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola). With the general preference for room-temperature alcohol in Europe giving a big advantage to the longer unrefrigerated shelf lives of beer and wine, I'm going to guess you guys drink more alcohol and water with dinner than Americans. Beef is cheaper in the U.S., depending on where you are and what you're buying; prices for store-brand ground beef (you guys call it \""minced\"") of the grade we'd use for hamburgers and sauces is about \u00a36 per kilo in the UK, which works out to about $4.20\/lb, when we're paying closer to $3\/lb in most cities. I actually can't remember the last time I bought fresh chicken on the bone, but the average price I'm seeing in the UK is \u00a310\/kg ($7\/lb) which sounds pretty steep. Anyway, it sounds like shopping for American tastes in the UK would cost, on average, between 25-30% more than here in the US, so applying that to my own family's food budget, you could easily justify spending \u00a3335 a month on food."""
"""Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?""","""Omg, the answer is easy. Tell the TRUTH, and nothing is fraud. Down payment gifts are SOP's, and every lender works with that. EACH lender has their own rules. Fannie May and Freddie Mac could care less, and FHA and VA backed loans allow for full gifting unless the buyer's credit is below the standard 620, then 3.5% must come from the buyer. Standard bank loans want to know the source of the down payment for ONE REASON ONLY: to know if the buyer is taking ON A NEW DEBT! The only thing you will need do is sign a legal document stating the entire down payment is a gift.  That way the bank knows their lendee isn't owing a new substantial debt, and that there aren't two lenders on the house, because should she default, the bank will have to pay you back first off the resale. Get it? They just want to know how many hands are in the fire."""
"""Who buys variable annuities?""","""An annuity makes sense in a few different scenarios: In general, they are not the best deal around (and are often ripoffs), and will almost certainly be a bad deal if pitched by a tax preparer, insurance salesman, etc.  Keep in mind that any \""guarantees\"" offered are guarantees made by an insurance company. The only backing up of that claim in the event of a company failing is protection from your state's Guaranty Association. (ie. not the Feds)"""
"""Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe?""","""Banks in general will keep saving rates as low as possible especially if there is a surplus of funds or alternative access for funding as in the case of the Fed in the USA. Generally speaking, why would bank pay you a high interest rate when they cannot generate any income from your money? Usually we will expect to see a drop in the loan interest rate when their is a surplus of funds so as to encourage investment. But if the market is volatile then no banks will allow easy access to money through loans. The old traditional policy of lending money without proper security and no control from the central bank has created serious problems for savings account holders when some of these banks went into bankruptcy. It is for this reason most countries has modified their Financial Act to offer more protection to account holders. At the moment banks must follow rigid guidelines before a loan can be approved to a customer. In my country (Guyana) we have seen the collapse of a few banks which sent a shock wave across the county for those that have savings held at those bank. We have also seen unsecured loans having to be written off thus putting serious pressure of those banks. So government stepped in a few years ago and amended the act to make it mandatory to have commercial banks follow certain strict guidelines before approving a loan."""
"""Got a \""personal\"" bonus from my boss. Do I have to pay taxes and if so, how do I go about that?""","""If you are in the US and a regular employee, this will have to show up on your year-end W2 form as income. If it doesn't, there is some funky accounting business going and you should probably consult a professional for advice."""
"""Will depositing $10k+ checks each month raise red flags with the IRS?""","""You're getting confused between several different things. 10K - cash transactions over $10,000 are reported to FinCEN under BSA. This is to prevent money laundering. IRS - IRS wants to see your tax return with all your income reported there. They don't see your bank deposits unless they audit you. 1 and 2 are not related at all."""
"""How should my brother and I structure our real estate purchase?""","""While I agree with the existing bulk of comments and answers that you can't tell the lender the $7k is a gift, I do think you might have luck finding a mortgage broker who can help you get a loan as a group.  (You might consider as an LLC or other form of corporation if no one will take you otherwise.)  That is, each of you will be an owner of the house and appear on the mortgage.  IIRC, as long as the downpayment only comes from the collective group, and the income-to-debt ratio of the group as a whole is acceptable, and the strongest credit rating of the group is good, you should be able to find a loan.  (You may need a formal ownership agreement to get this accepted by the lender.)  That said, I don't know if your income will trump your brother's situation (presumably high debt ratio or lower than 100% multiplier on his income dues to its source), but it will certainly help. As to how to structure the deal for fairness, I think whatever the two of you agree to and put down in writing is fine.  If you each think you're helping the other, than a 50\/50 split on profits at the sale of the property seems reasonable to me.   I'd recommend that you actually include in your write up a defined maximum period for ownership (e.g. 5yr, or 10yr, etc,) and explain how things will be resolved if one side doesn't want to sell at that point but the other side does. Just remember that whatever percentages you agree to as ownership won't effect the lender's view of payment requirements.  The lender will consider each member of the group fully and independently responsible for the loan.  That is, if something happens to your brother, or he just flakes out on you, you will be on the hook for 100% of the loan.  And vice-versa.  Your write up ought to document what happens if one of you flakes out on paying agreed upon amounts, but still expects there ownership share at the time of sale. That said, if you're trying to be mathematically fair about apportioning ownership, you could do something like the below to try and factor in the various issues into the money flow: The above has the benefit that you can start with a different ownership split (34\/66, 25\/75, etc.) if one of you wants to own more of the property."""
"""Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash?""","""First you should maintain a monthly expense and find out the burn rate. There would be certain expenses that are annual but mandatory [School fees, Insurance Premium, Property Taxes, etc]. So the ideal emergency fund depending on your industry should be 3 month to 6 months plus your mandatory yearly payments, more so if they come together. For example Most of my annual payments come out in May and I bank on the Bonus payout in April to cater to this spike in expense. So if I were to lose a job in March, my emergency funds would be sufficient for routine expenses, if i don't provision for additional funds Second you need to also figure out the reduced rate of monthly burn and ideally the emergency funds should be for 3 months of normal burn and 6 months of reduced burn."""
"""Highest market cap for a company from historical data""","""In common with many companies, Microsoft has been engaging in share buyback programmes, where it buys its own shares in the market and then cancels them. It's often a more tax-efficient way to distribute profits to the shareholders than paying a dividend. So there were more Microsoft shares in circulation in 1999 than there are now. See here for information."""
"""Taxable income on full-time job + business earnings""","""Possible alternative: In my case, the part-time locksmithing is a small enough portion of my I come that I just submit it as hobby income, rather than trying to track it as a separate entity."""
"""How secure is my 403(b)? Can its assets be \""raided\""?""","""I assume you get your information from somewhere where they don't report the truth. I'm sorry if mentioning Fox News offended you, it was not my intention. But the way the question is phrased suggests that you know nothing about what \""pension\"" means. So let me explain. 403(b) is not a pension account. Pension account is generally a \""defined benefit\"" account, whereas 403(b)\/401(k) and similar - are \""defined contribution\"" accounts. The difference is significant: for pensions, the employer committed on certain amount to be paid out at retirement (the defined benefit) regardless of how much the employee\/employer contributed or how well the account performed. This makes such an arrangement a liability. An obligation to pay. In other words - debt. Defined contribution on the other hand doesn't create such a liability, since the employer is only committed for the match, which is paid currently. What happens to your account after the employer deposited the defined contribution (the match) - is your problem. You manage it to the best of your abilities and whatever you have there when you retire - is yours, the employer doesn't owe you anything. Here's the problem with pensions: many employers promised the defined benefit, but didn't do anything about actually having money to pay. As mentioned, such a pension is essentially a debt, and the retiree is a debt holder. What happens when employer cannot pay its debts? Employer goes bankrupt. And when bankrupt - debtors are paid only part of what they were owed, and that includes the retirees. There's no-one raiding pensions. No-one goes to the bank with a gun and demands \""give me the pension money\"". What happened was that the employers just didn't fund the pensions. They promised to pay - but didn't set aside any money, or set aside not enough. Instead, they spent it on something else, and when the time came that the retirees wanted their money - they didn't have any. That's what happened in Detroit, and in many other places. 403(b) is in fact the solution to this problem. Instead of defined benefit - the employers commit on defined contribution, and after that - it's your problem, not theirs, to have enough when you're retired."""
"""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 leave the $220,000 in but tell the manager to invest it in the same index fund now.  They earn nothing because the manager's rapacious fees eat up all the gains (4*1.5% = 6%, not perfectly accurate due to compounding but close enough since 6% is only an estimate anyway).  The result: the same $220,000 they started with. This back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests they will actually come out ahead by biting the bullet and taking the money out.  However, I would definitely not advise them to take this major step just based on this simple calculation.  Many other factors are relevant (e.g., taxes when selling the existing investment to buy the index fund, how much of their savings was this $300,000).  Also, I don't know anything about how investment works in Hong Kong, so there could be some wrinkles that modify or invalidate this simple calculation.  But it is a starting point. Based on what you say here, I'd say they should take the earliest opportunity to tell everyone they know never to work with this investment manager.  I would go so far as to say they should look at his credentials (e.g., see what kind of financial advisor certification he has, if any), look up the ethical standards of their issuers, and consider filing a complaint.  This is not because of the performance of the investments -- losing 25% of your money due to market swings is a risk you have to accept -- but because of the exorbitant fees.  Unless Hong Kong has got some crazy kind of investment management market, charging 1.5% quarterly is highway robbery; charging a 25%+ for withdrawal is pillage.  Personally, I would seriously consider withdrawing the money even if the manager's investments had outperformed the market."""
"""What are the tax liabilities for an international transaction?""","""After a bit of rooting around the HMRC sites, I found this page which says this: One key difference is that digitised products are classed as electronically-supplied services for VAT and customs duties. These services are: For VAT purposes, the place of supply of these services is the country in which the customer lives. If you supply electronic services to a business customer in another European Union (EU) country, the customer accounts for any VAT due in that country. You should not charge UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country, you have to account for UK VAT. If you supply electronic services to anyone in a country outside the EU, you don't pay any VAT. If, as a UK business, you buy electronic services from a company outside the UK, you have to account for VAT. If I read this correctly, I as the supplier of the website need to account for VAT only if the sponsor is a consumer, charity or government body in another EU country. It is not covered in this site, but I assume I must also account for VAT for a customer based in the UK.  So in answer to the original question, a customer from Canada (which is currently outside the EU) would account for the VAT themselves, and I would simply charge the gross amount."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""All forms of liquid investing necessarily have the same expected value. If any one form were more profitable, money would flood in, equalizing it. Day trading is unusual in two key ways. First, although the expected value is the same, the risk profile is very different. For example, would you wager a dollar on the flip of a coin?  You might.  Why not, after all? Would you wager a million dollars?  Probably not. The risk is too great. Similarly, day trading can easily lose you all of your investment, which is why you should be careful doing it. (In his memoirs Liar's Poker, Michael Lewis tells an anecdote about a rich bond trader who proposes a million-dollar, even-money bet with his rival, an amount both could just barely afford to lose.  The rival, not wanting to play but not wanting to lose face by declining, accepted.. with the proviso that the stakes be raised to 10 million dollars! The trader backed down.) Also, the efficient market only guarantees the price will be efficient.  It says nothing about transaction costs.  A busy day-trader can easily incur thousands in commission and other fees."""
"""Options on the E-mini S&P 500 Futures at the CME: when were EW3, the weekly Monday options and the weekly Wednesday options introduced?""","""Why do you care? In any case, you can easily Google the answer... Effective Sunday, April 2, 2017 for trade date Monday, April 3, 2017, and pending all relevant CFTC   regulatory review periods, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (\""CME\"" or \""Exchange\"") will list Monday   Weekly Options on the E-mini Standard and Poor\u2019s Stock Price Index Futures and Standard and Poor\u2019s   500 Stock Price Index Futures contracts (collectively the \""Contracts\"") for trading on CME Globex and for   submission for clearing via CME ClearPort as described in Appendix A below. Appendix B below provides   the Exchange fee schedule for the Contracts. source"""
"""Has anyone heard of Peerstreet?""","""(Disclosure - PeerStreet was at FinCon, a financial blogger conference I attended last month. I had the chance to briefly meet a couple people from this company. Also, I recognize a number of the names of their financial backers. This doesn't guarantee anything, of course, except the people behind the scenes are no slackers.) The same way Prosper and Lending Club have created a market for personal loans, this is a company that offers real estate loans.  The \""too good to be true\"" aspect is what I'll try to address. I've disclosed in other answers that I have my Real Estate license. Earlier this year, I sold a house that was financed with a \""Hard Money\"" loan. Not a bank, but a group of investors. They charged the buyer 10%. Let me state - I represented the seller, and when I found out the terms of the loan, it would have been a breach of my own moral and legal responsibility to her to do anything to kill the deal. I felt sick for days after that sale.  There are many people with little credit history who are hard workers and have saved their 20% down. For PeerStreet, 25%. The same way there's a business, local to my area, that offered a 10% loan, PeerStreet is doing something similar but in a 'crowd sourced' way. It seems to me that since they show the duration as only 6-24 months, the buyer typically manages to refinance during that time. I'm guessing that these may be people who are selling their house, but have bad timing, i.e. they need to first close on the sale to qualify to buy the new home. Or simply need the time to get their regular loan approved.  (As a final side note - I recalled the 10% story in a social setting, and more than one person responded they'd have been happy to invest their money at 6%. I could have saved the buyer 4% and gotten someone else nearly 6% more than they get on their cash.)"""
"""Why buying an inverse ETF does not give same results as shorting the ETF""","""Suppose that the ETF is currently at a price of $100.  Suppose that the next day it moves up 10% (to a price of $110) and the following day it moves down 5% (to a price of $104.5).  Over these two days the ETF has had a net gain of 4.5% from its original price. The inverse ETF reverses the daily gains\/losses of the base ETF.  Suppose for simplicity that the inverse ETF also starts out at a price of $100.  So on the first day it goes down 10% (to $90) and on the second day it goes up 5% (to $94.5).  Thus over the two days the inverse ETF has had a net loss of 5.5%. The specific dollar amounts do not matter here.  The result is that the ETF winds up at 110%*95% = 104.5% of its original price and the inverse ETF is at 90%*105% = 94.5% of its original price.  A similar example is given here. As suggested by your quote, this is due to compounding.  A gain of X% followed by a loss of Y% (compounded on the gain) is not in general the same as a loss of X% followed by a gain of Y% (compounded on the loss).  Or, more simply put, if something loses 10% of its value and then gains 10% of its new value, it will not return to its original value, because the 10% it gained was 10% of its decreased value, so it's not enough to bring it all the way back up.  Likewise if it gains 10% and then loses 10%, it will go slightly below its original value (since it lost 10% of its newly increased value)."""
"""Why does gold have value?""","""Gold can be thought of to have value in one of two ways; (1) as a means and (2) as an end.  Means takes the shape of currency. In this form, we value gold in the same way we value the dollar, it allows us to purchase things we want. As a medium of exchange, gold has no definitive value and is only assigned one during the process of an exchange. For example, I would be valuing one ingot of gold to be worth a dog if I traded a dog for one ingot of gold. The value of gold in this sense is subjective as each person decides for themselves what gold is worth during the transaction. Gold as an end is valued for its own sake. A good example of this is a jeweler who purchases gold directly because of the intrinsic property(s) gold possesses. This is closer to the \""true value\"" of gold than using it as a means, but virtually no one in our society views gold in this manor because virtually no one can use gold in this manor. \""You know what I could use right now, a block of gold.\"" - said no one ever.  But even if you are one of the select few who value gold for its own sake, this is usually done because gold provides a function. For example, if people no longer want to ware jewelry, then a jeweler will likely have to find a new line of work where he would likely no longer view gold as valuable as an ends. To sum up, gold has a perceived value for most people and an \""intrinsic value\"" to a select few (for the time being)."""
"""Travel expenses for an out-of-state rental""","""While the question is very localized, I'll answer about the general principle. My main question is with how far away it is (over 1000 miles), how do   I quantify the travel expenses? Generally, \""necessary and ordinary\"" expenses are deductible. This is true for business and also true for rentals. But what is necessary and what is ordinary? Is it ordinary that a landlord will manage the property 1000 miles away by himself on a daily basis? Is it ordinary for people to drive 1000 miles every week? I'd say \""no\"" to both. I'd say it would be cheaper for you to hire a local property manager, thus the travel expense would not be necessary. I would say it would be cheaper to fly (although I don't know if its true to the specific situation of the OP, but as I said - its too localized to deal with) rather than drive from Texas to Colorado. If the OP thinks that driving a thousand miles is indeed ordinary and necessary he'll have to justify it to the IRS examiner, as I'm sure it will be examined. 2 trips to the property a year will be a nearly 100% write-off (2000   miles, hotels, etc). From what I understood (and that is what I've been told by my CPA), IRS generally allows 1 (one) trip per year per property. If there's an exceptional situation - be prepared to justify it. Also, keep all the receipts (like gas, hotel, etc.... If you claim mileage but in reality you took a flight - you'll get hit hard by the IRS when audited). Also while I'm up there am I allowed to mix business with pleasure? You cannot deduct personal (\""pleasure\"") expenses, at all. If the trip is mainly business, but you go out at the evening instead of staying at the hotel - that's fine. But if the trip is \""business\"" trip where you spend a couple of hours at your property and then go around having fun for two days - the whole trip may be disallowed. If there's a reasonable portion dedicated to your business\/rental, and the rest is pleasure - you'll have to split some of the costs and only deduct the portion attributed to the business activities. You'll have to analyze your specific situation, and see where it falls. Don't stretch the limits too much, it will cost you more on the long run after all the audits and penalties. Can I also write off all travel involved in the purchase of the   property? Although, again, the \""necessary and ordinary\"" justification of such a trip is arguable, lets assume it is necessary and ordinary and generally justified. It is reasonable to expect you to go and see the property with your own eyes before the closing (IMHO, of course, I'm not an authority). Such an expense can be either business or investment expense. If its a business expense - its deductible on schedule C. If its an investment expense (if you do buy the property), its added to the cost of the property (capitalized). I'm not a tax adviser or a tax professional, and this is not a tax advice. This answer was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code. You should seek a professional consultation with a CPA\/Attorney(tax) licensed in your State(s) or a Federally licensed Enrolled Agent (EA)."""
"""How can I avoid international wire fees or currency transfer fees?""","""Check global ATM alliance they are banks that use reciprocal benefits on each other in other countries without fees. For example the in the USA Bank of America and In France it is BNP Paribas. Both are banks in this alliance. I use this option between the United States and the Caribbean my banks of choice are Bank of America in the US and in the Caribbean I use Scotia Bankand since I have accounts in both weekends I can use both ATM cards on any of these two banks without any processing fees!!!!  You should check the global ATM  alliance to see if it is an option that you could use."""
"""Tips for insurance coverage for one-man-teams""","""Like most forms of insurance, health insurance is regulated at the state level. So what is available to you will depend greatly upon which state you live in. You can probably find a list of insurance companies from your state's official website. Many states now provide \""insurance of last resort\"" for individuals who can't get insurance through private insurance companies. You can try looking into professional and trade associations. Some offer group insurance plans comparable with COBRA coverage, meaning you'd get a group discount and benefits but without the benefit of an employer paying 30-80% of your premiums. As a software developer you may qualify for membership in the IEEE or ACM, which both offer several forms of insurance to members. The ASP also offers insurance, though they don't provide much information about it on the public portions of their website. These organization offer other benefits besides insurance so you may want to take that in to consideration. The National Federation of Independent Business also offers insurance to members. You may find other associations in your specific area. Credit Unions, Coops and the local chamber of commerce are all possible avenues of finding lower cost insurance options. If you are religious there are even some faith based non-insurance organizations that provide medical cost sharing services. They depend upon the generosity and sense of fairness and obligation of their members to share the burden of medical expenses so their definitely not for everyone."""
"""Why would a company sell debt in order to buy back shares and\/or pay dividends?""","""When I play Railroad Tycoon III, I often send my company deep into debt to get cash on hand to buy back shares, effectively increasing my ownership of the company as an absolute percentage. Then I issue massive dividends until my company goes bankrupt, and start a new company. It's a way to shuttle money borrowed against a company's assets into my personal bank account at no risk to me. In the MSFT case, maybe they think there will be inflation and this is a hedge against holding so many dollars in cash already. If they can borrow a couple billion in 2010 dollars and pay it back in 2015 dollars, they're probably going to end up ahead if all they do is buy back shares. Paying dividends with the money seems stupid vs. buying back shares - they're just driving up income taxes for investors."""
"""What market conditions favor small cap stocks over medium cap stocks?""","""Small cap companies are just smaller, so the risk for them to fail is higher but the potential for higher returns is also higher."""
"""Estimating the impact of tax-loss harvesting""","""When you sell a stock that you own, you realize gains, or losses. Short-term gains, realized within a year of buying and selling an asset, are taxed at your maximum (or marginal) tax rate. Long term-gains, realized after a year, are taxed at a lower, preferential rate. The first thing to consider is losses. Losses can be cancelled against gains, reducing your tax liability. Losses can also be carried over to the next tax year and be redeemed against those gains. When you own a bunch of the same type of stock, bought at different times and prices, you can choose which shares to sell. This allows you to decide whether you realize short- or long-term gains (or losses). This is known as lot matching (or order matching). You want to sell the shares that lost value before selling the ones that gained value. Booking losses reduces your taxes; booking gains increases them. If faced with a choice between booking short term and long term losses, I'd go with the former. Since net short-term gains are taxed at a higher rate, I'd want to minimize the short-term tax liability before moving on to long-term tax liability. If my remaining shares had gains, I'd sell the ones purchased earliest since long-term gains are taxed at a lower rate, and delaying the booking of gains converts short-term gains into long-term ones. If there's a formula for this, I'd say it's  (profit - loss) x (tax bracket) = tax paid"""
"""If I invest in a company that goes bankrupt, is that a gain or a loss?""","""I'll give the credit to @Quid in the comments section of the question.  You put out $10k, you got back $20k, that's a cash gain of $10k, how the asset was valued between your purchase and sale isn't relevant. From an accounting perspective, the company is the only party that is realizing the loss (as they have sold the asset for 40K less than par). You the buyer, only get to see the initial buy and sale of such capital asset.  Example: A company purchases a car for $20,000 and after depreciation it is worth (book valued at) $2,000. It is then sold to a customer for $3,000.  Does the customer realize a loss of $1,000? No.  Does the company realize a gain of $1,000? Yes.  Your bank analogy is flawed in two ways:"""
"""Is this investment opportunity problematic?""","""As an investment opportunity: NO. As a friendly assist with money you don't mind ever getting back, legal depending on amount. A few years back I was in the housing market myself and researching interest rates and mortgages.  For one property I was very interested in, I would need about $4K extra in liquid cash to complete the down-payment.  A pair of options I saw were a \""combo loan\"" 15yr 4% interest for the house, 1yr 8% interest for the $4K.  Alternately, the \""bank of mom and dad\"" could offer the 4K loan for a much lower rate. The giftable limit where reporting is not required was $12,000 at the time I did the review.  IRS requires personal loans to be counted as having interest at the commercial rate.  Thus an interest free loan of $10K with commercial interest rate of 1% (for easy math) would be counted as a gift of $10,100 for that calendar year. Disclaimer: Ultimately, I did not use this approach and did not have it subjected to a legal review."""
"""Optimize return of dividends based on payout per share""","""The term you're looking for is yield (though it's defined the other way around from your \""payout efficiency\"", as dividend \/ share price, which makes no substantive difference). You're simply saying that you want to buy high-yield shares, which is a common investment strategy. But you have to consider that often a high-yielding share has a reason for the high yield. You probably don't want to buy shares in a company whose current yield is 10% but will go into liquidation next year."""
"""Are credit histories\/scores international?""","""Currently the credit history are not International but are local. Many countries don't have a concept of credit history yet.   Having said that, if you are moving to US, depending on your history in your country, you can ask the same bank to provide you with a card and then start building history. For example in India I had a card with Citi Bank and when I moved to US for a short period, I was given a card based on my India Card, with equivalent credit in USD. If you are moving often internationally, it would make sense to Bank with a leading bank that provide services in geographies of your interest [Citi, HSBC, etc] and then in a new country approach these institutions to get you some starting credit for you to build a history."""
"""How an ETF pays dividend to shareholders if a holding company issues dividend""","""The amount, reliability and frequency of dividends paid by an ETF other than a stock, such as an index or mutual fund, is a function of the agreement under which the ETF was established by the managing or issuing company (or companies), and the \""basket\"" of investments that a share in the fund represents.  Let's say you invest in a DJIA-based index fund, for instance Dow Diamonds (DIA), which is traded on several exchanges including NASDAQ and AMEX. One share of this fund is currently worth $163.45 (Jan 22 2014 14:11 CDT) while the DJIA itself is $16,381.38 as of the same time, so one share of the ETF represents approximately 1% of the index it tracks. The ETF tracks the index by buying and selling shares of the blue chips proportional to total invested value of the fund, to maintain the same weighted percentages of the same stocks that make up the index. McDonald's, for instance, has an applied weight that makes the share price of MCD stock roughly 5% of the total DJIA value, and therefore roughly 5% of the price of 100 shares of DIA. Now, let's say MCD issued a dividend to shareholders of, say, $.20 per share. By buying 100 shares of DIA, you own, through the fund, approximately five MCD shares, and would theoretically be entitled to $1 in dividends. However, keep in mind that you do not own these shares directly, as you would if you spent $16k buying the correct percentage of all the shares directly off the exchange. You instead own shares in the DIA fund, basically giving you an interest in some investment bank that maintains a pool of blue-chips to back the fund shares. Whether the fund pays dividends or not depends on the rules under which that fund was set up. The investment bank may keep all the dividends itself, to cover the expenses inherent in managing the fund (paying fund management personnel and floor traders, covering losses versus the listed price based on bid-ask parity, etc), or it may pay some percentage of total dividends received from stock holdings. However, it will virtually never transparently cut you a check in the amount of your proportional holding of an indexed investment as if you held those stocks directly. In the case of the DIA, the fund pays dividends monthly, at a yield of 2.08%, virtually identical to the actual weighted DJIA yield (2.09%) but lower than the per-share mean yield of the \""DJI 30\"" (2.78%). Differences between index yields and ETF yields can be reflected in the share price of the ETF versus the actual index; 100 shares of DIA would cost $16,345 versus the actual index price of 16,381.38, a delta of $(36.38) or -0.2% from the actual index price. That difference can be attributed to many things, but fundamentally it's because owning the DIA is not the exact same thing as owning the correct proportion of shares making up the DJIA. However, because of what index funds represent, this difference is very small because investors expect to get the price for the ETF that is inherent in the real-time index."""
"""Does it make sense to buy an index ETF (e.g. S&P 500) when the index is at an all-time high?""","""The simple answer is: Where 'think' stands for \""after your calculations, and guts\/intuitions, and analysis\"", of course."""
"""Why does the biotechnology industry have such a high PE ratio?""","""If you look at the biotech breakdown, you'll find a lot of NAs when it comes to P\/E since there are many young biotech companies that have yet to make a profit.  Thus, there may be something to be said for how is the entire industry stat computed. Biotechnology can include pharmaceutical companies that can have big profits due to patents on drugs. As an example, look at Shire PLC which has a P\/E of 1243 which is pretty high with a Market Capitalization of over a billion dollars, so this isn't a small company.  I wonder what dot-com companies would have looked like in 1998\/1999 that could well be similar as some industries will have bubbles you do realize, right? The reason for pointing out the Market Capitalization is that this a way to measure the size of a company, as this is merely the sum of all the stock of the company.  There could be small companies that have low market capitalizations that could have high P\/Es as they are relatively young and could be believed to have enough hype that there is a great deal of confidence in the stock.  For example, Amazon.com was public for years before turning a profit.  In being without profits, there is no P\/E and thus it is worth understanding the limitations of a P\/E as the computation just takes the previous year's earnings for a company divided by the current stock price.  If the expected growth rate is high enough this can be a way to justify a high P\/E for a stock.  The question you asked about an industry having this is the derivation from a set of stocks.  If most of the stocks are high enough, then whatever mean or median one wants to use as the \""industry average\"" will come from that."""
"""Will my Indian debit card work in the U.S.?""","""I recommend that you first try to use your card at a store in your home country, just to make sure that the point-of-sale features are enabled.  After you've verified that, you need to contact your bank and ask them if the card will work in both ATMs and in stores in the U.S.  They may need to enable it to work in another country.  If you are going to be living in the U.S. for a while, you should consider opening an American bank account after you get there. If you don't want a credit card, you should be able to get a debit card here."""
"""Should I pay off my car loan within the year?""","""Contrary to popular belief, you can build your credit (if that is important to you) without paying a penny in interest.  This is done through the responsible use of credit cards, paying the bill in full each month without accruing any interest charges. If I were you, I would pay off the loan today, if possible.  After that, if you decide you need to build up your credit, apply for a credit card.  If you have difficulty with that, you can get a small secured credit card or retail store credit card until you have enough history to get a regular credit card."""
"""Who determines, and how, the composition of the S&P 500 index?""","""The S&P 500 index is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of McGraw Hill Financial. Changes to the index are made periodically, as needed.  For Facebook, you'll find it mentioned in this December 11, 2013 press release (PDF).  Quote: New York, NY, December 11 , 2013 \u2013 S&P Dow Jones Indices will make the following changes to the S&P 100, S&P 500, MidCap 400   and S&P SmallCap 600 indices after the close of trading on Friday,   December 20: You can find out more about the S&P 500 index eligibility criteria from the S&P U.S. Indices methodology document (PDF).  See pages 5 and 6: Market Capitalization - [...] Liquidity - [...] Domicile - [...] Public Float - [...] Sector Classification - [...] Financial Viability - Usually measured as four consecutive quarters of positive as   reported earnings. [...] Treatment of IPOs - Initial public offerings should be seasoned for 6 to 12 months   before being considered for addition to an index. Eligible Securities - [...]   [...]   Changes to the U.S. indices other than the TMIX are made as needed,   with no annual or  semi-annual reconstitution. [...] LabCorp may have a smaller market cap than Facebook, but Facebook didn't meet all of the eligibility criteria \u2013 for instance, see the above note about \""Treatment of IPOs\"" \u2013 until recently. Note also that \""Initial public offerings should be seasoned for 6 to 12 months\"" implies somebody at S&P makes a decision as to the exact when. As such, I would say, no, there is no \""simple rule or formula\"", just the methodology above as applied by the decision-makers at S&P."""
"""What does inflation mean to me?""","""short answer:  any long term financial planning (~10yrs+). e.g. mortgage and retirement planning.  long answer: inflation doesn't really matter in short time frames. on any given day, you might get a rent hike, or a raise, or the grocery store might have a sale.  inflation is really only relevant over the long term.  annual inflation is tiny (2~4%) compared to large unexpected expenses(5-10%).  however, over 10 years, even your \""large unexpected expenses\"" will still average out to a small fraction of your spending (5~10%) compared to the impact of compounded inflation (30~40%). inflation is really critical when you are trying to plan for retirement, which you should start doing when you get your first job.  when making long-term projections, you need to consider not only your expected nominal rate of investment return (e.g. 7%) but also subtract the expected rate of inflation (e.g. 3%). alternatively, you can add the inflation rate to your projected spending (being sure to compound year-over-year). when projecting your income 10+ years out, you can use inflation to estimate your annual raises.  up to age 30, people tend to get raises that exceed inflation. thereafter, they tend to track inflation. if you ever decide to buy a house, you need to consider the impact of inflation when calculating the total cost over a 30-yr mortgage. generally, you can expect your house to appreciate over 30 years in line with inflation (possibly more in an urban area). so a simple mortgage projection needs to account for interest, inflation, maintenance, insurance and closing costs. you could also consider inflation for things like rent and income, but only over several years. generally, rent and income are such large amounts of money it is worth your time to research specific alternatives rather than just guessing what market rates are this year based on average inflation. while it is true that rent and wages go up in line with inflation in the long run, you can make a lot of money in the short run if you keep an eye on market rates every year. over 10-20 years your personal rate of inflation should be very close to the average rate when you consider all your spending (housing, food, energy, clothing, etc.)."""
"""What are my investment options in real estate?""","""I compared investing in real estate a few years ago to investing in stocks that paid double digit dividends (hard to find, however, managing and maintaining real estate is just as hard).  After discussing with many in the real estate world, I counted the average and learned that most averaged about 6 - 8% on real estate after taxes.  This does not include anything else like Dilip mentions (maintenance, insurance, etc).  For those who want to avoid that route, you can buy some companies that invest in real estate or REIT funds like Dilip mentions.  However, they are also susceptible to the problems mentioned above this. In terms of other investment opportunities like stocks or funds, think about businesses that will always be around and will always be needed.  We won't outgrow our need for real estate, but we won't outgrow our need for food or tangible goods either.  You can diversify into these companies along with real estate or buy a general mutual fund. Finally, one of your best investments is your career field - software.  Do some extra work on the side and see if you can get an adviser position at a start-up (it's actually not that hard and it will help you build your skill set) or create a site which generates passive revenue (again, not that hard).  One software engineer told me a few years ago that the stock market is a relic of the past and the new passive income would be generated by businesses that had tools which did all the work through automation (think of a smart phone application that you build once, yet continues to generate revenue).  This was right before the crash, and after it, everyone talked about another \""lost decade.\""  While it does require extra work initially, like all things software related, you'll be discovering tools in programming that you can use again and again in other applications - meaning your first one may be the most difficult. All it takes in this case is one really good idea ..."""
"""Money market account for emergency savings""","""I'm not a fan of using cash for \""emergency\"" savings. Put it in a stable investment that you can liquidate fairly quickly if you have to. I'd rather use credit cards for a while and then pay them off with investment funds if I must. Meanwhile those investments earn a lot more than the 0.1 percent savings or money market accounts will. Investment grade bond funds, for example, should get you a yield of between 4-6% right now. If you want to take a longer term view put that money into a stock index fund like QQQ or DIA. There is the risk it will go down significantly in a recession but over time the return is 10%. (Currently a lot more than that!) In any event you can liquidate securities and get the money into your bank is less than a week. If you leave it in cash it basically earns nothing while you wait for that rainy day which many never come."""
"""What is the principle of forming an arbitrage strategy?""","""Arbitrage is basically taking advantage of a difference in price.  Generally extending to \""in different places for the same thing\"". A monetary version would be interlisted stocks, that is stocks in companies that are on both the NYSE\/Nasdaq and Toronto stock exchanges.  If somebody comes along and buys a large number of shares in Toronto, that will tend to make the price go up - standard supply and demand. But if someone else can buy shares instead in NY, and then sell them in Toronto where the first person is buying up shares, where the price is higher, they the the arbitrageur (second person) can make pretty easy money. By its very nature, this tends to bring the prices back in line, as NY will then go up and Toronto will then go down (ignoring FX rates and the like for ease of explanation). The same can work for physical goods, although it does tend to get more complex with taxes, duties, and the like."""
"""Why do people buy US dollars on the black market?""","""A falling exchange rate is an indication of falling confidence in a currency.  Countries like Iran or Venezuela, with a managed exchange rate, set their exchange rates at a higher value than the market accepts. Such market expectations may be influenced by poor government management, interventions into markets (such as nationalising businesses) or general instability \/ scarcity. The governments act to manage that uncertainty by limiting the availability of foreign exchange and pegging the exchange rate.   Since there is an inadequate supply of trusted foreign currency people turn to informal exchanges in order to hedge their currency risk.  This creates a negative feedback loop.  People in government who have access to foreign exchange start to trade on informal markets, pocketing the difference in the official and unofficial rates.  The increasing gap between the two rates drives increasing informal market exchange and can result in speculative bubbles. Driving instability (or economic contradiction) is that the massive and increasing difference between the official and market exchange rates becomes a powerful form of rent for government officials. This drives further state-led rent-seeking behaviour and causes the economy to become even more unstable. If you're interested in a more formal academic study of how such parallel markets in currency arise, \""Zimbabwe\u2019s Black Market for Foreign Exchange\"" by Albert Makochekanwa at the University of Pretoria is a useful source."""
"""Taxes on foreign and local dividends held in a TFSA""","""As far as I read in many articles, all earnings (capital gains and   dividends) from Canadian stocks will be always tax-free. Right?   There's no withholding tax, ie. a $100 dividend means you get $100.  There's no withholding for capital gains in shares for anybody.  You will still have to pay taxes on the amounts, but that's only due at tax time and it could be very minor (or even a refund) for eligible Canadian dividends.  That's because the company has already paid tax on those dividends. In contrast, holding U.S. or any foreign stock that yields dividends   in a TFSA will pay 15% withholding tax and it is not recoverable. Correct, but the 15% is a special rate for regular shares and you need to fill out a W8-BEN.  Your broker will probably make sure you have every few years. But if you hold the same stock in a non-registered account, this 15%   withholding tax can be used as a foreign tax credit? Is this true or   not or what are the considerations? That's true but reduces your Canadian tax payable, it's not refundable, so you have to have some tax to subtract it from. Another consideration is foreign dividends are included 100% in income no mater what the character is.  That means you pay tax at your highest rate always if not held in a tax sheltered account. Canadian dividends that are in a non-registered account will pay   taxes, I presume and I don't know how much, but the amount can be used   also as a tax credit or are unrecoverable? What happens in order to take into account taxes paid by the company is, I read also that if you don't want to pay withholding taxes from foreign > dividends you can hold your stock in a RRSP or RRIF?  You don't have any withholding taxes from US entities to what they consider Canadian retirement accounts.  So TFSAs and RESPs aren't covered. Note that it has to be a US fund like SPY or VTI that trades in the US, and the account has to be RRSP\/RRIF.  You can't buy a Canadian listed ETF that holds US stocks and get the same treatment.  This is also only for the US, not foreign like Europe or Asia. Also something like VT (total world) in the US will have withholding taxes from foreign (Europe & Asia mostly) before the money gets to the US.  You can't get that back. Just an honourable mention for the UK, there's no withholding taxes for anybody, and I hear it's on sale. But at some point, if I withdraw the money, who do I need to pay taxes, > U.S. or Canada? Canada."""
"""Is there any truth to the saying '99% of the world's millionaires have become rich by doing real estate'?""","""78.84% of statistics are made up on the spot."""
"""Annuities question - Equations of value""","""These are the steps I'd follow: $200 today times (1.04)^10 = Cost in year 10.  The 6 deposits of $20 will be one time value calculation with a resulting year 7 final value. You then must apply 10% for 3 years (1.1)^3 to get the 10th year result.  You now have the shortfall. Divide that by the same (1.1)^3 to shift the present value to start of year 7. (this step might confuse you?) You are left with a problem needing 3 same deposits, a known rate, and desired FV. Solve from there.  (Also, welcome from quant.SE. This site doesn't support LATEX, so I edited the image above.)"""
"""Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building?""","""Historically, Banks are mandated to take relatively safe risks with their money.  In exchange, they gain a de-facto permission to invent new money.  They have regulations about what mix of assets they are permitted to own.  Real estate speculation will be in a different category than a mortgage to someone with good credit. Second, mortgages with a secured asset are pretty safe almost all of the time.  That person might stop paying their mortgage, but it is secured; when that happens, the bank gets the secured asset (the right-to-apartment or house or what have you). In a sense, the bank loses only if both the person paying the mortgage is less creditworthy than they look, and the secured asset cannot recoup their losses. In comparison, the person paying the mortgage loses if the secured asset cannot recoup their losses. The bank is buffered from risk two fold.  What more, the bank uses the customer to determine what to invest in. Deciding what to do with money is expensive and hard.  By both having a customer willing to put their good credit on the line and doing due diligence on the apartment, the Bank in effect uses you as a consultant who decides this may be a solid investment.  Much of the risk of failure is on you, so you have lots of incentive to make a good choice. If the Bank was instead deciding which apartment where worth buying, who would decide?  A bank employee, whose bonus this year depends on finding a \""great apartment to invest in?\"", but the consequence of a bad choice doesn't show up for many years?  The people selling the bank the apartments? Such a business can exist.  There are real estate companies that take money, and invest it in real estate.  Often the borrow money from Banks secured against their existing real estate and use it to build more real estate.  (Notice the bit about it being secured against existing real estate; things go south, Bank gets stuff). The Bank's indirect investment in that apartment in the current system is covered by appraisals, the seller, the mortgage holder, and the system deciding that the mortgage holder is creditworthy. Banks sell risk.  They lend you money, you go off and do something risky with it, and they get a the low-risk return on investment of your loan.  Multiple such low-risk investments provides them with a relatively dependable stream of money, which they give out to their bondholders, deposit account customers, shareholders or what have you. When you take a mortgage out for that, you are buying risk from the bank.  You are more exposed to the failure of the investment than they are.  They get less return if things go really well."""
"""Stock stopped trading, what does this mean?""","""It looks like JP Morgan can convert your holding to unsponsored ADRs until July.. In any event, you should not completely lose the equity. Volvo still exists as a public company, it's just not tradable on US exchanges. Q1: Yes, you'd need a JPM account.  Your broker should have offered a similar service. If they didn't they are not a broker. Q2: You own 30 shares in Volvo. You need to get your broker to either sell them (off-exchange now) or tell you how to gain access to them."""
"""Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?""","""The stock market is not a zero-sum game.  Some parts are (forex, some option trading), but plain old stock trading is not zero sum. That is to say, if you were to invest \""at random\"", you would on average make money.  That's because the market as a whole makes money - it goes up over time (6-10% annually, averaged over time).  That's because you're not just gambling when you buy a stock; you're actually contributing money to a company (directly or indirectly), which it uses to fund activities that (on average) make money.  When you buy Caterpillar stock, you're indirectly funding Caterpillar building tractors, which they then sell for a profit, and thus your stock appreciates in value.  While not every company makes a profit, and thus not every stock appreciates in true value, the average one does. To some extent, buying index funds is pretty close to \""investing at random\"".  It has a far lower risk quotient, of course, since you're not buying a few stocks at random but instead are buying all stocks in an index; but buying stocks from the S&P 500 at random would on average give the same return as VOO (with way more volatility). So for one, you definitely could do worse than 50\/50; if you simply sold the market short (sold random stocks short), you would lose money over time on average, above and beyond the transaction cost, since the market will go up over time on average. Secondly, there is the consideration of limited and unlimited gains or losses. Some trades, specifically some option trades, have limited potential gains, and unlimited potential losses. Take for example, a simple call option.  If you sell a naked call option - meaning you sell a call option but don't own the stock - for $100, at a strike price of $20, for 100 shares, you make money as long as the price of that stock is under $21.  You have a potential to make $100, because that's what you sold it for; if the price is under $20, it's not exercised, and you just get that $100, free.   But, on the other hand, if the stock goes up, you could potentially be out any amount of money.  If the stock trades at $24, you're out $400-100 = $300, right?  (Plus transaction costs.)   But what if it trades at $60?  Or $100?  Or $10000?  You're still out 100 * that amount, so in the latter case, $1 million.  It's not likely to trade at that point, but it could. If you were to trade \""at random\"", you'd probably run into one of those types of situations.  That's because there are lots of potential trades out there that nobody expects anyone to take - but that doesn't mean that people wouldn't be happy to take your money if you offered it to them.   That's the reason your 16.66 vs 83.33 argument is faulty:  you're absolutely right that if there were a consistently losing line, that the consistently winning line would exist, but that requires someone that is willing to take the losing line.  Trades require two actors, one on each side; if you're willing to be the patsy, there's always someone happy to take advantage of you, but you might not get a patsy."""
"""Do I have to pay a capital gains tax if I rebuy different stocks?""","""Yes- you do not realize gains or losses until you actually sell the stock.  After you sell the initial stocks\/bonds you have realized the gain.  When you buy the new, different stocks you haven't realized anything until you then sell those. There is one exception to this, called the \""Wash-Sale Rule\"".  From Investopedia.com: With the wash-sale rule, the IRS disallows a loss deduction from the   sale of a security if a \u2018substantially identical security' was purchased within 30 days before or after the sale.  The   wash-sale period is actually 61 days, consisting of the 30 days before   and the 30 days after the date of the sale. For example, if you bought   100 shares of IBM on December 1 and then sold 100 shares of IBM on   December 15 at a loss, the loss deduction would not be allowed.   Similarly, selling IBM on December 15 and then buying it back on   January 10 of the following year does not permit a deduction. The   wash-sale rule is designed to prevent investors from making trades for   the sole purpose of avoiding taxes."""
"""How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car?""","""most of the people who lurk in money.se will probably tell you to spend as little as possible on a car, but that is a really personal decision. since you live with your parents, you can probably afford to waste a lot of money on a car. on the other hand, you already have a large income so you don't really have the normal graduate excuses for deferring student loans and retirement savings. for the sake of other people in a less comfortable position, here is a more general algorithm for making the decision:"""
"""How long to wait after getting a mortgage to increase my credit limit?""","""My recommendation is to not ask for a credit increase, but just increase the utilization of one card if you have multiple cards, and decrease the utilization of the others, and continue paying off all cards in full each month.  In a  few months, you  will likely be offered a credit increase by the card that is getting increased use.  The card company that is getting the extra business knows that you are paying off big bills each month and keeping your account in good standing, and they will likely offer you a credit increase all by themselves because they want to keep your business.  If no offer is forthcoming, you can call the card company and ask for a credit increase. If they refuse, tell them that you will be charging very little on the card in the future  (or even canceling your card, though that will cause a hit on your credit score) because of their refusal, and switch your high volume to a different card."""
"""Hypothetical: can taxes ever cause a net loss on otherwise-profitable stocks?""","""This was the day traders dilemma. You can, on paper, make money doing such trades. But because you do not hold the security for at least a year, the earnings are subject to short term capital gains tax unless these trades are done inside a sheltered account like a traditional IRA.  There are other considerations as well: wash sale rules and number of days to settle.  In short, the glory days of rags to riches by day trading are long gone, if they were ever here in the first place.  Edit: the site will not allow me to add a comment, so I am putting my response here: Possibly, yes. One big 'gotcha' is that your broker reports the proceeds from your sales, but does not report your outflows from your buys. Then there is the risk you take by the broker refusing to sell the security until the transaction settles. Not to mention wash sale rules. You are trying to win at the 'buy low, sell high' game. But you have a 25% chance, at best, of winning at that game. Can you pick the low? Maybe, but you have a 50% chance of being right. Then you have to pick the high. And again you have a 50% chance of doing that. 50% times 50% is 25%. Warren Buffet did not get rich that way. Buffet buys and holds. Don't be a speculator, be a 'buy and hold' investor. Buy securities, inside a sheltered account like a traditional IRA, that pay dividends then reinvest those dividends into the security you bought. Scottrade has a Flexible Reinvestment Program that lets you do this with no commission fees."""
"""What percent of my salary should I save?""","""Its been years since I lived there, but I found Seattle to be pretty expensive.  Housing costs seem out of line with expected salaries.  Coming from Puerto Rico you might be shocked how expensive it is to live there, and also how infrequently you see the sun. Your question is highly subjective.  One person would need 100K to cover those things you are talking about, while others would need less then 30K.  Also where you live in the Seattle area makes a difference.  Will you be in Redmond or Bothell?  Housing costs vary considerably. One nice thing about that part of the country is can be very inexpensive to vacation.  A fishing license, a packed lunch, and a bit of gas is all that is necessary to really enjoy that part of the country.   Back in the day I used to ski Steven's Pass during the week, and the lift tickets were a 1\/3 of the weekend rate.  Having hiking\/camping gear and or a bicycle is also a good way to enjoy life. Bottom line I would make a budget, and go from there.  If you intend on retiring in PR, then you would need a lot less then if you choose to remain in Seattle so even that is subjective. Perfect Example, Marysville, which is way out of town so a commute would be a problem.  However, unlike many parts south of Seattle, it is safe and nice.  ~200K for a 1200 sq ft home.  Holy cow.   Here in Orlando, figure about 130K for the same home with less of a commute.  And you will see the sun more than 5 days per year."""
"""Why does gold have value?""","""Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it. --Publilius Syrus. Gold has value because people want to buy it.  Electronics manufacturers like the fact that it's conductive.  Jewellers like that its shiny.  Glenn Beck likes that he's selling it and his audience will buy it. Proponents of gold claim that it has \""real\"" value, as opposed to fiat currency (which has no commodity backing).  Opponents of gold claim that all wealth is illusory, and that gold has no more inherent value than the paper we use now.  I'm inclined to agree with the latter (money is only money because we agree that it is, and the underlying material is meaningless), however the issue is hotly debated."""
"""Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks?""","""Short sellers have to pay interest on the borrowings to the shareholders. Although many times brokers don't pass on these earnings to the shareholders, this is the exchange."""
"""Is it possible to make money off of a private company?""","""Another way to do this is go to work for that company.  Companies in this situation normally offer low pay, long hours, and stock options.  Given a sufficient grant, it could be all very lucrative or worthless.   Even if you have no electronics background you might be able to work in a different capacity.  There were secretaries at various companies that became wealthy off of their stock options."""
"""Making $100,000 USD per month, no idea what to do with it ""","""What I would do, in this order: Get your taxes in order. Don't worry about fancy tricks to screw the tax man over; you've already admitted that you're literally making more money than you know what to do with, and a lot of that is supported, one way or another, by infrastructure that's supported by tax money.  Besides, your first priority is to establish basic security for yourself and your family.  Making sure you won't be subjected to stressful audits is an important part of that! Pay off any and all outstanding debts you may have.  This establishes a certain baseline standard of living for you: no matter what unexpected tragedies may come up, at least you won't have to deal with them while also keeping the wolves at bay at the same time! Max out a checking account. I believe the FDIC maximum insured value is $250,000.  Fill 'er up, get a debit card, and just sit on it.  This is a rainy day fund, highly liquid and immediately usable in case you lose your income. Put at least half of it into an IRA or other safe investments.  Bonds and reliable dividend-paying stocks are strongly preferred: having money is good but having income is much better, especially in retirement! Quality of life.  Splurge a little.  (Emphasis on a little!)  Look around your life. There are a few things that it would be nice if you just had, but you've never gotten around to getting.  Pick up a few of them, but don't go overboard.  Spending too much too quickly is a good way to end up with no money and no idea what happened to it.  Also, note that this isn't just for you; family members deserve some love too! Charitable giving.  If you have more money than you know what to do with, there are plenty of people out there who know exactly what to do--try to go on living and build a basic life for themselves--but have no money with which to do so.  Do your research.  Scam charities abound, as do more-or-less legitimate ones who actually do help those in need, but also end up sucking up a surprisingly high percentage of donations for \""administrative costs\"".  Try and avoid these and send your money where it will actually do some good in the world. Reinvest in yourself.  You're running a business.  Make sure you have the best tools and training you can afford, now that you can afford more!"""
"""How do I get a Tax Exemption Certificate for export from the US if I am in another country?""","""Depends on the state, in Texas you should charge sales tax because the shipment is going to a freight forwarder in Texas.  That being said, once you have the bill of lading you can have your tax credited by the vendor.  It is one of the documents the state will except in lieu of sales tax for exports.  There are five.  You can find this info at the Comptrollers website. I would validate that you are being charged sales\/use tax and not withholding tax, withholding would be related to your country. Doc requirements for export vary from state to state."""
"""Construction loan for new house replacing existing mortgaged house?""","""Presumably the existing house has some value. If you demolish the existing house, you are destroying that value. If the value of the new house is significantly more than the value of the old house, like if you're talking about replacing a small, run-down old house worth $50,000 with a big new mansion worth $10,000,000, then the value of the old house that is destroyed might just get lost in the rounding errors for all practical purposes. But otherwise, I don't see how you would do this without bringing cash to the table basically equal to what you still owe on the old house. Presumably the new house is worth more than the old, so the value of the property when you're done will be more than it was before. But will the value of the property be more than the old mortgage plus the new mortgage? Unless the old mortgage was almost paid off, or you bring a bunch of cash, the answer is almost certainly \""no\"". Note that from the lienholder's point of view, you are not \""temporarily\"" reducing the value of the property. You are permanently reducing it. The bank that makes the new loan will have a lien on the new house. I don't know what the law says about this, but you would have to either, (a) deliberately destroy property that someone else has a lien on while giving them no compensation, or (b) give two banks a lien on the same property. I wouldn't think either option would be legal.  Normally when people tear down a building to put up a new building, it's because the value of the old building is so low as to be negligible compared to the value of the new building. Either the old building is run-down and getting it into decent shape would cost more than tearing it down and putting up a new building, or at least there is some benefit -- real or perceived -- to the new building that makes this worth it."""
"""Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees ""","""This question is largely opinion based but I wanted to balance out the people jumping on you. There are lots of factors that go into salary\/pay, such as what you contribute to the company and whather you go above or beyond whats expected of you. I would say seniority is one factor, or at least there is a case to be made that it is important. If someone has worked 5 years for me, that is five years that I have not had to search, interview, and train a replacement. I am not a business owner but I do employ people and when someone quits its an extremely stressful process. Not having to go through that, again in my opinion, is worth a small bump in pay. I cant comment on if its fair or not. That is opinion. What is fact is that whenever a broad group of people are given a pay raise for arbitrary reasons and other employees arent, its creates discontent, it hurts morale, employees leave, and in severe cases the business becomes crippled. So Im not sure if its fair, but is it a bad idea? Generally. See here and I highly recommend going here for anyone who thinks dramatically raising pay 'because its the right thing to do' is a good idea"""
"""Are REIT worth it and is it a good option to generate passive income for a while?""","""Other individuals answered how owning an REIT compares to an individual real estate investment, but did not answer your second question as readily, \""are REITs a good option to generate passive income for awhile?\"". The \""awhile\"" part is quite important in answering this question. If your intentions are to invest for a relatively short time period (say, 7 years or less), it may be especially advantageous to invest in a REIT. The foremost advantage comes from significantly lower transaction fees (stock\/ETF trades are practically\/potentially free today) compared to purchasing real estate, which involves inspection+titling fees\/taxes\/broker fees, which in a round-trip transaction (purchase and sale) would come to ~10%. The secondary advantage to owning a REIT is they are much more liquid than a property. If you wanted to sell your investment at a given point in time, you can easily log into your brokerage and execute your transaction, while liquidating an investment property will take time on market\/potentially tossing tenants\/fixing up place, etc. On the other hand, illiquid investments have generally yielded higher historical returns according to past research."""
"""Value of a call option spread""","""You have to look at the real price of the share to calculate the value of the spread. 42$ at the start, 46$ at the end.  Think of it this way: When price was 42$ the call 45$ was out of the money, worth 100$ of time value only=100 the call 40$ was in the money and worth 200$ of intrinsic + 100 time value=300 the difference was 200$ Now that price is 46$ the call 45$ is worth 100$ in the money, real or intrinsic value the call 40$ is worth 600$ in the money, real or intrinsic value the difference is 500$ NOTE: 1. Commission fees are not included. 2. Time value of 100$ on both calls when price is 42$ is incorrect and for teaching purpose only."""
"""Can buying REIT's be compared to investing in Real Estate?""","""A couple of distinctions. First, if you were to \""invest in real estate\"" were you planning to buy a home to live in, or buy a home to rent out to someone else?  Buying a home as a primary residence really isn't \""investing in real estate\"" per se.  It's buying a place to live rather than renting one.  Unless you rent a room out or get a multi-family unit, your primary residence won't be income-producing.  It will be income-draining, for the most part.  I speak as a homeowner. Second, if you are buying to rent out to someone else, buying a single home is quite a bit different than buying an REIT.  The home is a lot less liquid, the transaction costs are higher, and all of your eggs are in one basket.  Having said that, though, if you buy one right and do your homework it can set you on the road for a very comfortable retirement."""
"""What are the downsides that prevent more people from working in high-income countries, and then retiring in low-income (and cost of living) ones?""","""One thing not mentioned is that in so called third world countries, a lot of \""stuff\"" isn't actually less expensive.  Food is almost always less expensive, housing is often less expensive, but cars, fuel, computers, smartphones, electronics, brand name clothing, shoes, cosmetics, tools, art supplies, internet service, bicycles, sporting goods and many other consumer items are typically more expensive."""
"""Covered call when stock position is at a loss""","""I don't think you understand options. If it expires, you can't write a new call for the same expiration date as it expired that day. Also what if the stock price decreases further to $40 or even more? If you think the stock will move in either way greatly, and you wish to be profit from it, look into straddles."""
"""How can I deal with a spouse who compulsively spends?""","""Perhaps it seems harsh, but I would get separate accounts: credit cards, savings, retirement, all the way down the line.  Your only joint account should be for paying mortgage\/rent and other bills.  And as another poster said, delete all your saved info from browsers &c.  Perhaps you even need to set up separate user ids. If this really is a case of compulsive spending, curing it is likely to be a long, hard process, if it's even possible.  You need to put yourself in a position where you won't be dragged down with him."""
"""Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?""","""When I was in that boat a few years ago, I went for the car first.  My thoughts: If I get the car first, I'm guaranteed to have a car that runs well.  That makes it more convenient to commute to any job, or for social functions.  I ended up dropping about $20k into a car (paid cash, I don't like being in debt).  I chose to buy a really nice car, knowing it will last for many years to come - I'm expecting to not replace it for about 10 years from the purchase.  I would urge you to consider paying in full for the car; dumping $20k+ is a lot, and there are plenty of nice cars out there in the $10-20k range that will work just fine for years to come.  One benefit of paying in full is that you don't have a portion of your income tied into the car loan. The main reason I chose not to go for the house first had more to do with the difference in commitment.  A home mortgage is a 30-year commitment on a large chunk of your income.  With the job market and housing markets both currently working against you, it's better to wait until you have a large safety net to fall into. For example, it's always recommended to have several months worth of living expenses in savings.  Compared to renting, having 6 or more months of mortgage payments + utilities + insurance + property taxes + other mandatory expenses (see: food, gas) comes out to a significant amount more that you should have saved (for me, I'm looking at a minimum of about $20k in savings just to feel comfortable; YMMV).  Also, owning a house always has more maintenance costs than you will predict.  Even if it's just replacing a few light bulbs at first, eventually you'll need something major: an appliance will die, your roof will spring a leak, anything (I had both of those happen in the first year, though it could be bad luck).  You should make sure that you can afford the increased monthly payments while still well under your income. Once you're locked in to the house, you can still set aside a smaller chunk of your income for a new car 5-10 years down the road.  But if you're current car is getting down to it's last legs, you should get that fixed up before you lock yourself in to an uncomfortable situation. Don't be in too much of a hurry to buy a house.  The housing market still has a ways to go before it recovers, and there's not a whole lot to help it along.  Interest rates may go up, but that will only hurt the housing market, so I don't expect it to change too much for the next several months.  With a little bit of sanity, we won't have another outrageous housing bubble for many years, so houses should remain somewhat affordable (interest rates may vary).  Also keep in mind that if you pay less that 20% down on the house, you may end up with some form of mortgage interest, which is just extra interest you'll owe each month."""
"""Selling RSUs that vested at different values""","""No, you're not missing anything. RSUs are pretty simple when it comes to taxes. They are taxed as compensation at fair market value when they vest, basically equivalent to the company giving you a cash bonus and then using it to buy company stock. The fair market value at vesting then becomes your cost basis. Assuming the value has increased since vesting, selling the shares that vested at least a year ago (to qualify for lower long-term capital gains tax rates) with the highest cost basis with result in the minimum taxes."""
"""Is keeping old credit cards and opening new credit cards with high limits and never using an ideal way to boost credit scores?""","""I disagree with the reply.   Your both impressions are correct. -   Do not close old credit cards because they keep your credit rating high (fico score) -   Also low utilization that credit cards report to credit rating companies, improves your rating."""
"""Why would refinancing my mortgage increase my PMI, even though rates are lower?""","""The PMI rate is calculated at the time your mortgage is underwritten to be terminated at the point where you have 20% equity in your home.  It is calculated based off of default risks based on your current equity value at the time of the loan.  So if you got your mortgage before the banking crisis those risk charts have changed dramatically and not in your favor. So lets say you have a 100k home which you put 10k down so you have a mortgage of 90k.  Since you have accumulated an additional 5k equity so payoff value is now 85k.  If you refinance your mortgage and the home values in your area have dropped 15% you now are borrowing 100% of the value of your home.  So you have higher risk from being at 100% as opposed to 90%.  And the PMI is for the 20% of equity you do not have that the bank can not expect to recover.  So when you originally bought the house your PMI pay out was 10k.  At 85K value and 100% borrowed the PMI payout will be closer to 18k.  While you may still be able to sell your home for the original value when they do the refinance calculations they use what your area has trended.  If that is the case you maybe be able get an actual appraisal to use but that will come out of your pocket. *Disclaimer: These are simplifications of how the whole complex process works if you call the banker they can explain exactly why, show you the numbers, and help you understand your specific circumstances.  *"""
"""What should I do about proxy statements?""","""Whether or not you want to abstain or throw away the proxy, one reason it's important to at least read the circular is to find out if any of the proposals deal with increasing the company's common stock.  When this happens, it can dilute your shares and have an effect on your ownership percentage in the company and shareholder voting control."""
"""As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments?""","""Current evidence is that, after you subtract their commission and the additional trading costs, actively managed funds average no better than index funds, maybe not as well. You can afford to take more risks at your age, assuming that it will be a long time before you need these funds -- but I would suggest that means putting a high percentage of your investments in small-cap and large-cap stock indexes. I'd suggest 10% in bonds, maybe more, just because maintaining that balance automatically encourages buy-low-sell-high as the market cycles. As you get older and closer to needing a large chunk of the money (for a house, or after retirement), you would move progressively more of that to other categories such as bonds to help safeguard your earnings.  Some folks will say this an overly conservative approach. On the other hand, it requires almost zero effort and has netted me an average 10% return (or so claims Quicken) over the past two decades, and that average includes the dot-bomb and the great recession. Past results are not a guarantee of future performance, of course, but the point is that it can work quite well enough."""
"""What are the options for a 19-year-old college student who only has about $1000?""","""The \""$1000 is no money at all\"" people are amusing me. Way back in the mists of time, a very young me invested on the order of ~$500 in a struggling electronics manufacturer I had a fondness for. An emotional investment, not much money, but enough that I could get a feel for what it was like owning stock in something. That stock's symbol was AAPL. This is admittedly a rare outcome, but $1000 invested over the long term isn't not worth doing. If for no other reason then when the OP has \""real\"" money, he'll have X+$1000 invested rather than X, assuming 0% return, which I doubt. It's a small enough amount that there are special considerations, but it's a solid opportunity for learning how the market works, and making a little money. Anyway, my advice to the OP is as follows:"""
"""What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity?""","""If peak oil is a concern, hedge against the effects of high oil prices.  Reduce your dependence on the gas pump by moving closer to the places you normally drive, or adjust your lifestyle so that you need less.  Buy things now that depend on fossil fuels (there's a long list). If instability is a concern, invest in a place where the chance of instability is less. If a freak event is a concern, think through what the consequences would be, and hedge accordingly. Etc. Etc."""
"""Slow destruction on co-signed property""","""First off learn from this:  Never cosign again.  There are plenty of other \""tales of woe\"" outlined on this site that started and ended similarly. Secondly do what you can to get off of the loan.  First I'd go back to her dad and offer him $1000 to take you off the loan and sign over the car.  Maybe go up to $3000 if you have that much cash.  If that doesn't work go to the bank and offer them half of the loan balance to take you off.  You can sign a personal loan for that amount (maybe).  Whatever it takes to get off the loan.  If she has a new BF offer him the same deal as the dad. Why do you have to do this?  Because you owned an asset that was once valued at 13K and is valued at (probably) less than 4K.  Given that you have a loan on it the leverage works against you causing you to lose more money.  The goal now is to cut your losses and learn from your mistakes.     I feel like the goal of your post was to make your ex-gf look bad.  It's more important to do some self examination.  If she was such a bad person why did you date her?  Why did you enter a business transaction with her?  I'd recommend seeking counseling on why you make such poor choices and to help you avoid them in the future. Along these lines I'd also examine your goals in life.  If your desire is to be a wealthy person, then why would you borrow money to buy a car?  Seek to imitate rich people to become rich.  Picking the right friends and mates is an important part of this.   If you do not have a desire to be a wealthy person what does it matter?  Losing 13K over seven months is a small step in the \""right\"" direction."""
"""Is there data and proof that a diversified portfolio can generate higher returns than the S&P 500 Index?""","""Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Lottery Tickets notes the work of Fama and French who researched the idea of a small-cap premium along with a value premium that may be useful to note in terms of what has outperformed if one looks from 1926 to present. Slice and dice would also be another article about an approach that over weights the small-cap and value sides of things if you want another resource here."""
"""How can I save on closing costs when buying a home?""","""According to Realtor.com, there are a variety of options to save on closing costs:  A general Google search on \""how to reduce closing costs\"" will return a lot of results on other people's experiences, as well as tips and tricks."""
"""New vending route business, not sure how to determine taxes""","""You're not paying taxes three times but you are paying three different taxes (or more). Sales tax is a business expense, just like costs of goods sold or interest on a loan.  Then, depending on how you structure the business, the net income of the business just hits you personally and you pay income taxes.  You can work with a tax person to lend some efficiency to this on a long term basis, but it's not like you pay all the taxes against your gross receipts. Whether or not you can make this profitable is a whole different issue."""
"""Connection between gambling and trading on stock\/options\/Forex markets""","""There are moral distinctions that can be drawn between gambling and investing in stocks. First and I think most important, in gambling you are trying to get money for nothing. You put $100 down on the roulette wheel and you hope to get $200 back. In investing you are not trying to get something for nothing. You are buying a piece of a hopefully profit-making company. You are giving this company the use of your money, and in exchange you get a share of the profits. That is, you are quite definitely giving something: the use of your money for a period of time. You invest $100 of your money, and you hope to see that grow by maybe $5 or $10 a year typically. You may get a sudden windfall, of course. You may buy a stock for $100 today and tomorrow it jumps to $200. But that's not the normal expectation. Second, gambling is a zero sum game. If I gamble and win $100, then someone else had to lose $100. Investing is not a zero sum game. If I buy $100 worth of stock in a company and that grows to $200, I have in a sense \""won\"" $100. But no one has lost $100 to give me that money. The money is the result of the profit that the company made by selling a valuable product or service to customers. When I go to the grocery store and buy a dozen eggs for $2, some percentage of that goes to the stockholders in the grocery store, say 5 cents. So did I lose 5 cents by buying those eggs? No. To me, a dozen eggs are worth at least $2, or I wouldn't have bought them. I got exactly what I paid for. I didn't lose anything. Carrying that thought further, investing in the stock market puts money into businesses. It enables businesses to get started and to grow and expand. Assuming these are legitimate businesses, they then provide useful products and services to customers. Gambling does not provide useful products and services to anyone -- except to the extent that people enjoy the process of gambling, in which case you could say that it is equivalent to playing a video game or watching a movie. Third -- and these are all really related -- the whole goal of gambling is to take something from another person while giving him nothing in return. Again, if I buy a dozen eggs, I give the store my $2 (or whatever amount) and I get a dozen eggs in exchange. I got something of value and the store got something of value. We both walk away happy. But in gambling, my goal is that I will take your money and give you nothing in return. It is certainly true that buying stocks involves risk, and we sometimes use the word \""gamble\"" to describe any risk. But if it is a sin to take a risk, then almost everything you do in life is a sin. When you cross the street, there is a risk that you will be hit by a car you didn't see. When you drink a glass of water, there is the risk that it is contaminated and will poison you. When you get married, there is a risk that your spouse will divorce you and break your heart. Etc. We are all sinners, we all sin every day, but we don't sin quite THAT much. :-) (BTW I don't think that gambling is a sin. Nothing in the Bible says that gambling is a sin. But I can comprehend the argument for it. I think gambling is foolish and I don't do it. My daughter works for a casino and she has often said how seeing people lose money in the casino regularly reminds her why it is stupid to gamble. Like she once commented on people who stand between two slot machines, feed them both coins and then pull the levers down at the same time, \""so that\"", she said, \""they can lose their money twice as fast\"".)"""
"""Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?""","""There's no harm in keeping them open.  Like you said, closing the lines will potentially hurt your utilization.  The extent of that impact will depend on your particular situation.   There are situations where closing a line will have no actual impact on your utilization.  If you have 100k of open credit and a debt load of $2k, if you close a $10k line you won't really have an issue because your utilization is 2% and closing the line will take you to 2.2%."""
"""Do any publically available documents from IR or SEC include all patents the company holds?""","""It appears as others have said that companies are not required to state this on as any sort of Asset. I remembered a friend of mine is a lawyer specializing in Intellectual Property Rights so asked him and confirmed that there's no document companies are required to file which states all patent holdings as assets. There are two ways he suggested for finding out. Once you find a company you're interested in can search patents by company using one of the two following: US Patent Office website's advanced search: http:\/\/patft.uspto.gov\/netahtml\/PTO\/search-adv.htm aanm\/company for example entering into the textarea, \""aanm\/google\"" without the quotation marks will find patents by Google. The other is a Google Patent Search: http:\/\/www.google.com\/patents\/"""
"""Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing""","""Organize your expenses in order of the rate of return, and pay them in that order.  By far the highest rate of return on your list is: Nowhere else are you going to see an immediate 100% return (or 50%, depending on the company's matching policy) on every dollar you allocate to this pot. Second would probably be: Money that you do not allocate here will usually incur a 15%-29% penalty.  Outside of large expenses like a home, education, or a reasonable car, you never want to pay to use your own money (and borrowed money is still yours, remember that someday you have to pay all of it back).  Avoiding a negative rate of return (interest) can be just as beneficial as finding a high positive rate of return on an investment. Continue down the list determining what must be paid first, and what the highest rates are in the immediate future and the long run.  Meanwhile, live within your means, and set aside a portion of your monthly income towards things like a rainy day fund (up to a level which is not touched when reached).  Additional savings through work or your personal investments should not be neglected (money saved early and compounded is worth many times what a dollar saved down the road will gain) especially if you are young in your career."""
"""Exercise a put option when shorting is not possible""","""You are the one lending yourself the shares to sell;you purchase the stock at market price and sell at the strike price of the option to the put seller when you exercise the option."""
"""Learning investing and the stock market""","""It is great that you want to learn more about the Stock Market. I'm curious about the quantitative side of analyzing stocks and other financial instruments. Does anyone have a recommendation where should I start? Which books should I read, or which courses or videos should I watch? Do I need some basic prerequisites such as statistics or macro and microeconomics? Or should I be advanced in those areas? Although I do not have any books or videos to suggest to you at the moment, I will do some more research and edit this answer. In order to understand the quantitative side of analyzing the stock market to have people take you serious enough and trust you with their money for investments, you need to have strong math and analytical skills. You should consider getting a higher level of education in several of the following: Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Statistics, and Computer Science.  In mathematics, you should at least understand the following concepts: In finance, you should at least understand the following concepts: In Computer Science, you should probably know the following: So to answer your question, about \""do you need to be advanced in those areas\"", I strongly suggest you do. I've read that books on that topics are such as The Intelligent Investor and Reminiscences of A Stock Operator. Are these books really about the analytics of investing, or are they only about the philosophy of investing? I haven't read the Reminiscences of A Stock Operator, but the Intelligent Investor is based on a philosophy of investing that you should only consider but not depend on when you make investments."""
"""Tax Witholding for Stock Sale""","""I assume US as mhoran_psprep edited, although I'm not sure IRS necessarily means US. (It definitely used to also include Britain's Inland Revenue, but they changed.)  (US) Stockbrokers do not normally withhold on either dividends\/interest\/distributions or realized capital gains, especially since gains might be reduced or eliminated by later losses. (They can be required to apply backup withholding to dividends and interest; don't ask how I know :-) You are normally required to pay most of your tax during the year, defined as within 10% or $1000 whichever is more, by withholding and\/or estimated payments. Thus if the tax on your income including your recent gain will exceed your withholding by 10% and $1000, you should either adjust your withholding or make an estimated payment or some combination, although even if you have a job the last week of December is too late for you to adjust withholding significantly, or even to make a timely estimated payment if 'earlier in the year' means in an earlier quarter as defined for tax (Jan-Mar, Apr-May, June-Aug, Sept-Dec). See https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/estimated-taxes and for details its link to Publication 505. But a 'safe harbor' may apply since you say this is your first time to have capital gains. If you did not owe any income tax for last year (and were a citizen or resident), or (except very high earners) if you did owe tax and your withholding plus estimated payments this year is enough to pay last year's tax, you are exempt from the Form 2210 penalty and you have until the filing deadline (normally April 15 but this year April 18 due to weekend and holiday) to pay. The latter is likely if your job and therefore payroll income and withholding this year was the same or nearly the same as last year and there was no other big change other than the new capital gain. Also note that gains on investments held more than one year are classified as long-term and taxed at lower rates, which reduces the tax you will owe (all else equal) and thus the payments you need to make. But your wording 'bought and sold ... earlier this year' suggests your holding was not long-term, and short-term gains are taxed as 'ordinary' income. Added: if the state you live in has a state income tax similar considerations apply but to smaller amounts. TTBOMK all states tax capital gains (and other investment income, other than interest on exempt bonds), and don't necessarily give the lower rates for long-term gains. And all states I have lived in have 'must have withholding or estimated payments' rules generally similar to the Federal ones, though not identical."""
"""Can expenses for attending stockholders meetings be deducted in U.S. income taxes?""","""Nope, not deductible. It's true that some investment expenses are deductible, mainly as \""miscellaneous itemized expenses\"", though only the amount that exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income.  But as explained in IRS Pub 550, which lays out the relevant rules: Stockholders' meetings.   You cannot deduct transportation and other expenses you pay to attend stockholders' meetings of companies in which you have no interest other than owning stock. This is true even if your purpose in attending is to get information that would be useful in making further investments."""
"""I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?""","""Aside from what everyone else has said about your money (saving, investing, etc.), I'd like to comment on what else you could spend it on: Spend it all on small\/stupid things   that, while stupid, would make me   happier. For example take taxis more   often, eat often in nice restaurants,   buy designer clothes, etc. I'll be   young only one time. You could also put the money towards something more... productive?  Like a home project.  Convert a room in your living space into an office or a theater-like room.  Install hardwood floors yourself.  Renovate a bathroom.  Plant a garden of things you would enjoy eating later.  Something that you would enjoy having or doing and can look back at and be proud of putting your money towards something that you accomplished."""
"""What is meant by one being in a \""tax bracket\""?""","""Tax brackets refer to the range of taxable within which you fall. An income tax bracket usually refers to federal or state tax, not the combined rate. I have put here the tax brackets for 2016 for IRS and State of California.  https:\/\/www.irs.com\/articles\/2016-federal-tax-rates-personal-exemptions-and-standard-deductions  https:\/\/www.ftb.ca.gov\/forms\/2016-california-tax-rates-and-exemptions.shtml According to those, a taxable income of 100,000USD would fall in the 28% bracket for the IRS and 9.30% for State of California. The combined rate is therefore 37.3%. However, this does not mean you would pay 37,300USD. First of all, your applicable tax rate applies only for each dollar in your tax bracket (e.g. 28% * 8,849USD for IRS). Therefore, to calculate your combined taxes you would need to do:  Therefore, your effective tax rate would be much lower than the combined tax rate of 37.3%. Now do note that this is an example to illustrate tax brackets and is nowhere near the amount of taxes you would be required to pay because of various credits and deductions that you would be able to benefit from. Edit: As suggested in the comments, a note on marginal tax rate (referred to here as combined tax rate). This is the rate of taxes paid on an additional dollar of income. Here, every additional dollar of income would be taxed at 37.3%, leaving you with 62.7 cents."""
"""What is the US Fair Tax?""","""In a nutshell - Value Added Tax. America, as usual, discovers what others have known and used for years. The idea of not taxing income that's tied to it is ridiculous. If you're only taxing spending but not income, people will just take spending elsewhere (Canada, Mexico, further away), and the economy will go down the drain. That's similar to the way people avoid paying sales tax now, except that it will be in orders of magnitude. Why should a corporation by office supplies in the US, if it has a branch in China? Edit Also, Fair Tax doesn't take into account moving money overseas. I've mentioned living elsewhere down below, and that also got me thinking of how I personally would certainly gain from that ridiculous thing called \""Fair Tax\"". Basically, that's exactly how the \""rich folks\"", those who push for it, will gain from it. Being able to move money out of the US basically makes it a perfect tax shelter. You don't pay taxes on the income (that you have in the US), and you don't pay taxes on the spendings (that you have elsewhere, because in that country income is taxable so you only pay VAT or sales taxes). This means that all the wealthy people, while investing and gaining money from the American economy (stocks, property, etc), will actually not be spending it in the US. Thus, no taxes paid to the US, dollars flowing out. Perfect. Actually, I should be all for this stupid idea. Very fair to me, no need to pay any taxes at all, because food will probably be exempt anyway."""
"""How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)""","""Maybe minimalism is an option for you. Make your self clear what you really want You only buy what you really need and for that you spend the money. Then there is no point of saving money, i.e. I for example like to invite friends and cook them some fancy diner with expensive products, but the value I get from that exceeds any money I spend. On the other hand most present are the opposite, they have less value to recipient than what they originally have costs."""
"""What is the difference between a bond and a debenture?""","""Some additional links which explain their differences. But mostly as @bstpierre says, both are very similar and in some cases the terms may be used inter changeably"""
"""When shorting a stock, do you pay current market price or the best (lowest) available ask price?""","""When you want to short a stock, you are trying to sell shares (that you are borrowing from your broker), therefore you need buyers for the shares you are selling.  The ask prices represent people who are trying to sell shares, and the bid prices represent people who are trying to buy shares. Using your example, you could put in a limit order to short (sell) 1000 shares at $3.01, meaning that your order would become the ask price at $3.01.  There is an ask price ahead of you for 500 shares at $3.00.  So people would have to buy those 500 shares at $3.00 before anyone could buy your 1000 shares at $3.01. But it's possible that your order to sell 1000 shares at $3.01 never gets filled, if the buyers don't buy all the shares ahead of you.  The price could drop to $1.00 without hitting $3.01 and you will have missed out on the trade. If you really wanted to short 1000 shares, you could use a market order.  Let's say there's a bid for 750 shares at $2.50, and another bid for 250 shares at $2.49.  If you entered a market order to sell 1000 shares, your order would get filled at the best bid prices, so first you would sell 750 shares at $2.50 and then you would sell 250 shares at $2.49. I was just using your example to explain things.  In reality there won't be such a wide spread between the bid and ask prices.  A stock might have a bid price of $10.50 and an ask price of $10.51, so there would only be a 1 cent difference between putting in a limit order to sell 1000 shares at $10.51 and just using a market order to sell 1000 shares and getting them filled at $10.50. Also, your example probably wouldn't work in real life, because brokers typically don't allow people to short stocks that are trading under $5 per share. As for your question about how often you are unable to make a short sale, it can sometimes happen with stocks that are heavily shorted and your broker may not be able to find any more shares to borrow. Also remember that you can only short stocks with a margin account, you cannot short stocks with a cash account."""
"""How do amortization schedules work and when are they used?""","""An amortization schedule is often used to produce identical payments for the term (repayment period) of a loan, resulting in the principal being paid off and the debt retired at the end of the loan. This is in contrast to an interest only, or balloon loan. These loans require little or no payment against the balance of the loan, requiring the loan to be paid indefinitely if there is no term, or requiring the loan to be entirely paid off from cash or a new loan at the end of the term. A basic amortization formula can be derived from the compound interest formula:   This formula comes from the Wikipedia article on amortization. The basics of the formula are the periodic payment amount, A (your monthly payment), can be determined by the principal loan, P, the rate, r, and the number of payments, n.  Lenders lend money to make a profit on the interest. They'd like to get back all the money they lent out. Amortization schedules are popular because the fixed low payments make it easier for borrowers to pay the loan off eventually. They also tend to be very profitable for lenders, especially at the start of the term, because they make a lot of profit on interest, just like the start of your mortgage. The principal of a mortgage has more meaning than the principal of a revolving debt credit card. The mortgage principal is fixed at the start, and represents the value of the collateral property that is your home. You could consider the amount of principal paid to be the percentage of your home that you actually own (as part of your net worth calculation).  A credit card has a new balance each month depending on how much you charge and how much you pay off. Principal has less meaning in this case, because there is no collateral to compare against, and the balance will change monthly. In this case, the meaning of the amortization schedule on your credit card is how long it will take you to pay off the balance if you stop charging and pay at the proscribed payment level over the term described. Given the high interest rate on credit cards, you may end up paying twice as much for goods in the long run if you follow your lenders schedule. Amortizing loans are common for consumer loans, unless a borrower is seeking out the lowest possible monthly payment. Lenders recognize that people will eventually die, and want to be paid off before that happens. Balloon and interest only bonds and loans are more commonly issued by businesses and governments who are (hopefully) investing in capital improvements that will pay off in the long run. Thousands of people and businesses have gone bankrupt in this financial crisis because their interest only loans reached term, and no one was willing to lend them money anymore to replace their existing loan."""
"""Options strategy - When stocks go opposite of your purchase?""","""I cannot believe noone mentioned this so far: Every decision you make is independent from previous decisions (that is, if you only care about your expected gain). This means that your decision whether to buy the option should be the same whether you bought the same option before or not."""
"""How to respond to a customer's demand for payment extension?""","""In the event that payment is not made by the due date on the invoice then the transaction is essentially null and void and you can sell the work to another client. For your particular situation I would strongly suggest that you implement a sales contract and agreement of original transfer of work of art for any and all future sales of your original works of art. In this contract you need to either enforce payment in full at time of signing or a deposit at signing with payment in full within (X) amount of days and upon delivery of item.  In your sales contract you will want to stipulate a late fee in the event that the client does not pay the balance by the date specified, and a clause that stipulates how long after the due date that you will hold the artwork before the client forfeiting deposit and losing rights to the work.   You will also want to specify an amount of time that you provide as a grace period in the event client changes their mind about the purchase, and you can make it zero grace period, making all sales final and upon signing of the agreement the client agrees to the terms and is locked into the sale. In which point if they back out they forfeit all deposits paid. I own a custom web design business and we implement a similar agreement for all works that we create for a client, requiring a 50% deposit in advance of work being started, an additional 25% at time of client accepting the design\/layout and the final 25% at delivery of finished product.   In the event that a client fails to meet the requirements of the contract for the second or final installment payments the client forfeits all money paid and actually owes us 70% of total quoted project price for wasting our time. We have only had to enforce these stipulations on one client in 5 years! The benefit to you for requiring a deposit if payment is not made in full is that it ensures that the client is serious about purchasing the work because they have put money in the game rather than just their word of wanting to purchase. Think of it like putting earnest money down when you make an offer to buy a house. Hope this helps!"""
"""What's the point of Ford loosening financing requirements?""","""Why then did Ford (and the auto industry in general) suddenly decide to court such buyers?  Clearly when they felt they had a viable solution to the financing and could open up the market of buyers they were previously ignoring. If more sales are desired, surely the same can be accomplished with simply lowering prices? Millions of people have bad credit.  Apparently Ford thinks adding millions of people to the pool of potential buyers is more effective to boosting sales than discounting product for the pool of existing potential buyers."""
"""Why do banks insist on allowing transactions without sufficient funds?""","""The reason they want the transaction to go through is because they make money that way. Remember the overdraft protection might incur a fee. If it does their experience may show them that the fee is a greater source of profit when balanced against the losses incurred because of insufficient funds. Even free overdraft transactions are limited. If they didn't want to make money they would have a way to make sure that multiple overdrafts in a short time window wouldn't require multiple protection events. Remember each time they transfer funds they only bring you to zero. As it is now the coffee you buy after putting money on your subway fare card might also trigger an overdraft transfer."""
"""Work on the side for my wife's company""","""In the US, you'd run the risk of being accused of fraud if this weren't set up properly.  It would only be proper if your wife could show that she were involved, acting as your agent, bookkeeper, etc. Even so, to suggest that your time is billed at one rate but you are only paid a tiny fraction of that is still a high risk alert.  I believe the expression \""if it quacks like a duck...\"" is pretty universal. If not, I'll edit in a clarification.  note -I know OP is in UK, but I imagine tax collection is pretty similar in this regard."""
"""Dollar Cost Averaging (Or value averaging) vs Lot sizes, what am I missing?""","""Don't take it so literally. 100 is close to 98, so if your formula calls for 98, buy 100."""
"""Pay off car or use money for down payment""","""The best thing to do is pay off the car. Adding more variables to a negotiation with a car dealer (in this case, a trade in), is always going to go in their favor. This is why people recommend negotiating a price down first, before ever mentioning to the dealer you want to do a trade in or financing."""
"""How to calculate the standard deviation of stock returns?""","""This link does it ok:  http:\/\/investexcel.net\/1979\/calculate-historical-volatility-excel\/ Basically, you calculate percentage return by doing stock price now \/ stock price before.  You're not calculating the rate of return hence no subtraction of 100%.  The standard is to do this on a daily basis: stock price today \/ stock price yesterday. The most important and most misunderstood part is that you now have to analyze the data geometrically not arithmetically.  To easily do this, convert all percentage returns with the natural log, ln(). Next, you take the standard deviation of all of those results, and apply exp().  This answers the title of your question. For convenience's sake, it's best to annualize since volatility (implied or statistical) is now almost always quoted annualized.  There are ~240 trading days each year.  You multiply your stdev() result by (240 \/ # of trading days per return) ^ 0.5, so if you're doing this for daily returns, multiply the stdev() result by 240^0.5; if you were doing it weekly, you'd want to multiply by (240 \/ ~5)^0.5; etc.  This is your number for sigma.  This answers the intent of your question. For black-scholes, you do not convert anything back with exp(); BS is already set up for geometric analysis, so you need to stay there. The reason why analysis is done geometrically is because the distribution of stock returns is assumed to be lognormal (even though it's really more like logLaplace)."""
"""Are there any disadvantages to DHA Investment Properties?""","""A quick online search for \""disadvantages of defence housing australia investment properties\"" turns up a several articles that list a few possible disadvantages. I can't vouch for these personally because I'm not familiar with the Australian rental market, but they may all be things to keep in mind. I quote verbatim where indicated."""
"""Is it true that more than 99% of active traders cannot beat the index?""","""What decision are you trying to make?  Are you interested day trading stocks to make it rich? Or are you looking at your investment options and trying to decide between an actively managed mutual fund and an ETF? If the former, then precise statistics are hard to come by, but I believe that 99% of day traders would do better investing in an ETF. If the latter, then there are lots of studies that show that most actively managed funds do worse than index funds, so with most actively managed funds you are paying higher fees for worse performance.  Here is a quote from the Bogleheads Guide to Investing: Index funds outperform approximately 80 percent of all actively   managed funds over long periods of time. They do so for one simple   reason: rock-bottom costs. In a random market, we don't know what   future returns will be. However, we do know that an investor who keeps   his or her costs low will earn a higher return than one who does not.   That's the indexer's edge. Many people believe that your best option for investing is a diverse portfolio of ETFs, like this.  This is what I do."""
"""How can I invest in gold without taking physical possession?""","""In addition to the possibility of buying gold ETFs or tradable certificates, there are also firms specializing in providing \""bank accounts\"" of sorts which are denominated in units of weight of precious metal. While these usually charge some fees, they do meet your criteria of being able to buy and sell precious metals without needing to store them yourself; also, these fees are likely lower than similar storage arranged by yourself. Depending on the specifics, they may also make buying small amounts practical (buying small amounts of physical precious metals usually comes with a large mark-up over the spot price, sometimes to the tune of a 50% or so immediate loss if you buy and then immediately sell). Do note that, as pointed out by John Bensin, buying gold gets you an amount of metal, the local currency value of which will vary over time, sometimes wildly, so it is not the same thing as depositing the original amount of money in a bank account. Since 2006, the price of an ounce (about 31.1 grams) of gold has gone from under $500 US to over $1800 US to under $1100 US. Few other investment classes are anywhere near this volatile. If you are interested in this type of service, you might want to check out BitGold (not the same thing at all as Bitcoin) or GoldMoney. (I am not affiliated with either.) Make sure to do your research thoroughly as these may or may not be covered by the same regulations as regular banks, particularly if you choose a company based outside of or a storage location outside of your own country."""
"""0% APR first 12 months on new credit card. Can I exceed that 30% rule of thumb and not hurt my credit score?""","""I cannot stress this enough, so I'll just repeat it:  Don't plan your finances around your credit score.  Don't even think about your credit score at all.  Plan a budget an stick to it.  Make sure you include short and long term savings in your budget.  Pay your bills on time.  Use credit responsibly.  Do all of these things, and your credit rating will take care of itself.  Don't try to plan your finances around raising it. On the subject of 0% financing specifically, my rule of thumb is to only ever use it when I have enough money saved up to buy the thing outright, and even then only if my budget will still balance with the added cost of repaying the loan.  Other people have other rules, including not taking such loans at all, and you should develop a rule that works for you (but you should have a rule).  One rule shouldn't have is \""do whatever will optimize your credit score\"" because you shouldn't plan your finances around your credit score.   All things considered, I think the most important thing in your situation is to make sure that you don't let the teaser rate tempt you into making purchases you wouldn't otherwise make.  You're not really getting free money; you're just shifting around the time frame for payment, and only within a limited window at that.  Also, be sure to read the fine print in the credit agreement; they can be filled with gotchas and pitfalls.  In particular, if you don't clear the balance by the end of the introductory rate period, you can sometimes incur interest charges retroactively to the date of purchase.  Make sure you know your terms and conditions cold. It sounds like you're just getting started, so best of luck, and remember that Rome wasn't built in a day.  Patience can be the most effective tool in your personal finance arsenal. p.s. Don't plan your finances around your credit score."""
"""How to rescue my money from negative interest?""","""How about placing the money in a safety deposit box at the same bank? This will probably work out cheaper than the loss due to negative rates. Although, I'm quite sure the banks won't like this idea."""
"""How can I investigate historical effect of Rebalancing on Return and Standard Deviation?""","""Do not reinvent the wheel! Historical data about stock market returns and standard deviations suffer from number of issues such as past-filling and mostly survivorship bias -- that the current answers do not consider at all. I suggest to read the paper \""A Century of Global Stock Markets\"" by Philippe Jorion (UC Irvine) and William Goetzmann (Yale), here. William Bernstein comments the results here, notice that rebalancing is sometimes a good option but not always, his non-obvious finding where the low SD did not favour from rebalancing:  Look at the final page of the paper,  \""geometric returns -- represent returns to a buy-and-hold strategy\"" and the \""arithmetic averages -- give equal weight to each observation interval.\"", where you can find your asked \""historical effect of Rebalancing on Return and Standard Deviation\"". The paper nicely summarizes the results to this table:  The results in the table are from the interval 1921-1996, it is not that long-time but even longer term data has its own drawbacks. The starting year 1921 is interesting choice because it is around the times of social-economical changes and depressing moments, historical context can be realized from books such as Grapes Of Wrath (short summary here, although fiction to some extent, it has some resonance to the history). The authors have had to ignore some years because of different reasons such as political unrest and wars.  Instead of delving into marketed spam as suggested by one reply, I would look into this search here. Look at the number of references and the related papers to judge their value.  P.s. I encourage people to attack my open question here, hope we can solve it!"""
"""How to read Google Finance data on dividends""","""However,  you have to remember that not all dividends are paid quarterly.  For example one stock I recently purchased has a price of $8.03 and the Div\/yield = 0.08\/11.9 . $.08 * 4 = $0.32 which is only 3.9%  (But this stock pays monthly dividends). $.08 * 12 = $0.96 which is 11.9 %.   So over the course of a year assuming the stock price and the dividends didn't change you would make 11.9%"""
"""Should I refi a rental property to reduce income tax from positive cash flow and use the equity pulled out to fund an annuity?""","""You need to do a bit more research and as @littleadv often wisely advises, consult a professional, in this case a tax layer or CPA. You are not allowed to just pull money out of a property and write off the interest.  From Deducting Mortgage Interest FAQs If you own rental property and borrow against it to buy a home, the   interest does not qualify as mortgage interest because the loan is not   secured by the home itself. Interest paid on that loan can't be   deducted as a rental expense either, because the funds were not used   for the rental property. The interest expense is actually considered   personal interest, which is no longer deductible. This is not exactly your situation of course, but it illustrates the restriction that will apply to you.  Elsewhere in the article, it references how, if used for a business, the interest deduction still will not apply to the rental, but to the business via schedule C.  In your case, it's worse, you can never deduct interest used to fund a tax free bond, or to invest in such a tax favored product.  Putting the facts aside, I often use the line \""don't let the tax tail wag the investing dog.\"" Borrowing in order to reduce taxes is rarely a wise move. If you look at the interest on the 90K vs 290K, you'll see you are paying, in effect, 5.12% on the extra 200K, due the higher rate on the entire sum. Elsewhere on this board, there are members who would say that given the choice to invest or pay off a 4% mortgage, paying it off is guaranteed, and the wiser thing to do. I think there's a fine line and might not be so quick to pay that loan off, an after-tax 3% cost of borrowing is barely higher than inflation. But to borrow at over 5% to invest in an annuity product whose terms you didn't disclose, does seem right to me. Borrow to invest in the next property? That's another story."""
"""How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)""","""There was a study last year -- it was all over the news -- that concluded that experiences, not stuff, is what makes people happy. The satisfaction from going on vacation lasts even after the holiday is long over. That new gadget only gives fleeting satisfaction. To that end, I recommend splurging on the affordable luxuries that give you a better experience. For example, I'm a big believer in paying the skycap a few dollars to check my bags at the curb rather than wait in line at the airport because I HATE airports. Valet parking is another affordable luxury when the alternative is circling a busy parking lot for 15 minutes. Pay for the better seats at the show. Get a room at the nicer hotel. Eat out a bit more often. I can't imagine willingly spending hours with customer support, though. They can have my $5."""
"""Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? ""","""AdvFN has one--click the Charts & Research pulldown and choose UK Screener. Free but requires login."""
"""How do you translate a per year salary into a part-time per hour job?""","""It's difficult to quantify the intangible benefits, so I would recommend that you begin by quantifying the financials and then determine whether the difference between the pay of the two jobs justifies the value of the intangible benefits to you. Some Explainations You are making $55,000 per year, but your employer is also paying for a number of benefits that do not come free as a contractor.  Begin by writing down everything they are providing you that you would like to continue to have.  This may include: You also need to account for the FICA tax that you need to pay completely as a part time employee (normally a company pays half of it for you).  This usually amounts to 7.8% of your income. Quantification Start by researching the cost for providing each item in the list above to yourself.  For health insurance get quotes from providers.  For bonuses average your yearly bonuses for your work history with the company.  Items like stock options you need to make your best guess on. Calculations Now lets call your original salary S.  Add up all of the costs of the list items mentioned above and call them B.  This formula will tell you your real current annual compensation (RAC): Now you want to break your part time job into hours per year, not hours per month, as months have differing numbers of working days.  Assuming no vacations that is 52 weeks per year multiplied by 20 hours, or 1040 hours (780 if working 15 hours per week).  So to earn the same at the new job as the old you would need to earn an hourly wage of: The full equation for 20 hours per week works out to be: Assumptions DO NOT TAKE THIS SECTION AS REPRESENTATIVE OF YOUR SITUATION; ONLY A BALLPARK ESTIMATE You must do the math yourself.  I recommend a little spreadsheet to simplify things and play what-if scenarios.  However, we can ballpark your situation and show how the math works with a few assumptions. When I got quoted for health insurance for myself and my partner it was $700 per month, or $8400 per year.  If we assume the same for you, then add 3% 401k matching that we'll assume you're taking advantage of ($1650), the equation becomes: Other Considerations Keep in mind that there are other considerations that could offset these calculations.  Variable hours are a big risk, as is your status as a 'temporary' employee.  Though on the flip side you don't need to pay taxes out of each check, allowing you to invest that money throughout the year until taxes are due.  Also, if you are considered a private contractor you can write off many expenses that you cannot as a full time employee."""
"""Is it possible to lower the price of a stock while buying? ""","""The strategy could conceivably work if you had sufficient quantity of shares to fill all of the outstanding buy orders and fill your lower buy orders.  But in this case you are forcing the market down by selling and reinforcing the notion that there is a sell off by filling ever lower buy orders.  There is the potential to trigger some stop loss orders if you can pressure it low enough.  There is a lot of risk here that someone sees what you are doing and decides to jump in and buy forcing the price back up.  Could this work sure.  But it is very risky and if you fail to create the panic selling then you risk losing big.  I also suspect that this would violate SEC Rules and several laws.  And if the price drops too far then trading on the stock would be halted and is likely to return at the appropriate price. Bottom line I can not see a scenario where you do not trigger the stop, net a profit and end up with as many or more stock that you had in the first place."""
"""Borrowing money to buy shares for cashflow?""","""Buying individual\/small basket of high dividend shares is exposing you to 50%+ and very fast potential downswings in capital\/margin calls. There is no free lunch in returns in this respect: nothing that pays enough to help you pay your mortgage at a high rate won\u2019t expose you to a lot of potential volatility. Main issue here looks like you have very poorly performing rental investments you should consider selling or switching up rental usage\/how you rent them (moving to shorter term, higher yield lets, ditching any agents\/handymen that are taking up capital\/try and refinance to lower mortgage rates etc etc). Trying to use leveraged stock returns to pay for poorly performing housing investments is like spraying gasoline all over a fire. Fixing the actual issue in hand first is virtually always the best course of action in these scenarios."""
"""Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say \""no\"" nicely or politely?""","""'If i co-sign that makes me 100% liable if for any reason you can't or won't pay.  Also this shows up on a credit report just like it's my debt.  This limits the amount i can borrow for any reason.  I don't want to take on your debt, that's your business and i don't want to make it mine'."""
"""What is a good way to keep track of your credit card transactions, to reduce likelihood of fraud?""","""Read your bill, question things that don't look familiar. People who steal credit card numbers don't bother to conceal themselves well. So if you live in Florida, and all of the sudden charges appear in Idaho, you should investigate. Keeping charge slips seems counter-productive to me. I already know that I bought gasoline from the station down the street, a slip of paper whose date may or may not align with the credit card bill is not very useful. The half-life for a stolen card is hours. So you tend to see a bunch of charges appearing quickly. If someone is stealing $20 a week from you over an extended period of time, the theif is probably someone you live or work with, and paper slips won't help you there either."""
"""Is it better to miss the dividend and buy the undervalued stock?""","""The stock tends to drop by the amount of the dividend -- or if you prefer to think of it this way, the stock price has been pushed up by the amount of the dividend before it was paid out. Really, all this shift does is factor out the impending dividend's effect on the real purchase cost of the stock. As such it's pretty much irrelevant except that, of course, the dividend is short-term gain that you have to pay taxes on almost immediately. Which also tends to get figured into the price folks are willing to pay for the stock. Conclusion: no, there's no real opportunity here. There's a slight tax reason to avoid buying right before dividends are paid, but that's about it. Basic principle: If it's simple and obvious,the market has already accounted for it."""
"""How can I remove the movement of the stock market as a whole from the movement in price of an individual share?""","""I use StockCharts for spread charting. To take your question as an example, here is the chart of Apple against Nasdaq."""
"""How do amortization schedules work and when are they used?""","""Simply put, for a mortgage, interest is charged only on the balance as well. Think of it this way - on a $100K 6% loan, on day one, 1\/2% is $500, and the payment is just under $600, so barely $100 goes to principal. But the last payment of $600 is nearly all principal.  By the way, you are welcome to make extra principal payments along with the payment due each month. An extra $244 in this example, paid each and every month, will drop the term to just 15 years. Think about that, 40% higher payment, all attacking the principal, and you cut the term by 1\/2 the time."""
"""How to decide on split between large\/mid\/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance""","""I really like keshlam's answer. Your age is also a consideration. If you make your own target fund by matching the allocations of whatever Vanguard offers, I'd suggest re-balancing every year or every other year. But if you're just going to match the allocations of their target fund, you might as well just invest in the target fund itself. Most (not all, just most) target funds do not charge an additional management fee. So you just pay the fees of the underlying funds, same as if you mirrored the target fund yourself. (Check the prospectus to see if an additional fee is charged or not.) You may want to consider a more aggressive approach than the target funds. You can accomplish this by selecting a target fund later than your actual retirement age, or by picking your own allocations. The target funds become more conservative as you approach retirement age, so selecting a later target is a way of moving the risk\/reward ratio. (I'm not saying target funds are necessarily the best choice, you should get professional advice, etc etc.)"""
"""Am I doing the math for this covered call\/long put strategy correctly? What risks do I run with this strategy?""","""You own the stock at $29.42 At $40, the stocks is called at $26. You can't add the call premium, as it's already accounted for. The trade is biased towards being bearish on the stock. (I edited and added the graph the evening I answered)  Not the pretiest graph, but you get the idea. With that $29.42 cost, you are in the money till about $30, then go negative until the most you lose is $3.42."""
"""What software do you recommend for Creating a To-The-Penny, To-The-Day Budget?""","""I wrote a little program one time to try to do this.  I think I wrote it in Python or something. The idea was to have a list of \""projected expenses\"" where each one would have things like the amount, the date of the next transaction, the frequency of the transaction, and so on.  The program would then simulate time, determining when the next transaction would be, updating balances, and so on.  You can actually do a very similar thing with a spreadsheet where you basically have a list of expenses that you manually paste in for each month in advance.  Simply keep a running balance of each row, and make sure you don't forget any transactions that should be happening. This works great for fixed expenses, or expenses that you know how much they are going to be for the next month.  If you don't know, you can estimate, for instance you can make an educated guess at how much your electric bill will be the next month (if you haven't gotten the bill yet) and you can estimate how much you will spend on fuel based on reviewing previous months and some idea of whether your usage will differ in the next month.  For variable expenses I would always err on the side of a larger amount than I expected to spend.  It isn't going to be possible to budget to the exact penny unless you lead a very simple life, but the extra you allocate is important to cushion unexpected and unavoidable overruns. Once you have this done for expenses against your bank account, you can see what your \""low water mark\"" is for the month, or whatever time period you project out to.  If this is above your minimum, then you can see how much you can safely allocate to, e.g. paying off debt.  Throwing a credit card into the mix can make things a bit more predictable in the current month, especially for unpredictable amounts, but it is a bit more complicated as now you have a second account that you have to track that has to get deducted from your first account when it becomes due in the following month.  I am assuming a typical card where you have something like a 25 day grace period to pay without interest along with up to 30 days after the expense before the grace period starts, depending on the relationship between your cut-off date and when the actual expense occurs."""
"""Is it wise to have plenty of current accounts in different banks?""","""Another thing to factor in are deals provided by banks. In general, banks care about new customers more than their existing customers. Hence they explicitly restrict the best deals on credit cards, savings accounts, etc, to new customers only. (Of course, there are occasionally good deals for existing customers, and some banks choose not to discriminate.) If you have many different bank accounts, you are making yourself unavailable for switching bonuses and introductory rates."""
"""When can we exercice an option?""","""Owners of American-style options may exercise at any time before the   option expires, while owners of European-style options may exercise   only at expiration. Read more: American Vs. European Options"""
"""How long does it take for a Tangerine no-fee money-transfer email to be delivered?""","""I phoned Tangerine; they enlightened me. It generally takes 2 hours for the email to arrive. Next, the recipient must open the email, click the link, and enter their bank account number. They'll generally receive the money 2-3 business days after that. This forum post suggests that the delays are due to systemic risk management, tendering, and clearing."""
"""Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible?""","""Can you deduct interest paid to your father on your personal income taxes? Interest paid on passive investments can be deducted from the amount earned by that investment as an investment expense as long as the amount earned is greater than the total paid for the interest expense. Also beware if the amount of interest paid is greater than the yearly gift tax exclusion, as the IRS might interpret this as a creative way of giving gifts to your father without paying gift tax. Do you pay taxes on the interest you pay?  No, because is an expense, not income, you would not count interest paid to him as taxable income. Does your father owe taxes on the interest he collects from you? Yes, that is income to him. And the last question you didn't ask, but I expect it is implied: Do you owe taxes on the quarterly profits? Yes, that is income to you.   The Forbes article How To Arrange A Loan Between Family Members is a bit dated, but still a good source of information. You really should write a formal note (signed by both you and your father) indicating the amount borrowed, the interest rate you are paying on that amount, and when the loan will be repaid. If your father has set the interest rate too low, this could also be considered a gift to you, though we would really be talking about large amounts of money to hit the gift tax limit on interest alone."""
"""Indie Software Developers - How do I handle taxes?""","""The \""hire a pro\"" is quite correct, if you are truly making this kind of money. That said, I believe in a certain amount of self-education so you don't follow a pro's advice blindly. First, I wrote an article that discussed Marginal Tax Rates, and it's worth understanding. It simply means that as your income rises past certain thresholds, the tax rate also will change a bit. You are on track to be in the top rate, 33%.  Next, Solo 401(k). You didn't ask about retirement accounts, but the combined situations of making this sum of money and just setting it aside, leads me to suggest this. Since you are both employer and employee, the Solo 401(k) limit is a combined $66,500. Seems like a lot, but if you are really on track to make $500K this year, that's just over 10% saved.   Then, whatever the pro recommends for your status, you'll still have some kind of Social Security obligation, as both employer and employee, so that's another 15% or so for the first $110K.  Last, some of the answers seemed to imply that you'll settle in April. Not quite. You are required to pay your tax through the year and if you wait until April to pay the tax along with your return, you will have a very unpleasant tax bill. (I mean it will have penalties for underpayment through the year.) This is to be avoided.  I offer this because often a pro will have a specialty and not go outside that focus. It's possible to find the guy that knows everything about setting you up as an LLC or Sole Proprietorship, yet doesn't have the 401(k) conversation.  Good luck, please let us know here how the Pro discussion goes for you."""
"""How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent?""","""If credit scoring works in the UK like it does in the US, then I think the fact that you own+use a credit card and pay off your everyday expenses will give you perfectly good credit.  Just keep doing what you're doing. I have seen people in the United States with very high credit scores based solely upon owning & occasionally using a credit card, paid in full and on time every month."""
"""When to buy and sell bonds""","""Why does the yield go up if the country is economically unstable? The yield will rise when instability increases because the risk of default increases.  If the case of Greece, the instability of government finances resulted in a 50% \""haircut\"" for bond holders in 2011.  In other words, bond holders suffered a 50% write down in the nominal value of their bonds.  This means that holding these bonds until maturity will mean they will only receive half of the original nominal value of the bond, and that is assuming no further write downs occur. Why does selling a bond drive up the yield? Significant selling of bonds means that sellers are worried about future prospects.  Sellers will outnumber buyers, so sellers will have to reduce their offer price in order to attract new buyers. So if you think Greece is not going to default as it's highly likely a country would completely default, wouldn't it make sense to hold onto the bonds? If you think that it is highly unlikely that Greece will default and the prices and yields are attractive, then Greek bonds may look like an attractive investment. However, keep in mind the fate of bond holders in 2011.  They were attracted to Greek bonds by the price and yield, but they suffered a 50% haircut."""
"""Curious about Liverpool FC situation""","""AFAIK gillet and hicks received massive loans to fund their purchase and they have not been keeping up the repayments so now the creditors own the club. Its like getting a car on the never never, or a mortgage, i fyou don't keep up repayments the credit company take back the car or the bank repossess your house. I am sure it is a bit more complicated than that in this case, but tbh I would be surprised if it was fundamentally different.  thats why RBS and the mill fininance are involved, they provided the loans, and are probably desperately keen to sell before going into administation, which would dock liverpool 9 points and reduce the value even more."""
"""Is foreign stock considered more risky than local stock and why?""","""Foreign stocks have two extra sources of risk attached to them; exchange rate and political.  Exchange rate risk is obvious; if I buy a stock in a foreign currency and there is a currency movement that makes that investment worth less I lose money no matter what the stock does. This can be offset using exchange rate swaps. (This is ceteris paribus, of course; changes in exchange rate can give a comparative advantage to international and exporting companies that will improve the fundamentals and so increase the price of the stock relative to a local firm. The economics of the firms in particular are not explored in this answer as it would get too complicated and long if I did.) Political risk relates not only to the problems surrounding international politics such as a country deciding that foreign nationals may no longer own shares in their national industries or deciding to seize foreign nationals' assets as happens in some areas. Your home country may also decide to apply sanctions to the country in which you are invested thus making it impossible to get your money back even though the foreign country will allow you to redeem them or sell. Diplomatic relations and trade agreements tend to be difficult. There are further problems in lack of understanding of foreign countries' laws, tax code, customs etc. relating to investments and the necessity to find legal representation in a country you may never have visited if there are issues. There is also a hidden risk in that, as an individual investor, you are not likely to be reading the local financial news for that country regularly enough to spot company specific issues arising. By the time these issues get into international media its far too late as all of the local investors have sold out of their positions already. The risks are probably no different if you have the time to monitor international relations and the foreign country's news, and have FX swaps in place to counteract FX risk as the funds and investment banks do but as an individual investor the time required is not feasible."""
"""When filing taxes in Canada, in what cases does box 39 on the T4 get reported as half of box 38?""","""Apparently box 39 does not receive half of box 38 if \""The price of the share or unit is less than its fair market value when the agreement was made.\"" - the last point in paragraph 110(1)(d): *http:\/\/www.cra-arc.gc.ca\/tx\/bsnss\/tpcs\/pyrll\/bnfts\/fnncl\/scrty\/stckpt03-eng.html#dspst The employee can claim a deduction under paragraph 110(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act if all of the following conditions are met:"""
"""When you're really young and have about 2K to start investing $ for retirement, why do some people advise you to go risky?""","""Those who say a person should invest in riskier assets when young are those who equate higher returns with higher risk. I would argue that any investment you do not understand is risky and allows you to lose money at a more rapid rate than someone who understands the investment. The way to reduce risk is to learn about what you want to invest in before you invest in it. Learning afterward can be a very expensive proposition, possibly costing you your retirement. Warren Buffet told the story on Bloomberg Radio in late 2013 of how he read everything in his local library on investing as a teenager and when his family moved to Washington he realized he had the entire Library of Congress at his disposal. One of Mr. Buffett's famous quotes when asked why he doesn't invest in the tech sector was: \""I don't invest in what I do not understand.\"". There are several major asset classes: Paper (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, currency), Commodities (silver, gold, oil), Businesses (creation, purchase or partnership as opposed to common stock ownership) and Real Estate (rental properties, flips, land development). Pick one that interests you and learn everything about it that you can before investing. This will allow you to minimize and mitigate risks while increasing the rewards."""
"""Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?)""","""I think it's apt to remind that there's no shortcuts, if someone thinks about doing FX  fx: - negative sum game (big spread or commissions) - chaos theory description is apt - hard to understand costs (options are insurance and for every trade there is equivalent option position - so unless you understand how those are priced, there's a good chance you're getting a \""sh1tty deal\"" as that Goldman guy famously said) - averaging can help if timing is bad but you could be just getting deeper into the \""deal\"" I just mentioned and giving a smarter counterparty your money could backfire as it's the \""ammo\"" they can use to defend their position.  This doesn't apply to your small hedge\/trade? Well that's what I thought not long ago too! That's why I mentioned chaos theory. If you can find a party to hedge with that is not hedging with someone who eventually ends up hedging with JPM\/Goldman\/name any \""0 losing days a year\"" \""bank\"".. Then you may have a point. And contrary to what many may still think, all of the above applies to everything you can think of that has to do with money. All the billions with 0-losing days need to come from somewhere and it's definitely not coming just from couple FX punters."""
"""Are marijuana based investments promising, or just another scam?""","""Any advertisement for a \""business opportunity\"" is nearly always a scam of some kind. In such deals, the seller is the one making the money. They rely on the fantasy of the average person who imagines themself with a profitable business. Real businessmen do not get their businesses from flyers on the sides of telephone poles. Real businessmen already know every aspect and detail of their business already. They do not need to pay some clown $10,000 to \""get them started\"". If you are reading such advertisements, it means you have money, but do not know what to do with it. Although I cannot tell you what to do with your money. I can tell you this: giving it to somebody who advertises a \""great business opportunity\"" would be a mistake."""
"""Free \""Rich Dad\"" education, with \""free gift\"": Is it legitimate, or is it a sales ploy?""","""I have taken the free Kiyosaki evening course, and it does give some good information. It is an upsell to the $500 weekend course, which I also took. That course taught me enough about real-estate investing to get started. I have not yet had the need to pursue his other, more expensive courses. Read his books, take the $500 course, read other people's books on real estate investing, talk to other like-minded individuals, and gain some experience. I understand real estate better than I understand paper assets because I spent more time studying real estate.  If you want to invest in real estate, study it first. If you want to invest in paper assets, study those first."""
"""Why don't banks print their own paper money \/ bank notes? ""","""In Scotland, each bank issues its own separate notes. It's not uncommon to see identical-valued \u00a310 notes, for example, from three different banks in one's wallet."""
"""Taking Losses To Save On Tax""","""As Dilip said, if you want actual concrete, based in tax law, answers, please add the country (and if applicable, state) where you pay income tax. Also, knowing what tax bracket you're in would help as well, although I certainly understand if you're not comfortable sharing that. So, assuming the US... If you're in the 10% or 15% tax bracket, then you're already not paying any federal tax on the $3k long term gain, so purposely taking losses is pointless, and given that there's probably a cost to taking the loss (commission, SEC fee), you'd be losing money by doing so. Also, you won't be able to buy back the loser for 31 days without having the loss postponed due to the wash sale that would result. State tax is another matter, but (going by the table in this article), even using the highest low end tax rate (Tennessee at 6%), the $50 loss would only save you $3, which is probably less than the commission to sell the loser, so again you'd be losing money. And if you're in a state with no state income tax, then the loss wouldn't save you anything on taxes at the state level, but of course you'll still be paying to be able to take the loss. On the high end, you'd be saving 20% federal tax and 13.3% state tax (using the highest high end tax state, California, and ignoring (because I don't know :-) ) whether they tax long-term capital gains at the same rate as regular income or not), you'd be saving $50 * (20% + 13.3%) = $50 * 33.3% = $16.65. So for taxes, you're looking at saving between nothing and $16.65. And then you have to subtract from that the cost to achieve the loss, so even on the high end (which means (assuming a single filer)) you're making >$1 million), you're only saving about $10, and you're probably actually losing money. So I personally don't think taking a $50 loss to try to decrease taxes makes sense. However, if you really meant $500 or $5000, then it might (although if you're in the 10-15% brackets in a no income tax state, even then it wouldn't). So the answer to your final question is, \""It depends.\"" The only way to say for sure is, based on the country and state you're in, calculate what it will save you (if anything). As a general rule, you want to avoid letting the tax tail wag the dog. That is, your financial goal should be to end up with the most money, not to pay the least taxes. So while looking at the tax consequences of a transaction is a good idea, don't look at just the tax consequences, look at the consequences for your overall net worth."""
"""IRR vs. Interest Rates""","""IRR is subjective, if you could provide another metric instead of the IRR; then this would make sense. You can't spend IRR. For example, you purchase a property with a down payment; and the property provides cash-flow; you could show that your internal rate of return is 35%, but your actual rate of importance could be the RoR, or Cap Rate. I feel that IRR is very subjective. IRR is hardly looked at top MBA programs. It's studied, but other metrics are used, such as ROI, ROR, etc. IRR should be a tool that you visually compare to another metric. IRR can be very misleading, for example it's like the cash on cash return on an investment."""
"""Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS""","""Personally, I think it's a bad practice, because ultimately using cards for such minuscule transactions raises costs for everyone, especially at merchants whose average transaction is small. How does carrying cash improve your personal security? If someone is going to mug you, they do not know in advance whether you have money or not."""
"""How does Portfolio Turnover affect my investment?""","""may result in more taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable   account. When the fund manager decides to sell shares of a stock, and those shares have grown in value, that growth is a capital gain. If that fund is part of a taxable account then the investors in the fund will have to declare that income\/gain on their tax forms. That could require the investors to have to pay taxes on those gains.  Of course if the investors are holding the fund shares in a IRA or 401K then there are no taxes due in the near term. A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction   costs...  ...These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating   expenses or in the previous expense examples, reduce the Fund\u2019s   performance. The annual fund operating expenses are the expenses that they can assume will happen every year. They include salaries, the cost of producing statements, paperwork required by the government, research... It doesn't include transaction costs. Which they can't estimate what they will be in advance. If the fund invests in a particular segment of the market, and there is a disruption in that segment, they may need to make many new investments. If on the other hand last year they made great choices the turnover may be small this year. During the most recent fiscal year, the Fund\u2019s portfolio turnover rate   was 3% of the average value of its portfolio. That may be your best indicator."""
"""Can a bunch of wealthy people force Facebook to go public?""","""@Alex B's answer hits most of it, but leaves out one thing: most companies control who can own their non-public shares, and prohibit transfers, sales, or in some cases, even ongoing ownership by ex-employees. So it's not that hard to ensure you stay under 500 investors.   Remember that Sharespost isn't an exchange or clearinghouse; it's basically a bulletin board with some light contract services and third-party escrow services.   I'd guess that many of the companies on their \""hot\"" list explicitly prohibit the sale of their non-public shares."""
"""Need something more basic than a financial advisor or planner""","""Yes, there is a profession that does exactly what you're looking for.  It's called a fee-only financial advisor. These are professionals who (in the United States) enter into a fiduciary relationship with a client, meaning they are legally required to put your financial interests above all other considerations (such as any behind-the-scenes incentives to promote certain products).  Between that requirement and the fact that they are paid for their time (and not on commission), they have zero incentive to try to sell you anything that you do not need.  Their only job is to help you with your financial situation.  (Of course, some of them may be better than others.) See the profession's website here to find such an advisor near you. (Credit to Marketplace Money, the old name for Marketplace Weekend, for mentioning fee-only advisors at least 87 times per show.)"""
"""What is a subsidy?""","""subsidy - financial support. For example subsidized housing - when the government pays a part of your rent (usually for low income families). or subsidized student loan - when somebody else is paying interest on the money you borrowed while you are in school."""
"""What is the meaning of \""Closed Short\"" ,\""Opened Long\"" ,\""Scaled Out\"" and \""Scaled In\""?""","""Opened Long - is when you open a long position. Long means that you buy to open the position, so you are trying to profit as the price rises. So if you were closing a long position you would sell it. Closed Short - is when you close out a short position. Short means that you sell to open and buy back to close. With a short position you are trying to profit as the price falls. Scaled Out - means you get out of a position in increments as the price climbs (for long positions). Scaled In - means you set a target price and then invest in increments as the stock falls below that price (for long positions)."""
"""If a company has already IPO'ed and sold its shares, what is the incentive to keep making money? ""","""A company doesn't offer up 100% of its shares to the market.  There's a float amount of varying significance, maybe 30% of the shares are put up for public offer.  Generally some amount of current shareholders will pledge some or all of their shares for offer to the public.  This may be how the venture capital, private equity or other current investors cash out their initial investment.  The company may issue new shares in order to raise money for some initiative.  It may be a combination of existing shares and new. Additionally, a company may hold some \""treasury shares\"" on its balance sheet.  In this instance fluctuations in the share price directly affect the health of the balance sheet. As far as incentive goes, stock options to management and C-Suite employees keep everyone interested in an increasing stock price."""
"""How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)""","""Unless your stinginess has reach truly compulsive levels, it should be enough to consciously remind yourself of the value of your time when you make purchase decisions or find yourself chasing minor savings. Another way might be to deliberately give yourself a monthly or weekly budget that you're allowed to \""waste\"" on luxuries and conveniences without worrying."""
"""Tax implications of having some self-employment income?""","""Havoc P's answer is good (+1). Also don't forget the other aspects of business income: state filing fees, county\/city filing fees, business licenses, etc.  Are there any taxes you have to collect from your customers? If you expect to make more this year, then you should make estimated quarterly tax payments.  The first one for 2011 is due around the same time as your federal income tax filing."""
"""What are good games to play to teach young children about saving money?""","""I know this question is closed now, but I just found this site that people might be interested in... http:\/\/www.practicalmoneyskills.com\/games\/"""
"""Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup""","""The value of a business without proven profits is really just a guess.  But to determine what % ownership the VC takes some measure must be used.  He is asking the OP to start the negotiations.  So you start high - higher than you will settle for. The value of the business should always be WAY more the $$ you have put into it ... because you have also invested your time (which has an opportunity cost) and assumed huge risk that you will never get those $$ back.   When you need the cash and only one person will give it to you, you are over a barrel.  You either take the terms they offer, or you let the business collapse.  So keep a show of strength and invent other funders. Or create a business plan showing that you can continue without their $$ (just at a smaller volume)."""
"""Does renting a room on AirBnB make all interest taxable?""","""What theyre fishing for is whether the money was earned in the U.S.  It's essentially an interest shelter, and\/or avoiding double taxation.   They're saying if you keep income you make outside the US in a bank inside the US, the US thanks you for storing your foreign money here and doesn't tax the interest (but the nation where you earned that income might).   There is no question that the AirBNB income is \""connected with a US trade or business\"".   So your next question is whether the fraction of interest earned from that income can be broken out, or whether IRS requires you to declare all the interest from that account.   Honestly given the amount of tax at stake, it may not be worth your time researching.   Now since you seem to be a resident nonresident alien, it seems apparent that whatever economic value you are creating to earn your salary, is being performed in the United States. If this is for an American company and wages paid in USD, no question, that's a US trade or business. But what if it's for a Swedish company running on Swedish servers, serving Swedes and paid in Kroner to a Swedish bank which you then transfer to your US bank? Does it matter if your boots are on sovereign US soil?  This is a complex question, and some countries (UK) say \""if your boots are in our nation, it is trade\/income in our nation\""... Others (CA) do not.  This is probably a separate question to search or ask. To be clear, the fact that your days as a teacher or trainee do not count toward residency, is a separate question from whether your salary as same counts as US income."""
"""What should I be aware of as a young investor?""","""If you are going to the frenzy of individual stock picking, like almost everyone initially, I suggest you to write your plan to paper. Like, I want an orthogonal set of assets and limit single investments to 10%. If with such limitations the percentage of brokerage fees rise to unbearable large, you should not invest that way in the first hand.  You may find better to invest in already diversified fund, to skip stupid fees. There are screeners like in morningstar that allow you to see overlapping items in funds but in stocks it becomes trickier and much errorsome. I know you are going to the stock market frenzy, even if you are saying to want to be long-term or contrarian investor, most investors are convex, i.e. they follow their peers, despite it would better to be a concave investor (but as we know it can be hard).  If the last part confused you, fire up a spreadsheet and do a balance. It is a very motivating activity, really. You will immediately notice things important to you, not just to providers such as morningstar, but alert it may take some time. And Bogleheads become to your rescue, ready spreadsheets here."""
"""Credit card transactions for personal finances""","""Other responses have focused on getting you software to use, but I'd like to attempt your literal question: how are such transactions managed in systems that handle them? I will answer for \""double entry\"" bookkeeping software such as Quicken or GnuCash (my choice). (Disclaimer: I Am Not An Accountant and accountants will probably find error in my terminology.) Your credit card is a liability to you, and is tracked using a liability account (as opposed to an asset account, such as your bank accounts or cash in your pocket). A liability account is just like an asset except that it is subtracted from rather than added to your total assets (or, from another perspective, its balance is normally negative; the mathematics works out identically). When you make a purchase using your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from the liability account (increasing the liability) to the expense account for your classification of the expense. When you make a payment on your credit card, the transaction you record transfers money from your checking account (for example) to the credit card account, reducing the liability. Whatever software you choose for tracking your money, I strongly recommend choosing something that is sufficiently powerful to handle representing this as I have described (transfers between accounts as the normal mode of operation, not simply lone increases\/decreases of asset accounts)."""
"""How to exclude stock from mutual fund""","""Owning a stock via a fund and selling it short simultaneously should have the same net financial effect as not owning the stock.  This should work both for your personal finances as well as the impact of (not) owning the shares has on the stock's price. To use an extreme example, suppose there are 4 million outstanding shares of Evil Oil Company.  Suppose a group of concerned index fund investors owns 25% of the stock and sells short the same amount.   They've borrowed someone else's 25% of the company and sold it to a third party.  It should have the same effect as selling their own shares of the company, which they can't otherwise do.  Now when 25% of the company's stock becomes available for purchase at market price, what happens to the stock?  It falls, of course.   Regarding how it affects your own finances, suppose the stock price rises and the investors have to return the shares to the lender.  They buy 1 million shares at market price, pushing the stock price up, give them back, and then sell another million shares short, subsequently pushing the stock price back down. If enough people do this to effect the share price of a stock or asset class, the managers at the companies might be forced into behaving in a way that satisfies the investors.  In your case, perhaps the company could issue a press release and fire the employee that tried to extort money from your wife's estate in order to win your investment business back.  Okay, well maybe that's a stretch."""
"""Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC?""","""I don't know about the US, but in the UK this is common practice, even required in some situations, and not sketchy at all. It's perfectly legal, saves you tax, and protects you from a legal standpoint. (i.e. what if you break something and your employer wants to sue you?) This is what companies are for, they are legal entities that are separate from an individual. There is no requirement for a company to have more than one employee."""
"""Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt?""","""The stores track the individual items for inventory planning and marketing purposes. Having worked in the transaction processing business for a time (writing one), I can say with confidence that the credit\/debit card companies do not receive an itemized list of the items involved in the transaction. There is usually a description field in the information transmitted to the processor, which may or may not contain useful information. But it is not big enough to contain an itemized grocery list of any size. And it is not standardized in any way that would facilitate reliable parsing. There may be an amount of metadata about the transaction that would indicate the types of products involved in the transaction, which they can also infer from the merchant reporting the transaction. There are efforts to increase the amount of data reported, but they are not widely used yet, due to the overwhelming numbers of banks that would need to be upgraded. These efforts are rolling out only in specific and limited uses where the banks involved are willing to upgrade software and equipment. For now, the best way to know what you bought is to keep your receipts from the store. Shoeboxes work great for this. So do smartphone cameras and a folder on your hard drive. There are also mobile apps that track receipts for you, and may even try to OCR the data for you."""
"""Quandl financial data : unexpected dividend ""","""For MCD, the 47\u00a2 is a regular dividend on preferred stock (see SEC filing here). Common stock holders are not eligible for this amount, so you need to exclude this amount. For KMB, there was a spin-off of Halyard Health. From their IR page on the spin-off: Kimberly-Clark will distribute one share of Halyard common stock for   every eight shares of Kimberly-Clark common stock you own as of the   close of business on the record date. The deal closed on 2014-11-03. At the time HYH was worth $37.97 per share, so with a 1:8 ratio this is worth about $4.75. Assuming you were able to sell your HYH shares at this price, the \""dividend\"" in the data is something you want to keep. With all the different types of corporate actions, this data is extremely hard to keep clean. It looks like the Quandl source is lacking here, so you may need to consider looking at other vendors."""
"""Discussing stock and stock index movement: clarifying percentage vs. points?""","""I think that the general public is conditioned to think more in terms of points rather than percentages, so that 200 points is easier to fathom than the equivalent percent. We all translate internally what this means. Of course it is less precise, but it also makes for good copy in the publishing industry (\""Market Down 1000 points!\"")"""
"""How do I know if refinance is beneficial enough to me?""","""It would help if we had numbers to walk you through the analysis. Current balance, rate, remaining term, and the new mortgage details.  To echo and elaborate on part of Ben's response, the most important thing is to not confuse cash flow with savings. If you have 15 years to go, and refinance to 30 years, at the rate rate, your payment drops by 1\/3. Yet your rate is identical in this example.  The correct method is to take the new rate, plug it into a mortgage calculator or spreadsheet using the remaining months on the current mortgage, and see the change in payment. This savings is what you should divide into closing costs to calculate the breakeven. It's up to you whether to adjust your payments to keep the term the same after you close.  With respect to keshlam, rules of thumb often fail. There are mortgages that build the closing costs into the rate. Not the amount loaned, the rate. This means that as rates dropped, moving from 5.25% to 5% made sense even though with closing costs there were 4.5% mortgages out there. Because rates were still falling, and I finally moved to a 3.5% loan. At the time I was serial refinancing, the bank said I could return to them after a year if rates were still lower. In my opinion, we are at a bottom, and the biggest question you need to answer is whether you'll remain in the house past your own breakeven time. Last - with personal finance focusing on personal, the analysis shouldn't ignore the rest of your balance sheet. Say you are paying $1500\/mo with 15 years to go. Your budget is tight enough that you've chosen not to deposit to your 401(k). (assuming you are in the US or country with pretax retirement account options) In this case, holding rates constant, a shift to 30 years frees up about $500\/mo. In a matched 401(k), your $6000\/yr is doubled to $12K\/year.  Of course, if the money would just go in the market unmatched, members here would correctly admonish me for suggesting a dangerous game, in effect borrowing via mortgage to invest in the market. The matched funds, however are tough to argue against."""
"""Can another tax loss be used to offset capital gains taxes? How does it work?""","""Capital gains and losses offset each other first, then your net gain is taxed at the applicable rate. If you have a net loss, you can offset your other income by up to $3,000. In your example, you have no net-gain or loss, so no tax implications from your activity."""
"""Can company owners use lay offs to prevent restricted stock from vesting before an acquisition?""","""As littleadv says it depends on the local laws.   Normally one shouldn't be too worried. Typically the stocks given to the employees are a very small portion of the overall stocks ... the owners would not try to jeopardize the deal just so that they make an incrementally small amount of money ... they would rather play safe than get into such a practice."""
"""In a buy order with a trigger, will I pay the current ask or the buy price in the order?""","""I think that if the price does not go very far up, then your order will open on 101, because you are setting a limit order, if suddenly the price goes up very quickly or with a gep even, then you may not be given a position. But this is with a limit order and it is better to check with the broker. There are also warrants in which you can adjust the price range, for example, from 101 to 103, and at a sharp price jump, it is possible for you and would not give a position at a price of 101, but perhaps 103 would get."""
"""Why can't I short a stock that sells for less than $5? Is there another way to \""go short\"" on them?""","""Timothy Sykes specializes in this type of trade, according to his website. He has some recommendations for brokers that allow shorting low-priced stocks:"""
"""Debit cards as bad as credit cards?""","""Debit cards are the dumbest development ever. I now have a piece of plastic that allows any yahoo to cause me to bounce my mortgage. Great. Throw away the debit card. Use a credit card and exercise some self control. Take out a sufficient amount of cash to cover your weekly incidental expenses under $50. If you want something that costs more than $50, wait a week and use the credit card. You'll find that using cash at places like the convenience store or gas station will cause you to not spend $3 for a slim jim, lotto ticket, donut or other dumb and unnecessary item."""
"""Invest all at once after maxing out Roth IRA - or each time I contribute?""","""This depends on the terms and conditions of your IRA account, and those of the investments you have chosen. In general, you are better off investing as quickly as is feasible given those terms.  Money in your cash account doesn't earn much of a return, so the quicker you get money into something earning a return, the better. However, pay attention to the fees and costs associated with investing.  If there is a per-transaction fee, you may want to consolidate, as it may be more efficient to do so - after all, if you contribute $500 at a shot, and it costs you $5 to make a trade, you're paying 1% off the top to make that trade if you make 11 of them, versus 0.1% to make 1, so the question is do you earn that 1% back over the course of the six months?  That will depend on what you are investing in.   More than likely you're going to earn more than 1% over the course of the six months, so it's probably worth investing it in pieces still in that situation, but if the transaction cost is higher, or the time differential lower, you may have a less clear-cut answer.  I invest at Vanguard in their funds and have no transaction fees, so I have a more obvious answer (invest as soon as possible). You also need to consider whether you have minimums to pay attention to - maybe your investment is something you can only buy whole shares of, for example, or you might have a much higher fee if you make small transactions.  In that case, you should wait until you have the minimum to make that transaction if the fee is more than the return you'll get. So the answer is - make the transactions as early as you can, subject to considering the fees you will pay for making them."""
"""What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?""","""Definitely don't grocery shop when you're hungry.  Also, watch for sales, and then buy in bulk and freeze it."""
"""Pay or not pay charged-off accounts for mortgage qualification""","""Your post has some assumptions that are not, or may not be true. For one the assumption is that you have to wait 7 years after you settle your debts to buy a home.  That is not the case.  For some people (me included) settling an charged off debt was part of my mortgage application process.  It was a small debt that a doctor's office claimed I owed, but I didn't.  The mortgage company told me, settling the debt was \""the cost of doing business\"".  Settling your debts can be looked as favorable. Option 1, in my opinion is akin to stealing.  You borrowed the money and you are seeking to game the system by not paying your debts.  Would you want someone to do that to you?  IIRC the debt can be sold to another company, and the time period is refreshed and can stay on your credit report for beyond the 7 years.  I could be wrong, but I feel like there is a way for potential lenders to see unresolved accounts well beyond specified time periods.  After all, the lenders are the credit reporting agencies customers and they seek to provide the most accurate view of a potential lender.  With 20K of unresolved CC debt they should point that out to their customers. Option 2:  Do you have 20K?  I'd still seek to settle, you do not have to wait 7 years.   Your home may not appreciate in 2 years.  In my own case my home has appricated very little in the 11 years that I have owned it.  Many people have learned the hard way that homes do not necessarily increase in value.   It is very possible that you may have a net loss in equity in two years.  Repairs or improvements can evaporate the small amount of equity that is achieved over two years with a 30 year mortgage.   I would hope that you pause a bit at the fact that you defaulted on 20K in debt.  That is a lot of money.  Although it is a lot, it is a small amount in comparison to the cost and maintenance of a home.  Are you prepared to handle such a responsibility?  What has changed in your personality since the 20K default?  The tone of your posts suggests you are headed for the same sort of calamity. This is far more than a numbers game it is behavioral."""
"""Is it normal for brokers to ask whether I am a beginner?""","""Brokers need to assess your level of competency to ensure that they don't allow you to \""bite off more than you can chew\"" and find yourself in a bad situation. Some brokers ask you to rate your skills, others ask you how long you've been trading, it always varies based on broker. I use IB and they gave me a questionairre about a wide range of instruments, my skill level, time spent trading, trades per year, etc.  Many brokers will use your self-reported experience to choose what types of instruments you can trade. Some will only allow you to start with stocks and restrict access to forex, options, futures, etc. until you ask for readiness and, for some brokers, even pass a test of knowledge. Options are very commonly restricted so that you can only go long on an option when you own the underlying stock when you are a \""newbie\"" and scale out from there. Many brokers adopt a four-tiered approach for options where only the most skilled traders can write naked options, as seen here. It's important to note that all of this information is self-reported and you are not legally bound to answer honestly in any way. If, for example, you are well aware of the risks of writing naked options and want to try it despite never trading one before, there is nothing stopping you from saying you've traded options for 10 years and be given the privilege by your broker. Of course, they're just looking out for your best interest, but you are by no means forced into the scheme if you do not wish to be."""
"""Can dividends be exploited?""","""In addition to the other answers it's also noteworthy that the stock exchanges themselves adjust the price quotes via their ex-div mechanism.  All limit orders present in the book when the stock goes ex-div will be adjusted by the dividend. Which means you can't even get \""accidentally\"" filled in the very unlikely case that everyone forgot to adjust their quotes."""
"""Uncashed paycheck 13 years old""","""Even going to small claims court the burden would be on you to prove that they never paid you. The 13 year gap would be the core of the argument by the company that they have no obligation to keep records from 13 years ago. That is far longer than they need to keep them for tax purposes.  Even if they sent you a replacement check the next year, that happened to me once, the record of that transaction would have been 12 years ago. The bank will not cash it because of the date being 13 years ago. As we move forward with more and more of the checks being deposited via phone\/scanner the banks will be even less likely to handle stale checks because the fact you have the check in your hand doesn't mean it wasn't cashed."""
"""Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area?""","""There are many factors.   Most gas stations price their gas based on what it will cost them to replace it.  So when their supplier raises the price that it charges the station the station typically raises its prices proportionality.  The suppliers tend to have their own rates.  The business needs to make a profit so the business sets the price where it feels it will make the most money. Some stations buy bargain gas.  Many people say they find this gas to be just fine.  Personally some stations gas seems to make my cars run much worse.  I can say that my mileage can vary by as much as 4 miles to the gallon based on where I get my gas.  So I pay more to go to those stations that consistently have provided me good gasoline.  However higher prices do not necessarily mean better gas.  We have a BP just down the street that seems to have bad gas while one about a half a mile away that I prefer because I have never had a bad tank of gas.  Both are priced about the same. Also some localities have special tax zones.  These are local taxes levied based on the location.  We have 4 different zones here in Peoria IL (150k pop).  That does not take into account the smaller cities around us."""
"""I'm thinking of getting a new car \u2026 why shouldn't I LEASE one?""","""You SHOULDN'T lease one if you are going to get an economy car, if you don't drive too much (<15K \/ year), and you want to hang on to the car for a long time.  Otherwise, if you are a regular driver, driving a leased new quality car can be cost effective. Many cars now have bumper-to-bumper warranties that last as long as the lease (say 80K). So there is rarely any extra costs apart from regular maintenance. The sweet spot for most new cars is in the 5th, 6th, or 7th years, after they are paid off. But at that point, you may find you have maintenance bills that are approaching an average of $200 - $300 per month. In which case, a lease starts to look pretty good. I owned a 7 year old Honda Accord that cost only $80 less per month in maintenance than the new leased VW that replaced it.  Haven't looked back after that. Into my 3rd car and 9th year of leasing."""
"""Where can I find filings of HUD-1 statements?""","""Some of the information on the HUD-1 form would have been useful to complete the income tax paperwork the next spring. It would have had numbers for Taxes, and interest that were addressed at the settlement. It is possible it is mixed in with the next years tax information. If I needed a HUD-1 form from 15 years ago, I wouldn't ask the real estate agent, I would ask the settlement company. They might have a copy of the paperwork. They might have to retrieve it from an archive, so it could take time, and they could charge a fee. The local government probably doesn't have a copy of the HUD-1, but they do have paperwork documenting the sale price when the transaction took place. I know that the jurisdictions in my area have on-line the tax appraisal information going back a number of years. They also list all the purchases because of the change in ownership, and many also list any name changes.  You probably don't want a screen capture of the transactions page, but the tax office might have what you need. This is the same information that the title search company was retrieving for their report. Question. Is there going to be capital gains? For a single person there is no gains unless the increase in price is $250,000. For a couple it is $500,000. I am ignoring any time requirements because you mentioned the purchase was 15 years ago. I am also assuming that it was never a rental property, because that would require a lot more paperwork."""
"""How to register LLC in the US from India? [duplicate]""","""Wyoming is a good state for this. It is inexpensive and annual compliance is minimal. Although Delaware has the best advertising campaign, so people know about it, the reality is  that there are over 50 states\/jurisdictions in the United States with their own competitive incorporation laws to attract investment (as well as their own legislative bodies that change those laws), so you just have to read the laws to find a state that is favorable for you. What I mean is that whatever Delaware does to get in the news about its easy business laws, has been mimicked and done even better by other states by this point in time. And regarding Delaware's Chancery Court, all other states in the union can also lean on Delaware case law, so this perk is not unique to Delaware. Wyoming is cheaper than Delaware for nominal presence in the United States, requires less information then Delaware, and is also tax free. A \""registered agent\"" can get you set up and you can find one to help you with the address dilemma. This should only cost $99 - $200 over the state fees. An LLC does not need to have an address in the United States, but many registered agents will let you use their address, just ask. Many kinds of businesses still require a bank account for domestic and global trade. Many don't require any financial intermediary any more to receive payments. But if you do need this, then opening a bank account in the United States will be more difficult. Again, the registered agent or lawyer can get a Tax Identification Number for you from the IRS, and this will be necessary to open a US bank account.  But it is more likely that you will need an employee or nominee director in the United States to go in person to a bank and open an account. This person needs to be mentioned in the Operating Agreement or other official form on the incorporation documents. They will simply walk into a bank with your articles of incorporation and operating agreement showing that they are authorized to act on behalf of the entity and open a bank account. They then resign, and this is a private document between the LLC and the employee. But you will be able to receive and accept payments and access the global financial system now. A lot of multinational entities set up subsidiaries in a number of countries this way."""
"""Value of tokens bought at an older price""","""You will make a profit in nominal dollars (or nominal units of whatever currency you used to buy the token).  Whether you'll make a profit in real dollars depends on inflation, and in practice whether it would be possible to sell your existing tokens to someone else for the new price. Suppose when the price was 50 U (50 \""units\"", since you didn't specify a currency), you bought one token.  Today you can either spend 52 U for a token, and get a liter of milk, or you can spend your existing token (for which you paid 50 U) and get a liter of milk.  It looks like you are making a profit of 2 U by spending your token. However, whether that profit is real or illusory depends on what else you could do with the token.  For instance, suppose that, since the price of a token is now 52 U, you will have no trouble finding someone who wants to buy your token from you for 52 U.  If you sell your token for 52 U, you'll still only be able to buy 1 L of milk.  So if you measure your wealth in milk, you have made no profit: in the past you had a token representing 1 L of milk, and today you still have a token representing 1 L of milk. Suppose now that in the past, when a token cost 50 U, a hamburger also cost 50 U.  Suppose further that a hamburger now costs 52 U.  So you can sell your token for 52 U, but that 52 U will still only buy you one hamburger.  So, again, if you measure your wealth in hamburgers, your have made no profit.  In the past, you could have sold your token and bought a hamburger; today, you can still sell your token and buy a hamburger, and you'll have nothing left over, so you have gained nothing. If, on the other hand, the price of a hamburger today is still 50 U, then you call sell your token for 52 U, buy a hamburger for 50 U, and still have 2 U left over.  You have made a profit. What this all goes to show is that, in practice, the idea of \""profit\"" depends on the overall economy, and whether you could exchange the currency units you have in your possession for a greater quantity of goods than you could in the past.  Whether this is possible depends on the relative changes in price of various goods.  In other words, if you get your money by selling Product A, and later you buy Product B, you may or may not make a profit depending on how the prices of the two products moved relative to one another. Also, in your hypothetical setup, the \""currency\"" (the token) is directly linked to the value of a single good, so you can always at least get 1 L of milk for your token.  Most real currency is not bound to specific goods like your milk token, so it is possible for your currency to lose value in an absolute sense.  For instance, suppose you sell a book for $5.  The $5 is not a \""book token\"" and you cannot rely on being able to exchange it for a book in the future; in the future, all books may cost $10, and the prices of all goods may rise similarly, so your currency will actually be worth less no matter how you try to use it.  This could happen with the milk token if the milkman announces that henceforth 1 L of milk will cost 2 tokens; your existing token suddenly loses half its value. In sum, it is easy to calculate whether you made a profit in currency units.  What is harder is to calculate whether you made a profit in \""real terms\"" (often referred to as \""real dollars\"" or \""inflation-adjusted dollars\"", or the equivalent in your favorite currency).  The reason this is hard is because the idea of \""real dollars\"" is fundamentally linked to the possibility of exchanging currency for goods (and services), and so it depends what goods you're buying.  Inflation statistics published by governments and the like use a \""basket\"" of goods to approximate the overall price movements in the economy as a whole."""
"""What is value investing? What are the key principles of value investing?""","""Value investing is an investment approach that relies on buying securities below their intrinsic values. There are two main concepts; one is the Intrinsic Value and the other is Margin of Safety.  Intrinsic value is the value of the underlying business - if we are talking about stocks - that can be calculated through carefully analyzing the business looking at all aspects of it. If there is an intrinsic value exists for a company then there is a price tag we can put on its shares as well. Value investing is looking to buy shares well below its intrinsic value.  It is important to know that there is no correct intrinsic value exists for a company and two people can come up with different figures, if they were presented the same data. Calculating the intrinsic value for a business is the hardest part of value investing.  Margin of Safety is the difference between the buying price of a stock and its intrinsic value. Value investors are insisting on buying stocks well below their intrinsic value, where the margin of safety is 20%-30% or even more. This concepts is protecting them from poor decisions and market downturns. It is also providing a room for error, when calculating the intrinsic value.  The approach was introduced by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in a book called Security Analysis in 1934. Other famous investor using this approach is Warren Buffet Books to read:  I would start to read the first two book first."""
"""Can I get a dividend \""free lunch\"" by buying a stock just before the ex-dividend date and selling it immediately after? [duplicate]""","""It is important to remember that the stock price in principle reflects the value of the company, so the market cap should drop upon issuance of the the dividend. However, the above reasoning neglects to consider taxes, which make the question a bit more interesting. The key fact is that different investors are going to get taxed on the dividend to varying degrees, ranging from 20% for qualified dividends in the USA for a high-income individual in a taxable account (and even worse for non-qualified dividends) to 0% for tax-exempt nonprofits, retirement accounts, and low-income individuals. The high-tax investors are going to be a bit averse to paying tax on that dividend, whereas the tax-free investors are not. Hence in a tax-rational market the tax-free investors are going to be the ones buying right before a dividend and the tax-paying investors will be buying right afterwards. Tax-exempt investors could in principle make some amount of money buying dividends to keep them off the tax-paying investors' books.  (Of course, the strategy could backfire if too many people did it all at once.) That said, the tax-payers have the tax disincentive to prevent them from fully exploiting the opposite strategy of selling just before a dividend.  In particular, they are subject to capital gains tax when they sell at a profit (unless they have enough compensating capital losses), and it is to their after-tax profit to defer taxation by not trading. That said, the stock market has well-known irrationality when it comes to considering tax consequences, so logic based on assumed rationality of the market does not always apply to the extent one would expect.   The foremost example of tax-irrationality is the so-called \""dividend paradox\"", which basically states that corporations should favor stock buybacks (or perhaps loan repayment) to the complete exclusion of dividends because capital gains are taxed less harshly than dividends in a variety of ways, some of which are subtle: 1) Historically (although not currently in the USA for qualified dividends) the tax rate was higher for dividends.  (In Canada, for example, dividends are taxed at twice the rate of capital gains.) 2) If you die holding appreciated stock then you (meaning your heirs) completely escape US the capital gains tax on the accrual during your lifetime. 3) Capital gains tax can be deferred by simply not selling.  In comparison to dividends, this is roughly equivalent to getting a tax-free loan from the government which is invested for profit and paid at a later date after inflation has eaten away at the real value of the loan.  For example, if all your stock investments increase by 10%\/year but you sell every year, in a high-tax bracket situation you're total after-tax return will be only 8% per year.  In contrast, if you hold the same investments for many many years and then sell, your total return will be nearly 10% per year, because you only pay 20% once (at the end). 4) A capital gain can often be neutralized by a capital loss in another stock, so that no tax results.  If you loose money on a stock that is paying dividends, you're still going to have to pay tax on that dividend.  There are companies that borrow money to pay out that taxable-dividend each quarter, which seems like gross tax malpractice on the part of the CFO. (If the dividend paradox doesn't make sense, first consider the case that you owned ALL the shares of a company.  It wouldn't matter to you at all on a pre-tax basis whether you got a $1000 company buyback or a $1000 dividend, because after the buyback\/dividend you'd still own the entire company and $1000.  The number of shares would be reduced, but objecting that you owned fewer shares after the buyback would be like saying you have become shorter if your height is measured in inches rather than centimeters.) [Of course, in the case of many shareholders you can get burned by failing to sell into the buyback when the share price is too high, but that is another matter.]"""
"""Historical data files for NYSE\/NASDAQ daily open\/close price data?""","""I think Infochimps has what you are looking for: NYSE and NASDAQ."""
"""FSA when a retirement agreement has been put into place""","""While you have found a way to possibly gain $1275 in tax free income, you are also risking $1275 if you end up not using the money you contributed. You will have to find a way to have that much in medical expenses by your retirement date or you will leave some money in the Flexible Spending Account. There are risks you take with these accounts (use it or lose it) and risks the company takes (leave with a deficit in the account). Many times we get questions about how to spend all that the employee contributed before the last day of work, or the end of the plan year.  You can play it more fair by selecting the maximum amount per check to be taken from your pay check, then waiting until the retirement date to decide how much you will withdraw from the FSA. Your last day of work is your last day to incur a medical expense but you are given a window to submit your claims that extends beyond your last day of work.  I have not personally heard of an employer requiring a former employee to pay back the money when there is a  deficit in their FSA.  Remember people are fired, or laid off with little or no warning trapping their money in a FSA. The fact that you have the ability to plan for this event and considered your options, is a great position to be in."""
"""What happens to an ETF if one of the companies in the ETF gets aquired?""","""There are a number of ways this can result. In a broad ETF, such as SPY, the S&P 500 spider, the S&P index will have 500 stocks no matter what, so a buyout would simply result in a re-shuffling of the index makeup. No buyout will happen so quickly that there's no time to choose the next stock to join the index. In your case, if the fund manager (per the terms of the prospectus) wishes to simply reallocate the index to remove the taken-over stock that's probably how he handle it.  Unless of course, the prospectus dictates otherwise. In which case, a cash dividend is a possible alternative."""
"""What's an economic explanation for why greeting cards are so expensive? ""","""I actually have a bit of experience with the supplier side of this. Having worked with other people attempting to get the business launched, I can shed a bit of insight. The primary reason for the pricing is that there simply isn't enough competition to warrant dropping the price any lower than it already is. Large companies such as Hallmark will typically buy card designs at 5% of the card's selling price. With their existing distribution network, this makes bringing in new and varied designs much easier for large companies that are already well established. Having talked with such designers in the past, someone working full time producing designs makes on average 30-60k annually from this, which is worth it to someone who doesn't want to jump through the hoops of actually getting into the business independently. The primary issue stifling competition is actually getting your product into stores. There are topics here that I cannot discuss due to NDA, but I can break down the overall outline for you: You need to start with a large number of designs, with enough variety that companies think could sell well. If you bring a handful of designs with you, no company is going to take your business venture seriously enough. You need to find a company that can stamp out a large production process for you. The company is going to need to be nice enough to take smaller purchase orders on the magnitude of several hundred cards, but also be capable of scaling that production to several hundreds of thousands of cards very quickly. For cards specifically, most companies want you to ship custom racks with your cards. Some companies may provide their own racks for stocking your product, but not all of them will. This will also cost a lot of money up front. You need to find a buyer for a company you want to sell your product to. This is important, and what killed our original business plans. Think Wal-Mart, Target, or even CVS Pharmacy. These big companies are going to have people who's entire job is to buy new products to put on their shelves. This is where networking is key, you need to find people with connections to these buyers if you're not already well established with them. You will also likely fail several times, either getting outright ignored, or through a broker that can't meet expectations. For example, we had a broker that introduced us to a buyer for a large store chain, and after several months of work we found out that this broker was just pulling our strings. Typically a company will want to test your product in a handful of stores to see if it will sell. For example, Target may want to test your product in 100-200 stores over 3 months and expect your product to sell at a minimum rate. Finally, you need to be able to scale your production. Suddenly you'll be asked to go from supplying 100 stores to supplying 1,800 stores with a deadline in 2 weeks. Buyers will even turn you down at this point if they don't think you can meet the production. All of this work takes at least a year, and typically takes several years to go from an initial product to having your product in every store. Without breaking the numbers down too much, we could make a profit of ~$1.60 for every $3 card that sold. That number doesn't cover the cost of racks and other overhead, that's just the per-card profit. Even then, people are more likely to go view the Hallmark or other big-name cards over your offering. Only when another company becomes a big powerhouse to be competitive will these companies be forced to drop their prices."""
"""How will a 1099 work with an existing W-2?""","""You can do either a 1099 or a W-2.  There is no limitations to the number of W-2s one can have in reporting taxes.  Problems occur, with the IRS, when one \""forgets\"" to report income.  Even if one holds only one job at a time, people typically have more than one W-2 if they change jobs within the year. The W-2 is the simplest way to go and you may want to consider doing this if you do not intend to work this side business into significant income.   However, a 1099 gig is preferred by many in some situations.  For things like travel expenses, you will probably receive the income from these on a 1099, but you can deduct them from your income using a Schedule C.  Along these lines you may be able to deduct a wide variety of other things like travel to and from the client's location, equipment such as computers and office supplies, and maybe a portion of your home internet bill.  Also this opens up different retirement contributions schemes such as a simplified employee pension.   This does come with some drawbacks, however.  First your life is more complicated as things need to be documented to become actual business expenses.  You are much more likely to be audited by the IRS.  Your taxes become more complicated and it is probably necessary to employee a CPA to do them.  If you do this for primary full time work you will have to buy your own benefits.  Most telling you will have to pay both sides of social security taxes on most profits.  (Keep in mind that a good account can help you transfer profits to dividends which will allow you to be taxed at 15% and avoid social security taxes.) So it really comes down to what you see this side gig expanding into and your goals.  If you want to make this a real business, then go 1099, if you are just doing this for a fes months and a few thousand dollars, go W-2."""
"""Car insurance (UK) excludes commute to and from work, will not pay on claim during non-commute""","""Having worked in insurance, I can give you a few pointers. Firstly, state that you \""may have to complain\"". Insurers hate complaints because they really complicate matters, are loads of work and must be tracked. I would advise not actually escalating it to a complaint until later as this may cause a delay as the actual process is quite convoluted. Mentioning the possibility of complaint sometimes makes people a bit more active. Try and resolve the issue, and if you aren't getting anywhere then make a complaint. Maintain a friendly, assertive, polite demeanor. If you get angry and aggressive you'll not likely get far. Remember that the people on the end of the phone are both human and more knowledgeable about insurance than you. You want them on your side, not against you. Make copious notes. If you can, record calls. If you are recording calls you will likely legally need to give them the option of not being recorded, so make sure you mention that you're recording each individual call as soon as you start speaking to the handler.  Refer to your notes and make sure you carry out actions you say you will. If you spend a few days sending something you said you'd email over that day, and you then chase them a few days after that they may not have had the document through their workflow yet. It also engenders urgency if you're acting promptly, and suggests that you don't really care if you're taking your time.  Get Names. This is an important step, as this gives the handler someone to talk to who may be familiar with your case. You may end up speaking to the same people more than once, so try and build a rapport if you do. \""I like this guy\"" may lead to a bit more effort being put in, and a potentially better outcome. In my experience, GoSkippy can be a bit slow to respond to things, so you'll likely have to chase them up. If you chase them up and say \""I called on X date, discussing Y with Z and Z said they would do A, B and C. Has this been done yet?\"" it looks better than saying \""I called about a week ago and spoke to one of your colleagues who said he'd do something for me. He's not done it, what's going on?\"", As to a plan of action, I would split this into two points: Mis-sold policy and definition of commuting. Mis-sold policy - If they truly gave your wife two options, then they messed up. The standard 3 offered by goskippy are Social Domestic and Pleasure (SDP), SDP+Commuting, and SDP+C and Business use. Other companies sometimes roll commuting into SDP as standard. On the comparison sites however, there are usually the three separate options, and if you used one to set the policy up and clicked \""SDP Only\"" then you may be in trouble.  Social domestic and pleasure only DOES NOT include commuting. Whilst it is your responsibility to thoroughly check any documentation that comes through, it could be argued that if given two options between Business Use and SDP, then a reasonable person could be considered to assume that Goskippies definition of SDP did include commuting. Therefore, they need to prove to you that there were three options offered and that your wife specifically excluded commuting. IF they can't, then you should be able to argue that only two were offered and that commuting could have reasonably been assumed to be included. Use that term \""reasonable person\"" btw, it's used in a lot of internal literature - at least at the insurer, I worked at. not commuting - Firstly, clarify their definition of \""commuting\"". If your wife was on her way to work afterwards, then they may well consider she was commuting. For instance, at present, I drive from my house to my son's childminders, then to my wife's work and finally to mine. My commute could be argued to be 1 minute (my workplace is probably a minutes drive from my wife's, but I can't park in her car-park), but if I were to have an accident between my house and my son's childminder (~15 mins drive) the insurers would probably consider that commuting.  If she was not on her way to work afterwards, and assuming your wife arranged her visit via text (or whatsapp, fb messenger or similar) you should easily be able to show that your wife had driven from a friends house to the childminder. If she was on a holiday day or was not working on that day, then that's also something you should be able to prove either with proof of her working pattern or proof of her holiday. If she doesn't have a job at all, then again, that's something that's provable. Proof reigns king in claims, so if you can prove certain key facts then you should be on to a winner."""
"""New car cash vs finance""","""The question is about the dealer, right?  The dealer isn't providing this financing to you, Alfa is, and they're paying the dealer that same \""On the Road\"" price when you finance the purchase.  So the dealer gets the same amount either way. The financing, through Alfa, means your payments go to Alfa.  And they're willing to give you 3,000 towards purchase of the car at the dealer in order to motivate those who can afford payments but not full cash for the car.  They end up selling more cars this way, keeping the factories busy and employees and stockholders happy along the way.  At least, that's how it's supposed to work out."""
"""What does APR mean I'm paying?""","""Banks have to disclose up front the Annual Percentage Rate or interest rate that will be charged if you have an outstanding balance on a credit card. However, the APR of 19.9% is not charged all at once. For example if you had a $100 dollar balance on your credit card you would not be charged 19.9% interest or 19.90 making your new balance 119.90. Instead you would be charged the periodic rate which is one month's interest. You can easily calculate the period rate by dividing the APR by 12. So, 19.9% equals 1.65833% per month. This means if you had a $100 balance you would be charged 1.65833% interest or 1.66 making your new balance 101.66. Ask the bank or look on the website for a document called \""Cardholders Agreement\"". If you can't find a link ask them for a copy so you can read all the fine print ahead of time."""
"""What are the contents of fixed annuities?""","""An annuity is a contract. Its contents are \""a contractual obligation from the issuing company\"". If you want to evaluate how your annuity is likely to fare, you're essentially asking whether or not its issuer will honor its contract. They're legally required to honor the contract, unless they go bankrupt. (Even if they do go bankrupt, you will be a creditor and may get a portion of the assets recovered by the bankruptcy process.) Generally, the issuer will take the proceeds and invest them in the stock market (or possibly in similar instruments - e.g. Berkshire-Hathaway bought a railroad and invests some money in it directly). They invest in these places because that's where the returns are. One of the reason that annuities may have a good rate on paper is that they may end up taking some of your principal, because many are structured as some form of survivor's insurance policy. Consider: If you're 65 years old and have some retirement savings, you'd like to be able to spend them without fear of them running out because you live longer than you expected (e.g. you survive to your 90s). So, you could invest in the stock market and hope for a 7% return indefinitely and then plan to spend the returns - but if those returns don't materialize for a few years because there's a big stock market crash, you're in big trouble! Or, you could buy an annuity contract which will pay you 7% a year (or more!) until you die. Then you're guaranteed the returns unless the issuer goes bankrupt. (Sure, you lose all your principal, but you're dead, so hey, maybe you don't care.) The insurance company essentially sells risk-tolerance. Other annuities aren't structured like this, and may be marketed towards non-retirees. They're usually not such a good deal. If they appear to be such a good deal, it may be an illusion. (Variable annuities in particular are hard to reason about without a good deal of knowledge about how the stock market behaves on a year-to-year basis: many of them have a maximum return as well as a minimum, and the stock market may pile up a lot of its returns into one year, so after a \""crash and recovery\"" cycle you might end up behind the market instead of ahead.) Annuities are a form of safety. Safety can be very expensive. If you're investing your own money, consider whether you need that safety. You probably needn't worry quite so much about the issuer being crazy-fraudulent or Ponzi-esque: you should worry mostly about whether it looks better on paper than it is."""
"""Incentive Stock Option (ISO) tax question - more specific this time""","""Alternatively you could exercise 12000 shares for $36000 and immediately sell 7200 shares to recover your exercise price. Then you use the remaining 4800 share to pay the exercise price of the remaining 8000 options. Both scenarios are equivalent but may have different fees associated, so it's worth checking the fine print.  Tax wise: The above example is \""cash neutral before taxes\"". The taxes associated with these transaction are substantial, so it's highly recommended to talk with a tax adviser. \""cash neutral after taxes\"" depends highly on your specific tax situation."""
"""Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends?""","""One reason a company might choose to pay a dividend is because of the desire of influential stockholders to receive the dividend.   In the case of Ford, for example, there are 70 million shares of Class B stock which receive the same dividend per share as do the common stock holders.  Even though there are 3.8 billion shares of common stock, the Class B owners (which are Ford family) hold 40% of the voting power and so their desires are given much weight.   The Class B owners prefer regular dividends because if enough were to sell their Class B shares, all Class B shares (as a block) would have their voting power drop from 40% to 30%, and with further sales all special voting would be lost and each Class B share would be equivalent to a common share in voting power. Hence the Class B owners, both for themselves and for all of the family members holding Class B, avoid selling shares and prefer receiving dividends."""
"""Opportunity to buy Illinois bonds that can never default?""","""If you give money to a person or entity, and they don't have the ability to pay you back, it doesn't matter if they are legally required to pay you."""
"""How long should I keep my tax documents, and why?""","""Unfortunately, my taxes tend to be complicated This. In and of itself, is a greater reason to keep the documents. The other answer offered a good summary, but keep in mind, if the IRS decides you fraudulently withheld claiming income, they can go back 7 years.  I bought a rental property in 1987, and sold it in 2016. In that case, keeping the returns seemed the right thing to do to have the paper trail for basis, else I could claim anything, and hope for the best.  I have all my tax returns since my first tax return, 1980. It's one drawer of a file cabinet. Not too great a burden."""
"""Are there any credit cards with a statement period longer than 1 month?""","""If the billing cycle is 2 to 3 months, it would mean Banks have to give credit for a longer period and it makes the entire business less profitable as well as more risky compared to the Monthly billing cycle. For example the current monthly billing cycle with a date say of 14th, means if you swipe your card on 1st day, one would effectively get a credit for 30+14, around 44 days. If you swipe on last day, one would get a credit for 14 days. On an average 22 days of credit. If we make this 3 months, the credit period would increase on an average (90+14)\/2, 52 days. From a risk point of view, on monthly cycle if there is non-payment its flagged much earlier compared to a 3 months cycle. On offering different dates, shop around. In the older times the cycles were different, however with individuals having several cards, and trying to optimize every purchase to maximize credit period. Quite a few banks have streamlined it to monthly cycle. Shop around and some banks should be able to offer you different dates."""
"""How a company can afford to give away so many shares as part of its ESOP""","""Companies theoretically have an infinite number of equity units at their disposal.  Issuance must be approved according to its founding contracts. If an equity is trading on an open market then the price of each unit issued in lieu of cash compensation is known.  Even if an equity doesn't trade openly, bidders can be solicited for a possible price or an appraisal.  This can be a risky route for the potentially compensated. Market capitalizations are frequently generally approximately equal to the sales of a company.  Salaries and wages are frequently generally two thirds of sales. It is indeed expensive for the average company to compensate with equity, thus so few do, usually restricting equity compensation to executives and exceptional laborers.  Besides, they frequently have enough cash to pay for compensation, avoiding transaction costs. For companies in growth industries such as technology or medicine, their situations are usually reversed: cash constrained yet equity abundant because of large investment and dearly priced equities.  For a company trading at a market capitalization multiplied by forty times the revenue, compensating with equity is inexpensive."""
"""What is the best approach to save money for College for three kids?""","""Live where you live now untill your kids are about to go to college. Then move to Germany and send your children to college for FREE. The german universities may be not in the top 10 of the world (THE), but are still competitive enough on a worldwide scale. Also, if your children excell at college, it should not be a huge problem to transfer them to the top universities in the UK or US (with scholarships from Germany). In addition, your children can go on a exchange to other universities for a couple of months or multiple years, fully funded by the European Union or the german universities."""
"""Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?""","""Growth is how well the investment will grow on average.   In the long term, this is a sure thing.  Volatility is how much the value will jerk up and down in the short term.   Do you want both... Or neither?  When are you going to use the money? If it's IRA money you can't touch for 30 years, it really ought to be in the market, since growth is hugely important, and volatility is not a big concern. You're in it for the very long game, and volatility will average out, leaving pure growth.  If the market drops 25% in 6 months, who cares?  Stocks go up, stocks go down. It has 29 years to recover, and it will.   If you are planning to buy a house in 6 months, you want that money in something like a CD, because volatility could be devastating: an untimely 25% drop in stock price could really, really suck."""
"""One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this?""","""I haven't seen anyone mention tax considerations and that's why I'm answering this. The rest of my answer is probably covered in the aggregate of other responses. Here's how I would look at this in a taxable (not an IRA) account: This could be an opportunity to harvest the tax losses to offset taxable gains this year or in future years. Unless I have compelling reasons to believe that the price will recover by at least (Loss% x ApplicableTaxRate) in the next 31 days then I would take the known - IRS tables - opportunities over the unknown. Here's what I would consider for all accounts: Is this the most likely place to earn a good return on my money and is it contributing to a strategy that fits my risk tolerance? You might need to get some emotional distance from the pain to make this determination objectively. As you consider your trading and investment strategy going forward consider that when it hurts and you have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps to think clearly about your situation, you were most likely trading with too much size for you in that particular position. I'm willing to make exceptions to that rule of thumb, but it's a good way to use the painful losses as a gut check on how your strategy fits your real situation. P.S. All traders experience individual losses that hurt and find their way to the most suitable strategies for them through these painful experiences."""
"""How do freight derivatives like Forward Freight Agreements (FFAs) work?""","""The product descriptions for FFA swaps and options can be found here:  http:\/\/www.lchclearnet.com\/freight\/ffas\/products.asp The index (e.g. the BFA) is based on the settlement prices of the P2, P2A, and C4 contracts and the panamax TC routes.  As such it's just a performance index and replicates the returns you'd get from holding a portfolio of the constituents. I think from the clearing descriptions everything should be clear.  The wording in the link on the Baltic Exchange website is a bit nebulous.  I think they mean standardised instead of specified.  Because that's what sets the FFABA apart from OTC agreements or OTC spot markets. Edit: For more information on financial instruments in general see the Handbook of Financial Instuments.  I haven't got the latest edition but I doubt he will mention FFAs, CFSAs, or anything that's specific to maritime markets but after all they're just plain forward agreements over a not-so-common underlying."""
"""How do rich people guarantee the safety of their money, when savings exceed the FDIC limit?""","""I found out there is something called CDARS that allows a person to open a multi-million dollar certificate of deposit account with a single financial institution, who provides FDIC coverage for the entire account.  This financial institution spreads the person's money across multiple banks, so that each bank holds less than $250K and can provide the standard FDIC coverage.  The account holder doesn't have to worry about any of those details as the main financial institution handles everything.  From the account holder's perspective, he\/she just has a single account with the main financial institution."""
"""High expense ratio funds - are they worth it?""","""The 10 year comparison between your fund and the S&P 500 -   I'd say more, but not sure it's needed."""
"""Is there any sort of tax write off for unfulfilled pay checks?""","""If you don't receive a W2, there are 2 scenarios you should consider: If you have reason to believe that scenario 1 is accurate, then you could file your taxes based on the last valid paycheck you received. If you have reason to believe that scenario 2 is accurate, then you need to do some extra math, but fortunately it is straight forward. Simply treat your final paychecks as if the gross amount of your check was equal to the sum of your taxes paid, and the net amount of the check is $0. This way your income will increase by the proper amount, and you will still receive credit for the taxes paid. This should work out cleanly for federal and state taxes, but will likely result in an overpayment of FICA taxes. You can use form 843 to receive a refund of excess FICA taxes. As a side note, I'd recommend spot checking the YTD numbers on your last paychecks against previous paystubs to make sure there wasn't any fuzzy math going on when they realized they were going out of business."""
"""Long term saving: Shares, Savings Account or Fund""","""Congratulations on a solid start. Here are my thoughts, based on your situation: Asset Classes I would recommend against a long-term savings account as an investment vehicle. While very safe, the yields will almost always be well below inflation. Since you have a long time horizon (most likely at least 30 years to retirement), you have enough time to take on more risk, as long as it's not more than you can live with. If you are looking for safer alternatives to stocks for part of your investments, you can also consider investment-grade bonds\/bond funds, or even a stable value fund. Later, when you are much closer to retirement, you may also want to consider an annuity. Depending on the interest rate on your loan, you may also be able to get a better return from paying down your loan than from putting more in a savings account. I would recommend that you only keep in a savings account what you expect to need in the next few years (cushion for regular expenses, emergency fund, etc.). On Stocks Stocks are riskier but have the best chance to outperform versus inflation over the long term. I tend to favor funds over individual stocks, mostly for a few practical reasons. First, one of the goals of investing is to diversify your risk, which produces a more efficient risk\/reward ratio than a group of stocks that are highly correlated. Diversification is easier to achieve via an index fund, but it is possible for a well-educated investor to stay diversified via individual stocks. Also, since most investors don't actually want to take physical possession of their shares, funds will manage the shares for you, as well as offering additional services, such as the automatic reinvestments of dividends and tax management. Asset Allocation It's very important that you are comfortable with the amount of risk you take on. Investment salespeople will prefer to sell you stocks, as they make more commission on stocks than bonds or other investments, but unless you're able to stay in the market for the long term, it's unlikely you'll be able to get the market return over the long term. Make sure to take one or more risk tolerance assessments to understand how often you're willing to accept significant losses, as well as what the optimal asset allocation is for you given the level of risk you can live with. Generally speaking, for someone with a long investment horizon and a medium risk tolerance, even the most conservative allocations will have at least 60% in stocks (total of US and international) with the rest in bonds\/other, and up to 80% or even 100% for a more aggressive investor. Owning more bonds will result in a lower expected return, but will also dramatically reduce your portfolio's risk and volatility. Pension With so many companies deciding that they don't feel like keeping the promises they made to yesterday's workers or simply can't afford to, the pension is nice but like Social Security, I wouldn't bank on all of this money being there for you in the future. This is where a fee-only financial planner can really be helpful - they can run a bunch of scenarios in planning software that will show you different retirement scenarios based on a variety of assumptions (ie what if you only get 60% of the promised pension, etc).  This is probably not as much of an issue if you are an equity partner, or if the company fully funds the pension in a segregated account, or if the pension is defined-contribution, but most corporate pensions are just a general promise to pay you later in the future with no real money actually set aside for that purpose, so I'd discount this in my planning somewhat. Fund\/Stock Selection Generally speaking, most investment literature agrees that you're most likely to get the best risk-adjusted returns over the long term by owning the entire market rather than betting on individual winners and losers, since no one can predict the future (including professional money managers). As such, I'd recommend owning a low-cost index fund over holding specific sectors or specific companies only. Remember that even if one sector is more profitable than another, the stock prices already tend to reflect this. Concentration in IT Consultancy I am concerned that one third of your investable assets are currently in one company (the IT consultancy). It's very possible that you are right that it will continue to do well, that is not my concern. My concern is the risk you're carrying that things will not go well. Again, you are taking on risks not just over the next few years, but over the next 30 or so years until you retire, and even if it seems unlikely that this company will experience a downturn in the next few years, it's very possible that could change over a longer period of time. Please just be aware that there is a risk. One way to mitigate that risk would be to work with an advisor or a fund to structure and investment plan where you invest in a variety of sector funds, except for technology. That way, your overall portfolio, including the single company, will be closer to the market as a whole rather than over-weighted in IT\/Tech. However, if this IT Consultancy happens to be the company that you work for, I would strongly recommend divesting yourself of those shares as soon as reasonably possible. In my opinion, the risk of having your salary, pension, and much of your investments tied up in the fortunes of one company would simply be a much larger risk than I'd be comfortable with. Last, make sure to keep learning so that you are making decisions that you're comfortable with. With the amount of savings you have, most investment firms will consider you a \""high net worth\"" client, so make sure you are making decisions that are in your best financial interests, not theirs. Again, this is where a fee-only financial advisor may be helpful (you can find a local advisor at napfa.org). Best of luck with your decisions!"""
"""Typical return for an IRA?  How can I assess if my returns were decent?""","""There is no typical return for an IRA. Understand that an IRA is not an investment type, it is just an account that gets special tax treatment by the Federal Government. The money in the IRA could be invested in almost anything including Gold, Stocks, Bonds, Cash, CDs, etc. So the question as phrased isn't exactly meaningful. It is kind of like asking what is the typical price of things if I use $10 bills. As for a 10.6% annualized return on your portfolio. That's not a bad return. At that rate you will double your investment (with compounding) every 7.2 years. Again, however, some context is needed. You can really only evaluate investment returns with your risk profile in mind. If you are invested in super safe investments like CDs, that is an absolutely incredible return. You compare it to several indexes, which is a good way to do it if you are investing in the types of investments tracked by those indexes."""
"""I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest\/saving\/investing\/etc to make more money. What should I do?""","""Lets make some assumptions. You are not close to retirement.  You have no other debts.  You have a job.  You have no big need for the money.   You should invest that.  Do not invest with a bank, they are not as competitive on fees as a brokerage account. You can get specific answers that are different from every person, (so you should dig in and research a lot more if you care (and you should).  Personally, I would suggest you open an account with one of the low cost providers. Then, with that new investment account, put your money into a target retirement account.  File your statements away and tend to it once a year.  (Make sure it is there, that you can access it, that nothing alarming is going on).  You certainly have enough to start an investment account.  If you want to get more into it, ask a phone adviser what you should open. Finally, before you start investing, make sure you follow the advice of radix07 and have no debt, saving the most you can for retirement. A rule of thumb is your money will double every 72 months. Congratulations, you are a saver.  Investing isn't for you as the risk of investing is in conflict with your desire to preserver you money. Open a savings account or high interest checking account with a credit union, online only or local community bank.  Shop around no the web for the highest interest.  Don't get your hopes up though, the highest rate you see (that doesn't have strings attached) won't be much here late summer of 2012."""
"""Is socialtrend.com or\/and feelthetrend.com legitimate? ""","""It's called a \""Pyramid scheme\"". Its illegal in almost every country of the Western world. You're not going to earn lifetime income, of course, and these things collapse pretty quickly. Most of the \""common folks\"" don't return the investment, its the organizers who take the money. Sometimes they run, most times they end up in jail. The way these schemes work is that they pay the early \""investors\"" from the fees paid by new \""investors\"". As long as a steady stream of new people keep signing up and paying into it those who got in very early make money. The idea is based on the geometric procession of each new person signing up two or more people, and those people doing the same. Pretty quickly at that rate you need to sign up every human being on the planet to keep the new money flowing in to make it work, which obviously is not realistic. Ultimately a small % of the people (if they can stay out of jail) will make a big amount of money the vast majority of \""investors\"" get stiffed."""
"""When will the U.K. convert to the Euro as an official currency?""","""In many countries in Europe the prices shot through the roof, so it is not all positive. Also the switching country gives out lot of monetary control that is not welcomed by many.  I think that UK is not going to change to euro for a long long time."""
"""Is it practical to take actual delivery on a futures contract, and what is the process?""","""Here's a good link that can answer your question: How to take delivery of a futures contract The relevant part states: Prior to delivery day, they inform customers who have open long positions that they must either close out the position or prepare to take delivery and pay the full value of the underlying contract. By the same token traders with short positions are informed that they must close out their trades or prepare to deliver the underlying commodity. In this case, they must have the required quantity and quality of the deliverable commodity on hand.   On the few occasions that a buyer accepts delivery against his futures contract, he is usually not given the underlying commodity itself (except in the case of financials), but rather a receipt entitling him to fetch the hogs, wheat, or corn from warehouses or distribution points. I hope this helps. Good luck!"""
"""Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?""","""See this help article from Paypal about payment methods for purchases. When you don\u2019t have a PayPal balance or don\u2019t have enough in your PayPal balance, we\u2019ll use your bank account as the default payment method unless you select a different way to pay. So yes, Paypal will automatically deduct from your bank account when you make a purchase, unless you link another payment method and make that your default."""
"""I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save?""","""You earn $75,000 yearly and saved $30,000 while living at home, for two years, rent-free. I am assuming you have been making good money for at least 2 years. How is it possible you only put away $30,000 on $150,000 of income? Were you giving something to your parents each week as rent, so they don't lose their home? Second, if you're not sure if you will be relocated in a year or two it makes no sense to buy. House prices won't spike like they have in the past any time soon. In one year, you can save another $30,000 without suffering since you live rent free. Many couples don't even make $75,000 and they got a mortgage, 2 kids and car payments."""
"""What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?""","""What is the probability of a real occasion (meaning not just an example) being exactly zero? Even if you have 0.1 you can still do the math. Also, it is kind of depending on the occasion. For example, you want to calculate the ROI of an investment for which you had zero capital and you made that investment with leverage, meaning you got a loan. In order to get that loan you should have provided a collateral, so in this case as a starting sum you use the collateral. In another example, say EAT it's difficult to have exactly zero. So, in most cases you won't have to deal with zero values, only positives and negatives."""
"""How do I adjust to a new social class?""","""The prices reflect what the market will bear.  People have more money, things will likely cost more.  Think of it in terms of percentages and you can start to justify the higher housing costs. My father likes to tell me that his first mortgage cost him $75 a month, and he had no idea how he was going to pay it each month.  He also earned $3\/hr at his job.  So his housing costs were 15% of his gross income.  My dear father almost passed out when he learned that my mortgage was $1000 a month, but since I earn $4000\/month gross, I am really only paying 25% of my salary.  (Numbers made up) So if he complains I pay 10% more, so be it, but complaining I pay $925 more isn't worrying to me because of my increased salary. So if your complaint is the amounts, you must take ratios, percentages and relative comparisons.  However if you are baffled by people having money and wasting it on silly or foolish purchases, I am with you.  I still don't understand why people will use the closest ATM and just pay the $2 fee. Do right by yourself and don't mind what others are up to."""
"""Earning salary from USA remotely from New Zealand?""","""Yes. You must register for GST as well, if you will be making over the threshold (currently $60,000). That's probably a bonus for you, as your home office expenses will mostly include GST, but your income will most likely be zero-rated. Check with an accountant or with the IRD directly. Just be certain to put aside enough money from each payment to cover income tax, GST and ACC. You will get a very large bill in your second year of business."""
"""Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt?""","""It doesn't make any financial sense for you personally, because the impact on the debt would be so little it would have no significant benefit to you, and you'd be out the money you donated."""
"""Are there contracts for fixed pay vs. fixed pay rates?""","""Yes. I have personally signed such contracts (fixed budget software development) and lost money every single time. And yes, it is quite possible for you to get paid under minimum wage if you take too long. Scope creep is the primary culprit for these kinds of contracts, so make sure you put together iron-clad explanations of what is and is not covered by the contract (and pad the asking price for good measure)."""
"""How does a stock operate when it is listed between two exchanges?""","""Say a stock is listed in Nasdaq, and the same company has a stock listed in Tsx. Does the Nasdaq price affect the Tsx price as trading commences? Not directly. Basically, an exchange is a market, and the price is defined only by supply and demand in that market. However, any substantial price differential for a commodity traded in multiple market creates an arbitrage opportunity, and there are many traders whose job it is exactly to find and use such opportunities. Their activity in turn has the effect of reducing the price differentials to the point where transaction costs make them unprofitable. With high-frequency traders around, the time for a price differential to disappear is nowadays measured in milliseconds. If a trader buys from one exchange, will it affect the price of the other? Only through the mechanism mentioned above.  Are there any benefits to being listed in two exchanges? It increases the liquidity of a stock."""
"""Is the need to issue bonds a telltale sign that the company would have a hard time paying coupons?""","""No, having to borrow money does not necessarily mean a company will have a hard time paying the interest on it. Similarly, having to take out a mortgage on a house does not mean a person will not be able to make their mortgage payments. Borrowing money can be a way to spend future money instead of present money (at a cost, of course). A company might not have all that money at the moment, but that in no way implies they won't have it in the future. And as you allude to in your question where you talk about \""funding some \u2026 plans\"", a company might be able to grow itself\u2014possibly increasing future profits\u2014by borrowing money."""
"""What is the difference between a stock and a bond?""","""A stock is an ownership interest in a company.  There can be multiple classes of shares, but to simplify, assuming only one class of shares, a company issues some number of shares, let's say 1,000,000 shares and you can buy shares of the company. If you own 1,000 shares in this example, you would own one one-thousandth of the company.  Public companies have their shares traded on the open market and the price varies as demand for the stock comes and goes relative to people willing to sell their shares. You typically buy stock in a company because you believe the company is going to prosper into the future and thus the value of its stock should rise in the open market. A bond is an indebted interest in a company.  A company issues bonds to borrow money at an interest rate specified in the bond issuance and makes periodic payments of principal and interest.  You buy bonds in a company to lend the company money at an interest rate specified in the bond because you believe the company will be able to repay the debt per the terms of the bond.  The value of a bond as traded on the open exchange varies as the prevailing interest rates vary.  If you buy a bond for $1,000 yielding 5% interest and interest rates go up to 10%, the value of your bond in the open market goes down so that the payment terms of 5% on $1,000 matches hypothetical terms of 10% on a lesser principal amount.  Whatever lesser principal amount at the new rate would lead to the same payment terms determines the new market value.   Alternatively, if interest rates go down, the current value of your bond increases on the open market to make it appear as if it is yielding a lower rate. Regardless of the market value, the company continues to pay interest on the original debt per its terms, so you can always hold onto a bond and get the original promised interest as long as the company does not go bankrupt. So in summary, bonds tend to be a safer investment that offers less potential return.  However, this is not always the case, since if interest rates skyrocket, your bond's value will plummet, although you could just hold onto them and get the low rate originally promised."""
"""Bonus issue - Increasing share capital""","""Fully paid up Shares issued in which no more money is required to be paid to the company by shareholders on the value of the shares. When a company issues shares upon incorporation or through an issuance, either initial or secondary, shareholders are required to pay a set amount for those shares. Once the company has received the full amount from shareholders, the shares become fully paid shares.  authorised share capital The number of stock units that a publicly traded company can issue as stated in its articles of incorporation, or as agreed upon by shareholder vote. Authorized share capital is often not fully used by management in order to leave room for future issuance of additional stock in case the company needs to raise capital quickly. Another reason to keep shares in the company treasury is to retain a controlling interest in the company. If so, why not just give the existing shareholders the $500 million, (and do a stock split if desired)? Stock splits, bonus issues doesn't generate any capital for the firm, which it required."""
"""How much is inflation?""","""To add to MrChrister's answer:  Canada also has a Consumer Price Index (CPI) used to measure inflation that is distinct and separate from that maintained by the United States. There are differences in inflation between the U.S. and Canada because our currencies are different, and there may be different items in the \""basket\"" of goods that constitutes the index. You can find current information on the Canadian CPI at Statistics Canada, here: Latest release from the Consumer Price Index. Also, the Bank of Canada \u2013 our central bank \u2013 maintains a free online Inflation Calculator.  The BoC's inflation calculator is handy because you can enter a dollar amount for a past date and it will figure out what that would be in today's dollars.  For instance, $100 in 1970 dollars had the same purchasing power (under the CPI) as $561.76 in 2009 dollars! And you're right \u2013 if you get a salary increase that is less than the rate of inflation, then in theory you have lost purchasing power.  So, anybody really looking for a raise ought to make an effort to get more than the increase in CPI.  Of course, some employers are counting on you not knowing that, because any increase that's less than CPI is effectively a salary decrease; which could mean more profit for them, if they are able to increase their prices \/ revenues at inflation or better. Finally, consider that salary & wage increases also contribute to inflation!  Perhaps you've heard of the wage\/price inflation spiral.  If you haven't, there's more on that here and here."""
"""Building financial independence""","""For a young person with good income, 50k sitting in a savings account earning nothing is really bad. You're losing money because of inflation, and losing on the growth potential of investing. Please rethink your aversion to retirement accounts. You will make more money in the long run through lower taxes by taking advantage of these accounts. At a minimum, make a Roth IRA contribution every year and max it out ($5500\/yr right now). Time is of the essence! You have until April 15th to make your 2014 contribution! Equities (stocks) do very well in the long run. If you don't want to actively manage your portfolio, there is nothing wrong (and you could do a lot worse) than simply investing in a low-fee S&P 500 index fund."""
"""Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash?""","""I would go with option B. That is safer, as it would leave you with more options, in case of an unexpected job loss or an emergency."""
"""What is the difference between hedging and diversification? How does each reduce risk?""","""Hedging - You have an investment and are worried that the price might drop in the near future. You don't want to sell as this will realise a capital gain for which you may have to pay capital gains tax. So instead you make an investment in another instrument (sometimes called insurance) to offset falls in your investment.  An example may be that you own shares in XYZ. You feel the price has risen sharply over the last month and is due for a steep fall. So you buy some put option over XYZ. You pay a small premium and if the price of XYZ falls you will lose money on the shares but will make money on the put option, thus limiting your losses. If the price continues to go up you will only lose the premium you paid for the option (very similar to an insurance policy). Diversification - This is when you may have say $100,000 to invest and spread your investments over a portfolio of shares, some units in a property fund and some bonds. So you are spreading your risks and returns over a range of products. The idea is if one stock or one sector goes down, you will not lose a large portion of your investment, as it is unlikely that all the different sectors will all go down at the same time."""
"""Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?""","""There are a lot of good answers, but I will share my experience.  First, a savings account needs to be for savings. If your in the US you have \""Regulation D\"" to deal with and that will bite you on the rear if you go over those limits. Specially easy to do if your purchasing from a savings account.  Next having an \""Income\"" account and a \""Spending\"" account can be a very good tool to build a nest egg. So for example you get $1500 into your income account and then move $1000 to your spending account then budget based on that $1000. This is an amazing thing to do, so long as you have the discipline to never transfer that extra $500, and pretend your broke when you run out of the $1000.  That being said there is no reason that you can't do that in one account. It's all preference. My wife and I use YNAB (an envelope budgeting system) to do just that. We don't need the separate accounts. We are no more likely to \""not spend\"" in one account then we are to \""not spend\"" in two accounts. It's all just self discipline and what you need to do.  This does lead to the situation we call YNAB broke. It's when we have to start choosing between  \""going hungry\"" or getting that new DVD, even though our bank account has $5,000 in it.  It's even harder when you choose \""go hungry\"" and have to follow through with it, even though you have enough to buy a used car in your bank account.  But rather it's \""YNAB broke\"" or your spending account is empty and your income account it full, the result is the same. It's up to \""you\"" to have the self discipline not to spend. Rather that's in one account or two makes little difference."""
"""If USA defaults on its debt, will the T bond holder get back his money ""","""The only party that can pay back a government bond is the government that issued it itself. In the case of Argentina, US vulture funds have won cases against it, but it has yet to pay.  The best one can do to collect is to sue in a jurisdiction that permits and hope to seize the defaulted government's assets held in such jurisdiction. One could encourage another state to go to war to collect, but this is highly unlikely since a state that doesn't repay is probably a poor state with nothing much to loot; besides, most modern governments do not loot the conquered anymore.  Such a specific eventuality hasn't happened in at least a lifetime, anyways.  It is highly unlikely that any nation would be foolish enough to challenge the United States considering its present military dominance. It is rare for nations with medium to large economies to spurn their government obligations for long with Argentina as the notable exception.  Even Russia became current when they spontaneously disavowed their government debt during the oil collapse of 1998. Countries with very small economies such as Zimbabwe are the only remaining nations that try to use their central banks to fund debt repayments if they even repay at all, but they quickly see that the destruction caused by hyperinflation neither helps with government debt nor excessive government expenditure. Nevertheless, it could be dangerous to assume that no nation would default on its debt for any period of time, and the effects upon countries with defaulted government debt show that it has far reaching negative consequences. If the US were to use its central bank to repay its government obligations, the law governing the Federal Reserve would have to be changed since it is currently mandated to \""maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.\"" The United States Treasury has no power over the Federal Reserve thus cannot force the Federal Reserve to betray its mandate by purchasing government debt. It should be noted that while Japan has a government debt twice its GDP, it also has a persistent slight deflation which has produced incredibly low interest rates, allowing it to finance government debt more easily, a situation the US does not enjoy. For now, the United States seems to be able to pay expenditures and finance at low interest rates.  At what ratio of government debt to GDP that would cause interest rates to climb thus put pressure on the US's ability to repay does not seem to be well known."""
"""Are individual allowed to use accrual based accounting for federal income tax?""","""Yes. But once you chose the method (on your first tax return), you cannot change it without the IRS approval. Similarly the fiscal year. For individuals, I can't think of any reason why would accrual basis be better than cash, or why would an individual use a fiscal year other than the calendar year."""
"""Why are options created?""","""At my soon to be legendary Stock Options Cafe, I recently wrote an article \""Betting On Apple at 9 to 2.\""  It described a trade in which a 35% move in a stock over a fixed time (2 years) would result in a 354% gain in one's bet. In this case, the options serve to create remarkable leverage for speculators. In general, option help provide liquidity and extend the nature of the risk\/reward curve.  There are option trades that range from conservative (e.g. a 'covered call') to wildly speculative, as the one I described above."""
"""Isn't an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) a surefire way to make tons of money?""","""There is no sure thing in investing. Everything has a risk component. Sure, people talk about these cryptocurrencies like they have nowhere to go but up, but there are massive risks with these. For example, they could be declared illegal, the exchanges could go bankrupt (and some have), the backing companies off the ICOs could fail, the algorithms behind them could have a fatal flaw with unknown consequences, they can be stolen in unusual ways, everyone could suddenly realize that they have no real value..."""
"""Merits of buying apartment houses and renting them""","""Hitting the 25% marginal rate does not mean all of your earnings are taxed at 25%, only those that exceed the top of the 15% bracket. You can deduct any expenses for upgrading or repairing your apartments, those are subtracted from the earnings before tax is calculated as income, so you will probably stay in a lower marginal rate. Property tax will hit you annually, and capital gains tax will hit you when you sell them at the end. If you already have experience with this business in your home country, then this sounds like a good option for you. The only caution that I would give you is to find an accountant to help you with your taxes and pay for a consultation before you get started so that you know what to track that will help him\/her minimize your tax bill."""
"""Is it safer to send credit card number via unsecured website form or by e-mail? What safer options are there?""","""Buy a prepaid gift card, such as a MasterCard or Visa gift card. You can find them at the grocery store, a pharmacy, or your local bank. Provide this on their online form. If anyone steals your gift card information, you will have already used the funds for your purchase and there is no further risk to you."""
"""How to rescue my money from negative interest?""","""You might want to talk with your financial planner about any or all of the following: as well as Some of these offer the guarantee of a minimal amount of interest, as well as the ability to take a loan out against the cash value, without lapsing the policy.  They may also offer certain tax advantages depending upon your jurisdiction and situation."""
"""Buying International Stock""","""For example, if the Dow, S&P 500, NASDAQ are all down does that necessarily mean the Canadian stock will get negatively impacted? Or is it primarily impacted by the Canadian market? The TWMJF stock makes up a very small part of the Canadian market so it affects the overall market, but this doesn't mean that the overall market affects this stock. So then the answer is: no, the TWMJF stock price will not necessarily follow either US or Canadian market indexes.  However, there can be major events which can affect the markets, including the stocks which make up the markets. TWMJF will probably be more sensitive to Canadian events than US events."""
"""What happened when the dot com bubble burst?""","""To add to the already existing answers, most of the dotcom companies used an accounting sheningan so profusely that everything looked rosy. To account for revenues, what dotcom companies did was, get into a barter transaction with another dotcom company by selling advertising space and stuff on each other's website. So the final outcome was each had quite a substantial amount of revenue while in reality there wasn't any revenue earned. This cooked up their books to look quite rosy to investors who then poured in their money, without realizing they were pouring money into a black hole. As someone mentioned Cisco, which sells networking gear and was heavily dependent on the dotcom boost. So when everything went bust, its stock price also crashed heavily.  This was for the losers, but some good ones did sail through. Dotcom companies which had substance took a hit, in fact everybody did, during the bust but more than made up for it later on when investors realized they are valuable."""
"""Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check?""","""Like the old American Express commercial: \""no preset spending limit\"". It is really up to the bank(s) in question how big a cheque they are willing to honour. A larger amount would likely be held longer by a receiving institution to ensure that it cleared properly, but nothing written in law (in Canada, that I am aware of)."""
"""How can I find\/compare custodians for my HSA in the United States?""","""The account I have found that works best as a HSA is Alliant Credit Union. They have fee-free HSA (no fees for almost all types of transactions or monthly fees) and a fairly decent online banking website. I've been with them for about 5 years now without trouble. FYI - They are a credit union not a bank so you do have to make a small $10 donation to one of their charities to become \""eligible\"" for opening the account."""
"""How to refuse a Clearxchange payment?""","""Your bank uses ClearXchange, not you. It is not a website where you open an account, like many others, but an inter-bank transfer system based on email addresses, kind of like free wire transfers between everyone. You don't have to set anything up, just accept the payment, and the money appears in your account (assuming the client used the email address your bank has on file for you). However, if you still don't want it, you can just ignore it. There is a timeout when his transaction gets auto-cancelled, and he gets his money back. Here is an example text from the 'fine print' (my highlighting): \""[...]We will continue our attempts by sending a second notice of a transfer to the recipient, and providing the recipient a period of nine (9) succeeding Business Days to register in the Service, or the person-to-person payment service of clearXchange, Zelle or a Network Bank. At the end of this period, if the recipient still has not registered, the transfer request will be Cancelled. The sender may cancel the transfer at any time during this ten (10) day period if the recipient is not registered at the time of cancellation.[...]\"" (https:\/\/chaseonline.chase.com\/Public\/Misc\/LAContent.aspx?agreementKey=chasenet_la)"""
"""In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?""","""Theaters make pennies off the tickets if any money at all. Their profits come from the concession stand. If a theater priced their popcorn 50 cents less than a nearby competing theater the few if any customers that notice and seek those small savings would be far less than the losses due to charging less. They compete to get you there: providing better sound systems, seating, screens -- even taking a loss on tickets with special deals (like Tuesday bargains). Once inside profit is made by customers willing to pay the concession price premium, and sour patch kids for 15 cents more isn't going to be a deal breaker."""
"""Oil Price forcasting""","""The Oil futures are exactly that.  They are people forecasting the price of oil at a point of time in the future where they are willing to buy oil at that price. That said, Do you have evidence of a correlation of Price of oil to the shares of oil stocks?  Oil companies that are good investments are generally good investments regardless of the cost of oil.  If you did not know about oil futures then you might be best served by consulting an investment professional for some guidance."""
"""Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate?""","""Because the federal government won't use the money to buy a car thus generating profits for the car company. The aim of cheap loans is to drive sales of cars. The difference between the amount of interest paid on the loan, and the amount they could have got by investing it elsewhere, is simply a reduction in the profit. This is true whatever the actual interest rates are."""
"""Why do non-electronic stock exchanges (with floor traders) still exist?""","""Non-electronic stock exchanges still exist because they used to exist. There are a lot of people in trading firms who grew up with floor trading and don't want to give it up, either because they feel more comfortable with it or because they might lose their job if they went away from it."""
"""Should I take a student loan to pursue my undergraduate studies in France? ""","""Stripping away the minutia, your question boils down to this: Should I take a loan for something that I may not be able to repay? The correct answer, is \""No\""."""
"""Put a dollar value on pensions?""","""@JoeTaxpayer's answer outlines how to value it. Some other considerations: As I understand it, some public pensions may be tax-free if you still live in the state that is paying the pension. E.g. when a Massachusetts teacher receives pension, it is exempt from state taxes, but if that person moves to Vermont he will have to pay Vermont income tax on those payments. So if you plan to stay in the state post-retirement, this provides additional value. Pension payments aren't fully guaranteed by the PBGC. And not all pension plans are fully funded. Depending on the political and economic environment when you hit retirement, your retirement plan could suffer. (And if you aren't working, you may not have a union vote any more when the other working members are voting on contract amendments that affect pensions.) I'm not certain of all of the rules, but I hear news reports from time to time that formulas like what you've posted in the original question are changed through negotiation with the union. If you make an employment decision using the formula in year X and then the formula changes in year X+10, your expected pension payment will change."""
"""When do I sell a stock that I hold as a long-term position?""","""The psychology of investing is fascinating. I buy a stock that's out of favor at $10, and sell half at a 400% profit, $50\/share. Then another half at $100, figuring you don't ever lose taking a profit. Now my Apple shares are over $500, but I only have 100. The $10 purchase was risky as Apple pre-iPod wasn't a company that was guaranteed to survive.  The only intelligent advice I can offer is to look at your holdings frequently, and ask, \""would I buy this stock today given its fundamentals and price?\"" If you wouldn't buy it, you shouldn't hold it. (This is in contrast to the company ratings you see of buy, hold, sell. If I should hold it, but you shouldn't buy it to hold, that makes no sense to me.) Disclaimer - I am old and have decided stock picking is tough. Most of our retirement accounts are indexed to the S&P. Maybe 10% is in individual stocks. The amount my stocks lag the index is less than my friends spend going to Vegas, so I'm happy with the results. Most people would be far better off indexing than picking stocks."""
"""How can I calculate interest portion of income when selling a stock?""","""Their interest expense was $17M. Where you see $5.14\/sh in Key Statistics, any daily interest received is more than canceled out by the expense paid at the same time. I understand your concern, but this company is not \""sitting on cash\"" as are Apple, Google, etc. Short term rates are well below 1%, 1yr tbill looks like about .2%. So strictly speaking, each share might have 1 cent interest you need to concern yourself with. Disclaimer to other readers - This has nothing to do with taxes. OP is asking about a specific part of the company cash flow. His worst case is $1 per 100 shares."""
"""Are index-tracking ETF popular in Japan?""","""The Japanese stock market offers a wide selection of popular ETFs tracking the various indices and sub-indices of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.  See this page from the Japan Exchange Group site for a detailed listing of the ETFs being offered on the Tokyo exchange. As you have suggested, one would expect that Japanese investors would be reluctant to track the local market indices because of the relatively poor performance of the Japanese markets over the last couple of decades.  However, this does not appear to be the case.  In fact, there seems to be a heavy bias towards Tokyo indices as measured by the NAV\/Market Cap of listed ETFs.  The main Tokyo indices - the broad TOPIX and the large cap Nikkei - dominate investor choice. The big five ETFs tracking the Nikkei 225 have a total net asset value of 8.5Trillion Yen (72Billion USD), while the big four ETFs tracking the TOPIX have a total net asset value of 8.0Trillion Yen (68Billion USD).  Compare this to the small net asset values of those Tokyo listed ETFs tracking the S&P500 or the EURO STOXX 50.  For example, the largest S&P500 tracker is the Nikko Asset Management S&P500 ETF with net asset value of just 67Million USD and almost zero liquidity.  If I remember my stereotypes correctly, it is the Japanese housewife that controls the household budget and investment decisions, and the Japanese housewife is famously conservative and patriotic with their investment choices.  Japanese government bonds have yielded next to nothing for as long as I can remember, yet they remain the first choice amongst housewives.  The 1.3% yield on a Nikkei 225 ETF looks positively generous by comparison and so will carry some temptations."""
"""Multiple hard inquiry for a single loan from car dealer?""","""Each goes to a different agency. Yes, it is normal that the lender queries more than one agency."""
"""Why does a stock's price fluctuate so often, even when fresh news isn't available?""","""In addition to what @George Marian said, a very large portion of trades are from computer programs trained to make trades when certain apparent patterns are observed.  Since these programs are not all designed in the same way, much of the supply and demand is a result of different algorithms with different \""opinions\"" on what the stock is doing."""
"""Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \""highest interest\"" first?""","""If the balance on the low rate loan is very high (say, an IBR student loan at 6% that accumulates interest every year), and the balance on the high rate loan (say, a CC at 18%) is comparatively very small, then you'd want to make sure that you've at least \""stopped the bleeding\"" on the high balance loan before starting to pay off the CC."""
"""merging transactions in 8949""","""From the instructions: If you do not need to make any adjustments to the basis or type of   gain or loss (short-term or long-term) reported to you on Form 1099-B   (or substitute statement) or to your gain or loss for any transactions   for which basis has been reported to the IRS (normally reported on   Form 8949 with box A checked), you do not have to include those   transactions on Form 8949. Instead, you can report summary information   for those transactions directly on Schedule D. For more information,   see Exception 1, later. However, in case of ESPP and RSU, it is likely that you actually do need to make adjustments. Since 2014, brokers are no longer required to track basis for these, so you better check that the calculations are correct. If the numbers are right and you just summarized instead of reporting each on a separate line, its probably not an issue. As long as the gains reported are correct, no-one will waste their time on you. If you missed several thousand dollars because of incorrect calculations, some might think you were intentionally trying to hide something by aggregating and may come after you."""
"""Do I need to prove 'Garage Sale' items incurred a loss""","""-Alain Wertheimer I'm a hobbyist... Most (probably all) of those older items were sold both prior to my establishing the LLC This is a hobby of yours, this is not your business. You purchased all of these goods for your pleasure, not for their future profit. The later items that you bought after your LLC was establish served both purposes (perks of doing what you love).  How should I go about reporting this income for the items I don't have records for how much I purchased them for?  There's nothing you can do. As noted above, these items (if you were to testify in court against the IRS). \""Losses from the sale of personal-use property, such as your home or car, aren't tax deductible.\"" Source Do I need to indicate 100% of the income because I can't prove that I sold it at a loss? Yes, if you do not have previous records you must claim a 100% capital gain. Source Addition: As JoeTaxpayer has mentioned in the comments, the second source I posted is for stocks and bonds.  So at year begin of 2016, I started selling what I didn't need on eBay and on various forums [January - September]. Because you are not in the business of doing this, you do not need to explain the cost; but you do need to report the income as Gross Income on your 1040. Yes, if you bought a TV three years ago for a $100 and sold it for $50, the IRS would recognize you earning $50.  As these are all personal items, they can not be deducted; regardless of gain or loss. Source Later in the year 2016 (October), I started an LLC (October - December) If these are items that you did not record early in the process of your LLC, then it is reported as a 100% gain as you can not prove any business expenses or costs to acquire associated with it.  Source Refer to above answer.  Refer to above answer.  Conclusion Again, this is a income tax question that is split between business and personal use items. This is not a question of other's assessment of the value of the asset. It is solely based on the instruments of the IRS and their assessment of gains and losses from businesses. As OP does not have the necessary documents to prove otherwise, a cost basis of $0 must be assumed; thus you have a 100% gain on sale."""
"""How are the best way to make and save money at 22 years old""","""Fantastic question to be asking at the age of 22! A very wise man suggested to me the following with regard to your net income I've purposely not included saving a sum of money for a house deposit, as this is very much cultural and lots of EU countries have a low rate of home ownership. On the education versus entrepreneur question. I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I am a big advocate of education (I have a B.Eng) but have following working in the real world for a number of years have started an IT business in data analytics. My business partner and I saw a gap in the market and have exploited it. I continue to educate myself now in short courses on running business, data analytics and investment. My business partner did things the otherway around, starting the company first, then getting an M.Sc. Other posters have suggested that investing your money personally is a bad idea. I think it is a very good idea to take control of your own destiny and choose how you will invest your money.   I would say similarly that giving your money to someone else who will sometimes lose you money and will charge you for the privilege is a bad idea. Also putting your money in a box under your bed or in the bank and receive interest that is less than inflation are bad ideas. You need to choose where to invest your money otherwise you will gain no advantage from the savings and inflation will erode your buying power. I would suggest that you educate yourself in the investment options that are available to you and those that suit you personality and life circumstances. Here are some notes on learning about stock market trading\/investing if you choose to take that direction along with some books for self learning."""
"""How should I value personal use television for donation?""","""The usual lazy recommendation: See what similar objects, in similar condition, of similar age, have sold for recently on eBay. That establishes a fair market value by directly polling the market."""
"""If I have no exemptions or deductions, just a simple paycheck, do I HAVE to file taxes?""","""As a Canadian resident, the simple answer to your question is \""yes\"" Having worked as a tax auditor and as a Certified Financial Planner, you are required to file an income tax return because you have taxable employment income. All the employer is doing is deducting it at source and remitting it on your behalf. That does not alleviate your need to file. In fact, if you don't file you will be subject to a no filing penalty. The one aspect you are missing is that taxpayers may be entitled to tax credits that may result in a refund to you depending on your personal situation (e.g spousal or minor dependents). I hope this helps."""
"""What is the difference between a scrip dividend and a stock split?""","""Most corporations have a limit on the number of shares that they can issue, which is written into their corporate charter.  They usually sell a number that is fewer than the maximum authorized number so that they have a reserve for secondary offerings, employee incentives, etc. In a scrip dividend, the company is distributing authorized shares that were not previously issued.  This reduces the number of shares that it has to sell in the future to raise capital, so it reduces the assets of the company. In a split, every share (including the authorized shares that haven't been distributed) are divided.  This results in more total shares (which then trade at a price that's roughly proportional to the split), but it does not reduce the assets of the company."""
"""super confused about bid and ask size. help""","""The principle of demand-supply law will not work if spoofing (or layering, fake order) is implemented. However, spoofing stocks is an illegal criminal practice  monitored by SEC. In stock market, aggressive buyer are willing to pay for a higher ask price pushing the price higher even if ask size is considerably larger than bid size, especially when high growth potential with time is expected. Larger bids may attract more buyers, further perpetuating a price increase (positive pile-on effect). Aggressive sellers are willing to accept a lower bid price pushing the price lower even if ask size is considerably smaller than bid size, when a negative situation is expected. Larger asks may attract more sellers, further perpetuating a price fall (negative pile-on effect).  Moreover, seller and buyers considers not only price but also size of shares in their decision-making process, along with marker order and\/or limit order. Unlike limit order, market order is not recorded in bid\/ask size. Market order, but not limit order, immediately affects the price direction. Thus, ask\/bid sizes alone do not give enough information on price direction. If stocks are being sold continuously at the bid price, this could be the beginning of a downward trend; if stocks are being sold continuously at the ask price, this could be the beginning of a upward trend.  This is because ask price is always higher than bid price. In all the cases, both buyers and sellers hope to make a profit in a long-term and short-term view"""
"""Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk?""","""Rather than thinking of becoming a landlord as a passive \""investment\"" (like a bank account or mutual fund), it may be useful to think of it as \""starting a small part-time business\"". While certainly many people can and do start their own businesses, and there are many success stories, there are many cases where things don't work out quite as they hoped. I wouldn't call starting any new business \""low risk\"", even one that isn't expected to be one's main full-time job, though some may be \""acceptable risk\"" for your particular circumstances. But if you're going to start a part-time business, is there any particular reason you'd do so in real estate as opposed to some other activity? It sounds like you'd be completely new to real estate, so perhaps for your first business you're starting you'd want it to be something you're more familiar with. Or, if you do want to enter the real estate world (or any other new business), be sure to do a lot of research, come up with a business plan, and be prepared for the possibility of losing money as with any investment or new business."""
"""How to make use of EUR\/USD fluctuations in my specific case?""","""Remember that converting from EU to USD and the other way around always costs you money, at least 0.5% per conversion. Additionally, savings accounts in EU and USA have different yields, you may want to compare which country offers you the best yields and move your money to the highest yielding account."""
"""What happens to bank account of non-resident alien who falls out of status?""","""Nothing happens. A bank is a business; your relationship with the bank doesn't change because your visa or immigration status changes. Money held in the account is still held in the account. Interest paid on the account is still taxable. And so on. If the account is inactive long enough, abandoned account rules may apply, but that still has nothing to do with your status."""
"""How much does it cost to build a subdivision of houses on a large plot of land?""","""The basic answer is that you are comparing apples and oranges.  On the one hand, you are considering a case where someone buys a single already-built house.  On the other hand, you are considering a case where someone buys a large piece of land, builds 10 houses, and (presumably) sells or rents the 9 they're not living in. Those are two totally different endeavors.  It might be reasonable to compare the cost of a plot of land sized for a single house to the cost of a similar plot with a house already on it.  But you can't directly compare the cost of buying 10 houses worth of land to the cost of one house.  As other answers have mentioned, building 10 houses involves a massive amount of work: an architect has to design a house, somebody has to get permits to build it, someone may have to get water\/power\/sewage hookups, somebody has to physically build it -- then multiply all that by 10 for 10 houses.  Once you're done, you still haven't recouped your investment.  You just have 10 houses.  Now you have to sell them, which is a whole other job in itself. Because the things you're comparing are so different, the potential buyers for the two cases are also completely different.  This explains the \""inconsistency\"" between the asking price and your perception of its value.  The two kinds of properties are in two different markets.  The people looking to buy a single home are just regular people looking for a place to live (or maybe trying to get a rental property).  The people looking to buy a 10-house plot are real estate developers with a whole different set of concerns.  There could be many reasons why the land hasn't been purchased yet, but you can't compare it to the cost of comparable houses, because almost no one who is looking for a house is going to consider buying 2 acres of land instead.  It's like asking why filling up your car with gas is so much more expensive per gallon than buying a gas station and giving yourself free gas.  They're just not the same thing.   But given the size of the land, I can join forces with other people which are also in the market and totally bring down the land price per piece to say 100k? You can do that, but basically what you'll be doing is forming a real estate development company of some sort.  This opens a whole other world of possible snafus (for instance, how ownership is to be divided, and what happens if the owners disagree on appropriate development of their portions). It is absolutely possible to make money by buying land and building houses on it, especially in California.  People do it all the time.  But it's not something you should attempt if you don't know what you're doing, and it's definitely not the same thing as just buying a house to live in."""
"""How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)""","""Time is money. If those hours spent researching to save $3 made you a better profit than you would have otherwise had buying the more expensive product and using the rest of the time to make more than $3, then you came out on top. If you consider this general premise in every spending decision you make, you should always feel that you made the right choice."""
"""Can I invest in gold through Vanguard (Or another instrument that should perform well in financial crisis)?""","""The difficulty with investing in mining and gold company stocks is that they are subject to the same market forces as any other stocks, although they may whether those forces better in a crisis than other stocks do because they are related to gold, which has always been a \""flight to safety\"" move for investors. Some investors buy physical gold, although you don't have to take actual delivery of the metal itself.  You can leave it with the broker-dealer you buy it from, much the way you don't have your broker send you stock certificates.  That way, if you leave the gold with the broker-dealer (someone reputable, of course, like APMEX or Monex) then you can sell it quickly if you choose, just like when you want to sell a stock. If you take delivery of a security (share certificate) or commodity (gold, oil, etc.) then before you can sell it, you have to return it to broker, which takes time.  The decision has much to do with your investing objectives and willingness to absorb risk.  The reason people choose mutual funds is because their money gets spread around a basket of stocks, so if one company in the fund takes a hit it doesn't wipe out their entire investment.  If you buy gold, you run the risk (low, in my opinion) of seeing big losses if, for some reason, gold prices plummet.  You're \""all in\"" on one thing, which can be risky. It's a judgment call on your part, but that's my two cents' worth."""
"""Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price""","""Let me get this straight. I would stand my ground. Your son negotiated in good faith. Either they messed up, or they are dishonest. Either way your son wasn't the one supposed to know all the internal rules. I don't think it matters if they cashed the check or not. I would tell them if they have cashed it, that is even more evidence the deal was finalized. But even if they they didn't cash it, it only proves they are very disorganized. If for some reason your son feels forced to redo the deal, have him start the negotiations way below the price that was agreed to.  If the deal for some strange reason gets voided don't let him agree to some sort of restocking fee."""
"""Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price""","""As mhoran_psprep and others have already said, it sounds like the sale is concluded and your son has no obligation to return the car or pay a dime more. The only case in which your son should consider returning the car is if it works in his favor--for example, if he is able to secure a similar bargain on a different car and the current dealer buys the current car back from your son at a loss. If the dealer wants to buy the car back, your son should first get them to agree to cover any fees already incurred by your son. After that, he should negotiate that the dealer split the remaining difference with him. Suppose the dealership gave a $3000 discount, and your son paid $1000 in title transfer, registration, and any other fees such as a cashier's check or tax, if applicable. The remaining difference is $2000. Your son should get half that.  In this scenario, the dealer only loses half as much money, and your son gains $1000 for his trouble."""
"""Where does the money go when I buy stocks?""","""The money goes to the seller.  There are a lot of behind the scenes things that happen, and some transactions are very complicated with many parties involved (evidenced by all the comments on @keshlam's perfectly reasonable high-level answer), but ultimately the money goes to the seller.  Sometimes the seller is the company.  The billions of shares that change hands each day are moving between other individuals like you and investment funds; these transactions have no direct impact on the company's financials, in general."""
"""Borrowing money for a semi-urgent medical expense""","""I am a bit confused here as to how a 4K loan will negatively effect your credit score if payments are made on time.  FICO scores are based upon how well you borrow.  If you borrow, pay back on time, your score will not go down.  Perhaps a bit in the short run when you first secure the loan, but that should come back quickly.  In the long run it will help improve your score which seems like it would be more important to you. Having the provider finance your loan will probably not show up on your credit unless you fail to pay and they send to collections. If the score is so important to you, which I think is somewhat unwise, then use a credit card.  With a 750 you should be able to get a pretty good rate, but assume it is 18%.  In less then 9 months you will have it paid off, paying about $293 in interest.  You could consider that a part of the cost of doing business for maintaining a high credit score.  Again not what I would advise, but it might meet your needs. One alternative is go with lending club.  With that kind of score, you are looking at 7% or so.  At $500 a month, you are still looking at just over 8 months and paying about $100 in interest.  Much less money for improving your credit score. Edit based upon the comment: \""My understanding is that using a significant portion of your available credit balance is bad for your credit, even if you pay your bills on time.\"" Define bad.  As I said it might go down slightly in the short term.  In three months you will have almost 33% of the loan paid off, which is significantly lower then the original balance.  If you go the credit card route, you may be approved for quite a bit more then the 4000, which may not move the needle at all.  Are you planning on buying a home in the next 90 days?  If not, why does a small short term dip matter?  Will your life really be effected if your score goes down to 720 for three months? Keep in mind this is exactly the kind of behavior that the banks want you to engage in.  If you worship your FICO score, which gives no indication of wealth then you should do exactly what I am suggesting."""
"""What are the contents of fixed annuities?""","""For a variable annuity, you need to know the underlying investments and how your returns are credited to your account. For a fixed annuity, the issuer is responsible for the commitment to provide the promised rate to you. In a sense, how they invest isn't really your concern. You should be concerned about the overall health of the company, but in general, insurance companies tend to know their business when they stick to their strengths: writing insurance on groups and producing annuity contracts.  I don't care for VAs or the fixed annuities you asked about, but I don't believe they resemble a ponzi scheme, either."""
"""Why do sole proprietors in India generally use a current account?""","""No. Current account is not a requirement. You can use savings account. You would need to pay taxes on interest. Savings account have limitation on number of withdrawal in a quarter, hence most sole proprietorship have current account."""
"""How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?""","""When you're debt free everything you own feels different. The lack of financial stress in your life goes away. BUT! before you do go gung-ho on paying down debt think through these steps (and no I did not come up with them. Dave Ramsey did and others). Truncated from - http:\/\/www.daveramsey.com\/new\/baby-steps\/ I have 1 credit card. Only use it for business\/travel but pay it off every month (yay for auto-draft). Everthing else is cash\/debit and we live by a budget. If it's not in the budget we don't buy it. Easy as pie. The hard part is disciplining yourself to wait. Our society is gear for BUY NOW! PAY LATER! and well you can see where that has taken our country and families. And celebrate the small victories. Pay off 1 debt then go have a nice dinner. Things like that help keep you motivated and pursuing the end goal."""
"""Where to start with personal finance?""","""This Stack Exchange site is a nice place to find answers and ask questions. Good start! Moving away from the recursive answer... Simply distilling personal finance down to \""I have money, I'll need money in the future, what do I do\"", an easily digestible book with how-to, multi-step guidelines is \""I Will Teach You To Be Rich\"". The author talks about setting up the accounts you should have, making sure all your bills are paid automatically, saving on the big things and tips to increase your take home pay. That link goes to a compilation page on the blog with many of the most fundamental articles. However, \""The World\u2019s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts\"" is a particularly key article. While all the information is on the free blog, the book is well organized and concise.  The Simple Dollar is a nice blog with frugal living tips, lifestyle assessments, financial thoughts and reader questions. The author also reviews about a book a week. Investing - hoping to get better returns than savings can provide while minimizing risk. This thread is an excellent list of books to learn about investing. I highly recommend \""The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing\"" and \""The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need\"". The world of investment vehicles is huge but it doesn't have to be complicated once you ignore all the fads and risky stuff. Index mutual funds are the place to start (and maybe end). Asset allocation and diversification are themes to guide you. The books on that list will teach you."""
"""What is bespoke insurance?""","""The word bespoke means made to order. Bespoke insurance means non-cookie cutter. That mean the thing your are trying to protect, or the risk to that item is not normally covered; so you need a non-standard type of policy. Your neighborhood insurance company doesn't handle a bespoke policy. There are companies that do.  Reinsurance is insurance on insurance. Company X has a risk they want to insure, so they go to insurance company A. After a while insurance company A realizes that they have sold a few of these policies and they have a risk if they guessed wrong. So they take out a policy with insurance company B to protect themselves if more than some percentage of their policies go bad. That policy takes bespoke reinsurance."""
"""What happens if a Financial Services Company\/Stockbroker goes into administration in the UK?""","""Although I posted this question more than a year ago, I subsequently read information which may be of use as an answer, specifically regarding Pritchard Stockbrokers in the UK several years ago, in which the FSCS stepped in to compensate investors, as detailed in the following: http:\/\/www.fscs.org.uk\/what-we-cover\/questions-and-answers\/qas-about-pritchard-stock-6n940n01k\/ http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/89957c56-21e4-11e3-9b55-00144feab7de.html#axzz3crZYbGZ9 For reference, in case the links above are at some point in future taken offline, the FSCS FAQ states: Q: I had \""deposited\"" money with Pritchard so can I expect \u00a385,000 compensation from FSCS?  A: No. Pritchard was not a deposit-taker so the money held does not qualify under regulatory rules as a deposit. The money will be treated as an investment, which carries maximum FSCS compensation of \u00a350,000 per person. FSCS has no discretion to pay any more. Q: What happens if my losses are over the FSCS maximum of \u00a350,000 and I accept the FSCS\u2019s compensation?  A: If you choose to accept compensation from FSCS, you will be required to assign (or legally transfer) to FSCS all of your rights to claim in the Administration. FSCS will then claim in the Administration standing \""in your shoes\"" and will claim for the whole of your loss, even if it was over \u00a350,000. When FSCS receives the dividends in your place it will then pay to you any amounts recovered to ensure that you do not suffer a disadvantage for having accepted FSCS compensation first. Example 1: Loss = \u00a380,000 FSCS compensation = \u00a350,000 Dividend of 50p\/\u00a3 received by FSCS = \u00a340,000 FSCS pays \u00a330,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total \u00a380,000), and retains \u00a310,000 recovery for itself Example 2: Loss = \u00a3100,000 FSCS compensation = \u00a350,000 Dividend of 50p\/\u00a3 received by FSCS = \u00a350,000 FSCS pays \u00a350,000 to claimant so he is fully compensated (total \u00a3100,000), and retains nothing for itself FSCS does not have to have make a full recovery of its \u00a350,000 before it starts paying its dividend recovery on to claimants. Claimants are not compelled to claim from FSCS, or to accept the FSCS offer of compensation. If a person does not want to transfer his legal rights to claim in the Administration to FSCS in return for accepting the payment of compensation, then s\/he can decline our compensation and continue his claim in the Administration. After s\/he has received the dividend(s), s\/he can then return to FSCS to claim for any remaining shortfall. Therefore, the answer provided by @DumbCoder was correct, but in circumstances where fraudulent activity would mean otherwise, the FSCS was willing to intervene on the behalf of investors."""
"""Selling on eBay without PayPal?""","""I've definitely seen a similar conversation about this, I personally don't buy from eBay (Amazon for me). So I turned to the internet to see what I could find to offer you any additional information (albeit not my personal experience).  I first read this article: CodeNerdz Article and was pretty horrified by the scamming that can happen by buyers. Then, this article by another regular user of eBay, Selling on eBay without PayPal : eBay Guides confirmed the trouble people have with PayPal & eBay. Payment Services permitted on eBay: Allpay.net, Canadian Tire Money, cash2india, CertaPay, Checkfree.com, hyperwallet.com, Moneybookers.com, Nochex.com, Ozpay.biz, Paymate.com.au, Propay.com, XOOM Have you looked into any or all of these?"""
"""Is dividend included in EPS""","""No, dividends are not included in earnings.  Companies with no earnings sometimes choose to pay dividends.  Paying the dividend does not decrease earnings.  It does of course decrease cash and shows up on the balance sheet.  Many companies choose to keep the dividend at a fixed rate even while the business goes through cycles of increased and decreased earnings."""
"""Is it legal if I'm managing my family's entire wealth?""","""I am not going to discuss legality, because with family members you are able to give a lot of guidance and assistance without running into legal issues.  The biggest problem is that when they transfer the funds to you and you invest the money, all the tax rates and tax limits are determined by your situation; plus you have more investments than you should have so you hit those limits and brackets quicker. For example: In the United states a person can put $5,500 or $6,500 into a IRA or Roth IRA each year. If you combine the funds for three with your funds then you are giving up three quarters of the amount that you can invest in that type of account. The decision regarding Roth or not depends on age and income level. But now their decision is related to what is best based on your situation. The ability to even deduct IRA deposits would be based on your situation. Of course for taxable accounts the tax rate is determined by your income, not theirs. If they want you to have the ability to make investment decisions for them, then power of attorney is the way to go. The money is deposited in their name, and all the rules and tax rates are determined by their situation. You make sure they have all the information they need to login and review the accounts, but you make the all the moves within and between accounts."""
"""Are stock index fund likely to keep being a reliable long-term investment option?""","""The idea behind investing in index funds is that you will not under perform the market but also at the same time not over perform against the market either. It is meant for those (majority of the investing population) who do not or cannot invest more time in actively researching different investment options. So even considering for a moment that the yields on the index funds will drop significantly in the future, since the fund is supposed to be replication of the whole market itself, the market too can be assumed to be giving significantly lower future yields. In my opinion the question that you ask is confusing\/contradictory because, its like pegging the fund performance to an avg and then asking if it will be higher or lower in the future. But rather its always going to be exactly the average, even if the absolute yields turn higher or lower"""
"""Why would someone want to sell call options?""","""You appear to be thinking of option writers as if they were individuals with small, nondiversified, holdings and a particular view on what the underlying is going to do.  This is not the best way to think about them. Option writers are typically large institutions with large portfolios and that provide services in all sorts of different areas. At the same time as they are writing calls on a particular stock, they are writing puts on it and options on other stocks.  They are buying and selling the underlying and all kinds of different derivatives.  They are not necessarily writing the option because they are expecting or hoping to benefit from a price move.  It's just small part of their business.  They write the option if the option price is good enough that they think they are selling it for very slightly more than it's worth.   Asking why an option writer creates a call is like asking why a grocery store keeps buying groceries from their distributors.  Don't they know the price of food may not always rise?  Sure, but their business is selling the food for slightly more than they pay for it, not speculating on what will happen to its price.  Most option writers are doing the same thing, except what they are buying and selling is sets of cash flows and risk.   As a general rule, the business model of option writers is to profit from the few cents of spread or mispricing, not from aggregate changes in the price of the underlying.  They should and often do maintain balanced portfolios so their option writing activities don't expose them to a lot of risk. Also note that there could be lots of reasons for writing options, even if you do have a particular view.  For example, perhaps the option writer thinks volatility of the underlying will decrease.  Writing a call could be part of an overall strategy that profits from this view."""
"""Why does gold have value?""","""A lot of people probably don't agree with him, but Warren Buffett has some great quotes on why he doesn't invest in gold: I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it   would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side\u2026Now for that same cube of   gold, it would be worth at today\u2019s market prices about $7 trillion   dollars \u2013 that\u2019s probably about a third of the value of all the stocks   in the United States\u2026For $7 trillion dollars\u2026you could have all the   farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon   Mobils, and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around   money\u2026And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube   of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and   fondling it occasionally\u2026Call me crazy, but I\u2019ll take the farmland and   the Exxon Mobils. And his classic quote: [Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we   melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand   around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would   be scratching their head."""
"""Difference between a mortgage and buy-to-let in UK""","""In my experience buy-to-let mortgages charge a higher rate of interest than an personal residential mortgage.  They are regarded as a business enterprise and presumably the banks calculate that they carry a higher risk.  A bank would probably take action if the property on an ordinary mortgage was rented out, as you would be breaking their terms.  Policies could be rendered void.  The terms on an ordinary mortgage disallow renting out the property."""
"""When to sell a stock?""","""My theory is that for every stock you buy, you should have an exit strategy and follow it.  It is too hard to let emotions rule if you let your default strategy be \""let's see what happens.\"" and emotional investing will almost never serve you well.  So before buying a stock, set a maximum loss and maximum gain that you will watch for on the stock, and when it hits that number sell.  At the very least, when it hits one of your numbers, consciously make a decision that you are effectively buying it again at the current price if you decide to stay in. When you do this, set a new high and low price and repeat the above strategy."""
"""How is an ETF's NAV determined?""","""An ETF manager will only allow certain financial organisations to create and redeem ETF shares.  These are called Authorised Participants (APs).  The APs have the resources to bundled up packages of shares that they already own and hold in order to match the ETFs requirements.  In the case of the EDEN ETF, this portfolio is the MSCI Denmark Index.  Only APs transact business directly with the ETF manager.   When ETF shares need to be created, the AP will bundle up the portfolio of shares and deliver them to the ETF manager.  In return, the ETF manager will deliver to the AP the corresponding number of shares in the ETF.  Note that no cash changes hands here. (These ETF shares are now available for trading in the market via the AP.  Note that investors do not transact business directly with the ETF manager.) Similarly, when ETF shares need to be redeemed, the AP will deliver the ETF shares to the ETF manager.  In return, the ETF manager will deliver to the AP the corresponding portfolio of shares.  Again, no cash changes hands here. Normally, with an established and liquid ETF, investors like you and me will transact small purchases and sales of ETF shares with other small investors in the market.  In the event that an AP needs to transact business with an  investor, they will do so by either buying or selling the ETF shares.  In the event that they have insufficient ETF shares to meet demand, they will bundle up a portfolio deliver them to the ETF provider in return for ETF shares, thus enabling them to meet demand.  In the event that a lot of investors are selling and the AP ends up holding an excessive amount of ETF shares, they will deliver unwanted shares to the ETF manager in exchange for a portfolio of the underlying shares. According to this scheme, large liquidations of ETF holdings should not effect the share prices of the underlying portfolio.  This is because the underlying shares are not sold in the market, rather they are simply returned to the AP in exchange for the ETF shares (Recall that no cash is changing hands in this type of transaction).   The corresponding trail of dividends and distributions to ETF share holders follows the same scheme."""
"""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 fundamental or technical analysis, does it? I would qualify the CAPM as quantitative analysis because it's mathematics and statistics. It's not really fundamental since its does not relies on economical data (except the prices). And as for technical analysis, the term is often used as a synonym for graphical analysis or chartism, but quantitative analysis can also be referred as technical analysis. the present value of future cash flows [...] (called intrinsic price\/value, if I am correct?) Yes you are correct. I wonder when deciding whether an asset is over\/fair\/under-valued, ususally what kind of price is compared to what other kind of price? If it's only to compare with the price, usually, the Net asset value (which is the book value), the Discount Cash flows (the intrinsic value) and the price of comparable companies and the CAPM are used in comparison to current market price of the asset that you are studying. Why is it in the quote to compare the first two kinds of prices, instead of comparing the current real price on the markets to any of the other three kinds? Actually the last line of the quote says that the comparison is done on the observed price which is the market price (the other prices can't really be observed). But, think that the part: an asset is correctly priced when its estimated price is the same as the present value of future cash flows of the asset means that, since the CAPM gives you an expected rate of return, by using this rate to compute the present value of future cash flows of the asset, you should have the same predicted price. I wrote this post explaining some valuation strategies. Maybe you can find some more information by reading it."""
"""Investment options for f1 visa students in USA""","""There's no limitation on what you can invest in, including trading stocks (as long as trading is not a business activity, like day-trading or investing for others). You just need to make sure you have a tax ID (either ITIN or SSN) and pay taxes on all the gains and dividends. Also, consider your home country tax laws, since you're still tax resident in your home country (most likely)."""
"""Where can I invest for the Short Term and protect against Inflation?""","""Emergency funds, car funds etc tend to have to be accessible quickly (which tends to rule out CDs unless you have the patience to work something like a monthly CD ladder, an I don't) and you'll want your principal protected. The latter pretty much rules out any proper investment (ETFs, mutual funds, stock market directly, Elbonian dirt futures etc). It's basically a risk-vs-return calculation. Not much risk, not much return but at least you're not losing from a nominal standpoint). Another consideration is that you normally aren't able to decide freely if and when you want to pull money out of an emergency fund. If it is an emergency, waiting three weeks to see if the stock market goes up a little further isn't an option so you might end up having to take a hit that would be irrelevant if you were investing long term but might hurt badly because you're left with no choice. I'd stick that sort of money into a money market account and either add to it if necessary to keep up with inflation or make sure that my non-retirement investments over and above these funds are performing well, as those will and should become a far bigger part of your wealth in the longer run."""
"""How do I know when I am financially stable\/ready to move out on my own?""","""I\u2019m going to suggest something your parents may be reluctant to say: \""Grow up and get out.\"" A man living in a van down by the river, making minimum wage, with $0 in savings has achieved something you have still failed to achieve: adulthood.  This, I believe, is more important than a man\u2019s income or net worth. So please join us adults Bryan.  I think you\u2019ll enjoy it.  Yes, your savings may take a hit but you will gain the respect that comes with being an adult.  I think it is worth it."""
"""Why did the stock chart for Facebook's first trading day show an initial price of $42 when the IPO price was $38?""","""I'd add, this is actually the way any stock opens every day, i.e. the closing price of the prior day is what it is, but the opening price will reflect whatever news there was prior to the day's open. If you watch the business news, you'll often see that some stock has an order imbalance and has not opened yet, at the normal time. So, as Geo stated, those who were sold shares at the IPO price paid $38, but then the stock could open at whatever price was the point where bid and ask balanced.   I snapped a screen capture of this chart on the first day of trading, the daily charts aren't archived where I can find them. This is from Yahoo Finance. You can see the $42 open from those who simply wanted in but couldn't wait, the willingness of sellers to grab their profit right back to what they paid, and then another wave of buying, but then a sell-off. It closed virtually unchanged from the IPO price."""
"""How do I calculate two standard deviations away from the stock price?""","""The formula for standard deviation is fairly simple in both the discrete and continuous cases. It's mostly safe to use the discrete case when working with adjusted closing prices. Once you've calculated the standard deviation for a given time period, the next task (in the simplest case) is to calculate the mean of that same period. This allows you to roughly approximate the distribution, which can give you all sorts of testable hypotheses. Two standard deviations (\u03c3) away from the mean (\u03bc) is given by:  It doesn't make any sense to talk about \""two standard deviations away from the price\"" unless that price is the mean or some other statistic for a given time period. Normally you would look at how far the price is from the mean, e.g. does the price fall two or three standard deviations away from the mean or some other technical indicator like the Average True Range (an exponential moving average of the True Range), some support level, another security, etc.  For most of this answer, I'll assume we're using the mean for the chosen time period as a base. However, the answer is still more complicated than many people realize. As I said before, to calculate the standard deviation, you need to decide on a time period. For example, you could use S&P 500 data from Yahoo Finance and calculate the standard deviation for all adjusted closing prices since January 3, 1950. Downloading the data into Stata and applying the summarize command gives me: As you can probably see, however, these numbers don't make much sense. Looking at the data, we can see that the S&P 500 hasn't traded close to 424.4896 since November 1992. Clearly, we can't assume that this mean and standard deviation as representative of current market conditions. Furthermore, these numbers would imply that the S&P 500 is currently trading at almost three standard deviations away from its mean, which for many distribution is a highly improbable event. The Great Recession, quantitative easing, etc. may have changed the market significantly, but not to such a great extent.  The problem arises from the fact that security prices are usually non-stationary.. This means that the underlying distribution from which security prices are \""drawn\"" shifts through time and space. For example, prices could be normally distributed in the 50's, then gamma distributed in the 60's because of a shock, then normally distributed again in the 70's. This implies that calculating summary statistics, e.g. mean, standard deviation, etc. are essentially meaningless for time periods in which prices could follow multiple distributions.  For this and other reasons, it's standard practice to look at the standard deviation of returns or differences instead of prices. I covered in detail the reasons for this and various procedures to use in another answer. In short, you can calculate the first difference for each period, which is merely the difference between the closing price of that period and the closing price of the previous period. This will usually give you a stationary process, from which you can obtain more meaningful values of the standard deviation, mean, etc.  Let's use the S&P500 as an example again. This time, however, I'm only using data from 1990 onwards, for the sake of simplicity (and to make the graphs a bit more manageable). The summary statistics look like this: and the graph looks like this; the mean is the central horizontal red line, and the top and bottom lines indicate one standard deviation above and below the mean, respectively.   As you can see, the graph seems to indicate that there were long periods in which the index was priced well outside this range. Although this could be the case, the graph definitely exhibits a trend, along with some seemingly exogenous shocks (see my linked answer).  Taking the first difference, however, yields these summary statistics: with a graph like this:  This looks a lot more reasonable. In periods of recession, the price appears much more volatile, and it breaches the +\/- one standard deviation lines indicated on the graph.  This is only a simple summary, but using first differencing as part of the wider process of detrending\/decomposing a time series is a good first step.  For some technical indicators, however, stationary isn't as relevant. This is the case for some types of moving averages and their associated indicators. Take Bollinger bands for instance. These are technical indicators that show a number of standard deviations above and below a moving average. Like any calculation of standard deviation, moving average, statistic, etc. they require data over a specified time period. The analyst chooses a certain number of historical periods, e.g. 20, and calculates the moving average for that many previous periods and the moving\/rolling standard deviation for those same periods as well. The Bollinger bands represent the values a certain number of standard deviations away from the moving average at a given point in time. At this given point, you can calculate the value two standard deviations \""away from the value,\"" but doing so still requires the historical stock price (or at least the historical moving average). If you're only given the price in isolation, you're out of luck.  Moving averages can indirectly sidestep some of the issues of stationarity I described above because it's straightforward to estimate a time series with a process built from a moving average (specifically, an auto-regressive moving average process) but the econometrics of time series is a topic for another day.  The Stata code I used to generate the graphs and summary statistics:"""
"""Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?""","""I have a PayPal account that I have linked to my bank account.  My PayPal balance is always $0.  When I make a purchase with PayPal, PayPal will automatically withdraw the funds from my bank account to make the purchase.   PayPal does not ask my permission for each purchase.  I probably gave them permission to do this when I linked my bank account.  Or perhaps the PayPal purchase process includes this permission.  I don't read the text closely.  Or I should add, that I probably read it at one point, but since I do it on a regular basis, I don't read it now, and I don't recall what is on the checkout page."""
"""Why does FlagStar Bank harass you about payments within grace period?""","""All standard mortgage promissory notes mandate payments are due on the first of every month; I can almost guarantee the note you signed has this provision.  Most lenders offer a grace period of generally 15 days before they assess a late charge, but the payment IS late on the 2nd.  People have become incorrectly accustomed to believe that the payment is due between the 1st and 15th. If they are servicing your loan for another investor (FNMA, FHMLC, a private investor, etc.), they may have contractual requirements to begin collection activities by a certain date. So they are within the rights you granted them.  If these calls really bug you, you can start to adjust your cashflow so you can perhaps make your payment a few days ahead of the first each month."""
"""Can a non dividend-paying product (say ETF) suddenly start paying dividends?""","""Yes, absolutely. Consider Microsoft,  Updated Jan. 17, 2003 11:59 p.m. ET  Software giant Microsoft Corp.,   finally bowing to mounting pressure to return some of its huge cash   hoard to investors, said it will begin paying a regular annual   dividend to shareholders. From Wall Street Journal. Thus, for the years prior to 2003, the company didn't pay dividends but changed that. There can also be some special one-time dividends as Microsoft did the following year according to the Wall Street Journal: The $32 billion one-time dividend payment, which comes to $3 for each   share of Microsoft stock, could be a measurable stimulus to the U.S.   economy -- and is expected to arrive just in time for holiday   shopping. Course companies can also reduce to stop dividends as well."""
"""What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada?""","""CashBase has a web app, an iPhone app and an Android app, all sync'ed up. It doesn't integrate with banks automatically, but you can import bank statements as CSV. Disclosure: Filip is CashBase's founder."""
"""Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?""","""Written with some mild snark , but no insult intended, because financial stuff can be ridiculously confusing... Looked at another way, you're basically asking if the Biblical \""Parable of the Talents\"" can be implemented as a business model.  You as the investor wish to be the \""master\"", with the entity doing the investing playing the part of the \""servant\"". Since the law prohibits actual servitude as described in scripture, the model must substitute a contractual profit- and loss-sharing scheme. OK, based on what you've proposed, and by way of example, let's say you invested a thousand dollars. You give the investment service your money. At the end of a year, they give you back   - Your capital ($1000)  - Plus 1\/2 of any profits  OR  - Less 1\/2 of any losses So let's say the worst happens and they lose ALL of it. According to your proposal, they have to cover 1\/2 of the loss. You end up with $500...but they end up with LESS than nothing. They will be in a deficit situation because all the expense was theirs. They don't just fail to make a profit. They go in the hole. It doesn't matter what percentages you use. Regardless of how the loss is shared, you've only guaranteed YOU can't lose all your money. The company CAN. Given a large enough investment, or enough market fluctuation, a big shared loss could shut down a smaller firm. To summarize:   - You want a service that charges you nothing   - Does all the work of expertly managing and investing your capital  - Takes on part of the risk you would normally bear  - (on top of their usual risk and liability)  - Agrees to do so solely for a percentage of any return (where higher returns will likely involve a higher degree of risk)  - AND that guarantees, after just 1 year, you'll get X% of your capital back, no matter what. Win or lose.  - Even if the market crashes and all your capital, and theirs, is wiped out Superbest, um, to be serious briefly: what you're proposing is, if nothing else, inherently unfair and inequitable. I believe you intended it as a mutually beneficial scenario, but the real-world imbalance in risk and reward prevents it being so. Any financial service that would accept those terms along with the extra degree of risk would be fiscally irresponsible. From a business standpoint it's an untenable model, and no company would build on it. It would be tantamount to corporate suicide. The requirement that a service promise to give you back X% of your money, no matter how great the loss, makes your proposal impossible. You need to think about how much all this costs, realistically, as well what kind of returns you can actually expect. And that more risk for higher return is exactly what a service could NOT take a chance on if it had to \""share\"" investors' losses. Besides, it's not really sharing, now is it? They will always lose more than you, always end up in a negative situation, unable even to recoup costs. Circumstances beyond their control could result in a drop in the value that not only wipes out any profit, but requires them to pay YOU for work performed and expenses incurred on your behalf.  Why would they let anyon double-dip like that? Yeah, we all prefer getting something for nothing...but you want valuable services and for them to pay you money for the privilege of providing them? I totally agree that would be fantastic, but in this world even \""free\"" doesn't come cheap anymore. And getting back to costs:  Without consistent income the service would have nowhere to work and no resources to work with. No office, computer, phone, electricity, Internet, insurance, payroll, licensing, training, maintenance, security, lobbying, etc., etc., etc. Why do people always forget overhead? There's a reason these services operate the way they do. Even the best are working with fairly slim margins in a volatile sector. They're not into 1-year gambles unlikely to cover their cost of doing business, or having to pay for a negative return out of their own pocket. Look, if you're the Biblical master asking your servant to manage things, overhead is built-in. You're taking all the risk as well. You're paying for all three servants' food, home, clothing, etc, plus you had to buy the servants themselves. So its reasonable that you reap the reward of their labor. You paid for it, and you didn't even punish the servant who buried your money in a hole. The two good servants may have done the legwork, but you took on the burden of everything else. In your proposed service, however, contrary to the servant's usual role, the servant - i.e., the company - would be assuming a portion of your risk on top of their own, yet without any guarantee of profit, income, or even coverage of costs. They're also subject to regulations, fees, liability, legal stuff, etc. that you're not, against most of which you are indemnified and held harmless. If they agree to cover a share of your loss, it exposes to greater liability and more related risk. It robs them of resources they need to  invest in their own business, while at the same time forcing them to do all the work. As a result, your model doesn't give such a service a fighting chance. Getting it off the ground and lasting past the first-year payouts would require more luck than skill.  They'd be better off heading to Vegas and the blackjack table, where the only overhead is a cheap flight and room, where the odds and rules don't change overnight, and they at least get free drinks. If none of the equivalents satisfies, then the Biblical parable appears to describe your only option for obtaining exactly what you want: Move to a country where slavery is legal and buy an investor  :-) Cheers, c"""
"""How much is my position worth after 5-1 stock split?""","""The average price would be $125 which would be used to compute your basis. You paid $12,500 for the stock that is now worth $4,500 which is a loss of $8,000 overall if you sell at this point."""
"""If I short-sell a dividend-paying stock, do I have to pay the dividend?""","""The answer provide by @mbhunter is correct, however there are contexts, shorting in spot market and carrying the position over settlement usually does not entail payment of dividend to the broker, one of the reason being post ex-date the price of the share downward adjusts to the extent of the dividend, so practically if you have shorted at 100 and post ex-date (assuming a dividend of 2 and no movement of the stock price), the price would slide to 98, the party who longed the stock @ 100 now is sitting on a price of 98 and received a dividend of 2 which equates to 100. The above is also contextual to the law of the country governing the exchange and the security exchange board regulations."""
"""Are limit orders safe?""","""I assume you're talking about a sell order, not a buy order. When you place a limit sell order, your order is guaranteed to be placed at that price or higher.  If the market is currently trading much higher than the price of your sell order, then your mistakenly low limit order will be essentially a market order, and will be filled at  the current bid price. So the only way this is a problem is if you want to place a limit sell that is much higher than the current market, but mistakenly place a limit lower than the current market."""
"""Is it really possible to get rich in only a few years by investing?""","""Short answer: Not likely. Long answer: As a rule of thumb, over the long run if you are generating 20% compounded returns on your money consistently, you are doing very good.  Since in the average case your 10k would compound to $61.4k YoY, you are very unlikely to be rich in a decade starting with 10k."""
"""How can I legally and efficiently help my girlfriend build equity by helping with a mortgage?""","""I agree with everyone who has simply told you 'Dont' and 'You can't' and add a few more considerations that you don't want to deal with: What you want to do is admirable but very complicated from a financial and legal perspective.  If this is really a route that you want to go down you should give up on the 'simple' and consider hiring a lawyer."""
"""Tax considerations for outsourcing freelance work to foreign country""","""If you're paying a foreign person directly - you submit form 1042 and you withhold the default (30%) amount unless the person gives you a W8 with a valid treaty claim and tax id. If so - you withhold based on the treaty rate. From the IRS: General Rule In general, a person that makes a payment of U.S. source income to a   foreign person must withhold the proper amount of tax, report the   payment on Form 1042-S and file a Form 1042 by March 15 of the year   following the payment(s). I'd suggest to clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) who's familiar with this kind of issues, and not rely on free advice on the Internet or DIY. Specific cases require specific advice and while the general rule above holds in most cases - in some there are exceptions."""
"""A guy scammed me, but he gave me a bank account number & routing number. Can I use that to take out what he owes me?""","""You're potentially in very deep water here. You don't know who this person is that you're dealing with.  Before you'd even met him, he just gave you his banking info, seemingly without a second thought.   You have no idea what the sources of his money are, so what happens if the money is stolen or otherwise illegal?  If it is determined that you used any of that money, you'll be on the hook to return it, at the very least.  Who knows what the legal ramifications are either? So it sounds like you began spending his money before you had any kind of written agreement in place?  Doesn't that seem odd to you to have someone just so trusting as to not even ask for that? Was the source of the email about the $2500 from PayPal, or from him or his advisor?  PayPal always sends you a notice directly when funds are received into your account, and even if they were going to put a temporary hold on them for whatever reason (sometimes they do that), it would still show up in your account. I would HIGHLY (can I be more emphatic?) advise you not to go anywhere NEAR his bank account until or unless you can absolutely verify who he is, where his money comes from, and what the situation is. If you start dipping into his account, whether you think you're somehow entitled to the money or not, he could cry foul and have you arrested for theft. This is a very odd situation, and for someone who says he's normally cautious and skeptical, you sure let your guard down here when you started spending his money without making any serious effort to confirm his bona fides. Just because he passes himself off as smart and the \""doctor type\"" doesn't mean squat.  The very best scammers can do that (ever see the movie \""Catch Me If You Can\"", based on a true story?), so you have no basis for knowing he's anything at all. I am thoroughly confused as to why you'd just willfully start using his money without knowing anything about him.  That's deeply disconcerting, because you've opened yourself up to a world of potential criminal and civil liability if this situation goes south. If this guy was giving you money as an investment in your business and you instead used some of that money for your own personal expenses then you could land in very serious trouble for co-mingling of funds.  Even if he told you it was okay, it doesn't sound like there's anything in writing, so he could just as easily deny giving you permission to use the money that way and have you charged with embezzlement. You need to step back, take a deep breath, stop using his money, and contact a lawyer for advice.  Every attorney will give you a free consultation, and you need to protect yourself here. Be careful, my friend.  If this makes you suspicious then you need to listen to that voice in your head and find a way to get out of this situation."""
"""Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?""","""For two reasons: 1- People are entitled to deductions and credits that your employer cannot possibly know. Only you as an individual know about your personal situation and can therefore claim these deductions and credits by filing income tax returns. 2- Me telling you that you made $100,000 last year is not the same as telling you that you made $125,000 last year, but someone took $25,000 out of your pocket. Tax season is the one time of the year when citizens know exactly what chunk of their hard earned money was taken by the government, creating more collective awareness about taxation and giving politicians a harder time when they propose raising taxes."""
"""Is there a return-on-investment vs risk graph anywhere?""","""There may well be several such graphs, I expect googling will turn them up; but the definition of risk is actually quite important here. My definition of risk might not be quite the same as yours, so the relative risk factors would be different. For example: in general, stocks are more risky than bonds.  But owning common shares in a blue-chip company might well be less risky than owning bonds from a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and no single risk number can really capture that. Another example: while I can put all my money in short-term deposits, and it is pretty \""safe\"", if it grows at 1% so that my investment portfolio cannot fund my retirement, then I have a risk that I will run out of money before I shuffle off this mortal coil.  How to capture that \""risk\"" in a single number? So you will need to better define your parameters before you can prepare a visual aid. Good Luck"""
"""Why can't 401(k) statements be delivered electronically?""","""There are a lot of unintended consequences of fairly arbitrary IRS guidelines when it comes to 401Ks, they both close and create tons of loopholes and many companies are left to implement their own policy around these laws. Ultimately what you are left with are a lot of random things, interpreted differently by every single company in the country, that aren't directly codified by the IRS or Congress. If you have a choice regarding what brokerage firm manages your 401(k), then just call around. Be sure to ask the pencil pusher on the phone to double check because they might say \""OF COURSE you can get paperless statements it is 2015\"" but then when you sign up it becomes \""ooohhh sorry due to recent guidelines this kind of account isn't eligible for paperless statements\"""""
"""How should we prioritize retirement savings, paying down debt, and saving for a house?""","""Pay the debt down. Any kind of debt equals risk. No debt equals no risk and a better chance to have that money earn you income down the road once it's invested. That and you will sleep so much better knowing you have ZERO debt. You 6 month emergency fund is probably good. Remember to keep it at 6 months living expenses (restaurants don't count as living expenses)."""
"""Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?""","""It is not unheard of. Celebrity investors such as Warren Buffet and Carl Icahn gained notoriety by more than doubling investments some years, with a few very stellar trades and bets. Doubling, as in a 100% gain, is actually conservative if you want to play that game, as 500%, 1200% and greater gains are possible and were achieved by the two otherwise unrelated people I mentioned. This reality is opposite of the comparably pitiful returns that Warren Buffet teaches baby boomers about, but compounding on 2-5% gains annually is a more likely way to build wealth. It is unreasonable to say and expect that you will get the outcome of doubling an investment year over year."""
"""Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? ""","""There is a clear difference between investing and gambling.  When you invest, you are purchasing an asset that has value. It is purchased in the hopes that the asset will either increase in value or generate income. This definition holds true whether you are investing in shares of stock, in real estate, or in a comic book collection. You can also purchase debt: if you loan money, you own debt that will (hopefully) be repaid and generate income.  Gambling is playing a game for chance. When you gamble, you have not purchased an asset; you have only paid to participate in a game. Some games have a degree of skill (blackjack, poker), others are pure chance (slot machine). In most gambling games, the odds are against the player and in favor of the one running the game.  Lottery tickets, without a doubt, are gambling.  There is a good article on Investopedia that discusses the difference between investing and gambling in more detail.  One thing that this article discusses is the house edge, or the advantage that the people running a gambling game have over the players.  With most casino games, the house has an advantage of between 1 and 15% over the players.  With a typical lottery, the house edge is 50%. To address some of the points made by the OP's recent edit and in the comments: I do not think the definitions of investment and gambling need to be dependent on expected value.  There can be bad investments, where the odds of a good result are low.  Similarly, there could be gambling games where the odds are in the player's favor, either due to the skill of the player or through some quirk of the game; it's still gambling. Investing is purchasing an asset; gambling is a game of chance. I do not consider a lottery ticket an asset.  When you buy a lottery ticket, you are just paying a fee to participate in a game.  It is the same as putting a coin in a slot machine.  The fact that you are given a piece of paper and made to wait a few days for the result do not change this. Assets have inherent value.  They might be valuable because of their ability to generate income (stocks, bonds, debt), their utility (precious metals, commodities, real estate), or their desirability as a thing of beauty (collectibles), for example.  A lottery ticket, however, is only an element of a game.  It has no value other than in the game."""
"""Is there an advantage to keeping a liquid emergency fund if one also has an untapped line of credit?""","""Let me offer what I did in a similar situation - Two points (a) we were banking $20K\/yr or so to the cash fund, 2 good incomes, and the ability to go indefinitely on just one of the 2. (b) A HELOC that was prime-1.5%.   The result was to mentally treat the HELOC as our emergency fund, but to enjoy the interest savings of over $16,500\/yr for the $100K that had a sub-1% return.  When I first referenced this story, I came under criticism. Fair enough, it's not for everyone. Let's jump ahead. We owe $228K @3.5%. We had tapped the equity line for brief periods, but never over $20,000. When we lost our jobs, both of us, we had hit our number and are semi-retired now. Our retirement budget included the current mortgage payment, so we are in line for that dropping out of the budget in 12 years, and starting social security after that, which I did not include as part of the budget.  Note - when we lost our jobs, the severance was 6 month's pay, and we collected unemployment as well. The first 12 months were covered without tapping our retirement funds at all. So, to Nick's point (and excellent answer) our first line of defense against unemployment was this combination of severance and unemployment insurance."""
"""What is the \""point\"" (purpose) of the S&P 500?""","""I hate to point to Wikipedia as an answer, but it does describe exactly what you are looking for... The S&P 500 is a free-float   capitalization-weighted index   published since 1957 of the prices of   500 large-cap common stocks actively   traded in the United States. The   stocks included in the S&P 500 are   those of large publicly held companies   that trade on either of the two   largest American stock market   exchanges; the New York Stock Exchange   and the NASDAQ. The components of the S&P 500 are   selected by committee... The committee   selects the companies in the S&P 500   so they are representative of the   industries in the United States   economy. In addition, companies that   do not trade publicly (such as those   that are privately or mutually held)   and stocks that do not have sufficient   liquidity are not in the index. The S&P is a capitalization weighted index.  If a stock price goes up, then it comprises more of the total index.  If a stock goes down, it comprises less, and if it goes down too much, the committee will likely replace it. So to answer your question, if one stock were to suddenly skyrocket, nothing would happen beyond the fact that the index was now worth more and that particular stock would now make up a larger percentage of the S&P 500 index."""
"""What evidence exists for claiming that you cannot beat the market?""","""common sentiment that no investor can consistently beat the market on returns.  I guess its more like very few investor can beat the market, a vast Majority cannot \/ do not. What evidence exists for or against this? Obviously we can have a comparison of all investors. If we start taking a look at some of the Actively Managed Funds. Given that Fund Managers are experts compared to common individual investors, if we compare this, we can potentially extend it more generically to others. Most funds beat the markets for few years, as you keep increasing the timeline, i.e. try seeing 10 year 15 year 20 year return; this is easy the data is available, you would realize that no fund consistently beat the index. Few years quite good, few years quite bad. On Average most funds were below market returns especially if one compares on longer terms or 10 - 20 years. Hence the perception Of course we all know Warren Buffet has beat the market by leaps and bounds. After the initial success, people like Warren Buffet develop the power of \""Self Fulfilling Prophecy\"". There would be many other individuals."""
"""Live in California but work for Illinois-based company""","""They might be concerned with having to charge sales tax in California if they have a single employee in California, creating a nexus situation with CA. If that's the case, or even if there is some other issue, you might be able to switch from being a W2 employee to being a 1099 independent contractor. There's a host of additional issues this could cause, but it alleviate the nexus problem (if THAT is the problem). Here's a terrible solution you can bring up, but shouldn't do under any circumstances: offer to set up a mailing address in an allowed State, and give your company plausible deniability with regards to your legal residence. Obviously, this is a terrible idea, but exploring that option with your employer would help you suss out what the actual objection is. Ultimately, anything said here about the reason is just conjecture. You need to talk to the decision maker(s) about the real reason behind the denial. Then you can talk through solutions. Also - don't forget that you can get another job. If you are serious about a future with your girlfriend, you should put that relationship ahead of your current employment comfort and security. If you are willing to walk away from your position, you are in a much better situation to negotiate."""
"""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."""
"""Resources on how to be a short term trader?""","""I commend you for your desire to be a smart and engaged investor. Regarding the other comments, yes the market is unpredictable and dangerous, but such is everything that leads to profit.  I am currently reading, \""Advanced Options Pricing Models\"" (Katz and McCormick) - mighy be at your local library. The book is helpful because in explaining the options market, it covers basic stock methodologies and then builds on them as it pursues a quant's math\/computation based view of the market. The book is highly math oriented and discusses authors' custom design scripts\/alogrithms to analyze market behavior. See similar post about technical analysis (since it often directs short term trading decisisions)."""
"""How to do a direct cash flow statement given a stock ticker""","""For US equities, Edgar Online is where companies post their government filings to the SEC. On Google Finance, you would look at the \""SEC filings\"" link on the page, and then find their 10K and 10Q documents, where that information is listed and already calculated. Many companies also have these same documents posted on their Investor Relations web pages."""
"""What effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock?""","""Your autograph analogy seems relevant to me. But it is not just speculation. In the long run, investing in stocks is like investing in the economy. In the long run, the economy is expected to grow , hence stock prices are expected to go up. Now in theory: the price of any financial instrument is equal to the net present value today of all the future cash flows from the instrument. So if company's earnings improve, shareholders hope that the earnings will trickle down to them either in form of dividends or in form of capital gain. So they buy the stock, creating demand for it. I can try to explain more if this did not make any sense. :)"""
"""Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates?""","""Different bonds (and securitized mortgages are bonds) that have similar average lives tend to have similar yields (or at least trade at predictable yield spreads from one another). So, why does a 30 year mortgage not trade in lock-step with 30-year Treasuries? First a little introduction: Mortgages are pooled together into bundles and securitized by the Federal Agencies: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. Investors make assumptions about the prepayments expected for the mortgages in those pools. As explained below: those assumptions show that mortgages tend to have an average life similar to 10-year Treasury Notes.  100% PSA, a so-called average rate of prepayment, means that the prepayment increases linearly from 0% to 6% over the first 30 months of the mortgage. After the first 30 months, mortgages are assumed to prepay at 6% per year. This assumption comes from the fact that people are relatively unlikely to prepay their mortgage in the first 2 1\/2 years of the mortgage's life. See the graph below.  The faster the repayments the shorter the average life of the mortgage. With 150% PSA a mortgage has an average life of nine years. On average your investment will be returned within 9 years. Some of it will be returned earlier, and some of it later. This return of interest and principal is shown in the graph below:  The typical investor in a mortgage receives 100% of this investment back within approximately 10 years, therefore mortgages trade in step with 10 year Treasury Notes. Average life is defined here: The length of time the principal of a debt issue is expected to be   outstanding. Average life is an average period before a debt is repaid   through amortization or sinking fund payments. To calculate the   average life, multiply the date of each payment (expressed as a   fraction of years or months) by the percentage of total principal that   has been paid by that date, summing the results and dividing by the   total issue size."""
"""Possible to use balance transfers to avoid interest with major credit cards?""","""Sure of course you can do balance transfers like this but you are way late to the party and it has gotten to be pretty challenging finding new cards to transfer balances to. Before the current financial crisis in the US you could get enormous amounts of credit (2-5 times a person's annual income) and transfer balances to your bank account to collect interest . There were a bunch of ways to the transfer everything from direct deposit to your bank account to a balance transfer check payable to yourself to overpaying another credit card and requesting a refund. Over paying another account sets off a lot of red flags now days but other methods still work. The financial atmosphere has changed a lot and there are very few available cards with no balance transfer fees or capped fees and the interest rates are a lot lower now so it really isn't worth doing."""
"""Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental""","""You are assuming 100% occupancy and 100% rent collection.  This is unrealistic.  You could get lucky and find that long term tenant with great credit that always pays their bills... but in reality that person usually buys a home they do not rent long term.  So you will need to be prepared for periods of no renters and periods of non payment.  The expenses here I would expect could wipe out more than you can make in \""profit\"" based on your numbers. Have you checked to find out what the insurance on a rental property is?  I am guessing it will go up probably 200-500 a year possibly more depending on coverage.  You will need a different type of insurance for rental property. Have you checked with your mortgage provider to make sure that you can convert to a rental property?   Some mortgages (mine is one) restrict the use of the home from being a rental property.  You may be required to refinance your home which could cost you more, in addition if you are under water it will be hard to find a new financier willing to write that mortgage with anything like reasonable terms. You are correct you would be taking on a new expense in rental.  It is non deductible, and the IRS knows this well.   As Littleadv's answer stated you can deduct some expenses from your rental property. I am not sure that you will have a net wash or loss when you add those expenses.  If you do then you have a problem since you have a business losing money.  This does not even address the headaches that come with being a landlord. By my quick calculations if you want to break even your rental property should be about 2175\/Month. This accounts for 80% occupancy and 80% rental payment.  If you get better than that you should make a bit of a profit... dont worry im sure the house will find a way to reclaim it."""
"""Assessed value of my house""","""You said the tax assessor gave you an appraised value, but I think you mean assessed value. This article YOUR HOME; Market vs. Appraisal: What's the Real Value? explains the differences pretty well."""
"""Does the uptick rule apply to all stocks\/ETFs and other securities, or only specific ones?""","""The uptick rule is gone, but it was weakly reintroduced in 2010, applied to all publicly traded equities: Under the terms of the rule, a circuit breaker would be triggered if a stock falls by 10% or more in a single day. At that point, short selling would only be allowed if the price is above the current national best bid, a restriction that would apply for the rest of the day and the whole of the following day. Derivatives are not yet restricted in such ways because of their spontaneous nature, requiring a short to increase supply; however, this latest rule widens options spreads during collapses because the exemption for hedging is now gone, and what's more a tool used by options market makers, shorting the underlying to offset positive delta, now has to go to the back of the selling line during a panic. Bonds are not restricted because for one there isn't much interest in shorting because bonds usually don't have enough variance to exceed the cost of borrowing, and many do not trade frequently enough because even the cost to trade bonds is expensive, so arranging a short in its entirety will be expensive.  The preferred method to short a bond is with swaps, swaptions, etc."""
"""Dry cleaners lost $160 pants, what should I do?""","""Dude, it's your lucky day!  You just won the lottery!! Do like this guy and sue them for $67 million :-) Pearson v. Chung, better known as the \""pants lawsuit\"",1 is a civil   case filed in 2005 by Roy L. Pearson, Jr., an administrative law judge   in the District of Columbia in the United States, following a dispute   with a dry cleaning company over a lost pair of trousers.  Pearson   filed suit against Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung, the   owners of Custom Cleaners in Washington, D.C., initially demanding $67   million for inconvenience, mental anguish and attorney's fees for   representing himself, as a result of their failure, in Pearson's   opinion, to live up to a \""satisfaction guaranteed\"" sign that was   displayed in the store.  The case drew international attention[2][3]   when it went to trial in 2007 and has been held up as an example of   frivolous litigation and the need for tort reform in the United   States. The entire story dragged on for years, with many appeals, and makes fascinating reading."""
"""How to get a down payment for your next home?  Use current home as the down payment on the new one?""","""What you're looking at is something called \""Bridge-Financing\"".  Essentially, it allows you to borrow your down-payment from the bank, using your old home as collateral.  The interest rate varies, but if you get the bridge from the same institution as your new mortgage, they will often be a bit flexible.   You take possession of the new home, and begin mortgage payments on it normally.  When the old home is sold, the bridge is paid off.   Note that the deposit on signing for the new house will still have to be cash.  All bets are off if you are talking about a NEW new home, as builders usually require advance payments during the build."""
"""How to pay bills for one month while waiting for new job?""","""This is just a partial answer, but I believe the following observations are relevant:"""
"""Debit cards as bad as credit cards?""","""If your goal is to make it harder for you to use to make impulse purchases then YES.  Having to always have cash for purchases will make you less likely to make impulse purchases you don't really need."""
"""If I have $1000 to invest in penny stocks online, should I diversify risk and invest in many of them or should I invest in just in one?""","""These stocks have no value to them, are just waiting for paper work to liquefy and vanish. The other gamblers are bots waiting for some sucker to buy so they can sell right away. So maybe a fresh new penny stock that hasn't been botted yet gives some higher chance of success, but you probably need to be a bot to sell it quickly enough. All in all not that much different from buying regular stocks..."""
"""Are PINs always needed for paying with card?""","""Like email and spam, fighting creditcard fraud is a cat and mouse game, with technology and processes constantly being developed to reduce fraud. The CVV on the back of the card is just one more layer of security.  Requiring the CVV generally requires you to physically have access to the card. CVV should not be stored by any merchant. This frustrates card skimming fraud as the CVV is not present in the track data and fraud caused by database compromises.  You should never use your PIN online. MC\/VISA both have implementations of 3D-Secure (SecureCode for MC and Verified by VISA) which require a password \/ code to confirm card ownership. Depends on both Issuer and Merchant implementing the standard.  Regarding not needing a PIN at the airport, some low value transactions no longer need PINs, depending on the Issuer and Scheme (VISA\/MC). MasterCard PayPass or VISA PayWave enable low value contactless transactions without PIN. In Australia, the maximum value for a contactless transactions is $100 AUD. At some merchants (McDonalds for example) a PIN is not required for for meals purchased with VISA (at least, for the cheeseburger I bought there as a test). This makes sense - if you don't need a PIN for a contactless purchase, why do you need it for a chip based purchase?  So - why allow PIN free transactions? On average customers report stolen credit cards \/ wallet very quickly and the losses are correspondingly small. As card issuers are always online, cards can be cancelled very quickly after being reported lost \/ stolen. Finally, by performing transactions for just a few cents or pennies, the merchant (Spotify) can likely validate you are the owner of the card as you'd need access to your online bank to confirm the transactions.  PayPal do this with bank account to confirm ownership. (Unless I've misunderstood your statement)."""
"""Is this follow-up after a car crash a potential scam?""","""You have to realize that you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.  You want to do things \""unofficially\"" by not reporting the accident (to insurance companies and\/or police), but you want to do it \""officially\"" in that you want to have legal recourse if they try to hit you up for more money.  The only way to have it both ways is to trust the other person. From a financial perspective, ultimately you need to decide if the monetary cost of your raised insurance premiums, etc., outweighs the cost of whatever money the other party in the accident will try to squeeze out of you (factoring in the likelihood that they will do so).  You also would need to factor in the likelihood that, rather than trying to scam you, they'll pursue legal action against you. In short, from a purely monetary perspective, if the legitimate cost of repairs is $700 and the cost to you of doing it by the book via insurance is $2000, you should be willing to be scammed for up to $1300, because you'll still come out ahead.  Of course, there are psychological considerations, like whether someone unscrupulous enough to scam you will stop at $1300.  But those numbers are the baseline for whatever outcome calculations you want to do. On the more qualitative side of things, it is possible they're trying to scam you, but also possible they're just trying to hustle you into doing everything quickly without thinking about it.  They may not be trying to gouge you monetarily, they just want to pressure you so they get their money.  I agree with other answerers here that the ideal way would be for them to send you an actual bill after repairs are complete.  However, you could ask them to send you a written copy of the repair shop estimate, along with a written letter in which they state that they will consider payment of that amount to resolve the issue and won't pursue you further.  The legal strength of that is dubious, but at least you have some documentation that you didn't just try to stiff them.  If they won't give you some form of written documentation, I would read that as a red flag, bite the bullet, and contact your insurance company."""
"""Upward Spike in US Treasuries despite S&P Downgrade in August 2011""","""US government bonds are where money goes when the markets are turbulent and investors are fleeing from risk, and that applies even if the risk is a downgrade of the US credit rating, because there's simply nowhere else to put your money if you're in search of safety. Most AAA-rated governments have good credit ratings because they don't borrow much money (and most of them also have fairly small economies compared with the US), meaning that there's poor liquidity in their scarce bonds."""
"""Proper etiquette for loans from friends ""","""The standard approach is to reach an agreement and put it in writing. What you agree upon is up to you, but in the US if you want to avoid gift taxes larger loans need to be properly documented and must charge at least a certain minimal interest rate. (Or at least you must declare and be taxed upon that minimal income even if you don't actually charge it. Last I looked, the federal requirement was somewhere under 0.3%, so this isn't usually an issue. There may also be state rules.) When doing business with friends, treat it as business first, friendship second. Otherwise you risk losing both money and friendship. Regarding what rate to charge: That is something you two have to negotiate, based on how much the borrower needs the money, how much lending the money puts the lender at risk, how generous each is feeling, etc. Sorry, but there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. What I charge (or insist on paying to) my brother might be different from what I charge my cousin, or a co-worker, or best friend, or... If both parties think it's fair, it's fair. If you can't reach an agreement, of course, the loan doesn't happen."""
"""Estimate a future option price given greeks and a 1$ move in underlying""","""It's not that straightforward, even though your gamma will change your delta on the fly, you likely won't see the full $.48 after such a small move.   If the vega drops due to lack of volatility while the stock is moving up, those few percentage points up might help your delta (2% gain $50 to $51 in your example) but will be partially negated by volatility going down. I mean, don't be surprised to see it at closer to $1.33 or something.  The market is out to make money, not to make you money."""
"""What are overnight fees? [duplicate]""","""From the etoro website: In the financial trading industry, rollover is the interest paid or earned for holding currency overnight. Each currency has an interest rate associated with it, and because currencies are traded in pairs, every trade involves two different interest rates. If the interest rate on the currency you bought is lower than the interest rate on the currency you sold, then you will pay rollover fees. If the interest rate on the currency you bought is higher than the interest rate of the currency\/commodity you sold, then you will earn rollover fees. http:\/\/www.etoro.com\/blog\/product-updates\/05062014\/important-upcoming-change-fee-structure\/"""
"""File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options?""","""Tough spot. I'm guessing the credit cards are a personal line of credit in their name and not the company's (the fact that the business can be liquidated separately from your parents means they did at least set up an LLC or similar business entity). Using personal debt to save a company that could have just been dissolved at little cost to their personal credit and finances was, indeed, a very bad move. The best possible end to this scenario for you and your parents would be if your parents could get the debt transferred to the LLC before dissolving it. At this point, with the company in such a long-standing negative situation, I would doubt that any creditor would give the business a loan (which was probably why your parents threw their own good money after bad with personal CCs). They might, in the right circumstances, be able to convince a judge to effectively transfer the debt to the corporate entity before liquidating it. That puts the debt where it should have been in the first place, and the CC companies will have to get in line. That means, in turn, that the card issuers will fight any such motion or decision tooth and nail, as long as there's any other option that gives them more hope of recovering their money. Your parents' only prayer for this to happen is if the CCs were used for the sole purpose of business expenses. If they were living off the CCs as well as using them to pay business debts, a judge, best-case, would only relieve the debts directly related to keeping the business afloat, and they'd be on the hook for what they had been living on. Bankruptcy is definitely an option. They will \""re-affirm\"" their commitment to paying the mortgage and any other debts they can, and under a Chapter 13 the judge will then remand negotiations over what total portion of each card's balance is paid, over what time, and at what rate, to a mediator. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is the less damaging form to your parent's credit; they are at least attempting to make good on the debt.  A Chapter 7 would wipe it away completely, but your parents would have to prove that they cannot pay the debt, by any means, and have no hope of ever paying the debt by any means. If they have any retirement savings, anything in their name for grandchildren's college funds, etc, the judge and CC issuers will point to it like a bird dog. Apart from that, their house is safe due to Florida's \""homestead\"" laws, but furniture, appliances, clothing, jewelry, cars and other vehicles, pretty much anything of value that your parents cannot defend as being necessary for life, health, or the performance of whatever jobs they end up taking to dig themselves out of this, are all subject to seizure and auction. They may end up just selling the house anyway because it's too big for what they have left (or will ever have again). I do not, under any circumstance, recommend you putting your own finances at risk in this. You may gift money to help, or provide them a place to live while they get back on their feet, but do not \""give till it hurts\"" for this. It sounds heartless, but if you remove your safety net to save your parents, then what happens if you need it? Your parents aren't going to be able to bail you out, and as a contractor, if you're effectively \""doing business as\"" Reverend Gonzo Contracting, you don't have the debt shield your parents had. It looks like housing's faltering again due to the news that the Fed's going to start backing off; you could need that money to weather a \""double-dip\"" in the housing sector over the next few months, and you may need it soon."""
"""How to avoid getting back into debt?""","""Depending on how marketable your degree is, in the long run you may be better aquiring some student debt rather than slowing down your studies. For example finishing finance, medicine, or engineering a year later would mean one less year of your life that you are earning substantial income.  The only situation where slowing down your studies is of benefit is if your savings plus interest would be greater than the income you are giving up by taking longer. Live frugally, take whatever work you can without hurting your studies, don't stress if you can't get this to balance perfectly. I speak from experience on this.  Screwing around with working through school cost me 2.5 years of earning potential ($120,000+)."""
"""Why are currency forwards needed?""","""Can't I achieve the exact same effect and outcome by exchanging currency now and put that amount of USD in a bank account to gain some interest, then make the payment from one year from now? Sure, assuming that the company has the money now.  More commonly they don't have that cash now, but will earn it over the time period (presumably in Euros) and will make the large payment at some point in time.  Using a forward protects them from fluctuations in the exchange rate between now and then; otherwise they'd have to stow away USD over the year (which still exposes them to exchange rate fluctuations)."""
"""Strategies to recover from a bad short-term call options purchase where the underlying dropped instead?""","""The nature of options requires you to understand that they are essentially a bet. In one sense, so is investing in stocks. We imagine a bell curve (first mistake) with a median return at 10%\/yr and a standard deviation of about 14%. Then we say that odds are that over some period of time a monte-carlo simulation can give us the picture of the likely returns.  Now, when you buy short term options, say one month or so, you are hoping the outcome is a rise in price that will yield some pretty high return, right?  There was a time I noticed a particular stock would move a large percent based on earnings. And earnings were a day before options expiration. So I'd buy the call that was just out of the money and if the surprise was up, I'd make 3-4X my money. But I was always prepared to lose it all and often did. I never called this investing.  I know of no recovery strategy. Sorry."""
"""How to minimise the risk of a reduction in purchase power in case of Brexit for money held in a bank account?""","""The mathematical answer is for you to have a diversified portfolio in your ISA.  But that's easier said than done."""
"""How can I estimate the value of private stock behind employee stock options?""","""It is difficult to value a private company. Most of the valuations is based on how one feels the idea would translate into revenue in some future time. The VC firms take into account various factors to determine the price, but more often then not, its their hunch. Even VC don't make money on all picks, very few picks turn out to be stars, most picks lose money they have invested. Few picks just return their money. So if you feel that the idea\/product\/brand\/people are great and would someday make good money, invest into it. Else stay away."""
"""I have about 20 000 usd. How can invest them to do good in the world?""","""One of the best things you can do for this purpose, while getting a modest ROI on a passive investment, is invest in a company that profitably does whatever you want to see more of. For example, you could invest in a for-profit company that sells needed goods to low-income people at lower prices.  Something like Wal-Mart, which is one of the most effective anti-poverty engines in the US.  You might also say the same of something like Aldi (owner of Aldi stores and Trader Joe's), which is a discount store chain.  This is true even though a company like Wal-Mart is seeking to make money first.  Its customer base tends to skew heavily towards low-income consumers, and historically to rural and elderly consumers.  When Wal-Mart is able to provide food, clothing, appliances and the like to poor people at a lower cost, it is making it marginally less painful to have a low income. Peter Suderman can explain why Wal-Mart is a humanitarian enterprise: Walmart\u2019s customer base is heavily concentrated in the bottom income quintile, which spends heavily on food. The bottom income quintile spends about 25 percent of income on food compared to just 3.5 percent for the top quintile. So the benefits of Walmart\u2019s substantially lower prices to the lowest earning cohort are huge, especially on food. As Suderman points out, this view of Wal-Mart dramatically lowering prices that low-income people pay for food was corroborated by an Obama adviser. That's just one company.  You can pick the industry and company that best suits your personal preferences. Alternatively, you could invest in something like Whole Foods, a company with multiple missions to improve the planet and the community, in addition to the more typical mission of being a prosperous retail chain. Of course, as a general proposition, a less than entirely altruistic, charity-inclined investment doesn't need to be targeted at those with low incomes or at saving the planet.  You could invest in almost anything you think is good (yachts, yo-yos, violins, energy production, industrial inputs, music performances) and the company will take care of making more of that good thing.  You didn't say whether your goal was to help the poor, the planet, arts, sciences, knowledge, community, or whatever. What I understand you to be saying is you are willing to accept a lower ROI in exchange for some warm-fuzzies from your investment.  That seems perfectly valid and reasonable to me, but it makes it much more subjective and particular to your tastes.  So you'll need to pick something that's meaningful to you.  If you're going to trade ROI for positive feelings, then you should pick whatever gives you your optimal blend of emotions and returns. Alternatively, you could invest in something stable and predictable to beat inflation (some sort of index or fund) and then annually use some portion of those profits to simply give to the charity of your choice.  Your investment and your charity do not necessarily need to be the same vehicle."""
"""Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity?""","""All the other answers here are correct, but I'll add one more perspective. I am a business architect at one of the world's largest retail banks. Every day I experience the frustration of trying to get large-scale corporate IT to do anything, so I feel that your question is just one facet of the wider question: \""why are banks so old and busted?\"" While it's true that the cost of online, redundant, performant, secure data storage is significantly higher than you anticipate in the question, it should still be well within the capacity of a large enterprise. The true cost is the cost of change. Nothing at a bank is a green field development. Everything is a bolt-on to existing systems. Any change brings the risk that existing functionality will be affected, therefore vast schemes of regression testing (largely manually executed) spring up around even the most trivial developments. Costs scale exponentially with the number of platforms affected (often utterly distinct, decades-old, incompatible platforms that have arisen out of historical mergers and acquisitions). Only statutory, revenue-generating and critical maintenance change is approved. Any form of cost-cutting that increases risk is quickly extinguished. This is because when things go wrong, IT get blamed by their business colleagues. This is because the business colleagues in turn get blamed by the regulators, the media, the customers, and the public at large. Who doesn't cuss their bank when the ATM is unavailable? The bank's IT organization develops a kind of management sclerosis, risk averse in the extreme. Banks can't ship a beta version and patch it later. This ultra-low-innovation approach is a direct result of market and regulatory forces. If you were happy with a bank account that played fast and loose with your money the way Facebook plays with your data, then banking would be much cheaper, much more innovative, and much riskier. To get back to your specific question, some banks actually do offer a much longer back catalog of transactions for download (usually only a few key fields of each transaction though), and the ones that don't most likely don't see it as a revenue generating selling point, and it therefore falls above their innovation appetite."""
"""Shorting Stocks And Margin Account Minimum""","""The margin money you put up to fund a short position ($6000 in the example given) is simply a \""good faith\"" deposit that is required by the broker in order to show that you are acting in good faith and fully intend to meet any potential losses that may occur.  This margin is normally called initial margin.  It is not an accounting item, meaning it is not debited from you cash account.  Rather, the broker simply segregates these funds so that you may not use them to fund other trading.  When you settle your position these funds are released from segregation.   In addition, there is a second type of margin, called variation margin, which must be maintained while holding a short position.  The variation margin is simply the running profit or loss being incurred on the short position.  In you example, if you sold 200 shares at $20 and the price went to $21, then your variation margin would be a debit of $200, while if the price went to $19, the variation margin would be a credit of $200.   The variation margin will be netted with the initial margin to give the total margin requirement ($6000 in this example).  Margin requirements are computed at the close of business on each trading day.  If you are showing a loss of $200 on the variation margin, then you will be required to put up an additional $200 of margin money in order to maintain the $6000 margin requirement - ($6000 - $200 = $5800, so you must add $200 to maintain $6000).  If you are showing a profit of $200, then $200 will be released from segregation - ($6000 + $200 = $6200, so $200 will be release from segregation leaving $6000 as required). When you settle your short position by buying back the shares, the margin monies will be release from segregation and the ledger postings to you cash account will be made according to whether you have made a profit or a loss.  So if you made a loss of $200 on the trade, then your account will be debited for $200 plus any applicable commissions.  If you made a profit of $200 on the trade then your account will be credited with $200 and debited with any applicable commissions."""
"""Is it normal for brokers to ask whether I am a beginner?""","""In Canada, for example, they are expected or required to find out. They call it, The \""Know Your Client\"" rule, part of which is knowing your \""Investment knowledge and experience\"". They say it is, \""to ensure their advice is suitable for you\"". I have always been given that kind of form to fill in, when opening an account."""
"""Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage?""","""I'd talk to a solicitor and see if you can structure the purchase in a way that breaks the property into three pieces. One would be the freehold of the whole building, one would be a long lease on the downstairs part (on which you would get a residential mortgage) and one would be a long lease on the upstairs flat (on which you would get a buy-to-let mortgage). Since there's essentially no price premium for freehold as opposed to long lease, you should be able to raise enough money from the two mortgages to fund the purchase."""
"""Is this mortgage advice good, or is it hooey?""","""Jack \""The Mortgage Professor\"" Guttentag provides a thorough analysis of a similar-sounding system: In addition, I had the feeling that customers of Mortgage Relief should have gotten a spreadsheet for their $45, and wondered why they hadn\u2019t? So I set out to develop a spreadsheet of my own that could quantify the benefits \u2013 if there were any. The major question I wanted the spreadsheet to answer was, how large is the benefit of using the Mortgage Relief scheme if you don\u2019t have any surplus income but only just enough to make the scheduled payment? This is the critical question because we know that if you use surplus income to make extra payments to principal, you pay down the mortgage more quickly. This is so whether you apply the income directly to the mortgage, as most borrowers do, or whether you follow the Mortgage Relief procedure where you use a credit line to pay down the mortgage and current income to pay down the credit line. I spent much of my air time between Philadelphia and San Francisco on this project, and finally gave it up. Once I removed surplus income from the equation, I could not find a way to make the Mortgage Relief scheme work. You may also want to read related articles by Guttentag:"""
"""My employer is switching 401k plan providers. How might this work in practice?""","""A few years ago our company switched from Fidelity to a different 401k provider. During the blackout transition, nearly every employee lost a considerable amount of money. The \""Trustee\"" advised us that during the blackout he had a right to invest the funds and that the investments lost money."""
"""Should I pay off my 50K of student loans as quickly as possible, or steadily? Why?""","""Here's my take on it (and quite a few people might disagree) - student loans aren't bankruptable, so they'll stay with you forever. So if you want to reduce your risk over time and have a funded emergency fund and some cash put aside for, say, a car or another major expense, then I'd try to throw money at the student loan to get rid of it quickly."""
"""Can a F-1 student visa holder loan a car from bmw?""","""Most states do have a cooling-off period where the buyer can rescind the purchase as well as a legally allowed limit to how long the dealer has to secure financing when they buyer has opted for dealer-financing. If the dealer did inform you during the allowed window, they will refund your down payment minus mileage fees at a state set cost per mile that you used the car. If the dealer did not inform you during the allowed window, depending on the state, they may have to refund the entire down payment. In any case, the problem is that the bank does not want to offer you the loan, you can try to negotiate and have the dealer use what leverage they have to coerce the bank, but there is probably no way for you to force the loan through. Alternatively you can seek your own financing from your own bank or credit union, which will likely allow the sale to go through. UPDATE - Colorado laws allow the dealer 10 days to inform you that they cannot obtain financing on the terms agreed upon in the original contract. That contract contained wording related to the mileage fees. You can find that info on page 8 of the linked PDF under the heading D. USAGE FEE AND MILEAGE CHARGE"""
"""Do Americans really use checks that often?""","""When you start at a new job here in the U.S., the default means of payment is usually a paper check. Most folks will quickly set up direct deposit so that their employer deposits their paycheck directly into their personal bank account - the incentive to do so is that you receive your funds faster than if you deposit a paper check.  Even if you set up direct deposit on your first day on the job, you may still receive your first paycheck as a paper check simply because the wheels of payroll processing turn slowly at some (large) companies. A counter example is a self-employed contractor - perhaps a carpenter or house painter.  These folks are paid by their customers, homeowners and such.  Many larger, well established contracters now accept credit card payments from customers, but smaller independents may be reluctant to set up a credit card merchant account to accept payment by card because of all the fees that are associated with accepting credit card payments.  3% transaction fees and monthly service fees can be scary to any businessman who already has very thin profit margins.  In such cases, these contractors prefer to be paid by check or in cash for the simple reason that there are no fees deducted from cash payments. There are a few folks here who don't trust direct deposit, or more specifically, don't trust their employer to perform the deposit correctly and on time.  Some feel uncomfortable giving their bank info to their employer, fearing someone at the company could steal money from their account. In my experience, the folks who prefer a paper paycheck are often the same folks who rush to the bank on payday to redeem their paychecks for cash.  They may have a bank account (helps with check cashing) but they prefer to carry cash. I operate in a manner similar to you - I use a debit card or credit card (I only have one of each) for nearly all transactions in daily life, I use electronic payments through my bank to pay my regular bills and mortgage, and I receive my paycheck by direct deposit.  There have been periods where I haven't written or received paper checks for so long that I have to hunt for where I put my checkbook! Even though I use a debit card for most store purchases, the bank account behind that debit card is actually a checking account according to the bank.  Again, the system defaults to paper checks and you have the option of going electronic as well. Before we judge anyone who doesn't use direct deposit or who prefers to be paid in cold hard cash, consider that direct deposit is a luxury of stability. Steady job, home, etc.  Direct deposit doesn't make sense for a contractor or day laborer who expect to work for a different person each day or week. I don't think this is all that unique to the US.  There are people in every city and country who don't have long-term employment with a single employer and therefore prefer cash or paper check over electronic payments.   I'd be willing to bet that this applies to the majority of people on the planet, actually."""
"""First 401K portfolio with high expense ratios - which funds to pick? (24yo)""","""If you're willing to do a little more work and bookkeeping than just putting money into the 401(k) I would recommend the following. I note that you said you chose some funds based on performance since the expense ratios are all high. I would recommend against chasing performance because active funds will almost always falter; honor the old saw:  \""past performance is no guarantee of future returns\"". Assuming the cash in your Ally account is an emergency fund, I would use it to pay off your credit card debt to avoid the interest payments. Use free cash flow in the coming months to bring the emergency fund balance back up to an acceptable level. If the Ally account is not an emergency fund, I would make it one! With no debt and an emergency fund for 3-12 months of living expenses (pick your risk tolerance), then you can concentrate on investing. Your 401(k) options are unfortunately pretty poor. With those choices I would invest this way: Once you fill up your choice of IRA, then you have the tougher decision of where to put any extra money you have to invest (if any). A brokerage account gives you the freedom of investment choices and the ability to easily pull out money in the case of a dire emergency. The 401(k) will give you tax benefits, but high fund expenses. The tax benefits are considerable, so if I were at a job where I plan on moving on in a few years, I'd fund the 401(k) up to the max with the knowledge that I'd roll the 401(k) into a rollover IRA in the (relatively) short term. If I saw myself staying at the employer for a long time (5+ years), I'd probably take the taxable account route since those high fund fees will add up over time. One you start building up a solid base, then I might look into having a small allocation in one of my accounts for \""play money\"" to pick individual stocks, or start making sector bets."""
"""Investment for beginners in the United Kingdom""","""Most investors should not be in individual stocks. The market, however you measure it, can rise, yet some stocks will fall for whatever reason. The diversification needed is to have a number of shares of different stocks, and that a bit higher than most investors are able to invest and certainly not one starting out. I suggest you look at either mutual funds or ETFs, and keep studying. (I'm told I should have offered the UK equivalent Investment Trusts , OEIC, or Unit Trusts)"""
"""What is \""beta\"" for an investment or a portfolio, and how do I use it?""","""Beta is an indication of a Stock's risk with respect to the market.  For instance if a stock had a beta of 1 it means it is in tandem with the S&P 500. If it is more than 1, the stock is volatile.  If it is less than 1, it implies market movement doesn't affect this stock much. Tech stocks and small cap stocks have high beta, utilities have low beta. (In general, not always). Hope this helps - I've tried to explain it in very simple terms!"""
"""Tools for comparing costs between different healthcare providers?""","""When I had a high-deductible healthcare plan, I used http:\/\/www.ehealthinsurance.com\/ to do comparisons among the plans.  As far as comparing the costs of specific procedures across providers, I'm not aware of any good ways either."""
"""Should I overpay to end a fixed-rate mortgage early? [duplicate]""","""I would strongly encourage you to either find specifically where in your written contract the handling of early\/over payments are defined and post it for us to help you, or that you go and visit a licensed real estate attorney. Even at a ridiculously high price of 850 pounds per hour for a top UK law firm (and I suspect you can find a competent lawyer for 10-20% of that amount), it would cost you less than a year of prepayment penalty to get professional advice on what to do with your mortgage. A certified public accountant (CPA) might be able to advise you, as well, if that's any easier for you to find. I have the sneaking suspicion that the company representatives are not being entirely forthcoming with you, thus the need for outside advice. Generally speaking, loans are given an interest rate per period (such as yearly APR), and you pay a percentage (the interest) of the total amount of money you owe (the principle). So if you owe 100,000 at 5% APR, you accrue 5,000 in interest that year. If you pay only the interest each year, you'll pay 50,000 in interest over 10 years - but if you pay everything off in year 8, at a minimum you'd have paid 10,000 less in interest (assuming no prepayment penalties, which you have some of those). So paying off early does not change your APR or your principle amount paid, but it should drastically reduce the interest you pay. Amortization schedules don't change that - they just keep the payments even over the scheduled full life of the loan. Even with prepayment penalties, these are customarily billed at less than 6 months of interest (at the rate you would have payed if you kept the loan), so if you are supposedly on the hook for more than that again I highly suspect something fishy is going on - in which case you'd probably want legal representation to help you put a stop to it. In short, something is definitely and most certainly wrong if paying off a loan years in advance - even after taking into account pre-payment penalties - costs you the same or more than paying the loan off over the full term, on schedule. This is highly abnormal, and frankly even in the US I'd consider it scandalous if it were the case. So please, do look deeper into this - something isn't right!"""
"""Taxable Website Ad Revenue""","""I'm not a tax advisor, but I've done freelance work, so... If any of your side-business revenue is reported on a 1099, you're now a business owner, which is why Schedule C must be filled out. As a business owner, minimum wage doesn't apply to you. All revenue is income to you, and you owe taxes on the profit, after subtracting legitimate (verifiable) business expenses. You'll want to talk to a real tax advisor if you're going to start expensing mileage, part of your house (if you use a home office), etc. Don't forget that you'll owe self-employment tax (the employer's half of your payroll tax).  You can't save money on business taxes by paying yourself a wage and then counting it as an expense to the business. You'll definitely want to talk to a tax expert if you start playing around with finances as an (the) owner of the business. Income that is not reported on a 1099 should be reported as hobby income."""
"""What do the terms par value, purchase price, call price, call date, and coupon rate mean in the context of bonds?""","""Bonds are valued based on all of this, using the concept of the \""time value of money\"". Simply stated, money now is worth more than money later, because of what you can do with money between now and later. Case in point: let's say the par value of a bond is $100, and will mature 10 years from this date (these are common terms for most bonds, though the U.S. Treasury has a variety of bonds with varying par values and maturation periods), with a 0% coupon rate (nothing's paid out prior to maturity). If the company or government issuing the bonds needs one million dollars, and the people buying the bonds are expecting a 5% rate of return on their investment, then each bond would only sell for about $62, and the bond issuer would have to sell a par value of $1.62 million in bonds to get its $1m now. These numbers are based on equations that calculate the \""future value\"" of an investment made now, and conversely the \""present value\"" of a future return. Back to that time value of money concept, money now (that you're paying to buy the bond) is worth more than money later (that you'll get back at maturity), so you will expect to be returned more than you invested to account for this time difference. The percentage of rate of return is known as the \""yield\"" or the \""discount rate\"" depending on what you're calculating, what else you take into consideration when defining the rate (like inflation), and whom you talk to. Now, that $1.62m in par value may be hard for the bond issuer to swallow. The issuer is effectively paying interest on interest over the lifetime of the bond. Instead, many issuers choose to issue \""coupon bonds\"", which have a \""coupon rate\"" determining the amount of a \""coupon payment\"". This can be equated pretty closely with you making interest-only payments on a credit card balance; each period in which interest is compounded, you pay the amount of interest that has accrued, to avoid this compounding effect.  From an accounting standpoint, the coupon rate lowers the amount of real monies paid; the same $1m in bonds, maturing in 10 years with a 5% expected rate of return, but with a 5% coupon rate, now only requires payments totalling $1.5m, and that half-million in interest is paid $50k at a time annually (or $25k semi-annually). But, from a finance standpoint, because the payments made in the first few years are worth more than the payments made closer to and at maturity, the present value of all these coupon payments (plus the maturity payout) is higher than if the full payout happened at maturity, and so the future value of the total investment is higher.  Coupon rates on bonds thus allow a bond issuer to plan a bond package in less complicated terms. If you as a small business need $1m for a project, which you will repay in 10 years, and during that time you are willing to tolerate a 5% interest rate on the outstanding money, then that's exactly how you issue the bonds; $1 million worth, to mature in 10 years and a 5% coupon rate. Now, whether the market is willing to accept that rate is up to the market. Right now, they'd be over the moon with that rate, and would be willing to buy the bonds for more than their face value, because the present value would then match the yield they're willing to accept (as in any market system, you as the seller will sell to the highest bidder to get the best price available). If however, they think you are a bad bet, they'll want an even higher rate of return, and so the present value of all coupon and maturity payments will be less than the par value, and so will the purchase price."""
"""Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY?""","""What is the advantage of something like Betterment -- which diversifies my investments for me but also charges a fee -- if I can just buy SPY on Robinhood for no fees and do better? Because Betterment is more diversified than the S&P, glaringly when it comes to non-US investments.  The US's economy is huge.  It represents 22% of nominal global GDP and 17% of global GDP (PPP).  While I think that the US's stability is good reason to be overweight US, being 100% invested in 22% of the market isn't well diversified."""
"""Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia""","""You could do nothing for a while longer. Foreign exchange simply means your services are cheaper and imports and more expensive, local transactions are otherwise unaffected. Your main worry is whether the government's attempts to revert these issues will create inflation within Russia.  Local clients will likely not care to pay you in Euros, Dollars, or Pounds (as it will cost them significantly more, they'd have to acquire the currency to pay you with) but does it matter if they pay in Roubles? The financial crisis in more an international thing, not a local one. Now it is possible there will be inflation setting in but I doubt the powers that be will allow that to happen... If you are concerned about it, buying non-liquid assets are the thing to do - a house will still be worth \""1 house\"" no matter what a 1-million rouble note will buy you in a year's time. Similarly, you can invest in 'blue-chip' stocks that should be a good hedge against any further inflation (the rich don't tend to turn poor in difficult times!) In the meantime, get some international clients - as the Rouble is so low, relatively speaking, your services are very competitive. The rest of the time, is to wait it out a little - nobody knows what will happen, but in my knowledge of history interest rates like this drop back to something much closer to normal quite quickly."""
"""How do you calculate the rate of return (ROR) when buying and selling put options?""","""Rate of return is (Current value - initial value) divided by initial value. Buy $10,000 worth of put options and sell them for $15,000, and your rate of return is 0.5, or 50%."""
"""Which Benjamin Graham book should I read first: Security Analysis or Intelligent Investor?""","""First The Intelligent Investor and then the 1962 edition Security Analysis - which is out of print, you can get it on Amazon.com used or ebay. Then you can read the edition backward but the 1962 edition is the best - IMHO. And don't forget The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham and  Benjamin Graham on Value Investing by Jane Lowe"""
"""What are the tax consequences if my S corporation earns money in a foreign country?""","""Be careful here: If ACME were in California, I would pay taxes on USD 17,000 because I   had revenue of 20,000 and expenses of 3,000. To CALIFORNIA. And California taxes S-Corps. And, in addition, you'd pay $800 for the right of doing business in the State. All that in addition to the regular Federal and State taxes to the State where you're resident. Suppose that ACME is in Britain (or anywhere else for that matter). My   revenue and expenses are the same, but now my money has been earned   and my expenses incurred in a foreign country. Same thing exactly. Except that you'll have to pay taxes to the UK. There may be some provision in the tax treaty to help you though, so you may end up paying less taxes when working in the UK than in California. Check with a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) who won't run away from you after you say the words \""Tax Treaty\"". Does it even make sense to use my S-Corporation to do business in a   foreign country? That should be a business decision, don't let the tax considerations drive your business."""
"""What factors should I consider in picking a bond?""","""just pick a good bond and invest all your money there (since they're fairly low risk) No. That is basically throwing away your money and why would you do that. And who told you they are low risk. That is a very wrong premise. What factors should I consider in picking a bond and how would they weigh against each other? Quite a number of them to say, assuming these aren't government bonds(US, UK etc) How safe is the institution issuing the bond. Their income, business they are in, their past performance business wise and the bonds issued by them, if any. Check for the bond ratings issued by the rating agencies. Read the prospectus and check for any specific conditions i.e. bonds are callable, bonds can be retired under certain conditions, what happens if they default and what order will you be reimbursed(senior debt take priority). Where are interest rates heading, which will decide the price you are paying for the bond. And also the yield you will derive from the bond. How do you intend to invest the income, coupon, you will derive from the bonds. What is your time horizon to invest in bonds and similarly the bond's life. I have invested in stocks previously but realized that it isn't for me Bonds are much more difficult than equities. Stick to government bonds if you can, but they don't generate much income, considering the low interest rates environment. Now that QE is over you might expect interest rates to rise, but you can only wait. Or go for bonds from stable companies i.e. GE, Walmart. And no I am not saying you buy their bonds in any imaginable way."""
"""Who can truly afford luxury cars?""","""How can people afford luxury cars? The same way they can afford anything: by finding it cheaply, saving for it, or adjusting their priorities. Company cars - either paid for by the company, or as part of a bonus\/compensation\/salary sacrifice scheme. I have friends who drive luxury cars, but they pay \u00a3200\/month - not much more than, for example, finance on a used Honda People who have paid off their mortgage. There are people who spend a decade pouring every cent they have into a mortgage. Once paid off, they have \u00a3500-1500 a month \""spare\"" People who have different priorities to you. I'm not bothered about big houses and holidays, but I love cars: I'd rather spend an extra \u00a3100\/month on my car and have a holiday every 2 years, not every year People who only run one car in the family: if you're running two cars at \u00a3200\/month, then discover one of you can work from home, you could have one \u00a3400 car and still be saving money on running costs. People who don't have (or want) children. Children are expensive, if they aren't part of your plans then you can save a lot of money for luxuries."""
"""Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? ""","""Consider inflation. If you invest $10,000 today, you need to make a few hundred dollars interest just to make up for inflation - if there is 3% inflation then a change from $10,000 to $10,300 means you didn't actually make any money."""
"""US Banks offering Security Tokens in 2012 ""","""Charles Schwab and HSBC offer security tokens."""
"""Credit card statement dates follow pattern?""","""Each bank is different. Usually in my experience for newer credit card accounts, there is a specific number of days in a billing cycle (something like 28) and then a 20-25 day grace period. Older accounts usually have 30+ day billing cycles. Back in the 90's, many cards also had 30-40 day grace periods. The language specific to your card is in the card agreement."""
"""Dealing with event driven market volatility""","""If you are worried about an increase in volatility, then go long volatility. Volatility itself can be traded. Here in the US there is an index VIX that is described as tracking volatility. What VIX actually tracks is the premium of S&P 500 options, which become more expensive when traders want to hedge against volatility. In the US you can trade VIX options or invest in VIX tracking ETFs like VXX. Apparently there are similar ETFs listed in Canada, such as HUV. Volatility itself is quite volatile so it is possible that a small volatility long position would cover the losses of a larger long position in stocks. If you do choose to invest in a volatility ETF, be aware that they experience quite a lot of decay. You will not want to hold it for very long."""
"""Is it beneficial to my credit score if I close my youngest credit lines while preserving my current credit utilization rate?""","""Credit Score is rather misleading, each provider of credit uses their own system to decide if they wish to lend to you.   They will also not tell you how the combine all the factoring together. Closing unused account is good, as it reduced the risk of identity theft and you have less paperwork to deal with. It looks good if a company that knows you will agrees to give you more credit, as clearly they think you are a good risk. Having more total credit allowed on account is bad, as you may use it and not be able to pay all your bills. Using all your credit is bad, as it looks like you are not in control. Using a \""pay day lender\"" is VERY bad, as only people that are out of control do so. Credit cards should be used for short term credit paying them off in full most months, but it is OK to take advantage of some interest free credit."""
"""Explain the details and benefits of rebalancing a retirement portfolio?""","""Rebalancing a portfolio helps you reduce risk, sell high, and buy low. I'll use international stocks and large cap US stocks.  They both have ups and downs, and they don't always track with each other (international might be up while large cap US stocks are down and vice-versa) If you started with 50% international and 50% large cap stocks and 1 year later you have 75% international and 25% large cap stocks that means that international stocks are doing (relatively) well to large cap stocks.    Comparing only those two categories, large cap stocks are \""on sale\"" relative to international stocks.   Now move so you have 50% in each category and you've realized some of the gains from your international investment (sell high) and added to your large cap stocks (buy low). The reason to rebalance is to lower risk.   You are spreading your investments across multiple categories to manage risk.   If you don't rebalance, you could end up with 95% in one category and 5% in another which means 95% of your portfolio is tied to the performance of a single asset category. I try to rebalance every 12 months and usually get it done by every 18 months.  I like being a hands-off long term investor and this has proven often enough to beat the S&P500."""
"""Should I open a Roth IRA or invest in the S&P 500?""","""A Roth IRA is simply a tax-sheltered account that you deposit funds into, and then invest however you choose (within the limits of the firm you deposit the funds with). For example, you could open a Roth IRA account with Vanguard.  You could then invest the $3000 by purchasing shares of VOO, which tracks the S&P 500 index and has a very low expense ratio (0.04 as of last time I checked).  Fidelity has a similar option, or Schwab, or whatever brokerage firm you prefer. IRAs are basically just normal investment accounts, except they don't owe taxes until you withdraw them (and Roth don't even owe them then, though you paid taxes on the funds you deposit).  They have some limitations regarding options trading and such, but if you're a novice investor just looking to do basic investments, you'll not notice.   Then, your IRA would go up or down in value as the market went up or down in value. You do have some restrictions on when you can withdraw the funds; Roth IRA has fewer than a normal IRA, as you can withdraw the capital (the amount you deposited) without penalty, but the profits cannot be withdrawn until you're retirement age (I won't put an actual year, as I suspect that actual year will change by the time you're that old; but think 60s). The reason not to invest in an IRA is if you plan on using the money in the near future - even as an \""emergency fund\"".  You should have some money that is not invested aggressively, that is in something very safe and very accessible, for your emergency fund; and if you plan to buy a house or whatever with the funds, don't start an IRA.  But if this is truly money you want to save for retirement, that's the best place to start. **Note, this is not investment advice, and you should do your own homework prior to making any investment.  You can lose some or all of the value of your account while investing."""
"""Why is mortgage interest deductible in the USA for a house you live in?""","""Well quite a few countires have tax breaks on the first house you own ... this is typically to promote people to have atleast one house of their own ... having a house of your own provides lot more stability in the long run ... and without tax breaks it makes it difficult for quite a few to own a house ... the tax breaks form a motiviation as well ...  There are at times other effects of this breaks, people buying houses beyond their need [bigger house than required] or capacity [buying in a central \/ expensive location] by maximizing the breaks ..."""
"""What is a 401(k) Loan Provision?""","""As Mhoran answered, typical match, but some have no match at all, so not bad.  The loan provision means you can borrow up to $50k or 50% of your balance, whichever is less. 5 year payback for any loan, but a 10 year payback for a home purchase.  I am on the side of \""don't do it\"" but finance is personal, and in some situations it does make sense. The elephant in this room is the expenses within the 401(k). Simply put, a high enough expense will wipe out any benefit from tax deferral. If you are in this situation, I recommend depositing to the match, but not a cent more.  Last, do they offer a Roth 401(k) option? There's a high probability you will never be in as low a tax bracket as the next few years, now's the time to focus on the Roth deposits, if not in the 401(k), then in an IRA."""
"""Deduct Health Care Premiums for Family When Employer Only Pays for Me""","""You can deduct what you pay for your own and your family's health insurance regardless of whether it is subsidized by your employer or not, as well  as all other medical and dental expenses for your family, as an itemized deduction on Schedule A of Form 1040, but only to the extent that the  total exceeds 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) (10% on tax returns for year 2013 onwards). As pointed out in KeithB's comment, you cannot deduct any health insurance premium (or other medical expense) that was paid for out of pre-tax dollars, nor indeed can you deduct any medical expense to the extent that  it was paid for by the insurance company directly to hospital or doctor (or reimbursed to you) for a covered expense; e.g. if the insurance company reimbursed you $72 for a claim for a doctor's visit for which you paid $100 to the doctor, only $28 goes on Schedule A to be added to the amount that you will be comparing to the 7.5% of AGI threshold, and the $72 is not income to you that needs to be reported on Form 1040. Depending on other items on Schedule A, your total itemized deductions might not exceed the standard deduction, in which case you will likely choose to use the standard deduction. In this case, you \""lose\"" the deduction for medical expenses as well as all other expenses deductible on Schedule A. Summary of some of the discussions in the comments   Health care insurance premiums cannot be paid for   from HSA accounts (IRS Pub 969, page 8, column 2, near   the bottom) though there are some exceptions.  Nor   can health care insurance premiums be paid from an   FSA account (IRS Pub 969, page 17, column 1, near the top). If you have a business on the side and file a Schedule C as a self-employed person, you can buy medical insurance for that business's employees (and their families too, if you like) as an employment benefit, and pay for it out of the income of the Schedule C business, (thus saving on taxes). But be aware that if you have employees other than yourself in the side business, they would need to be covered by the same policy too.  You can even decide to pay all medical expenses of your employees and their families too (no 7.5% limitation there!) as an employment benefit but again, you cannot discriminate against other employees (if any) of the Schedule C business in this matter.  Of course, all this money that reduced your Schedule C income does not go on Schedule A at all. If your employer permits your family to be covered under its health insurance plan (for a cost, of course), check whether you are allowed to pay for the insurance with pre-tax dollars.  The private (non-Schedule C) insurance would, of course, be paid for with post-tax dollars.  I would doubt that  you would be able to save enough money on taxes to make up the difference between $1330\/month and $600\/month, but it might also be that the private insurance policy covers a lot less than your employer's policy does.  As a rule of thumb, group insurance through an employer can be expected to offer better coverage than privately purchased insurance. Whether the added coverage is worth the additional cost is a  different matter.  But while considering this matter, keep in mind that privately purchased insurance is not  always guaranteed to be renewable, and a company might decline to renew a policy if there were a large number of claims. A replacement policy might not cover pre-existing conditions for some time (six months? a year?) or maybe even permanently.  So, do consider these aspects as well.  Of course, an employer can also change health insurance plans or drop them entirely as an employment benefit (or you might quit and go work for a different company), but as long as the employer's health plan is in existence, you (and continuing members of your family) cannot be discriminated against and denied coverage under the employer's plan."""
"""Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface?""","""You should definitively check boobank. It's not a bank !, but a framework that helps people to create quick interface modules to any bank so you don't have to use your web browser anymore with them. Actually, there is already an honest list of modules to access a few banks (I guess these banks are all french banks for now), but contributing a module seems easy and reading other contributed modules should constitute a good start. So boobank can work with any bank provided the interface with the bank is written."""
"""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 transactions using virtual currency. As it's property like any other, capital gains if and when you sell are taxed. As with any capital gains, you're taxed on the \""profit\"" you made, that is the \""proceeds\"" (how much you got when you sold) minus your \""basis\"" (how much you paid to get the property that you sold). Until you sell, it's just an asset (like a house, or a share of stock, or a rare collectible card) that doesn't require any reporting. If your initial cryptocurrency acquisition was through mining, then this section of that Notice applies: Q-8: Does a taxpayer who \""mines\"" virtual currency (for example, uses computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger) realize gross income upon receipt of the virtual currency resulting from those activities? A-8: Yes, when a taxpayer successfully \""mines\"" virtual currency, the fair market value of the virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. See Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income, for more information on taxable income. That is to say, when it was mined the market value of the amount generated should have been included in income (probably on either Line 21 Other Income, or on Schedule C if it's from your own business). At that point, the market value would also qualify as your basis. Though I doubt there'd be a whole lot of enforcement action for not amending your 2011 return to include $0.75. (Technically if you find a dollar bill on the street it should be included in income, but usually the government cares about bigger fish than that.) It sounds like your basis is close enough to zero that it's not worth trying to calculate a more accurate value. Since your basis couldn't be less than zero, there's no way that using zero as your basis would cause you to pay less tax than you ought, so the government won't have any objections to it.  One thing to be careful of is to document that your holdings qualify for long-term capital gains treatment (held longer than a year) if applicable. Also, as you're trading in multiple cryptocurrencies, each transaction may count as a \""sale\"" of one kind followed by a \""purchase\"" of the other kind, much like if you traded your Apple stock for Google stock. It's possible that \""1031 like kind exchange\"" rules apply, and in June 2016 the American Institute of CPAs sent a letter asking about it (among other things), but as far as I know there's been no official IRS guidance on the matter. There are also some related questions here; see \""Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges?\"" and \""Assuming 1031 Doesn't Apply To Cryptocurrency Trading\"". But if in fact those exchange rules do not apply and it is just considered a sale followed by a purchase, then you would need to report each exchange as a sale with that asset's basis (probably $0 for the initial one), and proceeds of the fair market value at the time, and then that same value would be the basis of the new asset you're purchasing. Using a $0 basis is how I treat my bitcoin sales, though I haven't dealt with other cryptocurrencies. As long as all the USD income is being reported when you get USD, I find it unlikely you'll run into a lot of trouble, even if you technically were supposed to report the individual transactions when they happened. Though, I'm not in charge of IRS enforcement, and I'm not aware of any high-profile cases, so it's hard to know anything for sure. Obviously, if there's a lot of money involved, you may want to involve a professional rather than random strangers on the Internet. You could also try contacting the IRS directly, as believe-it-or-not, their job is in fact helping you to comply with the tax laws correctly. Also, there are phone numbers at the end of Notice 2014-21 of people which might be able to provide further guidance, including this statement: The principal author of this notice is Keith A. Aqui of the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (Income Tax & Accounting). For further information about income tax issues addressed in this notice, please contact Mr. Aqui at (202) 317-4718"""
"""How can a U.S. citizen open a bank account in Europe?""","""If you don't want to hassle with opening an account (and don't mind going without insurance) there are currency ETF's that basically invest in euro money market accounts. Here's an example of one Not sure if the return would be as much as you'd get if you opened your own account and went for longer term instruments like a 12 month CD  (I think the Euro MM rate is around 1.1%  compared to 0.1% for the US). But since it trades like a stock you can do it without having to establish an account with an overseas bank."""
"""If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?""","""Remember that long term appreciation has tax advantages over short-term dividends. If you buy shares of a company, never earn any dividends, and then sell the stock for a profit in 20 years, you've essentially deferred all of the capital gains taxes (and thus your money has compounded faster) for a 20 year period. For this reason, I tend to favor non-dividend stocks, because I want to maximize my long-term gain. Another example, in estate planning, is something called a step-up basis:"""
"""Stock market order execution""","""I used to work on the software in the front office (and a bit of the middle office) of a brokerage firm. This page describes the process pretty well. Basically there are three parts: So to your question: how does an order get executed? ETFs work the same since they are effectively shares of a mutual fund's assets. True mutual fund shares work differently since they don't get traded in the market. They get traded at the end of the market as just a bookkeeping exercise."""
"""Understanding the T + 3 settlement days rule""","""The key word you forgot to include from Slide 29 is: Free-Riding Investopedia defines free-riding as: In the context of a brokerage firm, a free rider problem refers to a situation where a client has been allowed to purchase shares without actually paying for them, and then subsequently sells the shares (ideally for profit). The problem with this scenario is that the client, if allowed to free ride, can profit from a stock trade without actually using any of his or her own capital. This is illegal. I have not heard of any issues with this type of action being a problem with trading accounts in Australia, nor have I been able to find any such rules on the ASX website or any of by brokers websites. So I think this may be an issue in the USA but not Australia. You should check the rules in any other countries you wish to trade in."""
"""Why don't forced buy-ins of short sold stock happen much more frequently?""","""Nobody is going to short sell stocks through a lender that forces people to buy in as soon as it is getting good for them."""
"""Why does the stock market index get affected when a terrorist attack takes place?""","""There are more than a few different ways to consider why someone may have a transaction in the stock market: Employee stock options - If part of my compensation comes from having options that vest over time, I may well sell shares at various points because I don't want so much of my new worth tied up in one company stock. Thus, some transactions may happen from people cashing out stock options. Shorting stocks - This is where one would sell borrowed stock that then gets replaced later. Thus, one could reverse the traditional buy and sell order in which case the buy is done to close the position rather than open one. Convertible debt - Some companies may have debt that come with warrants or options that allow the holder to acquire shares at a specific price. This would be similar to 1 in some ways though the holder may be a mutual fund or company in some cases. There is also some people that may seek high-yield stocks and want an income stream from the stock while others may just want capital appreciation and like stocks that may not pay dividends(Berkshire Hathaway being the classic example here). Others may be traders believing the stock will move one way or another in the short-term and want to profit from that. So, thus the stock market isn't necessarily as simple as you state initially. A terrorist attack may impact stocks in a couple ways to consider: Liquidity - In the case of the attacks of 9\/11, the stock market was closed for a number of days which meant people couldn't trade to convert shares to cash or cash to shares. Thus, some people may pull out of the market out of fear of their money being \""locked up\"" when they need to access it. If someone is retired and expects to get $x\/quarter from their stocks and it appears that that may be in jeopardy, it could cause one to shift their asset allocation. Future profits - Some companies may have costs to rebuild offices and other losses that could put a temporary dent in profits. If there is a company that makes widgets and the factory is attacked, the company may have to stop making widgets for a while which would impact earnings, no? There can also be the perception that an attack is \""just the beginning\"" and one could extrapolate out more attacks that may affect broader areas. Sometimes what recently happens with the stock market is expected to continue that can be dangerous as some people may believe the market has to continue like the recent past as that is how they think the future will be."""
"""Filing Taxes for Two Separate Jobs Being Worked at the Same Time?""","""You file taxes as usual. W2 is a form given to you, you don't need to fill it. Similarly, 1099. Both report moneys paid to you by your employers. W2 is for actual employer (the one where you're on the payroll), 1099 is for contractors (where you invoice the entity you provide services to and get paid per contract). You need to look at form 1040 and its instructions as to how exactly to fill it. That would be the annual tax return. It has various schedules (A, B, C, D, E, F, H, etc) which you should familiarize yourself with, and various additional forms that you attach to it. If you're self employed, you're expected  to make quarterly estimate payments, but if you're a salaried employee you can instruct your employer to withhold the amounts you expect to owe for taxes from your salary, instead. If you're using a tax preparation software (like TurboTax or TaxAct), it will \""interview\"" you to get all the needed information and provide you with the forms filled accordingly. Alternatively you can pay someone to prepare the tax return for you."""
"""Can I use FOREX markets to exchange cash?""","""As far as I understand, OP seems to be literally asking: \""why, regarding the various contracts on various exchanges (CBE, etc), is it that in some cases they are 'cash settled' and in some 'physically settled' -?\"" The answer is only that \""the exchange in question happens to offer it that way.\"" Note that it's utterly commonplace for contracts to be settled out physically, and happens in the billions as a daily matter.  Conversely zillions in \""cash settled\"" contracts play out each day.  Both are totally commonplace. Different businesses or entities or traders would use the two \""varieties\"" for sundry reasons. The different exchanges offer the different varieties, ultimately I guess because they happen to think that niche will be profitable.  There's no \""galactic council\"" or something that enforces which mode of settlement is available on a given offering - ! Recall that \""a given futures contracts market\"" is nothing more than a product offered by a certain exchange company (just like Burger King sells different products). I believe in another aspect of the question, OP is asking basically:  \""Why is there not, a futures contract, of the mini or micro variety for extremely small amounts, of currency futures, which, is 'physically' settled rather than cash settled ..?\"" If that's the question the answer is just \""whatever, nobody's done it yet\"".  (Or, it may well exist.  But it seems extremely unlikely?  \""physically\"" settled currencies futures are for entities operating in the zillions.) Sorry if the question was misunderstood."""
"""Should I buy a house with a friend?""","""A real life experience. A friend of mine did that with his housemates. They bought a house together as students and it worked for them. The tricky bit is to have a very good contract with your housemates as to how the venture should work.  What if? Somebody can't pay, somebody can't enjoy the house (on an extended trip), somebody wants out (marriage, etc.) It worked for my friend..."""
"""Dollar Cost Averaging (Or value averaging) vs Lot sizes, what am I missing?""","""This is more than likely a thing about your financial institution and the exchanges where they trade shares. Some exchanges cannot\/will not handle odd lot transactions. Most established brokerages have software and accounting systems that will deal in round lots with the exchanges, but can track your shares individually. Sometimes specific stocks cannot be purchased in odd lots due to circumstances specific to that stock (trading only on a specific exchange, for example).  Most brokerages offer dollar-cost averaging programs, but may limit which stocks are eligible, due to odd lot and partial share purchases. Check with your brokerage to see if they can support odd lot and\/or DCA purchases. You may find another similar ETF with similar holdings that has better trading conditions, or might consider an open-end mutual fund with similar objectives. Mutual funds allow partial share purchases (you have $100 to invest today, and they issue you 35.2 shares, for example)."""
"""What percentage of my portfolio should be in individual stocks?""","""How much should a rational investor have in individual stocks? Probably none. An additional dollar invested in a ETF or low cost index fund comprised of many stocks will be far less risky than a specific stock. And you'd need a lot more capital to make buying, voting, and selling in individual stocks as if you were running your own personal index fund worthwhile. I think in index funds use weightings to  make it easier to track the index without constantly trading. So my advice here is to allocate based not on some financial principal but just loss aversion. Don't gamble with more than you can afford to lose. Figure out how much of that 320k you need. It doesn't sound like you can actually afford to lose it all. So I'd say 5 percent and make sure that's funded from other equity holdings or you'll end up overweight in stocks."""
"""1.4 million cash. What do I do?""","""For what it's worth, the distribution I'm currently using is roughly ... with about 2\/3 of the money sitting in my 401(k). I should note that this is actually considered a moderately aggressive position. I need to phone my advisor (NOT a broker, so they aren't biased toward things which are more profitable for them) and check whether I've gotten close enough to retirement that I should readjust those numbers. Could I do better? Maybe, at higher risk and higher fees that would be likely to eat most of the improved returns. Or by spending far more time micromanaging my money than I have any interest in. I've validated this distribution using the various stochastic models and it seems to work well enough that I'm generally content with it. (As I noted in a comment elsewhere, many of us will want to get up into this range before we retire -- I figure that if I hit $1.8M I can probably sustain my lifestyle solely on the income, despite expected inflation, and thus be safely covered for life -- so this isn't all that huge a chunk of cash by today's standards. Cue Daffy Duck: \""I'm rich! I'm wealthy! I'm comfortably well off!\"" -- $2M, these days, is \""comfortably well off.\"")"""
"""If you buy something and sell it later on the same day, how do you calculate 'investment'?""","""Another way to look at this is if we separate the owner's account from the business's account.  At the start of the year, the owner puts $9 into the business account to get the business started. At the end of the first day, the business account has $10, and at the end of the second day, the business account has $11.  The owner doesn't need to add any more of his own money into the business account. At the end of the 365th day, the business will have $374, which is $365 profit + $9 investment.  Assuming the business has no other expenses, the business will calculate profit for the year like this: The author is making a strange point. The two numbers he is talking about are two different quantities. The business owner's return on investment is $365 \/ $9 = 4056%.  But the business's profit margin is $365 \/ $3650 = 10%.  Both are useful numbers when running the business. I disagree with the author's insinuation that a business is doing something tricky when calculating profit margin. Remember that, in addition to the business owner's monetary investment, he worked every day for a year to earn that $365."""
"""Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value?""","""They are overpriced to begin with.  One reason is the fact that they are luxury cars.  A second, related reason, is that they tend to push the technology envelope.   All cars depreciate drastically the minute they are driven off the lot.  This a good argument for buying a car that is 1-2 years old.  The higher you are, the more you can fall.   Repairs and maintenance are typically still expensive on these cars, due to relative rarity and the lack of necessary expertise.  Here is where that advanced technology bites you.  This is a reason that a 5 year old Civic may be worth more than than a 10 year old Benz.  It may simply not be worth the hassle of maintaining\/repairing a luxury car.  This is especially true for an aging luxury car.  There are some people that only buy domestic, precisely because of the maintenance costs.  Also, a 10 year old car is still a 10 year old car, regardless of the make.  (There are a few notable exceptions, like the NSX.) Hondas and Toyotas have a great reputation for reliability and (long-term) total cost of ownership. \""Better\"" is a subjective issue, that depends on a variety of variables.  A Civic is certainly not better in terms of technology, comfort, etc.  But, it is likely better in terms of maintenance, reliability, etc.  Which \""better\"" you focus on, is up to you."""
"""Loan to son - how to get it back""","""A few ideas. I suggest it would wise to consider what lesson is learned as a result of any resolution of a financial issue. Is it a lesson of responsibility and of the importance of keeping one's word, or of getting away with whatever happens (poorly planned business) with no adverse consequences. \""No\"" consequences (e.g. forgiven loan) is also a consequence, and it sends a message. Sounds like paying the loan from your savings automatically means it's deducted from inheritance, since the savings are part of that inheritance. This may seem like a square deal if we ignore inflation. Assuming Today the $54K is worth much more than, unless it is adjusted for inflation, the same $54K will be worth (i.e. will allow to buy) a few decades from now, when the inheritance materializes.  So this option means your son is foregoing a significantly smaller financial loss in the future in exchange for foregoing his debt completely today. This is like borrowing $54K from a bank now, and only having to forego the same amount decades in the future when it is in fact worth much less. What borrower would not be happy with such arrangement, and what lender would do it? Only one's own loving parents :) You are in charge of what life lessons your son will walk away with from this situation. Good luck!"""
"""Repairs to a house in order to rent it that were paid by the beneficiary, but is still owned by a Trust""","""The Trustee has allowed me to act as his \""agent\"", continuing to pay   bills, and take care of much of the administrative affairs for my   mother's estate since I did all of it for years before she passed   away. I was not paid for any of this work. ... The expenses were more than $30K last year, and there is still a punch list to go this year. The trust should reimburse your expenses and deduct them on the trust tax return. Since the Trust owned the property in 2015, and I will receive ownership this month, can last year's expenses incurred for the Trust be deducted again future income for my property this year?  Not exactly. The trust will file its own tax return and will report the income\/loss attributed to the beneficiaries per the trust rules. What is attributed to you will flow to your Schedule E. From there you own it and if it is a passive activity where the loss is limited - you can carry it forward and offset with future gain. The trustee will have to deal with all the paperwork. Do 1099-misc forms need to be filed for the contractors who worked to get it ready for rental? It is my understanding that since 2010 (and before 2010) landlords who are not in real-estate trade or business are not required to send out 1099. But it won't hurt if you do, also. In any case - for all of these issues you should talk to a tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State)."""
"""What are stock indexed funds and how do they lower taxes?""","""who computes the S&P 500? Standard and Poor's. Why are they sharing this information and Because that's what they do. This is a financial research company. how do they recuperate the costs inherent in computing the S&P 500? By charging clients for other information. The computing of the index itself is not all that complicated, its coming up with the index that's a problem. Once they've come up with the formula, and it became widely accepted, the computation itself is not an issue. But the fact that its so popular leads to the S&P brand recognition, and people come and pay good money for their other services (ratings and financial analysis of securities). They do more work for free. For example, the ratings of various government debts are being done by S&P for free (governments don't pay for that), while private bonds are rated for a fee (corporations pay to have their bonds rated). Also, as noted by JBKing, there are probably some licensing fees for using the index name in the fund name (and other users are probably paying the licensing fee, like the news agencies and the exchanges). S&P500 is a registered trademark, and as such cannot be used without the owner's permission. Why is then \""active management\"" not required for indexed funds Because no research and stock picking is required. In fact, these funds don't really require a manager, they can be managed by a simple script. and how does it lower taxes? (perhaps this could be a different   question if this has become too broad) Actively managed funds perform a lot more buy\/sell operations, each leading to tax consequences to the fund (which rolls them over to the investors). Index funds only buy and sell to re-balance back to the index (or when the makeup of the index changes, usually once a year or half a year), leading to much lesser realized capital gains to the fund, thus much lesser tax consequences."""
"""Using credit cards online: is it safe?""","""The answer: don't use your actual card number. Some banks offer virtual credit card numbers (services like Apple Pay are functionally the same). Bank of America's virtual cards work like this: The virtual card number is different from your actual card number, so the merchant never sees your real card number. In fact, the merchant cannot even tell that you are using a virtual card. You can set the maximum amount to be charged. You can set the expiration date from 2 to 12 months. Once the merchant has made a charge on that virtual card, only THAT MERCHANT can make any further charges on that same virtual card. It is not possible to discover the real card number from the virtual card number. So the result is that your risk is reduced to the merchant not delivering the order, or charging too much (but not over the limit you set). There is nothing to be stolen since your real info never goes over the internet, and once a merchant has used the virtual card once, no other merchant can use it. Other banks may have virtual cards which have fewer features. The only DISadvantage of this is that you have to go to the bank's website whenever you want to make a purchase from a new merchant. But you don't have to worry about them stealing your real credit card information."""
"""Accepting high volatility for high long-term returns""","""Modern portfolio theory dramatically underestimates the risk of the recommended assets.  This is because so few underlying assets are in the recommended part of the curve.  As investors identify such assets, large amounts of money are invested in them.  This temporarily reduces measured risk, and temporarily increases measured return.  Sooner or later, \""the trade\"" becomes \""crowded\"".  Eventually, large amounts of money try to \""exit the trade\"" (into cash or the next discovered asset).  And so the measurable risk suddenly rises, and the measured return drops. In other words, modern portfolio theory causes bubbles, and causes those bubbles to pop. Some other strategies to consider:"""
"""How smart is it really to take out a loan right now?""","""Are things getting better yet or are things still a mess? I have heard people say that right now is a 'good' time to take out a   loan, and that it is a buyer's market in real estate. Something to consider here is what intentions do you have for the real estate you'd buy.  If you intend to sell quickly, then selling into a buyer's market doesn't sound like a great idea.  While real estate may be cheap, there can be the question of how long do you think this will last?  How much of a burden on time and energy are you expecting to take if you do switch residences or buy an investment property? But more specifically, are there any hidden details that come with   taking a loan out when interest rates are low that I should be aware   of? I'd be careful to note if the rate is fixed for the entire length of the loan or does it adjust over time.  If it can adjust then there is the possibility of those adjustments going up."""
"""Does a failed chargeback affect my credit score?""","""If this chargeback failed then would it negatively affect my credit score? A credit score is a measure of how dependable of a borrower you are. Requesting a refund for not receiving goods not delivered as promised, whether it is successful or it fails, should not impact your credit score since it has no implications on the likelihood that you will pay back debts. The last time I used that gym was the 13th January 2017, and I rejoined on the 20th December, so I have used it for less than a month. Therefore I do not think I should have to pay for two months Keep in mind that you purchased a membership to the gym. Whether or not you actually use the gym you are liable to pay for every month that you retain the membership. Although it probably won't hurt to try to get a refund for the period where you didn't take advantage of your gym membership, you weren't actually charged for a service that you never received (like in the last case where they charged you after you cancelled your membership)."""
"""Personal finance in EFU and NAFA""","""I want to know why my investment is having loss in 4 to 5 months. As the funds invest in stock markets, the Pakistan stock market is going down in last 4-5 months from all time high. Should I liquidate my investment or wait in hope that it will grow again? This is opinion based and one cannot predict what will happen in future. The funds may grow or may loose value. If I loose all my investment value, is it insured. OR do I loose everything? The growth fund I understand is not guaranteeing any returns. in theory you can loose all the money, however practically there will be some value. If you need guaranteed returns maybe EFU Guaranteed Growth fund will be better choice."""
"""Is it a good investment for a foreigner to purchase a flat\/apartment in China?""","""More infomation is needed for any meaningful discussion about this.  I just assume you want to buy in China mainland, not Hongkong or other places. That depends on where you want to buy the flat.  Which city, which district of the city, which community, which school district, how old is the building?  Furthermore, always bearing in mind that you don't own the land when you buy a flat in China mainland.  The land is always state-owned, you are renting the land. Someone will say that the real property market in China is always in a bubble, but because the ownership of the land is different from countries like US and other things like one-child policy, things are not that easy to tell.   But if you don't live in China now and you don't have clients ready to rent from you, I don't think it is a good choice right now to buy one just for investment."""
"""What forms of payment am I compelled to accept?""","""The confusion comes from ambiguity in popular belief -- that businesses are required to accept x_y_x as payment. In reality, a business can state the terms of a transaction to their pleasure. On the other hand, debt is different -- no lender can refuse cash or other legal tender for repayment of debt. Sometimes, people try to split hairs and argue \""Well, if I eat a steak and I owe the restaurant $100, they should have to accept my $100 as tender for the debt of my meal.\"" Not true. The restaurant isn't giving you a line of credit, they're billing you after services rendered, and your payment is due on their terms."""
"""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 needs and values. I have purchased both new and used cars, and I have weighted each of these factors as part of each decision (and the relative weightings have varied based upon my individual situation). Read Freakonomics to gain a better understanding of the reasons why you cannot find a good used car. The summary is the imbalance of knowledge between the buyer and seller, and the lack of trust. Although much of economics assumes perfect market information, margin (profit) comes from uncertainty, or an imbalance of knowledge.  Buying a used car requires a certain amount of faith in people, and you cannot always trust the trading partner to be honest. Price - The price, or more precisely, the value proposition of the vehicle is a large concern for many of us (larger than we might prefer that it be). Selection - A buyer has the largest selection of vehicles when they shop for a new vehicle. Finding the color, features, and upgrades that you want on your vehicle can be much harder, even impossible, for the used buyer. And once you have found the exact vehicle you want, now you have to determine whether the vehicle has problems, and can be purchased at your price. Preference - A buyer may simply prefer to have a vehicle that looks new, smells new, is clean, and does not have all the imperfections that even a gently used vehicle would exhibit. This may include issues of pride, image, and status, where the buyer may have strong emotional or psychological needs to statisfy through ownership of a particular vehicle with particular features. Reviews - New vehicles have mountains of information available to buyers, who can read about safety and reliability ratings, learn about problems from the trade press, and even price shop and compare between brands and models. Contrasted with the minimal information available to used vehicle shoppers. Unbalanced Knowledge - The seller of a used car has much greater knowledge of the vehicle, and thus much greater power in the negotiation process. Buying a used car is going to cost you more money than the value of the car, unless the seller has poor knowledge of the market. And since many used cars are sold by dealers (who have often taken advantage of the less knowledgeable sellers in their transaction), you are unlikely to purchase the vehicle at a good price. Fear\/Risk - Many people want transportation, and buying a used car comes with risk. And that risk includes both the direct cost of repairs, and the inconvenience of both the repair and the loss of work that accompanies problems. Knowing that the car has not been abused, that there are no hidden or lurking problems waiting to leave you stranded is valuable. Placing a price on the risk of a used car is hard, especially for those who only want a reliable vehicle to drive. Placing an estimate on the risk cost of a used car is one area where the seller has a distinct advantage. Warranties - New vehicles come with substantial warranties, and this is another aspect of the Fear\/Risk point above. A new vehicle does not have unknown risk associated with the purchase, and also comes with peace of mind through a manufacturer warranty. You can purchase a used car warranty, but they are expensive, and often come with (different) problems. Finance Terms - A buyer can purchase a new vehicle with lower financing rate than a used vehicle. And you get nothing of value from the additional finance charges, so the difference between a new and used car also includes higher finance costs. Own versus Rent - You are assuming that people actually want to 'own' their cars. And I would suggest that people want to 'own' their car until it begins to present problems (repair and maintenance issues), and then they want a new vehicle to replace it. But renting or leasing a vehicle is an even more expensive, and less flexible means to obtain transportation. Expense Allocation - A vehicle is an expense. As the owner of a vehicle, you are willing to pay for that expense, to fill your need for transportation. Paying for the product as you use the product makes sense, and financing is one way to align the payment with the consumption of the product, and to pay for the expense of the vehicle as you enjoy the benefit of the vehicle. Capital Allocation - A buyer may need a vehicle (either to commute to work, school, doctor, or for work or business), but either lack the capital or be unwilling to commit the capital to the vehicle purchase. Vehicle financing is one area banks have been willing to lend, so buying a new vehicle may free capital to use to pay down other debts (credit cards, loans). The buyer may not have savings, but be able to obtain financing to solve that need. Remember, people need transportation. And they are willing to pay to fill their need. But they also have varying needs for all of the above factors, and each of those factors may offer value to different individuals."""
"""What is the difference between hedging and diversification? How does each reduce risk?""","""The difference is in the interrelation between the varied investments you make. Hedging is about specifically offsetting a possible loss in an investment by making another related investment that will increase in value for the same reasons that the original investment would lose value. Gold, for instance, is often regarded as the ultimate hedge. Its value is typically inversely correlated to the rest of the market as a whole, because its status as a material, durable store of value makes it a preferred \""safe haven\"" to move money into in times of economic downturn, when stock prices, bond yields and similar investments are losing value. That specific behavior makes investing in gold alongside stocks and bonds a \""hedge\""; the increase in value of gold as stock prices and bond yields fall limits losses in those other areas. Investment of cash in gold is also specifically a hedge against currency inflation; paper money, account balances, and even debt instruments like bonds and CDs can lose real value over time in a \""hot\"" economy where there's more money than things to buy with it. By keeping a store of value in something other than currency, the price of that good will rise as the currencies used to buy it decrease in real value, maintaining your level of real wealth. Other hedges are more localized. One might, for example, trade oil futures as a hedge on a position in transportation stocks; when oil prices rise, trucking and airline companies suffer in the short term as their margins get squeezed due to fuel costs. Currency futures are another popular hedge; a company in international business will often trade options on the currencies of the companies it does business in, to limit the \""jitters\"" seen in the FOREX spot market caused by speculation and other transient changes in market demand. Diversification, by contrast, is about choosing multiple unrelated investments, the idea being to limit losses due to a localized change in the market. Companies' stocks gain and lose value every day, and those companies can also go out of business without bringing the entire economy to its knees. By spreading your wealth among investments in multiple industries and companies of various sizes and global locations, you insulate yourself against the risk that any one of them will fail.  If, tomorrow, Kroger grocery stores went bankrupt and shuttered all its stores, people in the regions it serves might be inconvenienced, but the market as a whole will move on. You, however, would have lost everything if you'd bet your retirement on that one stock. Nobody does that in the real world; instead, you put some of your money in Kroger, some in Microsoft, some in Home Depot, some in ALCOA, some in PG&E, etc etc. By investing in stocks that would be more or less unaffected by a downturn in another, if Kroger went bankrupt tomorrow you would still have, say, 95% of your investment next egg still alive, well and continuing to pay you dividends. The flip side is that if tomorrow, Kroger announced an exclusive deal with the Girl Scouts to sell their cookies, making them the only place in the country you can get them, you would miss out on the full possible amount of gains you'd get from the price spike if you had bet everything on Kroger.  Hindsight's always 20\/20; I could have spent some beer money to buy Bitcoins when they were changing hands for pennies apiece, and I'd be a multi-millionaire right now. You can't think that way when investing, because it's \""survivor bias\""; you see the successes topping the index charts, not the failures. You could just as easily have invested in any of the hundreds of Internet startups that don't last a year."""
"""When I ask a broker to buy stock, what does the broker do?""","""You or the broker place an order to buy the share with the stock exchange. There has to be a matching sell order by someone.  Once a match is made, you pay the money and get the share."""
"""What should I do with the change in my change-jar?""","""I don't like paying the percentage on the supermarket coin counters, and don't feel like buying a coin counter so I have my own solution. I keep higher value coins for vending machines, parking meters etc, and lower value coins I put in charity boxes."""
"""How can I cash in a small number of delisted US shares? TLAB""","""If you held the shares directly, the transfer agent, Computershare, should have had you registered and your address from some point on file.  I have some experience with Computershare, it turned out when Qwest restarted dividends and the checks mailed to the childhood home my parents no longer owned, they were able to reissue all to my new address with one telephone call.  I can't tell you what their international transfer policies or fees might be, but if they have your money, at least its found. Transfer Agent Computershare Investor Services serves as the stock transfer agent for Tellabs. If you need to transfer stock, change ownership, report lost or stolen certificates, or change your address, please contact Computershare Investor Services at +1.312.360.5389."""
"""Taxing GoFundMe Donations""","""The $20k limit seems to be (from another answer) the threshold for GoFundMe to report the campaign. However, such a report does not change the taxability of the income. The income is either taxable or non-taxable regardless of whether the amount is $19,999 or $20,001. This is a common misconception, commonly seen when people think that income or gambling winnings are not taxable below $600, when in reality $600 is the threshold for issuing a Form 1099. Given that, it would be foolish to close a wildly successful (*) GoFundMe campaign, because closing the campaign won't change the taxability of the income. But it will probably cut off the continued donations you may have received. With the amount of money at stake, you should spend the couple hundred dollars to hire a CPA to look at your specific situation. Your uncle's comments are not specific to your situation at best, incorrect at worst, so don't hire him. (*) I don't know what the median GoFundMe campaign raises, but I strongly suspect it's well below the $20k\/200 donor reporting limit. Just because you have one campaign that's gone viral enough to approach that limit, doesn't mean if you close that one and start a new one, that it will go viral again, especially if it's under a new username."""
"""Can I buy a new house before selling my current house?""","""As the other answers suggest, there are a number of ways of going about it and the correct one will be dependent on your situation (amount of equity in your current house, cashflow primarily, amount of time between purchase and sale). If you have a fair amount of equity (for example, $50K mortgage remaining on a house valued at $300K), I'll propose an option that's similar to bridge financing: Place an offer on your new house. Use some of your equity as part of the down payment (eg, $130K). Use some more of your equity as a cash buffer to allow you pay two mortgages in between the purchase and the sale (eg, $30K). The way this would be executed is that your existing mortgage would be discharged and replaced with larger mortgage. The proceeds of that mortgage would be split between the down payment and cash as you desire. Between the closing of your purchase and the closing of your sale, you'll be paying two mortgages and you'll be responsible for two properties. Not fun, but your cash buffer is there to sustain you through this. When the sale of your new home closes, you'll be breaking the mortgage on that house. When you get the proceeds of the sale, it would be a good time to use any lump sum\/prepayment privileges you have on the mortgage of the new house.  You'll be paying legal fees for each transaction and penalties for each mortgage you break. However, the interest rates will be lower than bridge financing. For this reason, this approach will likely be cheaper than bridge financing only if the time between the closing of the two deals is fairly long (eg, at least 6 months), and the penalties for breaking mortgages are reasonable (eg, 3 months interest). You would need the help of a good mortgage broker and a good lawyer, but you would also have to do your own due diligence - remember that brokers receive a commission for each mortgage they sell. If you won't have any problems selling your current house quickly, bridge financing is likely a better deal. If you need to hold on to it for a while because you need to fix things up or it will be harder to sell, you can consider this approach."""
"""Should I use regular or adjusted close for backtesting?""","""A one year period of study - Stock A trades at $100, and doesn't increase in value, but has $10 in dividends over the period.  Stock B starts at $100, no dividend, and ends at $105. However you account for this, it would be incorrect to ignore stock A's 10% return over the period.  To flip to a real example, MoneyChimp shows the S&P return from Jan 1980 to Dec 2012 as +3264% yet, the index only rose from 107.94 to 1426.19 or +1221%.  The error expands with greater time and larger dividends involved, a good analysis won't ignore any dividends or splits."""
"""Do company-provided meals need to be claimed on my taxes?""","""It looks like the resource to deciding these is here  Concerning the meals, the law seems a bit vague to me. You can exclude the value of meals you furnish to an employee from the   employee's wages if they meet the following tests. This exclusion does not apply if you allow your employee to choose to   receive additional pay instead of meals. If the whole point of google providing meals is to benefit Google as such people will not leave the googleplex when to obtain meals elsewhere causing increased productivity for Google, then this is covered as a business expense.  (Even if it wasn't, Google would have to notify you that it was providing you a non-expensable benefit, i.e. compensation, by giving you a 1099 at the end of the year). Concerning the other benefits, the only way I could see those items not being taxable benefits is if one of the two applies."""
"""New car price was negotiated as a \""cash deal\"".  Will the price change if I finance instead?""","""I am a carsalesman. Lets get one thing straight, we are not allowed to give people a better deal just because they pay cash, regardless of what some people say. That can be seen a discrimination as not all people are fortunate enough to have cash available. if anything, finance is better for the dealership, as we get finance commission and the finance company DOES pay us the total amount immidiatly"""
"""How often are preferred shareholders made whole after a company goes bankrupt?""","""From the Times A Reader Q.&A. on G.M.\u2019s Bankruptcy Q. I own G.M. preferred shares. Should I be looking to sell them, or   hold on? I bought them at $25 a share when they were issued in late   2001. \u2014 Karen, Manhattan A. When a company files for bankruptcy, its various stock and   bondholders essentially get in line. The first investors to be repaid   are secured debt holders, then senior bond investors, followed by   subordinated debt holders. Preferred shareholders are next, and   lastly, holders of common stock. In a bankruptcy, preferred shares are usually worthless, much like   shares of common stock. But in the case of G.M., there may be some   good \u2014 or at least somewhat better \u2014 news. Most of G.M.\u2019s preferred   shares are actually senior notes or \""quarterly interest bonds,\"" which   means you will be treated as a bondholder, according to Marilyn Cohen,   president of Envision Capital Management. So you will be able to   exchange your preferreds for G.M. stock (bondholders will receive 10   percent of the new company\u2019s stock). It\u2019s not the best deal, but it   beats the empty bag true preferred shareholders would have been left   holding. Of course this is just one example, and you were hoping to get some larger picture. The article stated \""In a bankruptcy, preferred shares are usually worthless, much like shares of common stock\"" which at least is a bit closer to that, if you accept usually as a statistic."""
"""Difference between a mortgage and buy-to-let in UK""","""Residential mortgages normally explicitly state that the property cannot be let without explicit permission, whereas BTL mortgages typically require that the property be let. There are other differences. Residential mortgages are regulated, which means that consumers have a degree of protection from mis-selling; most BTLs are not, as landlords are expected to know what they're doing. Affordability of residential mortgages are based on your income, since that is how you are going to pay for them. BTLs are (mostly) assessed based on the property's rental income, since it's that that will fund the mortgage. Finally, residential mortgages are typically done on a repayment basis, so that at the end of the term, you've paid off the entire loan, whereas BTLs are typically interest-only, on the assumption that you'll either sell the property, or remortgage, at the end of the term. (I've used words like \""typically\"" a lot to give an overall picture of the differences. Obviously it's a bit more complicated than that, and there are exceptions to a lot of the above descriptions.)"""
"""What does a well diversified self-managed investment portfolio look like?""","""Diversification is spreading your investments around so that one point of risk doesn't sink your whole portfolio. The effect of having a diversified portfolio is that you've always got something that's going up (though, the corollary is that you've also always got something going down... winning overall comes by picking investments worth investing in (not to state the obvious or anything :-) )) It's worth looking at the different types of risk you can mitigate with diversification:  Company risk This is the risk that the company you bought actually sucks. For instance, you thought gold was going to go up, and so you bought a gold miner.  Say there are only two -- ABC and XYZ.  You buy XYZ. Then the CEO reveals their gold mine is played out, and the stock goes splat. You're wiped out. But gold does go up, and ABC does gangbusters, especially now they've got no competition.  If you'd bought both XYZ and ABC, you would have diversified your company risk, and you would have been much better off. Say you invested $10K, $5K in each. XYZ goes to zero, and you lose that $5K. ABC goes up 120%, and is now worth $11K. So despite XYZ bankrupting, you're up 10% on your overall position.  Sector risk You can categorize stocks by what \""sector\"" they're in. We've already talked about one: gold miners. But there are many more, like utilities, bio-tech, transportation, banks, etc. Stocks in a sector will tend to move together, so you can be right about the company, but if the sector is out of favor, it's going to have a hard time going up.    Lets extend the above example. What if you were wrong about gold going up? Then XYZ would still be bankrupt, and ABC would be making less money so they went down as well; say, 20%. At that point, you've only got $4K left. But say that besides gold, you also thought that banks were cheap. So, you split your investment between the gold miners and a couple of banks -- lets call them LMN and OP -- for $2500 each in XYZ, ABC, LMN, and OP. Say you were wrong about gold, but right about banks; LMN goes up 15%, and OP goes up 40%.  At that point, your portfolio looks like this: XYZ start $2500 -100% end $0 ABC start $2500 +120% end $5500 LMN start $2500 +15% end $2875 OP start $2500 +40% end $3500 For a portfolio total of: $11,875, or a total gain of 18.75%.  See how that works?  Region\/Country\/Currency risk So, now what if everything's been going up in the USA, and everything seems so overpriced? Well, odds are, some area of the world is not over-bought. Like Brazil or England. So, you can buy some Brazilian or English companies, and diversify away from the USA. That way, if the market tanks here, those foreign companies aren't caught in it, and could still go up. This is the same idea as the sector risk, except it's location based, instead of business type based.  There is an additional twist to this -- currencies.  The Brits use the pound, and the Brazilians use the real. Most small investors don't think about this much, but the value of currencies, including our dollar, fluctuates. If the dollar has been strong, and the pound weak (as it has been, lately), then what happens if that changes? Say you own a British bank, and the dollar weakens and the pound strengthens. Even if that bank doesn't move at all, you would still make a gain.  Example: You buy British bank BBB for 40 pounds a share, when each pound costs $1.20. Say after a while, BBB is still 40 pounds\/share, but the dollar weakened and the pound strengthened, such that each pound is now worth $1.50. You could sell BBB, and because of the currency exchange once you've got it converted back to dollars you'd have a 25% gain.   Market cap risk Sometimes big companies do well, sometimes it's small companies. The small caps are riskier but higher returning. When you think about it, small and mid cap stocks have much more \""room to run\"" than large caps do. It's much easier to double a company worth $1 billion than it is to double a company worth $100 billion.  Investment types Stocks aren't the only thing you can invest in. There's also bonds, convertible bonds, CDs, preferred stocks, options and futures. It can get pretty complicated, especially the last two. But each of these investment behaves differently; and again the idea is to have something going up all the time.  The classical mix is stocks and bonds. The idea here is that when times are good, the stocks go up; when times are bad, the bonds go up (because they're safer, so more people want them), but mostly they're there to providing steady income and help keep your portfolio from cratering along with the stocks. Currently, this may not work out so well; stocks and bonds have been moving in sync for several years, and with interest rates so low they don't provide much income.  So what does this mean to you? I'm going make some assumptions here based on your post. You said single index, self-managed, and don't lower overall risk (and return). I'm going to assume you're a small investor, young, you invest in ETFs, and the single index is the S&P 500 index ETF -- SPY.  S&P 500 is, roughly, the 500 biggest companies in the USA. Further, it's weighted -- how much of each stock is in the index -- such that the bigger the company is, the bigger a percentage of the index it is.  If slickcharts is right, the top 5 companies combined are already 11% of the index! (Apple, Microsoft, Exxon, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson). The smallest, News Corp, is a measly 0.008% of the index.  In other words, if all you're invested in is SPY, you're invested in a handfull of giant american companies, and a little bit of other stuff besides.  To diversify: Company risk and sector risk aren't really relevant to you, since you want broad market ETFs; they've already got that covered. The first thing I would do is add some smaller companies -- get some ETFs for mid cap, and small cap value (not small cap growth; it sucks for structural reasons). Examples are IWR for mid-cap and VBR for small-cap value.   After you've done that, and are comfortable with what you have, it may be time to branch out internationally. You can get ETFs for regions (such as the EU - check out IEV), or countries (like Japan - see EWJ). But you'd probably want to start with one that's \""all major countries that aren't the USA\"" - check out EFA.  In any case, don't go too crazy with it. As index investing goes, the S&P 500 is not a bad way to go. Feed in anything else a little bit at a time, and take the time to really understand what it is you're investing in.  So for example, using the ETFs I mentioned, add in 10% each IWR and VBR. Then after you're comfortable, maybe add 10% EFA, and raise IWR to 20%. What the ultimate percentages are, of course, is something you have to decide for yourself.  Or, you could just chuck it all and buy a single Target Date Retirement fund from, say, Vanguard or T. Rowe Price and just not worry about it."""
"""Should I finance a used car or pay cash?""","""There are several factors here. Firstly, there's opportunity cost, i.e. what you would get with the money elsewhere. If you have higher interest opportunities (investing, paying down debt) elsewhere, you could be paying that down instead. There's also domino effects: by reducing your liquid savings to or below the minimum, you can't move any of it into tax advantaged retirement accounts earning higher interest. Then there's the insurance costs. You are required to buy extra insurance to protect your lender. You should factor in the extra insurance you would buy vs the insurance required. Given that you can buy the car yourself, catastrophic insurance may not be necessary, or you may prefer a higher deductible than your lender will allow. If you're not sufficiently capitalized, you may need gap insurance to cover when your car depreciates faster than your loan is paid down. A 30 percent payment should be enough to not need it though. Finally, there's some value in having options. If you have the loan and the cash, you can likely pay it off without penalty. But it will be harder to get the loan if you don't finance it. Maybe you can take out a loan against the car later, but I haven't looked into the fees that might incur.  If it's any help, I'm in the last stretch of a 3 year car loan. At the time paying in cash wasn't an option, and having done it I recognize that it's more complicated than it seems."""
"""Advantages\/Disadvantages to refinancing online?""","""For what its worth, I recently closed on a 30 year refinance mortage with an agent I found through Zillow.  The lender has a perfect 5\/5 reputation score, whose office was located within 5 miles of my house, and as suggested by justkt on MrChrister's response, I checked out the business on the better business bureau and its online presence prior to going forward with the bank. The process was relatively painless, and the APR and closing costs were less than my previous loan with a federal credit union which I've used in the past.  I can't say if the bank I'll be using going forward is as good as the one I've used in the past, but overall I'm quite happy with it. I never met the individual in person but this saved both of us a fair amount of time honestly."""
"""What is the options industry changing about option symbols in February, 2010?""","""The change is generally known as the Options Symbology Initiative (or \""OSI\"") and there is a highly comprehensive guide to what occurred here. The basic gist of what occurred was a shift FROM: A coded system in which a shorter (3   to 5 letter symbol) could be used, but   the symbols required a data source to   determine what they meant. MSQ AD   used to be a MSFT Jan 20 option, but   you had to look up MSQ in a table to   know that. TO: A system in which much longer symbols   are needed, but they contain all the   information required to identify a   unique option: DELL 4.000 C 5\/16\/2010   isn't easy to type, but once you know   how to read it, it's easy to see that   it's an option on DELL, expiring on May 16th 2010, is a call (rather   than a put,) and has a strike price   of 4. As to why they did it, there are a number of benefits, but most important reason is this one:  they were running out of symbols.  The number of permutations of 3-5 letter symbols had been exceeded by the number of options that had been listed, resulting in the need to \""recycle\"" symbols.   This meant that a current option symbol would be the same as an old one, in some cases on a different stock, which was wreaking havoc on historical data."""
"""Which graduate student loans are preferable?""","""All new loans must be originated from the direct loan program. In most cases, the Stafford loan is better, as the rate is lower (6.8% vs. 7.9% for the PLUS loan). There aren't many viable alternatives for most people.  Private student loans exist, but carry significantly higher rates and worse payment terms. The exceptions are programs that exist for professions like medicine and dentistry. Credit cards usually carry higher rates and limited credit lines, but you have the option of negotiating the balance down or declaring bankruptcy to discharge the debt if you are unable to repay."""
"""Is buying or selling goods for gold or silver considered taxable?""","""What you are doing is barter trade. Most countries [if not all] would tax this on assumed fair value. There are instances where countries may relax this norm in border areas for a small amount.   Barter is not just for gold \u2013 one can virtually do this for any goods, i.e. sell garments in exchange for oil, sell electronic chips in exchange for consumer goods, etc. Quite a few business would flourish doing this and not exchange currency at all, hence the need for government to tax on the [assumed \/ calculated \/ arrived\/ derived] fair value. A word of caution: at times this may not be fair at all and may actually cost more than had one done a transaction using currency."""
"""Do I need another health insurance policy?""","""While I can't say how it is in the Philippines, my wife the insurance broker leads me to believe that individual insurance is more expensive than group coverages in the US almost always.  So much so that people will go to great extents to form any sort of business just to insure themselves. If however it is cheaper, can't you simply opt out of your employer's plan?  If you can opt out, will your employer give you any of the money they aren't paying for your insurance? If you can't opt out, or if you paycheck doesn't grow, I can't see why you would want additional coverage especially at such a young age.  Should you lose your job in the near future and you worry about, go get the insurance then. EDIT One big advantage is if you get personal insurance, you might need to get an exam to qualify, and it is likely the younger you are the better you will qualify. But again, you already have insurance that covers you so I would advise keeping the group policy is probably better."""
"""What is the difference between speculating and investing?""","""Speculation means putting your money on a hunch that some event may occur, depending on current circumstances and some future circumstances. So either you win huge or lose a lot. Investment is a conscious decision made on well defined research and grounded on good reasons i.e. economy, industry, company reports etc.  Here is a link on wikipedia with more details on  Speculation."""
"""Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?""","""One key piece missing from your theory is the bid\/ask spread. If you buy a stock for $10, you usually can't immediately turn around and sell it for $10. You can only sell it for whatever someone is willing to pay for it.  So virtually any random investment (stocks, bonds, forex, whatever) immediately loses a small amount of value, and over the long run you will almost certainly lose money if you buy\/sell at random."""
"""Why are big companies like Apple or Google not included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index?""","""Traditionally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was only comprised of stocks that were traded on the New York Stock exchange.  Neither Apple (AAPL) nor Google (GOOG) are traded on the New York Stock Exchange but instead are traded on NASDAQ.  All NASDAQ tickers are four characters long and all NYSE tickers are only three or less characters long (e.g. IBM or T (AT&T)). However in 1999, MSFT became the first NASDAQ stock to be included in the DJIA.  Given that AAPL now has the largest market capitalization of any company in U.S. history, I think it is likely if they retain that position, that they would eventually be let into the DOW club too, perhaps, ironically, even supplanting Microsoft."""
"""How does the bank\/IRS know whether a bank transfer over $14k is a gift or loan repayment?""","""You don't need to file or do anything. The bank will report all transfers over 10 000, but chances are slim that it will even be looked at, if you don't do this every week. Worst case, someone will ask you about the source, and you tell them exactly what you wrote above (I had multiple international transfers over 60k and nobody ever asked). You said you paid his tuition, and he is now paying you back, so in case someone asks, you should be able to produce the documentation on the tuition payment - a bill, or your bank statement showing you paid it; and the amount should be matching, so you have proof. Note that if he pays you interest, it is taxable income. You are obligated to list it on your next tax filing."""
"""Simultaneous long\/short India""","""I know its not legal to have open long and short position on specific security (on two stock exchanges - NSE\/BSE) There is nothing illegal about it. There are prescribed ways on how this is addressed.  In Cash Segment \/ Intra Day trades:   One can short sell a security. If by end of day he does not buy the security; it goes into Auction. The said security is purchased on your behalf. Any profit or loss arising out of this is charged to you. Similarly one can buy a security; if one does not pay the amount by end of day; it would go into auction and sold. Any profit or loss arising out of this is charged to you. If you short sell a security on one exchange; you have to buy it on same exchange. If you buy on other exchange; it will not be adjusted against this short position. Also is it legal to have long position on stock and short its derivative (future\/option)? There are no restrictions. Edit: @yety Party A shorts 10 shares of HDFC today in Intra-Day Cash Segment purchased by Party B. Rather than buying back 10 shares or allowing it to go into auction... Party A borrows 10 HDFC Shares from \""X\"" via SLB for a period of say 6 months [1 month to 1 year]. This is recorded as Party A obligation to \""X\"". These 10 borrowed shares are transferred to Party B. So Party \""X\"" doesn't have any HDFC shares at this point in time. However in exchange, Party X receives fees for borrowing from Party A. If there is dividend, are declared, Company pays Party B. However SLB recovers identical amount from Party A and pays Party X. If there is 1:1 split, now party A owes Party X 20 HDFC Shares. On maturity [after 6 months], Party A has to buy these from market and given back the borrowed shares to Party X. If there are some other corporate actions, i.e. mergers \/ amalgamations ... the obligation of Party A to Party X is closed immediately and position settled. Of course there are provisions whereby party A can pay back the shares earlier or party X can ask for shares earlier and there are rules\/trades\/mechanisms to facilitate this."""
"""If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting?""","""I'd not do business under these terms. A bill of sale needs a signature, right? Your signature is your word, and your word is your bond. I wouldn't participate in such a fraud, nor would I accept this sum of cash, who knows its origins?"""
"""Transfer of stock of non-public company after vesting""","""If the company is non-public, your hands are tied. Most startups have a Stock Option Plan with specific rules on the shares. In almost all cases, they have a Transferability clause preventing transfers of options and shares unless approved by the company (who would almost always say no). Additionally, they usually have a Right of First Refusal (ROFR), which states that if shares are going to be transferred, the company gets the chance to buy it first. In your case, the company may argue your friend would sell you the shares for free and the company would exercise their ROFR and buy back the shares for free. There is not much you can do in this case. You may be able to write up a contract between your friend and you, but it would be costly and possibly not worth the effort. You may be better off asking for a lump sum or some other sort of compensation. Additionally, your friend might want to be careful with this idea. You could potentially gain access to sensitive company tools\/documents which could get them in a lot of trouble."""
"""How do public-company buyouts work?""","""Thanks for your question Dai. The circumstances under which these buyouts can occur is based on the US takeover code and related legislation, as well as the laws of the state in which the company is incorporated. It's not actually the case that a company such as Dell needs to entice or force every shareholder to sell. What is salient is the conditions under which the bidder can acquire a controlling interest in the target company and effect a merger. This usually involves acquiring at least a majority of the outstanding shares. Methods of Acquisition The quickest way for a company to be acquired is the \""One Step\"" method. In this case, the bidder simply calls for a shareholder vote. If the shareholders approve the terms of the offer, the deal can go forward (excepting any legal or other impediments to the deal). In the \""Two-Step\"" method, which is the case with Dell, the bidder issues a \""tender offer\"" which you mentioned, where the current shareholders can agree to sell their shares to the bidder, usually at a premium. If the bidder secures the acceptance of 90% of the shares, they can immediately go forward with what is called a \""short form\"" merger, and can effect the merger without ever calling for a shareholder meeting or vote. Any stockholders that hold out and do not want to sell are \""squeezed out\"" once the merger has been effected, but retain the right to redeem their outstanding shares at the valuation of the tender offer. In the case you mentioned, if shareholders controlling 25% of the shares (not necessarily 25% of the shareholders) were to oppose the tender offer, there would be serveral alternatives. If the bidder did not have at least 51% of the shares secured, they would likely either increase the valuation of the tender offer, or choose to abandon the takeover. If the bidder had 51% or more of the shares secured, but not 90%, they could issue a proxy statement, call for a shareholder meeting and a vote to effect the merger. Or, they could increase the tender offer in order to try to secure 90% of the shares in order to effect the short form merger. If the bidder is able to secure even 51% of the shares, either through the proxy or by way of a controlling interest along with a consortium of other shareholders, they are able to effect the merger and squeeze out the remaining shareholders at the price of the tender offer (majority rules!). Some states' laws specify additional circumstances under which the bidder can force the current shareholders to exchange their shares for cash or converted shares, but not Delaware, where Dell is incorporate. There are also several special cases. With a \""top-up\"" provision, if the company's board\/management is in favor of the merger, they can simply issue more and more shares until the bidder has acquired 90% of the total outstanding shares needed for the \""short form\"" merger. Top-up provisions are very common in cases of a tender offer. If the board\/management opposes the merger, this is considered a \""hostile\"" takover, and they can effect \""poison pill\"" measures which have the opposite effect of a \""top-up\"" and dilute the bidders percent of outstanding shares. However, if the bidder can secure 51% of the shares, they can simply vote to replace the current board, who can then replace the current management, such that the new board and management will put into place whatever provisions are amenable to the bidder. In the case of a short form merger or a vote to effect a merger, the shareholders who do not wish to sell have the right to sell at the tender price, or they can oppose the deal on legal grounds by arguing that the valuation of the tender offer is materially unfair. However, there are very few cases which I'm aware of where this type of challenge has been successful. However, they do not have the power to stop the merger, which has been agreed to by the majority of the shareholders. This is similar to how when the president is elected, the minority voters can't stop the new president from being inaugurated, or how you can be affected if you own a condo and the condo owners' association votes to change the rules in a way you don't like. Tough luck for you if you don't like it! If you want more detail, I'd recommend checking out a web guide from 2011 here as well as related articles from the Harvard Law blog here. I hope that helps!"""
"""Are the \""debt reduction\"" company useful?""","""They are a complete waste of money, see my answer here for more details."""
"""What is the P\/E ratio for a company with negative earnings?""","""When presenting negative P\/E values, most brokers and equity analysts show them as \""n.m.\"", which stands for not meaningful. I have never seen a P\/E ratio of 0."""
"""Merrill Lynch historical stock prices - where to find?""","""You could try asking Merrill Lynch, (general inquiries) :- http:\/\/www.ml.com\/index.asp?id=7695_114042 So far I only found a few graphics :-    http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/business\/companies\/merrill_lynch_and_company\/ http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2008\/01\/17\/us-merrilllynch-results-idUSWNAS674520080117 http:\/\/www.stocktradingtogo.com\/2008\/09\/15\/merrill-lynch-saved-by-bank-of-america-buyout\/"""
"""Working on a tax free island to make money?""","""If you're an American, and willing to give up citizenship, good luck to you.  Otherwise, Uncle Sam still wants his due -- Americans are responsible for paying taxes on income earned anywhere on earth, regardless of their residence."""
"""Death and Capital Gains Taxes (United States)""","""Stocks (among other property) currently is allowed a \""stepped-up basis\"" when valuing for estate tax purpose.  From the US IRS web page: To determine if the sale of inherited property is taxable, you must first determine your basis in the property. The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of the following: The fair market value (FMV) of the property on the date of the decedent's death. The FMV of the property on the alternate valuation date if the executor of the estate chooses to use alternate valuation. See the Instructions for Form 706, United States Estate (and Generation-Skipping Transfer) Tax Return. If you or your spouse gave the property to the decedent within one year before the decedent's death, see Publication 551, Basis of Assets. Your question continues \""the person that died still has to pay taxes on their profits in the year they died, right?\"" Yes. The estate would be subject to tax on realized gains\/losses prior to death."""
"""I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?""","""This is almost certainly a scam or a mistake.  This is not good, spendable money: it is not yours to keep. Very simple to handle.  Tell the bank, in writing that you were not expecting to receive this money and are a bit surprised to receive it. Preferably in a way that creates a paper trail.   And then stop talking.  Why?  Because you honestly don't know.   This puts you at arm's length to the money: disavowing it, but not refusing it. Wildest dreams: nobody wants it back ever.    As for the person bugging you for the cash, tell them nothing except work with their own bank.  Then ignore them completely.  He probably hacked someone else, diverted their money into your account, and he's conning you into transferring it to a third location: him.  Leaving you holding the bag when the reversals hit months later.  He doesnt want you reversing; that would return the money to the rightful owner!  He works this scam on dozens of people, and he wins if some cooperate. Now here's the hard part.  Wait.  This is not drama or gossip, you do not need to keep people updated.  You are not a bank fraud officer who deals with the latest scams everyday, you don't know what the heck you are doing in this area of practice.  (In fact, playing amateur sleuth will make you suspicious).  There is nothing for you to do.  That urge to \""do something\"" is how scammers work on you. And these things take time.  Not everyone banks in real time on smartphone apps. Of course scammers target those who'd be slow to notice; this game is all about velocity.   Eventually (months), one of two things is likely to happen.   The transfer is found to be fraudulent and the bank reverses it, and they slap you with penalties and\/or the cops come knockin'.  You refer them to the letter you sent, explaining your surprise at receiving it.  That letter is your \""get out of jail free\"" card.   The other person works with their bank and claws back the money.  One day it just disappears.  (not that this is your problem, but they'd file a dispute with their bank, their bank talks to your bank, your bank finds your letter, oh, ok.)  If a year goes by and neither of these things happens, you're probably in the clear.  Don't get greedy and try to manipulate circumstances so you are more likely to keep the money.  Scammers prey on this too.  I think the above is your best shot."""
"""Can paying down a mortgage be considered an \""investment\""?""","""Something you invest in has the ability to grow in value.  So examples of investments would be buying stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities.  Buying your house or a piece of real estate can be considered an investment because the house\/property will hopefully be worth more as time passes.  So the act of paying down a mortgage really isn't an investment."""
"""What are the usual terms of a \""rent with an option to buy\"" situation?""","""While the other people have tried to answer your question as thoroughly as possible, I fear they are entirely incorrect in answering your question itself as it stands. The answer is that there are no usual terms. There are a handful of different options coming out now for this exact scheme. Examples include the UK Governments \""Help To Buy\"" scheme. Accomodation is offered at a normal rate, and a small portion of the rent is set aside each month. At the end of a fixed period, that money becomes a deposit which the letter hands over to a mortgage provider who accepts it as a deposit. This might well be a terminology thing, since the other scenario which people described falls into the same name you've used. That scenario is where the investor who owns the property is considering sale of the property, and is happy to negotiate a price up front for the next year. Usually the rent and price is higher than the market rate because if the market goes well over the next year they could end up out of pocket. Putting that into perspective, over that year they are gaining their $1,000 a month or so, but having $100,000 invested means a return of 12%. If the property value is over $250,000 which I believe to be more likely, they are achieving a return of (I think) 4.8%. That's not a bad rate, by any means, but realistically they are losing a bit more for maintenance, and they could be making more from their money. If the market were to go up in that time by more than 4.8% (my house, for instance, increased in value by over 15% in the last 12 months), they are making a substantial loss since you are getting a house at 15% below the market rate. The total works out to a 10.2% loss for them. Note that I don't know the US housing market at all, I'm speaking mostly from my experience of the market here in the UK. This is what I hear, what I see, and what I've played. To summarise a bit: Make sure you check your terms before signing anything."""
"""Should I be filling out form W-9 for somebody I sold used equipment to?""","""They are a business. You're not a corporation. They paid you more than $600 during the year, so they're supposed to send 1099 to you and the IRS about it. They need your taxpayer certification (W9) for that. They were supposed to ask for it before they paid you, but yes - they're supposed to ask for it."""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""Regarding auto insurance, you have to look at the different parts. In the United Sates most states do require a level of specific coverage for all drivers. That is to make sure that if you are at fault there is money available to pay the victims. That payment may be for damage to their car or other property, but it also covers medical costs. Many policies also cover you if the other driver doesn't have insurance. The policy that covers the loss of the vehicle is required if you have a loan or are leasing the car. Somebody else owns it while there is a loan, so they can and do require you to pay to protect the vehicle.  If there i no loan you don't have to have that portion of a policy. Other parts such as towing, roadside assistance, and rental cars replacement may be required by the insurance standards for your state, or might be almost impossible to drop because all insurance companies include it to stay competitive with their competition.  Dropping the non-required parts of the coverage is acceptable when you don't have a loan. Some people do drop it to save money. But that does mean you are self insuring. If you can afford to self insure a new car, great. The interesting thing is that some people have more than enough assets to self inure the non-required part of auto insurance. But then they realize that they do need to up their umbrella liability insurance. This is to protect them from somebody deciding that their resources make them a tempting target when they are involved in a collision."""
"""Should I Use an Investment Professional?""","""Ask yourself the same question for furniture making. Would you feel more comfortable sitting in a chair that you made yourself versus one that you bought from a furniture store?  How about one that you bought from IKEA and assembled? For an experienced, competent furniture maker, you might be able to make an equivalent chair for less money and be highly confident.  For a \""DIY\"" builder, you might be less confident but be willing to take more of a risk with the possibility of making a good chair for less money (and gain experience on what not to do next time).   The same applies to investing - if you are highly confident in your own abilities, DIY investing may work better for you.  For the \""general population\"", however, relying on experts to do the hard work (and paying a little more for their services) is probably a better option and gives you more confidence. As for the second quote, I'm note sure there's a causality there.  If anything, I think it's the other way around - people who have more money saved for retirement are more likely to use investment advisors."""
"""Why haven't there been personal finance apps or softwares that use regression modeling or A.I.?""","""What would they be trying to predict?  The value YNAB and Mint provide is objective truth about what you've spent. They can force you to think about the tradeoffs inherent in budgeting by showing that you've overspent one category, and making you decide where to find the money to cover it. They can call your attention to a credit card swipe that's larger than you intended, to a subscription you didn't intend to keep, etc. by just generally getting you to read and think about your transaction history and the sums of transactions per category and overall. Prediction doesn't really enter into it. One way to understand Mint's business model is as a service that collects training data for machine learning models that do try to predict things, such as how stock prices will move or whether users will click on certain ads."""
"""Resources to begin trading from home?""","""As JoeTaxpayer has commented, the markets are littered with the carcasses of those who buy into the idea that markets submit readily to formal analysis.   Financial markets are amongst the most complex systems we know of.  To borrow a concept from mathematics - that of a chaotic system - one might say that financial markets are a chaotic system comprised of a nested structure of chaotic subsystems. For example, the unpredictable behaviour of a single (big) market participant can have dramatic effects on overall market behaviour. In my experience, becoming a successful investor requires a considerable amount of time and commitment and has a steep learning curve.  Your actions in abandoning your graduate studies hint that you are perhaps lacking in commitment. Most people believe that they are special and that investing will be easy money.  If you are currently entertaining such thoughts, then you would be well advised to forget them immediately and prepare to show some humility. TL\/DR; It is currently considered that behavioural psychology is a valuable tool in understanding investors behaviour as well as overall market trends.  Also in the area of psychology, confirmation bias is another aspect of trading that it is important to keep in mind.  Quantitative analysis is a mathematical tool that is currently used by hedge funds and the big investment banks, however these methods require considerable resources and given the  performance of hedge funds in the last few years, it does not appear to be worth the investment. If you are serious in wanting to make the necessary commitments, then here are a few ideas on where to start : There are certain technical details that you will need to understand in order to quantify the risks you are taking beyond simple buying and holding financial instruments.  For example, how option strategies can be used limit your risk; how margin requirements may force your hand in volatile markets; how different markets impact on one another - e.g., the relationship between bond markets and equity markets; and a host of other issues.  Also, to repeat, it is important to understand how your own psychology can impact on your investment decisions."""
"""Any tips for asset allocation across multiple retirement accounts?""","""I have a similar situation -- five different accounts between me and my wife. Just as you and @Alex B describe, I maintain my asset allocation across the combination of all accounts. I also maintain a spreadsheet to track the targets, deviations from the targets, amounts required to get back in balance, and overall performance. I (mostly) don't use mutual funds. I have selected, for each category, 1 or 2 ETFs. Choosing index ETFs with low expense ratios and a brokerage with cheap or free trades keeps expenses low. (My broker offers free ETF trades if you buy off their list as long as you aren't short-term trading; this is great for rebalancing for free 2 or 3 times a year.) Using ETFs also solves the minimum balance problem -- but watch out for commissions. If you pay $10 to buy $500 worth of an ETF, that's an immediate 2% loss; trade a couple of times a year and that ETF has to gain 5% just to break even. One issue that comes up is managing cash and avoiding transaction fees. Say your IRA has all the growth stock funds and your Roth has the bonds. Stocks do well and bonds do poorly, so you sell off some stocks, which creates a bunch of cash in your IRA. Now you want to buy some bonds but you don't have enough cash in your Roth, so you buy the bonds in your IRA. Not a problem at first but if you don't manage it you can end up with small amounts of various funds spread across all of your accounts. If you're not careful you can end up paying two commissions (in two different accounts) to sell off \/ purchase enough of a category to get back to your targets. Another problem I had is that only one account (401k) is receiving deposits on a regular basis, and that's all going into an S&P 500 index fund. This makes it so that my allocation is off by a fair amount every quarter or so -- too much in large cap equities, not enough of everything else. My solution to this going forward is to \""over-rebalance\"" a couple of times a year: sell enough SPY from my other accounts so that I'm under-allocated in large caps by the amount I expect to add to my 401k over the next 3 months. (So that in six months at my next rebalancing I'm only 3 months over-allocated to large caps -- plus or minus whatever gains\/losses there are.)"""
"""What kinds of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) should specifically be avoided?""","""One of the key things to look for is trading volume.  I think the price spread will be better on high volume ETFs, which means you'll be able to sell for more when the time comes.  Check Google or Yahoo finance for those stats."""
"""Pros, cons, and taxation of Per Diem compensation?""","""Beware if injured on the job they will not add per diem to your wages meaning you make less and your wc benefits will be less !!"""
"""\""In-the-Money\"" vs \""Out-of-the-Money\"" Call Options""","""First, welcome to Money.SE.  The selected page is awful. I don't know the value in listing different expirations at the same strike. Usually, all the strikes are grouped by month, so I'd be looking at Jan '15 across all strikes.  \""In the money\"" means the price of a stock is trading above the strike price, if a call, or below it, if a put.  On 10\/20 of some year, Intel was trading at $23.34. The January $25 call strike was just $0.70, and April's was $1.82. These were out of the money. The $25 puts were \""in the money\"" by $1.66 so you could have paid $1.90 for the Jan $25 put, with $.24 of time premium.  By November, the price rose and the put fell, to $.85, all time premium.  As with stocks, the key thing is to only buy calls of stock that are going to go up. If a stock will fall, buy puts. Curious, what was the class discussion just before the teacher gave you this image?"""
"""Why do companies have a fiscal year different from the calendar year?""","""My grandfather owned a small business, and I asked him that very question.  His answer was that year-end closeout is very time-consuming, both before and after  EOY (end of year), and that they didn't want to do all that around Christmas and New Year."""
"""Is there a term for the risk of investing in an asset with a positive but inferior return?""","""I'm sorry for adding another answer @MatthewFlaschen but it is too long for a comment. It depends on the situation. Say you buy shares of the Apple Inc. and want to know what is the lost opportunity cost. You need to find out what other opportunities are. In other words what are the other possible types of investments you consider. For example in theory you could try to invest in any company from S&P 500, but is it really possible (I don\u2019t mean investing directly in index) . Are you really capable of researching each company.  So in your case you would consider only a few companies as alternative solutions. Also after different time period each choice may be your lost opportunity cost.  To measure the risk you have to: In conclusion I want to say that my goal was to picture in general how the process looks. Also this is just an exemplary answer. All is about in what finance field you are interested. For example in one field you use Internal Rate of Return and in other Value at Risk. Opportunity cost is to vague to exactly tell how measure its risk of wrong anticipation. It connects in every finance field and in every field you have different ways do deal with it. If you specify your question more, maybe someone will provide a better answer."""
"""Now that Microsoft Money is gone, what can I do? [duplicate]""","""Mint.com is a fantastic free personal finance software that can assist you with managing your money, planning budgets and setting financial goals. I've found the features to be more than adequate with keeping me informed of my financial situation. The advantage with Mint over Microsoft Money is that all of your debit\/credit transactions are automatically imported and categorized (imperfectly but good enough). Mint is capable of handling bank accounts, credit card accounts, loans, and assets (such as cars, houses, etc). The downsides are:"""
"""Cheapest way to wire or withdraw money from US account while living in Europe ""","""I use xoom.com to transfer money to India. I've been using them for over 2 years now, they are the fastest and the cheapest for me (the funds are usually available the same day). They seem to have added a lot of European countries to their list. Definitely worth a shot."""
"""How do historically low interest rates affect real estate prices?""","""The article John cites says no correlation, but this chart from the article says otherwise;  One sees the rate drop from 14% to 4% and housing rise from an index of 50 to near 190. (reaching over to my TI BA-35 calculator) I see that at 14%, $1000\/mo will buy $84,400 worth of mortgage, but at 4%, it will buy $209,500. 2-1\/2 times the borrowing power for the same payment. But wait, my friends at West Egg tell me that inflation means I can't compare $1000 in 1980 to the same $1000 in 2010. The $1,000 inflates to $2611 (i.e. an income rising only with inflation, no more) and that can fund a mortgage for $546,900. This is 6.5 times the original borrowing power, yet the housing index 'only' rose 3.8X. See that crazy chart? Housing actually got cheaper from 1980 to the peak. Statistics can say whatever you wish.  Interest rate change drove all the change in housing prices, but not quite as much as it should have.  To answer your question - I expect that when rates rise (and they will) housing prices will take a hit. In today's dollars, a current $1000 borrows (at 4%) nearly $210K, but at 6%, just $167K. If rates took a jump from these record lows, that's the nature of the risk you'd take."""
"""In India, what is the difference between Dividend and Growth mutual fund types?""","""I wrote about this a while back: http:\/\/blog.investraction.com\/2006\/10\/mutual-funds-dividend-option-or-growth.html In short: Growth options of a mutual fund scheme don't pay out any money, they reinvest the dividend they receive. Dividend options pay out some money, at different intervals, based on the surplus they accumulate. In India, the options have very similar underlying portfolios, so HDFC Equity Fund (Growth) and HDFC Equity Fund (dividend) will have the same percentage allocation to each stock. Update: I also have a video you might want to see on the subject: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Bx8QtnccfZk"""
"""How to take advantage of home appreciation""","""There are basically two ways to get value out of an appreciating asset such as a home: (a) Sell it and take the profit. In the case of a home, you presumably still have to live somewhere, so unless you buy a cheaper home to replace it, this doesn't get you anywhere. If you can get another house that is just as nice and in just as nice a location -- whatever you consider \""nice\"" to be -- than this sounds like a winning option. If it means moving to a less desirable home, then you are getting the cash but losing the nice home. You'll have to decide if it's worth it. (b) Use it as collateral for a loan. In this case, that means a second mortgage, home equity loan, or a home equity line of credit. But this can be dangerous. House prices are very volatile these days. If the value of the house falls, you could be stuck with debts greater than your assets. In my humble opinion, you should be very careful about doing this. Borrowing against your house to send the kids to college or pay for your spouse's life-saving operation may be reasonable. Borrowing against your house to go on a fancy vacation is almost surely a bad idea. The vacation will be over within a couple of weeks, but you could be paying off the debt for decades."""
"""What is the opposite of a hedge?""","""I'd say the opposite of hedging is speculating.  If you are convinced an asset will appreciate in value, or rather the probability of gains is enough to induce you to hold the asset, you are a speculator.  There are lots of ways of speculating, including holding risky assets without hedging that risk and possibly magnifying that risk and return via leverage or the embedded leverage in a derivative contract. Generally speaking, if in expectation you are paying to reduce your risk, you are a hedger.  If you are (in expectation) being paid to bear the risk that otherwise someone else would bear, you are a speculator.  The word speculation has been tainted by politicians and others trying to vilify the practice, but at the end of the day it's what we are all doing when we buy stock or any other risky asset."""
"""Can a trade happen \""in between\"" the bid and ask price?""","""Re: A trader when buying needs to buy at the ask price and when selling needs to sell   at the bid price. So how can a trade happen 'in between' the bid and ask? Saying the trade can happen \""in between\"" the bid & ask is simplistic.  There is a time dimension to the market.  It's more accurate to say that an order can be placed \""in between\"" the current best bid & ask (observed at time T=0), thus establishing a new level for one or the other of those quoted prices (observed at time T>0). If you enter a market order to buy (or sell), then yes, you'll generally be accepting the current best ask (or best bid) with your order, because that's what a market order says to do: Accept the current best market price being offered for your kind of transaction.  Of course, prices may move much faster than your observation of the price and the time it takes to process your order \u2013 you're far from being the only participant. Market orders aside, you are free to name your own price above or below the current best bid & ask, respectively. ... then one could say that you are placing an order \""in between\"" the bid and ask at the time your order is placed.  However \u2013 and this is key \u2013 you are also moving one or the other of those quoted prices in the process of placing your above-bid buy order or your below-ask sell order. Then, only if somebody else in the market chooses to accept your new ask (or bid) does your intended transaction take place. And that transaction takes place at the new ask (or bid) price, not the old one that was current when you entered your order. Read more about bid & ask prices at this other question: (p.s. FWIW, I don't necessarily agree with the assertion from the article you quoted, i.e.: \""By looking for trades that take place in between the bid and ask, you can tell when a strong trend is about to come to an end.\""  I would say: Maybe, perhaps, but maybe not.)"""
"""Can the risk of investing in an asset be different for different investors?""","""The other example I'd offer is the case for diversification. If one buys 10 well chosen stocks, i.e. stocks spread across different industries so their correlation to one another is low, they will have lower risk than each of the 10 folk who own one of those stocks per person. Same stocks, but lower risk when combined."""
"""What intrinsic, non-monetary value does gold have as a commodity?""","""The answer is that other than a small number of applications (the approx. 10% of gold production that goes to 'industrial uses') gold does not have intrinsic value beyond being pretty and rare (and useful for making jewelry.)  There are a number of 'industrial' applications and uses for gold (see other answers for a list) but the volume consumed this way is fairly small, especially relative to the capacity to mine new gold and reclaim existing gold. If you removed investment, and jewelry usage (especially culturally driven jewelry usage) then there's no way the remaining uses for industry and dentistry could sustain the price levels we currently see for gold.  Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the best data I can find for this shows the total number of tons consumed for industrial uses has been shrinking for several years now, and that was prior to recent price increases, so it is difficult to tie that reduced demand to increasing prices.  And one might postulate in a 'collapsed society' you seem to be referring to in your question, that a lot of the recent industrial demand (e.g. the '50 cents of gold in each cellphone') could quite possibly disappear entirely.   The argument many people use for gold having value is usually 'been used as money for thousands of years'.  But this confuses gold having a value of its own with the reasons why something makes a useful currency.  Gold has a large number of characteristics that make it an ideal currency, and of all the elements available it is perhaps the best physical element to serve as a currency. BUT just as with a dollar bill, just because it is a good currency, does NOT give it an intrinsic value. Any currency is only worth what someone will trade you for it.  The value is set by the economy etc., not the medium used as a currency.   So yes, people will probably always use gold as money, but that doesn't make the money worth anything, it's just a medium of exchange. Incidentally two other things should be noted.  The first is that you have a problem when the medium itself used for a currency becomes worth more than the face value.  Hence why we stopped using silver in coins, and there were concerns over pennies due to the price of copper. This leads to the second point, which is that currently, gold is TOO RARE to suffice as a world currency, hence why all countries went off the gold standard years ago.  The size of national and global economies was growing faster than the supply of gold, and hence it was becoming impossible to have enough gold to back all the currencies (inflation concerns aside)."""
"""If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses?""","""Typically, no. Unless you have a detailed agreement spelling out the apportioning of costs, all operating expenses are deducted from gross income first, with the division of the proceeds coming out of net profit, in accordance with the type and % of shares you own, and per the terms of the shareholders agreement. This is a simplified answer, and does not address other methods of extraction, such as wages paid, loans to shareholders, interest paid on loans from shareholders, etc.."""
"""What tax software automatically determines the best filing status, etc? ""","""Rob - I'm sorry your first visit here has been unpleasant.  What you are asking for is beyond the capability of most software. If you look at Fairmark.com, you find the standard deduction for married filing joint is $12,200 in 2012, and $12,400 in 2013. I offer this anecdote to share a 'deduction' story - The first year I did my MIL's taxes, I had to explain that she didn't   have enough deductions to itemize. Every year since, she hands me a   file full of paper substantiating medical deductions that don't exceed   7.5% of her income. In turn, I give her two folders back, one with the 5 or so documents I needed, and the rest labeled \""trash\"". Fewer than 30% of filers itemize. And a good portion of those that do, have no question that's the right thing to do. e.g. my property tax is more than the $12K, so anything else I have that's a deduction adds right to the number.  It's really just those people who are at the edge that are likely frustrated. I wrote an article regarding Standard Deduction vs Itemizing, in which I describe a method of pulling in one's deductible expenses into Odd years, reducing the number in Even years, to allow a bi-annual itemization. If this is your situation, you'll find the concept interesting.  You also ask about filing status. Think on this for a minute. After pulling in our W2s (TurboTax imports the data right from ADP), I do the same for our stock info. The stock info, and all Schedule A deductions aren't assigned a name. So any effort to split them in search of savings by using Married Filing Separate, would first require splitting these up. TurboTax has a 'what-if' worksheet for this function, but when the 'marriage penalty' was lifted years ago, the change in status had no value. Items that phaseout over certain income levels are often lost to the separate filer anyway. When I got married, I found my real estate losses each year could not be taken, they accumulated until I either sold, or until our income dropped when the Mrs retired.  So, while is respect your desire for these magic dials within the software, I think it's fair to say they would provide little value to most people.  If this thread stays open, I'd be curious if anyone can cite an example where filing separately actually benefits the couple."""
"""What is a \""closed-end fund\""? How is a closed-end fund different from a typical mutual fund?""","""A closed-end fund is a collective investment scheme that is closed to new investment once the fund starts operating.  A typical open-ended fund will allow you to buy more shares of the fund anytime you want and the fund will create those new shares for you and invest your new money to continue growing assets under management.  A closed-end fund only using the initial capital invested when the fund started operating and no new shares are typically created (always exception in the financial community).  Normally you buy and sell an open-end fund from the fund company directly.  A closed-end fund will usually be bought and sold on the secondary market. Here is some more information from Wikipedia Some characteristics that distinguish a closed-end fund from an ordinary open-end mutual fund are that: Another distinguishing feature of a closed-end fund is the common use of leverage or gearing to enhance returns. CEFs can raise additional investment capital by issuing auction rate securities, preferred shares, long-term debt, and\/or reverse-repurchase agreements. In doing so, the fund hopes to earn a higher return with this excess invested capital."""
"""How to diversify IRA portfolio given fund minimum investments and IRA contribution limits?""","""There are fund of funds,e.g. life cycle funds or target retirement funds, that could cover a lot of these with an initial investment that one could invest into for a few years and then after building up a balance large enough, then it may make sense to switch to having more control."""
"""Employer 401K thru Fidelity - Investment options""","""The best predictor of mutual fund performance is low expense ratio, as reported by Morningstar despite the fact that it produces the star ratings you cite. Most of the funds you list are actively managed and thus have high expense ratios. Even if you believe there are mutual fund managers out there that can pick investments intelligently enough to offset the costs versus a passive index fund, do you trust that you will be able to select such a manager? Most people that aren't trying to sell you something will advise that your best bet is to stick with low-cost, passive index funds. I only see one of these in your options, which is FUSVX (Fidelity Spartan 500 Index Fund Fidelity Advantage Class) with an exceptionally low expense ratio of 0.05%. Do you have other investment accounts with more choices, like an IRA? If so you might consider putting a major chunk of your 401(k) money into FUSVX, and use your IRA to balance your overall porfolio with small- and medium-cap domestic stock, international stock, and bond funds. As an aside, I remember seeing a funny comment on this site once that is applicable here, something along the lines of \""don't take investment advice from coworkers unless they're Warren Buffett or Bill Gross\""."""
"""Should market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings?""","""Yes factor into your fund the cost of health insurance.  You basically have three options when facing a loss of income for 3-6 months: Pre-ACA the COBRA one was the default option many planned for because there was no need to change doctors. Of course many people were shocked how expensive it was compared to just looking at the employees share of the monthly premium. For planning you can do some research into the cost of one of the ACA approved plans in your state. Keeping in mind that the lack of income might qualify you for a subsidy. As to the coverage level, that would depend on your situation and the perceived gap. I have known many people who didn't have to pick COBRA until after the new job started so they knew exactly what they needed to cover and what their bills were during the gap."""
"""(How) can I print my own checks on my printer on regular paper?""","""There are certain standards that modern checks need to meet. These aren't required by law, but banks today generally insist on them. If you are able to meet these standards and print your own checks at home, you are allowed to do so. One way this is commonly done is with purchased check blanks and check printing software. Office supply stores sell check blanks that fit into standard computer printers. This check paper includes the necessary security features of checks, and using the check printing software, you can print your personal information, including your name & address, your bank's name and address, and your account numbers. The account numbers on the bottom of the checks are called the MICR code, which stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. Normally, these numbers were printed with special magnetic ink, which was used in automated check reading machines. Checks that you purchase from your bank still use magnetic ink; however, modern check readers are optical, and don't require magnetic ink. So you should be able to print checks with your printer using standard ink\/toner, and not have a problem. Without purpose-specific check printing software, you could still buy blank check paper from the store, and with a little trial-and-error you could print using Excel.  The biggest challenge with doing this would be printing the MICR code: you would probably need to install an MICR font on your computer and play around with the size and location until you get it where you want it.  Doing a little Googling, I see that there are some check printing Excel templates out there, but I haven't tried any of these, and it is unclear to me whether they actually print the MICR, or whether they assume that you have blank checks with the MICR account number and check numbers already printed. Without purchasing blank check paper, you won't have any of the security features, such as microprinting, watermarks, erasure protection, anti-photocopying background, etc.  As you mentioned, if you are depositing checks via mobile phone app, as some banks now allow, none of these security features are doing any good.  The problem, however, is that you are not writing checks for yourself; you are writing checks to other people, and you have no way of knowing whether or not their banks are going to give them trouble with your checks.  There is enough check fraud out there that lots of bank tellers are very cautious.  I recommend sticking with check paper that has the security features because, if nothing else, it will make your check look more like a real check."""
"""Does high frequency trading (HFT) punish long-term investment?""","""No, at least not noticeably so. The majority of what HFT does is to take advantage of the fact that there is a spread between buy and sell orders on the exchange, and to instantly fill both orders, gaining relatively risk-free profit from some inherent inefficiencies in how the market prices stocks. The end result is that intraday trading of the non-HFT nature, as well as speculative short-term trading will be less profitable, since HFT will cause the buy\/sell spread to be closer than it would otherwise be. Buying and holding will be (largely) unaffected since the spread that HFT takes advantage of is miniscule compared to the gains a stock will experience over time.  For example, when you go to buy shares intending to hold them for a long time, the HFT might cost you say, 1 to 2 cents per share. When you go to sell the share, HFT might cost you the same again. But, if you held it for a long time, the share might have doubled or tripled in value over the time you held it, so the overall effect of that 2-4 cents per share lost from HFT is negligible. However, since the HFT is doing this millions of times per day, that 1 cent (or more commonly a fraction of a cent) adds up to HFTs making millions. Individually it doesn't affect anyone that much, but collectively it represents a huge loss of value, and whether this is acceptable or not is still a subject of much debate!"""
"""Why is retirement planning so commonly recommended?""","""I like many of the answers, but here is a summary of reasons: Almost everyone will retire, and it is almost certain that government or company pensions schemes will not alone give you a lifestyle you would like in retirement. Money invested early is worth much more in retirement than money invested late, thanks to the miracle of compound interest. In some countries there are tax advantages to investing a little bit of money every year, compared with nothing for a few years and then a lump sum later. Much investment advice is given by investment consultants, who profit when you make investments. It's always in their interests to have you invest as early and as often as possible (that doesn't invalidate the first three reasons). Having said that, it isn't always in your best interests to invest in retirement funds very heavily at the start of your career. You might want to consider paying off any debts, or saving for a house, or even having a bit of fun while you are young enough to enjoy it. That back-packing trip to Nepal is going to be a lot easier when you are 23 than when you are 40 with kids."""
"""What could cause a stock to trade below book value?""","""all of these examples are great if you actually believe in fundamentals, but who believes in fundamentals alone any more? Stock prices are driven by earnings, news, and public perception. For instance, a pharma company named Eyetech has their new macular degeneration drug approved by the FDA, and yet their stock price plummeted. Typically when a small pharma company gets a drug approved, it's off to the races. But, Genetech came out said their macular degeneration drug was going to be far more effective, and that they were well on track for approval."""
"""How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks?""","""A major danger of keeping \""emergency\"" funds in the form of stocks is that many of the scenarios where one would need quick access to the money will also momentarily depress the stock market.  Someone whose emergency funds were in some other form could avoid selling stocks during a momentary downturn, but someone who has no other emergency funds would have no choice but to sell during the downturn (thus losing money as well as making the downturn more significant for everyone else)."""
"""Higher mortgage to increase savings to invest?""","""Clearly this is doable and many people are doing exactly this.  At that kind of rate many will tell you to borrow as much as you can and invest.  This strategy does not work if you spend that money on dumb stuff, but you don't seem the type to do such a thing.  In some will argue that it is the only logical thing to do. Some will say that this is not a good idea due to risk.  Your chosen investment could lose value.  If this happens you would have been better off paying down your mortgage.   While my own interest rate is not as good as yours, it still pretty darn low (1.97%) after my tax discount.  Despite that I am aggressively paying down my mortgage.  My wife and I want to be debt free.  There is a certain freedom that comes along with that which cannot be explained by numbers."""
"""Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person?""","""As others have said, if you don't have dependents, there's little need for life insurance. If you can't think of any obvious beneficiary for an insurance policy, than you probably don't need one. \""Dependents\"" here should be understood broadly. It wouldn't necessarily be limited to wife and children. If you're the only support for your handicapped cousin, for example, you might want to provide for him. But I take it from your question that you have no such special case. Of course even if you have no dependents now, you might pick some up in the future. And if and when that does happen, your medical situation may have changed, making it difficult to get life insurance. But if you have no immediate plans so that any such even is likely to be far away, a serious alternative to consider would be to invest the money you would have paid in insurance premiums. Then if someday you do acquire dependents, you have a pot of money set aside to provide for them in case something happens to you. If it's not enough and you can get insurance at that time, then great, but if you can't get insurance, at least there's something. If you never do acquire dependents, you can consider that pot of money part of your retirement fund."""
"""What will happen when a bid price is higher than an ask price?""","""The situation you're proposing is an over-simplification that wouldn't occur in practice. Orders occur in a sequence over time. Time is an important part of the order matching process. Orders are not processed in parallel; otherwise, the problem of fairness, already heavily regulated, would become even more complex. First, crossed and locked markets are forbidden by regulators.  Crossed orders are where one exchange has a higher bid than another's ask, or a lower ask than another's bid.  A locked market is where a bid on one exchange is equal to the ask on another.  HFTs would be able to make these markets because of the gap between exchange fees. Since these are forbidden, and handling orders in parallel would ensure that a crossed or locked market would occur, orders are serialized (queued up), processed in order of price-time priority. So, the first to cross the market will be filled with the best oldest opposing order. Regulators believe crossed or locked markets are unfair.  They would however eliminate the bid ask spread for many large securities thus the bid-ask cost to the holder."""
"""How do I know if a dividend stock is \""safe\"" and not a \""dividend yield trap\""?""","""Let me provide a general answer, that might be helpful to others, without addressing those specific stocks. Dividends are simply corporate payouts made to the shareholders of the company.  A company often decides to pay dividends because they have excess cash on hand and choose to return it to shareholders by quarterly payouts instead of stock buy backs or using the money to invest in new projects. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by \""dividend yield traps.\""  If a company has declared an dividend for the upcoming quarter they will almost always pay.  There are exceptions, like what happened with BP, but these exceptions are rare.  Just because a company promises to pay a dividend in the approaching quarter does not mean that it will continue to pay a dividend in the future.  If the company continues to pay a dividend in the future, it may be at a (significantly) different amount. Some companies are structured where nearly all of there corporate profits flow through to shareholders via dividends.  These companies may have \""unusually\"" high dividends, but this is simply a result of the corporate structure.    Let me provide a quick example: Certain ETFs that track bonds pay a dividend as a way to pass through interest payments from the underlying bonds back to the shareholder of the ETF. There is no company that will continue to pay their dividend at the present rate with 100% certainty.  Even large companies like General Electric slashed its dividend during the most recent financial crisis.  So, to evaluate whether a company will keep paying a dividend you should look at the following: Update: In regards to one the first stock you mentioned, this sentence from the companies of Yahoo! finance explains the \""unusually\"" dividend: The company has elected to be treated as a REIT for federal income tax purposes and would not be subject to income tax, if it distributes at least 90% of its REIT taxable income to its share holders."""
"""How should I be contributing to my 401(k), traditional or Roth?""","""The Finance Buff discusses why the Roth 401k is often disadvantaged compared to a Traditional 401k in the article The Case Against the Roth 401k, including the following reasons (paraphrased): Contributions to the 401k come from the \""top\"" of your highest tax bracket rate but withdrawals fill in from the \""bottom\"".  For example, suppose you are in the 28% tax bracket.  Every marginal dollar you contribute to the Traditional 401k reduces your tax burden by .28 cents.  However, when withdrawing, the first $10,150 of income is tax-free (from standard deduction and exemption, 2014 numbers; $20,300 for married couples, joint filing).  The next dollars are at the 10% tax bracket, and so on.  This is an advantage for the Traditional 401k only if you earn less when withdrawing than you did when contributing, a reasonable assumption. Avoid High State Income Tax. There are many states that have low or no state income tax.  If you live in a state with a high income tax, paying tax now through the Roth 401k reduces the benefit of moving to a state with a lower income tax rate. Avoid triggering credit phaseouts. Many tax credits (e.g. student loan interest, child tax credit, Hope credit, Roth IRA eligibility, etc.) begin phasing out as your income increases.  Contributing to the Traditional 401k can help you realize more of those credits when you starting running up against those limits. As described in the article, if these items don't apply, contributing to the Roth 401k can be a valuable component of tax diversification."""
"""Why might a share price have not changed for several days?""","""It is because 17th was Friday, 18th-19th were weekends and 20th was a holiday on the Toronto Stock Exchange (Family Day). Just to confirm you could have picked up another stock trading on TMX and observed the price movements."""
"""Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses?""","""The concept of emergency fund is a matter of opinion. I can tell you the consensus is that one should have 6-9 months worth of expenses kept as liquid cash. This is meant to cover literally all bills that you might encounter during that time.  That's a lot of money. There are levels of savings that are shy of this but still responsible. Not enough to cover too much in case of job loss, but enough to cover the busted transmission, the broken water heater, etc. this is still more than many people have saved up, but it's a worthy goal.  The doctor visit is probably the lowest level. Even without insurance, the clinic visit should be under $200, and this shouldn't cause you to have to carry that amount beyond the time the bill comes in.  The point that shouldn't be ignored is that if you owe money at 18% on a credit card, the emergency fund is costing you money, and is a bit misguided. I'd send every cent I could to the highest rate card and not have more than a few hundred $$ liquid until the cards were at zero.  Last - $5K, $10K in the emergency account is great, unless you are foregoing matched 401(k) dollars to do it. All just my opinion. Others here whom I respect might disagree with parts of my answer, and they'd be right.   Edit - Regarding the 'consensus 6-9 months' I suggest -  From Investopedia - \""...using the conservative recommendation to sock away eight months\u2019   worth of living expenses....\"" The article strongly support my range for the fact that it both cites consensus, yet disagrees with it.  From Money Under 30 The more difficult you rank your ability to find a new job, the more   we suggest you save \u2014 up to a year\u2019s worth of expenses if you think   your income would be very difficult to replace. From Bank of America   I have no issue with those comfortable with less. A dual income couple who is saving 30% of their income may very well survive one person losing a job with no need to tap savings, and any 'emergency' expense can come from next month's income. That couple may just need this month's bills in their checking account."""
"""Personal Asset Protection - How to protect asset against a deficiency judgement?""","""Find out whether your state has a homestead law or something similar, which might protect your primary residence during bankruptcy. You may have to explicitly register to receive that protection; details differ. Frankly, you'll get better answers to this sort of question from an agency in your area which deals with folks at risk of of bankruptcy\/foreclosure\/etc. They should know all the tricks which actually work in your area. Hiring a lawyer may also be advisable\/necessary"""
"""How do we know the number of shorted shares of a stock?""","""For a company listed on NASDAQ, the numbers are published on NASDAQ's site. The most recent settlement date was 4\/30\/2013, and you can see that it lists 27.5 million shares as held short.  NASDAQ gets these numbers from FINRA member firms, which are required to submit them to the exchange twice a month: Each FINRA member firm is required to report its \""total\"" short interest positions in all customer and proprietary accounts in NASDAQ-listed securities twice a month. These reports are used to calculate short interest in NASDAQ stocks. FINRA member firms are required to report their short positions as of settlement on (1) the 15th of each month, or the preceding business day if the 15th is not a business day, and (2) as of settlement on the last business day of the month.* The reports must be filed by the second business day after the reporting settlement date. FINRA compiles the short interest data and provides it for publication on the 8th business day after the reporting settlement date."""
"""Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance?""","""It's important because it shows that the amount you owe does not decrease linearly with each payment, and you gain equity as a correspondingly slower rate at the beginning of the loan and faster at the end. This has to be figured in when considering refinancing, or when you sell the place and pay off the mortgage. It also shows why making extra payments toward principal (if your loan permits doing so) is so advantageous -- unlike a normal payment that lowers the whole curve by a notch, reducing the length of time over which interest is due and thus saving you money in the long run. (Modulo possible lost-opportnity costs, of course.)"""
"""What is the dividend tax rate for UK stock""","""The link provided by DumbCoder (below) is only relevant to UK resident investors and does not apply if you live in Malaysia.  I noticed that in a much older question you asked a similar question about taxes on US stocks, so I'll try and answer both situations here. The answer is almost the same for any country you decide to invest in.  As a foreign investor, the country from which you purchase stock cannot charge you tax on either income or capital gains. Taxation is based on residency, so even when you purchase foreign stock its the tax laws of Malaysia (as your country of residence) that matter. At the time of writing, Malaysia does not levy any capital gains tax and there is no income tax charged on dividends so you won't have to declare or pay any tax on your stocks regardless of where you buy them from. The only exception to this is Dividend Withholding Tax, which is a special tax taken by the government of the country you bought the stock from before it is paid to your account. You do not need to declare this tax as it his already been taken by the time you receive your dividend. The rate of DWT that will be withheld is unique to each country.  The UK does not have any withholding tax so you will always receive the full dividend on UK stocks.  The withholding tax rate for the US is 30%.  Other countries vary. For most countries that do charge a withholding tax, it is possible to have this reduced to 15% if there is a double taxation treaty in place between the two countries and all of the following are true: Note: Although the taxation rules of both countries are similar, I am a resident of Singapore not Malaysia so I can't speak from first hand experience, but current Malaysia tax rates are easy to find online. The rest of this information is common to any non-US\/UK resident investor (as long as you're not a US person)."""
"""How can a person protect his savings against a country default?""","""Since you are going to be experiencing a liquidity crisis that even owning physical gold wouldn't solve, may I suggest bitcoins? You will still be liquid and people anywhere will be able to trade it. This is different from precious metals, whereas even if you \""invested\"" in gold you would waste considerable resources on storage, security and actually making it divisible for trade. You would be illiquid. Do note that the bitcoin currency is currently more volatile than a Greek government bond."""
"""Is there a way to set a stop for a stock before you own it?""","""why not just use a conditional order (http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/university\/intro-to-order-types\/conditional-orders.asp)? Like a one triggers one order? an order like this lets you place a buy order for the stock and if its executed another order is automatically placed. you could choose to let your second order be a stop order. so here's a company that offers stuff like this as an ex. (https:\/\/www.tradeking.com\/education\/tools\/one-triggers-other-order)"""
"""What are the pros and cons of buying a house just to rent it out?""","""Lets consider what would happen if you invested $1500\/mo plus $10k down in a property, or did the same in a low-cost index fund over the 30 year term that most mortgages take.  The returns of either scenarios cannot be guaranteed, but there are long term analyses that shows the stock market can be expected to return about 7%, compounded yearly. This doesn't mean each year will return 7%, some years will be negative, and some will be much higher, but that over a long span, the average will reach 7%.  Using a Time-Value-of-Money calculator, that down payment, monthly additions of $1,500, and a 7% annual return would be worth about $1.8M in 30 years. If 1.8M were invested, you could safely withdraw $6000\/mo for the rest of your life. Do consider 30years of inflation makes this less than today's dollar.  There are long term analyses that show real estate more-or-less keeps track with inflation at 2-4% annual returns. This doesn't consider real estate taxes, maintenance, insurance and the very individual and localized issues with your market and your particular house. Is land limited where you are, increasing your price? Will new development drive down your price?  In 30 years, you'll own the house outright. You'll still need to pay property tax and insurance on it, and you'll be getting rental income. Over those 30 years, you can expect to replace a roof, 2-3 hot water heaters, concrete work, several trees, decades of snow shoveling, mowing grass and weeding, your HVAC system, windows and doors, and probably a kitchen and bathroom overhauls. You will have paid about 1.5x the initial price of the mortgage in interest along the way.  So you'll have whatever the rental price for your house, monthly (probably almost impossible to predict for a single-family home) plus the market price of your house. (again, very difficult to predict, but could safely say it keeps pace with inflation) minus your expenses.  There are scenarios where you could beat the stock market. There are ways to reduce the lifestyle burden of being a landlord.  Along the way, should you want to purchase a house for yourself to live in, you'll have to prove the rental income is steady, to qualify for a loan. Having equity in a mortgage gives you something to borrow against, in a HELOC. Of course, you could easily end up owing more than your house is worth in that situation.  Personally, I'd stick to investing that money in low-fee index funds."""
"""How do UK Gilts interest rates and repayments work?""","""A title such as \""5% Treasury Gilt 2020\"" expresses the nominal yield.  In other words, 5% is the yield you will receive if you are able to buy the Gilt at the nominal (issue) price of GBP100. Of course, you will not be able to buy such a Gilt in today's market for the nominal price of GBP100.  It will be trading at a considerable premium and therefore, if you hold it until maturity you will realise a capital loss to offset the relatively high income you have received. Here is an example.  The \""8% June 2021 Gilt\"" has a coupon of 8%.  To purchase a GBP100 nominal Gilt in today's market will cost you GBP135.89.  Thus, you will pay 135.89 to receive GBP8.00 income annually.  This represents a 5.88% yield (8\/135.89 = 5.88%).  That sounds pretty good.  However, if you hold the Gilt until maturity you will only receive GBP100 on redemption and therefore you will experience a capital loss GBP35.89 on each Gilt purchased.  When this capital loss is taken into account it means that the 5.88% yield you are receiving as income will be offset by the capital loss so that you have earned the equivalent of 0.757% annually.  You can of course sell the Gilt before its 2021 maturity date, however as the maturity date gets closer the market price will get closer to the GBP100 nominal value and you will again face a capital loss.  There's no free ride in the markets.  5 year Gilts currently have a redemption yield of about 0.75%, while 10 year Gilts currently have a redemption yield of about 1.15%. You may also wish to note that buying Gilts in the open market requires a minimum purchase of GBP10,000 nominal value.  However, you can purchase small Gilt holdings through the post office."""
"""At what point should I go into credit card debt?""","""Financially, it simply doesn't make sense to go into debt here. It may be that living on credit cards for a while gives you a chance to recover psychologically, but financially, it doesn't make sense. But, let's consider the larger picture here. You are unmotivated and directionless, and may be suffering from depression. That sucks; very many of us have been there. I'd write in great detail, except this site is about finance, so let's limit the scope a little. You've had therapy. It hasn't produced meaningful change. Stop with that therapy; it's not cost-effective. Financially speaking, your goal should be to get back on your feet. You should only be willing to take on credit card debt if it is very, very directly helping you accomplish this. Maybe that means a different therapist. Maybe that means paying for medication, which can often be breathtakingly effective. Heck, maybe that's a suit, something you put on each morning for a couple of hours to focus on getting a job. Maybe that means some other approach. But you should only be willing to take on debt that directly helps you get back on your feet. Should you be willing to continue as you are now, taking on credit card debt for your living expenses? No, definitely not. Credit cards charge obscene amounts of interest, and the evidence is that your current approach is not working. Going into debt in this case makes as much sense as it did for me to continue working for an employer who wasn't paying me. That is, none at all (financially). All that said, I strongly encourage you to get whatever help will work for you. Your finances are important, but they aren't everything."""
"""Strategic countermeasures to overcome crisis in Russia""","""If you have significant assets, such as a large deposit, then diversification of risks such as currency risk is good practice - there are many good options, but keeping 100% of it in roubles is definitely not a good idea, nor is keeping 100% of it in a single foreign currency.  Of course, it would be much more beneficial to have done it yesterday, and moments of extreme volatility generally are a bad time to make large uninformed trades, but if the deposit is sufficiently large (say, equal to annual expenses) then it would make sense to split it among different currencies and also different types of assets as well (deposit\/stocks\/precious metals\/bonds). The rate of rouble may go up and down, but you also have to keep in mind that future events such as fluctuating oil price may risk a much deeper crisis than now, and you can look to experiences of the 1998 crisis as an example of what may happen if the situation continues to deteriorate."""
"""How to calculate ownership for property with a partner""","""To add to ChrisInEdmonton's answer: Your conveyancing solicitor should be able to advise on the details, but a typical arrangement involves: As an alternative to the numbers in Chris' answer, it could be argued that you should first be reimbursed for the fees you paid (accounting for inflation), but that any remaining profits from the property itself should be divided in proportion to your individual investments (so 51.6% to you, and 48.4% to your partner, assuming you contribute to the loans equally)."""
"""Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments by Selling Originally Bought Shares""","""In addition to the answer from CQM, let me answer your 'am I missing anything?' question. Then I'll talk about how your approach of simplifying this is making it both harder and easier for you. Last I'll show what my model for this would look like, but if you aren't capable of stacking this up yourself, then you REALLY shouldn't be borrowing 10,000 to try to make money on the margin. Am I missing anything? YES. You're forgetting (1) taxes, specifically income tax, and (2) sales commissions\/\/transaction fees.  On the first: You have not considered anything in your financial model for taxes. You should include at least 25% of your expected returns going to taxes, because anything that you buy... and then sell within 12 months... is taxed as income. Not capital gains. On the second: you will incur sales commissions and\/or transaction fees depending on the brokerage you are using for your plan. These tend to vary widely, but I would expect to spend at least $25 per sale. So if I were building out this model I would think that your break-even would have to at least cover: monthly interest + monthly principal payment income tax when sold commissions and broker's fees every time you sell holdings On over-simplifying: You have the right idea with thinking about both interest and principal in trying to sketch this out. But as I mentioned above, you're making this both harder and easier for yourself. You are making it harder because you are doing the math wrong. The actual payment for this loan (assuming it is a normal loan) can be found most easily with the PMT function in Excel: =PMT(rate,NPER,PV,FV)... =PMT(.003, 24, -10000, 0). That returns a monthly payment  (of principal + interest) of 432.47.  So you actually are over-calculating the payment by $14\/month with your ballpark approach. However, you didn't actually have all the factors in the model to begin with, so that doesn't matter much.  You are making it artificially easier because you have not thought about the impact of repaying principal. What I mean is this--in your question you indicate:  I'm guessing the necessary profit is just the total interest on this loan = 0.30%($10000)(24) = $720 USD ? So I'll break even on this loan - if and only if - I make $720 from stocks over 24 months (so the rate of return is 720\/(10000 + 720) = 6.716%). This sounds great-- all you need is a 6.716% total return across two years. But, assuming this is a normal loan and not an 'interest-only' loan, you have to get rid of your capital a little bit at a time to pay back the loan. In essence, you will pay back 1\/3 of your principal the first year... and then you have to keep making the same Fixed interest + principal payments out of a smaller base of capital.  So for the first few months you can cover the interest easily, but by the end you have to be making phenomenal returns to cover it.  Here is how I would build a model for it (I actually did... and your breakeven is about 1.019% per month. At that outstanding 12.228% annual return you would be earning a whopping $4.) At least as far as the variables are concerned, you need to be considering: Your current capital balance (because month 1 you may have $10,000 but month 2 you have just 9,619 after paying back some principal).  Your rate of return (if you do this in Excel you can play with it some, but you should save the time and just invest somewhere else.) Your actual return that month (rate of return * existing capital balance).  Loan payment = 432 for the parameters you gave earlier.  Income tax = (Actual Return) * (.25). With this kind of loan, you're not actually making enough to preserve the 10,000 capital and you're selling everything you've gained each month.  Commission = ($25 per month) ... assuming that covers your trade fees and broker commissions. I guarantee you that this is not the deal breaker in the model, so don't get excited if you think I'm over-estimating this and you realize that Scottrade or somewhere will let you have trades at $7.95 each.   Monthly ending balance == next month's starting capital balance.  Stack it all up in Excel for 24 months and see for yourself if you like. The key thing you left out is that you're repaying each month out of capital that you'd like to use to invest with. This makes you need much higher returns.  Even if your initial description wasn't clear and this is an interest-only loan, you're still looking at a rate of about 7.6% annually that you need to hit in order to just break even on the costs of holding the loan and transferring your gains into cash."""
"""Why is there some latency between the time a check deposit was processed and when one can withdraw the money on Fidelity CMAs?""","""Every bank and credit union in the US has a Deposit Agreement and Disclosures document, Bank of America is no different. Our general policy is to make funds from your cash and check deposits   available to you no later  than the first business day after the day   of your deposit. However, in some cases we place a hold  on funds that   you deposit by check. A hold results in a delay in the availability of   these funds. that sounds great but ... For determining the availability of your deposits, every day is a   business day, except Saturdays,   Sundays, and federal holidays.   If   you make a deposit on a business day that we are open at one of our   financial centers before   2:00 p.m. local time, or at one of our ATMs   before 5:00 p.m. local time in the state where we  maintain your   account, we consider that day to be the day of your deposit. However,   if you make  a deposit after such times, or on a day when we are not   open or that is not a business day, we  consider that the deposit was   made on the next business day we are open. Some locations have    different cutoff times. so if you deposit a check on Friday afternoon, the funds are generally available on Tuesday. but not always... In some cases, we will not make all of the funds that you deposit by   check available to you by the  first business day after the day of   your deposit. Depending on the type of check that you deposit,  funds   may not be available until the second business day after the day of   your deposit. The first  $200 of your deposits, however, may be   available no later than the first business day after the day  of your   deposit.  If we are not going to make all of the funds from your   deposit available by the first business  day after the day of your   deposit, we generally notify you at the time you make your deposit. We   also tell you when the funds will be available. Ok what happens when the funds are available... In many cases, we make funds from your deposited checks available to   you sooner than we  are able to collect the checks. This means that,   from time to time, a deposited check may be  returned unpaid after we   made the funds available to you. Please keep in mind that even though    we make funds from a deposited check available to you and you withdraw   the funds, you are  still responsible for problems with the deposit.   If a check you deposited is returned to us unpaid  for any reason, you   will have to repay us and we may charge your account for the amount of   the  check, even if doing so overdraws your account. Fidelity has a similar document: Each check deposited is promptly credited to your account.  However,   the money may not be available until up to six business  days later,   and we may decline to honor any debit that is applied  against the   money before the deposited check has cleared. If a deposited check does not clear, the deposit will be removed  from   your account, and you are responsible for returning any  interest you   received on it. I would think that the longer holding period for Fidelity is due to the fact that they want to wait long enough to make sure that the number of times they have to undo investments due to the funds not clearing is nearly zero."""
"""Possibility of donations in an educational site""","""You can have a way for people to pay, i.e. some kind of payment gateway. Run as Business: Best create a company and get the funds there. This would be treated as income of the website and would be taxed accordingly. One can deduct expenses for running the website, etc. Run as Charity: Register as one, however the cause should be considered as charitable one by the tax authorities. Only then the donations would be tax free."""
"""What is value investing? What are the key principles of value investing?""","""Fama-French would be a couple of names if you want to look at this from a value\/growth dichotomy.  A simplified form of this was to take the stocks with a lower Price\/Book Value that would be the value stocks while the others would be the growth.  The principle is that some of the beaten-down stocks will appreciate more than the growth stocks will.  6 Ways To Improve Your Portfolio Returns Today also makes note of the \""growth vs value\"" split if you want another reference that way.  Historically, growth has been more volatile and produced lower returns, though past performance isn't necessarily always going to hold as some people like to invest in what is known as a \""slice & dice\"" portfolio where a portion in invested in each of 4 corners: Large-growth, large-value, small-growth, and small-value.  Some may add in bonds, REITs, and foreign stocks but the idea is that in different years, different parts of the market will do better and this is a way to capture that in a sense."""
"""Where can I find definitive terms for a preferred share?""","""This site has the best information I could find, other than a Bloomberg terminal:    Quantumonline.com QUANTUMONLINE.COM SECURITY DESCRIPTION:  SCANA Corp., 2009 Series A, 7.70% Enhanced Junior Subordinated Notes, issued in $25 denominations, redeemable at the issuer's option on or after 1\/30\/2015 at $25 per share plus accrued and unpaid interest, and maturing 1\/30\/2065 which may be extended to 1\/30\/2080. Interest distributions of 7.70% ($1.925) per annum are paid quarterly on 1\/30, 4\/30, 7\/30 & 10\/30 to holders of record on the record date which is the business day prior to the payment date (NOTE: the ex-dividend date is at least 2 business days prior to the record date). Distributions paid by these debt securities are interest and as such are NOT eligible for the preferential 15% to 20% tax rate on dividends and are also NOT eligible for the dividend received deduction for corporate holders. Units are expected to trade flat, which means accrued interest will be reflected in the trading price and the purchasers will not pay and the sellers will not receive any accrued and unpaid interest. The Notes are unsecured and subordinated obligations of the company and will rank equally with all existing and future unsecured and subordinated indebtedness of the company. See the IPO prospectus for further information on the debt securities by clicking on the \u2018Link to IPO Prospectus\u2019 provided below."""
"""What are the advantages and disadvantages of leasing out a property or part of a property (such as a basement apartment)?""","""The obvious advantage is turning your biggest liability into an income-generating asset. The downside are: (1), you have to find tenants (postings, time to show the place, credit\/background check, and etc) (2), you have to deal with tenants (collection of rent, repairs of things that broke by itself, complaints from neighbors, termination, and etc) (3), you have to deal with the repairs In many ways, it's no different from running another (small) business, so it all boils down to how much time you are willing to invest and how handy you are in doing reno's and\/or small repairs around the house. For profitability\/ROI analysis, you want to assume collection of 11 months of rent per year (i.e. assume tenant doesn't renew after year, so you have the worst case scenario) and factor in all the associated expense (be honest).  Renting out a second property is a bit tricky as you often have to deal with a large operating expense (i.e. mortgage), and renting a basement apartment is not bad financially and you will have to get used to have \""strangers\"" downstairs."""
"""How can I make $250,000.00 from trading\/investing\/business within 5 years? ""","""Deposit $3,500 each month in a brokerage account and invest that money across a handful of diversified index funds. Rebalance those investments every quarter. The hard part is coming up with $3,500 each month; this is where your budget comes in."""
"""What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]""","""A share of stock is a share of the underlying business. If one believes the underlying business will grow in value, then one would expect the stock price to increase commensurately. Participants in the stock market, in theory, assign value based on some combination of factors like capital assets, cash on hand, revenue, cash flow, profits, dividends paid, and a bunch of other things, including \""intangibles\"" like customer loyalty. A dividend stream may be more important to one investor than another. But, essentially, non-dividend paying companies (and, thus, their shares) are expected by their owners to become more valuable over time, at which point they may be sold for a profit. EDIT TO ADD: Let's take an extremely simple example of company valuation: book value, or the sum of assets (capital, cash, etc) and liabilities (debt, etc). Suppose our company has a book value of $1M today, and has 1 million shares outstanding, and so each share is priced at $1. Now, suppose the company, over the next year, puts another $1M in the bank through its profitable operation. Now, the book value is $2\/share. Suppose further that the stock price did not go up, so the market capitalization is still $1M, but the underlying asset is worth $2M. Some extremely rational market participant should then immediately use his $1M to buy up all the shares of the company for $1M and sell the underlying assets for their $2M value, for an instant profit of 100%. But this rarely happens, because the existing shareholders are also rational, can read the balance sheet, and refuse to sell their shares unless they get something a lot closer to $2--likely even more if they expect the company to keep getting bigger. In reality, the valuation of shares is obviously much more complicated, but this is the essence of it. This is how one makes money from growth (as opposed to income) stocks. You are correct that you get no income stream while you hold the asset. But you do get money from selling, eventually."""
"""Why do stock exchanges close at night?""","""I believe there are electronic exchanges that run continuously,  but the older ones don't want to change their practices since some people may have strategies which  (claim they) are based on this behavior so there would be a lot of unhappy people if it was altered. The pause doesn't seem to do any harm. There are alternatives if you dislike it. Don't try to fix what isn't broken."""
"""How to work around the Owner Occupancy Affidavit to buy another home in less than a year?""","""Danger. The affidavit is a legal document. Understand the risk of getting caught. If you are planning on using the condo to generate income the chances that you default on the loan are higher than an owner occupied property. That is why they demand more down payment (20%+) and charge a higher rate.  The document isn't about making sure you spend 183+ nights a year in the property, it is making sure that it isn't a business, and you aren't letting a 3rd party live in the property.  If you within the first year tell the mortgage company to send the bill to a new address, or you change how the property is insured, they will suspect that it is now a rental property.  What can they do? Undo the loan; ask for penalty fee; limit your ability to get a mortgage in the future; or a percentage of the profits How likely is it? The exact penalty will be in the packet of documents you receive. It will depend on which government agency is involved in the loan, and the lenders plan to sell it on the secondary market.  It can also depend on the program involved in the sale of the property. HUD and sister agencies lock out investors  during the initial selling period, They don't want somebody to represent themselves as homeowner, but is actually an investor. Note: some local governments are interested not just in non-investors but in properties being occupied. Therefore they may offer tax discounts to residents living in their homes. Then they will be looking at the number of nights that you occupy the house in a year. If they detect that you aren't really a resident living in the house, that has tax penalties. Suggestion: If you don't want to wait a year buy the condo and let the loan officer know what your plan is. You will have to meet the down payment and interest rate requirements for an investment property. Your question implies that you will have enough money to pay the required 20% down payment. Then when you are ready buy the bigger house and move in. If you try and buy the condo with a non-investment loan you will have to wait a year. If you try and pay cash now, and then get a home equity loan later you will have to admit it is a rental. And still have to meet the investor requirements."""
"""How do you find reasonably priced, quality, long lasting clothing?""","""Are specific brand recommendations allowed? I'm a big fan of Lands' End. They have good quality clothing at reasonable prices in all the basic styles. They have great customer service and you con order online and avoid clothes shopping at the mall (which I hate)."""
"""Can I rollover an \""individual retirement annuity\"" to an IRA?""","""Annuities, like life insurance, are sold rather than bought.  Once upon a time, IRAs inherited from a non-spouse  required the beneficiary to  (a) take all the money out within 5 years, or  (b) choose to receive the value of the IRA at the time of  the IRA owner's death in equal installments over the expected  lifetime of the beneficiary.  If the latter option was chosen, the IRA custodian issued the  fixed-term annuity in return for the IRA assets. If the IRA  was invested in (say) 15000 shares of IBM stock, that stock  would then belong to the IRA custodian who was obligated to  pay $x per year to the beneficiary for the next 23 years (say). There was no investment any more that could be transferred  to another broker, or be sold and the proceeds invested in Facebook stock (say).  Nor was the custodian under any  obligation to do anything except pay $x per year to the  beneficiary for the 23 years. Financial planners loved to get at this money under the old IRA rules by suggesting that if all the IRA money were taken out and invested in stocks or mutual funds through  their company, the company would pay a guaranteed $y  per year, would pay more than $y in each year that the  investments did well, would continue payment until the  beneficiary died (or till the death of the beneficiary  or beneficiary's spouse - whoever died later), and would return the entire sum invested (less payouts already made, of course) in case of premature death. $y typically would be a little larger than $x too, because it factored in some earnings of the investment over the years. So what was not to like? Of course, the commissions earned by the planner and the lousy mutual funds and the huge surrender charges were  always glossed over."""
"""What does \""interest rates\"", without any further context, generically refer to?""","""In the United States, if someone refers to the \""interest rate\"", especially if heard on news or talk radio in particular, they are almost always referring to the federal funds rate, a rate set forth and maintained by the United States Federal Reserve (the \""fed\"" for short). If the fed opts to raise or lower this rate, it subsequently effects all interest rates, whether by being directly connected in a chain of loans  or by market demand through the efficiency of financial markets in the case of bond auctions. The FOMC meets eight times each year to determine the target for the federal funds rate.  The federal funds rate effects all interest rates because it is the originating rate of interest on all loans in the chain of loans. Because of this significance as a benchmark for all interest rates, it is the rate most commonly referred to as \""interest rate\"" when used alone. That is why other rates are specified by what they actually are; e.g., mortgage rates; 10 year & 30 year (for 10 year treasury and 30 year treasury bond yields respectively); savings rate, auto rate, credit card rate, CD rate\u2014all rates of interest effected by the originating loan that is the federal funds rate.  This is true in the United States but will vary for other countries. In general though, it will almost always refer to the originating rate for all loans in a given country, institution, etc.  Note that bonds have yields that are based on market demand that is, in turn, based on the federal funds rate. It is because of the efficiency of financial markets that the demand, and thus the yields, are correlated to the federal funds rate."""
"""What should I do with a savings account in another country?""","""If the fees to keep the account open are reasonable then it's worth keeping it open for now.  It streamlines things if you need to visit or otherwise have business transactions (e.g. order things from online stores) with France or other EU countries.  If you are not yet even in university, I think it is far too early to predict where you will end up spending your time in life."""
"""Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life""","""The mortgage is a debt and you pay interest on it, typically more than you can earn elsewhere (especially once taxes are taken into account.) By lowering the principal, you lower the total interest you pay. This is true whether you sell the house after 1 year, 10 years, or 100 years. In your case, prepayments made in the next few years would mean that when you sell, your mortgage principal would be lower than it otherwise would have been, and your house equity will be higher. You can therefore either move up to more house for the same monthly payment, or have a lower monthly payment for the same kind of house. Either of those are good things, right? Now is the easiest time to find a little more money, so do it if you can. Later you will have more obligations, and develop a taste for more expensive things (statistically speaking) and therefore find a few hundred a month much harder to come by."""
"""In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?""","""Movie theater popcorn concessions are not really a competitive market."""
"""Why aren't bond mutual funds seeing huge selloffs now? ""","""Since 1971, mortgage interest rates have never been more than .25% below current rates (3.6%).  Even restricting just to the last four years, rates have been as much as .89% higher.  Overall, we're much closer to the record low interest rate than any type of high.  We're currently at a three-year low.   Yes, we should expect interest rates to go up.  Eventually.  Maybe when that happens, bonds will fall.  It hasn't happened yet though.  In fact, there remain significant worries that the Fed has been overly aggressive in raising rates (as it was around 2008).  The Brexit side effects seem to be leaning towards an easing in monetary policy rather than a tightening."""
"""What's the justification for the DJIA being share-price weighted?""","""The share-price weighting of the DJIA is a historical artifact.  The DJIA remains share-price weighted today because that's the way it has always been done, and we're talking about an index with more than a hundred years' history.  The DJIA was first calculated on May 26, 1896. Perhaps, back then, price-weighting was the most straight-forward & feasible way to calculate it each day.  You're right that it doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's why the S&P500 and other indexes are better barometers."""
"""Is it possible to trade US stock from Europe ?""","""Any large stockbroker will offer trading in US securities. As a foreign national you will be required to register with the US tax authorities (IRS) by completing and filing a W-8BEN form and pay US withholding taxes on any dividend income you receive.  US dividends are paid net of withholding taxes, so you do not need to file a US tax return.  Capital gains are not subject to US taxes.  Also, each year you are holding US securities, you will receive a form from the IRS which you are required to complete and return. You will also be required to complete and file forms for each of the exchanges you wish to received market price data from. Trading will be restricted to US trading hours, which I believe is 6 hours ahead of Denmark for the New York markets.  You will simply submit an order to the desired market using your broker's online trading software or your broker's telephone dealing service. You can expect to pay significantly higher commissions for trading US securities when compared to domestic securities. You will also face potentially large foreign exchange fees when exchaning your funds from EUR to USD. All in all, you will probably be better off using your local market to trade US index or sector ETFs."""
"""Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit?""","""I love technical analysis, and use candlesticks as part of my technical analysis system for trading mutual funds in my 401K. However, I would never use a candlestick chart on its own.  I use combination of candlesticks, 2 different EMAs, MACD, bollinger bands, RSI and hand drawn trend lines that I constantly tweak.  That's about as much data input as I can handle, but it is possible to graph it all at once and see it at a glance if you have the right trading platform. My approach is very personal, not very aggressive, and took me years to develop. But it's fairly effective - 90% + of my trades are winners. The big advantage of technical analysis is that it forces you to create repeatable rules around which you base your trading.  A lot of the time I have little attention at all on what fund I am trading or why it is doing well in that particular market condition. It's basically irrelevant as the technical system tells when to buy and sell, and stops you trying to second guess whether housing, chemicals, gold or asian tigers are is doing well right now. If you don't keep to your own rules, you have only yourself to blame. This keeps you from blaming the market, which is completely out of your control. I explain many of my trades with anotated graphs at http:\/\/neurotrade.blogspot.com\/"""
"""Equity As Part of Compensation""","""With LLCs, the operation agreement can define different shares for different kinds of income or equity, and different partners may be treated differently. In essence, you can end up with a different stock class for each partner\/member. So you need to read the grant document and the OA really carefully to know what you're getting. You may want to have a lawyer read through it for you. This may be way more complicated than classes of shares in a corporation."""
"""Capitalize on a falling INR""","""By no means is this a comprehensive list, but a few items to consider:"""
"""Investment Newbie - Options in India - For $10K - for 10 years""","""I would suggest you to put your money in an FD for a year, and as soon as you get paid the interest, start investing that interest in a SIP(Systematic investment plan). This is your safest option but it will not give you a lot of returns. But  I can guarantee that you will not lose your capital(Unless the economy fails as a whole, which is unlikely).  For example: - you have 500000 rupees. If you put it in a fixed deposit for 1 year, you earn 46500 in interest(At 9% compounded quarterly). With this interest you can invest Rs.3875(46500\/12) every month in an SIP for 12 months and also renew your FD, so that you can keep earning that interest.So at the end of 10 years, you will have 5 lacs in your FD and Rs. 4,18,500 in your SIP(Good funds usually make 13-16 % a year). Assuming your fund gives you 14%, you make: -  1.) 46500 at 14% for 9 years - 1,51,215 2.)8 years - 1,32,645 3.) 7 years - 1,16,355 4.) 6 years - 1,02,066 5.) 5 years - 89,531 6.) 4 years - 78,536 7.) 3 years - 68891 8.) 2 years 60,431 9.) 1 year - 53010 Total Maturity Value on SIP = Rs, 8,52,680 Principal on FD =      Rs 5,00,000 Interest earned on 10th year = Rs. 46,500 Total = Rs. 13,99,180(14 lacs). Please note: - Interest rates and rate of return on funds may vary. This figure can only be assumed if these rates stay the same.:). Cheers!"""
"""My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking?""","""Short answer: don't do it. Unless you know something that the bank doesn't, it's safe to assume that banks are a lot better at assessing risk than you are. If they think he can't afford it, odds are he can't afford it regardless of what he might say to the contrary. In this case, the best answer may be \""sorry for your luck;\"" you could recommend that he comes up with a larger down payment to reduce his monthly payment (or that he find a way to get some extra income) rather than getting you to cosign. Please also see this article by Dave Ramsey on why you should never cosign loans."""
"""First Job, should I save or invest?""","""Since you seem to be interested in investing in individual stocks, this answer will address that.  As for the general question of investing, the answer that @johnfx gave is just about as good as it gets. Investing in individual stocks is extremely risky and takes a LOT of work to do right.  On top of the fairly obvious need to research a stock before you buy, there is the matter of keeping up with the stocks to know when you need to sell as well as myriad other facets of investing.  Paid professionals spend all day, every day, doing this and they have a hard time beating an index fund.  Unless you take the time to educate yourself and are willing to continually put in a good bit of effort, I would advise you to stay away from individual stocks and rely on mutual funds."""
"""Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise?""","""If you don't want to do the deep research on each individual company, you might want to look at index funds and similar \""whole market\"" investments."""
"""Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster?""","""Wow, you guys get really cheap finance. here a mortage is 5.5 - 9% and car loans about 15 - 20%. Anyway back to the question. The rule is reduce the largest interest rate first (\""the most expensive money\""). For 0% loans, you should try to never pay it off, it's literally \""free money\"" so just pay only the absolute minimum on 0% loans.  Pass it to your estate, and try to get your kids to do the same.  In fact if you have 11,000 and a $20,000 @ 0% loan and you have the option, you're better to put the 11,000 into a safe investment system that returns > 0% and just use the interest to pay off the $20k. The method of paying off the numerically smallest debt first, called \""snowballing\"", is generally aimed at the general public, and for when you can't make much progress wekk to week.  Thus it is best to get the lowest hanging fruit that shows progress, than to try and have years worth of hard discipline just to make a tiny progress.  It's called snowballing, because after paying off that first debt, you keep your lifestyle the same and put the freed up money on as extra payments to the next target.  Generally this is only worth while if (1) you have poor discipline, (2) the interest gap isn't too disparate (eg 5% and 25%, it is far better to pay off the 25%, (3) you don't go out and immediately renew the lower debt.  Also as mentioned, snowballing is aimed at small regular payments.  You can do it with a lump sum, but honestly for a lump sum you can get better return taking it off the most expensive interest rate first (as the discipline issue doesn't apply). Another consideration is put it off the most renewable finance.  Paying off your car... so your car's paid off.  If you have an emergency, redrawing on that asset means a new loan.  But if you put it off the house (conditional on interest rates not being to dissimilar) it means you can often redraw some or all of the money if you have an emergency.  This can often be better than paying down the car, and then having to pay application fees to get a new unsecured loan.   Many modern banks actually use \""mortgage offsetting\"" which allows them to do this - you can keep your lump sum in a standard (or even fixed term) and the value of it is deducted \""as if\"" you'd paid it off your mortgage.  So you get the benefit without the commitment.  The bank is contracted for the length of the mortgage to a third party financier, so they really don't want you to change your end of the arrangement.  And there is the hope you might spend it to ;) giving them a few more dollars.  But this can be very helpful arragement, especially if you're financing stuff, because it keeps the mortgage costs down, but makes you look liquid for your investment borrowing."""
"""I need a car for 2 years. Buy or lease (or something else)?""","""Have you considered getting a bike? you would be able to ride it in Europe the same as over here because of no left right bias, also cost wise they are much much cheaper to run."""
"""Buying insurance (extended warranty or guarantee) on everyday goods \/ appliances?""","""I politely decline. Insurance is there to protect me against catastrophic financial loss (huge medical bills, owing a mortgage on a house that burned down, etc.) not a way to game the system and pay for routine expenses or repairs."""
"""How to systematically find sideways stocks?""","""You can likely use bollinger band values to programmatically recognize sideways trending stocks. Bollinger band averages expand during periods of volatility and then converge on the matched prices the longer there is little volatility in the asset prices. Also, look at the bollinger band formula to see if you can glean how that indicator does it, so that you can create something more custom fit to your idea."""
"""Cashing in stocks for house downpayment""","""I'm not sure where people keep getting this idea, but I see it come up a lot. Anyway, you pay capital gains taxes when you sell an investment that has appreciated. It makes no difference when\/if you reinvest the money or what you invest it in. If you are afraid of the tax burden you can minimize it by: 1) Selling a stock that you have held longer than a year to get the lower long-term rate. 2) Sell a stock that hasn't appreciated that much and therefore doesn't have a lot of gains to tax. 3) Sell a stock that's below purchase price (i.e. at a loss) to offset any short term gains."""
"""Making an offer on a property - go in at market price?""","""From then on we've felt he was really pushy and rushing us to make a decision (we need to lock in a good rate, its a sellers market, it'll go fast, snooze loose, etc).  This is the first reason for walking away. I understand that all those factors might be true but my question is: How do I know we made a good offer? I'm going to be blunt, here: You don't. You work out ahead of time what you will pay (ignore the agent) and you make the offer on the basis of your own research, research you spent months undertaking. The listed price on the location is $375,000 and according to our agent similar units over the last few years had sold for that amount. So our agent suggested making an offer at market price.  According to the agent. I'm going to be blunt here, what do any of the real estate sites out there - that offer a wealth of information for free - indicate? If you don't know, then yet again you don't know if you made the right offer or not. Do some research now by yourself. I would be shocked if your offer was at the right level. Set your emotions aside - there are a gazillion houses out there."""
"""Merits of buying apartment houses and renting them""","""Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) have different end of term dates but by less than a month.  Both have summer sessions, but most students do not stay over the summer.  You can rent over the summer, but prices fall by a lot.  Thirty to forty thousand students leave over the summer between the two.  Only ten to twenty thousand remain throughout the year and not all of those are in Oakland (the neighborhood in Pittsburgh where the universities are located).  So many of the landlords in Oakland have the same problem.  Your competitors will cut their rates to try to get some rent for the summer months.   This also means that you have to handle eight, nine, and three month leases rather than year long and certainly not multiyear leases.  You're right that you don't have to buy the latest appliances or the best finishes, but you still have to replace broken windows and doors.  Also, the appliances and plumbing need to mostly work.  The furnace needs to produce heat and distribute it.  If there is mold or mildew, you will have to take care of it.  You can't rely on the students doing so.  So you have to thoroughly clean the premises between tenants.   Students may leave over winter break.  If there are problems, the pipes may freeze and burst, etc.  Since they're not there, they won't let you know when things break.   Students drop out during the term and move out.  You probably won't be able to replace them when that happens.  If you have three people in two bedrooms, two of them may be in a romantic relationship.  Romantic relationships among twenty-year olds end frequently.  Your three people drops back to two.  Your recourse in that case is to evict the remaining tenants and sue for breach of contract.  But if you do that, you may not replace the tenants until a new term starts.  Better might be to sue the one who left and accept the lower rent from the other two.  But you likely won't get the entire rent amount for the remainder of the lease.  Suing an impoverished student is not the road to riches.   Pittsburgh is expected to have a 6.1% increase in house prices which almost all of it is going to be pure profit. I don't know specifically about Pittsburgh, but in the national market, housing prices are about where they were in 2004.  Prices were flat to increasing from 2004 to 2007 and then fell sharply from 2007 to 2009, were flat to decreasing from 2009 to 2012, and have increased the last few years.  Price to rent ratios are as high now as in 2003 and higher than they were the twenty years before that.  Maybe prices do increase.  Or maybe we hit a new 20% decrease.  I would not rely on this for profit.  It's great if you get it, but unreliable.   I wouldn't rely on estimates for middle class homes to apply to what are essentially slum apartments.  A 6% average may be a 15% increase in one place and a 3% decrease in another.  The nice homes with the new appliances and the fancy finishes may get the 15% increase.  The rundown houses in a block where students party past 2 AM may get no increase.   Both the city of Pittsburgh and the county of Allegheny charge property taxes.  Schools and libraries charge separate taxes.  The city provides a worksheet that estimates $2860 in taxes on a $125,000 property.  It doesn't sound like you would be eligible for homestead or senior tax relief.  Realtors should be able to tell you the current assessment and taxes on the properties that they are selling you.   You should be able to call a local insurance agent to find out what kinds of insurance are available to landlords.  There is also renter's insurance which is paid by the tenant.  Some landlords require that tenants show proof of insurance before renting.  Not sure how common that is in student housing."""
"""In a house with shared ownership, if one person moves out and the other assumes mortgage, how do we determine who owns what share in the end?""","""The answer is \""it depends\"".  What does it depend on? If it's a breakup situation, good luck. Whatever you do, get this issue settled as quickly as possible. In the future, don't make significant purchases with people unless you have a written contract or you are married."""
"""If I pay taxes on my earnings, would someone also pay taxes on the same earnings if I subcontract them and pay a share?""","""If you want to subcontract some of your excess work to somebody else, you better be in business!\u00a0 While some kinds of employees (e.g. commissioned salespeople) are permitted to deduct some expenses on their income tax, generally only a real business can deduct wages for additional employees, or the cost of services provided by subcontractors. Do you invoice your clients and charge HST (GST)?  Or do you tell your clients each pay period how many hours you worked and they compensate you through their payroll system like everybody else that walks through the door?  If you're not invoicing and charging HST (GST) (assuming you exceed the threshold, and if you have too much work, you probably do!), then perhaps your clients are treating you as an employee \u2013 by default \u2013 and withholding taxes, CPP, and EI so they don't get in trouble? After all, Canada Revenue Agency is likely to consider any person providing a service to a company to be an employee unless there is sufficient evidence to the contrary, and when there isn't enough evidence, it's the company paying for the services that would be on the hook for unpaid taxes, CPP, and EI. Carefully consider what form of business you are operating, or were intending to operate.  It's essential for your business to be structured appropriately if you want to hire or subcontract.  You ought to be either self-employed as a sole proprietor, or perhaps incorporated if it makes more sense to your situation.  Next, act accordingly. For instance, it's likely that your business should be taking care of the source deductions, CPP, and EI.  In fact, self-employed individuals shouldn't even be paying into EI \u2013 an independent contractor wouldn't qualify to make an EI claim if they lost a contract. As an independent, one doesn't have a job, one has a business, and EI doesn't cover the business itself, only the employees that the business deals with at arm's length.  As a business owner, you would be considered non-arms-length, and exempt from EI. Growing your business in the way that you are suggesting is an important enough a step that you should seek professional advice in advance.  Find a good accountant that deals with self-employed individuals & small businesses and run all this by him.  He should be able to guide you accordingly.  Find a lawyer, too.  A lawyer can guide you on how to properly subcontract others while protecting you and your business. Finally, be mindful of what it is you agreed to in your contract with your client:  Do they expect all services to be performed by you, personally?  Even if it wasn't written down who exactly would be performing the services, there may be an assumption it's you.  Some negotiation may be in order if you want to use subcontractors."""
"""Is dividend taxation priced in derivatives?""","""No. Black Scholes includes a number of variables to calculate the value of the derivative but taxation isn't one of them. Whether you are trading options or futures, the dividend itelf may be part of the equation, but not the tax on said dividend."""
"""Does the sale of personal items need to be declared as income on my income taxes?""","""I doubt it. In the States you would only owe tax if you sold such an item at a profit. \""garage sales\"" aren't taxable as they are nearly always common household items and sale is  more about clearing out one's attic\/garage than about profit. Keep in mind, if I pay for a book, and immediately sell it for the same price, there's no tax due, why would tax be due if I sell for a loss?"""
"""Why do stocks gap up after a buyout is announced?""","""The price gaps up because the offer is for a price above the current price. Therefore people want to buy now before the price jumps to the offer level. Of course it does depend on the tone of the announcement,  which party is making the announcement, and are they announcing an offer or a deal. If the price is $10, and the offer is for $12; then the price may quickly jump. The early buyers will make the most quick money. They hope that the deal is done quickly, or if not the final price ends up higher.  There are risks. The company could reject the offer. The due diligence could expose a problem. The regulators could reject the deal based on anti-trust issues. The deal could take many months to complete. Or the final deal could be for shares in the new company.  The risks are one reason people sell after the deal\/offer is announced. In other cases the seller finally is seeing a profit, or a smaller loss and wants out while they can."""
"""When a company liquidates, are earlier investors paid back first?""","""Assuming no debt, as you've specified in the comments to your question, the assets should generally be distributed proportional to ownership share.  BUT, without any sort of agreement, there might be contention on what each investor's share is and that might get fought out in court.  With a corporation issuing shares, the corporate charter probably defines the relationship between different classes of shares (or specifies only one class).  For a partnership though, you could conceivable have people making claims of ownership stake based on labor in addition to any cash that they put up.  Messy if there's no up-front agreement."""
"""Why don't people generally save more of their income?""","""If one takes a slightly more expansive view of the word \""saving\"" to include most forms of durable asset accumulation, I think the reason some do and most don't is a matter of a few factors, I will include the three that seem obvious to me: Education Most schools in the US where I live do not offer personal finance courses, and even when they do, there is no opportunity for a student to practice good financial habits in that classroom setting. I think a simple assignment that required students to track every penny that they spend over the period of a few months would help them open their eyes to how much money is spent on trivial things that they don't need. Perhaps this would be more effective in a university setting where the students are usually away from home and therefore more responsible for the spending that occurs on their own behalf. Beyond simple education about personal finances, most people have no clue how the various financial markets work. If they understood, they would not allow inflation to eat away at their savings, but that's a separate topic from why people do not save. Culture Since much of the education above isn't happening, children get their primary financial education from their parents. This means that those who are wealthy teach their children how to be wealthy, and those who are poor pass on their habits to children who often also end up poor. Erroneous ideas about consumption vs. investment and its economic effects also causes some bad policy encouraging people to live beyond their means and use credit unwisely, but if you live in a country where the average person expects to eat out regularly and trade in their automobiles as soon as they experienced their highest rate of depreciation, it can be hard to recognize bad financial behavior for what it is. Collective savings rates reflect a lot of individuals who are emulating each other's bad behavior. Discipline Even when someone is educated about finances, they may not establish good habits of budgeting regularly, tracking spending, and setting financial goals. For me, it helps to be married to someone who has similar financial goals, because we budget monthly and any major purchases (over $100 or so) must be agreed upon at the beginning of the month (with obvious exceptions for emergencies). This eliminates any impulsive spending, which is probably 90% of the battle for me. Some people do not need to account to someone else in order to spend wisely, but everyone should find a system that works for them and helps them to maintain some financial discipline."""
"""How do financial services aimed at women differ from conventional services?""","""Less so today, but there was a time that women played a smaller role in the household finances, letting the husband manage the family money. Women often found themselves in a frightening situation when the husband died.  Still, despite those who protest to the contrary, men and women tend to think differently, how they problem solve, how they view risk. An advisor who understands these differences and listens to the client of either sex, will better serve them."""
"""Legal right to ask for someone bank records UK""","""You might want to head on over to https:\/\/law.stackexchange.com\/ and ask the same question.   However from a personal finance perspective this kind of drama is somewhat common when someone is deceased and financial expectations are not met by the heirs.  It sounds like the daughter was expecting a lot more in inheritance than was actually received.  There was probably an overestimation of dad's net worth and an underestimation of the cost of his care toward the end of his life. Its best not to participate in this drama, and I feel that you are correct that the daughter does not have a right to see the bank account statements prior to dad's passage.  The question is also if she has a right to see it now. Here in the US a joint account can be setup so the ownership transfers to other account holder(s) up death of an owner.  So in this case your mother would own the account.  If the account is setup as such, then the estate has no right to that money.  You may want to check with the bank for some free advice.  What is the classification of the account now that dad has passed?  When a person grants someone else the power of attorney they have the ability to act as if they were that person.  Most of the time POAs are limited in scope so If I give a person the POA to register a car in my name, they cannot apply for a credit card in my name (legally).  In this case, however, the POA was probably general so pretty much your mom could do whatever she pleased. So if your mom took good care of the dad and bought herself some nice jewelry that is perfectly allowable with a general POA. I strongly doubt this daughter has any rights to the past records and may not even have the rights to the joint bank account currently."""
"""What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \""emergencies\"" but are not covered by an Emergency Fund?""","""insurance premiums  My annual car premium always caught me off guard until I set up a dedicated savings account for it."""
"""How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent?""","""So you work, and give a small irregular amount to you parents.  You live with very low expenses.  Assuming you make a bit below the average salary in the UK, you should be able to save around \u00a31000.  If you found a part time job could you save double?  I bet you could. So why do you need credit?  Why do you need a credit score? Having poor or no credit can be remedied by having a large down payment.  Essentially the bank asks, if this person could afford the payment of this loan why have they not been saving the money?  You could save the money and either buy the thing(s) you desire with cash (the smartest), or put 50% down.  Putting 50% or more down turns you into a good credit risk despite having no credit history.   In case you missed it:  why not just save the money and buy it for cash?  Why have compounding interest working against you?  Why do you want to work for the bank? Making the interest payments on loans in order to build a credit score is just silly.  It is an instance of a \""tail wagging the dog\""."""
"""If I have a lot of debt and the housing market is rising, should I rent and slowly pay off my debt or buy and roll the debt into a mortgage?""","""Buy and Hope is a common investment strategy. It's also one that will keep you poor. Instead of thinking about saving money to put against a credit card or line of credit using your own job and hard-earned dollars, why not use someone else's money? If you have enough of a down payment for a property of your own, consider a duplex, triplex, or 4-plex where you live in one of the units. Since you will be living there you only need 5% down as opposed to 20% down if you do not live there. This arrangement gives you a place to live while you have other people paying your mortgage and other debts. If done properly, you can find a place that is cash-flow positive so you basically live rent-free.  This all assumes you have a down payment and a bank that will work with you. Your best bet is to discuss your situation with a mortgage broker. They know all the rules, and which banks have the best deal for you. A mortgage broker works on your behalf and is paid by the lending institution, not you. There are various caveats with this strategy, and they all revolve around knowing what to do and how to execute the plan. I suggest Googling Robert Kiyosaki and reading \""Rich Dad Poor Dad\"" before taking this journey. He offers a number of free and paid seminars that teach people how to purchase real estate and make it pay. I have taken the free evening seminar and the $500 weekend seminar on how to purchase properties and make money with them. Note that I have no affiliation with Kiyosaki, and I do find his methods to work."""
"""What does \""profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share\"" mean?""","""What does it mean in terms of share price? Should the share price increase by 15 cents?  No, but you're on the right track. In theory, the price of a share reflects it's \""share\"" of time discounted future earnings. To put it concretely, imagine a company consistently earning 15 cents a share every year and paying it all out as dividends. If you only paid 25 cents for it, you could earn five cents a share by just holding it for two years. If you imagine that stocks are priced assuming a holding period of 20 years or so, so we'd expect the stock to cost less than 3 dollars.  More accurately, the share price reflects expected future earnings. If everyone is assuming this company is growing earnings every quarter, an announcement will only confirm information people have already been trading based on. So if this 15 cents announcement is a surprise, then we'd expect the stock price to rise as a function of both the \""surprise\"" in earnings, and how long we expect them to stay at this new profitability level before competition claws their earnings away. Concretely, if 5 cents a share of that announcement were \""earnings surprise,\"" you'd expect it to rise somewhere around a dollar."""
"""I want to invest in a U.S.-based company with unquoted stocks, but I am a foreigner. How to do this?""","""Life would be nicer had we not needed lawyers. But for some things - you better get a proper legal advice. This is one of these things. Generally, the United States is a union of 50 different sovereign entities, so you're asking more about Texas, less about the US. So you'd better talk to a Texas lawyer. Usually, stock ownership is only registered by the company itself (and sometimes not even that, look up \""street name\""), and not reported to the government. You may get a paper stock certificate, but many companies no longer issue those. Don't forget to talk to a lawyer and a tax adviser in your home country, as well. You'll be dealing with tax authorities there as well. The difference between \""unoted\"" (never heard of this term before) and \""regular\"" stocks is that the \""unoted\"" are not publicly traded. As such, many things that your broker does (like tax statements, at source withholding, etc) you and your company will have to do on your own. If your company plans on paying dividends, you'll have to have a US tax ID (ITIN or SSN), and the company will have to withhold the US portion of the taxes. Don't forget to talk to a tax adviser about what happens when you sell the stock. Also, since the company is not publicly traded, consider how will you be able to sell it, if at all."""
"""Retirement & asset allocation of $30K for 30 year old single guy""","""IMHO bonds are not a good investment at this present time, nor generally. Appreciate for a moment that the yield of an investment is DIRECTLY related to the face\/trading value. If a thing (bond\/stock) trades for $100 and yields 3%, it pays $3.  In the case of a bond, the bond doesn't pay a % amount, it pays a $ amount.  Meaning it pays $3. SO, for the yield to rise, what has to happen to the trading price?  It has to decrease. As of 2013\/14 bonds are trading at historically LOW yields.  The logical implication of this is if a bond pays a fixed $ amount, the trading price of the bond has to have increased.  So if you buy bonds now, you will see a decrease in its face value over the long term. You may find the first tool I built at Simple Stock Search useful as you research potential investments."""
"""Start Investing - France""","""I am not interested in watching stock exchange rates all day long. I just want to place it somewhere and let it grow Your intuition is spot on! To buy & hold is the sensible thing to do.  There is no need to constantly monitor the stock market. To invest successfully you only need some basic pointers. People make it look like it's more complicated than it actually is for individual investors. You might find useful some wisdom pearls I wish I had learned even earlier.  Stocks & Bonds are the best passive investment available. Stocks offer the best return, while bonds are reduce risk. The stock\/bond allocation depends of your risk tolerance. Since you're as young as it gets, I would forget about bonds until later and go with a full stock portfolio. Banks are glorified money mausoleums; the interest you can get from them is rarely noticeable. Index investing is the best alternative. How so? Because 'you can't beat the market'. Nobody can; but people like to try and fail.  So instead of trying, some fund managers simply track a market index (always successfully) while others try to beat it (consistently failing). Actively managed mutual funds have higher costs for the extra work involved. Avoid them like the plague.  Look for a diversified index fund with low TER (Total Expense Ratio). These are the most important factors. Diversification will increase safety, while low costs guarantee that you get the most out of your money. Vanguard has truly good index funds, as well as Blackrock (iShares).  Since you can't simply buy equity by yourself, you need a broker to buy and sell. Luckily, there are many good online brokers in Europe. What we're looking for in a broker is safety (run background checks, ask other  wise individual investors that have taken time out of their schedules to read the small print) and that charges us with low fees. You probably can do this through the bank, but... well, it defeats its own purpose.  US citizens have their 401(k) accounts. Very neat stuff. Check your country's law to see if you can make use of something similar to reduce the tax cost of investing. Your government will want a slice of those juicy dividends. An alternative is to buy an index fund on which dividends are not distributed, but are automatically reinvested instead.  Some links for further reference:  Investment 101, and why index investment rocks: However the author is based in the US, so you might find the next link useful.  Investment for Europeans: Very useful to check specific information regarding European investing. Portfolio Ideas: You'll realise you don't actually need many equities, since the diversification is built-in the index funds.  I hope this helps! There's not much more, but it's all condensed in a handful of blogs."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""Day trading is an attempt to profit on high frequency signal changes. Long term investing profits on low frequency changes. What is the difference? High Frequency Signal = the news of the day. This includes things like an earnings report coming out, panic selling, Jim Cramer pushing his \""buy buy buy\"" button, an oil rig blowing up in the ocean, a terrorist attack in some remote region of the globe, a government mandated recall, the fed announcing an interest rate hike, a competitor announcing a new product, hurricanes, cold winters, a new health study on child obesity, some other company in the same sector missing their earnings, etc. Think daily red and green triangles on CNBC: up a buck, down a buck. Low Frequency Signal = The long term effectiveness of a company to produce and sell a product efficiently plus the sum of the high frequency signal over a long period of time. Think 200 day moving average chart of a stock. No fast changes, just, long term trends. Over time, the high frequency changes tend to negate each other. To me, long term investing is wiser because the low frequency signal is dominated by a companies ability to function well over time. That in turn is driven by the effectiveness of its leadership coupled with the skill and motivation of its employees. You are betting on the company and its people. Pseudo-random shorterm forces, which you can't control, play less of a role.  The high frequency signal, on the other hand, is dominated by sporadic and unpredictable forces that typically can't be controlled by the company. It has some tinge of randomness about it. Trying to invest on that random component is not investing at all, it is gambling (akin to \""investing\"" in that next coin flip coming up heads) I understand the allure of high frequency trading. Look at the daily chart of a popular stock and focus on the up and down ticks. Mathematically, you could make a killing if you could just stack all those upticks on top of each other. If only it was that easy."""
"""Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it?""","""If the government prints money recklessly and causes inflation, people will come to expect inflation, and the value of the currency will plummet, and you'll end up like Zimbabwe where a trillion dollars won't buy a loaf of bread.  If the government actually pays people for the money they borrow, they don't have this problem - and as it turns out, the US government can get pretty good rates on borrowing in general, in part because they're extraordinarily good about paying them back. (Also, inflation expectations are low, so people will accept 1-2% interest rates. If you expected inflation of 10%, you'd see people demanding something more like 12% interest rates.) (The downside of too much of this sort of borrowing is that it \""crowds out\"" other borrowing, which may harm the economy. Who would lend money to \/ invest in a small business, if the government is paying good money and there's almost no risk at all?) Now, inflation can come into play afterward, if the Fed decides it needs to maintain \""easy money\"" policies to stimulate the economy (because taxes are too high because we're paying off the debt, or because we've crowded out smaller borrowers, or something). -- In general, you can count on the the principle that if you, as the government, try to play too many games with people's money... well, people aren't stupid; they will eventually catch on, and adjust their behavior to compensate, and then you're right back where you started, but with less trust."""
"""Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc?""","""One is a choice the other is not. While they are both liabilities on the balance sheet, in the real world they are quite different.   We do not feel as much ownership over our money that goes to interest payments as we do over our tax payments.  Taxes pay for our government and the services it provides.  Interest, on the other hand, is what we pay in order to have a bank loan us money.  Similar to paying for a good or service obtained from some other business, we do not feel we have a say in what the bank does with that money.  If we disapprove of a business' practices, we stop doing business with them; assuming there are other choices.  We can not practically avoid dealing with our government.   We certainly feel that we should have a say in what is done with our tax money.  I doubt there is anyone in the world that completely approves of their government's spending.  It is very easy to feel marginalized with regard to our tax payments.  For example, some people feel resentment because their taxes fund the welfare rolls. All that said, I believe there is little overlap between the two groups.  It seems to me that you are referring to those with large amounts of high interest (e.g. credit card) debt.  I doubt that a large percentage of them are scouring the tax laws, looking for deductions and loopholes.  If they had that mindset, they would also be working hard to get out of the hole they are in.   In summary, we choose to pay a financial adviser, to take out a loan or to obtain a credit card.  We do not choose to pay taxes.  Since taxes are supposed to pay for our government and things which should benefit everyone, we want a say in what is done with it.  This is also the case because it is forced on us.  (\""Fine son, I'll lend you some money, but I don't want you buying cigarettes with it.\"")  Since our say is limited and we likely will not approve of everything our government does, we want to exert what control we do have: reduce our payments as best we can."""
"""Do individual investors use Google to obtain stock quotes?""","""I won't be able to model stock prices using this information.  The pros aren't likely to use Google as much. Even the casual investor is likely to have his own habits. For example, I've come to like how Yahoo permits me to set up a portfolio and follow the stocks I want. And the information that interests me is there, laid out nicely, price, history, insider trades, news etc.  But your effort probably still has some discovery value, as it will help you understand when interest in a company suddenly swells above normal. Nothing wrong with a good project like that. Just don't expect to extract too much market-beating success from it. The pros will eat your lunch, take your money, and not even say thanks. Welcome to Money.SE."""
"""Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price""","""The sales manager and\/or finance manager applied a rebate that did not apply.  It's their fault.  They have internal accounts to handle these situations as they do come up from time to time.  The deal is done.  They have no legal ground."""
"""What does \""profits to the shareholders jumped to 15 cents a share\"" mean?""","""It means that the company earned 15 cents per share in the most recently reported quarter. Share price may or not be affected, depending on how buyers and sellers value the company. Just because profits \""jumped,\"" does not mean the shares will follow suit. An increase in profits may have already been priced into the stock, or the market expected the increase in profit to be even higher. As the shareholder, you don't actually get any of these profits into your hands, unless the company pays out a portion of these profits as a dividend."""
"""Good at investing - how to turn this into a job?""","""Step 1: Get a part-time job in sales.  Perhaps selling appliances at Sears. Step 2: If you are great at that, then look into becoming a stock broker\/investment adviser in Boise ... which is a sales job.   Step 3: If you are great at that, then you might be able to become a portfolio manager, perhaps a hedge fund manager for the clients you collected as a stock broker\/ investment consultant.   That seems to be the steps I have seen from reading the bios of a number of professional investors.   The other method seems to be an MBA from a top 10 business school."""
"""What benefits are there to having a Pension (Retirement Account) In Ireland?""","""As you point out, the main benefits of a pension\/retirement account over a traditional cash\/taxable account are the legal and tax benefits.  Most Western countries establish a specific legal definition for an account which is often taxed less or not at all relative to taxable accounts and which contains some protection for the owner in case of a bankruptcy.  The typical drawbacks for investing within such structures are limited investment choice, limited withdrawal rights (either in terms of age or rate of withdrawal), and maximum contributions.  The benefits are usually very clear, and your decision whether or not to open a pension\/retirement account should depend on a careful weighing of the benefits and drawbacks. As to whether you may end up with less than you started, that depends on what you invest in.  As with all of finance, you must take more risk to get more return.  Although the choices inside a pension\/retirement account may be worded somewhat differently, they are usually fundamentally no different than some of the most popular investments available for ordinary taxable accounts."""
"""Comprehensive tutorial on double-entry personal finance? ""","""I found this book to be pretty decent: It is a workbook, and full of little exercises."""
"""How to decide on split between large\/mid\/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance""","""One other thing to consider, particularly with Vanguard, is the total dollar amount available.  Vanguard has \""Admiralty\"" shares of funds which offer lower expense ratios, around 15-20% lower, but require a fairly large investment in each fund (often 10k) to earn the discounted rate.  It is a tradeoff between slightly lower expense ratios and possibly a somewhat less diverse holding if you are relatively early in your savings and only have say 20-30k (which would mean 2 or 3 Admiralty share funds only)."""
"""Should I find a regular job or continue doing what am doing? ""","""This might sound harsh, but the first thing I would suggest is to stop making excuses.  I wasn't able to continue due to pressure from college and family The college I went to was horrible. Employers can very easily hire foreign work-force for   very cheap; for example as a citizen if I work $10 an hour, they can   get someone from outside to work for $5 per hour There's no guarantee that the project will succeed. I cannot really work and at the same time develop software on my free   time.  Despite my failures in the past, I was not the main person that's   responsible for those failures. Even if all of this is true, it's not helping you move forward and it seems to be getting in the way of creating a good action plan and motivating yourself to succeed. If you believe (based on past experiences) that you are doomed to fail, then you are indeed doomed to fail. You need to take a step back and re-evaluate your current circumstances and what you can do to reach your goals. You have a couple of things working in your favor here. It's great that you are debt free. That already puts you ahead of a lot of your peers.  You have the option of living with your parents. Presumably for no rent, or at least much lower rent than you would have to pay if you move out. This is worth literally thousands of $\/\u00a3\/\u20ac for every year you stay. Now, onto your questions: 1) Should I quit regular programming for a normal job because I never monetized programming so I can move out of my parents' home? Are you being paid for this \""regular programming\""? If so, are you being paid more than minimum wage? If not, it's perfectly acceptable to consider alternative ways to spend your time and generate income. However, this doesn't have to be at the expense of living with your parents. Have you thought about getting a new or second job while still living with them? If you absolutely must move out of your parent's home, consider renting a room in a house with other people to keep the rent costs to a minimum. That way, even if your main job is low paying, you should be able to put aside some money each month for future endeavors.  2) Should I monetize programming and gamble with the future? What does this mean? Are you thinking you'll write a mobile app and sell thousands of copies for 99\u00a2 each? That would indeed be a big gamble, but maybe that's not what you meant, so you'll need to clarify. 3) Would it be wise to essentially quit programming for the sake of a minimum wage job? I'm not sure how this is different from question 1. So I'll reiterate what I said there - moving out is going to be expensive. You can still do it, but you're asking on a Personal Finance site where the focus is usually how to minimize living costs and maximize income. Without knowing more about where you live (employment opportunities, cost of living) the default recommendation is usually to save money by staying in your parents house. TLDR: Don't focus on anyone else. They are not preventing you from getting the job you want. Look at your own skills and qualifications (not just programming, consider all of your abilities). What are you good at? Who might need those skills? What is the cost of reaching those people (commute time, moving nearer)? What is the reward? If the reward exceeds the cost, start approaching those people. Show them what you can do."""
"""When to buy and sell bonds""","""Why does selling a bond drive up the yield? The bond will pay back a fixed amount when it comes due. The yield is a comparison of what you pay for the bond and what will be repaid when it matures (assuming no default). Why does the yield go up if the country is economically unstable? If the country's economy is unstable, that increases the chance that they will default and not pay the full value of the bonds when they mature. People are selling them now at a loss instead of waiting for a default later for a greater loss. So if you think Greece is not going to default as it's highly likely a country would completely default, wouldn't it make sense to hold onto the bonds? Only if you also think that they will pay back the full value at maturity. It's possible that they pay some, but not all. It's also possible that they will default. It's also possible that they will get kicked out of the Euro and start printing Drachmas again, and try to pay the bonds back with those which could devalue the bonds through inflation. The market is made of lots of smart people. If they think there are reasons to worry, there probably are. That doesn't mean they can predict the future, it just means that they are pricing the risk with good information. If you are smarter than the herd, by all means, bet against them and buy the bonds now. It can indeed be lucrative if you are right, and they are wrong."""
"""Credit card closed. Effect on credit score (USA)""","""There are two factors in your credit score that may be affected. The first is payment history. Lenders like to see that you pay your bills, which is the most straightforward part of credit scores IMO. If you've actually been paying your bills on time, though, then this should still be fine. The second factor is the average age of your open accounts. Longer is considered better here because it means you have a history of paying your bills, and you aren't applying for a bunch of credit recently (in which case you may be taking on too much and will have difficulties paying them). If this card is closed, then it will no longer count for this calculation. If you don't have any other open credit accounts, then that means as soon as you open another one, your average age will be one day, and it will take a long time to get it to \""good\"" levels; if you have other matured accounts, then those will balance out any new accounts so you don't get hit as much. Incidentally, this is one of the reasons why it's good to get cards without yearly fees, because you can keep them open for a long time even if you switch to using a different card primarily."""
"""Uncashed paycheck 13 years old""","""Under US law, a bank is not obligated to honor a check that is more than six months old. \u00a7 4-404. BANK NOT OBLIGED TO PAY CHECK MORE THAN SIX MONTHS OLD. A bank is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer's account for a payment made thereafter in good faith. Note the law says the bank is not OBLIGATED to honor the check, but they are not forbidden from doing so. I don't have a survey on this, but I think most banks won't honor a check after more than 6 months to a year. I've had a few occasions where early in the year someone accidentally wrote the previous year on a check, like on January 10, 2017 they dated the check January 10, 2016, and the bank has given me a hard time about cashing it. The statute of limitations to challenge payment or non-payment of a check is 6 years: \u00a7 3-118. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. (b) Except as provided in subsection (d) or (e), if demand for payment is made to the maker of a note payable on demand, an action to enforce the obligation of a party to pay the note must be commenced within six years after the demand.  I understand your frustration about being denied money that you presumably worked for and earned. But look at it from the other side. Suppose you wrote a check to someone, and years later they still had not cashed it. At some point you'd want to be able to clear this off your bank account. What if you want to close the account? What happens when you die? Would your heirs have to keep this account open for years ... decades ... centuries ... on the possibility that someday someone will cash this check? Realistically, there has to be SOME time limit. 6 months should be plenty of time for someone to make it to the bank with a check. If the company still exists then you could argue they have a MORAL obligation to pay you. If they have records that show that they did indeed give you this check and you never cashed it there'd be no question that you were trying to cheat them. But a moral obligation and a legal obligation are two different things. Legally, they paid you, and it's your problem that you failed to cash the check. You could talk to a lawyer, but if you live in the US, I think you are out of luck. (Of course other countries have different laws.)"""
"""Canadian RRSPs Transfer""","""Probably not. For your savings to enter an RRSP account, the recipient account must itself be an RRSP (duh! I hear you say). This appears to rule out any UK-based banks as they would not offer this type of account, which appears to be confirmed with a quick Google search returning no useful result for \""rrsp uk\"". According to Income Tax Folio S3-F10-C1, Qualified Investments \u2013 RRSPs, RESPs, RRIFs, RDSPs and TFSAs, an RRSP may include listed securities traded on designated stock exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange. While this enables some possibilities, it is not clear that Canadian banks would offer much in the form of UK RRSPs. Your best bet may be to contact your bank and ask if they offer RRSP services for expats. Here is a list of Canadian banks in the UK. Obviously, this does not mean that they offer the type of service you are looking for (or even that they offer retail services, this may be just a trading office). Finally, if you need to move money from an RRSP to anything other than an RRSP this will trigger the inclusion of the sale proceeds as taxable income in that year."""
"""Allocating IRA money, clarification needed""","""You'll likely see several more scary market events before your autumn years. Ahhh, everyone has an opinion on this so here is mine :) If you are constrained to picking canned mutual fund products then I would target something with decent yield for two points. The third is to keep some in cash for an 'event'.   I would say 65\/35 at this point so invest 65% and have some liquidity for an 'opportunity'.  Because the next crisis is right around the corner. But stay invested."""
"""What is the best and most optimal way to use margin""","""This essentially depends on how you prefer to measure your performance. I will just give a few simple examples to start. Let me know if you're looking for something more. If you just want to achieve maximum $ return, then you should always use maximum margin, so long as your expected return (%) is higher than your cost to borrow. For example, suppose you can use margin to double your investment, and the cost to borrow is 7%. If you're investing in some security that expects to return 10%, then your annual return on an account opened with $100 is: (2 * $100 * 10% - $100 * 7%) \/ $100 = 13% So, you see the expected return, amount of leverage, and cost to borrow will all factor in to your return. Suppose you want to also account for the additional risk you're incurring. Then you could use the Sharpe Ratio. For example, suppose the same security has volatility of 20%, and the risk free rate is 5%. Then the Sharpe Ratio without leverage is: (10% - 5%) \/ 20% = 0.25 The Sharpe Ratio using maximum margin is then: (13% - 5%) \/ (2 * 20%) = 0.2, where the 13% comes from the above formula. So on a risk-adjusted basis, it's better not to utilize margin in this particular example."""
"""Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? ""","""The following have been recommended to me for the UK: When I was doing my investigations, all had good reputations but Interactive Investor looked to have the nicer service and their fees seemed a bit more reasonable.  TD Waterhouse has the advantage of a number of sites serving local markets (TD Ameritrade for the US, for instance)."""
"""Does dollar cost averaging really work?""","""If you define dollar cost cost averaging as investing a specific dollar amount over a certain fixed time frame then it does not work statistically better than any other strategy for getting that money in the market.  (IE Aunt Ruth wants to invest $60,000 in the stock market and does it $5000 a month for a year.) It will work better on some markets and worse on others, but on average it won't be any better. Dollar cost averaging of this form is effectively a bet that gains will occur at the end of the time period rather than the beginning, sometimes this bet will pay off, other times it won't. A regular investment contribution of what you can afford over an indefinite time period (IE 401k contribution) is NOT Dollar Cost Averaging but it is an effective investment strategy."""
"""250k USD in savings. What's next?""","""Find a good financial advisor that is willing to teach you and not just interested in making a commission on your net worth. Talk to them and talk some more. Go slow and don't make impulsive buying decisions. If you don't understand it then don't buy it. Think long term - how do I turn this 250K into 2.5M? Congrats on the savings!"""
"""Will ADR owner enjoy same benefit as common shares holders""","""One other issue you may face is when the company announces poor financial results and begins to tank, you will not be able to sell until the US market open and could incur a lot of pain."""
"""Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?""","""It depends on the selling price, but if we can assume the property will be sold at a profit, they are getting a pretty sweet deal at your expense. They are both getting about 5.2% interest on their money, plus the lion's share of any property appreciation. I would say that fair would be either of:"""
"""Why are prices in EUR for consumer items often the same number as original USD price, but the GBP price applies the actual exchange rate?""","""In the EU prices on consumer-focussed sites* are quoted inclusive of VAT. In the USA prices are  quoted exclusive of sales tax. Consumer pricing is usually driven at least partly by psychological concerns. Some pricepoints are more appealing to certain types of buyers than others.  The Euro vs dollar exchange rate has fluctuated a bit over the years but it's generally averaged somewhere around 1.2 dollars per Euro over the last decade. VAT has varied around 15%-20% in most cases. Put these things together and the same headline price points are generally appropriate in both the USA and the Eurozone. OTOH the Brisith pound has been worth substantially more than the dollar or the Euro. So it makes sense to have a lower headline price in the UK. * B2B focussed sites often quote prices exclusive of VAT, you need to be aware of this when comparing prices."""
"""Is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets?""","""Candlesticks and TA are a relic of pre-computer trading, period. Market makers use sophisticated algorithms not for trading, but manipulations."""
"""How to find a good third-party, 401k management\/advice service?""","""The vanilla advice is investing your age in bonds and the rest in stocks (index funds, of course). So if you're 25, have 75% in stock index fund and 25% in bond index. Of course, your 401k is tax sheltered, so you want keep bonds there, assuming you have taxable investments. When comparing specific funds, you need to pay attention to expense ratios. For example, Vanguard's SP 500 index has an expense ratio of .17%. Many mutual funds charge around 1.5%. That means every year, 1.5% of the fund total goes to the fund manager(s). And that is regardless of up or down market. Since you're young, I would start studying up on personal finance as much as possible. Everyone has their favorite books and websites. For sane, no-nonsense investment advise I would start at bogleheads.org. I also recommend two books -  This is assuming you want to set up a strategy and not fuss with it daily\/weekly\/monthly. The problem with so many financial strategies is they 1) don't work, i.e. try to time the market or 2) are so overly complex the gains are not worth the effort. I've gotten a LOT of help at the boglehead forums in terms of asset allocation and investment strategy. Good luck!"""
"""Can stock market gains be better protected under an LLC arrangement?""","""All corporate gains are taxed at the same rate as corporate income, for the corporate entity, so this actually can be WORSE than the individual capital gains tax rates. There are a lot of things you can do with trading certain asset classes, like opening you up to like-kind re-investment tax perks, but I can't think of anything that helps with stocks. Also, in the US there is now a law against doing things solely to avoid tax if they have no other economic purpose. So be conscious about that, you'll need to be able to rationalize at least a thin excuse for why you jumped through all the hoops."""
"""How to evaluate an annuity""","""Annuities are usually not good deals. Commissions to the salesman can be as high as 9% of the initial premium. They're not scams, just not the best deals for most circumstances. Basically, these things are a combination of an investment vehicle and multiple insurance policies, including permanent insurance. The 8.2% \""return\"" is the total cash value of the account, which your heirs get if you die."""
"""What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?""","""There is no numerical convention in finance that I have ever seen.  If you look at statements or reports that measure growth when the starting value is negative or zero, you typically see \""n\/a\"" or \""-\"" or \""*\"" as the result.  Any numerical result would be meaningless.  Suppose you used 100% and another company had a legitimate 150% gain - where would the 100% change rank? What do my manager and investors expect to see? As a financial analyst - I would not want to see 100%.  I would instead rather see something that indicates that the % change is meaningless.   As an example, here's the WSJ documentation on change in Net Income: Net Income percent change is the change from the same period from a year ago. Percent change is not provided if either the latest period or the year-ago period contains a net loss.  Thinking about it in another context: Yesterday you and your friend had no apples. Today you have 1 and your friend has 20.  What percentage increase did you both have? Did you both have a 100% increase? How can you indicate that your friend had a larger \""increase\""? In that case (and in finance), the context needs to turn from a percentage increase to an absolute increase.  A percentage increase is that scenario is meaningless."""
"""Why would selling off some stores improve a company's value?""","""Maybe the location isn't yet, but will soon become a new loss.  For example older soon out of warranty equipment, new tax laws in the locality soon to take affect or even just declining sales over the past periods of measurement. Perhaps labor disputes or other locality issues make running the store difficult.   There is the possibility that the land the location occupies is worth more sold to the new big box retailer than it will be in the next 10 years of operation. In some cases, companies want to have a ton of cash on hand, or would sell assets to pay off debt."""
"""Looking for a good source for Financial Statements""","""If you're researching a publicly traded company in the USA, you can search the company filings with the SEC. Clicking 'Filings' should take you here."""
"""Dividends - Why the push to reinvest?""","""A dividend is a cash disbursement from the company.  The value of the company goes down the same amount of the dividend, so it is analogous to having money in a savings account and taking a withdrawal every month.  Obviously you are going to have less in the end than if you just kept the money in the account. suppose that I own 10 different stocks, and don't reinvest dividends, but keep them on account, and each month or two, as I add more money to invest, either in one of my existing stocks, or perhaps something new, I add whichever dividend amount is currently available in cash to my new purchase, would this strategy provide the same results? Roughly, yes.  Reinvesting dividends is essentially buying more stock at the lower price, which is a net zero effect in total balance.  So if you invested in the same stocks, yes you'd be in the same place.  If you invested in different stocks, then you would have a performance difference depending on what you invested in. The risk is the temptation to take the cash dividend and not reinvest it, but take it in cash, thereby reducing your earning power. That is, is there some particular reason that the brokers are recommending automatically reinvesting dividends as opposed to reinvesting them manually, perhaps not always in the same item? I'd like to think that they're looking after your best interest (and they might be), but the cynical part of me thinks that they're either trying to keep your business by increasing your returns, or there's some UK regulation I'm not aware of that requires them to disclose the effect of reinvesting dividends.    \u00a3100 invested in the UK stock market since 1899 would have grown into just \u00a3177 after adjusting for inflation. This figure seems ludicrous to me.  I haven't actually measured what the historical returns on the \""UK market\"" are, but that would mean an annualized return (adjusted for inflation) of just 0.5%.  Either UK stocks pay a ridiculous amount of dividends or there's something wrong with the math. EDIT I still have not found a definitive source for the real UK market return, but according to this inflation calculator, \u00a3100 in 1899 would equate to almost \u00a312,000 today, for an average inflation rate of 4.14 percent, which would put the CAGR of the UK market at about 4.9%, which seems reasonable.  The CAGR with dividend reinvestment would then be about 9.1%, making dividend reinvestment a no-brainer in the UK market at least."""
"""Should I take a personal loan for my postgraduate studies?""","""I would delay purchase of a condo or apartment until you have at a minimum, 6 months of living expenses including mortgage set aside in other investments that could be liquidated.  If you lost your source of income though disability or layoff or an unexpected termination of a grant, you need to have that cushion or a significant other whose salary can sustain payments.   You could lose a lot if you either cannot make the payments and\/or the value to the apartment dips greatly.  Many folks in the recent housing bubble and Great Recession learned this the hard way.  Many lost their entire investment by not being able to make payments AND seeing their house lose 1\/3 of its value."""
"""Selling put and call Loss Scenario Examples""","""See how you can only make the premium amount but your risk is the same as holding the stock when writing a put option."""
"""Is there a rule of thumb to help \""Sanity check\"" insurance costs?""","""Your best bet would be to find an independent Property and Casualty Insurance agent and buy through him\/her. Insurance agents make a commission, yes - BUT - the cost to consumer is THE SAME whether you buy through an agent or through directly through the company. Any P&C agent would be happy to run your numbers for you and tell you what the cheapest deal is. Just make sure you find someone who writes for several different large insurers. Obviously, some P&C Insurance agents are slick salesy types, which can get annoying, but if you find someone nice, he or she can help you out at no cost to you (they are paid by the insurance company they place the business with). If you are straightforward with the agent about exactly what your needs, they can get you quotes quickly and save you a lot of time and hassle."""
"""Are companies like EquityZen legitimate and useful?""","""Full disclosure: I\u2019m an intern for EquityZen, so I\u2019m familiar with this space but can speak with the most accuracy about EquityZen. Observations about other players in the space are my own. The employee liquidity landscape is evolving. EquityZen and Equidate help shareholders (employees, ex-employees, etc.) in private companies get liquidity for shares they already own. ESOFund and 137 Ventures help with option financing, and provide loans (and exotic structures on loans) to cover costs of exercising options and any associated tax hit. EquityZen is a private company marketplace that led the second wave of VC-backed secondary markets starting early 2013. The mission is to help achieve liquidity for employees and other private company shareholder, but in a company-approved way. EquityZen transacts with share transfers and also a proprietary derivative structure which transfers economics of a company's shares without changing voting and information rights. This structure typically makes the transfer process cheaper and faster as less paperwork is involved. Accredited investors find the process appealing because they get access to companies they usually cannot with small check sizes. To address the questions in Dzt's post: 1). EquityZen doesn't take a 'loan shark' approach meaning they don't front shareholders money so that they can purchase their stock. With EquityZen, you\u2019re either selling your shares or selling all the economic risk\u2014upside and downside\u2014in exchange for today\u2019s value. 2). EquityZen only allows company approved deals on the platform. As a result, companies are more friendly towards the process and they tend to allow these deals to take place. Non-company approved deals pose risks for buyers and sellers and are ultimately unsustainable. As a buyer, without company blessing, you\u2019re taking on significant counterparty risk from the seller (will they make good on their promise to deliver shares in the future?) or the risk that the transfer is impermissible under relevant restrictions and your purchase is invalid. As a seller, you\u2019re running the risk of violating your equity agreements, which can have severe penalties, like forfeiture of your stock. Your shares are also much less marketable when you\u2019re looking to transact without the company\u2019s knowledge or approval. 3). Terms don't change depending an a shareholder's situation. EquityZen is a professional company and values all of the shareholders that use the platform. It\u2019s a marketplace so the market sets the price. In other situations, you may be at the mercy of just one large buyer. This can happen when you\u2019re facing a big tax bill on exercise but don\u2019t have the cash (because you have the stock). 4). EquityZen doesn't offer loans so this is a non issue. 5). Not EquityZen! EquityZen creates a clean break from the economics. It\u2019s not uncommon for the loan structures to use an interest component as well as some other complications, like upside participation and and also a liquidation preference. EquityZen strives for a simple structure where you\u2019re not on the hook for the downside and you\u2019ve transferred all the upside as well."""
"""renter's insurance for causing property damage""","""You need to get some thing called landlord insurance, tenants only covers his belongings. Any property damage caused deliberately or unknowingly is not covered in this, its upon the owner to get landlord insurance."""
"""Wash sale rule + Mutual Funds\/ETFs?""","""I think the IRS doc you want is http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p550\/ch04.html#en_US_2010_publink100010601 I believe the answers are:"""
"""Issuing bonds at discount - computing effective interest rate""","""Yes, the \""effective\"" and \""market\"" rates are interchangeable. The present value formula will help make it possible to determine the effective interest rate. Since the bond's par value, duration, and par interest rate is known, the coupon payment can be extracted. Now, knowing the price the bond sold in the market, the duration, and the coupon payment, the effective market interest rate can be extracted.  This involves solving large polynomials. A less accurate way of determining the interest rate is using a yield shorthand. To extract the market interest rate with good precision and acceptable accuracy, the annual coupon derived can be divided by the market price of the bond."""
"""Equity market inflow meaning""","""Inflows to the US equity market can come from a variety of sources; for instance: You were paid a year-end bonus and decided to invest it in US equities instead of foreign equities, bonds, savings or debt reduction. You sold foreign equities, bonds, or other non-US equities and decided to invest in US equities. You decided a better use of cash in a savings account, CD or money market fund, was to invest in US equities. If for every buyer, there's a seller, doesn't that also mean that   there were $25B in outflows in the same time period? Not necessarily. Generally, the mentions we see of inflows and outflows are net; that is, the gross investment in US equities, minus gross sales of US equities equals net inflows or outflows. The mere fact that I sold my position in, say, Caterpillar, doesn't mean that I had to re-invest in US equities. I may have bought a bond or a CD or a house. Because of fluctuations in existing stocks market value, bankruptcies and new issues, US equities never are and never will be a zero-sum game."""
"""Exercise a put option when shorting is not possible""","""You can buy a put and exercise it. The ideal option in this case will have little time premium left and very near the money. Who lent you the shares? The person that sold you the option! In reality, when you exercise,  assignment can be random, but everything is [supposedly] accounted for as the option seller had to put up margin collateral to sell the option."""
"""A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea?""","""There isn't really a clear way to answer this question objectively.  I'd offer my opinion that yes it is a good idea. You don't need very much money to start (I began investing on $200). To answer your second question, no there are never any \""sure things.\""  Instead on focusing on making money, focus on learning how the markets work. Pick a few companies you know (perhaps in an industry you are familiar with) and buy one or two shares at a time. Watch the prices evolve over time and make note of the changes and always ask the question \""why did it go up\/down\"". Good luck."""
"""I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest\/saving\/investing\/etc to make more money. What should I do?""","""Aside from employer 401(k) matches (which may double your money immediately), paying off debts is almost always the best place to start. Paying off a debt early is a zero-risk operation and will earn you N% (where N is your interest rate). Is that a good deal for a zero-risk return? The closest equivalent today (Aug 24, 2012) is that you can earn about 2.68% on 10-year Treasury bonds. Unless you have a really, really good interest rate (or the interest is tax-deductible), paying off your loan will offer an excellent risk-adjusted return, so you should do that. The \""really good\"" interest rate is typically a mortgage or student loans. (Mortgage interest is also tax-deductible, at least for now.) In those cases, you're not going to gain nearly as much by paying the loan early, and the loan is large - larger than the amount you want to have in risk-free investments. You want to invest for returns, as well! So you can save for retirement instead (in a 401(k) or similar account) and take on a little risk."""
"""I have about 20 000 usd. How can invest them to do good in the world?""","""FTSE ethical investment index: http:\/\/www.ftse.com\/products\/indices\/FTSE4Good \""The FTSE4Good Index is a series of ethical investment stock market   indices launched in 2001 by the FTSE Group.  A number of stock market   indices are available, for example covering UK shares, US shares,   European markets, and Japan, with inclusion based on a range of   corporate social responsibility criteria. Research for the indices is   supported by the Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS).\"" -   Wikipedia"""
"""As an investing novice, what to do with my money?""","""3-5 years is long enough of a timeframe that I'd certainly invest it, assuming you have enough (which $10k is).  Even conservatively you can guess at 4-5% annual growth; if you invest reasonably conservatively (60\/40 mix of stocks\/bonds, with both in large ETFs or similar) you should have a good chance to gain along those lines and still be reasonably safe in case the market tanks.   Of course, the market could tank at any time and wipe out 20-30% of that or even more, even if you invest conservatively - so you need to think about that risk, and decide if it's worth it or not.  But, particularly if your 3-5 year time frame is reasonably flexible (i.e., if in 2019 the market tanks, you can wait the 2-3 years it may take to come back up) you should be investing. And - as usual, the normal warnings apply.  Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, we are not your investment advisors, and you may lose 100% of your investment..."""
"""So the vending machine tore my $5 in pieces. What now?""","""According to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, if you have clearly more than one-half of the current bill remaining, you should be able to take it to your bank and exchange it. But if for some reason your bank will not take it, you can submit it to Bureau of Engraving and Printing Office of Currency Standards. Question asked on http:\/\/www.moneyfactory.gov\/faqlibrary.html I have some currency that was damaged. My bank will not exchange it for undamaged currency. What can I do? The Bureau of Engraving and   Printing's Office of Currency Standards processes all requests for   reimbursement for damaged United States currency. They decide the   redemption value of torn or otherwise unfit currency by measuring the   portions of the notes submitted. Generally, they reimburse the full   face value if clearly more than one-half of the original note remains.   Currency fragments measuring less than one-half are not redeemable. Go   to the Damaged Money section of our website for additional information   and the procedures to redeem mutilated currency. However take notice of this: Any badly soiled, dirty, defaced, disintegrated, limp, torn, worn, out   currency note that is CLEARLY MORE than one-half of the original note,   and does not require special examination to determine its value. These   notes should be exchanged through your local bank."""
"""Please explain: What exactly is a CDS or \""Credit Default Swap\""?""","""From my understanding, a CDS is a financial product to buy protection against an event of \""default\"" (default of payment). Example: if General Motors owes me money $10,000,000 (because I own GM bonds for example) and I wish to protect myself against the event of GM not repaying the money they owe me (event called \""credit default\""), I pay FinancialCompany_X (the seller of the CDS) perhaps $250,000 per year against the promise that FinancialCompany_X will pay me in case GM is not paying me. This way I protected myself against that risk. FinancialCompany_X took the risk (against money). A CDS is in fact an insurance. Except they don't call it an insurance which enabled the financial industry to avoid the regulation that applies to insurances. There is a lot of infos here: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Credit_default_swap"""
"""Merits of buying apartment houses and renting them""","""Insurance - get estimate from an insurance agent who works with policies for commercial real estate.  See comments below regarding incorporation. Taxes - if this was basic income for a simple LLC, estimating 25-40% and adjusting over time might work.  Rental property is a whole different prospect.  Financial experts who specialize in rental properties would be a good source of advice, and worth the cost.  See below regarding incorporating. Real estate appreciation - not something you can count on for developed property.  Appreciation used to be almost guaranteed to at least keep up with inflation.  Now property values are not even guaranteed to go up.  Never have been but the general rule was improved real estate in good repair appreciated in price.  Even if property values increase over time, rental properties depreciate.  In fact, for rental properties, you can claim a certain rate of depreciation over time as an expense on taxes.  This depreciation could mean selling for less than you paid for the property after a number of years, and owing capital gains taxes, since you would owe the difference between the depreciated value and the sale price. Related to taxes are local codes.  Some areas require you to have a property management license to handle buildings with more than a certain number of units. If you are going to own rental properties, you should protect your private financial life by incorporating.  Form a company.  The company will own the property and hire any maintenance people or property managers or security staff or any similar employment activities.  The company takes out the insurance and pays taxes.  The company can pay you a salary.  So, bottom line, you can have the company pay all the expenses and take all the risks.  Then, assuming there's any money left after expenses, the company can pay you a manager's salary.  That way if the worst happens and a tenant breaks their hip in the shower and sues you for ONE MILLION DOLLARS and wins, the company folds and you walk away.  You might even consider two companies.  One to own the property and lease it to a property management company.  The property management company can then go bankrupt in case of some sort of liability issue, in which case you still keep the property, form a new management company, repaint and rename the property and move on. TL;DR:  Get insurance advice from insurance agent before you buy.  Same for taxes from an accountant.  Get trained as a property manager if your local codes require it (might be a good idea anyway).  Incorporate and have the company take all the risks."""
"""Is it better to buy this used car from Craigslist or from a dealership?""","""I do not think you are missing much.  One thing you have right is low cost cars depreciate almost nothing.  One thing you are missing is your satisfaction index.  Driving a 200K car for 4 years requires a bit of motivation when your friends are driving new cars.  Typically you need a larger goal to keep you focused.  That might be saving money, getting out of debt, or obtaining an education. Buying a car from a private party, Craigslist is only one source, can save both parties money as the \""middle man\"" is cut out. If you have the ability to do so, one can save a lot of money by doing your own brakes.  The info is up on youtube, and I typically \""earn\"" between 100-300\/hour doing this work myself. Most of the time warranties do not pay off.  At the core, they are insurance and insurance companies are in the business to make money.  If your car is likely to need repairs a policy may be unattainable or very high in price."""
"""How to find out the amount of preferred stock of Coca Cola Company?""","""From The Coca-Cola Company website, section for Investors: Stock History, Issues Year 1919 Original issue -- 600,000 shares 100,000 preferred, par $100 each 500,000 common, without nominal or par value 1926 Eliminated 100,000 preferred in November. This means there were preferred shares issued in 1919. However, all preferred shares were \""eliminated\"" (not sure what that means) as of 1926. There has been no subsequent reissuance of preferred shares of Coca-Cola since then. I think the company is still authorized to issue them, should they choose to do so in the future."""
"""Calculation, timing, and taxes related to profit distribution of an S-corp?""","""It's whatever you decide. Taking money out of an S-Corp via distribution isn't a taxable event. Practically speaking, yes, you should make sure you have enough money to afford the distribution after paying your expenses, lest you have to put money back a few days later in to pay the phone bill. You might not want to distribute every penny of profit the moment you book it, either -- keeping some money in the business checking account is probably a good idea. If you have consistent cash flow you could distribute monthly or quarterly profits 30 or 60 days in arrears, for example, and then still have cash on hand for operations. Your net profit is reflected on the Schedule K for inclusion on your personal tax return. As an S-Corp, the profit is passed through to the shareholders and is taxable whether or not you actually distributed the money. You owe taxes on the profit reported on the Schedule K, not the amounts distributed. You really should get a tax accountant. Long-term, you'll save money by having your books set up correctly from the start rather than have to go back and fix any mistakes. Go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting or ask a colleague, trusted vendor, or customer for a recommendation."""
"""Can someone explain how government bonds work?""","""The short of it is that bonds are valued based on a fundamental concept of finance called the \""time value of money\"". Stated simply, $100 one year from now is not the same as $100 now. If you had $100 now, you could use it to make more money and have more than $100 in a year. Conversely, if you didn't invest it, the $100 would not buy as much in a year as it would now, and so it would lose real value. Therefore, for these two benefits to be worth the same, the money received a year from now must be more than $100, in the amount of what you could make with $100 if you had it now, or at least the rate of inflation. Or, the amount received now could be less than the amount recieved a year from now, such that if you invested this lesser amount you'd expect to have $100 in a year. The simplest bonds simply pay their face value at maturity, and are sold for less than their face value, the difference being the cost to borrow the cash; \""interest\"". These are called \""zero-coupon bonds\"" and they're around, if maybe uncommon. The price people will pay for these bonds is their \""present value\"", and the difference between the present value and face value determines a \""yield\""; a rate of return, similar to the interest rate on a CD. Now, zero-coupon bonds are uncommon because they cost a lot. If I buy a zero-coupon bond, I'm basically tying up my money until maturity; I see nothing until the full bond is paid. As such, I would expect the bond issuer to sell me the bond at a rate that makes it worth my while to keep the money tied up. So basically, the bond issuer is paying me compound interest on the loan. The future value of an investment now at a given rate is given by FV = PV(1+r)t. To gain $1 million in new cash today, and pay a 5% yield over 10 years, a company or municipality would have to issue $1.629 million in bonds. You see the effects of the compounding there; the company is paying 5% a year on the principal each year, plus 5% of each 5% already accrued, adding up to an additional 12% of the principal owed as interest. Instead, bond issuers can offer a \""coupon bond\"". A coupon bond has a coupon rate, which is a percentage of the face value of the bond that is paid periodically (often annually, sometimes semi-annually or even quarterly). A coupon rate helps a company in two ways. First, the calculation is very straightforward; if you need a million dollars and are willing to pay 5% over 10 years, then that's exactly how you issue the bonds; $1million worth with a 5% coupon rate and a maturity date 10 years out. A $100 5% coupon bond with a 10-year maturity, if sold at face value, would cost only $150 over its lifetime, making the total cost of capital only 50% of the principal instead of 62%. Now, that sounds like a bad deal; if the company's paying less, then you're getting less, right? Well yes, but you also get money sooner. Remember the fundamental principle here; money now is worth more than money later, because of what you can do with money between now and later. You do realize a lower overall yield from this investment, but you get returns from it quickly which you can turn around and reinvest to make more money. As such, you're usually willing to tolerate a lower rate of return, because of the faster turnaround and thus the higher present value. The \""Income Yield %\"" from your table is also referred to as the \""Flat Yield\"". It is a very crude measure, a simple function of the coupon rate, the current quote price and the face value (R\/P * V). For the first bond in your list, the flat yield is (.04\/114.63 * 100) = 3.4895%. This is a very simple measure that is roughly analogous to what you would expect to make on the bond if you held it for one year, collected the coupon payment, and then sold the bond for the same price; you'd earn one coupon payment at the end of that year and then recoup the principal. The actual present value calculation for a period of 1 year is PV = FV\/(1+r), which rearranges to r = FV\/PV - 1; plug in the values (present value 114.63, future value 118.63) and you get exactly the same result. This is crude and inaccurate because in one year, the bond will be a year closer to maturity and will return one less coupon payment; therefore at the same rate of return the present value of the remaining payout of the bond will only be $110.99 (which makes a lot of sense if you think about it; the bond will only pay out $112 if you bought it a year from now, so why would you pay $114 for it?). Another measure, not seen in the list, is the \""simple APY\"". Quite simply, it is the yield that will be realized from all cash flows from the bond (all coupon payments plus the face value of the bond), as if all those cash flows happened at maturity. This is calculated using the future value formula: FV = PV (1+r\/n)nt, where FV is the future value (the sum of the face value and all coupon payments to be made before maturity), PV is present value (the current purchase price), r is the annual rate (which we're solving for), n is the number of times interest accrues and\/or is paid (for an annual coupon that's 1), and t is the number of years to maturity. For the first bond in the list, the simple APY is 0.2974%. This is the effective compound interest rate you would realize if you bought the bond and then took all the returns and stuffed them in a mattress until maturity. Since nobody does this with investment returns, it's not very useful, but it can be used to compare the yield on a zero-coupon bond to the yield on a coupon bond if you treated both the same way, or to compare a coupon bond to a CD or other compound-interest-bearing account that you planned to buy into and not touch for its lifetime. The Yield to Maturity, which IS seen, is the true yield percentage of the bond in time-valued terms, assuming you buy the bond now, hold it to maturity and all coupon payments are made on time and reinvested at a similar yield. This calculation is based on the simple APY, but takes into account the fact that most of the coupon payments will be made prior to maturity; the present value of these will be higher because they happen sooner. The YTM is calculated by summing the present values of all payments based on when they'll occur; so, you'll get one $4 payment a year from now, then another $4 in two years, then $4 in 3 years, and $104 at maturity. The present value of each of those payments is calculated by flipping around the future value formula: PV = FV\/(1+r)t. The present value of the entire bond (its current price) is the sum of the present value of each payment: 114.63 = 4\/(1+r) + 4\/(1+r)2 + 4\/(1+r)3 + 104\/(1+r)4. You now have to solve for r, which is difficult to isolate; the easiest way to find the rate with a computer is to \""goal seek\"" (intelligently guess and check).  Based on the formula above, I calculated a YTM of .314% for the first bond if you bought on Sept 7, 2012 (and thus missed the upcoming coupon payment). Buying today, you'd also be entitled to about 5 weeks' worth of the coupon payment that is due on Sept 07 2012, which is close enough to the present day that the discounted value is a rounding error, putting the YTM of the bond right at .40%. This is the rate of return you'll get off of your investment if you are able to take all the returns from it, when you receive them, and reinvest them at a similar rate (similar to having a savings account at that rate, or being able to buy fractional shares of a mutual fund giving you that rate)."""
"""When can you use existing real estate as collateral to buy more?""","""It would be good to know which country you are in? You are basically on the right track with your last point. Usually when you buy your first property you need to come up with a deposit and then borrow the remainder to have enough to purchase the property. In most cases (and most places) the standard percentage of loan to deposit is 80% to 20%. This is expressed as the Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) which in this case would be 80%. (This being the amount of the loan to the value of the property). Some banks and lenders will lend you more than the 80% but this can usually come with extra costs (in Australia the banks charge an extra percentage when you borrow called Loan Mortgage Insurance (LMI) if you borrow over 80% and the LMI gets more expensive the higher LVR you borrow). Also this practice of lending more than 80% LVR has been tightened up since the GFC. So if you are borrowing 80% of the value of the property you will need to come up with the remainder 20% deposit plus the additional closing costs (taxes - in Australia we have to pay Stamp Duty, solicitor or conveyancing fees, loan application fees, building and pest inspection costs, etc.). If you then want to buy a second property you will need to come up with the same deposit and other closing costs again. Most people cannot afford to do this any time soon, especially since the a good majority of the money they used to save before is now going to pay the mortgage and upkeep of your first property (especially if you used to say live with your parents and now live in the property and not rent it out). So what a lot of people do who want to buy more properties is wait until the LVR of the property has dropped to say below 60%. This is achieved by the value of the property going up in value and the mortgage principle being reduced by your mortgage payments. Once you have enough, as you say, collateral or equity in the first property, then you can refinance your mortgage and use this equity in your existing property and the value of the new property you want to buy to basically borrow 100% of the value of the new property plus closing costs. As long as the LVR of the total borrowings versus the value of both properties remains at or below 80% this should be achievable. You can do this in two ways. Firstly you could refinance your first mortgage and borrow up to 80% LVR again and use this additional funds as your deposit and closing costs for the second property, for which you would then get a second mortgage. The second way is to refinance one mortgage over the two properties. The first method is preferred as your mortgages and properties are separated so if something does go wrong you don't have to sell everything up all at once. This process can be quite slow at the start, as you might have to wait a few years to build up equity in one property (especially if you live in it). But as you accumulate more and more properties it becomes easier and quicker to do as your equity will increase quicker with tenants paying a good portion of your costs if not all (if you are positively geared). Of course you do want to be careful if property prices fall (as this may drastically reduce your equity and increase your total LVR or the LVR on individual properties) and have a safety net. For example, I try to keep my LVR to 60% or below, currently they are below 50%."""
"""Does an individual share of a stock have some kind of unique identifier?""","""There is no unique identifier that exists to identify specific shares of a stock. Just like money in the bank, there is no real reason to identify which exact dollar bills belong to me or you, so long as there is a record that I own X bills and I can access them when I want. (Of course, unlike banks, there is still a 1:1 relationship between the amount I should own and the amount they actually hold). If I may reach a bit, the question that I assume you are asking is how are shared actually tracked, transferred, and recorded so that I know for certain that I traded you 20 Microsoft shares yesterday and they are now officially yours, given that it's all digital. While you can technically try and request a physical share certificate, it's very cumbersome to handle and transfer in that form.  Ownership of shares themselves are tracked for brokerage firms (in the case of retail trading, which I assume is the context of this question as we're discussion personal finance). Your broker has a record of how many shares of X, Y, and Z you own, when you bought each share and for how much, and while you are the beneficial owner of record (you get dividends, voting rights, etc.) your brokerage is the one who is \""holding\"" the shares. When you buy or sell a stock and you are matched with a counterparty (the process of which is beyond the scope of this question) then a process of settlement comes into play. In the US, settlement takes 3 working days to process, and technically ownership does not transfer until the 3rd day after the trade is made, though things like margin accounts will allow you to effectively act as if you own the shares immediately after a buy\/sell order is filled. Settlement in the US is done by a sole source, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). This is where retail and institutional trade all go to be sorted, checked and confirmed, and ultimately returned to the safekeeping of their new owners' representatives (your brokerage). Interestingly, the DTCC is also the central custodian for shares both physical and virtual, and that is where the shares of stock ultimately reside."""
"""Non Qualifying Stock Option offered by employer""","""A little terminology: Grant: you get a \""gift\"" with strings attached. \""Grant\"" refers to the plan (legal contract) under which you get the stock options. Vesting: these are the strings attached to the grant. As long as you're employed by the company, your options will vest every quarter, proportionally. You'll become an owner of 4687 or 4688 options every quarter. Each such vest event means you'd be getting an opportunity to buy the corresponding amount of stocks at the strike price (and not the current market price which may be higher). Buying is called exercising. Exercising a nonqualified option is a taxable event, and you'll be taxed on the value of the \""gift\"" you got. The value is determined by the difference between the strike price (the price at which you have the option to buy the stock) and the actual fair market value of the stock at the time of vest (based on valuations). Options that are vested are yours (depending on the grant contract, read it carefully, leaving the company may lead to forfeiture). Options that are not vested will disappear once you leave the company. Exercised options become stocks, and are yours. Qualified vs Nonqualifed - refers to the tax treatment. Nonqualified options don't have any special treatment, qualified do. 3.02M stocks issued refers to the value of the options. Consider the total valuation of the company being $302M. With $302M value and 3.02M stocks issued, each stock is worth ~$100. Now, in a year, a new investor comes in, and another 3.02M stocks are issued (if, for example, the new investor wants a 50% stake). In this case, there will be 6.04M stocks issued, for 302M value - each stock is worth $50 now. That is called dilution. Your grant is in nominal options, so in case of dilution, the value of your options will go down. Additional points: If the company is not yet public, selling the stocks may be difficult, and you may own pieces of paper that no-one else wants to buy. You will still pay taxes based on the valuations and you may end up paying for these pieces of paper out of your own pocket. In California, it is illegal to not pay salary to regular employees. Unless you're a senior executive of the company (which I doubt), you should be paid at least $9\/hour per the CA minimum wages law."""
"""Does the profit of a company directly affect its stock or indirectly by causing people to buy or sell?""","""The short answer to your question is yes.  Company performance affects stock price only through investors' views. But note that selling for higher and lower prices when the company is doing well or poorly is not an arbitrary choice.  A stock is a claim on the future cash flows of the firm, which ultimately come from its future profits.  If the company is doing well, investors will likely expect that there will large cash flows (dividends) in the future and be willing to pay more to hold it (or require more to sell it).   The price of a stock is equal what people think the future dividends are worth.  If market participants started behaving irrationally, like not reacting to changes in the expected future cash flows, then arbitrageurs would make a ton of money trading against them until the situation was rectified."""
"""Bollinger Bands and TRENDING market""","""Bollinger Bands are placed standard deviations away from the moving average. Therefore if the price is volatile, the bands diverge from the mean. During consolidation the bands would converge. They do not provide a clear indication of whether the price is trending or not."""
"""Dad paying for my new home in cash. How can I buy the house from him?""","""Presumably this house is a great deal for you for some reason if you are willing to go to great lengths such as these to acquire it. I suggest you have your father purchase the house with cash, then you purchase the house from him. You might want to discuss this with the title company, it's possible that there are some fees that they will waive if you close both sales through them in a short period of time. If the home will appraise for a higher amount than purchase, then you may be able to get a mortgage without a significant down-payment. If not, then you will need to owe your father at least the amount of the down-payment at closing time."""
"""Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss?""","""For a car, you're typically compelled to carry insurance, and picking up \""comprehensive\"" coverage (fire, theft, act of god) is normally cheap. If the car was purchased with a loan, the lender will stipulate that you carry comprehensive and collision insurance.  People buy insurance because it limits their liability. In the grand scheme of things, pricing in a fixed rate of loss every year (insurance premium + potential deductible) is appealing to many versus having to cover a catastrophic loss when your car is wrecked or stolen."""
"""Is it wise to invest in a stock with a large Div yield?""","""There have been many interesting and correct answers but to give a direct answer to your first question, dividend yield is simply dividend over current share price. So, if the share price drops, your dividend yield increases proportionately. Dividend yield is not something one should use as the only source of information of whether a stock is a good\/bad buy. It does not show many important factors: the riskiness of the company business, its financial position, profitability, ability to generate cash. Furthermore, dividend yield is just a snapshot of an income gain at a given point in time. It does not mean that this very dividend policy is going to continue in the future (especially not so if the company finances this dividend payments using not its own cash reserves but outside capital by issuing debt securities, which is unsustainable)."""
"""Why have I never seen a stock split?""","""Are you sure you're not just looking at prices that are adjusted for the split, e.g. Yahoo? For example, Gilead Sciences (GILD) split a few months ago, but if you look at a price chart, there isn't an interruption even though the split is clearly marked. (Look in the past six months; it split in January). However, you could also simply be watching companies that happen to not split, for a variety of reasons. This isn't a criticism, but rather just a consequence of whatever stocks you happen to be watching.  However, a quick search for information on stock splits yields a few articles (mainly from the Motley Fool) that argue that fewer companies are performing stock splits in recent years; the articles mainly talk about tech companies, and they make the argument that even though the shares in Google and Apple have a high stock price: Google and Apple aren't all that expensive by traditional valuation   metrics. Google trades at just 15 times next year's projected   profitability. Apple fetches a mere 13 times fiscal 2012's bottom-line estimates. These articles are a bit dated in terms of the stock prices, but the rationale is probably still good. Similar logic could apply for other companies; for example, since May 2009, Panera's stock price has climbed by almost a factor of 4 without splitting. The articles also make the point that stock splits were traditionally seen as bullish signs because: Companies splitting to bring their share prices back down to more   accessible levels were optimistic in building those sand castles back   up. One could make a fair argument that the overall economic climate isn't as bullish as it used to be, although I would only be convinced that this was affecting stock splits if data could be gathered and tested. A stock split can also raise the price of a stock because if small investors feel the stock is suddenly more accessible to them, they purchase more of it and might therefore drive up the price. (See the Investopedia article on stock splits for more information). Companies might not see the necessity in doing this because their stock price isn't high enough to warrant a split or because the price isn't high enough to outprice smaller investors.  One interesting point to make, however, is that even though stock splits can drive small investors to buy more of the stock, this isn't always a gain for the company because professional investors (firms, institutions, etc.) have a tendency to sell after a split. The paper is a bit old, but it's still a very neat read. It's possible that more and more companies no longer see any advantage to splitting because it might not affect their stock price in the long run, and arguably could even hurt it. Considering that large\/professional investors likely hold a higher percentage of a company's shares than smaller investors, if a stock split triggers a wave of selling by the former, the increasing propensity to buy of the latter may not be enough to offset the decline in price.  Note: My answer only refers to standard stock splits; the reasons above may not apply to a decrease in the number of reverse stock splits (which may not be a phenomenon; I don't know)."""
"""Choosing which ESPP stocks to sell?""","""the difference would be taxes...  Lets say you have two lots, one with a 10 dollar gain, and one with a 20 dollar gain.  And lets say you decide to sell one lot this year, and the other lot in 10 years.  AND, lets say that it turns out the stock price is exactly the same in ten years as it is when you sell the first lot. In all likelyhood, you'll have more income, and therefore you are likely to be in a different marginal tax rate.  If you believe that you're more likely to pay more taxes in 10 years, then sell the lot with the higher gain now.  If you believe you're more likely to pay more taxes now, then sell the lot with the lower gain now."""
"""What part of buying a house would make my net worth go down?""","""Houses depreciate. Period. Things break: the hot water heater explodes, the AC cuts out in August, the roof leaks, the basement floods, toilets back up, raccoons dig up the garden. Each time something breaks, the house loses value. Every year the paint fades a little, the house loses value. Every time GE comes out with a more efficient washing machine, the house loses value. The only reason a house appears to maintain its value over time is because the money you spend repairing and improving it offsets this unavoidable depreciation. Even then, over extended periods of time it will typically just track inflation--so you're treading water. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You need to live somewhere."""
"""I earn $75K, have $30K in savings, no debt, rent from my parents who are losing their home. Should I buy a home now or save?""","""Real Estate has historically been the most sound investment of all times. Not only does property consistant increase in value (which is what you want every investment to do), it does so at the highest rate with the lowest risk. Most return on investment (like a stock in the market) the potential rate of gain is proportionat to the potential loss. The more secure an investment, the lower the potential gain. But, with Real Estate, property typically doubles in value every 10 years. Our overall R.E. economy is on an upward turn, recovering from a time  where values tanked. to jump in now, is probably better than waiting for any amount of time, be it 1 month, or 1 year. You concern about being \""tied in\"" to this investment is a valid concern, however, since the market is in an upward turn, you should be more and more able to turn around and sell it later on. The best thing that you could potentially do would be to invest in a rental property where your cost of investment (your mortgage note) is paid by the renters. However, being a landlord is always a risky business (hence, the higher rate of return, which considering your investment is ultimately zero, the return rate is huge :-)   The trick would be to take the reters payments to you and keep it in an account that you use to pay for any repairs, upgrades, or marketing in between when the unit is vacant. But, with your parents losing their house, this may not be possible - unless you take their home and then keep the living arrangments the same as they are now. One possibility to help you get your foot in the door of being a property owner (not necessarily \""investor\"") and help your parents keep their house (if that is what they would like to do) is re-finance with them... if you can't afford the entire mortgage, but they are capable of filling the gap between what you can afford and what their property costs, then you become partnered with them, and when\/if their circumstances change, they can always buy you out."""
"""How do I manage my portfolio as stock evaluation criteria evolve?""","""Don't sell. Ever.  Well almost. A number of studies have shown that buying equal amounts of shares randomly will beat the market long term, and certainly won't do badly.  Starting from this premise then perhaps you can add a tiny bit extra with your skill... maybe, but who knows, you might suck.  Point is when buying you have the wind behind you - a monkey would make money. Selling is a different matter. You have the cost of trading out and back in to something else, only to have changed from one monkey portfolio to the other. If you have skill that covers this cost then yes you should do this - but how confident are you? A few studies have been done on anonymised retail broker accounts and they show the same story.  Retail investors on average lose money on their switches. Even if you believe you have a real edge on the market,  you're strategy still should not just say sell when it drops out of your criteria.  Your criteria are positive indicators. Lack of positive is not a negative indicator.  Sell when you would happily go short the stock.   That is you are really confident it is going down. Otherwise leave it."""
"""Will I, as a CS student, be allowed to take loans for paying the fees of Ivy Leagues?""","""I would be surprised if a bank cared about an undergraduate major. Usually, such things are only important if it is a professional degree, like a law degree or medical degree. The big issue is that if you are not a US citizen, a US bank would be unlikely to make an unsecured loan because you could just return to your country and renege on the loan and they would have no way to collect. Therefore, a bank in your own country might be more logical. If you get accepted by a top Ivy school, they all have financial policies that will allow you to attend regardless of how rich or poor you are, so if you are applying to a top school (Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Yale) and get accepted, they will fully finance your attendance. The only exception is if (A) they find out you lied about something, or (B) your parents\/family are wealthy and they refuse to pay anything. As long as neither of these two things is true, all of the schools listed GUARANTEE they will provide sufficient financial aid. Princeton even has a no-loan policy, which means not only will they fund your attendance, they will do so without you having to take on any loans."""
"""investing - where to trade online? (Greek citizen)""","""You will likely need to open an account in another EU country, like a broker operating out of France, Britain or Germany, to get the best options.  If you are comfortable using an english language site and interface, I highly recommend Interactive Brokers as they let you trade in many markets simultaneously, have simple currency conversion, and great tools.  But, they are geared toward active traders so you might be better with a more retail oriented broker if you are new to trading stocks. There are many options.  Here is a list to start with:"""
"""Where can I find a good online fundamental data provider for Hong Kong stocks?""","""Check out WorldCap.org. They provide fundamental data for Hong Kong stocks in combination with an iPad app. Disclosure: I am affiliated with WorldCap."""
"""How can I decide whether do a masters even if I have go into debt after doing it?""","""Strictly from an ROI perspective, this is likely very dependent on your field.  Some masters degrees (quant finance, business, engineering) will be well worth the debt, since a degree from the right university will yield a respectable ROI, whereas other degrees\/fields (philosophy, fine arts, etc) will be basically a waste of money. Regardless of the field you can input your information into an ROI calculator and see what you get.  I typically err on the side of using the lowest average reported salary for the degree programs you're considering (self reported salary data is notoriously inflated)."""
"""My investment account is increasingly and significantly underperforming vs. the S&P 500. What should I do?""","""Typically you diversify a portfolio to reduce risk. The S&P 500 is a collection of large-cap stocks; a diversified portfolio today probably contains a mix of large cap, small cap, bonds,  international equity and cash. Right now, if you have a bond component, that part of your portfolio isn't performing as well. The idea of diversification is that you \""smooth out\"" the ups and downs of the market and come out ahead in most situations. If you don't have a bond or cash component in your portfolio, you may have picked (or had someone pick for you) lousy funds.  Without more detail, that's about all that can be said. EDIT: You provided more detail, so I want to add a little to my answer. Basically, you're in a fund that has high fees (1.58% annually) and performance that trails the mid-cap index. The S&P 500 is a large-cap index (large cap == large company), so a direct comparison is not necessarily meaningful. Since you seem to be new at this, I'd recommend starting out with the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) or ETF (VTI). This is a nice option because it represents the entire stock market and is cheap... it's a good way to get started without knowing alot. If your broker charges a transaction fee to purchase Vanguard funds and you don't want to change brokers or pay ETF commissions, look for or ask about transaction-fee free \""broad market\"" indexes. The expense ratio should be below 0.50% per year and optimally under 0.20%. If you're not having luck finding investment options, swtich to a discount broker like TD Ameritrade, Schwab, ScottTrade or Fidelity (in no particular order)"""
"""Why do consultants or contractors make more money than employees?""","""In addition to the other answers, consultants and contractors face a real risk (though admittedly small) of not getting paid. The more short-term the gigs are, the higher the risk of not getting paid for a particular job. As an employee, there are laws to ensure that you get your paycheck. As a contractor, you're just another creditor. I know a couple of contractors (software engineers) who have had difficulty collecting after a job. (I'm not even sure one ever got paid the full amount.) I also personally witnessed a contractor show up for a job who was then told by the company that they unilaterally decided that they would pay half of their pre-arranged rate."""
"""Net loss not distributed by mutual funds to their shareholders?""","""I'll try to answer using your original example.  First, let me restate your assumptions, slightly modified: The mutual fund has: Note that I say the \""mutual fund has\"" those gains and losses. That's because they occur inside the mutual fund and not directly to you as a shareholder. I use \""realized\"" gains and losses because the only gains and losses handled this way are those causes by actual asset (stock) sales within the fund (as directed by fund management).  Changes in the value of fund holdings that are not sold are not included in this. As a holder of the fund, you learn the values of X, Y, and Z after the end of the year when the fund management reports the values.  For gains, you will also typically see the values reported on your 1099-DIV under \""capital gains distributions\"".  For example, your 1099-DIV for year 3 will have the value Z for capital gains (besides reporting any ordinary dividends in another box).   Your year 1 1099 will have $0 \""capital gains distributions\"" shown because of the rule you highlighted in bold: net realized losses are not distributed.  This capital loss however can later be used to the mutual fund holder's tax advantage.  The fund's internal accounting carries forward the loss, and uses it to offset later realized gains.  Thus your year 2 1099 will have a capital gain distribution of (Y-X), not Y, thus recognizing the loss which occurred. Thus the loss is taken into account.  Note that for capital gains you, the holder, pay no tax in year 1, pay tax in year 2 on Y-X, and pay tax in year 3 on Z. All the above is the way it works whether or not you sell the shares immediately after the end of year 3 or you hold the shares for many more years.  Whenever you do sell the shares, you will have a gain or loss, but that is different from the fund's realized losses we have been talking about (X, Y, and Z)."""
"""Negatives to increased credit card spending limit? [duplicate]""","""The only drawback is if you spend more than you can with the new limit and end up having to pay interest if you can't pay the balance in full. Other than that, there are no drawbacks to getting a credit increase.  On the flip side, it's actually good for you. It shows that the banks trust you with more credit, and it also decreases your credit utilization ratio (assuming you spend the same)."""
"""Determining the minimum dividend that should be paid from my S corporation""","""There are no dividends from S-Corp. There are distributions. Big difference. S-Corps fill form 1120S and schedule K-1 per shareholder. In the schedule all the income of your S-Corp will be assigned to various categories that you will later copy to your personal tax return as your personal income. It is not dividend income. The reason people prefer to take distributions from their S-Corps instead of salary is because you don't pay SE taxes on the distributions. That is also the reason why the IRS forces you to pay yourself a reasonable salary. But the tax rate on the income, all of it, is your regular income tax rate, unless the S-Corp income is categorized in a preferred category. The fact that its an S-Corp income doesn't, by itself, allow any preferential treatment. If you're learning the stuff as you go - you should probably get in touch with a tax professional to advise you. All the S-Corp income must be distributed. Its not a matter of \""avoiding paying the tax\"", its the matter of \""you must do it\"". Not a choice. My answer was not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer (circ 230 disclaimer)."""
"""From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well?""","""Discussing individual stocks is discouraged here, so I'll make my answer somewhat generic. Keep in mind, some companies go public in a way that takes the shares that are held by the investment VCs (venture capitalists) and cashes them out of their positions, i.e. most if not all shares are made public. In that case, the day after IPO, the original investors have their money, and, short of the risk of being sued for fraud, could not care less what the stock does.  Other companies float a small portion up front, and retain the rest. This is a way of creating a market and valuing the company, but not floating so many shares the market has trouble absorbing it. This stock has a \""Shares Outstanding\"" of 2.74B but has only floated 757.21M. The nearly 2 billion shares held by the original investors certainly impact their wallets with how this IPO went.  See the key statistics for the details."""
"""Section 179 vs depreciation of laptop""","""I'm not a tax expert, but I think you mean Form 4562, right? If you acquire the laptop in the year for which you're filing taxes, then it is just that simple.  (At least according to my reading of 4562 instructions, and my history of accepted tax returns where I've done this for my own business.) If, however, you acquired the laptop in a previous year and have already depreciated it previously (with the plan to spread over several years), there is more complexity I believe -- you may limited in how you could accelerate the remaining depreciation."""
"""How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?""","""What determines your profitability is not your time, but your TRADES. It is probably a mistake to go into the market and say, I hope to make X% today\/this month\/this year. As a practical matter, you can make a lot of money in a short period of time, or lose a lot over a long period of time (the latter is more likely). You're better off looking at potential trades and saying \""I like this trade\"" (be sure to know why) and \""I dislike that trade.\"" If you're right about your chosen trade, you'll make money. Probably not on your original timetable, because markets react more slowly than individual people do. Then make ONLY those trades that you genuinely like and understand. IF you get into a \""rhythm,\"" (rather few people do), your experience might tell you that you are likely to make, say, X% per month or year. But that's ONLY if the market continues to accommodate YOUR style of trading. If the markets change, YOU must change (or get lost in the shuffle). Trading is a risky, if sometimes rewarding business. The operative motto here is: \""You pay your money and you take your chances,\"" NOT \""You put in your time and eventually rewards will come.\"""""
"""Pros\/cons of borrowing money using a mortgage loan and investing it in a low-fee index fund?""","""Something very similar to this was extremely popular in the UK in the late 1980s.  The practice has completely vanished since the early 2000s.  Reading up on the UK endowment mortgage scandals will probably give you an excellent insight into whether you should attempt your plan. Endowment mortgages were provided by banks and at their peak were probably the most popular mortgage form.  The basic idea was that you only pay the interest on your mortgage and invest a small amount each month into a low fee endowment policy.  Many endowment policies were simply index tracking, and the idea being that by the end of your mortgage you would have built up a portfolio sufficient to pay off your mortgage, and may well have extra left over. In the late 1990s the combination of falling housing market and poor stock performance meant that many people were left with both the endowment less than their mortgage and their house in negative equity."""
"""How to invest 100k""","""Your question is listed as \""How to invest 100k\"", not how would I find someone without a hidden agenda - so I'll answer that: It depends. I believe the best choices available are essentially as follows: If you are looking to pay for your childrens' college, it might be nice just to put the money in a Roth IRA and have that done right off the bat. If you disciplined enough to keep the money invested in some type of stock indexed fund, that might be good - the stock market has often outperformed almost every other form of investment over the very long haul. But if you could see yourself tapping it for things, then you might not want this. Another option is to put the money against your house. If that doesn't pay it off, refinance the remaining portion into a lower rate for less years. Obviously this knocks down a huge portion of the interest (duh) and gives you a nice cash flow you can use for investing. Also, the money you've put into a primary residence is pretty safe. I believe in some cases, safe even from bankruptcy. But as you've noted, being underwater on the home you are essentially throwing that money away in some way or fashion. And really, all in all, houses are terrible investments. You never really get your money out of your primary home, unless you downsize. The money is essentially \""saved\"" without an equity line. This is a good choice if you're not disciplined. Your choice depends on: Of course, you can do any combination of these things and as Dave Ramsey is apt to remind his listeners and callers: you ought to have your emergency fund set before you do any of these things."""
"""Getting (historical) Standard & Poor Stock Guides ""","""I haven't seen one of these in quite some time. Back in the 1970s, maybe the 1980s, stock brokers would occasionally send their retail clients a complimentary copy once in a while. Also, I remember the local newspaper would offer a year-end edition for a few dollars (maybe $3) and that edition would include the newspaper company's name on the cover. They were very handy little guides measuring 5 1\/2 x 8 (horizontal) with one line devoted to each company. They listed hundreds of publicly traded companies and had basic info on each company. As you stated, for further info you needed to go to the library and follow-up with the big S&P and\/or Moody's manuals. That was long before the internet made such info available at the click of a button on a home computer!"""
"""How to manage paying expenses when moving to a weekly pay schedule and with a pay increase?""","""This is really just a matter of planning.  It's good that you don't want the train to go off the rails but really you just need to budget your fixed expenses.  I do this by having two checking accounts.  One account gets a direct deposit to cover all of my fixed expenses, the other is my regular checking account.   Take your rent and other fixed expenses, if you have any, and total them.  Take that total and divide by four.  That's how much of each check you should be socking away in to the separate account. Additionally, with a 30% pay increase you can probably start a savings account.  You should start to establish an emergency fund so this really never becomes a problem.  Take 10% of your pay and put it in savings, this will still leave you with a healthy pay increase to enjoy but you'll keep some of your money for yourself too."""
"""How can someone with a new job but no credit history get a loan to settle another debt?""","""The more I think about this the more I think you are actually better off letting it go to collections. At least then you would be able to agree an affordable repayment schedule based on your real budget, and having a big dent in your credit score because it's gone to collections doesn't actually put you in any worse position (in terms of acquiring credit in the future) than you are now.  Whoever is the creditor on your original loan is (IMO) quite unreasonable demanding a payment in full on a given date, especially given that you say you've only been made aware of this debt recently. The courts are usually much more reasonable about this sort of thing and recognise that a payment plan over several years with an affordable monthly payment is MUCH more likely to actually get the creditor their money back than any other strategy. They will also recognise and appreciate that you have made significant efforts to obtain the money. I'm also worried about your statement about how panicked and \""ready to give up\"" you are. Is there someone you can talk to? Around here (UK) we have debt counselling bureaus - they can't help with money for the actual debt itself, but they can help you with strategies for dealing with debt and will explain all parts of the process to you, what your rights and responsibilities are if it does go to court, etc. If you have something similar I suggest you contact them, even just to speak to someone and find out that this isn't the end of the world. It's a sucky situation but in a few years you'll be able to look back and at least laugh wryly at it."""
"""How do you report S-corporation Shareholder loans \/ capital contributions?""","""As the owner of the S-corp, it is far easier for you to move money in\/out of the company as contributions and distributions rather than making loans to the company. Loans require interest payments, 1099-INT forms, and have tax consequences, whereas the distributions don't need to be reported because you pay taxes on net profits regardless of whether the money was distributed. If you were paid interest, disregard this answer. I don't know if or how you could re-categorize the loan once there's a 1099-INT involved. If no interest was ever paid, you just need to account for it properly: If the company didn't pay you any interest and never issued you a 1099-INT form (i.e. you wrote a check to the company, no promissory note, no tax forms, no payments, no interest, etc.) then you can categorize that money as a capital contribution. You can likewise take that money back out of the company as a capital distribution and neither of these events are taxable nor do they need to be reported to the IRS. In Quickbooks, create the following Equity accounts -- one for each shareholder making capital contributions and distributions: When putting money into the company, deposit into your corporate bank account and use the Capital Contribution equity account. When taking money out of the company, write yourself a check and use the Distributions account. At the end of every tax year, you can close out your Contributions and Distributions to Retained Earnings by making a general journal entry. For example, debit retained earnings and credit distributions on Dec 31 every year to zero-out the distributions account. For contributions, do the reverse and credit retained earnings. There are other ways of recording these transactions -- for example I think some people just use a Member Capital equity account instead of separate accounts for contributions and distributions -- and QB might warn you about posting journal entries to the special Retained Earnings account at the end of the year. In any case, this is how my CPA set up my books and it's been working well enough for many years. Still, never a bad idea to get a second opinion from your CPA. Be sure to pay yourself a reasonable salary, you can't get out of payroll taxes and just distribute profits -- that's a big red flag that can trigger an audit. If you're simply distributing back the money you already put into the company, that should be fine."""
"""What do I need to do to form an LLC?""","""You can file an LLC yourself in most states, although it might be helpful to use a service if you're not sure what to do to ensure it is correct.  I filed my LLC here in Colorado online with the Secretary of State's office, which provided the fill-in-the-blank forms and made it easy. In the U.S., taxation of an LLC is \""pass-through\"", meaning the LLC itself does not have any tax liability.  Taxes are based on what you take out of the LLC as distributions to yourself, so you pay personal income tax on that. There are many good books on how to form and then operate an LLC, and I personally like NoLo (link to their web site) because they cater to novices. As for hiring people in India, I can't speak to that, so hopefully someone else can answer that specific topic. As for what you need to know about how to run it, I'll refer back to the NoLo books and web site."""
"""Ghana scam and direct deposit scam?""","""Sadly, people with millions of dollars rarely give it away to complete strangers that they found at random on the Internet in exchange for trivial efforts. Anyone who claims to be willing to give you millions of dollars for just about nothing in return is almost certainly pulling a scam. It doesn't matter if you can't figure out how they're going to cheat you. They have plan.  Just because your father has no money doesn't mean he can't be robbed. The scammer is almost surely planning to move some money around, and leave your father with a debt that he will be legally obligated to pay. She'll then take off with the money. (Of course you figured out that the picture is fake. It may not even be a pretty young girl -- that may well just be a persona the scammer created to appeal to your father. It might really be a fat, balding old man.) Your father would be smarter to sit in his back yard and wait for money to fall from the sky."""
"""Why does capital gains tax apply to long term stock holdings?""","""Most well-off people have investments which they have held for long periods of time, often of very substantial value such as a large part of a company.  They also have influence on legislators and officials through various social contacts, lobbyists, and contributions.  They managed to convince these law makers to offer a lower tax on income derived from sales of such investments.  The fig leaf covering this arrangement is that it \""contributes to the growth of economy by encouraging long-term investment in new enterprises.\"""""
"""Company revenue increased however stock price did not""","""The company released its 2nd Quarter Revenue of $1,957,921 a couple days ago however the stock did not move up in any way. Why? If the company is making money shouldn't the stock go up. But that result doesn't indicate that the company is making money.  The word for making money is profit, not revenue.  Profit equals revenue minus costs.  An increasing revenue could mean decreasing profits.  For example, marketing expenses could eat up the entirety of the new revenue.   This is one of the most basic aspects of researching stocks.  If you are having trouble with this, you might find yourself better suited to invest in mutual funds, where they do this research for you.  In particular, the safest kind of mutual funds for an inexperienced investor are index funds that track a major index, like the S&P 500.   Another issue is that stock prices aren't based on historical results but on expected future results.  Many a company has reported smaller than expected profits and had their price fall even though profits increased from previous results.   Looking at it long term would it hurt me in anyway to buy ~100,000 shares which right now would run be about $24 (including to fee) and sit on it? It would cost you $24.  You might get a return some day.  Or you might waste your money.  Given the comparatively large upside, the consensus seems to be that you will probably waste your money.  That said, it's not a lot of money to waste.  So it won't hurt you that much.  The most likely result remains that the company will go bankrupt, leaving your stock worthless."""
"""Do I still need to pay capital gains taxes when I profit from a stock in a foreign currency?""","""I'll break it down into steps. Total gain\/ loss for the whole thing is 5 CAD. You only have to worry about these calculations if you keep some USD and convert it at your leisure.  Or if you have a US dollar in your wallet from your last vacation. Don't forget to subtract commissions (converted to CAD of course). *Some people just use an average exchange rate for the whole year, which you can also get from the BoC. ^There's $200 of tax free gains allowed for pure currency transactions.  This allows small gains to be ignored."""
"""Is there a good strategy to invest when two stock companies either merge or acquisition?""","""There's an old adage in the equities business - \""buy on rumor, sell on fact\"".  Sometimes the strategy is to buy as soon as the rumor is out about a potential merger and then sell off into the news when it is actually announced, since this is normally when the biggest bounce occurs as part of a merger. The other part of the analysis you should do is to understand which of the companies benefits most (or is hurt the worst) by the merger and then make your play accordingly.  Sometimes the company being acquired will see a bounce while the acquiring firm takes a hit, which is an indication the experts think the acquisition will be a drag on the acquiring company (perhaps because it is taking on a great deal of debt to make the acquisition, or because the acquiring firm is paying too much of a premium for what it's getting in return).  Other times the exact opposite is true, where the company being acquired takes a hit while the buyer bounces, and again, the reasons for this can vary widely. If you wait until the merger is actually announced then by the time you get in, most of the premium from the announcement will likely have already been realized, and you'll be buying near the top of the market for the stock.  The key is to be ahead of the other sellers by seeing the opportunities before they do and then knowing when to get out before everyone else does.  Not an easy thing to pull off when you're trying to anticipate the markets, but it can be done if you do the right research and have patience. Good luck!"""
"""Property Trust - who or what is the Owner?""","""I am not a lawyer, and I am assuming trusts in the UK work similar to the way they work in the US... A trust is a legally recognized entity that can act in business transactions much the same way as a person would (own real property, a business, insurance, investments, etc.). The short answer is the trust is the owner of the property. The trust is established by a Grantor who \""funds\"" the trust by transferring ownership of items from him or herself (or itself, if another trust or business entity like a corporation) to the trust.  A Trustee is appointed (usually by the Grantor) to manage the trust according to the conditions and terms specified in the trust. A Trustee would be failing in their responsibility (their fiduciary duty) if they do not act in accordance with the purposes of the trust. (Some trusts are written better than others, and there may or may not be room for broad interpretation of the purposes of the trust.)   The trust is established to provide some benefit to the Beneficiary. The beneficiary can be anyone or anything, including another trust. In the US, a living trust is commonly used as an estate planning tool, where the Grantor, Trustee, and Beneficiary are the same person(s). At some point, due to health or other reasons, a new trustee can be appointed. Since the trust is a separate entity from the grantor and trustee, and it owns the assets, it can survive the death of the grantor, which makes it an attractive way to avoid having to probate the entire estate. A good living trust will have instructions for the Trustee on what to do with the assets upon the death of the Grantor(s)."""
"""Can you recommend some good websites\/brokers for buying\/selling stocks in India? ""","""Most of the Indian Brokers started offering API's to retail client these days. And NSE Exchange also supports algo trading at retail level. Currently two levels of API are offered. 1)Semi-automatic or one touch trading (Retail Traders) 2)Fully Automatic ( Dealers) I had tested the API with a discount broker www.tradejini.com and it is good at retail level. But to make your trading systems fully automatic you need to pass NISM Series VIII certification (Dealer Certification) and have to take dealer terminals from the broker. You also have to register as a dealer and have to take permission from exchange to run your algos fully automated. Without Exchange permission it is illegal to involve in algo trading."""
"""How often does a stock price change and where is this defined?""","""Stocks prices are determined whenever a buyer and seller agree to trade at a given price. The company (you use AAPL as an example) doesn't set its own stock price. Rather, the investors set the price every time it trades. There's no \""official\"" price -- just the last trade. Likewise, you can offer to trade a stock at whatever price you want: that's the definition of a limit order. You might not find a willing buyer or seller at that price, but you can certainly open an order. Stock quotes that you get from your broker or a finance web site reflect the price as last traded. These quotes are updated throughout the trading day and the frequency and delay varies amongst quote providers. Like Knuckle-Dragger suggests in the comments, there are ways to get real-time quotes. It's often more helpful to think in terms of bid\/ask instead of \""official price\"". See this question for details."""
"""Which type of investments to keep inside RRSP?""","""Milliondollarjourney.com has a couple of articles on this topic. How Investing Taxes Work part 1 and part 2. The following is a summary of that article. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at a preferred rate, while interest tax is taxed at your regular rate. Interest is taxed at your marginal rate, but capital gains are taxed at only 50% of your marginal rate. That means that it makes sense to place the interest bearing account inside the RRSP but keep stocks outside. Additionally, you can claim your losses on your capital appreciating stocks against your gains if they are outside of your RRSP. Hopefully, your stocks will never go down but that's not very realistic. Dividends from Canadian companies are eligible for a dividend tax credit, but not dividends from foreign companies. [I actually understood that dividends from U.S. companies are treated as a special case] It's not clear to me from reading the article how much of this applies to mutual funds. The summary is as follows:"""
"""Take advantage of rock bottom oil prices""","""Probably the easiest way for individual investors is oil ETFs.  In particular, USO seems to be fairly liquid and available.  You should check carefully the bid\/ask spreads in this volatile time.  There are other oil ETFs and leveraged and inverse oil ETFs exist as well, but one should heed the warnings about leveraged ETFs. Oil futures are another possibility though they can be more complicated and tough to access for an individual investor.  Note that futures have a drift associated with them as well.  Be careful close or roll any positions before delivery, of course, unless you have a need for a bunch of actual barrels of oil. Finally, you can consider investing in commodities ETFs or Energy stocks or stock ETFs that are strongly related to the price of oil.  As Keshlam mentions, care is advised in all these methods.  Many people thought oil reached its bottom a few weeks back then OPEC decided to do nothing and the price dropped even further."""
"""What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors?""","""@littleadv has said most of what I'd say if they had not gotten here first. I'd add this much, it's important to understand what debt collectors can and cannot do, because a lot of them will use intimidation and any other technique you can think of to get away with as much as you will let them. I'd start with this PDF file from the FTC and then start googling for info on your state's regulations. Also it would be a very very good idea to review the documents you signed (or get a copy) when you took out the loan to see what sort of additional penalties etc you may have already agreed to in the event you default.  The fee's the collector is adding in could be of their own creation (making them highly negotiable), or it might be something you already agreed to in advance(leaving you little recourse but to pay them). Do keep in mind that in many cases debt collectors are ausually llowed at the very least to charge you simple interest of around 10%.  On a debt of your size, paid off over several years, that might amount to more than the $4K they are adding.  OTOH you can pretty much expect them to try both, tacking on 'fees' and then trying to add interest if the fees are not paid.   Another source of assistance may be the Department of Education Ombudsman: If you need help with a defaulted student loan, contact the Department of Education's Ombudsman at 877-557-2575 or visit its website at www.fsahelp.ed.gov. But first you must take steps to resolve your loan problem on your own (there is a checklist of required steps on the website), or the Ombudsman will not assist you."""
"""Can I cash a cashier's check at any bank?""","""At least in the US, a Cashier's Check is just like a regular personal check - only it's guaranteed by the bank itself, so the person accepting it can be pretty certain the check won't be returned for insufficient funds...if the check is genuine! Most banks therefore have a policy for cashier's checks that is very similar to their policies on regular checks and money orders: if you are a member with an account in good standing, they'll make all or part of the money available to you according to their fund availability policy, which is usually anywhere from \""immediately\"" to 7-10 days. With amounts over $5,000, banks will tend to put a hold on the funds to ensure it clears and they get their money. If you are not a member then many banks will refuse to cash the check at all, unless the cashier's check is drawn on on that brand of bank. So if the cashier's check is issued by, say, Chase Bank, Chase banks will usually be willing to cash out the entire check to you immediately (with properly provided ID). Because the bank is guaranteed by them they are able to check their system and ensure the check is real and can clear the check instantly. This policy isn't just up to individual banks entirely, as it is defined by United States federal banking policies and federal regulations on availability of funds. If you really must cash the check without a holding period and won't\/can't have a bank account of your own to perform this, then you will generally need to go into a branch of the bank that is guaranteeing the check to be able to cash it out fully right away. Note that since the check might be issued by a bank with no branch near you, you should have a back-up plan. Generally banks will allow you to setup a special\/limited savings-only account to deposit your check, even if you don't have a checking account, so if no other option works you might try that as well. The funds availability policies are the same, but at least you'll be able to cash it generally in 10 days time (and then close the account and withdraw your money)."""
"""Using a FOREX platform to actually change money ""","""If you wanted to spend money in another country, a specialist credit card would be the most cost-effective way. Near-spot exchange rate, zero-loading, no\/low ATM fees. Likewise a pre-paid debit card would also allow for money transfer across borders. If this is the right situation, FOREX trading platforms are overkill to achieve a valid solution."""
"""How bad is it to have a lot of credit available but not used?""","""I never give advice but I will now because you are getting poor advice.  I run between 820 and 835 for a FICO score and have for years.  I have a Discover, AMEX, VISA and MC.  I have over 200,000 dollars of credit and I never EVER pay interest.  I pay off the cards every month.  So, does it matter how much credit you have or can you have too much?  NO!  Bank of America gave me 40,000 dollars credit and I don't even have an account with them except the card.  Banks like people who pay their bills on time.  Well, the computers at the banks do.  LOL...DON'T be afraid of asking for more credit.  Your score may drop for two months but that is it.  Good luck with your money"""
"""What caused this drop?""","""I'm going to guess that you found this because of a stock screener.  This company went through a 1:20 reverse split on June 30, so every 20 shares outstanding became a single share.  Where before you had 20 shares worth $100 you now have 1 share worth $100, the value of the company doesn't change because of a split.  This company was never trading for $30+ per share.  Reverse splits are typical of a floundering company trading on an exchange that has a minimum share price requirement.  While reverse splits don't change the value of the company, just the number of shares outstanding and the price per share, no healthy company performs a reverse split.  Reverse splits are generally a massive signal to jump ship... The company seems to be trading for $1 right now, why the value fell from a pre-split $1.65 ($33\/20) to $1 is anyone's guess; how the company ever got to $1.65 is also anyone's guess. But looking at the most recent 10-Q there are numerous causes for concern:  Note 2. Capital Stock On March 6, 2017, the Company issued as compensation for services provided a total of 650,000 common shares with a fair value of $390,000 to a third party. The fair value of the shares was based on the price quoted on the OTC pink sheets on the grant date. this indicates a share price of $0.60 ($390,000\/650,000) as of 3\/6\/2017, just to reinforce that the google price chart doesn't show the true past but a past adjusted for the split Results of Operations The three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016 For the three months ended March 31, 2017 compared to the three months ended March 31, 2016, total revenues were $0 and $0, respectively, and net losses from operations were $414,663 and $26,260, respectively. The net losses were attributable to costs attributable to operating as a public company, in particular, common stock with a valuation of $390,000 that was issued to an investor relations firm in the first quarter of 2017. Going Concern As of March 31, 2017, there is substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern as we have not generated sufficient cash flow to fund our proposed business. We have suffered recurring losses from operations since our inception. In addition, we have yet to generate an internal cash flow from our business operations or successfully raised the financing required to develop our proposed business. As a result of these and other factors, our independent auditor has expressed substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.    Liquidity and Capital Resources We had no cash as of the date of March 31, 2017. Additionally, since there is no balance sheet in the last 10-Q (another bad sign), the last annual report 10-K has this balance sheet: So the company: So why did the stock value plummet? It's anyones' guess but there is no shortage of ways to justify it.   In fact, it's reasonable to ask how is this company still worth $3mm ($1 * 3mm shares outstanding)..."""
"""Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?""","""The billion dollar jackpot is a sunk cost, a loss for prior bettors. If you had $250M and could buy every ticket combination, you'd be betting that not more than 4 other tickets will win on the next drawing. Even if 5 won, you'd have all the second place, third place, etc tickets, and would probably break even at worst.  Forget this extreme case. If I gave you a game where you had a chance to bet $100,000 for a 1 in 9 chance to win a million dollars, would you do it? Clearly, the odds are in your favor, right? But, for this kind of money, you'd probably pass.  There's a point where the market itself seems to reflect a set of probable outcomes and can be reduced to gambling. I've written about using options to do this very thing, yet, even in my writing, I call it gambling. I'm careful not to confuse the two (investing and gambling, that is.)"""
"""Can I buy only 4 shares of a company?""","""I'm not sure it is the best idea, but you can buy only 4 stocks generally.  As you alluded to, you should take notice of the fees.  Also note that many stocks trade at significantly lower prices than Apple's per shares, so you might want to factor that into your decision.  You could probably get a better feel for transactions if you bought say 50 shares of a $30 stock; then it might be easier to see what it's like to sell some, etc. Note that specific trading sites might have various limits in place that would pose as barriers to this sort of behavior though."""
"""Why is auto insurance ridiculously overpriced for those who drive few miles?""","""There are several aspects to this but at a high level it boils down to A lot goes in to insurance rating and risk projecting.  You can't adjust a single variable and expect a proportional change in your premium, 7,000 miles per year just won't be 70% of the cost of 10,000 miles per year, because there are a lot of other things in play as well.  To further address premium adjustments.  Consider this: Even if your liability coverage did scale with perfect correlation to your mileage (using the same 70% from above, 7,000 miles per year versus 10,000 miles per year) then your premium composition is: $200 to $170 is 15%.  No change will have a direct linear correlation to your total premium because there are different component pieces of the total premium.  Fixed costs may be built in to the amounts for other component pieces of the premium, for example maybe no line of coverage ever has a cost below $X. Obviously these numbers are all made up Additionally, and also less considered is the fact that your liability also scales because of a lot of factors that have nothing to do with you.  It might be the other cars that are on the road, it might be that more densely populated areas have more fender benders.  For example if you live in Beverly Hills you have a much higher likelihood of accidentally bumping a $70-$80-$90-$100k+ car than you do in say, rural Wisconsin.  If your zip code is gentrifying and everyone starts buying Mercedes, your liability coverage increases.   You can not adjust one single variable and decide that you are lower risk than all insurers think you are.  If you shop this coverage and all insurers are within a nominal margin of pricing for the same coverage levels, there isn't much to argue with; you are simply riskier than you think you are and the variable you are focused on is not as meaningful as you think it is."""
"""It's possible to short a stock without paying interest?""","""As others have said: unless you can find someone willing to make a zero-interest loan, the answer is no.  If you can figure out how to turn a \""0% for first N months\"" credit card offer onto a leveraged investment or something of that sort -- seems unlikely -- maybe."""
"""Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price""","""Lets look at it this way. Your son bought the car and then 2 days later, he wants to change the price. Will the dealership let him do that after all the paperwork is signed?"""
"""What does it mean to be a \""high fee\"" or \""low fee\"" 401k?""","""Every 401(k) has managers to make the stock choices.  They all have different rates.   You want to see that fidelity or Vangard is handling your 401(k).(and I am sure others)   If you have a mega bank managing your funds or an insurance company odds are you are paying way to high management fees. So find out, the management fees should be available should be less than 1%.  They can get as high as 2%...Ouch"""
"""person on loan with cosigner""","""This will probably require asking the SO to sign a quitclaim and\/or to \""sell\"" him her share of the vehicle's ownership and getting it re-titled in his own name alone, which is the question you actually asked. To cancel the cosigner arrangement, he has to pay off the loan. If he can't or doesn't want to do that in cash, he'd have to qualify for a new loan to refinasnce in his name only, or get someone else (such as yourself) to co-sign. Alternatively, he might sell the car (or something else) to pay what he still owes on it. As noted in other answers, this kind of mess is why you shouldn't get into either cosigning or joint ownership without a written agreement spelling out exactly what happens should one of the parties wish to end this arrangement.  Doing business with friends is still doing business."""
"""Car Insurance - Black box has broken and insurance company wants me to pay?""","""First read the fine print. If you have to pay it, pay it and switch company. If you don't have to pay it and there is no proof that you abused the component beyond normal usage, you don't have to sue them, just return the invoice with legal (not so layman) text like \""I hereby reject paying invoice number xxxx dated xxx because the black box was used under normal conditions and it stopped working\"". In this case you wait for them and answer every other letter with the same text until the decide to either sue you, or drop the whole thing. If you choose this path, remember to save all invoice, copies of your rejections, all written\/email\/phone calls, picutres of the broken item, serial nubmers, contract etc. If they sue you and they loose (can't prove the item was destroied by you), they have to pay you up to one hour of legal advice cost and drop the invoice, if you loose, you do the same (100 pounds) plus the invoice amount according to Swedish law, don't know about your country. Before you follow any advice here, consult your local consumer protection agency, they usually comes up with smart options, they know a bad company with history and give you the right advice."""
"""How Should I Start my Finance Life and Invest?""","""I'd suggest looking at something like the Dummies series of books for this.   Something like: Sometimes the books are combined into one big book.  This would be the best bet.  It's were I started.  Every time I wondered something I just looked it up and learned. They are perfectly fine for the novice. Hope this helps."""
"""Why would someone want to sell call options?""","""I have an example of a trade I made some time ago.  By entering the position as a covered call, I was out of pocket $5.10, and if the stock traded flat, i.e. closed at the same $7.10 16 months hence, I was up 39% or nearly 30%\/yr. As compared to the stock holder, if the stock fell 28%, I'd still break even, vs his loss of 28%. Last, if the stock shot up, I'd get 7.50\/5.10 or a 47% return, vs the shareholder who would need a price of $10.44 to reflect that return. Of course, a huge jump in the shares, say to $15, would benefit the option buyer, and I would have left money on the table. But this didn't happen. The stock was at $8 at expiration, and I got my 47% return. The option buyer got 50 cents for his $2 bet.  Note, the $2 option price reflected a very high implied volatility."""
"""When a Company was expected and then made a profit of X $ then that X$ increased it's share price. or those the Sellers and Buyers [duplicate]""","""There are a few reason why share prices increase or decrease, the foremost is expectation of the investors that the company\/economy will do well\/not well, that is expectation of profit\/intrinsic value growth over some time frame (1-4 qtrs.)there is also demand & supply mismatch over (usually) short time. If you really see, the actual 'value' of a company is it's net-worth (cash+asset+stock in trade+brand value+other intangibles+other incomes)\/no of shares outstanding, which (in a way) is the book value, then all shares should trade at their book value, the actual number but it does not, the expectation of investors that a share would be purchased by another investor at a higher price because the outlook of the company over a long time is good."""
"""taxes, ordinary income, and adjusted cost basis for RSUs""","""The sale of shares on vesting convolutes matters. In a way similar to how reinvested dividends are taxed but the newly purchased fund shares' basis has to be increased, you need to be sure to have the correct per share cost basis. It's easy to confuse the total RSU purchase with the correct numbers, only what remained.  The vesting stock is a taxable event, ordinary income.  You then own the stock at that cost basis. A sale after that is long or short term and the profit is the to extent it exceeds that basis.  The fact that you got these shares in 2013 means you should have paid the tax then. And this is part two of the process. Of course the partial sale means a bit of math to calculate the basis of what remained."""
"""Does this plan make any sense for early 20s investments?""","""I think it's great idea.  Many large brokerages give customers access to a pretty sizable list of zero commission, zero load funds.  In this list of funds will certainly be an S&P 500 index.  So you can open your account for free, deposit your $1,000 for free and invest it in an S&P index for no cost.  You'll pay a very negligible amount in annual expense fees and you'll owe taxes on your gain if you have to use the money.  I don't follow the school of thought that all investment money should be in retirement account jail. But I think if you have your spending under control, you have your other finances in order and just want to place money somewhere, you're on the right track with this idea."""
"""Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?""","""An option gives you an option.  That is, you aren't buying any security - you are simply buying an option to buy a security.  The sole value of what you buy is the option to buy something. An American option offers more flexibility - i.e. it offers you more options on buying the stock.  Since you have more options, the cost of the option is higher. Of course, a good example makes sense why this is the case.  Consider the VIX.  Options on the VIX are European style.  Sometimes the VIX spikes like crazy - tripling in value in days.  It usually comes back down pretty quick though - within a couple of weeks.  So far out options on the VIX aren't worth just a whole lot more, because the VIX will probably  be back to normal.  However, if the person could have excercised them right when it got to the top, they would have made a fortune many times what their option was worth.  Since they are Euroopean style, though, they would have to wait till their option was redeemable, right when the VIX would be about back to normal.  In this case, an American style option would be far more valuable - especially for something that is difficult to predict, like the VIX."""
"""Events that cause major movement in forex?""","""It's impossible to determine which event will cause a major shift for a certain currency pair. However, this does not mean that it's not possible to identify events that are important to the overall market sentiment and direction. There are numerous sites that provide a calendar for upcoming and past events and their impact which is most of the time indicated as low, medium and high. Such sites are: Edit: I would like to add to that, that while these are major market movers, you cannot forget that they mainly provide a certain direction for the market but that it's not always clear in which direction the market will go. A recent and prime example of a major event that triggered opposite effects of what you would expect, is the ECB meeting that took place the 3rd of December. Due to the fact that the market already priced in further easing by the ECB the euro strengthened instead of weakening compared to the dollar. This strengthening happened even though the ECB did in fact adjust the deposit by 10 base points to -0.30 % and increased the duration of the QE. Taking above example into consideration it's important to always remember that fundamentals are hard to grasp and that it will take a while to make it a second nature and become truly successful in this line of trading. Lastly, fundamentals are only a part of the complete picture. Don't lose sight of support and resistance levels as well as price action to determine when and how to enter a trade."""
"""Am I able to conduct a private sale of public shares at a price that I determine?""","""Yes, you can do that, but you have to have the stocks issued in your name (stocks that you're holding through your broker are issued in \""street name\"" to your broker). If you have a physical stock certificate issued in your name - you just endorse it like you would endorse a check and transfer the ownership. If the stocks don't physically exist - you let the stock registrar know that the ownership has been transferred to someone else. As to the price - the company doesn't care much about the price of private sales, but the taxing agency will. In the US, for example, you report such a transaction as either a gift (IRS form 709), if the transaction was at a price significantly lower than the FMV (or significantly higher, on the other end), or a sale (IRS form 1040, schedule D) if the transaction was at FMV."""
"""Value of credit score if you never plan to borrow again?""","""According to Money Girl, home insurance premiums are higher if you have a poor credit score. You might self-insure though if you are wealthy."""
"""What's the difference between Market Cap and NAV?""","""Market caps is just the share price, multiplied by the number of shares. It doesn't represent any value (if people decide to pay more or less for the shares, the market cap goes up or down). It does represent what people think the company is worth.  NAV sounds very much like book value. It basically says \""how much cash would we end up with if we sold everything the company owns, paid back all the debt, and closed down the business? \"" Since closing down the business is rarely a good idea, this underestimates the value of the business enormously. Take a hairdresser who owns nothing but a pair of scissors, but has a huge number of repeat customers, charges $200 for a haircut, and makes tons of money every year. The business has a huge value, but NAV = price of one pair of used scissors."""
"""Borrowing money and then investing it \u2014 smart or nart?""","""The biggest concern is how you get $250,000 in unsecured credit. It's unlikely that you will be loaned that amount at a percentage lower than what you expect to earn. Unsecured credit lines are rarely lower than 10% and usually approach 20%. On top of that, for a bank to approve you for that credit line, you have to have a high credit score and an income to support the payments on that credit line. But lets suspend disbelief and assume that you can get the money you want on loan. You would then be expected to pay back that 10%, but investments don't go up uniformly. Some years they go up 15-20% and other years they go down 10%. What do you do if you have to sell some of your investments in a down year? That money is no longer invested, and you can't recover it with the following up year because you had to take too much out to cover the loan payments. You'll be out of money long before the loan is repaid because you can expect there will be bad years in the stock market that will eat away at your investment. There were a lot of people who took their money out of the market after the crash of 2008. If they had left their money in through 2009, they would have made all that money back, but if you have a loan to pay you have to pull money out in the bad years as well as the good years. Unless you have a lucky streak of all good years, you're doomed."""
"""How dividend payout happens""","""The ex-dividend date is the first date on which you may sell without losing your dividend.  In this case that date is August 5th (thanks, Victor).  The price opens on the ex-dividend date lower than it closed on the previous day (by the amount of the dividend). Therefore you may sell any time on August 5th (including during pre-market trading) and still get the dividend. You must be the owner of the stock as of the end of after-hours trading on the 4th (and therefore overnight) in order to get the dividend. Intel's Dividend Dates The record date isn't important to your trading decision."""
"""Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period?""","""I used to work for Ally Auto (formerly known as GMAC) and I'd advise not to pay off the account unless you need to free up some debt in your credit report since until the account is paid off it will show that you owe your financial institution the original loan amount. The reason why I am saying not to pay-off the account is because good\/bad payments are sent to the credit bureau 30 days after the due date of the payment, and if you want to increase your credit score then its best to pay it on a monthly basis, the negative side to this is you will pay more interest by doing this.  If ever you decide to leave $1.00 in loan, I am pretty much sure that the financial institution will absorb the remaining balance and consider the account paid off.  What exactly is your goal here? Do you plan to increase your credit score? Do you need to free up some debt?"""
"""Can heavy demand for options drive up or down a stock price?""","""You will tend to find as options get closer to expiry (within 2 months of expiry) they tend to be traded more. Also the closer they are to being in the money they more they are traded. So there tends to be more demand for these options than long dated ones that are far out of the money. When there is this higher demand there is less need for a market maker to step in to assure liquidity, thus there should be no effect on the underlying stock price due to the high demand for options. I would say that market makers would mainly get involved in providing liquidity for options way out of the money and with long periods until expiry (6+ months), where there is little demand to start with and open interest is usually quite low."""
"""Hearing much about Dave Ramsey. Which of his works is best in describing his \""philosophy\"" about money?""","""Actually, Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar, wrote a \""book club\"" series that basically reads like cliff notes for Dave's The Total Money Makeover starting with this blog post. So that might be a really good place to start. Also of note is Trent's Article \""Five Ways I Disagree With Dave Ramsey\""."""
"""What is the added advantage of a broker being a member of NFA in addition to IIROC""","""This shows that in each market (US and Canada) the company is registered with the appropriate regulatory organization. OANDA is registered in the US with the National Futures Association which is a \""self-regulatory organization for the U.S. derivatives industry\"". OANDA Canada is registered in Canada with IIROC which is the \""Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada\"".  The company does business in both the US and in Canada so the US arm is registered with the US regulatory organization and the Canadian arm is registered with the Canadian regulatory organization."""
"""Settling house with husband during divorce. Which of these two options makes the most sense?""","""How about a third approach: Figure the buyout as above. Figure what percentage of the value of the house the buyout constitutes. When the house sells the other party gets that percentage of the sales price."""
"""Are junk bonds advisable to be inside a bond portfolio that has the objective of generating stable income for a retiree?""","""Junk Bonds (aka High Yield bonds) are typically those bonds from issues with credit ratings below BBB-. Not all such companies are big risks. They are just less financially sound than other, higher rated, companies. If you are not comfortable doing the analysis yourself, you should consider investing in a mutual fund, ETF, or unit trust that invests in high yield bonds. You get access to \""better quality\"" issues because a huge amount of the debt markets goes to the institutional channels, not to the retail markets. High yield (junk) bonds can make up a part of your portfolio, and are a good source of regular income. As always, you should diversify and not have everything you own in one asset class. There are no real rules of thumb for asset allocation -- it all depends on your risk tolerance, goals, time horizon, and needs. If you don't trust yourself to make wise decisions, consult with a professional whom you trust."""
"""Why is there inconsistent returns difference between direct and regular Mutual Funds?""","""(This answer refers to the US investment landscape) I'm not sure your classification of funds as direct and regular accurately reflects the nature of the mutual fund industry.  It's not the funds themselves that are \""direct\"" or \""regular.\""  Rather it's the way an investor chooses to invest in them.  If you make the investment yourself through your brokerage account, you may say it's a direct investment.  If you pay a financial advisor to do this for you, it's \""regular.\"" For a given fund, you could make the investment yourself or you could use an advisor. Note that many funds have various share classes.  Share classes may be accessed in different ways.  The institutional class may be accessible through your 401(k) or perhaps not even there, for example.  The premium class may require a certain minimum investment.  Some classes will have a front-end-load or back-end-load.  Each of these will have a different expense ratio and fees even though the money ends up in the same portfolio.  These expenses are, by law, publicly available in the prospectus and in numerous other places.  Share classes with higher fees will earn less each year after fees, just as you suggest.  Your intuition is correct on this point. Now, there is one fee to be aware of that funds either have or do not have.  That's a 12b-1 fee.  This fee is a kickback to financial advisors who funnel your money into their fund.  If you use a financial advisor, he or she will likely put your money into these funds because they have a financial incentive to do so.  That way they get paid twice: once by you and once by the mutual fund.  It has been robustly shown in the finance academic literature that funds without this fee dominate (are better in some ways and in no ways worse than) funds with this fee. I suppose you could say that funds and share classes with a 12b-1 fee were designed for \""regular\"" investment and those without were designed for \""direct\"" but that doesn't mean you can't invest in a 12b-1 fee fund directly nor that you can't twist your advisor's arm into getting you into a good fund without a 12b-1.  Unfortunately, if you have this level of knowledge, then you probably don't need a financial advisor."""
"""Do I need another health insurance policy?""","""Most of the points by MrChrister are valid. I can't say much for Philippines, however there is a reason for one to go with individual insurance from my experience in India."""
"""How can I escalate a credit dispute when the bureau \""confirms\"" the item?""","""I was I a similar position as you, and sometimes credit bureaus might be difficult to deal with, especially when high amounts of money are involved. To make the long story short, someone opened a store credit card under my name and made a charge of around 3k. After reporting this to the bureaus, they did not want to remove the account from my credit report citing that the claim was \""frivolous\"". After filing a police report, the police officer gave me the phone number for the fraud department of this store credit card, and after they investigated, they removed the account from my credit. I would suggest to do the following: Communicating with Creditors and Debt Collectors You have the right to:  Stop creditors and debt collectors from   reporting fraudulent accounts. After you give them a copy of a valid   identity theft report, they may not report fraudulent accounts to the   credit reporting companies. Get copies of documents related to the   theft of your identity, like transaction records or applications for   new accounts. Write to the company that has the documents, and include   a copy of your identity theft report. You also can tell the company to   give the documents to a specific law enforcement agency. Stop a debt   collector from contacting you. In most cases, debt collectors must   stop contacting you after you send them a letter telling them to stop.   Get written information from a debt collector about a debt, including   the name of the creditor and the amount you supposedly owe. If a debt   collector contacts you about a debt, request this information in   writing. I know that you said that the main problem was that your credit account was combined with another. But there might be a chance that identity theft was involved. If this is the case, and you can prove it, then you might have access to more tools to help you. For example, you can file a report with the FTC, and along with a police report, this can be a powerful tool in stopping these charges. Feel free to go to the identitytheft.gov website for more information."""
"""If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean""","""It is a fool's errand to attribute abnormal option volume or volatility to any meaningful move in the stock. One side of the chain is frequently more expensive than the other. The relationship between historical volatility and implied volatility is dubious at best, and also a big area of study."""
"""Should I re-allocate my portfolio now or let it balance out over time?""","""Personally I'm not a huge fan of rebalancing within an asset class. I would vote for leaving the HD shares alone and buying other assets until you get to the portfolio you want. Frequent buying and selling incurs costs and possible tax consequences that can really hurt your returns."""
"""Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud?""","""Yes this is a huge security loophole and many banks will do nothing to refund if you are scammed.  For example for business accounts some Wells Fargo branches say you must notify within 24 hours of any check withdrawal or the loss is yours.  Basically banks don't care - they are a monopoly system and you are stuck with them.  When the losses and complaints get too great they will eventually implement the European system of electronic transfers - but the banks don't want to be bothered with that expense yet.   Sure you can use paypal - another overpriced monopoly - or much better try Dwolla or bitcoin."""
"""Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock?""","""Can a company not bargain with a dying company for example and buy a   falling stock at lower than market value? Of course. If the shareholders agree to it. But why would they, if the market value is higher, agree to sell to someone who offers less? If there's a compelling reason - it can happen. It might happen during a hostile takeover, for example. In the case of buying the company for more than market value, are the   stocks bought for significantly more, or slightly more than the   current market value? Again, depends on how valuable the shareholders think the company is. If the shareholders think that the company has a potential which has not yet affected the stock price, they'll want a higher premium (and they'd think that, otherwise why would they hold the stock?). How much higher? Depends on the bargaining abilities of the sides."""
"""How to calculate tax amounts withheld on mixed pre-tax and Roth 401(k) contributions, and match?""","""Your 401k IRA will now have three different sub-accounts, the one holding your Traditional (pre-tax) 401k contributions, the one holding your Roth 401k contributions, and the one holding the employer match contributions (which, as has been pointed out to you, cannot be considered to be Roth 401k contributions). That is, it is not true that So my next month's check shows $500+$500 going to the regular 401k, and $82+$82 going to the Roth 401k. Your next month's paystub will show $500 going into the regular 401k, $100 going into the Roth 401k, and if employer matching contributions are listed on the paystub, it will still show $600 going into the employer match. If you have chosen to invest your 401k in mutual funds (or stocks), shares are purchased when the 401k administrator receives the money and are also segregated in the three subaccounts. If you are paid monthly, then you will know on a month-by-month basis how many shares you hold in the three  separate subaccounts, and there is no end-of-year modification of how many shares were purchased with Roth 401k contributions versus how many were purchased with  pretax contributions or with employer matching funds as you seem to think."""
"""Is this investment opportunity problematic?""","""It would have to be made as a \""gift\"", and then the return would be a \""gift\"" back to you, because you're not allowed to use a loan for a down payment. I see some problems, but different ones than you do: One more question: is the market really hot right now? It was quite cold for the last few years."""
"""Why are some long term investors so concerned about their entry price?""","""If you think of it in terms of trying to get an annual return on your investment over the long haul, you can do a simple net present value analysis to decide your buy price.  If you're playing conservative with the investments and taking safety over returns, you will still have some kind of expectation of that return will be.  Paying slightly more will drag down your returns, perhaps less than what you want to get.  If you really want to get your desired X%, then stick to your guns and don't go down the slippery slope of reaching.  If 1% off isn't bad, then 2% off isn't all that bad, and maybe 3% is OK too for the right situation, etc.  Gotta have rules and stick to them.  You never know what opportunities will be around tomorrow.  The possible drops in value should be built into your return expectations."""
"""When buying a call option, is the financial stability of the option writer relevant?""","""In the case of regulated, exchange-traded options, the writer of an options contract is obliged to maintain a margin with their broker, and the broker is obliged to maintain a margin with the clearing house.  (Institutional writers of options will deal directly with the clearing house.) In the event that the writer is unable to make a daily margin call, the broker (or clearing house) may automatically close out (all of) their positions using existing margin held.  If there was a shortfall, the broker (or clearing house) would be left to persue the client (writer) to make good on their obligations. None of this effects the position of the original buyer of the options contract.  Effectively, the buyer's counterparty is their broker's clearing house account."""
"""What is the point of the stock market? What is it for, and why might someone want to trade or invest?""","""In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified \""banknote\"" frequently called a \""share\"".  Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in \""units\"".  Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units.  This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability."""
"""Why index funds have different prices?""","""Funds which track the same index may have different nominal prices.  From an investors point of view, this is not important.  What is important is that when the underlying index moves by a given percentage, the price of the tracking funds also move by an equal percentage.  In other words, if the S&P500 rises by 5%, then the price of those funds tracking the S&P500 will also rise by 5%.  Therefore, investing a given amount in any of the tracking funds will produce the same profit or loss, regardless of the nominal prices at which the individual funds are trading. To see this, use the \""compare\"" function available on the popular online charting services. For example, in Google finance call up a chart of the S&P500 index, then use the compare textbox to enter the codes for the various ETFs tracking the S&P500.  You will see that they all track the S&P500 equally so that your relative returns will be equal from each of the tracking funds.  Any small difference in total returns will be attributable to management fees and expenses, which is why low fees are so important in passive investing."""
"""Why would anyone buy a government bond?""","""Why would a bank buy government bonds? Why couldn't they just deposit their money in another bank instead?  Generally, banks are limited by laws and regulations about how much they must set aside as reserves. Of the money they receive as deposits, they may loan a certain amount, but must keep some as a reserve (this is called \""fractional reserve banking\""). Different countries have a different amount that they must set aside in reserves.  In countries where bank deposits are guaranteed, there is almost always some upper limit to how much is guaranteed. The amount of money that a bank would deposit in another bank would be far greater than the guarantee."""
"""Why do 1099 forms take so long for brokerages to prepare and send out?""","""There are probably many correct answers to this question, but for most people, the main reason is qualified dividends. To be a qualified dividend (and therefore eligible for lower tax rates), the dividend-paying stock or fund must be held for \""more than 60 days during the 121-day period that begins 60 days before the ex-dividend date\"". Since many stocks and funds pay out dividends at the end of the year, that means it takes until mid- to late February to determine if you held them, and therefore made the dividend qualified. Brokerages don't want to send out 1099s in January and then possibly have to send out revised versions if you decide to sell something that paid a dividend in December that otherwise would have been qualified."""
"""How to find if a public company has taken out a loan?""","""Somewhat.  The balance sheet will include liabilities which as Michael Kj\u00f6rling points out would tell you the totals for the debt which would often be loans or bonds depending on one's preferred terminology.  However, if the company's loan was shorter than the length of the quarter, then it may not necessarily be reported is something to point out as the data is accurate for a specific point in time only. My suggestion is that if you have a particular company that you want to review that you take a look at the SEC filing in full which would have a better breakdown of everything in terms of assets, liabilities, etc. than the a summary page.  http:\/\/investor.apple.com\/ would be where you could find a link to the 10-Q that has a better breakdown though it does appear that Apple doesn't have any bonds outstanding.  There are some companies that may have little debt due to being so profitable in their areas of business."""
"""What is the average cost of a portfolio on a trading site?""","""It sounds for the most part you are a 'buy and hold' type investor and continue to contribute monthly.  I follow the same philosophy and continue to contribute monthly as well.  I use Questrade.com as my online broker. For trading it costs a penny per share with a minimum cost of $4.95 (so if you only buy 100 shares you will still pay $4.95) up to a maximum of $9.95 per trade (so if you buy 10,000 shares you only pay $9.95. Three trades at $4.95 per month across the year would be $178.20.  This is assuming you are trading less then 495 share each trade.  So switching to Questrade would save you an additional $111.80 per year!  Multiply over number of year before you retire plus compound interest which could accrue and that can quite a bit of extra savings. You pay nothing else to Questrade either.  No management fees, etc.  You manage the accounts."""
"""Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate?""","""We've had everything in one pot almost from day one of marriage. The key ingredients to making that arrangement work is to communicate about the money, and realize that you're in it together.  Everything one person does affects the other. Separating finances compartmentalizes the \""affecting one another\"" part and makes it a little clearer perhaps, but I can also see it creating a sense of entitlement: \""This is my money.\""  There should be a place for individual discretionary spending, of course, but I'm not sure that roping off that money is the best way to do it. It's less likely to be viable if there's one main breadwinner in the house.  In our house, this is me.  If we separated the finances like this, it would amount to giving my wife an allowance.  Since she works harder at home than I do at work most of the time (she keeps the house, does meals and shopping, raises and schools our daughter, etc.) but just doesn't get paid for it, it would border on insult to her to treat the finances this way."""
"""Where do traders take their prices data from? How can it be different from their brokers'?""","""This is a complicated subject, because professional traders don't rely on brokers for stock quotes.  They have access to market data using Level II terminals, which show them all of the prices (buy and sell) for a given stock.   Every publicly traded stock (at least in the U.S.) relies on firms called \""market makers\"".  Market makers are the ones who ultimately actually buy and sell the shares of companies, making their money on the difference between what they bought the stock at and what they can sell it for.  Sometimes those margins can be in hundreds of a cent per share, but if you trade enough shares...well, it adds up. The most widely traded stocks (Apple, Microsoft, BP, etc) may have hundreds of market makers who are willing to handle share trades.  Each market maker sets their own price on what they'll pay (the \""bid\"") to buy someone's stock who wants to sell and what they'll sell (the \""ask\"") that share for to someone who wants to buy it.   When a market maker wants to be competitive, he may price his bid\/ask pretty aggressively, because automated trading systems are designed to seek out the best bid\/ask prices for their trade executions.  As such, you might get a huge chunk of market makers in a popular stock to all set their prices almost identically to one another.  Other market makers who aren't as enthusiastic will set less competitive prices, so they don't get much (maybe no) business.  In any case, what you see when you pull up a stock quote is called the \""best bid\/ask\"" price.  In other words, you're seeing the highest price a market maker will pay to buy that stock, and the lowest price that a market maker will sell that stock.  You may get a best bid from one market maker and a best ask from a different one.  In any case, consumers must be given best bid\/ask prices. Market makers actually control the prices of shares.  They can see what's out there in terms of what people want to buy or sell, and they modify their prices accordingly.  If they see a bunch of sell orders coming into the system, they'll start dropping prices, and if people are in a buying mood then they'll raise prices. Market makers can actually ignore requests for trades (whether buy or sell) if they choose to, and sometimes they do, which is why a limit order (a request to buy\/sell a stock at a specific price, regardless of its current actual price) that someone places may go unfilled and die at the end of the trading session.  No market maker is willing to fill the order. Nowadays, these systems are largely automated, so they operate according to complex rules defined by their owners.  Very few trades actually involve human intervention, because people can't digest the information at a fast enough pace to keep up with automated platforms. So that's the basics of how share prices work.  I hope this answered your question without being too confusing! Good luck!"""
"""Question about MBS and how it pays""","""A Mortgage Backed Security or MBS is the security.  It's not an entity, it's essentially a contract.  As an investment they function more or less the same way a bond does. There is nothing wrong with the concept behind a Mortgage Backed Security.  Functionally securities like these allows banks and other institutions to lend to high-risk borrowers.  You package small slices of a wide range of risk from a large number of mortgages and the investor sill receive something similar to the average of the rates being charged.  Essentially from a big pool of mortgages of varying risk you will create a different big pool of bonds that can be sold to investors based on some sort of expected return.  For a frame of reference on a much smaller scale look at peer to peer lending sites like LendingClub and Prosper.  The idea is lots of people of varying risk profiles make requests for loans of varying amounts.  You bring your $2,500 and invest $25 in to 100 different loans.  This way even if a few default you will still eek out a profit.  It also allows you to include riskier borrowers without materially impacting your expected return."""
"""Effect of Job Change on In-Progress Mortgage Application""","""I recommend you ask this question to a qualified mortgage broker.  We just closed on our first house.  My wife & I have had several years of stable jobs, good credit scores, and a small side business with 1040 Schedule-C income... and we were surprised by the overwhelming amount of documentation we needed for the loan.  For example, we had 3 checks deposited to our bank account for $37.95.  We had to provide copies of the checks, deposit slip and a letter explaining the deposit.  One reason we might have had so much trouble:  the mortgage broker we selected sold our loan to a very picky lender.  On the plus side, we obtained a competitive rate with extremely low closing costs on a 30 year fixed mortgage.  However, I can't imagine the headaches we would've incurred if one of us were changing jobs to 1099 income."""
"""I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget?""","""Plan all your needs and put priority based on need & urgency. New Habit: Rethink. Rethink. Rethink. whenever your going to buy something. rethink before going to buy. remember what is your priority one than that and will this affect on your plans. if that affect, than dont buy. Lets leave it to that habit, that will take care of your budget yar............."""
"""How to calculate car insurance quote""","""On top of the given answers, the type of referral will also factor in. When you're up for renewal and go to a comparison site (in the UK: CompareTheMarket, MoneySupermarket, Confused, GoCompare, ... ) and struggle accurately through all their lists of questions, you see that some of the data differs (e.g., not all the same jobs can be entered; if you have had an accident, not all ask whose fault it was and\/or don't leave the option \""not yet resolved\"" --possibly forcing you to guess which way it will be adjudicated,-- and\/or what the total repair cost was).  So as these referrers feed slightly different data to roughly the same set of insurance providers, you will get slightly different quotes on the same providers. And expect your own provider to offer a slightly better quote than you'll get in reality for renewing: The referrer's (one-time) cut has to be still taken off, but they count it as a new client so somebody gets a bonus for that --- you they disregard as a captive client and give what boils down to a loyalty penalty. [Case in point: I had an unresolved car accident, resolved months later in my favour. With all honest data including unresolved claim and its cost and putting my 'accident-free years' factor at 0 instead of 7, my old provider quoted about 8% more than the previous year on comparison sites; but my renewal papers quoted me 290% more, upon telephone enquiry the promised to refund the difference if court found in my favour though they refused to give this in writing. So: No thanks!] Then the other set of referrals they get is from you directly going to their website asking for a quote. They know what type of link you've followed (banner, or google result, etc), they may know some info from your browser's cookies (time spent where) or other tracking service, and from your data they may guess how tech-savvy and shop-wise you are, and scale your offer accordingly. [Comparison-site shoppers are lumped together at a relatively high savvy-level, of course!]. Companies breaking down your data and their own in a particular way can find advantages and hence offer you better terms, as said in the main answer (this is like Arbitration in stock exchanges, ensuring a certain amount of sanity: if there's something to exploit, somebody will, and everybody will follow). It may be that they find a certain group of people maybe more accident-prone but cheaper to deal with (more flexible in repair-times, or easy to bully in accepting shared-fault when they weren't at fault), or they want a certain client (for women, for civil servants, for sporty drivers, for homeowners --- often for cross-selling other insurance services). Or they claim to want pensioners because the company can offer them 'a familiar voice' (same account manager always contacting them) while they're easier to bamboozle and less likely to shop around when offered a rubbish deal. Also, 100% straight comparison of competing offers isn't possible as the fine details of the T&Cs (terms & conditions) would differ, as well as various little pinpricks in the claims handling process.  And depreciation of a car, and various ways of dealing with it: You insure it for the buying prices, but two years later it's worth about 40% less on paper --- so in case of total loss, replacing like-for-like will cost you still at least 80% of the value for which you've been insuring it while they'll probably offer you the 100-40= 60%. Mostly because instead of your trusted car you have something unknown that may have hidden defects, or been mistreated and about to die. [Case in point: My 3-y-old dealer-bought car's gearbox died just outside the 6month warranty period, notwithstanding its \""150-item inspection you can rely on\"". In the end the national brand agreed to refund the parts (15% of what I paid for the car) but not the labour (a few hours).] And any car model's value differs (in descending order) from its \""forecourt price\"", \""private selling price\"", \""part exchange price\"", and \""auction price\"". Depending on your ompanies may happily insure you for forecourt price (=what you paid to dealer) but then point out that the value of that car is the theoretical P\/X value, i.e., the car without anybody's profit, far less than you've been paying for. [Conversely, if you crash it after insuring below market value, they can pay you your stupidly low figure.]"""
"""Transfering money from NRE account in India to family member""","""I am a US citizen and I want to transfer some amount 10 lakhs+ to my brother from my NRE account in India to his account. My brother is going to purchase something for his business. He is going to return my amount after 3-4 Months From the description it looks like you would like to loan to your brother on repatriation basis. Yes this is allowed. See the RBI Guide here and here for more details. There are some conditions; (iv) Scheme for raising loans from NRIs on repatriation basis   Borrowings not exceeding US$ 2,50,000 or its equivalent in foreign exchange by an individual resident in India from his close relatives resident outside India, subject to the conditions that - a) the loan is free of interest;   b) the minimum maturity period of   the loan is seven years;   c) The amount of loan is received by inward   remittance in free foreign exchange through normal banking channels or   by debit to the NRE\/FCNR account of the non-resident lender;    d) The   loan is utilised for the borrower's personal purposes or for carrying   on his normal business activity but not for carrying on   agricultural\/plantation activities, purchase of immovable property or   shares\/debentures\/bonds issued by companies in India or for   re-lending. Although it is mentioned as Seven years, this is revised to one year. Since he cannot deposit into my NRE account I guess he has to deposit it into my NRO account. A repatriate-able loan as above can be deposited into NRE Account. Is there any illegality here doing such transaction? No. Please ensure proper paper work to show this as loan and document the money trail. Also once I get my money in NRO account do I need to pay taxes in India on the money he deposited? This question does not arise."""
"""What happens to bonds values when interest rates rise? [duplicate]""","""It depends a lot on your investment period and the quality of the bonds that you want to invest. For example, if you want to invest until the maturity of the bonds, and the bonds are very safe (i.e. they are not expected to default), it does not matter that the interest rate rise. That is because at the maturity of the bond it will converge to its maturity value which will be independent of the change of the interest rates (although on the middle of the life the price of the bond will go down, but the coupon should remain constant -unless is a floating coupon bond-). An option could be to invest in an ETF with short term bonds (e.g. 1 year) with AAA credit rating (high quality, so very low default rate). It won't yield much, but is more than 0% if you hold it until maturity."""
"""Effect of Quantitative Easing on Price of Bonds""","""The classic definition of inflation is \""too much money chasing too few goods.\"" Low rates and QE were intended to help revive a stalled economy, but unfortunately, demand has not risen, but rather, the velocity of money has dropped like a rock.  At some point, we will see the economy recover and the excess money in the system will need to be removed to avoid the inflation you suggest may occur. Of course, as rates rise to a more normal level, the price of all debt will adjust.  This question may not be on topic for this board, but if we avoid politics, and keep it close to PF, it might remain."""
"""Risk tolerance as I age""","""You say you have 90% in stocks. I'll assume that you have the other 10% in bonds. For the sake of simplicity, I'll assume that your investments in stocks are in nice, passive indexed mutual funds and ETFs, rather than in individual stocks. A 90% allocation in stocks is considered aggressive. The problem is that if the stock market crashes, you may lose 40% or more of your investment in a single year. As you point out, you are investing for the long term. That's great, it means you can rest easy if the stock market crashes, safe in the hope that you have many years for it to recover. So long as you have the emotional willpower to stick with it. Would you be better off with a 100% allocation in stocks? You'd think so, wouldn't you. After all, the stock market as a whole gives better expected returns than the bond market. But keep in mind, the stock market and the bond market are (somewhat) negatively correlated. That means when the stock market goes down, the bond market often goes up, and vice versa. Investing some of your money in bonds will slightly reduce your expected return but will also reduce your standard deviation and your maximum annual loss. Canadian Couch Potato has an interesting write-up on how to estimate stock and bond returns. It's based on your stocks being invested equally in the Canadian, U.S., and international markets. As you live in the U.S., that likely doesn't directly apply to you; you probably ignore the Canadian stock market, but your returns will be fairly similar. I've reproduced part of that table here: As you can see, your expected return is highest with a 100% allocation in stocks. With a 20 year window, you likely can recover from any crash. If you have the stomach for it, it's the allocation with the highest expected return. Once you get closer to retirement, though, you have less time to wait for the stock market to recover. If you still have 90% or 100% of your investment in stocks and the market crashes by 44%, it might well take you more than 6 years to recover. Canadian Couch Potato has another article, Does a 60\/40 Portfolio Still Make Sense? A 60\/40 portfolio is a fairly common split for regular investors. Typically considered not too aggressive, not too conservative. The article references an AP article that suggests, in the current financial climate, 60\/40 isn't enough. Even they aren't recommending a 90\/10 or a 100\/0 split, though. Personally, I think 60\/40 is too conservative. However, I don't have the stomach for a 100\/0 split or even a 90\/10 split. Okay, to get back to your question. So long as your time horizon is far enough out, the expected return is highest with a 100% allocation in stocks. Be sure that you can tolerate the risk, though. A 30% or 40% hit to your investments is enough to make anyone jittery. Investing a portion of your money in bonds slightly lowers your expected return but can measurably reduce your risk. As you get closer to retirement and your time horizon narrows, you have less time to recover from a stock market crash and do need to be more conservative. 6 years is probably too short to keep all your money in stocks. Is your stated approach reasonable? Well, only you can answer that. :)"""
"""Is it better to buy put options or buy an inverse leveraged ETF?""","""The only use of options that I will endorse is selling them. If you believe the market is going down then sell covered, out of the money, calls.  Buying calls or buying puts usually wastes money. That is because of a quality called Theta. If the underlying security stays the same the going price of an option will decrease, every day, by the Theta amount.  Think of options as insurance. A person only makes money by selling insurance, not by buying it."""
"""Why I cannot find a \""Pure Cash\"" option in 401k investments?""","""There is no zero risk option! There is no safe parking zone for turbulent times! There is no such thing as a zero-risk investment.  You would do well to get this out of your head now.  Cash, though it will retain its principle over time, will always be subject to inflation risk (assuming a positive-inflation environment which, historically in the US anyway, has always been the case since the Great Depression). But I couldn't find a \""Pure Cash - No investment option\"" - what I mean by this is an option where my money is kept idle without investing in any kind of financial instrument (stocks, bonds, other MFs, currencies, forex etc etc whatever).  Getting back to the real crux of your question, several other answers have already highlighted that you're looking for a money market fund.  These will likely be as close to cash as you will get in a retirement account for the reasons listed in @KentA's answer. Investing in short-term notes would also be another relatively low-risk alternative to a money market fund.  Again, this is low-risk, not no-risk. I wanted such kinda option because things may turn bad and I may want nothing invested in the stock markets\/bond markets. I was thinking that if the market turns bear then I would move everything to cash Unless you have a the innate ability to perfectly time the market, you are better off keeping your investments where they are and riding out the bear market.  Cash does not generate dividends - most funds in a retirement account do.  Sure, you may have a paper loss of principle in a bear market, but this will go away once the market turns bull again.  Assuming you have a fairly long time before you retire, this should not concern you in the slightest. Again, I want to stress that market timing does not work.  Even the professionals, who get paid the big bucks to do this, on average, get it right as often as they get it wrong.  If you had this ability, you would not be asking financial questions on Stack Exchange, I can tell you that. I would recommend you read The Four Pillars of Investing, by William Bernstein.  He has a very no-nonsense approach to investing and retirement that would serve you (or anybody) well in turbulent financial markets.  His discussion on risk is especially applicable to your situation."""
"""In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house?""","""I just read through all of the answers to this question and there is an important point that no one has mentioned yet: Oftentimes, buying a house is actually cheaper than renting the identical house. I'm looking around my area (suburbs of Chicago, IL) in 2017 and seeing some houses that are both for sale and for rent, which makes for an easy comparison. If I buy the house with $0 down (you can't actually put $0 down but it makes the numerical comparison more accurate if you do), my monthly payment including mortgage (P+I), taxes, insurance, and HOA, is still $400 less than the monthly rent payment. (If I put 20% down it's an even bigger savings.) So, in addition to the the tax advantages of owning a home, the locked in price that helps you in an economy that experiences inflation, and the accumulated equity, you may even have extra cash flow too. If you were on the fence when you would have had to pay more per month in order to purchase, it should be a no-brainer to buy if your monthly cost is lower. From the original question: Get a loan and buy a house, or I can live for the rest of my life in rent and save the extra money (investing and stuff). Well, you may be able to buy a house and save even more money than if you rent. Of course, this is highly dependent on your location."""
"""Should I pay off my car loan within the year?""","""Pay it off....I've only ever paid interest on mortgages to buy the houses I've lived in (I paid both mortgages of years ahead of schedule) & as a result my credit rating's way above average, I use credit cards for everything, pay 'em off in full every month unless I'm paid not to (currently have around 8,000 sitting interest free while the cash earns 6% elsewhere). Life's sweet if you understand the system. Hell if you don't. Keep saving..."""
"""How smart is it really to take out a loan right now?""","""Yes, it's a buyer's market. If one is looking to buy a house, comparing the cost to rent vs own is a start. Buying a property to rent to a stranger is a different issue altogether, it's a business like any other, it takes time and has risk.  If today, one has a decent downpayment (20%) and plans to stay in the house for some time, buying may make economic sense. But it's never a no-brainer. One needs to understand that housing can go down as well as up, and also understand all the expenses of owning which aren't so obvious. Ever increasing property tax, repairs, etc."""
"""How can a Canadian establish US credit score""","""Sorry. As far as I know, a person's SS is the only way to establish credit. This is the first thing they ask whenever you apply for any service in the US."""
"""US citizen married to non-resident alien; how do I file taxes?""","""Congrats on the upcoming wedding! Here is the official answer to this question, from the IRS. They note that you can choose to treat your spouse as a US resident for tax purposes and file jointly if you want to, by attaching a certain declaration to your tax return.  Though I'm not a tax expert, if your partner has significant income it seems like this might increase your taxes due. You can also apply for an SSN (used for tax filings, joint or separate return) at a social security office or US consulate, by form SS-5, or file form W-7 with the IRS to get a Taxpayer Identification Number which is just as useful for this purpose.   Without that, you can write \""Non Resident Alien\"" (or \""NRA\"") in the box for your partner's SSN, and mail in a paper return like that.  See IRS Publication 17 page 22 (discussions on TurboTax here, here, etc.)."""
"""Precedent and models for 100% equity available via initial offering?""","""Specifically I was wondering, how can the founder determine an appropriate valuation and distribution of shares; ie- the amount of equity to make available for public vs how much to reserve for him\/herself. This is an art more than science. If markets believe it to be worth x; one will get. This is not a direct correlation of the revenue a start up makes. It is more an estimated revenue it would make in some point in time in future. There are investment firms that can size up the opportunity and advise; however it is based on their experience and may not always be true reflection of value."""
"""That \""write your own mortgage\"" thing; how to learn about it""","""It sounds like you are describing \""seller-financed\"" mortgages (also sometimes called \""self-financed\"", where \""self\"" is the seller).  In essence the buyer and seller enter into a legal contract (a promissory note) that specifies the payment schedule, interest rate, etc.  The nature of the agreement is similar to the kind of mortgage agreement you'd get from the bank, but no bank is involved; it's just an agreeement directly between the buyer and seller. If you search for \""seller-financed mortgage\"" or \""self-financed mortgage\"" you can find a good deal more info about this kind of arrangement.  Here is a useful article from Investopedia, here is one from Forbes, and here is one from Nolo. Broadly speaking, the advantages and disadvantages of seller financing are two sides of the same coin: by doing the agreement yourself without bank involvement, you can cut out procedural red tape, delays, and requirements that a bank might insist on --- but in so doing you may expose yourself to risks that those procedures are designed to shield you from.  Most obviously, as the seller, you receive only the down payment up front (not the entire purchase price, as you would if the buyer got a bank loan), and if the buyer doesn't follow through on the agreement, you're on your own as far as starting foreclosure, etc. You can read up on some of the linked pages for more details about the pros and cons.  In general, as those pages note, seller-financed mortgages are relatively rare.  A home is a big purchase, and if you don't know what you're doing it's easy to screw up in a way that could cost you a large amount of money if things go wrong."""
"""Layman's guide to getting started with Forex (foreign exchange trading)?""","""There are various indexes on the stock market that track the currencies.  Though it is different than Forex (probably less leverage), you may be able to get the effects you're looking for.  I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area, but looked some into FXE, to trade the Euro debt crisis.  Here's an article on Forex, putting FXE down (obviously a biased view, but perhaps will give you a starting point for comparison, should you want to trade something specific, like the current euro\/dollar situation)."""
"""Do ETF dividends make up for fees?""","""Any ETF has expenses, including fees, and those are taken out of the assets of the fund as spelled out in the prospectus.  Typically a fund has dividend income from its holdings, and it deducts the expenses from the that income, and only the net dividend is passed through to the ETF holder.   In the case of QQQ, it certainly will have dividend income as it approximates a large stock index.  The prospectus shows that it will adjust daily the reported Net Asset Value (NAV) to reflect accrued expenses, and the cash to pay them will come from the dividend cash.  (If the dividend does not cover the expenses, the NAV will decline away from the modeled index.) Note that the NAV is not the ETF price found on the exchange, but is the underlying value.  The price tends to track the NAV fairly closely, both because investors don't want to overpay for an ETF or get less than it is worth, and also because large institutions may buy or redeem a large block of shares (to profit) when the price is out of line.  This will bring the price closer to that of the underlying asset (e.g. the NASDAQ 100 for QQQ) which is reflected by the NAV."""
"""How can I tell what is \""real\"" Motley Fool advice?""","""These advertisements try to take advantage of the short term memory loss of older people. If you keep an old person watching long enough they will forget why they started watching in the first place. Yet they trust themselves and assume that it was for a good reason. So the long winded salespitch succeeds with older people who tend to have more money to invest anyway.  Yes, I think that Motley Fool has jumped the shark."""
"""Options strategy - When stocks go opposite of your purchase?""","""I would make a change to the answer from olchauvin: If you buy a call, that's because you expect that the value of call options will go up. So if you still think that options prices will go up, then a sell-off in the stock may be a good point to buy more calls for cheaper. It would be your call at that point (no pun intended). Here is some theory which may help. An options trader in a bank would say that the value of a call option can go up for two reasons: The VIX index is a measure of the levels of implied volatility, so you could intuitively say that when you trade options you are taking a view on two components: the underlying stock, and the level of the VIX index. Importantly, as you get closer to the expiry date this second effect diminishes: big jumps up in the VIX will produce smaller increases in the value of the call option. Taking this point to its limit, at maturity the value of the call option is only dependent on the price of the underlying stock. An options trader would say that the vega of a call option decreases as it gets closer to expiry. A consequence of this is that if pure options traders are naturally less inclined to buy and hold to expiry (because otherwise they would really just be taking a view on the stock price rather than the stock price & the implied volatility surface). Trading options without thinking too much about implied volatities is of course a valid strategy -- maybe you just use them because you will automatically have a mechanism which limits losses on your positions. But I am just trying to give you an impression of the bigger picture."""
"""Why do shareholders participate in shorting stocks?""","""There are two primary reasons shares are sold short:  (1) to speculate that a stock's price will decline and (2) to hedge some other related financial exposure. The first is acknowledged by the question.  The second reason may be done for taxes (shorting \""against the box\"" was once permitted for tax purposes), for arbitrage positions such as merger arbitrage and situations when an outright sale of stock is not permitted, such as owning restricted stock such as employer-granted shares. Why would a shareholder lend the investor the shares? The investor loaning his stock out to short-sellers earns interest on those shares that the borrower pays.  It is not unusual for the annualized cost of borrowing stock to be double digits when there is high demand for heavily shorted shares.  This benefit is however not available to all investors."""
"""Newbie question - Brokerage and selling shares""","""And to answer your other questions about fees, there are a number of sites that compare brokers' fees, Google \""broker fee comparison\"". I like the Motley Fool, although there are a lot of others. However, don't go just by the comparison sites, because they can be out-of-date and usually just have the basic fees. Once you find a broker that you like, go to that broker's site and get all the fees as of now. You can't sell the shares that are in your Charles Schwab account using some other broker. However, you can (possibly now, definitely eventually, see below) transfer the shares to another broker and then sell them there. But be aware that Charles Schwab might charge you a fee to transfer the shares out, which will probably be larger than the fee they'll charge you to sell the shares, unless you're selling them a few at a time. For example, I have a Charles Schwab account through my previous employer and it's $9.99 commission to sell shares, but $50 to transfer them out. Note that your fees might be different even though we're both at Charles Schwab, because employers can negotiate individual deals. There should be somewhere on the site that has a fee schedule, but if you can't find it, send them a message or call them. One final thing to be aware of, shares you get from an employer often have restrictions on sale or transfer, or negative tax consequences on sale or transfer, that shares just bought on the open market wouldn't, so make sure you investigate that before doing anything with the shares."""
"""Why is mortgage interest deductible in the USA for a house you live in?""","""It's a scam pushed through to benefit the banking system. Tax payments become income for the banks. Any alleged benefits for property holders are ultimately reduced by increased property prices, capital gains tax and estate taxes"""
"""How can I determine if my rate of return is \""good\"" for the market I am in?""","""A good way to measure the performance of your investments is over the long term. 25-30% returns are easy to get! It's not going to be 25-30% in a single year, though. You shouldn't expect more than about 4% real (inflation-adjusted) return per year, on average, over the long term, unless you have reason to believe that you're doing a better job of predicting the market than the intellectual and investment might of Wall Street - which is possible, but hard. (Pro tip: It's actually quite easy to outdo the market at large over the short term just by getting lucky or investing in risky askets in a good year. Earning this sort of return consistently over many years, though, is stupidly hard. Usually you'll wipe out your gains several years into the process, instead.) The stock market fluctuates like crazy, which is why they tell you not to invest any money you're likely to need sooner than about 5 years out and you switch your portfolio from stocks to bonds as you approach and enter retirement. The traditional benchmark for comparison, as others have mentioned, is the rate of return (including dividends) from the Standard and Poors 500 Index. These are large stable companies which make up the core of larger United States business. (Most people supplement these with some smaller companies and overseas companies as a part of the portfolio.)"""
"""Common Stock Options Value""","""Par value of common stock is essentially a historical artifact; it is a price at which the company will redeem shares directly.  If common stock has any par value at all, it is always so low that no one would ever redeem, preferring to sell in the market at a better price.  Par is obviously much more relevant to debt securities than equities. So you do need a strike price.  ljwobker's letter is a typical one, in that companies often make the strike price for granted options a formula based on the market price of the stock at the time of the grant, say 100% of market or 110% of market.  But you will obviously need to find out what strike your company is offering."""
"""How separate individual expenses from family expenses in Gnucash?""","""In your words, you want to \""easily determine whether an item was purchased as part of our individual accounts, or our combined family account.\"" It's not clear exactly to me what kind of reporting you're trying to get. (I find a useful approach here to be to start with the output you're trying to get from a system, and then see how that maps to the input you want to give the system.) Here's some possibilities:"""
"""Why do I not see goods and services all change their price when inflation is high? ""","""How high is high? In countries that suffered hyperinflation such as the Weimar Republic around 1923 and Zimbabwe around the late 1990s this certainly did happen on a daily basis. E.g. One boy, who was sent to buy two bread buns, stopped to play football and by the time he got to the shop, the price had gone up, so he could only afford to buy one. or One father set out for Berlin to buy a pair of shoes. When he got there, he could only afford a cup of coffee and the bus fare home. or At the height of the country's economic crisis that year, prices were rising at least twice day, with Zimbabweans forced to carry cash around in plastic bags just to buy basic items."""
"""Investing small amounts at regular intervals while minimizing fees?""","""You can open a 529 plan for your child. The minimum contribution for my state is only $25. You can setup automatic deposits, or deposit money only a few times a year; or both. You can save money on state taxes, and the money grows tax free if the money is used for educational expenses. They generally have age based portfolios, but some also let you pick from a variety of portfolios."""
"""California tells me I didn't file documents for an LLC that isn't mine. What do I do?""","""Did it show just your address, or was your name on it as well?   You didn't share how long you've lived at the address either, so it makes me wonder whether a former tenant is the one who filed that paperwork.  It's also possible that someone used your address when making a filing.  Whether that was deliberate or accidental is hard to discern, as is their intent if it was intentional. It could be accidental -- someone picked \""CA\"" for California when they meant to pick \""CO\"" for Colorado or \""CT\"" for Connecticut...These things do happen.  It can't make you feel any better about the situation though. You should be able to go online to the California Secretary of State's website (here) and look up everything filed by the LLC with the state.  That will show who the founders were and everything else that is a matter of public record on the LLC.  At the very least, you can obtain the registered agent's name and address for the LLC, which you can then use to contact them and ask why your address is listed as the LLC's business address. Once you have that info, you can then contact the Secretary of State and tell them it isn't you so they can do whatever is necessary to correct this. This doesn't sound like a difficult matter to clear up, but it's important to do your homework first and gather as much information as you can before you call the state.  Answering \""I don't know\"" won't get you very far with them compared to having the best answers you can about where the mistake started. I hope this helps. Good luck!"""
"""How can I find a report of dividend earned in a FY?""","""Log in to kotak securities demat account. THere, you can find statement of your sell purchase and dividend received."""
"""Work on the side for my wife's company""","""My understanding (I am not a lawyer or tax expert) is that you are not allowed to work for free, but you can pay yourself minimum wage for the hours worked. There are probably National Insurance implications as well but I don't know. The main thing is, though, that if HMRC think that you've set up this system as a tax avoidance scheme then they're allowed to tax you as though all the income had been yours in the first place. If you are considering such a setup I would strongly advise you to hire a qualified small business accountant who will be familiar with the rules and will be able to advise you on what is and is not possible \/ sensible. Falling outside the rules (even inadvertently) leaves you liable to a lot of hassle and potentially fines etc."""
"""My landlord is being foreclosed on. Should I confront him?""","""Verbal agreements are not legally binding. Unless you have signed a new lease agreement, you are not obligated to continue renting the property - you are free to go.  On the other hand, if you really like the place and want to stay, you should sign another lease agreement. This agreement will be binding on whomever owns the home - whether it is your current landlord, a bank or a new purchaser.  But, if you go this route, make sure that there is not a clause that says the lease agreement is void upon foreclosure (or something similar). This is a standard clause in lease agreements allowing the bank to cancel the lease. Another option, if you really like the house is to offer to buy the property. If the property is being foreclosed on, you could suggest buying on a short sale. Here is a link to an article I wrote entitled \""Buy Instead of Rent: A Recovering Real Estate Market\"" that discusses the benefits of buying rather than renting."""
"""Is real (physical) money traded during online trading?""","""I think you need to define what you mean by \""buy currency online using some online forex trading platform\"" ... In large Fx trades, real money [you mean actual electronic money, as there is not paper that travels these days]...   The Fx market is quite wide with all kinds of trades. There are quite a few Fx transactions that are meant for delivery. You have to pay in the currency for full amount and you get the funds electronicall credited to you in other currency [ofcouse you have an account in the other currency or you have an obligation to pay]. This type of transaction is valid in Ismalic Banking. The practise of derivaties based on this or forward contracts on this is not allowed."""
"""What's the best online tool that can track my entire portfolio including gains\/losses? ""","""You can use a tool like WikiInvest the advantage being it can pull data from most brokerages and you don't have to enter them manually. I do not know how well it handles dividends though."""
"""If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down?""","""Talk to your bank first but shop around a bit as well with other reputable lenders in your area.  Another option, if you're willing to put down ~84% of the purchase price would be to talk to several dealerships BEFORE you set foot on a single lot. Tell them that you are interested in buying a Versa and that you are willing to pay cash but you are not willing to pay more than $10,200. They won't agree (trust me on that) but they will come down from $13,000. Say \""Thanks, I'll call you back.\"" and call one of the other dealerships on your list and tell them \""I just spoke with this dealership and they are willing to sell me the car for [whatever number they gave you].\"" One of two things will happen, either the dealership will come back with a lower price or they will tell you to go buy the car there. Continue this process until you have one dealership left.  I did this with 3 dealerships in 2011 and bought a truck with a $27,000 sticker price for just over $19,000. It took about a week to make all of the calls and I ended up going to a dealership 3 hours away but it was worth it for $8,000."""
"""Selling Stock - All or Nothing?""","""When my orders fill, I'll often see a 1000 shares go through over 4-6 transactions, with a few cents difference high to low, but totaling the transaction cost, it adds to one commission (say $10 for my broker). Are you sure a series of partial fills would result in as many as 20 commissions?"""
"""Ghana scam and direct deposit scam?""","""It's a scam. Here's someone who paid \""Josie\"" 2000 pounds and lost it all Here's a Google search result list of how this softcore porn actor, Josie Ann Miller, is being used as the face and name of scams"""
"""VAT and duties payable when importing personal goods from Switzerland and the Channel Islands to the EU?""","""http:\/\/www.hmrc.gov.uk\/customs\/tax-and-duty.htm#3 explains the Import VAT situation quite well.  As for who enforces and collects it, if you're talking about buying online and having it shipped to you then you'll notice on the parcel a Customs sticker declaring the contents and value. It is the responsibility of the courier company to collect any duty due from you and pass it on to HMRC.  In practice what this means is that you receive a card or note from the courier saying \""we're impounding your package until you pay the import duty\"" and they usually charge a fee on top of the duty itself.  Of course you can always go out there yourself and bring something back, but then it is your responsibility to declare it at the customs checkpoint when you enter the country."""
"""What is the purpose of endorsing a check?""","""Paper trail of who did the deposit.  Less significant for a personal account, but a bigger deal for accounts that are used by multiple people (e.g. a corporate checking account)."""
"""How are shares used, and what are they, physically?""","""Shares used to be paper documents, but these days they are more commonly held electronically instead, although this partly depends on what country you're in. But it doesn't make any significant practical difference. Regardless of their physical form, a share simply signifies that you own a certain proportion of a company, and are thus entitled to receive any dividends that may be paid to the shareholders. To sell your shares, you need a broker -- there are scores of online ones who will sell them for a modest fee. Your tax forms are entirely dependent on the jurisdiction(s) that tax you, and since you've not told us where you are, no one can answer that."""
"""How does owning a home and paying on a mortgage fit into family savings and investment?""","""Like @littleadv, I don't consider a mortgage on a primary residence to be a low-risk investment.  It is an asset, but one that can be rather illiquid, depending on the nature of the real estate market in your area.  There are enough additional costs associated with home-ownership (down-payment, insurance, repairs) relative to more traditional investments to argue against a primary residence being an investment. Your question didn't indicate when and where you bought your home, the type of home (single-family, townhouse, or condo) the nature of your mortgage (fixed-rate or adjustable rate), or your interest rate, but since you're in your mid-20s, I'm guessing you bought after the crash.  If that's the case, your odds of making a profit if\/when you sell your home are higher than they would be if you bought in the 2006\/2007 time-frame.  This is no guarantee of course.  Given the amount of housing stock still available, housing prices could still fall further.  While it is possible to lose money in all sorts of investments, the illiquid nature of real estate makes it a lot more difficult to limit your losses by selling. If preserving principal is your objective, money market funds and treasury inflation protected securities are better choices than your home.  The diversification your financial advisor is suggesting is a way to manage risk.  Not all investments perform the same way in a given economic climate.  When stocks increase in value, bonds tend to decrease (and vice versa).  Too much money in a single investment means you could be wiped out in a downturn."""
"""Why is the dominant investing advice for individuals to use mutual funds, exchanged traded funds (ETFs), etc""","""Cost.  If an investor wanted to diversify his portfolio by investing in the companies that make up the S&P 500, the per-share and commission costs to individually place trades for each and every one of those companies would be prohibitive. I can buy one share of an exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500 for less than the purchase price of a single share in some of the companies that make up the index."""
"""What are useful indexes for rapid evaluation of country investment risk?""","""Rather than using the Human Development Index or Ease of Doing Business, if you primary purpose is for investments, you need to consider the Country rating provided by various agencies like  These would tell as to how good the country is for investment in general. Just to highlight a difference, China may not fare very high in Human Development Index, however right now from investment point of view its a pretty good market. once you have decided the countries, you can either invest in funds specalizing in these countries or if legally permitted invest directly into the leading stock index in such countries. If your intention is to start a business in these countries, then you need to look at some other indexes. http:\/\/www.standardandpoors.com\/ratings\/articles\/en\/us\/?assetID=1245219962821 http:\/\/www.fitchratings.com\/jsp\/sector\/Sector.faces?selectedTab=Overview&Ne=4293330737%2b11&N=0 http:\/\/v3.moodys.com\/Pages\/default.aspx"""
"""How to determine contractor hourly rate and employee salary equivalents?""","""Here are a few points to consider: Taxes: As a consultant, you will be responsible for the employer portion of the Social Security and Medicare taxes, and you might have to pay for state unemployment insurance and state disability insurance, as well. Office expenses: As a consultant, you may be required to buy your own laptop, pay for your own software licenses and buy other office-related supplies. For higher-end services, you may be setting up a complete office and even hire your own secretary and other support staff. Benefits: As a consultant, you will be responsible for your own health insurance, retirement plan and other benefits that an employer would ordinarily provide. Education: Your employer will likely pay for books and magazine subscriptions and send you to seminars, in order to keep your skills current; your client won't. Liability: Consultants face certain liabilities that employees don't, and have to factor the cost of insuring against those risks into their rate. Let's say you're a software developer, and your faulty code causes a nuclear plant's reactor core to overheat and melt down. As an employee, you'll get fired. As a consultant, you will get sued. Even consultants in low-risk fields can easily shell out thousands of dollars per year for a basic general liability policy. Sales & marketing: Don't forget that when your contract ends, you will have expenses associated with finding your next client, including the opportunity cost of not getting paid for your services during that time. All these factors contribute to your overhead, which you have to roll into your consulting rate. You should also add a margin of profit -- after all, as you're in business for yourself, you should be compensated for taking this entrepreneurial risk.   If you're looking for a quick over-the-thumb rule, you can figure that your equivalent consulting rate should be about twice what you would be paid hourly as an employee. Assuming you work 2,000 hours a year, if you would receive a $100,000 salary, your hourly rate should be $100. Of course, this is only a very rough guideline. Ultimately, your rate will mostly be influenced by how established you are and how much your services are in demand."""
"""Do Americans really use checks that often?""","""I know this an old thread, but one that caught my interest as I just moved to the USA from Australia. As per the OP I had never written a check in my whole life, and upon arriving in the US I was surprised as to their proliference. In Australia pretty much all bills you receive can be paid in a number of ways:  For small amounts between friends cash is probably used most, but for larger amounts direct transfer is popular. Your friend\/landlord will give you their bank account number and BSB number, which identifies their bank, and then you transfer the money in. We don't have a SSN like some other countries. Cheques are still used by some however, esp by the older generations. Now that I'm in the US initially I had tried to set up direct transfer to pay my rent however the bank has a $1000 daily transfer limit. I contacted the bank to get this increased however I was informed that this limit applies to ALL accounts at the bank. I asked how do people pay their rents with this low limit and was told that most people used cheques. (This explains the strange look I got from my landlord when I asked for their bank account details so I could pay the rent!) I now have some bills to pay here and I use online banking. You enter the biller's name and address and then the bank actually prints off a cheque and posts it to the biller on your behalf! My first couple of pays here were also cheques, which were the first actual \""paychecks\"" I had ever received."""
"""How Long Can It Take For a Check I Write to Clear on My Account?""","""There's nothing you can do. If he has indeed deposited the check, it would appear on your account fairly quickly - I've never seen it taking more than 2-3 business days. However, a check is a debt instrument, and you cannot close the account until it clears, or until the \""unclaimed property\"" laws of your state kick in. If he claims that he deposited the check, ask it in writing and have your bank (or the bank where it was deposited) investigate why it takes so long to clear. If he's not willing to give it to you in writing - he's likely not deposited it. Whatever the reason may be, even just to cause you nuisance. Lesson learned. Next time - cashier's check with a signed receipt. Re closing the LLC: if you're the only two partners - you can just withdraw yourself from the LLC, take out your share, and drop it on him leaving him the only partner. Check with your local attorney for details."""
"""Are BIC and SWIFT code the same things?""","""IBAN -> is International Bank Account Number. The number is constructed in such a way that it uniquely identifies your account in the world. I.e. it has a country in it, Bank (and branch) and the actual account number. This is an international standard adopted by the EU, Australia and NZ. Going forward it would be sufficient to just quote the IBAN for payment without any other details. BIC, SWIFT Code, SWIFT BIC, SWIFT ID [all mean the same] is a Bank Identifier Code [More correctly Business Identifier Code] that is again an International standard and used on all International payments. The SWIFT BIC is constructed as   Hence SWIFT BIC can be 8 Chars or 11 Chars. The additional 3 Chars help bank identify the Branch where the account is held and where the payment needs to be made. So LOYDGB2L is the main head office  If your branch is, say, in Canary Wharf, the SWIFT BIC would be LOYDGB21 [21-> Canary Wharf] with a 3 digit branch added."""
"""Equity market inflow meaning""","""Suppose I purchase $10,000 worth of a particular share today. If the person(s) I am purchasing the shares from paid $9,000 for those shares, then I replacing their $9,000 investment with my $10,000 investment.  This is a net inflow of $1,000 into the market. Similarly, if the person(s) I am purchasing the shares from paid $11,000 for those shares, then their $11,000 investment is being replace by my $10,000 investment.  This is a net outflow of $1,000 out of the market. The aggregate of all such inflows and outflows in the net inflow\/outflow into the market over a given period of time.  (Here we are ignoring the effects of new share issues.)"""
"""Stocks given by company vest if I quit?""","""You were probably not given stock, but stock options.  Those options have a strike price and you can do some more research on them if needed.  Lets assume that you were given 5K shares at a strike of 20, and they vest 20% per year.  Assume the same thing in your second year and you are going to leave in year three. You would have 2K shares from your year 1 grant, and 1K shares from your year 2 grant, so 2K total. If you leave no more shares would be vested. If you leave you have one of two options: To complicate matters subsequent grants may have different strike prices, so perhaps year two grant is at $22 per share.  However, in pre-public companies that is not likely the case. For a bit of history, I worked at a pre-ipo company and we were all going to get rich.  I was given generous grants, but decided to leave.  I really wanted to buy my options but simply didn't have the money.  Shortly after I left the company folded, so the money would have been thrown away anyway.  When a company is private the motivate their employees with tales of riches, but they are not required to disclose financial data.  This company did a very good job of convincing employees that all was fine, when it wasn't. Also I received options in a publicly traded company.  Myself and other employees received options that were \""underwater\"" or worth far less than the strike price.  You could let them expire so one did not owe money, but they were worthless. Hopefully that answers your question."""
"""Problems with Enterprise Value and better valuation techniques""","""This is an example from another field, real estate. Suppose you buy a $100,000 house with a 20 percent down payment, or $20,000, and borrow the other $80,000. In this example, your \""equity\"" or \""market cap\"" is $20,000. But the total value, or \""enterprise value\"" of the house, is actually $100,000, counting the $80,000 mortgage.  \""Enterprise value\"" is what a buyer would have to pay to own the company or the house \""free and clear,\"" counting the debt."""
"""How do I establish the cost basis of shares bought in an employee stock purchase program?""","""A public company should have a link for investor relations, which should help provide a trail of basis if this is a matter of company buyout, takeover, etc.  This gets you close, but if you don't have an exact date, it will just be close, not exact.  One clean way out of this, assuming the goal is to get rid of the stock and move on, is to donate the shares to charity. You will take the present value as a deduction, and be done. You can use a charitable gift fund such as those offered by Schwab or Fidelity, so if say, the shares are worth $20K, and you typically donate $5K per year, the fund lets you do this transaction at once, then send to the charities you wish over the next few years."""
"""Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly?""","""The reason is, stores want customers to use cash.   By giving us cash, we are more likely to use cash next time. I feel a little guilty when using my bank card at the store because I know I'm giving about 2-3% of the sale to the bank.  Unless I don't really like where I'm shopping (ie Walmart), I try to use cash if I have it.  I doubt these large stores pay extra for supplying the cash portion.  They just need to keep the cash onhand. In other countries, do they not mind paying banks a percentage of each transaction?  That's a huge loss for retailers.  (I also heard tipping isn't popular in some countries, maybe the lack of regard for vendors is related somehow??) Oh, plus, it's a value added service.  A customer is more likely to return to a store if they provide this service."""
"""Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?""","""On #1: One way to make it less painful is to \""split\"" your raises between yourself and your 401k. That is, if you get a 2% raise, increase your contribution to the 401K by 1% and keep the other 1%. Keep doing this until you are maxed out. You won't miss money you never had nearly as much as money you were used to living on. On #2: Yes, go with the Roth. Another consideration: If you are ever going to max out your 401K it is best to do it early even if you have to cut back later than to wait. Take advantage of the extra investment time while you are young."""
"""How do I handle taxes on a very large \""gift\"" from my employers?""","""You should be aware that the IRS considers all gifts of cash or cash equivalents from an employer (the partnership in this case) to an employee (your husband in this case) to be wages, regardless of what the transfer is called by either party, or how it is transferred. I'd strongly recommend that you review IRS publications 535 and 15-B, which are linked in my response to the question that littleadv referred to above. I would also recommend speaking with a lawyer, as in this case, you have knowledge of the income and would not be able to claim an \""innocent spouse\"" provision if he is convicted of tax evasion\/fraud. Good luck."""
"""Moving from India to Europe - Bank accounts and Mutual funds""","""Once you become NRI or know for sure you would be one, you can't hold ordinary accounts. Convert existing savings account into NRO. Open new NRE account so it's easier to move funds. In simple terms an NRE type of account means you can repatriate the funds outside of India anytime without any paperwork, there are some tax benefits as well. MFU platform can be used for operating demat, else you need a brokerage account. If you have stocks, then existing demat need to be converted to NONPINS account, it's actually open new, move, close old. Any new stock you need to open a PINS Demat account. You can use NRO account of MFU, it creates some complexity of taxes... MFU NRE would be more easier for taxes and flexible for repatriation"""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""Lots of people make poor decisions in crises.  Some panic, and don't make any decision at all. Insurance for affordable things can provide emotional security:  If something goes wrong, the purchaser will not have to make a painful financial decision in a crisis.  Many people do not want to have the burden of arguing about money, or having to spend precious cash, or borrow money, or raid savings accounts, just at the time they are already reeling from another loss.  Having insurance \""just take care of it\"" can save them an emotional double-whammy.   Several kinds of insurance fill this perceived need:"""
"""How to start investing\/thinking about money as a young person?""","""There are books like, \""The Millionaire Mind\"" that could be of interest when it comes to basics like living below your means, investing what you save, etc. that while it is common sense, it is uncommonly done in the world.  Something to consider is how actively do you want your money management to be?  Is it something to spend hours on each week or a few hours a year tops?  You have lots of choices and decisions to make. I would suggest keeping part of your savings as an emergency fund just in case something happens.  As for another part, this is where you could invest in a few different options and see what happens. There would be a couple of different methods I could see for breaking into finance that I'd imagine: IT of a finance company - In this case you'd likely be working on customizations for what the bank, insurance or other kind of financial firm requires.  This could be somewhat boring as you are basically a part of the backbone that keeps the company going but not really able to take much of the glory when the company makes a lot of money. Brains of a hedge fund - In this case, you may have to know some trading algorithms and handle updating the code so that the trading activities can be done by a computer with lightning speed.  Harder to crack into since these would be the secretive people to find and join in a way."""
"""How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away?""","""Sorry for your loss. Like others have said Debts cannot be inherited period (in the US). However, assets sometimes can be made to stand for debts. In most cases, credit card debt has no collateral and thus the credit card companies will often either sell the debt to a debt collector or collections agency, sue you for it, or write it off. Collecting often takes a lot of time and money, thus usually the credit card companies just sell the debt, to a debt collector who tries to get you to pay up before the statute of limitations runs out. That said, some credit card companies will sue the debtor to obtain a judgement, but many don't. In your case, I wouldn't tell them of your loss, let em do their homework, and waste time. Don't give them any info,and consult with a lawyer regarding your father's estate and whether his credit card will even matter. Often, unscrupulous debt collectors will say illegal things (per the FDCPA) to pressure anyone related to the debtor to pay. Don't cave in. Make sure you know your rights, and record all interactions\/calls you have with them. You can sue them back for any FDCPA infractions, some attorneys might even take up such a case on contingency, i.e they get a portion of the FDCPA damages you collect. Don't pay even a penny. This often will extend or reset the statute of limitations time for the debt to be collectable. i.e Ex: If in your state, the statute of limitations for credit card debt is 3 years, and you pay them $0.01 on year 2, you just bought them 3 more years to be able to collect. TL;DR: IANAL, most credit card debt has no collateral so don't pay or give any info to the debt collectors. Anytime you pay it extends the statute of limitations. Consult an attorney for the estate matters, and if the debt collectors get too aggressive, and record their calls, and sue them back!"""
"""How do I calculate ownership percentage for shared home ownership?""","""It may clarify your thinking if you look at this as two transactions: I am an Australian so I cannot comment on US tax laws but this is how the Australian Tax Office would view the transaction. By thinking this way you can allocate the risks correctly, Partnership Tenancy Two things should be clear - you will need a good accountant and a good lawyer - each."""
"""Tax liability for stocks vested for a H1B visa holder""","""You're asking whether the shares you sold while being a US tax resident are taxable in the US. The answer is yes, they are. How you acquired them or what were the circumstances of the sale is irrelevant. When you acquired them is relevant to the determination of the tax treatment - short or long term capital gains. You report this transaction on your Schedule D, follow the instructions. Make sure you can substantiate the cost basis properly based on how much you paid for the shares you sold (the taxable income recognized to you at vest)."""
"""Is there a country that uses the term \""dollar\"" for currency without also using \""cents\"" as fractional monetary units?""","""Wikipedia has a nice list of currencies that use \""cents\"" and currencies that use 1\/100th division that is not called \""cent\"". Cent means \""100\"" in Latin (and French, and probably all the Roman family of languages), so if the currency is divided by 100 subunits - it will likely to be called \""cent\"" or something similar in the local language. The list of currencies (on the same page) where it is not the case is significantly shorter, and includes countries with relatively ancient currency units that were invented before the introduction of the decimal system (even though now they are in fact decimal they still kept the old names, like the British \""pence\"" or the Russian \""kopek\""). The point is that \""Dollar\"" and \""cent\"" are not directly related, many currencies that are not called \""Dollar\"" are using cents as well (Euro, among others). It just means \""1\/100th\"", and it is safe to assume that most (if not all) of the modern currencies are divided into 1\/100th."""
"""Can a company stop paying dividends?""","""Yes. Companies increase, decrease, start paying and stop paying dividends when they think it appropriate.  If a company has been going through some problems and makes a loss, or even a large decrease in profits, they can choose to stop paying dividends until things improve. Many companies did this during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08."""
"""Can I buy a new house before selling my current house?""","""A bridge loan (or bridging loan) is designed for exactly this circumstance. They're short-term loans (6 months is common) designed to help home-buyers to bridge the gap between buying and selling. MoneySupermarket defines them like this: Bridging loans are designed to help people complete the purchase of a property before selling their existing home by offering them short-term access to money at a high-rate of interest. As well as helping home-movers when there is a gap between the sale and completion dates in a chain, this type of loan can also help someone planning to sell-on quickly after renovating a home, or help someone buying at auction. Interest rates are very high, and there are likely to be fees, because you'll only need the loan for a short period. Here are some links to Canadian websites that explain more."""
"""How do i get into investing stocks [duplicate]""","""Spend your first 50 euros on research materials. Warren Buffett got started as a boy by reading every book in the Library of Congress on investing and stock market analysis. You can research the company filings for Canadian companies at http:\/\/www.sedar.com, U.S companies at http:\/\/www.edgar.com, and European companies at https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/companies-house. Find conflicting arguments and strategies and decide for yourself which ones are right. The Motley Fool http:\/\/www.fool.ca offers articles on good stocks to add to your portfolio and why, as well as why not. They provide a balanced judgement instead of just hype. They also sell advice through their newsletter. In Canada the Globe & Mail runs a daily column on screening stocks. Every day they present a different stock-picking strategy and the filters used to reach their end list. They then show how much that portfolio would have increased or decreased as well as talking about some of the good & bad points of the stocks in the list. It's interesting to see over time a very few stocks show up on multiple lists for different strategies. These ones in my opinion are the stocks to be investing in. While the Globe's stock picks focus on Canadian and US exchanges, you might find the strategies worthwhile. You can subscribe to the digital version at http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com  Once you have your analytical tools ready, pick any bank or stock house that offers a free practice account. Use that account and their screening tools to try out your strategies and see if you can make money picking stocks.  My personal stock-picking strategy is to look for companies with: - a long uninterrupted history of paying dividends, - that are regularly increased, - and do not exceed the net profit per share of the company - and whose share price has a long history of increasing These are called unicorn companies, because there are so very few of them.  Another great read is, \""Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?\"" by Hendrik Bessembinder. https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447 In this paper the author looks at the entire history of the U.S. stock universe and finds that less than 4% of stocks are responsible for 100% of the wealth creation in the U.S. stock market. He discusses his strategies for picking the winners, but it also suggests that if you don't want to do any research, you could pick pretty much any stock at random, short it, and wait. I avoid mutual funds because they are a winner only for the fellas selling them. A great description on why the mutual fund industry is skewed against the investor can be found in a book called \""The RRSP Secret\"" by Greg Habstritt. \""Unshakeable\"" by Tony Robbins also discusses why mutual funds are not the best way to invest in stocks. The investor puts up 100% of the money, takes 100% of the risk, and gets at best 30% of the return. Rich people don't invest like that."""
"""Does a growing economy mean the economy is becoming less efficient?""","""A growing economy should become more efficient because of increased opportunity for division of labor: specialization. External regulation or monetary policy external to the free market can cause parts of the economy to grow in response to said regulations.  This creates inefficiencies that are wrung out of the economy after the policies reverse.  A couple of examples: Tinkering with the economy causes the inefficiencies."""
"""Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority?""","""Paying off your house quickly should be a #2-level priority, behind making sure you have some basic savings but definitely ahead of any investing concerns, because your house is not an investment; it's your home.  (If you're brave\/foolish enough to try buying houses-as-investments in the current climate, this obviously doesn't apply to you!) This isn't a financial matter so much as an issue of basic prudence.  If something disastrous happens, (you lose your job, get in a serious car accident, your kid comes down with cancer, etc,) it will put tremendous strain on your financial resources.  If you own your home outright when this happens, it means that no matter what else might go wrong, you can't get foreclosed on and end up out on the streets, and that's worth more than any rate of return you can reasonably expect to find even in the best of times. It's a well-known investing maxim to \""never bet anything that you can't afford to lose.\""  In light of that, consider this: if you have a mortgage that is not paid off, that's exactly what you're doing.  You are placing a bet against a bank that you'll remain solvent long enough to pay off the mortgage, and your home is the wager.  Mortgages may be a necessary evil with housing prices being what they are, but make no mistake, they are evil.  Get rid of yours as quickly as you can."""
"""Social Trading Platforms Basically Front Running?""","""I don't think you can really classify it as front running. Technically, the only information, that the alleged front runner in this case has over the followers is the knowledge of the trade itself. Knowledge of the trade may indeed be share price sensitive information (for some high volume traders or those respected and with many followers) but it's not really like they can't know about it before everyone else; parity isn't possible in this case. If an company\/organisation (i.e. the social trading platform say) responsible for disseminating the details\/log of a trader to a following (or individuals working for said company\/organisation), were to act on the trading data before dissemination then THEY would be guilty of front running. The alleged front runner may profit from the following of course, but that's only really occurring due to the publication of information that is share price sensitive, and such information generally has to be published by law (if it is by law so classified) so it's difficult to find too much fault. There has to be a certain amount of consideration on the part of any trader as to who is more the fool, the fool or the fool that follows them?"""
"""why would closing price of a stock be different from different sources, and which would you take as the real price?""","""There is more than one exchange where stock can be traded.   For example, there is the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.  In fact, if you look at all the exchanges, there is essentially continuous trading 24\/7 for many financial instruments (eg US government bonds). The closing price quoted in papers is usually the price at the close on the NYSE.  However, options close after that and so there is after-the-close trading in many stocks with active options, so the price at the close of options trading at CBOE is often used. The \""real\"" price is always changing.  But for the purpose of discussion, using the closing price in NYSE (for NYSE listed stocks) is pretty standard and unlikely to be questioned.  Likewise, using Bloomberg's price makes sense. Using some after-hours or small market quote could lead to differences with commonly accepted numbers - until tomorrow :)"""
"""Are solar cell panels and wind mills worth the money?""","""Although this isn't related to homes directly, as an IT professional I know that wind power tends to be cost effective to the point that many data centers (the massive buildings holding the servers that are the backbone of the internet) actually invest in their own wind turbines to slash costs since servers tend to be power hogs. As far as going \""off the grid\"" that ultimately depends on how much wind\/sun you're getting at your residence, but if you look at places like Dallas, PA, CA, and other areas where  the major hosts place centers, they're typically in areas where there's plenty of sunlight or wind. Going back to small scale thinking however, one of my contacts actually leases a colocation building in PA where he has a few server racks, and while he currently has electric there, he also owns a couple of turbines which have been powering <60% of the demand, and he's actually planning to add solar and also feed that back to the grid at a profit. So overall wind\/solar definitely has the potential for a decent ROI, at both large and small levels, but performance will vary greatly from area to area.  I know that Lowes actually started advertising about carrying solar panels, so going in and asking about the performance and if you can arrange an audit of your home might be a good place to start. If you Google \""green audits\"" I'm sure you can find a trillion companies \""specializing\"" in green power, but as with any sales rep (including at Lowe's) I'd do some due-diligence so you don't get taken for a ride, and also to check references because I don't think \""green audit\"" companies have any official certifications\/standards."""
"""Why do people use mortgages, when they could just pay for the house in full?""","""Good question. If a person has a choice, it is probably better to pay cash. But not always. If your large pile of cash can earn more being invested than cost of the interest to borrow a similar large pile of cash, it is beneficial to get a mortgage. Otherwise pay cash. EXAMPLE: A house costs $100,000. I have $100,000 in extra money. I can invest that at 5% per year, and I can borrow an additional $100,000 at 2% per year. Since I can make more on my pile of cash than it costs to borrow another pile of cash, borrowing is better. Compound interest is the most powerful force on the planet according to Albert Einstein (maybe). That isn't likely for most people though. Here is the results from some online financial calculators. http:\/\/www.calcxml.com\/do\/hom03 Borrowing $100,000 with 2% interest for 30 years will cost a total of $148.662. You get $100,000, but it cost you $48,662 to do it. http:\/\/www.calcxml.com\/do\/sav07 Saving $100,000 in a bank account with an interest rate of %5 will be worth $432,194 in 30 years. By not spending the money you will earn $332,194 over the course of 30 years. So if you can invest at 5% and borrow at 2% you will end up with $283,532 more than if you didn't. It is a pretty extreme example, and financial advisers make a lot of money figuring out the complex nature of money to make situations like that possible."""
"""If I have a home loan preapproval letter for x, can the seller know this without me explicitely telling them?""","""The seller has a legitimate desire to know of your preapproval. I have two current anecdotes on this issue. As a realtor helping a client buy a home, I worked closely with buyer's bank, and got a pre-approval for the amount we were offering. When there was a counteroffer, and we were going to raise the price, the bank upped the numbers on the pre-approval letter.  I have a property of my own I am trying to sell. I had a negotiated price, P&S, but no pre-approval from the buyer. The buyer of his home couldn't get a mortgage, and so far, the deal has fallen through.  I agree with you, you don't want to signal you can afford more, nor show any emotion about how great that house is. That's just giving the seller a bargaining chip."""
"""Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating?""","""I am surprised no one has mentioned the two biggest things (in my opinion).  Or I should say, the two biggest things to me.  First, 1099 have to file quarterly self employment taxes.  I do not know for certain but I have heard that often times you will end up paying more this way then even a W-2 employees.  Second, an LLC allows you to deduct business expenses off the top prior to determining what you pay in taxes as pass-through income.  With 1099 you pay the same taxes regardless of your business expenses unless they are specifically allowed as a 1099 contractor (which most are not I believe).  So what you should really do is figure out the expense you incur as a result of doing your business and check with an accountant to see if those expenses would be deductible in an LLC and if it offsets a decent amount of your income to see if it would be worth it.  But I have read a lot of books and listened to a lot of interviews about wealthy people and most deal in companies not contracts.  Most would open a new business and add clients rather than dealing in 1099 contracts.  Just my two cents... Good luck and much prosperity."""
"""Buying and selling the same stock""","""Elaborating on kelsham's answer: You buy 100 shares XYZ at $1, for a total cost of $100 plus commissions. You sell 100 shares XYZ at $2, for a total income of $200 minus commissions. Exclusive of commissions, your capital gain is $100 for this trade, and you will pay taxes on that.  Even if you proceed to buy 200 shares XYZ at $1, reinvesting all your income from the sale, you still owe taxes on that $100 gain.  The IRS has met this trick before."""
"""What's the difference, if any, between stock appreciation and compound interest?""","""If you mean, If I invest, say, $1000 in a stock that is growing at 5% per year, versus investing $1000 in an account that pays compound interest of 5% per year, how does the amount I have after 5 years compare? Then the answer is, They would be exactly the same.  As Kent Anderson says, \""compound interest\"" simply means that as you accumulate interest, that for the next interest cycle, the amount that they pay interest on is based on the previous cycle balance PLUS the interest. For example, suppose you invest $1000 at 5% interest compounded annually. After one year you get 5% of $1000, or $50. You now have $1050. At the end of the second year, you get 5% of $1050 -- not 5% of the original $1000 -- or $52.50, so you now have $1102.50. Etc. Stocks tend to grow in the same way. But here's the big difference: If you get an interest-bearing account, the bank or investment company guarantees the interest rate. Unless they go bankrupt, you WILL get that percentage interest. But there is absolutely no guarantee when you buy stock. It may go up 5% this year, up 4% next year, and down 3% the year after. The company makes no promises about how much growth the stock will show. It may show a loss. It all depends on how well the company does."""
"""Can I use my Roth IRA to start a business?""","""Read the Forbes article titled IRA Adventures. While it's not the detailed regulations you certainly need, the article gives some great detail and caution. You may be able to do what you wish, but it must be structured to adhere to specific rules to avoid self dealing. Those rules would be known by the custodians who would help you set up the right structure, it's well buried within IRS regs, I'm sure. Last, in general, using IRA funds to invest in the non-traditional assets adds that other layer of risk, that the investment will be deemed non-allowed and\/or self-dealing. So, even if you have the best business idea going, be sure you get proper council on this."""
"""College student lacking investment experience: How to begin investing money? ""","""If you have wage income that is reported on a W2 form, you can contribute the maximum of your wages, what you can afford, or $5500 in a Roth IRA.   One advantage of this is that the nominal amounts you contribute can always be removed without tax consequences, so a Roth IRA can be a deep emergency fund (i.e., if the choice is $2000 in cash as emergency fund or $2000 in cash in a 2015 Roth IRA contribution, choice 2 gives you more flexibility and optimistic upside at the risk of not being able to draw on interest\/gains until you retire or claim losses on your tax return).  If you let April 15 2016 pass by without making a Roth IRA contribution, you lose the 2015 limit forever.  If you are presently a student and partially employed, you are most likely in the lowest marginal tax rate you will be in for decades, which utilizes the Roth tax game effectively.   If you're estimating \""a few hundred\"", then what you pick as an investment is going to be less important than making the contributions.  That is, you can pick any mutual fund that strikes your fancy and be prepared to gain or lose, call it $50\/year (or pick a single stock and be prepared to lose it all).  At some point, you need to understand your emotions around volatility, and the only tuition for this school is taking a loss and having the presence of mind to examine any panic responses you may have.  No reason not to learn this on \""a few hundred\"".  While it's not ideal to have losses in a Roth, \""a few hundred\"" is not consequential in the long run.   If you're not prepared at this time in your life for the possibility of losing it all (or will need the money within a year or few, as your edit suggests), keep it in cash and try to reduce your expenses to contribute more.  Can you contribute another $100?  You will have more money at the end of the year than investment choice will likely return."""
"""Do Banks Cause Inflation?  What are other possible causes?""","""Some people believe that inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply when the banks engage in fractional reserve lending. Is this correct? You are referring to the Austrian school of thought. The Austrians define inflation in terms of money supply. In other words, inflation is defined as an increase in the aggregate money supply, even if prices stay the same of fall. This is not the only definition of inflation. The mainstream defines inflation as a general increase in the prices of consumer goods. Based on the first definition, then your supposition is correct by definition. Based on the second definition, you can make a case that money supply affects prices. But keep in mind, it's just one factor affecting prices. Furthermore, economics is resistant to experimentation, so it is difficult to establish causality. Austrian economists tend to approach the problem of \""proof\"" using a 2-pronged tactic: establish plausibility by explaining the mechanism, then look for historical evidence to back up that explanation. As I understand it, when there is more available money in the market, the price of goods will increase. But will a normal merchant acknowledge the increase of money supply and raise prices immediately? I posit that, in the short run, merchants won't increase prices in response to increased money supply. So, why does increased money supply lead to price inflation? The simple answer, in the Austrian school of thought, is that you have more money chasing the same amount of goods. In other words, printing money doesn't actually increase the number of widgets made. I believe the Austrian school is consistent with your supposition that prices don't increase in the short run. In other words, producers don't increase prices immediately after observing an increase in the money supply. Specifically, after the banks print more notes, where will the money be distributed first?  The Austrian story goes as follows: Imagine that the first borrower is a home constructor, and he is borrowing freshly \""printed\"" money to build new homes. This constructor will need to buy materials and hire labor to build homes, and in doing so he will bid against other home constructors. The increased demand for lumber, nails, tools, carpentry, etc. will ever so slightly increase the market prices for these goods and services. So the money goes first to the borrower, but then flows also to the people selling to the borrower, and the people selling to the sellers, etc. It has a ripple effect. Who will be the first one to have a need to rise their price? These producers won't need to increase their price, but they will choose to do so if the believe that demand outstrips supply. In other words if you have more orders than you can fill, then you may post higher prices because you think consumers will tolerate the higher price.  You might object that competition deters any one producer from unilaterally raising prices, but in fact if all producers are failing to keep up with demand, then you can unilaterally raise prices because other producers don't have any excess inventory to undercut you with."""
"""Should my husband's business pay my business?""","""I agree with some of the points of the other answers but why not avoid all the guesswork? I highly recommend you not charge him now. Wait until the end of the year when you have much more information about both of your companies and then you can run the numbers both ways and decide if it would benefit you (collectively). If either of your businesses runs on a cash basis and you decide to invoice, just make sure the check is deposited before Dec 31. Update: If you want to do this for 2016, at least your husband's business would have to be using an accrual basis (since it's too late to take the deduction on a cash basis). Simply run the numbers both ways and see if it helps you. If it doesn't help enough to warrant it for 2016 you could rerun the numbers near the end of 2017 to see if it helps then. Diclaimer: I think it's OK to do this type of manipulation for the scenario you described since you have done (or are doing) the work and you are charging a reasonable fee, but realize that you shouldn't manipulate the amount of the invoice, or fabricate invoices. For example, you shouldn't ever think about such things as: \""If I invoice $50K instead of $3K, will that help us?\"""""
"""Should we buy a house, or wait?""","""Some highly pessimistic things worth noting to go alongside all the stability and tax break upside that homes generally provide: Negative equity is no joke and basically the only thing that bankrupts the middle classes consistently en masse. The UK is at the end of a huge housing bull run where rents are extremely cheap relative to buying (often in the 1% range within the M25), Brexit is looming and interest rates could well sky rocket with inflation. Borrowing ~500k to buy a highly illiquid asset you might have to fire sale in case of emergency\/job loss etc for 300k in a few years when lots of (relatively) cheap rental housing is available to rent risk free, could be argued to be a highly lopsided and dangerous bet vs the alternatives. Locking in 'preferential' mortgage rates can be a huge trap: low interest rates generally increase asset values. If\/when they rise, assets fall in value as the demand shrinks, making you highly exposed to huge losses if you need to sell before it is paid off. In the case of housing this can be exceptionally vicious as the liquidity dramatically dries up during falls, meaning fire sales become much more severe than they are for more liquid assets like stock.  Weirdly and unlike most products, people tend to buy the very best house they can get leverage for, rather than work out what they need\/want and finding the best value equivalent. If a bank will lend you \u00a320 a day to buy lunch, and you can just afford to pay it, do you hunt out the very best \u00a320 lunch you can every day, or do you make some solid compromises so you can save money for other things etc? You seem to be hunting very close to the absolute peak amount you can spend on these numbers. Related to above, at that level of mortgage\/salary you have very little margin for error if either of you lose jobs etc.  Houses are much more expensive to maintain\/trade than most people think. You spend ~2-5% every time you buy and sell, and you can easily spend 2-20k+ a year depending what happens just keeping the thing watertight, paid for, liveable and staying up. You need to factor this in and be pessimistic when you do.  Most people don't factor in these costs to the apparent 'index' rise in house values and what they expect to sell for in x years. In reality no buy and hold investor can ever realise even close to the quoted house price returns as they are basically stocks you have to pay 5% each time you buy or sell and then 1-20% percent a year to own - they have to rise dramatically over time for you to even break even after all the costs.  In general you should buy homes to make memories, not money, and to buy them at prices that don't cause you sleepless nights in case of disasters."""
"""Why are banks providing credit scores for free?""","""I think the biggest reason is price; it's a lot cheaper now than it was to offer these.  That's because for the most part, when you get a credit score for free, you're not getting a true FICO score.  You're getting instead a VantageScore. VantageScore was created by the three credit bureaus, and as such they can offer it without paying Fair Isaac a licensing fee.  That makes it a lot cheaper to offer, and while it's not absolutely identical to FICO (or more accurately to any of the FICO provided scores) it's close enough for most peoples' purpose. And of course undoubtedly Fair Isaac has some price pressure on their side now that Vantage is big enough that many people see them as fungible.  As such they've had to make it easier, or they'd lose business - no longer being a monopolist. The other relevant piece here is that probably in many of these cases they're really just offering you what Experian would give you directly - so it's just a cross-marketing thing (where Experian, or perhaps another bureau, gets access to you as a customer so they can up-sell you ID theft insurance and whatnot, while the bank gets to offer the free score)."""
"""Should I sell when my stocks are growing?""","""It depends on what your investment goals are.  Are you investing for the short-term or the long-term?  What was your reason for investing in these stocks in the first place?  Timing short-term fluctuations in the market is very difficult, so if that's your goal, I wouldn't count on being able to sell and buy back in at exactly the right time.  Rather, I think you should think about what your investment rationale was in the first place, and whether or not that rationale still holds.  If it does, then hold on to the stocks.  If it doesn't, then sell."""
"""An online casino owes me money and wants to pay with a wire transfer. Is this safe?""","""I don't know which online casino we are talking about, but I would venture to say that online casinos, in general, are probably not the most trustworthy of businesses.  Caution is certainly in order.  That having been said, this isn't an e-mail from a stranger that contacted you out of the blue; you obviously trust them enough to have deposited some money with them, and it seems that they now owe you money. Let's assume for the moment that they are legitimate, and that they sincerely want to pay out your winnings.  If they are to pay you via a wire transfer, they would need your account number and routing number.  (This information is on every check that you write.)  In addition, if this is an international transfer, they would also need your bank's SWIFT number, or possibly an IBAN code. It does seem odd that they would pay you a partial payment with a check, but the rest has to be done via a wire transfer.  You could request that they send the remainder as a check, but I would imagine that if they refuse to send you a check, there is nothing you can do about it. If you decide to go ahead with the wire transfer, you could open up a new savings account with your bank first.  Then you could provide the account number for this new account, and if they are intending to clean out your account, there will be nothing in it.  (For extra protection, when you set up the account, you could ask the bank if they can set up a savings account that will accept incoming wire deposits, but no outgoing electronic withdrawals.) Either way, when you deposit the check you have and you receive this wire transfer, don't spend this money for a while.  Just let it sit in your account (you could transfer it to your main account, if you like), and wait a few weeks.  That way, if there is a problem with these payments and your bank insists on the money back, you will not be in trouble.  If they send you more than they owe you and ask for some of it back, it will be a clear indication of a scam.  Don't send them any money back. After a few weeks, you should be in the clear.  Good luck. By the way, online gambling is a terrible idea.  The fact that you don't trust the casino to pay out should tell you a lot about this industry.  After you receive these winnings (or even if you don't), the best advice I can give you is to stop gambling."""
"""Options vs Stocks which is more profitable""","""As already noted, options contain inherent leverage (a multiplier on the profit or loss). The amount of \""leverage\"" is dictated primarily by both the options strike relative to the current share price and the time remaining to expiration. Options are a far more difficult investment than stocks because they require that you are right on both the direction and the timing of the future price movement. With a stock, you could choose to buy and hold forever (Buffett style), and even if you are wrong for 5 years, your unrealized losses can suddenly become realized profits if the shares finally start to rise 6 years later. But with options, the profits and losses become very final very quickly. As a professional options trader, the single best piece of advice I can give to investors dabbling in options for the first time is to only purchase significantly ITM (in-the-money) options, for both calls and puts. Do a web search on \""in-the-money options\"" to see what calls or puts qualify.  With ITM options, the leverage is still noticeably better than buying\/selling the shares outright, but you have a much less chance of losing all your premium. Also, by being fairly deep in-the-money, you reduce the constant bleed in value as you wait for the expected move to happen (the market moves sideways more than people usually expect). Fairly- to deeply-ITM options are the ones that options market-makers like least to trade in, because they offer neither large nor \""easy\"" premiums. And options market-makers make their living by selling options to retail investors and other people that want them like you, so connect the dots. By trading only ITM options until you become quite experienced, you are minimizing your chances of being the average sucker (all else equal). Some amateur options investors believe that similar benefits could be obtained by purchasing long-expiration options (like LEAPS for 1+ years) that are not ITM (like ATM or OTM options). The problem here is that your significant time value is bleeding away slowly every day you wait.  With an ITM option, your intrinsic value is not bleeding out at all. Only the relatively smaller time value of the option is at risk. Thus my recommendation to initially deal only in fairly- to deeply-ITM options with expirations of 1-4 months out, depending on how daring you wish to be with your move timing."""
"""When do I sell a stock that I hold as a long-term position?""","""If you are already invested in a particular stock, I like JoeTaxpayer's answer. Think about it as if you are re-buying the stocks you own every day you decide to keep them and don't set emotional anchor points about what you paid for them or what they might be worth tomorrow. These lead to two major logical fallacies that investor's commonly fall prey to, Loss Aversion and Sunk Cost, both of which can be bad for your portfolio in the long run. To avert these natural tendencies, I suggest having a game plan before you purchase a stock based on on your investment goals for that stock. For example a combination of one or more of the following: I'm investing for the long term and I expect this stock to appreciate and will hold it until (specific event\/time) at which point I will (sell it all\/sell it gradually over a fixed time period) right around the time I need the money. I'm going to bail on this stock if it falls more than X % from my purchase price. I'm going to cash out (all\/half\/some) of this investment if it gains more than x % from my purchase price to lock in my returns. The important thing is to arrive at a strategy before you are invested and are likely to be more emotional than rational.  Otherwise, it can be very hard to sell a \""hot\"" stock that has suddenly jumped in price 25% because \""it has momentum\"" (gambler's fallacy). Conversely it can be hard to sell a stock when it drops by 25% because \""I know it will bounce back eventually\"" (Sunk Cost\/Loss Aversion Fallacy).  Also, remember that there is opportunity cost from sticking with a losing investment because your brain is saying \""I really haven't lost money until I give up and sell it.\"" When logically you should be thinking, \""If I move my money to a more promising investment I could get a better return than I am likely to on what I'm holding.\"""""
"""Formula that predicts whether one is better off investing or paying down debt""","""you should always invest if your investment rate of return is higher   than your interest rate Your next line, about standard deviation is dead on.  There are too many variables to give an exact answer here, in my opinion. The main reason is that one variable isn't easy to quantify - One's risk tolerance.  Clearly, there's one extreme, the 18% credit card. Unless you are funding loanshark type rates of 2%\/week, it's safe to say that 18% debt should take priority over any investments, except for the matched 401(k) deposits.  What I think you're talking about is something we've addressed here in multiple threads.  Do I prepay my sub 4% mortgage or invest? In this case, (and to Noah's comment) the question is whether you can expect a post-tax return of over 3% during your time horizon. I look at the return for 15 years from 1998-2013 and see a 6% CAGR for the S&P. I chose 15 years, as the choice is often one of paying a 30 year mortgage faster, as fast as 15. The last 15 years offer a pretty bad scenario, 2 crashes and a mortgage crisis. 6% after long term gains would get you 5.1% net.  You can pull the data back to 1871 and run CAGR numbers for the timeframe of your choosing. I haven't done it yet, but I imagine there's no 15 year span that lags the 3% target I cite.  What makes it more complex is that the investment isn't lump sum. It may not be obvious, but CAGR is a dollar invested at T=0, and returns calculated to T=final year. It would take a bit of spreadsheeting to invest the extra funds every month\/year over your period of analysis.  In the end, there are still those who will choose to pay off their 4% mortgage regardless of what the numbers show. Even if the 15 year result showed worst case 3.5% (almost no profit) and an average 10%, the feeling of risk is more than many will want."""
"""VAT and German freelance working on international project""","""The VAT number should be equivalent from the point of view of your client. The fact that you are a sole trader and not a limited liability doesn't matter when it comes down to pay VAT. They should pay the VAT to you and you will pay it to the government. I'll guess that their issue is with tax breaks, it is a bit more tricky to receive a tax break on paid taxes if you buy something abroad (at least it is here in Finland). If they won't pay you because of that, you could open a LTD or contract the services of a 'management company' which will do the job of invoicing, receiving the money and passing it back to you, for a fee."""
"""How can I get a mortgage I can't afford?""","""You can ask the buyer to lower the price by the amount you are approved for and negation transferring the amount to him via a escrow.."""
"""Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids?""","""It is simple: G-d provides :). EDIT: By \""it\"" I mean the answer to the question asked. Raising kids is not so simple; G-d does provide :)."""
"""AVS Address Verification System of BOTH Credit and Debit Cards - WHERE, HOW? ""","""Parts of what you want are possible, but taken as a whole, you're out of luck. First of all, there is no master database of every cardholder in the country.  The only way to check if information is correct is to ask the issuing bank.  The AVS system is a way to automate doing so, but it's possible to call the bank directly and verbally verify the address.   That means you're subject to the whims of what the issuing bank chooses to support.  Banks that are part of the Visa and MasterCard networks generally only verify the numeric parts (address, apartment number, zipcode).  AmEx can also verify the cardholder name.  But if the bank doesn't have support for validating something, you can't validate it. Separately, there is a \""verify-only\"" transaction which some processors support, which will do exactly what you want:  Return AVS values without ever charging the card.  However, processors require you to have the \""approved merchant account\"" you don't want to have to have.  Without being a merchant, you shouldn't have access to other people's credit cards anyway.  Would you really want anyone in the country to be able to verify anyone else's address whenever they want? In short, whatever purpose you have for wanting this probably falls into one of three categories:"""
"""What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc""","""Wow, very amused by some of the answers. I will comment on those later. To directly answer your question, here is a link to a brochure that explains the three basic typs and is written in straightforward language. link text That is step one. Step 2 is a question, cheapest when, initially or for long term? Without a doubt term initially is the cheapest. However every 10 years or 20 years it increases in price. As the name term implies it is temporary. Coverage will end at some point, 75, or 80 depending upon plan design chosen. It is possible that if you choose Term you can outlive your coverage and all you have are a bunch of cancelled cheques. Young people with a mortgage, children and other debts should buy a lot of term as the mortgage will be paid off, the kids will no longer be dependent. These needs are temporary. However some needs are permanent. What about leaving a Legacy at Death to a Charity? Insurance is a good solution and can provide a tax deduction too. Term isn't a good fit. Or a business owner wishing to transfer his\/her business at death to their children. Taxes will be due and permanent insurance such as Whole Life and Universal Life can be arranged to provide cash to pay tax whenever this happens.  Let me ask you who received 10% in the last ten years on their equity portfolio. Almost zero people did. However a Whole Plan would have generated a guaranteed return of 3.0% plus a non-guaranteed return via dividends that the combined internal rate of return  on a combined basis would be about 5.6% AFTER TAXES. Life a bond portfolio yield. (Internal rate of return is dependent on age at buying, years of investing. All insurance comany software can show you the internal rate of return.) IRR is essesntially: what is the return after tax that you must get to equal the equity or death benefit from a permanent insurance plan. Someone mentioned by Term and Invest the difference. That is what universal life is, Term and Invest the difference except the difference is growing tax sheltered.Outside investments with comparable risk are taxable! There is no easy answer for what type is right, often a combination is. The key question you should ask is How Much Is Enough? Then consider types based upon your needs and budget. Here is a link where you can calculate how much you need. I hope this helps a bit."""
"""How can I make a one-time income tax-prepayment to the US Treasury?""","""You can make estimated tax payments on Form 1040-ES.  Most people who make such payments need to do it quarterly because the typical reasons for making estimated payments is something like self-employment income that a person will get throughout the year.  If you have a one-time event like a single, large sale of stock, however, there's nothing wrong with doing it just one quarter out of the year. When it comes time to file your taxes, part of the calculate is whether you were timely quarter-by-quarter not just for the entire year, so if you do have a big \""one-time\"" event mid-year, don't wait until the end of the year to file an estimated payment.  Of course, if the event is at the end of the year, then you can make it a 4th quarter estimated payment."""
"""Is Peter Lynch talking about the Dividend Adjusted PEG Ratio in this quote?""","""Essentially, yes, Peter Lynch is talking about the PEG Ratio. The Price\/Earnings to Growth (PEG) Ratio is where you take the p\/e ratio and then divide that by the growth rate (which should include any dividends).  A lower number indicates that the stock is undervalued, and could be a good buy. Lynch's metric is the inverse of that: Growth rate divided by the p\/e ratio.  It is the same idea, but in this case, a higher number indicates a good value for buying. In either case, the idea behind this ratio is that a fairly priced stock will have the p\/e ratio equal the growth rate.  When your growth rate is larger than your p\/e ratio, you are theoretically looking at an undervalued stock."""
"""Should I scale down my 401k?""","""the whole room basically jumped on me I really have an issue with this. Someone providing advice should offer data, and guidance. Not bully you or attack you.  You offer 3 choices. And I see intelligent answers advising you against #1. But I don't believe these are the only choices. My 401(k) has an S&P fund, a short term bond fund, and about 8 other choices including foreign, small cap, etc. I may be mistaken, but I thought regulations forced more choices. From the 2 choices, S&P and short term bond, I can create a stock bond mix to my liking. With respect to the 2 answers here, I agree, 100% might not be wise, but 50% stock may be too little. Moving to such a conservative mix too young, and you'll see lower returns.  I like your plan to shift more conservative as you approach retirement.   Edit - in response to the disclosure of the fees -  1.18% for Aggressive, .96% for Moderate I wrote an article 5 years back, Are you 401(k)o'ed in which I discuss the level of fees that result in my suggestion to not deposit above the match. Clearly, any fee above .90% would quickly erode the average tax benefit one might expect. I also recommend you watch a PBS Frontline episode titled The Retirement Gamble It makes the point as well as I can, if not better.  The benefit of a 401(k) aside from the match (which you should never pass up) is the ability to take advantage of the difference in your marginal tax rate at retirement vs when earned. For the typical taxpayer, this means working and taking those deposits at the 25% bracket, and in retirement, withdrawing at 15%. When you invest in a fund with a fee above 1%, you can see it will wipe out the difference over time. An investor can pay .05% for the VOO ETF, paying as much over an investing lifetime, say 50 years, as you will pay in just over 2 years.  They jumped on you? People pushing funds with these fees should be in jail, not offering financial advice."""
"""What are some good books for learning stocks, bonds, derivatives e.t.c for beginner with a math background?""","""My personal favorites are Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives by John C Hull Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman Expected Returns - Antti Ilmanen [check out the video : How to Think About Expected Returns] It is a 600 page book \u2026 A summary of it: Without a rational expectation of expected returns, investing can lead to severe disappointment and disillusionment.  Making a good model to forecast expected returns is so difficult. Near-term expectation is almost impossible. The key is very very much about focusing on the long-term, and on getting returns that are feasible, not outlandish. There are three pillars that are central: Practically, the work of an investment manager today involves finding many different sources of returns, and diversifying effectively between them, and finally being humble about what returns we can expect today."""
"""How much life insurance do I need? ""","""One simple calculation to determine your life insurance need: D.I.M.E. method D: Debt All your car loan balances, credit card balances, student loans, business loans, etc. I: Income Your annual income times 10 (for 10 years of income replacement). M: Mortgage Your home mortgage balance. E: Education Your children's education expenses. You add up all these items, and you'll come up with a proper amount of life insurance coverage. This should be sufficient model for a majority of people. Yes, your life insurance needs will change as you move through life. Therefore you should sit down with your life insurance agent to review your policy every year and adjust it accordingly."""
"""What is the best approach to save money for College for three kids?""","""I'm not a 'rule of thumb' guy, but here, I'd suggest that if you can set aside 10% of your income each year for college, that would be great. That turns out to be $900\/mo.  In 15 years, if you saw an 8% CAGR, you'd have $311K which happens to be in your range of expenses. And you'd still have time to go as the baby won't graduate for 22(?) years. (Yup, 10% is a good rule of thumb for your income and 3 kids) Now, on the other hand, I'd research what grants you'd be able to get if you came up short. If instead of saving a dime, you funded your own retirement and the spouse's IRA if she's not working, and time the mortgage to pay it off in 15 years from now, the lack of liquid funds actually runs in your favor. But, I'm not an expect on this, just second guessing my own fully funded college account for my daughter."""
"""15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15""","""Other people have belabored the point that you will get a better rate on a 15 year mortgage, typically around 1.25 % lower. The lower rate makes the 15 year mortgage financially wiser than paying a 30 year mortgage off in 15 years.  So go with the 15 year if your income is stable, you will never lose your job, your appliances never break, your vehicles never need major repairs, the pipes in your house never burst, you and your spouse never get sick, and you have no kids. Or if you do have kids, they happen to have good eyesight, straight teeth, they have no aspirations for college, don't play any expensive sports, and they will never ask for help paying the rent when they get older and move out.  But if any of those things are likely possibilities, the 30 year mortgage would give you some flexibility to cover short term cash shortages by reverting to your normal 30 year payment for a month or two. Now, the financially wise may balk at this because you are supposed to have enough cash in reserves to cover stuff like this, and that is good advice. But how many people struggle to maintain those reserves when they buy a new house?  Consider putting together spreadsheet and calculating the interest cost difference between the two strategies. How much more will the 30 year mortgage cost you in interest if you pay it off in 15 years? That amount equates to the cost of an insurance policy for dealing with an occasional cash shortage. Do you want to pay thousands in extra interest for that insurance? (it is pretty pricey insurance) One strategy would be to go with the 30 year now, make the extra principal payments to keep you on a 15 year schedule, see how life goes, and refinance to a 15 year mortgage after a couple years if everything goes well and your cash reserves are strong. Unfortunately, rates are likely to rise over the next couple years, which makes this strategy less attractive. If at all possible, go with the 15 year so you lock in these near historic low rates. Consider buying less house or dropping back to the 30 year if you are worried that your cash reserves won't be able to handle life's little surprises."""
"""Overseas Foreign Earned Income; Can I take the Home Office Deduction for a home office based outside the United States?""","""You are pushing your luck, but not because you're not in the US, because it is likely that you're not qualified. From what you said, I doubt you can take it (I'm not a professional though, get a professional opinion). You say \""dedicated space\"". It has to be an exclusive room. You cannot deduct 10 sq. ft. from your living room because your computer that is used wholly for your business is there. It has to be a room that is used exclusively for your business, and for your business only. I.e.: nothing not related to the business is there, and when you're there the only thing you do is working on your business. Your office doesn't have to be in the US necessarily, to the best of my knowledge. Your office must be in your home. If you take primary residence exclusion as part of your FEI, then I doubt you can deduct as well."""
"""Does the bid price of a stock change depending on which brokerage I am using?""","""They could have different quotes as there are more than a few pieces here.  Are you talking a Real Time Level II quote or just a delayed quote?  Delayed quotes could vary as different companies would be using different time points in their data.  You aren't specifying exactly what kind of quote from which system are you using here. The key to this question is how much of a pinpoint answer do you want and how prepared are you to pay for that kind of access to the automated trades happening?  Remember that there could well be more than a few trades happening each millisecond and thus latency is something to be very careful here, regardless of the exchange as long as we are talking about first-world stock exchanges where there are various automated systems being used for trading. Different market makers is just a possible piece of the equation here.  One could have the same market maker but if the timings are different,e.g. if one quote is at 2:30:30 and the other is at 2:30:29 there could be a difference given all the trades processed within that second, thus the question is how well can you get that split second total view of bids and asks for a stock.  You want to get all the outstanding orders which could be a non-trivial task."""
"""Should I be worried that I won't be given a receipt if I pay with cash?""","""There are number of reasons why someone doesn't want to give you a receipt for cash payment. Anything ranging from not wanting to pay taxes, to being able to deny you gave them money for service in the event you're not happy with the service and ask for money back. You won't get in trouble for giving him cash, however you should be worried because any \""reputable\"" person providing any type of service\/product will provide a receipt regardless of payment type."""
"""What actions should I be taking to establish good credit scores for my children?""","""You really can't. Credit rating is determined by financial history, and until your kids are old enough to legally sign a contract they have essentially no financial history. Interesting out-of-the-box thought, but not workable."""
"""Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child?""","""As you say life insurance is about covering the loss of income, so unless your child is an actor or musical prodigy or similar and already earning money, there is no income to cover, and in fact you would have less of a financial commitment without a child to provide for. The other angle is that child life insurance is cheap and they'll have lower premiums than an adult. I'll quote the referenced article directly to address that: Another ploy is that children's life insurance is cheap. It is inexpensive compared to adult life insurance because, plain and simply, children rarely die. While the numbers that the sales agent puts together may make children's life insurance sound like a great deal, take the time to run what you'd have if you instead invested the exact same amount used on the insurance fees into a Roth IRA and you'll find the true cost of purchasing this type of life insurance."""
"""What is the purpose of endorsing a check?""","""When the check is deposited, the bank verifies the signature in the check matches your signature in file."""
"""What is the difference between state pension plans and defined contribution plans?""","""The specific \""State Pension\"" plan you have linked to is provided by the government of the U.K. to workers resident there. More generally speaking, many countries provide some kind of basic worker's pension (or \""social security\"") to residents.  In the United States, it is called (surprise!) \""Social Security\"", and in Canada most of us call ours \""Canada Pension Plan\"".  Such pensions are typically funded by payroll deductions distinct & separate from income tax deducted at source.  You can learn about the variety of social security programs around the world courtesy of the U.S. Social Security Administration's own survey. What those and many other government or state pensions have in common, and the term or concept that I think you are looking for, is that they are typically defined benefit type of plans.  A defined benefit or DB plan is where there is a promised (or \""defined\"") benefit, i.e. a set lump sum amount (such as with a \""cash balance\"" type of DB plan) or income per year in retirement (more typical). (Note: Defined benefit plans are not restricted to be offered by governments only. Many companies also offer DB plans to their employees, but DB plans in the private sector are becoming more rare due to the funding risk inherent in making such a long-term promise to employees.) Whereas a defined contribution or DC plan is one where employee and\/or employer put money into a retirement account, the balance of which is invested in a selection of funds. Then, at retirement the resulting lump sum amount or annual income amounts (if the resulting balance is annuitized) are based on the performance of the investments selected. That is, with a DC plan, there is no promise of you getting either a set lump sum amount or a set amount of annual income at retirement!  The promise was up front, on how much money they would contribute.  So, the contributions are defined (often according to a matching contribution scheme), yet the resulting benefit itself is not defined (i.e. promised.) Summary: DB plans promise you the money (the benefit) you'll get at retirement. DC plans only promise you the money (the contributions) you get now."""
"""How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?""","""Probably several years at least.  Maybe more like ten years. You need to watch a market for a substantial period of time to make money consistently. If you hit it big before then, you beat the odds that were against you."""
"""Do Americans really use checks that often?""","""I still use checks to pay rent and occasionally some bills\/liabilities. That said, I did notice an (elderly) lady paying by check at the supermarket a while ago. So is it really common to get a paycheck in the sense that you get a piece of paper? Yes and no.  There are some people that opt for the physical paycheck.  Even if they do not, there is a pay stub which serves as a record of it.  My last employer went to online pay stubs and a bunch of us opted out, sticking with the good old paper in an envelope.  We sure were glad of that when there were technical issues and security concerns with the online service."""
"""How can I stop wasting food?""","""Buy products that can be stored for a long time or require thorough thermal processing. For example, you can buy frozen chicken meat in two pounds packs - it can be stored in a freezer for half a year, then you roast it and after it cools down you can put it into a fridge and it will last for up to ten days. Just about anything that you've roasted or boiled for several dozens minutes can be stored in a fridge for at least five days - its taste will get slightly worse over time, but it still preserves nutrition value and is safe to eat."""
"""Should I buy a house because Mortgage rates are low""","""As of now in 2016, is is safe to assume that mortgage rates would\/should not get back to 10%? What would the rates be in future is speculation. It depends on quite a few things, overall economy, demand \/ supply, liquidity in market etc ... Chances are less that rates would show a dramatic rise in near future. Does this mean that one should always buy a house ONLy when mortgage rates are low? Is it worth the wait IF the rates are high right now? Nope. House purchase decision are not solely based on interest rates. There are quite a few other aspects to consider, the housing industry, your need, etc. Although interest rate do form one of the aspect to consider specially affordability of the EMI.  Is refinancing an option on the table, if I made a deal at a bad time when rates are high? This depends on the terms of current mortgage. Most would allow refinance, there may be penal charges breaking the current mortgage. Note refinance does not always mean that you would get a better rate. Many mortgages these days are on variable interest rates, this means that they can go down or go up. How can people afford 10% mortgage? Well if you buy a small cheaper [Less expensive] house you can afford a higher interest rate."""
"""Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit?""","""In addition to the already good answers: I am assuming you are playing a long game and have no specific need for a high credit score in the next couple of years.  This list is just good practice that will raise you score."""
"""I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?""","""If you are happy, really honestly happy, there is no need to change because you read it somewhere. While I believe that budgeting in some fun is smart so you don't go crazy, I am really speaking for myself.  I personally have to work at not spending more than I make, so I need to blow off some steam. I also think that you will find in the future something you want to do that costs money, and you would be glad to have it now. The same rules apply for you as they apply to everybody"""
"""How are option contracts enforced?""","""By their agreements with the central counterparty - in the US, the exchange or the Options Clearing Corporation, which interposes itself between the counterparties of each trade and guarantees that they settle. From the CCP article: A clearing house stands between two clearing firms (also known as member firms or participants). Its purpose is to reduce the risk a member firm failing to honor its trade settlement obligations. A CCP reduces the settlement risks by netting offsetting transactions between multiple counterparties, by requiring collateral deposits (also called \""margin deposits\""), by providing independent valuation of trades and collateral, by monitoring the credit worthiness of the member firms, and in many cases, by providing a guarantee fund that can be used to cover losses that exceed a defaulting member's collateral on deposit. Exercisers on most contracts are matched against random writers during the assignment process, and if the writer doesn't deliver\/buy the stock, the OCC does so using its funds and goes after the defaulting party."""
"""How to convince someone they're too risk averse or conservative with investments?""","""I feel these beliefs can not be changed so easily. Once someone loses their money, how can you convince him? And on what ground can you convince him? Can you give a guarantee that investments will perform at a certain level? There are many people who are happy with low returns but highly safe instruments. They are not concerned with what you earn in the stock market or the realty market. They are happy not losing their money. I known many people who earned decently during the up-rise of the stock market but all profits were squared up in the downturn and it turned to negative. Such people have their own thinking and such thinking is not out of place. After experience with much turmoil, I feel that they are also right to a great extent. Hence I feel if the person is not getting convinced, you should accept it with greatness."""
"""Stock Certificate In two names""","""The common way to frame the \""should I sell\"" question is ask yourself \""would you buy it today at the current price\"".  If you wouldn't,  sell it. Is sounds like this may be a paper certificate.  You will have to research how to present the certificate to a broker to trade it, or if the company has a direct shareholder program.  I have periodically been offered to sell \""odd lots\"" to shareholder programs which, if one exists, may be less hassle than other options.  As a part of this, your mother's estate administrator should decide if the estate is selling it's interest, or giving it's interest to heirs before the sale."""
"""Brokerage account for charity""","""If the charity accepts stock, you can avoid the tax on the long term cap gain when you donate it. e.g. I donate $10,000 in value of Apple. I write off $10,000 on my taxes, and benefit with a $2500 refund. If I sold it, I'd have nearly a $1500 tax bill (bought long enough ago, the basis is sub $100).  Any trading along the way, and it's on you. Gains long or short are taxed on you. It's only the final donation that matters here.  Edit - to address Anthony's comment on other answer - I sell my Apple, with a near $10,000 gain (it's really just $9900) and I am taxed $1500. Now I have $8500 cash I donate and get $2125 back in a tax refund. By donating the stock I am ahead nearly $375, and the charity, $1500."""
"""What is the purpose of the wash sale rule?""","""Overall the question is one of a political nature.   However, this component can have objective answers: \""What behavior is trying to be prevented?\"" There are mechanisms by which capital gains can be deferred (1031 like-kind exchange, or simply holding a long position for years) or eliminated by the estate step up in basis.  With these available, mechanisms that enable basis-reduction are ripe for abuse.   On the other hand, if this truly bothers you then if you meet the IRS qualifications of a day trader, you may elect to use \""mark to market\"" accounting, eliminating this entirely as a concern. Special rules for traders of securities"""
"""Can capital gains be used to fund an IRA with tax advantages?""","""As littleadv suggested, you are mixing issues. If you have earned income and are able to deduct an IRA deposit, where those actual dollars came from is irrelevant.  The fact that you are taking proceeds from one transaction to deposit to the IRA is a booking entry on your side, but the IRS doesn't care. By the way, when you get that $1000 gain, the broker doesn't withhold tax, so if you take the entire $1000 and put it in the IRA, you owe $150 on one line, but save $250 elsewhere, and are still $100 to the positive on your tax return."""
"""Receive credit card payment sending my customer details to a credit card processing company?""","""Yes, there are a bunch. I have used Paypal and it worked quite nicely. I see endless ads these days for Square, a tiny card reader that you plug into a smartphone that lets you swipe the card. (With Paypal you have to type in the credit card number.)"""
"""UK: How to *leave* self select stock and shares ISA (without selling the shares)?""","""Your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) do not in any way impact on your future ISA allowances. The only thing that uses up your ISA allowance is you paying new cash into an ISA account. So you can leave your existing shares in their existing ISA(s) and simply open new ISA(s) for future contributions which suit your current plans."""
"""How to safely exit a falling security?""","""If the stock is below its purchase price, there is no way to exit the position immediately without taking losses. Since presumably you had Good Reasons for buying that stock that haven't changed overnight, what you should probably do is just hold it and wait for the stock to come back up. Otherwise you're putting yourself into an ongoing pattern of \""buy high, sell low\"", which is precisely what you don't want to do. If you actually agree with the market that you made a mistake and believe that the stock will not recover any part of the loss quickly (and indeed will continue going down), you could sell immediately and take your losses rather than waiting and possibly taking more losses. Of course if the stock DOES recover you've made the wrong bet. There are conditions under which the pros will use futures to buffer a swing. But that's essentially a side bet, and what it saves you has to be balanced against what it costs you and how certain you are that you NOW can predict the stock's motion. This whole thing is one of many reasons individuals are encouraged to work with index funds, and to buy-and-hold, rather than playing with individual stocks. It is essentially impossible to reliably \""time the market\"", so all you can do is research a stock to death before making a bet on it. Much easier, and safer, to have your money riding on the market as a whole so the behavior of any one stock doesn't throw you into a panic. If you can't deal with the fact that stocks go down as well as up, you probably shouldn't be in the market."""
"""I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle?""","""For many folks these days, not having a credit card is just not practical. Personally, I do quite a bit of shopping online for things not available locally. Cash is not an option in these cases and I don't want to give out my debit card number. So, a strategy is this: use a credit card for a purchase. Then immediately, or within a couple days, pay the credit card with that amount. Sounds simple but it takes a little effort to do it. This strategy gives you the convenience of a credit card and decreases the interest enormously."""
"""How can a company charge a closed credit card?""","""Wow, I had never heard of this before but I looked into it a bit and Mikey was spot on. It seems that if you don't pay attention to the fine print when making credit card purchases (as most of us tend to skip) many companies have stipulations that allow continued charges if they are recurring fees (monthly, yearly, etc.) even after you have cancelled the card."""
"""Is selling only shares you bought with margin on a margin\/unsettled cash purchase free ride?""","""I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think it would be considered a free ride. The idea of a free ride is that you are engaging in a transaction when you do not actually have the money available to cover it, since the broker is technically giving you a 3 day loan whenever you purchase your stock (3 day rule to settle.) However, if you are using a margin account, and you have enough credit available, then you are not actually using unsettled assets, but rather an additional line of credit which was granted to you. You would just need to make sure that your total transactions are less than your purchasing power. That's my take on it anyway. I hope that helps, and hopefully someone can confirm or reject what I have said."""
"""What taxes are involved for LLC in Georgia?""","""Your best course of action is to gather your paperwork, ask around your personal network for a recommendation for a good CPA, and pay that person to do your taxes (business and personal).  Read through the completed package and have them walk you through every item you do not understand.  I would continue doing this until you feel confident that you can file for yourself.  Even then, the first couple of times I did my own, I'd pay them to review my work.  Assuming you find a CPA with reasonable fees, they will likely point out tax inefficiencies in the way you do your business which will more than pay for their fees.   It can be like a point of honor for CPAs to ensure that their customers get their money's worth in this way.  (Not saying all CPAs work this way, but to me, this would be a criteria for one that I would recommend.)"""
"""Filing Taxes for Two Separate Jobs Being Worked at the Same Time?""","""Welcome to the wonderful but oft confusing world of self-employment. Your regular job will withhold income for you and give you a W2, which tells you and the government how much is withheld.  At the end of the year uber will give you and the government a 1099-misc, which will tell you how much they paid you, but nothing will be withheld, which means you will owe the government some taxes. When it comes to taxes, you will file a 1040 (the big one, not a 1040EZ nor 1040A).  In addition you will file a schedule C (self-employed income), where you will report the gross paid to you, deduct your expenses, and come up with your profit, which will be taxable.  That profit goes into a line in the 1040.   You need to file schedule SE.  This says how much self-employment tax you will pay on your 1099 income, and it will be more than you expect.  Self employment tax is SS\/Medicare.  There's a line for this on the 1040 as well.  You can also deduct half of your self-employment tax on the 1040, there's a line for it. Now, you can pay quarterly taxes on your 1099 income by filing 1040-ES.  That avoids a penalty (which usually isn't that large) for not withholding enough.  As an alternative, you can have your regular W2 job withhold extra.  As long as you don't owe a bunch at tax time, you won't be a fined. When you are self-employed your taxes aren't as simple.  Sorry.  You can either spend some time becoming an expert by studying the instructions for the 1040, pay for the expensive version of tax programs, or hire someone to do it for you. Self-employed taxes are painful, but take advantage of the upsides as well.  You can start a solo 401(k) or SEP IRA, for example.  Make sure you are careful to deduct every relevant business expense and keep good records in case you get audited."""
"""Frustrated Landlord""","""You are not a landlord.  You have choices: The current situation is charity. And that's ok, so long as you acknowledge it. In the big picture, anything less than market rent is a gift that you are giving the person living in your house. A good tenant might keep the place in better shape, and deserve a lower rent, but that's a quid pro quo. In the end, landlording is a business. If you had 10-20 apartments, they would be proving an income to you and you would have a large chunk of your wealth tied up in it. You would keep the apartments in good shape both to be legal and not a slumlord, but you'd also collect market rent. $100\/apt would be $1000-$2000\/mo income to you and your family.  You wife is right. As always. You have a decision to make to stop the bleeding."""
"""Where to find the full book of outstanding bids\/asks for a stock?""","""For starters, that site shows the first 5 levels on each side of the book, which is actually quite a bit of information.  When traders say the top of the book, they mean just the first level.  So you're already getting 8 extra levels. If you want all the details, you must subscribe to the exchange's data feeds (this costs thousands of dollars per month) or open an account with a broker who offers that information. More important than depth, however, is update frequency.  The BATS site appears to update every 5 seconds, which is nowhere near frequently enough to see what's truly going on in the book.  Depending on your use case, 2 levels on each side of the book updated every millisecond might be far more valuable than 20 levels on each side updated every second."""
"""How do I figure out the next step in deciding to sell my home to the market or to a uniquely interested buyer?""","""We considered similar big renovations when putting our house on the market. The answer turns out to be pretty simple; unless you do renovation-type work as your day job, or have really good friends in the residential contracting business, sell as-is. You will virtually never get back the full price of bringing in a gen-con to renovate any space in your home; you do that when you want to spend the extra to make your home exactly what you wanted, so you can live in it for decades and get the enjoyment out of it. If you're trying to turn a profit with the renovation, like house-flippers do professionally, you look for easy repairs\/renos, buy good-looking but inexpensive materials, and do the labor yourself. Whether you sell to the market or to a specifically-interested buyer is your call, but I will caution you that a specifically-interested buyer is going to be looking for a deal, or a steal.  When marketing our house, we met with three different realtors. The first one was very overoptimistic about what we could list for (basically assuming that we could get the same price as a fully-upgraded version of our same floor plan with a pool out back). She also had a to-do list a mile long, and my wife and I both noticed that she looked very apprehensive about the house when looking around, even as she reassured us that selling it would be no trouble. We eventually realized why she was so apprehensive, and fired her before we got even halfway through her to-dos, which included major landscaping, new kitchen floors and countertops, etc, which would have cost us thousands and would not have gotten the house price even close to the target. The second one took a look at our half-finished refinish and told us to stop everything we were doing to update the minor stuff like paint and fixtures, saying we were putting lipstick on a pig; she would market the house to some cash buyers she knew personally, for about 80% of the list price our first realtor quoted, and implied that we should be kissing her boots for finding us a buyer willing to take the house off our hands at all. During the tour, she pointed out \""problems\"" with the house that weren't even there, like foundation issues such as sloping floors, in an attempt to scare us into going with her strategy. We sniffed that out pretty quickly, showed her the door at the end of the initial consult and never called back. This, by the way, is the kind of thing you want to avoid; unless your home is really dilapidated or torn apart with unfinished major renos, it should have decent value on the market and you shouldn't have to resort to a cash buyer looking for a flip or a rental property on the cheap. Just like Goldilocks, our third choice was just right. He saw all the same comparables, toured our house, and recommended that we offer about $20k less than the fully-upgraded version (but still about $20k more than the second realtor was estimating), targeting a \""real\"" buyer and not an investor or flipper, but at a price that would make the lack of upgrades more acceptable. We finished the paint and finish projects we started, brought in a weekend's worth of scheduled showings, and our house was under contract for full price within 3 days, giving us the extra $20k worth of down payment to put into our new house. In summary, I highly recommend a realtor, because the one we eventually listed with worked his butt off on the business side while we fixed up the house. However, make sure you find the right one; realtors are ultimately in business for themselves, and their ultimate interest is in getting your house sold and getting you into a new one. That is what gets them paid. Some of them will do it the right way, working the deal with other realtors and their prospective buyers to get you what you need. Others will take the easy way out, at your expense, either giving you bad advice about how to present and price your home so that you end up on the market for 6 months with no offers, or handing your house to their business buddies at a discount."""
"""Annuities question - Equations of value""","""The solution is x = 8.92. This assumes that Chuck's six years of deposits start from today, so that the first deposit accumulates 10 years of gain, i.e. 20*(1 + 0.1)^10.  The second deposit gains nine years' interest: 20*(1 + 0.1)^9 and so on ...    If you want to do this calculation using the formula for an annuity due, i.e. http:\/\/www.financeformulas.net\/Future-Value-of-Annuity-Due.html  where  (formula by induction) you have to bear in mind this is for the whole time span (k = 1 to n), so for just the first six years you need to calculate for all ten years then subtract another annuity calculation for the last four years.  So the full calculation is:  As you can see it's not very neat, because the standard formula is for a whole time span.  You could make it a little tidier by using a formula for k = m to n instead, i.e.  So the calculation becomes  which can be done with simple arithmetic (and doesn't actually need a solver)."""
"""Car financed at 24.90% \u2014 what can I do?""","""Anytime you borrow money at that rate, you are getting ripped off.   One way to rectify this situation is to pay the car off as soon as possible.  You can probably get a second job that makes $1000 per month.  If so you will be done in 4 months.    Do that and you will pay less than $300 in interest.  It is a small price to pay for an important lesson. While you can save some money refinancing, working and paying the loan off is, in my opinion a better option.  Even if you can get the rate down to 12%, you are still giving too much money to banks."""
"""Want to buy expensive product online. Credit line on credit cards not big enough. How do \""Preferred Account\"" programs work?""","""The preferred accounts are designed to hope you do one of several things: Pay one day late.  Then charge you all the deferred interest. Many people think If they put $X a month aside, then pay just before the 6 months, 12 moths or no-payment before 2014 period ends then I will be able to afford the computer, carpet, or furniture. The interest rate they will charge you if you are late will be buried in the fine print. But expect it to be very high. Pay on time, but now that you have a card with their logo on it.  So now you feel that you should buy the accessories from them. They hope that you become a long time customer. They want to make money on your next computer also. Their \""Bill Me Later\"" option on that site as essentially the same as the preferred account. In the end you will have another line of credit. They will do a credit check. The impact, both positive and negative, on your credit picture is discussed in other questions.  Because two of the three options you mentioned in your question (cash, debit card) imply that you have enough cash to buy the computer today, there is no reason to get another credit card to finance the purchase. The delayed payment with the preferred account, will save you about 10 dollars (2000 * 1% interest * 0.5 years).  The choice of store might save you more money, though with Apple there are fewer places to get legitimate discounts. Here are your options: How to get the limit increased: You can ask for a temporary increase in the credit limit, or you can ask for a permanent one. Some credit cards can do this online, others require you to talk to them. If they are going to agree to this, it can be done in a few minutes. Some individuals on this site have even been able to send the check to the credit card company before completing the purchase, thus \""increasing\"" their credit limit. YMMV. I have no idea if it works.  A good reason to use the existing credit card, instead of the debit card is if the credit card is a rewards card. The extra money or points can be very nice. Just make sure you pay it back before the bill is due. In fact you can send the money to the credit card company the same day the computer arrives in the mail.  Having the transaction on the credit card can also get you purchase protection, and some cards automatically extend the warranty."""
"""Is it possible to get life insurance as a beneficiary before the person insured dies?""","""Generally no. It does not make sense for insurance company to alter terms and if there are such rules it can be subject to misuse."""
"""How do small cap stocks perform vs. large cap stocks (like Dow constituents) during bear trends?""","""To a certain extent, small cap companies will in general follow the same trends as large cap companies. The extent of this cointegration depends on numerous factors, but a prime reason is the presence of systemic risk, i.e. the risk to the entire market. In simple terms, sthis is the risk that your portfolio will approach asymptotically as you increase its diversification, and it's why hedging is also important.  That being said, small cap businesses will, in general, likely do worse than large cap stocks, for several reasons. This was\/is certainly the case in the Great Recession.  Small cap businesses have, on average, higher betas, which is a measure of a company's risk compared to the overall market. This means that small cap companies, on average outperform large cap companies during boom times, but it also means that they suffer more on average during bear times. The debate over whether or not the standard beta is still useful for small cap companies continues, however. Some economists feel that small cap companies are better measured against the Russell 2000 or similar indexes instead of the S&P 500.  Small cap companies may face problems accessing or maintaining access to lines of credit. During the Great Recession, major lenders decreased their lending to small businesses, which might make it harder for them to weather the storm.  On a related point, small businesses might not have as large an asset base to use as collateral for loans in bad times. One notable large cap company that used its asset base to their advantage was Ford, which gave banks partial ownership of its factories during hard times. This a) gave Ford a good amount of cash with which to continue their short-term operations, and b) gave the banks a vested interest in keeping Ford's lines of credit open. Ford struggled, but it never faced the financial problems of GM and Chrysler.  Despite political rhetoric about Main Street vs. Wall Street, small businesses don't receive as much government aid in times of crisis as some large cap companies do. For example, the Small Business Lending Fund, a brilliant but poorly implemented idea in 2010, allocated less than $30 billion to small businesses. (The actual amount loaned was considerably less). Compare that to the amounts loaned out under TARP. Discussions about corporate lobbying power aside, small businesses aren't as crucial to the overall stability of the financial system Small businesses don't always have the manpower to keep up with changes in regulation. When the Dodd-Frank Act passed, large banks (as an example), could hire more staff to understand it and adapt to it relatively easily; small banks, however, don't always have the resources to invest in such efforts.  There are other reasons, some of which are industry-specific, but these are some of the basic ones.  If you want visual confirmation that small cap businesses follow a similar trend, here is a graph of the Russell 2000 and S&P 500 indexes:  Here is a similar graph for the Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.   If you wanted to confirm this technically and control for the numerous complicated factors (overlap between indexes, systemic risk, seasonal adjustment, etc.), just ask and I'll try to run some numbers on it when I have a chance. Keep in mind, too, that looking at a pretty picture is no substitute for rigorous financial econometrics. A basic start would be to look at the correlation between the indexes, which I calculate as 0.9133 and 0.9526, respectively. As you can see, they're pretty close. Once again, however, the reality is more complicated technically, and a sufficiently detailed analysis is beyond my capabilities. Just a quick side note. These graphs show the logarithm of the values of the indexes, which is a common statistical nuance that is used when comparing time series with radically different magnitudes but similar trends.  S&P500 and Russell 2000 data came from Yahoo! Finance, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average data came from Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) Per usual, I try to provide code whenever possible, if I used it. Here is the Stata code I used to generate the graphs above. This code assumes the presence of russell2000.csv and sp500.csv, downloaded from Yahoo! Finance, and DJIA.csv, downloaded from FRED, in the current directory.  Fidelity published an article  on the subject that you might find interesting, and Seeking Alpha has several pieces related to small-cap vs. large-cap returns that might be worth a read too."""
"""Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under?""","""If the FDIC didn't insure your deposit, there would be a run on EVERY bank, so there is no way the government will let it fail or go broke.  It will be backstopped one way or another.  So I wouldn't worry about losing my money.   The only worry is the hassle of having to deal with the bank failure and getting at your money and getting it out.  There could be a few days of illiquidity while the government is stepping in to sort things out.  If that scares you or would be a big problem, then I'd find a safer choice."""
"""Complete Opposite Calculations and Opinions - Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income""","""The advice you were given in the other question was don't do it. The math is not the issue. The interest structure is not the issue. But there is a significant chance that you could lose money on the deal. If you invested your money in a NASDAQ heavy position in January 2000, you are still waiting to break even in November of 2013; Invest in almost anything in August 2001 and you will be down for a long time. Invest just before the housing collapse in 2007 and only now returning back to where you were. If you take money on a monthly basis and invest it you will be better off.  If want to get the loan; then set up a stream of money into a bank account to make sure that when payments are due you have the cash to do so. When the two years are up you will have cash to repay the loan, and no need to sell the investments. Also if you are a bad judge of investments you won't have a problem repaying the loan. Using a loan to purchase stock reduces your gains and increases your losses. Use the power of Dollar cost averaging by making periodic purchases."""
"""Should I fund retirement with a static asset allocation or an age based glide path?""","""I think not. I think a discussion of optimum mix is pretty independent of age. While a 20 year old may have 40 years till retirement, a 60 year old retiree has to plan for 30 years or more of spending. I'd bet that no two posters here would give the same optimum mix for a given age, why would anyone expect the Wall Street firms to come up with something better than your own gut suggests?"""
"""Is there a reason to buy a 0% yield bond?""","""0% bonds are desirable for some individuals. It depends on your situation. 0% bonds are usually sold well below par value (eg a 100$ face value bond for 2020 might sell for 90$ today) Hence, your gains will be CAPITAL GAINS. A similar investment paying interest would be taxed as INCOME, and smaller portion of capital gains. In many countries (US, Canada) Capital gains are taxed at a more favourable rate then income. This is especially true when holding these investments in corporations."""
"""How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?""","""A \""true\"" 0% loan is a losing proposition for the bank, that's true.  However when you look at actual \""0%\"" loans they usually have some catches: There might also be late payment fees, prepayment penalties, and other clauses that make it a good deal on average to the bank.  Individual borrowers might be able to get away with \""free money\"", but the bank does not look to make money on each loan, they look to make money on thousands of loans overall. For a retailer (including new car sellers). the actual financing costs will be baked into the sales price.  They will add, say, 10% to the sales price in exchange for an interest-free loan. They can also sell these loans to an investment bank or other entity, but they would be sold at a deep discount, so the difference will be made up in the sales price or other \""fees\"". It's possible that they would just chalk it up to promotional discounts or customer acquisition costs, but it would not be a good practice on a large scale."""
"""What to do with a distribution as a young person?""","""I highly recommend passive investing through something like betterment (www.betterment.com) or vanguard's ETFs.  FutureAdvisor.com can provide some good advice as to what funds to invest in. I'd recommend using that money to max out your Roth IRAs each year, too."""
"""What's a good free checking account? ""","""The best bank with least amount of gotchas is Alliant Credit Union.  I did a lot of research and finally decided on this bank.   I did a comparative study between ING, Ally and Alliant and found Alliant to be superior than the the other two.   More about my study: http:\/\/www.moneycone.com\/a-bank-thats-better-than-ally-and-ingdirect\/ If you do find a better bank than this, please update this post, I'd definitely like to know! Disclaimer: I have no relationship with either of the three banks."""
"""Bank will not accept loose change. Is this legal?""","""They cannot refuse to accept coins and demand some other payment after providing a good or service.  Legal tender is legal tender for all debts.  But until they provide the good or service, they don't have to accept it.   In this case, you want the service of depositing money.  But by its nature, they have to accept the payment first.  In that situation, they can refuse it.  There is no law that banks have to accept your deposits.  If they don't want you as a customer, that's their problem.   Consider switching banks.  Historically this was easier and some banks may still do things the old way.  Call your local banks and ask.  Perhaps you'll find someone happy to do business with you, on your terms.   As already said, some coin rolling machines will pay you with gift certificates.  If you plan to buy a sufficient amount from the place that accepts the gift certificate, this can get that place to play the fee.  That may help you, although it is obviously a limited solution.  The goal is to make it so that you only make purchases that you would have anyway.  The seller obviously has a different goal.   It's possible to buy coin sorters.  Heck, you could buy one with a gift certificate from a public machine.  Cheap ones require extra work to get the coins rolled and may jam a lot.  More expensive ones do more of the work for you.  Note that a given sorter that works better may be cheaper than another that doesn't work as well.  Cheap is more of a qualitative judgment than a financial measure in this case.   If you carry a small amount of change with you, pretty much everywhere accepts small amounts of change for purchases.  So if you have been always paying with dollars and dumping the change in a jar, instead always give the correct change (coins).  They may still give you dollars in change, but at least you won't get new coins.  And you'll use some of your existing coins.  Of course, this doesn't scale well.   For small purchases, say $1.50, you can often pay the whole thing in change without argument.  Or if something is $18.50, you might give them $10, $5, two $1 bills, and the rest in change.   If you are buying something and can see that they have little change in one of the coin buckets, offer to swap some change for bills.  Sometimes places find that easier than breaking a roll.   With vending machines, use change instead of dollar bills.  Especially use exact change so as not to convert bills to change.  They usually don't take pennies, but they're great with nickels and above.   This won't allow you to use change as a way to force yourself to save.  But it will keep your change down to a manageable level going forward.  And you might be able to use up your existing store.  I'm assuming that this isn't a fifty year coin collection that you are just now starting to process.  But if you have six months of change, you should be able to use it up in a year or so.   I tend to do this.  So I rarely have more than a couple dollars in change.  No one ever tells me that they don't take change, because I don't give anyone a lot.  Maybe $.99 here but more likely $.43 there.  Sometimes I give them, e.g., $.07 so as to get $.25 in change rather than $.18.   It's a little more work at every transaction, but it saves the big clump of work of rolling the coins.  And you don't have to buy wrappers."""
"""Am I understanding buying options on stock correctly""","""Options have legitimate uses as a way of hedging a bet, but in the hands of anyone but an expert they're gambling, not investing. They are EXTREMELY volatile compared to normal stocks, and are one of the best ways to lose your shirt in the stock market yet invented. How options actually work is that you're negotiating a promise that, at some future date or range of dates, they will let you purchase some specific number of shares (call), or they will let you sell them that number of shares (put), at a price specified in the option contract. The price you pay (or are paid) to obtain that contract depends on what the option's seller thinks the stock is likely to be worth when it reaches that date. (Note that if you don't already own the shares needed to back up a put option, you're promising to pay whatever it takes to buy those shares so you can sell them at the agreed upon price.) Note that by definition you're betting directly against experts, as opposed to a normal investment where you're usually trying to ride along with the experts. You are claiming that you can predict the future value of the stock better than they can, and that you will make a profit (on the difference between the value locked in by the option and the actual value at that time) which exceeds the cost of purchasing the option in the first place.  Let me say that again: the option's price will have been set based on an expert's opinion of what the stock is likely to do in that time. If they think that it's really likely to be up $10 per share when the option comes due (really unlikely for a $20 stock!!!), they will try to charge you almost $10 per share to purchase the option at the current price. \""Almost\"" because you're giving them a guaranteed profit now and assuming all the risk. If they're less sure it will go up that much, you'll pay less for the option -- but again, you're giving them hard money now and betting that you can predict the probabilities better than they can. Unless you have information that the experts don't have -- in which case you're probably committing insider trading -- this is a very hard bet to win. And it can be extremely misleading, since the price during the option period may cross back and forth over the \""enough that you'll make a profit\"" line many times. Until you actually commit to exercising the option or not, that's all imaginary money which may vanish the next minute. Unless you are willing and able to invest pro-level resources in this, you'd probably get better odds in Atlantic City, and definitely get better odds in Las Vegas. If you don't see the sucker at the poker table, he's sitting in your seat. And betting against the guy who designed and is running the game is usually Not a Good Idea."""
"""Can I place a stock limit order to buy above the current price? Can I place a stock limit order to sell below the current price?""","""You are better off just placing a market order if you want to buy or sell straight away and avoid the queues. A market order will guarantee the purchase or sale of your shares, but it won't guarantee the price."""
"""How common are stock\/scrip dividends (as opposed to cash dividends) in US equity markets?""","""There's not usually a point to issuing new stock as a dividend, because if you issue new stock, it dilutes the existing shareholders by the exact same amount as the dividend: so now they have a few more shares, great, but they're worth the exact same amount. (This assumes that all stockholders are equal. If there are multiple share classes, or people whose rights to a stock are tied to the stock price in some manner - options, warrants, or something - then a properly structured stock dividend could serve to enrich one set of shareholders and other rights-holders at the expense of another. But this is usually illegal.) If this sort of dividends are popular in China, I suspect it is due to some freaky regulatory or tax-related circumstances which are not present in the United States markets. China is kind of notorious for having unusual capital controls, limitations on the exchange of currency, and markets which are not very transparent."""
"""Buying a house, how much should my down payment be?""","""I'm going to answer your questions out of order. Emergency fund: Depending on how conservative you are and how much insurance you have, you may want anywhere from 3-12 months of your expenses on hand. I like to keep 6 months worth liquid in a \""high-yield\"" savings account. For your current expenses that would be $24k, but when this transaction completes, you will have a mortgage payment (which usually includes home-owners insurance and property taxes in addition to your other expenses) so a conservative guess might be an additional $3k\/month, or a total of $42k for six months of expenses. So $40-$100k for an emergency fund depending on how conservative you are personally. Down payment: You should pay no less than 20% down ($150k) on a loan that size, particularly since you can afford it. My own philosophy is to pay as much as I can and pay the loan off as soon as possible, but there are valid reasons not to do that. If you can get a higher rate of return from that money invested elsewhere you may wish to keep a mortgage longer and invest the other money elsewhere. Mortgage term: A 15-year loan will generally get you the best interest rate available. If you paid $400k down, financing $350k at a 3.5% rate, your payment would be about $2500 on a 15-year loan. That doesn't include property taxes and home-owners insurance, but without knowing precisely where you live, I have no idea whether those would keep you inside the $3000 of additional monthly home expenses I mentioned above when discussing the emergency fund. That's how I would divide it up. I'd also pay more than the $2500 toward the mortgage if I could afford to, though I've always made that decision on a monthly basis when drawing up the budget for the next month."""
"""Which institutions in Canada offer true read-only guest accounts?""","""Converting fideli comment to answer I don't think any Canadian bank offers this capability for online banking. However, there seems to be a fierce push right now at most banks to improve their online banking platform so they may be open to the suggestion of guest accounts"""
"""Does a SIM only cell phone contract help credit rating?""","""I'm not sure if there are nuances between countries and appreciate your question is specifically about the US, but in the UK, mobile phone contracts, including SIM only, as seen by the chat in this experion website chat shows that mobile contracts are included in credit ratings for 6 years."""
"""Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord?""","""This is going to seem pretty far off the beaten path, but I hope when you finish reading it you'll see the point... Suppose someone offered you a part time job: Walk their dog once per day for at least 20 minutes, and once per week pick up the dog poo from their lawn. Your compensation is $300\/month. Now suppose instead you are given two choices for a job: Your preference probably has more to do with your personality and interests than the finances involved."""
"""Challenged an apparently bogus credit card charge, what happens now?""","""Yes.  For $15 it's not worth anyone's time to dig deep just for this specific occurrence. What you should do, however, is keep an eye on your credit card bills and accounts and watch for any other suspicious activity.  It is possible that your number was stolen somehow and someone is using it fraudulently, so you want to be on the lookout in case they try to use it again.  However, your credit card company is going to be much, much better than you at detecting patterns of fraud, which is why you should leave it to them unless and until you actually see more suspicious activity."""
"""What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time? ""","""People rave about Basecamp by 37signals.  The impressive part is all the add-ins you can get for it.  There are add-ins for invoicing, billing, accounting, and time tracking."""
"""Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \""Buy Low, Sell High\""?""","""I primarily intend to add on to WBT's answer, which is good. It has been shown that \""momentum\"" is a very real, tangible factor in stock returns. Stocks that have done well tend to keep doing well; stocks that are doing poorly tend to keep doing poorly. For a long-term value investor, of course fundamental valuation should be your first thing to look at - but as long as you're comfortable with the company's price as compared to its value, you should absolutely hang onto it if it's been going up. The old saying on Wall Street is \""Cut your losses, and let your winners ride.\"" As WBT said, there may be some tangible emotional benefit to marking your win while you're ahead and not risking that it tanks, but I'd say the odds are in your favor. If an undervalued company starts rising in stock price, maybe that means the market is starting to recognize it for the deal it is. Hang onto it and enjoy the fruits of your research."""
"""Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard\/Visa?""","""My view is from the Netherlands, a EU country. Con: Credit cards are more risky. If someone finds your card, they can use it for online purchases without knowing any PIN, just by entering the card number, expiration date, and security code on the back. Worse, sometimes that information is stored in databases, and those get stolen by hackers! Also, you can have agreed to do periodic payments on some website and forgot about them, stopped using the service, and be surprised about the charge later. Debit cards usually need some kind of device that requires your PIN to do online payments (the ones I have in the Netherlands do, anyway), and automated periodic payments are authorized at your bank where you can get an overview of the currently active ones. Con: Banks get a percentage of each credit card payment. Unlike debit cards where companies usually pay a tiny fixed fee for each transaction (of, say, half a cent), credit card payments usually cost them a percentage and it comes to much more, a significant part of the profit margin. I feel this is just wrong. Con: automatic monthly payment can come at an unexpected moment With debit cards, the amount is withdrawn immediately and if the money isn't there, you get an error message allowing you to pay some other way (credit card after all, other bank account, cash, etc). When a recent monthly payment from my credit card was due to be charged from my bank account recently, someone else had been paid from it earlier that day and the money wasn't there. So I had to pay interest, on something I bought weeks ago... Pro: Credit cards apparently have some kind of insurance. I've never used this and don't know how it works, but apparently you can get your money back easily after fraudulent charges. Pro: Credit cards can be more easily used internationally for online purchases I don't know how it is with Visa or MC-issued debit cards, but many US sites accept only cards that have number\/expiration date\/security code and thus my normal bank account debit card isn't useable. Conclusion: definitely have one, but only use it when absolutely necessary."""
"""Is there a standard check format in the USA?""","""Many years ago, I worked on software that had to print the date, payee, and amounts on pre-printed checks.  Other than the MICR line (which had a particular placement with respect to the bottom edge and required a particular font in a particular point size), most aspects of the check layout and format were up to the particular check provider. Then there was a desire to start using optical character recognition to further automate check handling.  A standard came out, that most checks I see now seem to follow.  The standard dictated the exact dollar sign glyph to be printed to the left of the amount box.  This glyph was used by the OCR to locate the amount.  There were specific tolerances for where you could print\/write the amount relative to that dollar sign.  There were also some requirements for the box containing the amount to have some clearance from the noisy backgrounds pre-printed on many checks.  But what font you used inside the amount box was, as far as I could tell, unspecified.  After all, customers could always hand-write the amount. Interestingly, the part of the check where you spell out the amount is known as the \""legal amount.\""  If the amount in numerals and the amount in words don't match, the spelled version takes precedence, legally.  (The theory being that it's easier to doctor the numerals to change the apparent value of the check than it is to change the words.)  I always found it ironic that the layout standard to enable OCR standard was focused on reading the numerals rather than the legal amount.  OCR has come a long way since then, so I wouldn't be surprised if, nowadays, both amounts are read, even on hand-written checks. A little search shows that current (voluntary) standards are put out by the ANSI X9 group."""
"""question about early exercise of a NQSO""","""Now assume these shares are vested, held for at least 1 year, and are   then sold for $5 each. Everything I've read implies that the grantee   now owes long-term capital gains taxes on the difference, which would   be 10k * ($5 - $1). No. That's exactly what the SO is NQ for. Read more on the differences between ISO and NQSO here. Now assume these shares are vested, held for at least 1 year, and are   then sold for $5 each. Everything I've read implies that the grantee   now owes long-term capital gains taxes on the difference, which would   be 10k * ($5 - $1). At this point you no longer have NQSO, you have RSU. If you filed 83(b) when  you exercised, then you pay capital gains tax when they vest. If you didn't - its ordinary income to you. NQSO is a red herring here since once exercised they no longer exist. If you didn't file 83(b), then when the stock vests the difference between the FMV at vest and the money you spent on it when exercising (if any) is considered wages and taxed as ordinary income (+FICA etc). From that point the RSU becomes a regular stock investment and the capital gains clock starts ticking."""
"""Does it make any sense to have individual stocks, bonds, preferred shares""","""Sure, with some general rules of thumb: what is the minimum portfolio balance to avoid paying too much for transaction fees? Well, the fee doesn't change with portfolio balance or order size, so I don't know what you're trying to do here.  The way to have less transaction fees is to have less transactions.  That means no day-trading, no option rolling, etc.  A Buy-and-hold strategy (with free dividend reinvestment if available) will minimize transaction fees."""
"""Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?""","""Playing the markets is simple...always look for the sucker in the room and outsmart him. Of course if you can't tell who that sucker is it's probably you. If the strategy you described could make you rich, cnbc staff would all be billionaires. There are no shortcuts, do your research and decide on a strategy then stick to it in all weather or until you find a  better one."""
"""How to get a credit card as a minor?""","""I have a job and would like to buy equipment for producing music at home and it would be easier for me to pay for the equipment monthly I just want to address your contention that it would be easier to pay monthly, with an interest calculation.  Lets say you get a credit card with a very reasonable rate of 12% and you buy $2,500 of equipment.  A typical credit card minimum payment is interest charges + 1% of the principle. You can see how this is going.  You've paid nearly $200 to clear about $100 off your principle.  Obviously paying the minimum payment will take forever to wipe out this debt.  So you pay more, or maybe you get 0% interest for a while and take advantage of that. Paying $100 per month against $2,500 at 12% per year will take 29 months and cost about $390 in interest.  At $200 per month it'll take 14 months and cost $184 in interest.  Also note, you'll probably get an interest rate closer to 16 or 17%. It's always easier to pay small amounts frequently than it is to pay a lot of money all at once, that ease has a cost.  If you're buying the gear to start a little business, or you already have a little business going and want to upgrade some gear, great; disciplined debt handling is a wonderful skill to have in business.  If you want to start yourself in to a new hobby, you should not do that with debt.  If interest rates are low enough financing something can make sense.  0.9% apr on a car, sure; 15% apr on a mixing board, no.  Credit card interest rates are significant and really should not be trifled with."""
"""Foreign currency conversion for international visitors to ecommerce web site?""","""You probably can get away with only updating the exchange rates once a day and specify that any prices quoted in units other than your home currency are estimates only. If you're planning to accept more than one currency as payment, I'd (a) see about whatever regulations there are for doing so, and (b) build in a nice spread for yourself if you're allowed to, since it is a service you're providing to your customers.  If you Google currency converter the first result is just that: a currency converter."""
"""Most effective Fundamental Analysis indicators for market entry""","""I think by definition there aren't, generally speaking, any indicators (as in chart indicators, I assume you mean)  for fundamental analysis. Off the top of my head I can't think of one chart indicator that I wouldn't call 'technical', even though a couple could possibly go either way and I'm sure someone will help prove me wrong. But the point I want to make is that to do fundamental analysis, it is most certainly more time consuming. Depending on what instrument you're investing in, you need to have a micro perspective (company specific details) and a macro perspective (about the industry it's in). If you're investing in sector ETFs or the like, you'd be more reliant on the macro analysis. If you're investing in commodities, you'll need to consider macro analysis in multiple countries who are big producers\/consumers of the item. There's no cut and dried way to do it, however I personally opt for a macro analysis of sector ETFs and then use technical analysis to determine my entry and\/or exit."""
"""Is threatening to close the account a good way to negotiate with the bank?""","""Take your business elsewhere, where the products and services are priced at a level you agree to pay.  This does two things.  First, you end a bad business relationship.  Why bad?  Because you're not happy with the deal.  Second, it sends an unambiguous signal to the losing bank that you were unhappy with their service.  If they offer an exit survey, complete it, and be sure to tell them what made you unhappy with their service. In a free market economy, if consumers all take their business where the terms are favorable, supply and demand would force the banks to compete for consumers' business."""
"""Are there capital gains taxes or dividend taxes if I invest in the U.S. stock market from outside of the country?""","""Found a great article (with bibliography) that covers taxation on investment activity by non resident aliens - even covers the special 15% tax on dividends for Canadian residents. It's (dividend tax rate) generally 30% for other NRAs  (your 2nd question). And it confirmed my suspicion that there are no capital gains taxes for NRAs. (1st Q) Source: http:\/\/invest-faq.com\/articles\/tax-non-us-nat.html"""
"""Buy stock in Canadian dollars or US?""","""General advice for novice investors is to have the majority of your holdings be denominated in your home currency as this reduces volatility which can make people squeamish and, related to your second question, prevents all sorts of confusion. A rising CAD actually decreases the value (for you) of your current USD stock. After all, the same amount of USD now buys you less in CAD. An exception to the rule can be made if you would use USD often in your daily life yet your income is CAD. In this case owning stock denominated in USD can form a natural hedge in your life (USD goes up -> your relative income goes down but stock value goes up and visa versa).  Keep in mind \u2014as mentioned in the comments\u2014 that an US company with a listing in CAD is still going to be affected by price swings of USD."""
"""How should I prepare for the next financial crisis?""","""A somewhat provocative (but not unserious) proposal: Rent, don't buy a house to live in. In 2007\/8, the thing that got many people in deep trouble is their mortgage. It's not a productive investment but a speculative bet on what was in fact a bubble and a class of assets that is notoriously slow to recover after a slump. Before thinking about your savings or buying into silly ideas about gold, you should realise that as a middle class worker, the biggest risk after a crisis is losing your job. Renting your accommodation means being able to downgrade or move very quickly and not being forced to sell a house at the worse possible time. If you really do need to liquidate some of your investments at a bad time, having a more diversified portfolio means that you are not losing everything to meet some short-term obligations. Assuming you're in the US, this means forgoing some nice tax advantages that might be too tempting to resist (I'm not so I am basing this on what I read on this site) but, bubbles aside, there is nothing that makes real estate a particularly good investment as such, especially if you also live in the house you're buying. You might very well come out on top but you expose yourself to several risks and are less prepared to face a crisis."""
"""What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash?""","""The best way to answer this question is to try. GnuCash is free, so setting it up and giving it a go shouldn't be too hard. After all, what really matters is how helpful the program is for your purposes. One aspect of personal finance that stops me from jumping to GnuCash\/KMyMoney\/MoneyDance is the ability to download transactions from my financial institutions. Last time I checked, the process was somewhat involved and support was limited for a handful of banks. Because of that, I decided to stick with MS Money (and once Microsoft dropped the ball, with Quicken). I am sure things are better these days, but I am still not comfortable with trusting my finances to something new and unproven. I still remember how painful it was several years ago, when some bug in MS Money caused occasional mess-up of the reconciliation state for the American Express credit cards."""
"""Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?""","""I used square in the past for personal yard sale and they did not transfer balance to my bank acct because they told me it was against their policy and I had to have a business license that they could either refund the credit cards i process or keep the money. So they kept it I never got it back. I don't recommend anybody to use square."""
"""To rebalance or not to rebalance""","""Rebalancing is, simply, a way of making sure your risk\/reward level is where you want it to be. Let's say you've decided that your optimal mix is 50% stocks and 50% bonds (or 50% US stocks, 50% international, or 30\/30\/30 US large-cap\/US small-cap\/US midcap...).  So you buy $100 of each, but over time, the prices will of course fluctuate.  At the end of the year, the odds that the ratio of the value of your investments is equal to the starting ratio is nil.  So you rebalance to get your target mix again. Rebalance too often and you end up paying a lot in transaction fees.  Rebalance not often enough and you end up running outsize risk. People who tell you that you should rebalance to make money, or use \""dollar cost averaging\"" or think there is any upside to rebalancing outside of risk management are making assumptions about the market (mean regressing or some such thing) that generally you should avoid."""
"""Who can truly afford luxury cars?""","""Partly I suspect this is selection bias. You say you see so many luxury cars go by. But if you're looking for them, you're going to notice them. Have you calculated the actual percentage? Do they make up 50% of the cars that pass a specific point in a specific period of time? Or just 10% if you really counted? You say you live in Baltimore county, Maryland. That's a relatively wealthy area, so I'd expect the percentage of luxury cars to be higher than the national average. You'd likely see considerably fewer in the backwoods of Mississippi. That said, some people who own luxury cars can't really afford them. I'm reminded of a wonderful TV commercial I saw recently where a man is showing off all his material goods, he talks about his big house, and his swimming pool, and his fancy car, with a big smile on his face, standing tall, and generally looking proud and happy. And then he says, \""How do I do it?\"" And suddenly his expression changes to complete despair, he slumps down, and says, \""I'm in debt up to my eyeballs.\"" It turns out to be a commercial for a debt-counseling service. Some people put very high value on owning a fancy car and are willing to sacrifice on other things. If having a big fancy car is more important to you then, say, having a nice house or the latest computer or a big screen TV or dining out more often or going on more expensive vacations or whatever you have to give up to get the car, well, that's your decision. Personally I don't care much about a fancy car, I just want something that gets me where I want to go. And I've always figured that with an expensive car, you have to constantly worry about getting in an accident and damaging or destroying it. If you put your money into a big fancy house, at least houses rarely collide with each other. Personally, I make a nice income too. And I have a $500\/month mortgage and zero car payment because I drive a 2003 pickup that I bought with cash. But I have two kids in college and I'm trying to get them through with no debt, that's where all my money is going."""
"""Why is the volume highest at the beginning and end of a trading day?""","""While volume per trade is higher at the open and to a lesser extent at the close, the overall volume is actually lower, on average. Bid ask spreads are widest at the open and to a lesser extent at the close. Generally, bid ask spreads are inversely proportional to overall volumes. Why this is the case hasn't been sufficiently clearly answered by academia yet, but some theories are that"""
"""Are 'no interest if paid in in x months' credit cards worth it?""","""I too am a full-monthly-statement-balance payer and I received a balance transfer offer from my credit-card company. This one was quite different from many others that I have read about on this forum. I could do a balance transfer for any amount up to $X from another credit card, or use the enclosed \""checks\"" to pay  some other (non-credit-card) bills, and I would not have to pay any interest for 12 months on the amount thus borrowed.  But, There would be a 2% service charge on the amount I was borrowing. This amount would be billed on the next monthly statement, and it would have to be paid in full by the due date of that month's payment, that is, within the 25-day grace period allowed for payment of monthly statements. Else, interest would start being charged on the unpaid part of the service charge at the usual humongous rate of H% per month. If I had not paid the previous month's balance in full, I would be charged interest at H% per month on the service charge starting from Day One; no free ride till the due date of the next month's statement. Of course, the balance carried over from last month would also be charged interest at H%. If I had paid last month's bill in full, but there were any other charges (purchases) during the current month, then  unless the entire amount due, this month's purchases plus service charge and that \""interest-free-for-twelve-months loan\""  balance was paid off within the 25-day grace period, my purchases would be deemed unpaid and would start being charged interest. In short, the only way to avoid paying interest on the amount borrowed was to start with a card showing a $0 balance due on the previous month's statement, not make any charges on that card for a whole year, and pay off that 2% service charge within the grace period. It might also have required that one-twelfth of that interest-free loan be repaid each month, but  I had stopped reading the offer at this point and filed it in the round circular file. In short, while @JoeTaxpayer's tale of how \""As a pay-in-full user, I've used the zero rate to throw $20K at the 5.25% mortgage\"" is undoubtedly how things worked once, it is not at all clear that they still work that way. At least, they don't work that way for me.  Heck, once upon a time, for a period of about 3 months, you could earn 1.5% interest per month from the credit card company by overpaying your credit card bill considerably. Their computers then just \""added on\"" 1.5% interest by multiplying your credit balance -$X by 1.015 and so you got 1.5% per month interest from the credit card company. The credit card agreements (and the software!) got changed in a hurry, and nowdays all credit-card agreements state in the fine print that if you overpay your bill, you don't earn any interest on the overpayment."""
"""How feasible would it be to retire just maxing out a Roth IRA?""","""Assuming you max-out your Roth IRA with $5000 in inflation-adjusted contributions every year from 25-65, your balance at age 65 will depend on the post-inflation return you get in the account.  Assuming you withdraw 4% per year after that, here is what your income will be: (All numbers are in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars.)   If your post-inflation return is zero - if you buy treasury bonds, money-market accounts, or something like that - you'll have a simple $5000 * 40 = $200,000, which will give you an income of around $8000 per year. If you get a 3% post-inflation return - e.g. fairly safe Muni bonds, corporate bonds, and boring stocks - you'll approximately double your money to around $393,000, giving you an income of over $15,000 per year. If you get a 6% return - e.g. more aggressive stocks and more risk-taking - you'll approximately double your money again to over $825,000.  A 4% withdrawal rate will give you an income of around $33,000 per year. Stocks have historically returned around inflation + 8% - that will get you over $1.4 million - and an annual income of over $56,000 per year. So, yes, it is feasible to retire on nothing but a maxed-out Roth IRA."""
"""Highstreet bank fund, custom ETF or Nutmeg?""","""It's a good question, I am amazed how few people ask this. To summarise: is it really worth paying substantial fees to arrange a generic investment though your high street bank? Almost certainly not. However, one caveat: You didn't mention what kind of fund(s) you want to invest in, or for how long. You also mention an \""advice fee\"". Are you actually getting financial advice \u2013 i.e. a personal recommendation relating to one or more specific investments, based on the investments' suitability for your circumstances \u2013 and are you content with the quality of that advice? If you are, it may be worth it. If they've advised you to choose this fund that has the potential to achieve your desired returns while matching the amount of risk you are willing to take, then the advice could be worth paying for. It entirely depends how much guidance you need. Or are you choosing your own fund anyway? It sounds to me like you have done some research on your own, you believe the building society adviser is \""trying to sell\"" a fund and you aren't entirely convinced by their recommendation. If you are happy making your own investment decisions and are merely looking for a place to execute that trade, the deal you have described via your bank would almost certainly be poor value \u2013 and you're looking in the right places for an alternative. ~ ~ ~ On to the active-vs-passive fund debate: That AMC of 1.43% you mention would not be unreasonable for an actively managed fund that you strongly feel will outperform the market. However, you also mention ETFs (a passive type of fund) and believe that after charges they might offer at least as good net performance as many actively managed funds. Good point \u2013 although please note that many comparisons of this nature compare passives to all actively managed funds (the good and bad, including e.g. poorly managed life company funds). A better comparison would be to compare the fund managers you're considering vs. the benchmark \u2013 although obviously this is past performance and won't necessarily be repeated. At the crux of the matter is cost, of course. So if you're looking for low-cost funds, the cost of the platform is also significant. Therefore if you are comfortable going with a passive investment strategy, let's look at how much that might cost you on the platform you mentioned, Hargreaves Lansdown. Two of the most popular FTSE All-Share tracker funds among Hargreaves Lansdown clients are: (You'll notice they have slightly different performance btw. That's a funny thing with trackers. They all aim to track but have a slightly different way of trading to achieve it.) To hold either of these funds in a Hargreaves Lansdown account you'll also pay the 0.45% platform charge (this percentage tapers off for portolio values higher than \u00a3250,000 if you get that far). So in total to track the FTSE All Share with these funds through an HL account you would be paying: This gives you an indication of how much less you could pay to run a DIY portfolio based on passive funds. NB. Both the above are a 100% equities allocation with a large UK companies weighting, so won't suit a lower risk approach. You'll also end up invested indiscriminately in eg. mining, tobacco, oil companies, whoever's in the index \u2013 perhaps you'd prefer to be more selective. If you feel you need financial advice (with Nationwide) or portfolio management (with Nutmeg) you have to judge whether these services are worth the added charges. It sounds like you're not convinced! In which case, all the best with a low-cost passive funds strategy."""
"""Should I sell when my stocks are growing?""","""You should constantly look at your investment portfolio and sell based on future outlook. Don't get emotional. Selling a portfolio of stocks at once without a real reason is foolish.  If you have a stock that's up, and circumstances make you think it's going to go up further, hold it. If prospects are not so good, sell it. Also, you don't have to buy or sell everything at once. If you've made money on a stock and want to realize those gains, sell blocks as it goes up. Stay diversified, monitor your portfolio every week and keep a reserve of cash to use when opportunity strikes. If you have more stocks or funds than you can keep current on every week, you should consolidate your positions over time."""
"""Are Index Funds really as good as \""experts\"" claim?""","""Here is my simplified take: In any given market portfolio the market index will return the average return on investment for the given market. An actively managed product may outperform the market (great!), achieve average market performance (ok - but then it is more expensive than the index product) or be worse than the market (bad).  Now if we divide all market returns into two buckets: returns from active investment and returns from passive investments then these two buckets must be the same as index return are by definition the average returns. Which means that all active investments must return the average market return.  This means for individual active investments there are worse than market returns and better then market returns - depending on your product. And since we can't anticipate the future and nobody would willingly take the \""worse than market\"" investment product, the index fund comes always up on top - IF - you would like to avoid the \""gamble\"" of underperforming the market. With all these basics out of the way: if you can replicate the index by simply buying your own stocks at low\/no costs I don't see any reason for going with the index product beyond the convenience."""
"""How do I determine how much rent I could charge for a property or location?""","""Zoopla may not always accurately reflect the market price. Your best bet is to get a quote for local registered) letting agents. That way you know you are close to the real market value. Also, these quotes may come into handy if you have a mortgage on the property. Since most banks will require you to provide proof of rent figures you are projecting by sending in official quotes. Hope this helps.."""
"""What if I sell an stock that is going to give an stock dividend after the ex-date but before the payable date""","""Here's what Investopedia says about payouts for ex-dividend stocks: A stock trades ex-dividend on or after the ex-dividend date (ex-date). At this point, the person who owns the security on the ex-dividend date will be awarded the payment, regardless of who currently holds the stock. After the ex-date has been declared, the stock will usually drop in price by the amount of the expected dividend. Read more: Ex-Dividend Definition | Investopedia http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/e\/ex-dividend.asp#ixzz4Nl4J3s4k  I hope this helps. Good luck!"""
"""Stock return based on percentage""","""would you earn $600 or $1600?  You would have $1600, and your earnings would be $600. That's the only answer it could be, since if you start with $1000 from your savings, then it's impossible for you to have also earned that money in the stock market. When you sell, do you keep your original capital, ($1000)? If you own a car which you bought for $1000, and then sell it for $1600, do you keep the original $1000?"""
"""I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle?""","""Since you ask.... How do I do it? My frugality doesn't come from budgeting or even half so much from keeping money away from myself (though mostly-one-way retirement accounts help). It's a matter of world-view. Spending and shopping for things you don't need is a vice. Limit your indulgence in it. I've also made wasteful purchases in my life. When I find myself considering buying something that I don't really need, I ask myself whether it will end up like... like the stupid eyeglass cleaner gadget from the Sharper Image that I used twice. Or the Bluetooth earpiece that spent 98% of its time lost and .02% of its time in my ear. Or the little Sony VAIO laptop which was great on the train, but probably cost 8 times as much as an EeePC and didn't do way too much more. (In my defense on that one, it was just before netbooks were really taking off... but I still felt bad about it the next year). I've also got two savings goals. The first is responsible and very big (financial stability: a year's expenses plus money for a down payment on a house. a California house. in a good neighborhood.) The second is personal and just medium-big (a large musical instrument). I've decided not to spend money on the second until I'm financially stable and I have enough money to take care of the first... so that makes me more willing to scrimp and save to pursue the first than I would be otherwise. Advice for others? Ask yourself: Why are you buying that thing? You can survive without it, can't you? You didn't need it a week ago, did you? Does the old one have holes in it or something? Or will you at least use it regularly, for years? Why aren't you buying the cheaper kind? Or buying it used?"""
"""Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?""","""Talk to your parents, and find out if you are reducing the debt or not.  Find buyers, sell the place now and get out the deal.  Of course you will have to wait to get a good price on it.  Short term you haven't lost that much, but long term you will. Take your 25%, and use it as a down payment on a regular bank mortgage.  Lesson learned move on."""
"""Insurance company sent me huge check instead of pharmacy. Now what?""","""Deposit check and send a personal check (resulting in tax and IRS reporting issues) That's a bad idea, unless maybe the check you're receiving is a certified bank draft. Suppose the insurance company are crooks and the check is fraudulent. It could take weeks or months for some investigation to catch up to that, long after your own personal check was cashed by the pharmacy. The bank will then put you on hook for the 20 grand by reversing the check, even though the funds had been deposited into your account. Do not put yourself into the position of a money handler; you don't have the cash base, insurance, government protection and whatever else that a bank has. And, of course, you're being a free money handler if you do that. (You're not even compensated for postage, time and whatnot). If you're handling money between two parties, you should collect a percentage, or else refuse. That percentage has to be in proportion to the risk, since cashing a check for someone carries a risk similar to (and is effectively a form of) making a loan."""
"""Why would analysts recommend buying companies with negative net income?""","""Most likely because they don't know what they're talking about. They all have a belief without evidence that information set X is internalised into the price but information set Y is not. If there is some stock characteristic, call it y, that belongs to set Y, then that moves the gauge towards a \""buy\"" recommendation. However, the issue is that no evidence has been used to determine the constituents of X and Y, or even whether Y exists in any non-trivial sense."""
"""Computer vendor not honoring warranty. What's the next step?""","""Give him a second chance to fix it.  Some computer problems are hard to nail down.  THIS:  So you're a tech.  It's common to work a problem, do procedure A and B   that should've fixed it, test repeatedly to make sure it's fixed, and   hand it back to the customer... and then the customer, under his   operating conditions, has it fail again.  If it comes back to you, you have the foreknowledge that A and B   didn't work.  And you immediately try C and get it fixed.   This   knowledge does not magically transfer to other shops.   So the user goes into Yelp Mode and storms off angry to another shop... they   blindly try A and B again, burn in, send him home, it fails again,   user's even madder.  This is how computers DON'T get fixed. 5% discount for cash is reasonable. If you want to know why that's normal, sign up for Square.  Credit cards and checks have a significant overhead, including the risk of bounces and chargebacks, and that adds up to about 5%.  Only a few businesses actively solicit it, but many family-owned businesses would accept it if you offered.  So firstoff, does the shop give you a creep factor other than your feelings about him not fixing it the first time?  If so, cut your losses and bolt. You will definitely need to pay cash to have this fixed properly.  Otherwise take it back to him and give him a chance to fix it properly. Having dealt with a lot of customers, what you say sounds an awful lot like \""problem so minor I was able to use it for 9 months before bothering to get it fixed which I'm only doing because the warranty is ending\"", and therefore, \""I am resentful about having to give it up for an extended period of time to have it fixed because the problem Just Isn't That Important\"".  If that's true, you're in a values conflict and you might just be better off recognizing that.  Cheap PCs are cheap.  But the vast majority of niggling PC problems are not in fact hardware problems, they are just MS-Windows being MS-Windows."""
"""Mutual fund invests in mostly the same stuff as ETF, but has much higher expense ratio? (biotech sector)""","""Index funds, like IBB, generally lack active management, which equates to lower expenses. This is simply because the target index, the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index in the case of IBB, is composed of known quantities. This means there won't be stock pickers or analysts constantly swapping holdings, increasing the turnover rate of the portfolio and increasing capital gains; costs that are offset by higher expense ratios in more actively managed funds."""
"""Where to Park Proceeds from House Sale for 2-5 Years?""","""There are some high-yield savings accounts out there that might get you close to 1 percent. Shorter term CDs might also serve you well here- rates are above 1 percent, even with 1-2 year terms: http:\/\/www.nerdwallet.com\/rates\/cds\/best-cd-rates\/"""
"""Money transfer from India to USA""","""The liabilities are the same regardless of the route, besides tax evasion schemes such as handing the money to her as cash. Taxes will run up to half of the amount. The best routes are: Western union, moneygram, and similar services- about 2k You are allowed to gift 14k tax free. You can increase this amount by sending to multiple trusted people. See here. https:\/\/turbotax.intuit.com\/tax-tools\/tax-tips\/Tax-Planning-and-Checklists\/The-Gift-Tax-Made-Simple\/INF12127.html The gifter pay taxes, the giftee does not- unless the gifter fails to pay.  Let me know which route you prefer. If you do a bank transfer then you will have to work that out with your bank. If you chose to do a wire transfer, yes. Yes, if it's no more than about $2000."""
"""How should I handle taxes for Minecraft server donations?""","""First to clear a few things up.   It is definitely not a gift. The people are sending you money only because you are providing them with a service.   And for tax purposes, it is not a \""Donation\"". It has nothing to do with the fact that you are soliciting the donation, as charitable organizations solicit donations all the time. For tax purposes, it is not a \""Donation\"" because you do not have 501(c)(3) non profit status.   It is income. The question is then, is it \""Business\"" income, or \""Hobby\"" related income?   Firstly, you haven't mentioned, but it's important to consider, how much money are you receiving from this monthly, or how much money do you expect to receive from this annually?   If it's a minimal amount, say $50 a month or less, then you probably just want to treat it as a hobby. Mostly because with this level of income, it's not likely to be profitable. In that case, report the income and pay the tax. The tax you will owe will be minimal and will probably be less than the costs involved with setting up and running it as a business anyway. As a Hobby, you won't be able to deduct your expenses (server costs, etc...) unless you itemize your taxes on Schedule A.   On the other hand if your income from this will be significantly more than $600\/yr, now or in the near future, then you should consider running it as a business.   Get it clear in your mind that it's a business, and that you intend it to be profitable. Perhaps it won't be profitable now, or even for a while. What's important at this point is that you intend it to be profitable.   The IRS will consider, if it looks like a business, and it acts like a business, then it's probably a business... so make it so.   Come up with a name for your business. Register the business with your state and\/or county as necessary in your location. Get a bank account for your business. Get a separate Business PayPal account. Keep personal and business expenses (and income) separate.   As a business, when you file your taxes, you will be able to file a Schedule C form even if you do not itemize your taxes on Schedule A. On Schedule C, you list and total your (business) income, and your (business) expenses, then you subtract the expenses from the income to calculate your profit (or loss).   If your business income is more than your business expenses, you pay tax on the difference (the profit).  If your business expenses are more than your business income, then you have a business loss. You would not have to pay any income tax on the business income, and you may be able to be carry the loss over to the next and following years. You may want to have a service do your taxes for you, but at this level, it is certainly something you could do yourself with some minimal consultations with an accountant."""
"""What is the best way for me to invest my money into my own startup?""","""Ask your accountant about convertable preference shares.  This would permit you to loan money to your company and then convert the debt to equity, should you so choose, at a later stage.  As with the answer by bstpierre, these are all contractual arrangements conducted at arms-length."""
"""Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?""","""If it was me, I would sell the house and use the proceeds to work on\/pay off the second.   You don't speak to your income, but it must be pretty darn healthy to convince someone to lend you ~$809K on two homes.  Given this situation, I am not sure what income I would have to have to feel comfortable.  I am thinking around 500K\/year would start to make me feel okay, but I would probably want it higher than that. think I can rent out the 1st house for $1500, and after property management fees, take home about $435 per month. That is not including any additional taxes on that income, or deductions based on repair work, etc. So this is why.  Given that your income is probably pretty high, would something less than $435 really move your net worth needle?  No.  It is worth the reduction in risk to give up that amount of \""passive\"" income.  Keeping the home opens you up to all kinds of risk.  Your $435 per month could easily evaporate into something negative given taxes, likely rise in insurance rates and repairs.  You have a great shovel to build wealth there is no reason to assume this kind of exposure.  You will become wealthy if you invest and work to reduce your debt."""
"""What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage?""","""You can hedge your house price from losing value if you believe that the housing market is correlated with major stock indices. Speak with a commodities broker because they will be able to help you buy puts on stock indices which if correlated with housing prices will offer somewhat of a hedge. Example. House prices drop 30% because of weak economy, stocks will generally drop around that same amount 30%. If you have enough exposure to in the puts compared to your house value you will be protected. You can also buy calls in 30 year bonds for interest rate lock if you are not on a fixed interest rate. Many investors like warren buffet and carl icahn have been protecting them selves from a potential market downward turn. Speak to a local commodity broker to get some detailed advice, not etrade or any discount brokers they won't be able to help you specialize your trades. look for a full time commodity broker house."""
"""Why would a car company lend me money at a very low interest rate?""","""The car company loans you money at 1 or 2% because it is part of the incentive to get you to buy the car.  Car company transactions are complex involving the manufacturer, the dealership, and the financing part of the car company. Not to mention Rebates, the used car transaction, and the leasing department. If they don't offer you a loan then the profit from that part of transaction is lost to an outside company. The better loan rates from the manufacturer are only with shorter term loans and without the rebate. That is why some suggest that you get the rebate, and then go to a credit union for the loan for lowest overall cost and greatest flexibility. The advertised rates are also only for the customers with great credit scores and the room in their clash flow to pay off the loan in a year or two. If you don't fit in that category, the rates will be higher."""
"""Shorting: What if you can't find lenders?""","""You at least have some understanding of the pitfalls of shorting. You might not be able to borrow stock. You might not be able to buy it back when the time comes. You're moves are monitored, so you can't \""run away\"" because the rules are enforced. (You don't want to find out how, personally.) \""Shorting\"" is a tough, risky business. To answer your implicit question, if you have to ask about it on a public forum like this, you're not good enough to do it."""
"""Why do banks insist on allowing transactions without sufficient funds?""","""This really should be a comment, but I can't yet. The question desperately needs a location tag. In at least some countries(New Zealand), the default action on all insufficient funds transactions is to refuse the transaction. Credit cards are the only common exception. Every bank operating in NZ that I know of acts this way. Sometimes there is a fee for bouncing a transaction, sometimes not, that depends on the bank. Any other option must be explicitly arranged in writing with the bank. Personally, coming from a country where declining transactions is the default, I'd be shocked and angry to be stuck with an automatic transfer from another account. Angry enough to change banks if they won't immediately cease and desist."""
"""Are Target Funds Unsafe - Post Q.E.?""","""It's a what-if? sort of question. What if rates stay down or trend only slightly higher, despite no QE? look at other countries response to tepid economies. My experience as professional advisor (25 yrs) tells me the future is unknowable and diversity is good. Make alternative choices- they all won't work wonderfully, but some will."""
"""I'm an American in my mid 20's. Is there something I should be doing to secure myself financially?""","""First of all, make sure you have an emergency fund.  Ideally this should be at least 6 months of living expenses in an easily accessible place. Do you have any credit card debt, school debt, or other debt?  Work towards becoming debt free, especially of higher interest debt and debt on things that are only depreciating (cars, for example).  If you have extra income, consider putting it towards debt. If you currently have access to a 403b, you should begin investing immediately.  If not, look into a Roth IRA.  The community has provided suggestions for good places to get one.  With a Roth IRA you take post-tax income money and invest it into this retirement account and when you reach retirement age you get it and all the interest as tax-free income.  You can't withdraw the principal until retirement age.  You should put up to the legal limit into a retirement account - if you can't do this at first work towards this goal. After an emergency fund, becoming debt free, and fully funding your retirement, save for goals such as a house or other things you are working towards. The exact order of doing these things might vary, but in general you need the emergency fund first."""
"""Options revisited: Gold fever""","""Make a portfolio with gold and put options for gold. If the price rises again, sell a part of your gold and use it to buy new put options. If the price goes down, then use your put options to sell gold at a favorable price."""
"""Does home equity grow with the investment put into the house?""","""Your best bet is to talk with a banker about your specific plans.   One of the causes of the housing crash was an 80\/20 loan.  There you would get a first for 80% of the value of a home and 20% on a HELOC for the rest.  This would help the buyer avoid PMI.  Editorially, the reason this was popular was because the buyer could not afford the home with the PMI and did not have a down payment.  They were simply cutting things too close. Could you find a banker willing to do something like this, I bet you could. In your case it seems like you are attempting to increase the value of your home by using money to do an improvement so the situation is better.  However, sizable improvements rarely return 100% or more on investments.  Typically, I would think, the bank would want you to have some money invested too.  So if you wanted to put in a pool, a smart banker would have you put in about 60% of the costs as pools typically have a 40% ROI.   However, I bet you can find a banker that would loan you 100%. You don't seem to be looking for advice on making a smart money decision, and it is difficult to render a verdict as very little detail is supplied about your specific situation. However, while certain decisions might look very profitable on paper, they rarely take into consideration risk."""
"""Risk of buying stock""","""If you buy stock in established companies, it is vey unlikely that they will lose all their value. Spreading your money across multiple stocks -- diversifying -- reduces that risk because it is extremely unlikely that they all lose all their value at once. Spreading them across multiple industries and adding bonds to the mix increases diversification. Of course the trade-off is that if one of the stocks skyrockets you don't benefit as much as if you had been lucky enough to put all your money in that one stock.  You need to decide for yourself how much risk you are willing to tolerate in exchange for the chance of gains.  Other answers on this site have dealt with this in more detail."""
"""What makes a Company's Stock prices go up or down?""","""I always liked the answer that in the short term, the market is a voting machine and in the long term the market is a weighing machine. People can \""vote\"" a stock up or down in the short term.   In the long term, typically, the intrinsic value of a company will be reflected in the price. It's a rule of thumb, not perfect, but it is generally true. I think it's from an old investing book that talks about \""Mr. Market\"".   Maybe it's from one of Warren Buffet's annual letters.    Anyone know? :)"""
"""Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?""","""As a gift, the responsibility lays with the giver to file a 709 with their taxes for gifting to a single entity (barring certain exclusions) an amount over $14,000 within the (2017) tax year. https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/i709.pdf If this person is a foreign entity from outside the country, you might need to provide in your tax filing a form 3520 https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/gifts-from-foreign-person The reporting limits are: more than $100,000 from a foreign estate or non-resident alien, or more than $15,102 from a foreign company. If you don't know who\/where the money came from i.e. cash, it would be considered found money and fall under income (not a gift)."""
"""Clear example of credit card balance 55 days interest-free \""trick\""?""","""I think this stuff was more valid when grace periods were longer. For example, back in the 90's, I had an MBNA card with a 35 day grace period. Many business travellers used Diner's Club charge cards because they featured a 60 day grace period. There are valid uses for this: As JoeTaxpayer stated, if you are benefiting from \""tricks\"" like this, you probably have other problems that you probably ought to deal with."""
"""Margin when entered into a derivative contract""","""The most obvious use of a collateral is as a risk buffer. Just as when you borrow money to buy a house and the bank uses the house as a collateral, so when people borrow money to loan financial instruments (or as is more accurate, gain leverage) the lender keeps a percentage of that (or an equivalent instrument) as a collateral. In the event that the borrower falls short of margin requirements, brokers (in most cases) have the right to sell that collateral and mitigate the risk.  Derivatives contracts, like any other financial instrument, come with their risks. And depending on their nature they may sometimes be much more riskier than their underlying instruments. For example, while a common stock's main risk comes from the movements in its price (which may itself result from many other macro\/micro-economic factors), an option in that common stock faces risks from those factors plus the volatility of the stock's price.  To cover this risk, lenders apply much higher haircuts when lending against these derivatives. In many cases, depending upon the notional exposure of the derivative, that actual dollar amount of the collateral may be more than the face value or the market value of the derivatives contract. Usually, this collateral is deposited not as the derivatives contract itself but rather as the underlying financial instrument (an equity in case of an option, a bond in case of a CDS, and so on). This allows the lender to offset the risk by executing a trade on that collateral itself."""
"""Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it?""","""Assuming the question is \""will they close it for inactivity (alone)\"".. the answer is \""Nope\"" ... unequivocally. Update: < My answer is geared to credit Cards issues by companies that deal in credit, not merchandise (i.e. store cards, retailer cards, etc).  Retailers (like Amazon, etc), want to sell goods and are in the credit card business to generate sales.  Banks and credit companies (about whom I am referring) make their money primarily on interest and secondarily on service charges (either point of use charged to the vendor that accepts payment, or fees charged to the user).> The only major issuer I will say that it might be possible is Discover, because I never kept a Discover card.  I also don't keep department store cards, which might possibly do this; but I do doubt it in either of those cases too. My answer is based on Having 2 AMEX cards (Optima and Blue) and multiple other Visa\/MC's that I NEVER use... and most of these I have not for over 10+ years. Since I am also presuming that you are also not talking about an account that charges a yearly or other maintenance fee..  Why would they keep the account open with the overhead (statements and other mailings,etc)? Because you MIGHT use it.  You MIGHT not be able to pay it off each month.  Because you MIGHT end up paying thousands in interest over many years.  The pennies they pay for maintaining your account and sending you new cards with chip technology, etc.. are all worth the gamble of getting recouped from you!  This is why sales people waste their time with lots of people who will not buy their product, even though it costs them time and money to prospect.. because they MIGHT buy. Naturally, there are a multitude of reasons for canceling a card; but inactivity is not one.  I have no less than 10+ \""inactive\"" cards, one that has a balance, and two I use \""infrequently\"".  I really would not mind if they closed all those accounts.. but they won't ;) So enjoy your AMEX knowing that your Visa will be there when you need\/want it.. The bank that issues your Visa is banking on it! (presuming you don't foul up financially) Cheers!"""
"""Can you use external money to pay trading commissions in tax-free and tax-deferred accounts?""","""According to Publication 590, broker's commissions for stock transactions within an IRA cannot be paid in addition to the IRA contribution(s), but they are deductible as part of the contribution, or add to the basis if you are making a nondeductible contribution to a Traditional IRA. (Top of Page 10, and Page 12, column 1, in the 2012 edition of Pub 590). On the other hand, trustees'  administrative fees can be paid from outside the IRA if they are billed separately, and are even deductible as a Miscellaneous Deduction on Schedule A of your income tax return (subject to the 2% of AGI threshold).  A long time ago, when my IRA account balances were much smaller, I used to get a bill from my IRA custodian for a $20 annual administrative fee which I paid separately (but never got to deduct due to the 2% threshold). My custodian also allowed  the option of doing nothing in which case the $20 would be collected from (and thus reduce) the amount of money in my IRA.  Note that this does not apply to the expenses charged by the mutual funds that you might have in your IRA; these expenses are treated the same as brokerage commissions and must be paid from within the IRA."""
"""What's the purpose of having separate checking and savings accounts?""","""Additionally, it used to be the case that savings accounts would have a noticeably higher interest than checking accounts (if the checking account paid any at all).  So you would attempt to maximize your cash working for you by putting as much as you could into the savings account and then only transferring out what you needed to cover bills, etc into the checking account."""
"""Retirement Funds: Betterment vs Vanguard Life strategy vs Target Retirement""","""Life Strategy funds are more appropriate if you want to maintain a specific allocation between stocks and bonds that doesn't automatically adjustment like the Target Retirement funds which have a specific date.  Thus, it may make more sense to take whichever Life Strategy fund seems the most appropriate and ride with it for a while unless you know when you plan to retire and access those funds. In theory, you could use Vanguard's Total Market funds,i.e. Total Stock Market, Total International, and Total Bond, and have your own allocations between stocks and bonds be managed pretty easily and don't forget that the fees can come in a couple of flavors as betterment doesn't specify where the transaction fees for buying the ETFs are coming out just as something to consider."""
"""SEP-IRA doing 1099 work on the side of a W2 employee job""","""The limit on SEP IRA is 25%, not 20%.  If you're self-employed (filing on Schedule C), then it's taken on net earning, which in your example would be 25% of $90,000. (https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/retirement-plans\/retirement-plans-for-self-employed-people) JoeTaxpayer is correct as regards the 401(k) limits.  The elective deferrals are per person - That's a cap in sum across multiple plans and across both traditional and Roth if you have those.  In general, it's actually across other retirement plan types too - See below. If you're self-employed and set-up a 401(k) for your own business, the elective deferral is still aggregated with any other 401(k) plans in which you participate that year, but you can still make the employer contribution on your own plan. This IRS page is current a pretty good one on this topic:  https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/retirement-plans\/one-participant-401k-plans Key quotes that are relevant: The business owner wears two hats in a 401(k) plan: employee and employer. Contributions can be made to the plan in both capacities. The owner can contribute both: \u2022Elective deferrals up to 100% of compensation (\""earned income\"" in the case of a self-employed individual) up to the annual contribution limit:  \u25e6$18,000 in 2015 and 2016, or $24,000 in 2015 and 2016 if age 50 or over; plus \u2022Employer nonelective contributions up to:  \u25e625% of compensation as defined by the plan, or \u25e6for self-employed individuals, see discussion below It continues with this example: The amount you can defer (including pre-tax and Roth contributions) to all your plans (not including 457(b) plans) is $18,000 in 2015 and 2016. Although a plan's terms may place lower limits on contributions, the total amount allowed under the tax law doesn\u2019t depend on how many plans you belong to or who sponsors those plans. EXAMPLE Ben, age 51, earned $50,000 in W-2 wages from his S Corporation in 2015. He deferred $18,000 in regular elective deferrals plus $6,000 in catch-up contributions to the 401(k) plan. His business contributed 25% of his compensation to the plan, $12,500. Total contributions to the plan for 2015 were $36,500. This is the maximum that can be contributed to the plan for Ben for 2015. A business owner who is also employed by a second company and participating in its 401(k) plan should bear in mind that his limits on elective deferrals are by person, not by plan. He must consider the limit for all elective deferrals he makes during a year. Notice in the example that Ben contributed more that than his elective limit in total (his was $24,000 in the example because he was old enough for the $6,000 catch-up in addition to the $18,000 that applies to everyone else).  He did this by declaring an employer contribution of $12,500, which was limited by his compensation but not by any of his elective contributions. Beyond the 401(k), keep in mind that elective contributions are capped across different types of retirement plans as well, so if you have a SEP IRA and a solo 401(k), your total contributions across those plans are also capped.  That's also mentioned in the example. Now to the extent that you're considering different types of plans, that's a whole question in itself - One that might be worth consulting a dedicated tax advisor.  A few things to consider (not extensive list): As for payroll \/ self-employment tax: Looks like you will end up paying Medicare, including the new \""Additional Medicare\"" tax that came with the ACA, but not SS: If you have wages, as well as self-employment   earnings, the tax on your wages is paid first.   But this rule only applies if your total earnings   are more than $118,500. For example, if you   will have $30,000 in wages and $40,000 in selfemployment   income in 2016, you will pay the   appropriate Social Security taxes on both your   wages and business earnings. In 2016, however,   if your wages are $78,000, and you have $40,700   in net earnings from a business, you don\u2019t pay   dual Social Security taxes on earnings more   than $118,500. Your employer will withhold   7.65 percent in Social Security and Medicare   taxes on your $78,000 in earnings. You must   pay 15.3 percent in Social Security and Medicare   taxes on your first $40,500 in self-employment   earnings and 2.9 percent in Medicare tax on the   remaining $200 in net earnings. https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/pubs\/EN-05-10022.pdf Other good IRS resources:"""
"""What does a well diversified self-managed investment portfolio look like?""","""When you invest in a single index\/security, you are completely exposed to the risk of that security. Diversification means spreading the investments so the losses on one side can be compensated by the gains on the other side. What you are talking about is one thing called \""risk apettite\"", more formally known as Risk Tolerance: Risk tolerance is the degree of variability in investment returns that an investor is willing to withstand. (emphasis added) This means that you are willing to accept some losses in order to get a potential bigger return. Fidelity has this graph:  As you can see in the table above, the higher the risk tolerance, the bigger the difference between the best and worst values. That is the variability. The right-most pie can be one example of an agressive diversified portfolio. But this does not mean you should go and buy exactly that security compostion. High-risk means playing with fire. Unless you are a professional stuntman, playing with fire usually leaves people burnt. In a financial context this usually means the money is gone. Recommended Reading: Investopedia; Risk and Diversification: The Risk-Reward Tradeoff Investopedia; How to construct a High Risk portfolio Fidelity: Guide to Diversification KPMG: Understanding and articulating Risk Appetite (pdf)"""
"""What could cause a stock to trade below book value?""","""Discrepancies between what the book value is reported as and what they'd fetch if sold on the open market. Legal disputes in court."""
"""Are ACH transfers between individuals possible?""","""Yes, many banks offer such a service. Often such payments can be made through their \""bill pay\"" interface. You log in to your account on the bank's website, enter the recipient's routing and account numbers, and off you go. You could ask your bank whether they offer this. If not, you could change banks to one that does."""
"""Using multiple bank accounts""","""There is nothing conceptually wrong with it.  If you like it that way, go ahead. The only thing to watch out for is bank policies that effectively penalize having many small accounts.  For instance, some banks charge you a fee for checking accounts with a balance below a certain minimum, but will waive the fees for accounts with a higher balance.  You may be able to avoid such fees by judicious management of your funds (or by switching to a different bank), but it's something to be aware of.  (The interest rates on savings accounts also often vary with the balance, making many small balances less efficient than one big balance.  However, right now, at least in the US, interest rates on savings accounts are so low that the difference here is likely to be minimal.)"""
"""How does a 2 year treasury note work?""","""Look at this question here. In my answer there, I put a link to an Investopedia article about the bond prices. Keep in mind that speculating over a short term period is pretty dangerous, even with the Treasury notes, and the prices may be affected temporary but greatly by the ordeals like the latest Republican shenanigans in Washington."""
"""Direct access to the currency exchange market""","""Is my observation that the currency exchange market is indirect correct? Is there a particular reason for this? Why isn't currency traded like stocks? I guess yes. In Stocks its pretty simple where the stock is held with a depository. Hence listing matching is simple and the exchange of money is via local clearing. Currency markets are more global and there is no one place where trades happen. There are multiple places where it happens and is loosely called Fx market place. Building a matching engine is also complex and confusing. If we go with your example of currency pair, matches would be difficult.  Say; If we were to say all transactions happen in USD say, and list every currency as item to be purchased or sold. I could put a trade Sell Trade for Quantity 100 Stock Code EUR at Price 1.13 [Price in USD]. So there has to be a buy at a price and we can match. Similarly we would have Stock Code for GBP, AUD, JPY, etc. Since not every thing would be USD based, say I need to convert GBP to EUR, I would have to have a different set of Base currency say GBP. So here the quantity would All currencies except GBP which would be price. Even then we have issues, someone using USD as base currency has quoted for Stock GBP. While someone else using GBP has quoted for Stock USD. Plus moving money internationally is expensive and doing this for small trades removes the advantages. The kind of guarantees required are difficult to achieve without established correspondence bank relationships. One heavily traded currency pair, the exchange for funds happens via CLS Bank."""
"""If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real? ""","""To understand this fully one would need to understand quite a few things. Not in scope here. In short, whenever China sells goods to US, it gets USD as most of the trades are in USD. China uses this money to buy other things it needs like Oil etc. After this they still have quite a bit of USD left with them. The money is left with them because US is buying more things from China and selling less things to China. This creates a surplus USD with China. So if US were to borrow money from China or any other country, it would be this excess money. Ofcourse how money gets created in first place is a different topic altogether."""
"""Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money \""in this economy\""?""","""I would add to the other excellent answers that another factor besides just high unemployment numbers is the fear people have regarding the \""financial\"" aspects of the country, that is the value of stocks and the value of the dollar.  When the economy is sluggish it means people aren't buying enough, therefore companies aren't making enough, therefore their profits are too low and people start to divest from them, and stock prices drop.  Or even the fear of this happening can induce people to sell off shares.   The point is, people are worried \""in this economy\"" because if--due to unemployment, low spending\/consumer confidence--the stock market crashes again as it did in 2008\/09, that represents a lot of savings lost, e.g. 40-50% of what one was counting on to retire with, particularly if you panic sell at the bottom.  Now suddenly it's as if you had a huge robbery, and you will have to work longer into your retirement years than you'd planned.  Similarly, if, due to monetary policy, the U.S. inflates the dollar, what one saved for retirement may not be sufficient.  (These arguments are true for shorter periods than just one's retirement, but just taking that as an example). So it's not just unemployment that is worrisome \""in this economy\"".  This said, I agree with George Marian that one ought to be careful and plan well regardless of the winds of the economy.  I guess for most people (and companies), though, \""in this economy\"" means they can't get away with the kind of carelessness they might have during a boom."""
"""Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall?""","""I'm a CPA and former IRS agent and manager. Whether you are a cash or accrual basis taxpayer, you get to deduct the expense when your card is charged. Think of it this way: You are borrowing from the credit card company or bank that issued the credit card. You take that money to make a purchase of a product or service. You now have an expense and a liability to a third party. When you pay off the liability, you do not get to take a deduction. Your deduction is when you pay for the expense. Depending on what you purchased, you may have to capitalize it."""
"""What factors go into choosing residency?""","""A couple of thoughts. Tax benefits are the usual reasons to decide on one residency or another. International tax law is complex, and it's probably best to consult a professional. Certainly without knowing which the other country is I would not want to hazard a guess. If he is really not going to be taxed on the other country, residing there would seem sensible. But... In Canada residency for tax purposes is established for an entire year. If you are resident for more than six months your salary for the year is taxable. Conversely if you are present for less than six months you are not taxable. (This may have changed - it's been twenty years since I did this.) The other issue is healthcare. If you are not resident in Ontario you are not eligible for free healthcare, I believe. He might have to purchase supplemental insurance if he returns occasionally."""
"""Tax planning for Indian TDS on international payments""","""Tax Deducted at source is applicable to Employee \/ Employer [contract employee] relations ... it was also made applicable for cases where an Indian company pays for software products [like MS Word etc] as the product is not sold, but is licensed and is treated as Royalty [unlike sale of a consumer product, that you have, say car] ... Hence it depends on how your contract is worded with your India clients, best is have it as a service agreement. Although services are also taxed, however your contract should clearly specify that any tax in India would be borne by your Indian Client ... Cross Country taxation is an advanced area, you will not find good advice free :)"""
"""Why might it be a bad idea to invest 100% of your 401(k) into a stock index fund?""","""At your age, I don't think its a bad idea to invest entirely in stocks. The concern with stocks is their volatility, and at 40+ years from retirement, volatility does not concern you. Just remember that if you ever want to call upon your 401(k) for anything other than retirement, such as a down payment on a home (which is a qualified distribution that is not subject to early distribution penalties), then you should reconsider your retirement allocations. I would not invest 100% into stocks if I knew I were going to buy a house in five years and needed that money for a down payment. If your truly saving strictly for a retirement that could occur forty years in the future, first good for you, and second, put it all in an index fund. An S&P index has a ridiculously low expense ratio, and with so many years away from retirement, it gives you an immense amount of flexibility to choose what to do with those funds as your retirement date approaches closer every year."""
"""What exactly is BATS Chi-X Europe?""","""Yes, it would be incorrect to refer to BATS Chi-X Europe as a market maker. Market makers make markets on BATS Chi-X Europe, which is a stock exchange."""
"""What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?""","""Former financial analyst here, happy to help you. First off, you are right to not be entirely trusting of advisors and attorneys. They are usually trustworthy, but not always. And when you are new to this, the untrustworthy ones have a habit of reaching you first - you're their target market. I'll give you a little breakdown of how to plan, and a starting investment. First, figure out your future expenses. A LOT of that money may go to medical bills or associated care - don't forget the costs of modifications and customizations to items so you can have a better quality of life. Cars can be retrofit to assist you with a wheelchair, you can build a chair lift into a staircase, things like that which will be important for mobility - all depending on the lingering medical conditions. Mobility and independence will be critically important for you. Your past expenses are the best predictor of future expenses, so filter out the one-time legal and medical costs and use those to predict. Second, for investing there is a simple route to get into the stock market, and hopefully you will hear it a lot: Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). You'll hear \""The S&P 500 increased by 80 points today...\"" on the news; the S&P is a combination of 500 different stocks and is used to gauge the market overall. You can buy an exchange traded fund as a stock, and it's an investment in all those components. There's an ETF for almost anything, but the most popular ones are for those big indexes. I would suggest putting a few hundred thousand into an S&P 500 indexed ETF (do it at maybe $10,000 per month, so you spread the money out and ensure you don't buy at a market peak), and then let it sit there for many years. You can buy stocks through online brokerages like Scottrade or ETrade, and they make it fairly easy - they even have local offices that you can visit for help. Stocks are the easiest way to invest. Once you've done this, you can also open a IRA (a type of retirement account with special tax benefits) and contribute several thousand dollars to it per year. I'll be happy to give more advice if\/when you need it, but there are a number of good books for beginning investors that can explain it better than I. I would suggest that you avoid real estate, especially if you expect to move overseas, as it is significantly more complicated and has maintenance costs and taxes."""
"""How much money do you have to make every year before you have to pay tax?""","""I'm not confident that the requirements for 2017 are up yet, but assuming they don't change much from those of 2016, then probably not if you have no other earnings this year.  If you make $500 a month, then you will make $6,000 this year. This is below the filing requirements for most taxpayers, unless you are married but filing separately. At the end of 2017 you should tally up your earnings (including earnings from other sources) find which category you find yourself in on the table, and make a final determination of whether you'll need to file."""
"""How exactly do dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs) work?""","""I think Wikipedia offers a very good explanation: A dividend reinvestment program or dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP) is an equity investment option offered directly from the underlying company. The investor does not receive quarterly dividends directly as cash; instead, the investor's dividends are directly reinvested in the underlying equity. The investor must still pay tax annually on his or her dividend income, whether it is received or reinvested. This allows the investment return from dividends to be immediately invested for the purpose of price appreciation and compounding, without incurring brokerage fees or waiting to accumulate enough cash for a full share of stock. So essentially, a dividend reinvestment plan is offered by companies directly, allowing investors to bypass brokerages, and immediately re-invests dividends rather than paying them out in cash. Investopedia also gives a straighforward definition: A plan offered by a corporation that allows investors to reinvest their cash dividends by purchasing additional shares or fractional shares on the dividend payment date.  A DRIP is an excellent way to increase the value of your investment. Most DRIPs allow you to buy shares commission free and at a significant discount to the current share price. Most DRIPS don't allow reinvestments much lower than $10.  I had a hard time finding a comprehensive listing of companies that offered DRPs (or DRIPs), but MyDollarPlan.com offers these suggestions:  Finding a Dividend Reinvestment Plan: Computershare offers one-stop shopping for hundreds of dividend reinvestment plans. They offer a searchable list that can be filtered to easily find a dividend reinvestment plan that fits your needs. You can also use OneShare. Probably the best way to find out if a company offers a dividend reinvestment plan is to visit the company website. Most companies have an Investor Relations area that will highlight the various options available to shareowners. For example: Coca-Cola, Disney, and Wal-Mart. Hope this helps! @YMCbuzz"""
"""Is there any truth to the saying '99% of the world's millionaires have become rich by doing real estate'?""","""Most millionaires became millionaires by being very frugal and living well below their means, all the time."""
"""At what point do index funds become unreliable?""","""private investors that don't have the time or expertise for active investment.  This may be known as every private investor. An index fund ensures average returns. The bulk of active trading is done by private institutions with bucketloads of experts studying the markets and AI scraping every bit of data it can get (from the news, stock market, the weather reports, etc...). Because of that, to get above average returns an average percent of the time, singular private investors have to drastically beat the average large team of individuals\/software. Now that index ETF are becoming so fashionable, could there be a tipping point at which the market signals that active investors send become so diluted that this \""index ETF parasitism\"" collapses? How would this look like and would it affect only those who invest in index ETF or would it affect the stock market more generally? To make this question perhaps more on-topic: Is the fact (or presumption) that index ETF rely indirectly on active investment decisions by other market participants, as explained above, a known source of concern for personal investment? This is a well-covered topic. Some people think this will be an issue.   Others point out that it is a hard issue to bootstrap. I gravitate to this view. A small active market can support a large number of passive investors. If the number of active investors ever got too low, the gains & likelihood of gains that could be made from being an active investor would rise and generate more active investors. Private investing makes sense in a few cases. One example is ethics. Some people may not want to be invested, even indirectly, in certain companies."""
"""Balance Sheets: How a company can save money for further investments ""","""A company CAN hold on to money.  This is called retained earnings.  Not all money is due back to the owners (i.e. stockholders), but only the amount that the board of directors chooses to pay back in the form of dividends.  There is a lot more detail around this, but this is the simple answer to your question."""
"""What should I be aware of as a young investor?""","""Just don't buy any kind of paper and you will be fine :-) And don't forget most of these 'blue-chip companies' sell marketing garbage which have no real market.  Finally, make all decissions slooooowly and after extensive research."""
"""Should my husband's business pay my business?""","""It depends on the finances involved, but particularly if you're not billing anything right now and may have no revenue this year, it's probably a good idea to bill his company. This is in part because some deductions or other tax treatments are only allowed if you have revenue and\/or income.  The biggest example I can think of is the Solo 401k - you can only contribute up to your self employed income.  If you're planning to contribute to one (and you should, they're amazingly powerful tools for saving for retirement and for reducing your tax burden), you will have to have some revenue in order to have something to pay yourself with. I don't believe you have to charge him, though, if it makes more tax sense not to (for example, if his business is operating at a loss and cannot benefit from expensing it, but you'd then have to pay taxes on your own income from it)."""
"""Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe?""","""The United States Federal Reserve has decided that interest rates should be low. (They think it may help the economy. The details matter little here though.) It will enforce this low rate by buying Treasury bonds at this very low interest rate. (Bonds are future money, so this means they pay a lot of money up front, for very little interest in the future. The Fed will pay more than anyone who offers less money up front, so they can set the price as long as they're willing to buy.) At the end of the day, Treasury bonds pay nearly no interest.   Since there's little money to be made with Treasuries, people who want better-than-zero returns will bid up the current-price of any other bonds or similar loan-like instruments to get what whatever rate of return that they can. There's really no more than one price for money; you can think of the price of those bonds as basically (Treasury rate + some modifier based on the risk) percent.  I realize thinking about bond prices is weird and different than other prices (you're measuring future-money using present-money and it's easy to be confused) and assure you it ultimately makes sense :) Anyway. Your savings account money has to compete with everyone else willing to lend money to banks. Everyone-else lends money for peanuts, so you get peanuts on your savings account too. Your banking is probably worth more to your bank on account of your check-card payment processing fees (collected from the merchant) than from the money they make lending out your savings (notice how many places have promotional rates if you make your direct deposits or use your check card to make a purchase N times a month).  In Europe, it's similar, except you've got a different central bank. If Europe's bank operated radically differently for an extended period of time, you'd expect to see a difference in the exchange rates which would ultimately make the returns from investing in those currencies pretty similar as well. Such a change may show up domestically as inflation in the country with the loose-money policy, and internationally as weakness against other currencies. There's really only one price for money around the entire world. Any difference boils down to a  difference in (perceived) risk."""
"""How can I find a company's P\/E ratio based on its given EPS and the P\/E ratios of other companies? ""","""Here is how I would approach that problem: 1) Find the average ratios of the competitors: 2) Find the earnings and book value per share of Hawaiian 3) Multiply the EPB and BVPS by the average ratios. Note that you get two very different numbers.  This illustrates why pricing from ratios is inexact.  How you use those answers to estimate a \""price\"" is up to you.  You can take the higher of the two, the average, the P\/E result since you have more data points, or whatever other method you feel you can justify.   There is no \""right\"" answer since no one can accurately predict the future price of any stock."""
"""How can a school club collect money using credit cards?""","""You should check with the Office of Student Affairs (or equivalent) at your University to see if you can accept Credit Cards. Many will only allow you to accept student organization dues paid in cash, check, or money order. Many universities will also provide your organization with basic operating funds, if you request it. Your first point of contact should be your faculty adviser, though. Your best bet would be to just use cash. Learn where the nearest ATMs are. If you are set on using credit cards, set up a PayPal account and just use it to reimburse the person who fronts the money (cover the markup). Everyone will have to have a PayPal account set up, linked to their credit card. You can avoid fees by using a bank account. If you're so inclined, you can set up a Business account and have a PayPal Debit Card, but you'll want to check with your adviser \/ University by-laws to see if you're allowed. Don't expect any of these to work as website implementations. As you're a University group, you will undoubtedly be meeting in person such that an exchange of cash\/check\/money order would be trivial In short, you'll need to check into the rules of your University. Credit cards generally carry processing fees, charged to the merchant, which (on its own) carries some tax implications."""
"""Should I collect receipts after paying with a card?""","""In this answer, I won't elaborate on the possibilities of fraud (or pure human error), because something can always go wrong. I will, however, explain why I think you should always keep receipts. When the (monthly or so) time comes to pay your credit card bill, your credit card company sends you a list of transactions. That list has two primary purposes, both of which I would consider equally important: While for the former item, a receipt is not necessary (though it certainly does not hurt showing the receipt along with the bill to provide further proof that the payment was indeed connected to that bill), the latter point does require you to store the receipts so you can check, item-by-item, whether each of the sums is correct (and matched with a receipt at all). So, unless you can actually memorize all the credit card transactions you did throughout the past one or two months, the receipts are the most convenient way of keeping that information until the bill arrives. Yes, your credit card company probably has some safeguards in place to reveal fraud, which might kick in in time (the criteria are mostly heuristical, it seems, with credit cards or legitimate transactions here getting blocked every now and then simply because some travelling of the actual owner was misinterpreted as theft). However, it is your money, it is your responsibility to discover any issues with the bill, just as you would check the monthly transaction list from your bank account line by line. Ultimately, that is why you sign the vendor copy of the receipt when buying something offline; if you discover an issue in your list of transactions, you have to notify your credit card company that you dispute one of the charges, and then the charging vendor has to show that they have your signature for the respective transaction. So, to summarize: Do keep your receipts, use them to check the list of transactions before paying your credit card bill. EDIT: The receipt often cannot be replaced with the bill from the vendor. The bill is useful for seeing how the sum charged by the respective vendor was created, but in turn, such bills often do not contain any payment information, or (when payment was concluded before the bill was printed, as sometimes happens in pre-paid scenarios such as hotel booking) nondescript remarks such as \""- PAYMENT RECEIVED -\"", without any further indication of which one of your credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, stored value cards, or cash was used."""
"""using credit card and paying back quickly""","""I can't speak for every credit card, but I know two of mine don't have overage fees. The transaction either goes through, or gets denied. Check your card agreement and look for the fee section. One other thing to consider, sometimes when you make an online payment to a credit card, you will notice that the \""Available Balance\"" number on the account will increase right away even if the payment is not reflected on your \""Current Balance\"". If this is the case, and you are positive that your payment will be successfully posted to the account, I say go for it."""
"""My account's been labeled as \""day trader\"" and I got a big margin call. What should I do? What trades can I place in the blocked period?""","""I assume that whatever you're holding has lost a considerable amount of its value then? What sort of instrument are we talking about? If the margin call is 14k on something you borrowed against the 6900 you're a bit more leveraged than \""just\"" another 100%. The trading company you're using should be able to tell you exactly what happens if you can't cover the margin call, but my hunch is that selling and taking the cash out ceased to be an option roughly at the time they issued the margin call. Being labelled as a day trader or not most likely did not have anything to do with that margin call - they're normally issued when one or more of your leveraged trades tank and you don't have enough money in the account to cover the shortfall. Not trying to sound patronising but the fact that you needed to ask this question suggests to me that you shouldn't have traded with borrowed money in the first place."""
"""How May Cash be Spent Approaching Bankruptcy?""","""Bankruptcy law is complex. You need a lawyer who can advise you both on the statute and relevant case law for the district where you file. Your lawyer can advise you whether actions you contemplate are allowed.  You can obtain advice prior to filing as you seek to determine whether the law and the relief it offers are suitable to your situation. Anyone considering filing BK should know that they will need to provide fairly extensive information. You should learn about BK as you seek to understand whether that path is the best for your situation. You should ask your lawyer specific questions about your situation and try to learn as much as you can. You should read about the problems with taking out debt or making debt repayments to creditors (especially family) prior to filing BK. These actions could impact your case and cause it to be dismissed, and could even be considered criminal (again, you need a lawyer). Some things to learn about as you contemplate Bankruptcy Be aware that BK is federal law, and you will be required to provide extensive information about your financial situation.  You will be required to show up for the creditors meeting and testify that you have provided correct information.  The trustee may (will) supply objections to which you and your lawyer will need to respond. Among other things, you will supply, You should seek legal advice about things that might become important, Even though you will have guidance from your lawyer, you are the one seeking relief, and you need to understand your own situation and the law."""
"""How do I build wealth?""","""CEOs are compensated with stocks and options on top of their salary. Most is in the form of stocks and options. You may see them with a fancy car, but they don't necessarily possess the car, house, etc. They merely control it, which is nearly as good. You may lease it, or time share it. It might be owned by the company and provided as a perk.  To earn a million, there are 4 ways: a job, self-employed, own a business, and invest. The fastest way is to own a business. The slowest way is a job or self-employed. Investing is medium. To learn more, read Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrants."""
"""Starting with Stocks or Forex?""","""I would advise against both, at least in the way you are discussing it. You seem to be talking about day-trading (speculating) in either stock or currency markets. This seems ill-advised. In each trade, one of three things will happen. You will end up ahead and the person you buy from\/sell to will end up behind. You will lose and the counterparty will win. Or you both will lose due to trading fees. That said, if you must do one, stick with stocks. They have a reason to have positive returns overall, while currency trade is net-zero. Additionally, as you said, if it sounds like you can gain more with less money, that means that there are many more losers than winners. How do you know you will be a winner? A lot of the reason for this idea that you can gain a lot with less is leverage; make sure you understand it well. On the other hand, it may make sense to learn this lesson now while you have little to lose."""
"""Can limits be placed by a merchant on which currency notes are accepted as legal tender? [duplicate]""","""Can they reject a hundred dollar bill as a payment of debt?! No. A creditor cannot refuse payment in cash, whatever denomination you use. HOWEVER, when you're buying stuff - you don't owe anything to the business owner. There's no debt, so the above rule doesn't apply. As long as there's no debt in existence, the matter of payment is decided between two parties based on the mutual agreement. The demand not to use large bills is reasonable in places like 7\/11 or taxi-cab that are frequently robbed, or at a small retailer that doesn't want to invest into forgery detection and fraud prevention. So the answer to this question: Is it the case where this practice of accepting small bills and   rejecting large bills is perfectly legal? Is yes. You can find the full explanation on Treasury.gov, including code references."""
"""Is it possible to get life insurance as a beneficiary before the person insured dies?""","""If the insurance policy is a whole-life (or variable life) policy, it might have a surrender value that the owner of the policy might be able to get by surrendering the policy in whole; if it is a term life policy, it has no surrender value. In many cases, the owner of the policy is also the insured and so ask Uncle Joe whether he would be willing to surrender the life insurance policy and give you the proceeds now instead of making you wait till he passes away. If it is a term life policy, ask him to consider not renewing the policy and from now on, just give you the premium he would have been paying to the insurance company. Whether he will pay you increasing amounts in later years (as a renewable five-year level term policy might require) is a more delicate matter that you can negotiate with him. On the other hand, if the policy owner is Aunt Annie but the insured is Uncle Joe (and you are the beneficiary), talk to Aunt Annie instead; she is the one who can cancel the policy, not Uncle Joe. And for heaven's sake, don't grease the skids to facilitate Uncle Joe's first step onto the stairway to heaven; there are, depending on where you live, various laws prohibiting payments to beneficiaries who have had a hand in arranging for the happy event to occur."""
"""Supply & Demand - How Price Changes, Buy Orders vs Sell Orders [duplicate]""","""That is mostly true, in most situations when there are more buy orders than sell orders (higher buy volume orders than sell volume orders), the price will generally move upwards and vice versa, when there are more sell orders than buy orders (higher sell volume orders than buy volume orders), the price will generally move downwards. Note that this does not always happen, but usually it does. You are also correct that for a trade to take place a buyer has to be matched with a seller (or the buy volume matched with the sell volume). But not all orders get executed as trades. Say there are 50 buy orders in the order book with a total volume of 100,000 shares and the highest buy order is currently at $10.00. On the other side there are only 10 sell orders in the order book with total volume of 10,000 shares and the lowest sell order is currently $10.05. At the moment there won't be a trade unless a new buyer or seller enters the market to match the opposing side, or an existing order gets amended upper or lower to match the opposing side. With more demand than supply in the order books what will be the most likely direction that this stock moves in? Most likely the price will move upwards. If a new buyer sees the price moving higher and then looks at the market depth, they would most likely place an order closer to the lowest sell order than the current highest buy order, say $10.01, to be first in line in case a market sell order is placed on the market. As new buy orders enter the market it drives the price higher and higher until the buy orders dry up."""
"""Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?""","""What's going on here is that the variable rate loan is transferring some of the risk from the bank to you.  In a reasonable deal taking on risk brings with it reward.  It's the same thing as deductibles on insurance--they're transferring some risk to you and thus your expected total cost goes down. Thus the proper evaluation of such deals is whether you can afford the outcome if you draw the short straw.  If you feel you can afford the highest payment that can result then the variable rate is a good deal.  If you're near your limit then stay with the safe option of the fixed rate. For a house this is easy enough to evaluate--run the calculations assuming the highest payment and see what the debt-to-income ratio is.  Note that when we were getting mortgages there was another factor involved: the variable rate loans had a higher initiation cost.  Combined with the very low difference between fixed and ARM rates at the time we went fixed but given the rates you quote going variable would have been a no-brainer for us."""
"""How to pay with cash when car shopping?""","""You can pay with a cashiers check or personal check. You can even pay cash, or combine payment methods. However, in the USA if you give the dealership $10,000 or more in actual cash, they will be required to fill out a form 8300 with the IRS."""
"""Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?""","""There is no \""should\"", but I am strongly of the view that if you have savings of several months' salary or more, they should not only be in a separate account, but with a separate financial institution, or even split between two others. A fraction of a percent of extra interest is scant reward for massively increased personal risk.  The reason for this is buried in the T&Cs. There is almost always a \""right of set off\"": if one account is overdrawn, the bank reserves the right to take money from your other accounts. Which sounds fair enough, until you consider the imbalance of power. Maybe your salary account gets hacked? Maybe that's the bank's fault? Maybe the bank has made an accounting error? Maybe the bank has gone bust? Maybe you need to employ a lawyer to act on your behalf? Oh dear, you no longer have any savings. (*) This cannot happen if your savings are with a completely separate institution. Then, the only way that the salary account bank can touch your savings is by winning in the courts. If you split the savings two ways, you have also given yourself the reassurance that in the worst case only half your savings have been affected. \""Don't put all your eggs in one basket\"" is proverbial. And there's a folk song that's lodged in my memory...  \""As through this world I wander, I've met all kinds of funny men. Some rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen. Yet as far as I have wandered, as far as I have roamed, I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home\"".  I've never been in this sort of trouble and the UK's laws tend to favour the banks' customers. I don't even hate bankers. Yet even so, why take this risk when it can so easily be reduced? (*) If this sounds far-fetched, read the news, for example https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2017\/feb\/02\/hbos-manager-and-other-city-financiers-jailed-over-245m-loans-scam"""
"""What foreign exchange rate is used for foreign credit card and bank transactions?""","""A lot of questions, but all it boils down to is: . Banks usually perform T+1 net settlements, also called Global Netting, as opposed to real-time gross settlements.  That means they promise the counterparty the money at some point in the future (within the next few business days, see delivery versus payment) and collect all transactions of that kind. For this example say, they will have a net outflow of 10M USD.  The next day they will purchase 10M USD on the FX market and hand it over to the global netter.  Note that this might be more than one transaction, especially because the sums are usually larger. Another Indian bank might have a 10M USD inflow, they too will use the FX market, selling 10M USD for INR, probably picking a different time to the first bank.  So the rates will most likely differ (apart from the obvious bid\/ask difference). The dollar rate they charge you is an average of their rate achieved when buying the USD, plus some commission for their forex brokerage, plus probably some fee for the service (accessing the global netting system isn't free). The fees should be clearly (and separately) stated on your bank statement, and so should be the FX rate. Back to the second example: Obviously since it's a different bank handing over INRs or USDs (or if it was your own bank, they would have internally netted the incoming USDs with the outgoing USDs) the rate will be different, but it's still a once a day transaction.  From the INRs you get they will subtract the average FX achieved rate, the FX commissions and again the service fee for the global netting.  The fees alone mean that the USD\/INR sell rate is different from the buy rate."""
"""Is technical analysis based on some underlying factors in the market or do they work simply because other people use them?""","""Technical analysis is based more on psychology than anything else. As an example, if an analyst estimates or believes that a stock is undervalued, or simply wants to re-balance their portfolio, then they will buy some amount, moving the price up. Others in the market see the upwards move as the start of an upwards trend, an indication that the stock is undervalued or perhaps even that an insider is trading ahead of better than expected data from the firm. They then buy the stock creating a self-fulfilling prophecy and pulling more traders in as they see an upward trend being confirmed. This is even more pronounced in a bear market as fear is an even stronger driver. When a trader sees a stock is falling they are more likely to jump to the conclusion that it is due to expected poor performance of the firm and that the firm and the economy are both in trouble and going down than to think that it is simply a retrenching or a large investor re-balancing etc. To quote Credit Suisse [1]  A chart is a mirror   of the mood of the crowd and not of the fundamental factors. Thus, technical analysis is the   analysis of human mass psychology. Therefore, it is also called behavioral finance. The underlying truth that makes technical analysis work is that people are predictably irrational, at least in the short run and tend to follow the same patterns of thought. references: [1] https:\/\/www.credit-suisse.com\/pwp\/pb\/pb_research\/technical_tutorial_de.pdf [2] http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Psychology-Technical-Analysis-Profiting\/dp\/1557385432 [3] CFA level 1 syllabus"""
"""What are the best software tools for personal finance?""","""I just switched (from the abandoned, but good MS Money) to Moneydance 2010"""
"""I forgot to write the name on the check""","""If you forgot to put the name on the \""pay to the order of\"" line then anybody who gets their hands on the check can add their name to the check and deposit it at their bank into their account. If it goes to the correct person they will have an easy time making sure that the check is made out correctly. They don't have to worry about that picky teller who doesn't know what to do with a check made out to Billy Smith and a drivers license for Xavier William Smith. On the other hand... a criminal will also be able to make sure it is processed exactly the way they want it. If I made it out to a small business or a person I would let them know. You might not have a choice but to wait and see what happens if it was sent to a large business, the payment processing center could be a long way from where you will be calling."""
"""What happens to the put option (longer expiration) of a collar if the call gets assigned?""","""The put will expire and you will need to purchase a new one. My advise will be that the best thing is to sell more calls so your delta from the short call will be similr to the delta from the equity holding."""
"""Mortgage loan implications when tearing down existing house and building new one?""","""You would probably be best off checking through your loan documents to see if anything is listed in it in regards to tearing down the existing house. Likely it is not allowed. Thinking about it logically, the house is collateral for the mortgage, and you are wanting to destroy the collateral. I would expect the bank would not be pleased. Semi related question (answers have some good info) -  Construction loan for new house replacing existing mortgaged house?"""
"""How are mortgage interest rates determined?""","""One will find that the fixed 30 year mortgage rate is tightly correlated to the 10 year treasury. An adder of 2-2.5% or so, changing slightly with the rest of the economy, as money can get tight or loose independent of the rate itself. In 2011 we are witnessing low rates yet tough loan standards, this is the phenomenon I am referencing."""
"""Was this a good deal on a mortgage?""","""I'm a visual person so the idea of a 30 year mortgage didn't make much sense to me until I could see it  This isn't exact but it's pretty close. The green Interest lines represent the money you're giving to the bank as a \""thank you\"" for lending you a large amount of cash up front. As you've already figured out, that's at least the same amount as the price of the home! As much down-payment as is reasonable. Keep one eye on beating the interest Best of luck!"""
"""Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area?""","""Location, Location, Location. The closer to the highway, the more they can charge. People want to go less than a mile from the exit to get gas. Therefore  they save time, but spend more money. That is understandable, so the gas station takes advantage of the situation."""
"""Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement?""","""You aren't in trouble yet, but you are certainly on a trajectory to be later. The longer you wait the more painful it will be because you won't have the benefit of time for your money to grow. You may think you will have more disposable income at some point later when things are paid off, but trust me you wont. When college tuition kicks in for that kid, you are going to LAUGH at those student loan amounts as paltry. The wording of your question was confusing because you say in one place that you have no savings, but in another you claim to be putting away around $5k\/year. The important point is how much you have saved at this point and how much you are putting in going forward. Some rules of thumb from Fidelity: (Based on your scenario) Take a look at your retirement account. Are you on track for that? It doesn't sound like it.  Can you get away with your current plan? Sure, lots of people do, but unless you die young, hit the jackpot in the stock market or lottery, you are probably going to have to live WELL below your current standard of living to make that happen."""
"""What are your experiences with 'self directed' 401ks?""","""I have managed two IRA accounts; one I inherited from my wife's 401K and my own's 457B.  I managed actively my wife's 401 at Tradestation which doesn't restrict on Options except level 5 as naked puts and calls. I moved half of my 457B funds to TDAmeritrade, the only broker authorized by my employer, to open a Self Directed account.  However, my 457 plan disallows me from using a Cash-secured Puts, only Covered Calls.  For those who does not know investing, I resent the contention that participants to these IRAs should not be messing around with their IRA funds.  For years, I left my 401k\/457B funds with my current fund custodian, Great West Financial.  I checked it's current values once or twice a year. These last years, the market dived in the last 2 quarters of 2015 and another dive early January and February of 2016.  I lost a total of $40K leaving my portfolio with my current custodian choosing all 30 products they offer, 90% of them are ETFs and the rest are bonds. If you don't know investing, better leave it with the pros - right?  But no one can predict the future of the market.  Even the pros are at the mercy of the market. So, I you know how to invest and choose your stocks, I don't think your plan administrator has to limit you on how you manage your funds. For example, if you are not allowed to place a Cash-Secured Puts and you just Buy the stocks or EFT at market or even limit order, you buy the securities at their market value. If you sell a Cash-secured puts against the stocks\/ETF you are interested in buying, you will receive a credit in fraction of a dollar in a specific time frame.  In average, your cost to owning a stock\/ETF is lesser if you buy it at market or even a limit order.  Most of the participants of the IRA funds rely too much on their portfolio manager because they don't know how to manage. If you try to educate yourself at a minimum, you will have a good understanding of how your IRA funds are tied up to the market.  If you know how to trade in bear market compared to bull market, then you are good at managing your investments.  When I started contributing to my employer's deferred comp account (457B) as a public employee, I have no idea of how my portfolio works.  Year after year as I looked at my investment, I was happy because it continued to grow.  Without scrutinizing how much it grew yearly, and my regular payroll contribution, I am happy even it only grew 2% per year.  And at this age that I am ready to retire at 60, I started taking investment classes and attended pre-retirement seminars.  Then I knew that it was not totally a good decision to leave your retirement funds in the hands of the portfolio manager since they don't really care if it tanked out on some years as long at overall it grew to a meager 1%-4% because they managers are pretty conservative on picking the equities they invest.  You can generalize that maybe 90% of IRA investors don't know about investing and have poor decision making actions which securities\/ETF to buy and hold. For those who would like to remain as one, that is fine.  But for those who spent time and money to study and know how to invest, I don't think the plan manager can limit the participants ability to manage their own portfolio especially if the funds have no matching from the employer like mine. All I can say to all who have IRA or any retirement accounts, educate yourself early because if you leave it all to your portfolio managers, you lost a lot.  Don't believe much in what those commercial fund managers also show in their presentation just to move your funds for them to manage.  Be proactive.  If you start learning how to invest now when you are young, JUST DO IT!"""
"""How credible is Stansberry's video \""End of America\""?""","""Predictions, especially doomsday predictions, can go wrong quickly.  I would be careful of anyone calling an \""end\"" to a country like the U.S., especially, if they have something to gain and a history of being wrong.  On the other hand, someone warning of something with a past of financial credibility can be quite useful.  For instance, compare Frank Stansberry to Jesse Colombo (@TheBubbleBubble on Twitter).  Jesse was one of the few who predicted the financial crisis in 2004 and is currently warning of new bubbles (ie: the higher education bubble) - even admitting to profiting off of some of them and encouraging others to do the same.  However, his assertions can be investigated to verify accuracy, but they are hardly the end of the end (in fact, Jesse likes to boast that he's an optimist and thinks eventually we'll usher in a Golden Age).  Frank Stansberry, on the other hand, doesn't seem to carry the credibility; a brief internet search generated some issues he's had with the SEC about misleading investors. (Completely forgot to add, Mike Shedlock - Mish - also has made some predictions that have come true and clashed with some other financial advisers over inflation vs. deflation.  While people were screaming \""HYPER-INFLATION\"" back in 2008-2009, Mish constantly attacked them for being wrong, and has continued to be right.  Some of his political views, of course, aren't popular, but some of his financial predictions have been stellar.) Anyone who warns of anything should always be checked out for both what they've said, what they are currently saying, and what their agenda is.  As one of my mentors warned me, everyone has an agenda and that's not always bad - their agenda may align with yours, just make sure it does. [On a humorous side note, my father has predicted the end of the world every six months since 1994.]"""
"""Is there such a thing as \""stock insurance\""?""","""Yes, you can insure against the fall in price of stock by purchasing a put option.  You pay for a put and if the price of the share falls below the \""strike price\"" of the put, then you can exercise the put.  On exercise, the person who sold you the put contract agrees to buy the stock for the strike price, even though that strike price is higher than the market price.  You can adjust the level of insurance by buying put options at higher or lower prices, or buying fewer put options than shares you own (leaving some shares uninsured). Alternatively, you can minimize your risk exposure by investing in an index or other fund, which gives you partial ownership in a large number of shares.  That means on any given day, lots of shares do worse and lots of shares do better.  You can reduce the need for insurance by purchasing a lower-risk, lower-growth financial product."""
"""What should I consider when I try to invest my money today for a larger immediate income stream that will secure my retirement?""","""Lets assume you put the max of 5000 per year in a Roth IRA.  You have your home and all other debt paid off, and your investment earns 10%, a few points below the market average.  You will have $822,470 at 65, 1005K at 67 that you can draw on tax free.  It is a fairly tidy sum and should keep you from working as the greeter in WalMart. This kind of return should be expected from most mutual funds, and you could invest some time in reading about how to pick good returning funds.  An index fund, which shadows a market index, should have that kind of return.  And yes that is 10% per year.  In investing it is about momentum. I too write software for a living, and would suggest you should be able to contribute about double that amount and still be comfortable.  That would set you up for a pretty comfortable post-work life style. You understand the value of building passive income.  Traditionally that is accomplished through dividends of reliable companies, but are now accomplished a variety of ways.  Keep in mind the way you are asking this question opens you to many scams."""
"""In the USA, does the income tax rate on my wages increase with the amount of money in my bank account?""","""besides accrued interest But that's important. one has $40,000 in their account and the other $9,000. Does one now pay higher income tax because he has more in his account or does he pay the same because he makes the same? If they are interest bearing accounts, then yes the guy with the $40K balance will pay a little more* income tax than the guy with $9K. * If the account earns 1%\/ann and the $40K and $9K have been in there all year, then the big account will earn $401.84 interest, and the smaller will earn $90.41."""
"""How decreasing the prime interest rate helps to offset decreasing oil prices ""","""You may be missing how countries like Canada may have oil be more of the GDP than countries like the US. In Canada, the lower oil prices may mean more of an economic slowdown with oil companies laying off staff, canceling projects and some companies probably going under as some provinces like Alberta are highly dependent on oil prices to drive most of the economy. In contrast, the US isn't quite as rich in Energy sources and thus may not have the same issues would be my guess. Context matters here. If the rate change helps everybody, doesn't that include the oil producing companies? I'd like to think so using basic logic. What if the main reason for lowering rates was the economic fallout of the decrease in oil prices? Consider that the there would be the question of, \""Why do this now?\"" that has to be answered and the only main change is lower oil prices on a macroeconomic level."""
"""Lease vs buy car with cash?""","""A lease is a rental plain and simple.  You borrow money to finance the expected depreciation over the course of the lease term.  This arrangement will almost always cost more over time of your \""ownership.\""  That does not mean that a lease is always a worse \""deal.\""   Cars are almost always a losing proposition; save for the oddball Porsche or Ferrari that is too scarce relative to demand.  You accept ownership of a car and it starts to lose value.  New cars lose value faster than used cars.  Typically, if you were to purchase the car, then sell it after 3 years, the total cost over those three years will work out to less total money than the equivalent 36 month lease.  But, you will have to come up with a lot more money down, or a higher monthly payment, and\/or sell the car after 36 months (assuming the pretty standard 36 month lease).  With this in mind, some cars lease better than others because the projected depreciation is more favorable than other brands or models.   Personally, I bought a slightly used car certified pre-owned with a agreeable factory warranty extension.  My next car I may lease.  Late model cars are getting so unbelievably expensive to maintain that more and more I feel like a long term rental has merit. Just understand that for the convenience, for the freeing up of your cash flow, for the unlikelihood of maintenance, to not bother with resale or trading the car in, a lease will cost a premium over a purchase over the same time frame."""
"""Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? ""","""Because this is Money.SE and you're connecting it to offspring, I'd think about a discussion with them to get their agreements. From my perspective, anything (my wife and) I have will go to offspring in the end. As such, everything borrowed and not repaid simply reduces the estate by that much. Among multiple offspring, such reductions should be against the borrower rather than spreading it out. That should be accounted for in whatever will is created. This would be the discussion point. It might also be discussed how or even if any interest should accrue for unpaid amounts. If, for example, a 1% APR is agreed upon for unpaid loans, then the final principle+interest amount is taken off of the borrower's inheritance. Existing outstanding loans might (or might not!) be useful examples for sample calculations if desired or needed. (If nothing else, they might serve as reminders that loans were not forgotten.) By having such a discussion, you can show that you are trying to plan for a fair distribution of your estate, perhaps thereby sidestepping any concern about charging interest to offspring for repaid loans. At the same time, you're handing over some financial responsibility, giving them a power of personal choice, which seems to be a part of what you're concerned about. Once such a discussion is started, it's possible that any question of interest will resolve itself naturally. The discussion almost necessarily must include all offspring at once. One will find it harder to negotiate from a standpoint of pure self-interest without objection from another. Think beforehand about what will be said and about what responses might come. Think things through as much as you can."""
"""Comparison between buying a stock and selling a naked put""","""Why do all this work yourself? Pay a modest price to have a professional do this for you. Look at the tickers PUTX, PUTW."""
"""What constitutes illegal insider trading?""","""You have to read some appeals court cases see scholar.google.com , as well as SEC enforcement actions on sec.gov to get an understanding of how the SEC operates. http:\/\/www.sec.gov\/spotlight\/insidertrading\/cases.shtml There are court created guidelines for how insider trading would be proven There is no clear line, but it is the \""emergency asset injunctions\"" (freezing your assets if you nailed a suspiciously lucrative trade) you really want to avoid, and this is often times enforced\/reported by the brokers themselves since the SEC does not have the resources to monitor every account's trading activities. There are some thin lines, such as having your lawyer file a lawsuit, and as soon as it is filed it is technically public so you short the recipient's stock. Or having someone in a court room updating you on case developments as soon as possible so you can make trades (although this may just be actually public, depending on the court). But the rules create the opportunities Also consider that the United States is the most strict country in this regard, there are tons of capital markets and the ideals or views of \""illegal insider trading\"" compared to \""having reached a level of society where you are privileged to obtain this information\"" vary across the board contains charts of countries where an existing insider trading prohibition is actually enforced: http:\/\/repository.law.umich.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=articles https:\/\/faculty.fuqua.duke.edu\/~charvey\/Teaching\/BA453_2005\/BD_The_world.pdf Finally, consider some markets that don't include equities, as trading on an information advantage is only applicable to things the SEC regulates, and there are plenty of things that agency doesn't regulate. So trying to reverse engineer the SEC may not be the most optimal use of energy"""
"""How to compare the value of a Masters to the cost?""","""Just looking at your question I can tell it's not worth it financially, even if you didn't borrow the money to do it. At your current rate, you'll be making 54,384 in 5 years, which is roughly a growth of 2.5% per year.  If you go for the masters, in 5 years you'll be making 55,680, with roughly the same growth rate (2.5%). So it's costing you $70,000 (the cost of school plus the 2 years of reduced income) to raise your salary by $1,300.  The payback period would be about 25 years.  It would be MUCH worse if you borrowed the money to do it. Not a chance."""
"""Rollover into bond fund to do dollar cost averaging [duplicate]""","""Many would recommend lump sum investing because of the interest gains, and general upward historical trend of the market.  After introducing DCA in A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Malkiel says the following: But remember, because there is a long-term uptrend in common-stock prices, this technique is not necessarily appropriate if you need to invest a lump sum such as a bequest. If possible, keep a small reserve (in a money fund) to take advantage of market declines and buy a few extra shares if the market is down sharply. I\u2019m not suggesting for a minute that you try to forecast the market. However, it\u2019s usually a good time to buy after the market has fallen out of bed. Just as hope and greed can sometimes feed on themselves to produce speculative bubbles, so do pessimism and despair react to produce market panics. - A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Burton G. Malkiel He goes on from there to recommend a rebalancing strategy."""
"""Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface?""","""There are API libraries available to various banks in various programming languages. For example, in Perl there are many libraries in the Finance::Bank:: namespace. Some of these use screen-scraping libraries and talk to the GUI underneath, so they are vulnerable to any changes the bank makes to their interface, but some of the better banks do seem to provide back-end interfaces, which can then be used directly. In either case, you should still be sure that the transactions are secure. Some bank sites have appallingly bad security. :( A good place to start is to call your bank and ask if they offer any programming APIs for accessing their back end."""
"""What do brokerage firms do?""","""Off the top of my head, a broker: While there are stock exchanges that offer direct market access (DMA), they (nearly) always want a broker as well to back the first two points I made.  In that case the broker merely routes your orders directly to the exchange and acts as a custodian, but of course the details heavily depend on the exchange you're talking about. This might give you some insight: Direct Market Access - London Stock Exchange"""
"""Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary?""","""In the UK, recent changes to pension taxation mean that from April 2011, people earning between \u00a3150,000 and \u00a3180,000 total and making large pension contributions (>\u00a350,000 or so) will pay a marginal tax rate on additional salary of >100%. This is because pension contributions normally attract tax relief at the highest marginal rate - i.e. 40% if the gross salary is above about \u00a340,000, and 50% for salaries above \u00a3150,000. But after April 2011, the rate of relief will be tapered down for gross salaries above \u00a3150,000, reaching 20% for a gross salary of \u00a3180,000. So for example if you earn \u00a3175,000 and make a contribution of \u00a350,000, then an additional \u00a31,000 in salary will incur \u00a3500 of direct tax, and also lead to a 1% reduction in tax relief (from 25% to 24%), costing another \u00a3500. Once you factor in National Insurance of another 1% or so, the net effect of the pay rise is negative."""
"""What is the difference between FINRA share volume and NASDAQ share volume?""","""Assuming the data you're referring to is this line: the difference might be related to the different exchanges on which the stock trades.  FINRA could be listing the reported volume from one exchange, while the NASDAQ data might be listing the volume on all exchanges. This is an important distinction because AAV is a Canadian company that is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE. The Q at the end of the line stands for NASDAQ, according to FINRA's codebook for those data. My guess is that the FINRA data is only reporting the volume for the NASDAQ exchange and not the total volume for all exchanges (Toronto, NASDAQ, NYSE, etc.) while the data straight from NASDAQ, oddly enough, is reporting the total volume. However, FINRA could also face reporting discrepancies, since it's a regulatory body and therefore might not have the most up-to-date volume data that the various exchanges can access.  I don't know if it's related or not, but looking at the NASDAQ historical data, it looks like the volume on March 6, the day you're asking about, was much lower than the volume in most of the days immediately before or after it. For all I know, something might have happened that day concerning that particular stock or the market as a whole. I don't remember anything in particular, but you never know."""
"""Is there a tax deduction for renting office space in service of employer?""","""If you are a telecommuter and in good terms with your employer, then all you need is contact your employer and explain your situation. Ask them for a short letter that indicates: \""1. they require you to work from a privately rented office (or from a home office for those who prefer working from home), 2. this is one of the terms of your employment, and, 3. they will not reimburse you for this expense.\"" With this letter in your hand, you satisify both the \""convenience of employer\"" test AND the deduction of the rent for your private office as a unreimbursed employee expense.  The IRS cannot expect your employer to open an office branch in your city just for your sake, nor can they expect you to commute to your employer's city for work, which is an impossiblity considering the distance. Additionally, the IRS cannot \""force\"" telecommuters to work from home. The key is to get a letter from your employer. You'd be surprised how easily they are willing to write such letter for you."""
"""Can we estimate the impact of a large buy order on the share price?""","""There are two distinct questions that may be of interest to you. Both questions are relevant for funds that need to buy or sell large orders that you are talking about. The answer depends on your order type and the current market state such as the level 2 order book. Suppose there are no iceberg or hidden orders and the order book (image courtesy of this question) currently is:  An unlimited (\""at market\"") buy order for 12,000 shares gets filled immediately: it gets 1,100 shares at 180.03 (1,100@180.03), 9,700 at 180.04 and 1,200 at 180.05. After this order, the lowest ask price becomes 180.05 and the highest bid is obviously still 180.02 (because the previous order was a 'market order'). A limited buy order for 12,000 shares with a price limit of 180.04 gets the first two fills just like the market order: 1,100 shares at 180.03 and 9,700 at 180.04. However, the remainder of the order will establish a new bid price level for 1,200 shares at 180.04. It is possible to enter an unlimited buy order that exhausts the book. However, such a trade would often be considered a mis-trade and either (i) be cancelled by the broker, (ii) be cancelled or undone by the exchange, or (iii) hit the maximum price move a stock is allowed per day (\""limit up\""). Funds and banks often have to buy or sell large quantities, just like you have described. However they usually do not punch through order book levels as I described before. Instead they would spread out the order over time and buy a smaller quantity several times throughout the day. Simple algorithms attempt to get a price close to the time-weighted average price (TWAP) or volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and would buy a smaller amount every N minutes. Despite splitting the order into smaller pieces the price usually moves against the trader for many reasons. There are many models to estimate the market impact of an order before executing it and many brokers have their own model, for example Deutsche Bank. There is considerable research on \""market impact\"" if you are interested. I understand the general principal that when significant buy orders   comes in relative to the sell orders price goes up and when a   significant sell order comes in relative to buy orders it goes down. I consider this statement wrong or at least misleading. First, stocks can jump in price without or with very little volume. Consider a company that releases a negative earnings surprise over night. On the next day the stock may open 20% lower without any orders having matched for any price in between. The price moved because the perception of the stocks value changed, not because of buy or sell pressure. Second, buy and sell pressure have an effect on the price because of the underlying reason, and not necessarily\/only because of the mechanics of the market. Assume you were prepared to sell HyperNanoTech stock, but suddenly there's a lot of buzz and your colleagues are talking about buying it. Would you still sell it for the same price? I wouldn't. I would try to find out how much they are prepared to buy it for. In other words, buy pressure can be the consequence of successful marketing of the stock and the marketing buzz is what changes the price."""
"""What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?""","""The amount of money you have should be enough for you to live a safe but somewhat restricted life if you never worked again - but it could set you up for just about any sort of financial goal (short of island buying) if you do just about any amount of work. The basic math for some financial rules of thumb to keep in mind: If your money is invested in very low-risk ways, such as a money market fund, you might earn, say, 3% in interest every year. That's $36k. But, if you withdraw that $36k every year, then every year you have the same principal amount invested. And a dollar tomorrow can't buy as much as a dollar today, because of inflation. If we assume for simplicity that inflation is 1% every year, then you need to contribute an additional $12k to your principal balance every year, just so that it has the same buying power next year. This leaves you with a net $24k of interest income that you can freely spend every year, for the rest of your life, without ever touching your principal balance. If your money is invested more broadly, including equity investments [stocks], you might earn, say, 7% every year. Some years you might lose money on your investments, and would need to draw down your principal balance to pay your bills. Some years you might do quite well - but would need to remain conservative and not withdraw your 'excess' earnings every year, because you will need that 'excess' to make up for the bad years. This would leave you with about $74k of income every year before inflation, and about $62k after inflation. But, you would be taking on more risk by doing this. If you work enough to pay your daily bills, and leave your investments alone to earn 7% on average annually, then in just 10 years your money would have doubled to ~ $2.4 Million dollars. This assumes that you never save another penny, and spend everything you make. It's a level of financial security that means you could retire at a drop of the hat. And if don't start working for 20 years [which you might need to do if you spend in excess of your means and your money dries up], then the same will not be true - starting work at 45 with no savings would put you at a much greater disadvantage for financial security. Every year that you work enough to pay your bills before 'retirement' could increase your nest egg by 7% [though again, there is risk here], but only if you do it now, while you have a nest egg to invest. Now in terms of what you should do with that money, you need to ask yourself: what are your financial goals? You should think about this long and hard (and renew that discussion with yourself periodically, as your goals will change over time). You say university isn't an option - but what other ways might you want to 'invest in yourself'? Would you want to go on 'sabbatical'-type learning trips? Take a trade or learn a skill? Start a business? Do you want to live in the same place for 30 years [and thus maybe you should lock-down your housing costs by buying a house] or do you want to travel around the world, never staying in the same place twice [in which case you will need to figure out how to live cheaply and flexibly, without signing unnecessary leases]. If you want to live in the middle of nowhere eating ramen noodles and watching tv, you could do that without lifting a finger ever again. But every other financial goal you might have should be factored into your budget and work plan. And because you do have such a large degree of financial security, you have a lot of options that could be very appealing - every low paying but desirable\/hard-to-get job is open to you. You can pursue your interests, even if they barely pay minimum wage, and doing so may help you ease into your new life easier than simply retiring at such a young age [when most of your peers will be heavy into their careers]. So, that is my strongest piece of advice - work now, while you're young and have motivation, so that you can dial back later. This will be much easier than the other way around. As for where you should invest your money in, look on this site for investing questions, and ultimately with that amount of money - I suggest you hire a paid advisor, who works based on an hourly consultation fee, rather than a % management fee. They can give you much more directed advice than the internet (though you should learn it yourself as well, because that will give you the best piece of mind that you aren't being taken advantage of)."""
"""Basic questions about investing in stocks""","""For point two.. The norm for buying stock is to just register online with a major broker: Fidelity, Schwab,TD Ameritrade...etc, send them money to fund your purchase, make the stock purchase in your account, and then have a little faith. You could probably get them to physically transfer the stock certificates from them to you, but it is not the norm at all. I would plan on a fee being involved also. The 10$ is for one trade... regardless of if you buy one share or many. So you wouldn't buy 1 share of a five dollar stock as your cost would be absurd. You might buy a hundred shares."""
"""What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?""","""Here's what you do without, on the negative side, just for balance: A bill: When I last had comprehensive insurance, it cost something like 3-4% of the value of the car per annum.  (Obviously ymmv enormously but I think that's somewhere near the middle of the range and I'm not especially risky.)  So, compared to the total depreciation and running costs of the car, it's actually fairly substantial.  Over the say 10 years I might keep that car, it adds up to a fair slice of what it will take to buy a replacement. Financial crisis costs: I don't know about you, but my insurance went up something like 30% in recent years, despite the value-insured and the risk going down, said by the insurer to be due to market turmoil.  So, at least hundreds of dollars is just kind of frictional loss, and I'd rather not pay it. Wrangling with the insurer: if you have insurance and a loss, you have to persuade them to pay out, perhaps document the original conditions or the fault, perhaps argue about whether their payment is fair.  I've done this for small (non-automotive) claims, and it added up to more hassle than the incident itself.  Obviously all insurers will claim they're friendly to deal with but until you actually have a big claim you never know. Moral hazard: I know I'm solely responsible for not having my car crashed or stolen.  Somehow that just feels better. Free riders: I've seen people \""fudge\"" their insurance claims so that things that shouldn't have been covered were claimed to be.  You might have too.  Buy insurance and you're paying for them. Choice: Insurers are typically going to make the decision for you about whether a claim is repairable or not, and in my experience are reluctant or refuse to just give you the cash amount of the claim. (See also, moral hazard.)  Do it yourself and you can choose whether to live with it, make a smaller or larger repair, or replace the whole vehicle with a second hand one or a brand new one, or indeed perhaps do without a vehicle. A distraction: Hopefully by the time you've been working for a while, a vehicle is not a really large fraction of your net worth.  If you lose 10% of your net worth it's not really nice but - well, you could easily have lost that off the value of your house or your retirement portfolio in recent years.  What you actually need to insure is genuinely serious risks that would seriously change your life if they were lost, such as your ability to work.  For about the same cost as insuring a $x car, you can insure against $x income every year for the rest of your life, and I think it's far more important. If I have a write-off accident but walk away I'll be perfectly happy. And, obviously, liability insurance is important, because being hit for $millions of liabilities could also have a serious impact.   Coverage for mechanical failures: If your 8yo car needs a new transmission, insurance isn't going to help, yet it may cost more than the typical minor collision.  Save the money yourself and you can manage those costs out of the same bucket. Flexibility: If you save up to replace your car, but some other crisis occurs, you can choose to put the money towards that.  If you have car insurance but you have a family medical thing it's no help. I think the bottom line is: insure against costs you couldn't cope with by yourself.  There are people who need a car but can just barely afford it, but if you're fortunate enough not to be in that case you don't really need comprehensive insurance."""
"""How Do Scammers \/ Money Launderers Profit From Loans To Victims""","""If they have your account numbers (which are necessary for direct deposits) they could possibly initiate ACH withdrawals from your accounts too (requires some setup but they may have accomplices). Note that even if you didn't have money there, depending on the local bank rules you may be still on the hook for overdrafts they create, at least by default. You may be able to prove later that this was fraud but the burden of proof will be on you, and in the meantime they might be gone with the money.   They could use your documents to either establish other accounts in your name (identity theft) or take over your accounts (e.g. by contacting customer service of the bank and claiming to be you, and presenting the documents you sent as a proof), request credits under your identity (possibly using the money on the account as a collateral since the bank may not know where the money is from), etc. This is even easier given you will give them all the documents and information needed for a loan, your signature, etc.  And the fact that they ask you to send documents to a specific address doesn't mean they could be found at that address when the problems start - it may be rented short-term, belong to either knowing or unknowing accomplice, be a forwarding service, etc. Could be money laundering of course too. That's just what comes to mind after a short while thinking about it."""
"""What is good growth?""","""The first issue is if the stock has returned 8% since you purchased it that could be either very good (8% in two days) or very bad (8% over 20 years).  Even just measured over the past year it could be relatively very good (up 8% and the market is down 5%) or very bad (up 8% and the market is up 16%). Either way, the good rule of thumb is that you shouldn't choose your positions using the returns of the stock in the past, but only on your view of the future returns of the stock.  For instance, if the stock has gone up 8% in two months, but you think it has another 8% to go in the next two months you probably shouldn't take your earnings. As for the $5k, at first glance that is not an unreasonable amount.  If you use a discount broker the fees shouldn't be so large that you will eat up any return on a $5k amount.  Also, from what you describe it is not such a large amount that mistakes will put your retirement in danger."""
"""How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee?""","""This arrangement is a scam to get around certain tax and benefits laws, both State and Federal. I know they can't get away with this with a person-as-contractor, but this \""he's not a contractor, he's a business owner\"" may move it into a gray area. (I used to know this stuff cold, but I've been retired for a while.) The fact that they asked you to do this is at all is, IMNSHO, a Red Flag\u00ae. They think that this way they won't be paying 1\/2 your FICA, your Workman's Comp, health insurance, overtime, sick leave or vacation time ... you will. A somewhat simplistic rule of thumb for setting contracting rates is to take your targeted annual salary as a full-time, full-benefits employee and double it. So $50,000 becomes $100,000 a year; $25\/hour becomes $50\/hour. You can tell them that driving to their workplace from your company's location is now a \""site visit\"" and charge them your hourly rate for the one-way commute time. You could also tell them that your company charges 150% for hours worked over 40 hours\/week, plus 150% on Saturdays and 200% on Sundays. Your company may also have a minimum 30 days notice of termination with a penalty kicker. Get it all in writing and signed by someone who has the authority to sign it. Also, Get A Lawyer. The most expensive contracts I've ever signed were ones I thought I was smart enough to draw up myself."""
"""Should one invest in smaller valued shares in higher amounts, or higher valued shares in smaller amounts?""","""Short answer: No, it only matters if you want to use covered calls strategies. The price of a share is not important. Some companies make stock splits from time to time so that the price of their shares is more affordable to small investors. It is a decision of the company's board to keep the price high or low. More important is the capitalization for these shares. If you have lots of money to invest, the best is to divide and invest a fixed pourcentage of your portfolio in each company you choose.  The only difference is if you eventually decide to use covered call strategies. To have a buy write on Google will cost you a lot of money and you will only be able to sell 1 option for every 100 shares. Bottom line: the price is not important, capitalization and estimated earnings are. Hope this answers your question."""
"""standard method for learning more about a specific sector? (particularly biotech sector)""","""The important piece here is not necessarily understanding intimate details of biological engineering per se, but rather understanding how the business operates as a singular unit. It is also important to understand the business case for a firm, the evolution of demand for its products\/services and the cost of its revenue. To understand a particular sector of the market, you should begin by studying how that sector interacts with and is influenced by the larger market and economy as a whole, both domestic and abroad. From there, you should study individual companies and again see how they interact with one another, the sector, market, etc. Many biotech firms have a different offering and meet different business and consumer demands. Some are near term solutions to existing problems, some long. It is important to see how the firms collectively interact with the consumer base and then differentiate on an individual level."""
"""Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?""","""The banks figure that they'll get 80% of the value of the property at a sheriff's sale. So, they're lending you what they think they can recover if you default."""
"""EIN for personal LLC: Is this an S-Corp?""","""Having an EIN does not make the LLC a corporation -- your business can have an EIN even when treated like a sole proprietorship. An EIN is required to have a Individual 401(k), for example. But you can still be an LLC, taxed as a sole proprietor, and have a 401(k). You would need to file a Form 2553 with the IRS to elect S Corporation status. If you don't do that, you're still treated as a disregarded LLC. Whether or not you should make the election is another question."""
"""Tax Implications - First 2-Family Rental Property""","""You should really be talking to a tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) about taxes and to a lawyer about the liability protection. You won't find answers from neither of theses here. Besides the liability protection, how do these 2 options affect taxes? There's no liability protection difference between the two (talk to a lawyer to verify) since you'll be cosigning them personally either way. In the first case (loan to the LLC) - everything goes on the 1065 and you get the bottom line on K-1 which transfers to you own tax return. In the second case the loan interest is your personal investment expense (Schedule A deduction) while the loan proceeds you moved to the LLC add to your basis. I'd suggest getting the loan directly in the LLC name, if you can. However, the Lawyers seem to agree that this would void the mortgage   because of the \""Due on Sale\"" clause in mortgage loans. \""Due on sale\"" may or may not be invoked, but that's a risk you'd be taking, yes. LLC is a separate legal entity (as opposed to a living trust, to which your second quote seems to be referring), so it is definitely a possibility for a lender to call on the loan if you re-title it."""
"""Variations of Dual momentum""","""There's a few layers to the Momentum Theory discussed in that book. But speaking in general terms I can answer the following: Kind of. Assuming you understand that historically the Nasdaq has seen a little more volatility than the S&P. And, more importantly, that it tends to track the tech sector more than the general economy.  Thus the pitfall is that it is heavily weighted towards (and often tracks) the performance of a few stocks including: Apple, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Amazon, Intel and Amgen.  It could be argued this is counter intuitive to the general strategy you are trying to employ. This could be tougher to justify.  The reason it is potentially not a great idea has less to do with the fact that gold has factors other than just risk on\/off and inflation that affect its price (even though it does!); but more to do with the fact that it is harder to own gold and move in and out of positions efficiently than it is a bond index fund.   For example, consider buying physical gold.  To do so you have to spend some time evaluating the purchase, you are usually paying a slight premium above the spot price to purchase it, and you should usually also have some form of security or insurance for it.  So, it has additional costs.  Possibly worth it as part of a long-term investment strategy; if you believe gold will appreciate over a decade. But not so much if you are holding it for as little as a few weeks and constantly moving in and out of the position over the year. The same is true to some extent of investing in gold in the form of an ETF.  At least a portion of \""their gold\"" comes from paper or futures contracts which must be rolled every month.  This creates a slight inefficiency.  While possibly not a deal breaker, it would not be as attractive to someone trading on momentum versus fundamentals in my opinion. In the end though, I think all strategies are adaptable.  And if you feel gold will be the big mover this year, and want to use it as your risk hedge, who am I or anyone else to tell you that you shouldn't."""
"""LLC Partnership Earned Income vs. Partnership Share""","""Why would you file four K-1s for each partner? You file one K-1 per partner, on which you report the total of income attributed to that partner. It shouldn't and cannot \""vary\"". There's no variables here, the income you report is the income already earned and attributed to that partner. What's there to vary? How you decide the attribution of income is governed by your operating agreement, the IRS only needs the bottom line."""
"""I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget?""","""Switch to cash for a few months. No debit. No credit. This will help for two reasons: Once you've broken the bad habits, you should be able to go back to cards for the convenience factor."""
"""Visitor Shopping in the US: Would I get tax refund? Would I have to pay anything upon departure?""","""Tax Refund: The US generally does not refund tax like other countries. For larger sales, you might want to try state tax refunds, check here: https:\/\/help.cbp.gov\/app\/answers\/detail\/a_id\/373\/~\/how-to-obtain-a-refund-of-sales-tax-paid-while-visiting-the-united-states US Customs: You never pay US customs when you leave, they don't care about what you take out of the country. You might have to pay customs in your arrival country afterwards, and the rules depend on the country you arrive in. Most countries have a limit on how much you can bring for free, typically in the range of 500 $, but that varies a lot. Also, some countries do not count used articles, so if you wear your new clothing once, it does not count against the limit anymore."""
"""Does the rise in ACA premiums affect employer-provided health insurance premiums?""","""Depends on the insurance company itself, as well as the costs of treatments. Imagine an ideal scenario where costs of treatments stayed the same, and that all insurance plans were segregated and pulled from the same pool of funds to pay for treatments. Then employer subsidized health insurance plans would be unaffected by the drama in the ACA plans. Those are the factors to consider, from my understanding. But I wouldn't be surprised if the burdens of accepting people that would previously never have been serviced by these companies has greatly distorted the market as a whole."""
"""Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser?""","""Every car model\/type has a know interval when things need maintenance or replacement. This info comes mainly from the manufacturer and the rental companies use these info to determine how long and at what rate a car should be rented (I mean in total, not rented to an individual) This is easiest calculated with a long term rental (3, or 4 years time. Leasing business) But is also used for short term rental.  There is a point in time were a car gets to have more maintenance and replacements then before. The rental company will always try to sell the car just before big replacements or maintenance are necessary. Of course your local mechanic can also now when those big 'events' need to take place. So he can know what to expect the next kms. I'm talking about foreseen replacements and maintenance (like every x km replace drive belt, replace oil ... I'm not referring to the exceptionals. These latter are the risk the rental companies take during the rental period."""
"""How to acquire assets without buying them? ""","""There are a number of ways someone acquires assets without buying it. People could have inherited assets. They could have been gifted assets. They might have won assets in a lawsuit (unlikely to be a mall, but not impossible). They could have married into the assets. So there's other ways of acquiring assets without purchasing them."""
"""Why GOOG is \""After Hours\"" while FB is \""Pre-market\""?""","""It looks like GOOG did not have a pre-market trade until 7:14 am ET, so Google Finance was still reporting the last trade it had, which was in the after-hours session yesterday. FB, on the other hand, was trading like crazy after-hours yesterday and pre-market today as it had an earnings report yesterday."""
"""How and where can I deposit money to generate future payments \/ income?""","""If you're in the USA and looking to retire in 10 years, pay your Social Security taxes? :P Just kidding. Do a search for Fixed Rate Annuities."""
"""Definition of equity""","""I was wondering why equity is reflecting ownership of the issuing entity?  That is the definition of equity in this regard. My understanding is that for a stock\/equity, its issuing entity is a company\/firm that sells the stock\/equity, while its receiving entity is an investor that buys the stock\/equity Correct. equity reflects ownership of the receiving entity i.e. investor Incorrect. Equity reflects ownership by the receiving entity of the issuing entity. That is, when you buy stock in a company (taking an equity stake in the company) you buy a piece of the company.  It would be rather odd for the company to own a piece of you when you buy their stock."""
"""What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? ""","""I use http:\/\/moneydance.com\/ it has Mac, Windows and Linux versions and works well for my needs."""
"""What taxes are assessed on distributions of an inherited IRA?""","""You've been taking the RMDs. Each year the RMD is calculated by taking the prior 12\/31 balance and dividing by the divisor, calculated when you inherited, and dropping by 1 each year. Some great trades and your account balance goes up. That's great, but of course it sends the next RMD higher.  I'd understand how marginal rates work and use the withdrawal to \""top off\"" your current bracket. This will help slow the growth and runaway RMD increases."""
"""What does an options premium really mean?""","""Intuitive? I doubt it. Derivatives are not the simplest thing to understand.  The price is either in the money or it isn't. (by the way, exactly 'at the money' is not 'in the money.') An option that's not in the money has time value only. As the price rises, and the option is more and more in the money, the time value drops. We have a $40 stock. It makes sense to me that a $40 strike price is all just a bet the stock will rise, there's no intrinsic value. The option prices at about $4.00 for one year out, with 25% volatility. But the strike of $30 is at $10.68, with $10 in the money and only .68 in time premium. There's a great calculator on line to tinker with.  Volatility is a key component of options trading. Think about it. If a stock rises 5%\/yr but rarely goes up any more or less, just steady up, why would you even buy an option that was even 10% out of the money? The only way I can describe this is to look at a bell curve and how there's a 1\/6 chance the event will be above one standard deviation. If that standard deviation is small, the chance of hitting the higher strikes is also small.  I wrote an article Betting on Apple at 9 to 2 in which I describe how a pair of option trades was set up so that a 35% rise in Apple stock would return 354% and Apple had two years to reach its target. I offer this as an example of options trading not being theory, but something that many are engaged in. What I found curious about the trade was that Apple's volatility was high enough that a 35% move didn't seem like the 4.5 to 1 risk the market said it was. As of today, Apple needs to rise 13% in the next 10 months for the trade to pay off. (Disclosure - the long time to expiration was both good and bad, two years to recover 35% seemed reasonable, but 2 years could bring anything in the macro sense. Another recession, some worldwide event that would impact Apple's market, etc. The average investor will not have the patience for these long term option trades.)"""
"""Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill?""","""I am going to break rank slightly with the consensus so far.  Here's the deal, it probably DOES help your credit slightly to pay it multiple times per month if it isn't a hassle, but the bump is likely to be minimal and very temporary.  Here's why: A key component of your score is your credit usage ratio. That is the ratio of how much of your credit limits you are using. You want to keep this number down as low as possible. Now here is where it gets tricky. Although you have a grace period to pay off your card with no interest, the credit card companies don't generally report the balance as of the due date. They either report the high balance or an average balance over the month. That is, it is based on how much you use, not how much balance you carry over each month. It isn't very intuitive, but that's just how it is. So technically, keeping that balance lower over the course of the month WILL probably help you, but the credit usage ratio is generally a rolling average over the last x months, so the effect will wear off quickly. So it is probably not worth doing unless you know you are going to apply for a loan in the next 6 months and need a temporary, small bump. Another consideration is that paying early provides no real financial benefit in terms of finance charges, but you are giving up liquidity which does have some value.    1) You probably could get at least a little interest for keeping the money in your account a few more weeks. 2) If you have a major financial emergency, e.g. broken down car, you might appreciate the fact that you kept your options open to carry that balance over a month."""
"""Why don't institutions share stock recommendations like Wall Street analysts?""","""Institutions may be buying large quantities of the stock and would want the price to go up after they are done buying all that they have to buy.  If the price jumps before they finish buying then they may not make as great a deal as they would otherwise.  Consider buying tens of thousands of shares of a company and then how does one promote that?  Also, what kind of PR system should those investment companies have to disclose whether or not they have holdings in these companies.  This is just some of the stuff you may be missing here. The \""Wall street analysts\"" are the investment banks that want the companies to do business through them and thus it is a win\/win relationship as the bank gets some fees for all the transactions done for the company while the company gets another cheerleader to try to play up the stock."""
"""Can I do periodic rollovers from my low-perfoming 401k to an IRA?""","""If the difference in performance is worth it, consider \""borrowing\"" from your 401k to put into the Roth.  You pay it back, but you can stretch it out over time, and the interest charged is actually yours, because you borrowed from yourself. But you can only borrow half of the account and you have to pay it back before you can do another loan."""
"""Terminology: What are the labels associated with a share called?""","""If the first one is literally a company name, then 'company name' is fine. However, companies can issue shares more than once, and those shares might be traded separately, so you could have 'Google ordinary', 'Google preference', 'Google ordinary issue B'. Seeing the name spelled out in full like this isn't as common as just the company name, but I'd normally see it referred to as 'display name'. The second one is 'symbol', 'ticker', 'ID', and others. Globally, there are many incompatible ways of referring to a stock, depending on where it's listed (companies can have dual listings, and different exchanges have different conventions), and who's referring to it (Bloomberg and Reuters have different sets of IDs, with no predictable mapping between them). So there's no one shorthand name, and the word you use depends on the context. However, 'symbol' or 'ticker' is normally fine."""
"""Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA?""","""I agree with harmanjd \u2013 best to roll it over to an IRA.  Not only does that afford you better control of your money as pointed out already, but: If you choose your IRA provider wisely, you can get an account that provides you with a much wider array of investing choices, including funds and ETFs that charge much lower fees than what you would have had access to in an employer 401(k) plan. But here's one thing to consider first: Do you hold any of your previous employer's stock in your old 401(k)?  There are special rules you might want to be aware of.  See this article at Marketwatch:  If your 401(k) includes your company's stock, a rollover may be a bad move. Additional Resource:"""
"""What is the best asset allocation for a retirement portfolio, and why?""","""It's all about risk. These guidelines were all developed based on the risk characteristics of the various asset categories. Bonds are ultra-low-risk, large caps are low-risk (you don't see most big stocks like Coca-Cola going anywhere soon), foreign stocks are medium-risk (subject to additional political risk and currency risk, especially so in developing markets) and small-caps are higher risk (more to gain, but more likely to go out of business).  Moreover, the risks of different asset classes tend to balance each other out some. When stocks fall, bonds typically rise (the recent credit crunch being a notable but temporary exception) as people flock to safety or as the Fed adjusts interest rates. When stocks soar, bonds don't look as attractive, and interest rates may rise (a bummer when you already own the bonds). Is the US economy stumbling with the dollar in the dumps, while the rest of the world passes us by? Your foreign holdings will be worth more in dollar terms. If you'd like to work alternative asset classes (real estate, gold and other commodities, etc) into your mix, consider their risk characteristics, and what will make them go up and down. A good asset allocation should limit the amount of 'down' that can happen all at once; the more conservative the allocation needs to be, the less 'down' is possible (at the expense of the 'up'). .... As for what risks you are willing to take, that will depend on your position in life, and what risks you are presently are exposed to (including: your job, how stable your company is and whether it could fold or do layoffs in a recession like this one, whether you're married, whether you have kids, where you live). For instance, if you're a realtor by trade, you should probably avoid investing too much in real estate or it'll be a double-whammy if the market crashes. A good financial advisor can discuss these matters with you in detail."""
"""Is this follow-up after a car crash a potential scam?""","""I would write them a check or give them cash money. There are payment receipt forms available online, you can print one of have them fill it out and sign it. Just google \""private party receipt\"".  Money transfer (via bank account or Paypal) is also an option, but in my opinion it's more convenient to meet up and handle it in person. If you want, you can have them meet you at a notary public's office (your local bank branch should have one) and have the receipt notarized. I don't think it's a scam, but make sure you are paying the right person."""
"""Non-qualified Savings Plan vs. 401(k) for Highly Compensated Employee""","""401k plans are required to not discriminate against the non-HCE participants, and one way they achieve this is by limiting the percentage of wages that HCEs can contribute to the plan to the average annual percentage contribution by the non-HCE participants or 3% whichever is higher.  If most non-HCE employees contribute only 3% (usually to capture the employer match but no more),  then the HCEs are stuck with 3%. However, be aware that in companies that award year-end bonuses to all employees, many non-HCEs contribute part of their bonuses to their 401k plans, and so the average annual percentage can rise above 3% at the end of year. Some payroll offices have been known to ask all those who have not already maxed out their 401k contribution  for the year (yes, it is possible to do this even while contributing only 3% if you are not just a HCE but a VHCE) whether they want to contribute the usual 3%, or a higher percentage, or to contribute the maximum possible under the nondiscrimination rules. So, you might be able to contribute more than 3% if the non-HCEs put in more money at the end of the year. With regard to NQSPs, you pretty much have their properties pegged correctly. That money is considered to be deferred compensation and so you pay taxes on it only when you receive it upon leaving employment. The company also gets to deduct it as a business expense when the money is paid out, and as you said, it is not money that is segregated as a 401k plan is. On the other hand, you have earned the money already: it is just that the company is \""holding\"" it for you. Is it paying you interest on the money (accumulating in the NQSP, not paid out in cash or taxable income to you)?  Would it be better to just take the money right now, pay taxes on it, and invest it yourself? Some deferred compensation plans work as follows. The deferred compensation is given to you as a loan in the year it is  earned, and you pay only interest on the principal each year. Since  the money is a loan, there is no tax of any kind due on the money when you receive it. Now you can invest the proceeds of this loan and hopefully earn enough to cover the interest  payments due. (The interest you pay is deductible on Schedule A as an Investment Interest Expense).  When employment ceases,  you repay the loan to the company as a lump sum or in five or ten annual installments, whatever was agreed to, while the company pays you your deferred compensation less taxes withheld. The net effect is that you pay the company the  taxes due on the money, and the company sends this on to the various tax authorities as money withheld from wages paid.  The advantage is that you do not need to worry  about what happens to your money if the company fails; you have received it up front.  Yes, you have to pay the loan principal to the company but the company also owes you exactly that much money as unpaid wages. In the best of all worlds, things will proceed smoothly, but if not, it is better to be in this Mexican standoff rather than standing in line in bankruptcy court and hoping to get pennies on the dollar for your work."""
"""Foreign currency conversion for international visitors to ecommerce web site?""","""Central banks don't generally post exchange rates with other currencies, as they are not determined by central banks but by the currency markets. You need a source for live exchange rate data (for example www.xe.com), and you need to calculate the prices in other currencies dynamically as they are displayed -- they will be changing continually, from minute to minute."""
"""Would it make sense to buy a rental property as an LLC and not in my own name?""","""IANAL, but if you're planning to sell shares in your LLC you may be disappointed in the protection granted. I looked into this corporate structure for the same purpose myself, and my attorney said something like, \""If an owner of one of the shares of your company is driving to look at one of the properties, and gets into a wreck for which they were found negligent, the injured party can sue the corporation.\"""""
"""If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?""","""There are two ways that an asset can generate value.  One is that the asset generates some revenue (e.g. you buy a house for $100,000 and rent it out for $1,000 per month) and the second way is that the asset appreciates (e.g you buy a house for $100,000, you don't rent it out and 5 years later you sell it for $200,000).  Stocks are the same."""
"""If a company has already IPO'ed and sold its shares, what is the incentive to keep making money? ""","""Because people bought their shares under the premise that they would make more money and if the company completely lied about that they will be subject to several civil and criminal violations. If people didn't believe the company was going to make more money, they would have valued their shares lower during the IPO by not forming much of a market at all."""
"""Is the contribution towards Employment Insurance (EI) wasted if I never get fired, or are my premiums refunded?""","""Sorry, even if you never file a claim for Employment Insurance (EI), you don't get your premiums back. So, yes, if you paid into EI and never filed a claim, your contributions are, as you put it, \""wasted\"" \u2013 insofar that your premiums provided no direct benefit to you. However, your premiums may have provided a benefit to society, perhaps even your previous colleagues.  Yet, some would point out that a good chunk of EI premiums are likely wasted on excessive administration of the program itself.  That's government. A couple of cases I'm aware of where you may be refunded some of the EI premiums paid are: Meaning, a legal way to avoid paying into the EI system altogether is to run your own business.  Of course, you won't be able to file an EI claim if your business evaporates overnight.  Other kinds of claims unavailable to those who don't pay into EI include maternity, parental*, and sickness benefits .. although they recently made some changes to permit the self-employed to opt-in for some special benefits. * except in the province of Quebec, where there is a separate Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) that also covers the self-employed."""
"""I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?""","""Yes, you could sell what you have and bet against others that the stock price will continue to fall within a period of time \""Shorting\"".  If you're right, your value goes UP even though the stock price goes down. This is a pretty darn risky bet to make.  If you're wrong, there's no limit to how much money you can owe.  At least with stocks they can only fall to zero!  When you short, and the price goes up and up and up (before the deadline) you owe it! And just as with stocks, someone else has to agree to take the bet.  If a stock is pretty obviously tanking, its unlikely that someone would oppose your bet. (It's probably pretty clear that I barely know what I'm talking about, but I was surprised not to see this listed among the answers.)"""
"""Long-term capital gain taxes on ETFs?""","""Generally, ETFs and mutual funds don't pay taxes (although there are some cases where they do, and some countries where it is a common case). What happens is, the fund reports the portion of the gain attributed to each investor, and the investor pays the tax. In the US, this is reported to you on 1099-DIV as capital gains distribution, and can be either short term (as in the scenario you described), long term, or a mix of both. It doesn't mean you actually get a distribution, though, but if you don't - it reduces your basis."""
"""If I invest in securities denominated in a foreign currency, should I hedge my currency risk?""","""So far we have a case for yes and no.  I believe the correct answer is... maybe. You mention that most of your expenses are in dollars which is definitely correct, but there is an important complication that I will try to simplify greatly here.  Many of the goods you buy are priced on the international market (a good example is oil) or are made from combinations of these goods.  When the dollar is strong the price of oil is low but when the dollar is weak the price of oil is high. However, when you buy stuff like services (think a back massage) then you pay the person in dollars and the person you are paying just wants dollars so the strength of the dollar doesn't really matter. Most people's expenses are a mix of things that are priced internationally and locally with a bias toward local expenses.  If they also have a mix of investments some of which are international and depend on the strength of the dollar and some are domestic and do not, then they don't have to worry much about the strength\/weakness of the dollar later when they sell their investments and buy what they want.  If the dollar is weak than the international goods will be more expensive, but at the same time international part of their portfolio will be worth more. If you plan on retiring in a different country or have 100% of your investments in emerging market stocks than it is worth thinking about either currency hedging or changing your investment mix.  However, for many people a good mix of domestic and international investments covers much of the risk that their currency will weaken while offering the benefits of diversification.  The best part is you don't need to guess if the dollar will get stronger or weaker. tl;dr: If you want your portfolio to not depend on currency moves then hedge.  If you want your retirement to not depend on currency moves then have a good mix of local and unhedged international investments."""
"""Buying my first car out of college""","""I know I came a little late to this discussion but let me give you my opinion. I think that purchasing the BMW is a terrible investment for obvious reasons. Once you drive the car off the dealer's lot the car loses anywhere from 5-10k in value immediately. Its a terrible investment and something that you will regret in the future. However, whether you buy it now or you hold off we all know you are eventually still going to get it. I graduated college and was in a similar situation as the one you are now. I started making 60k after college and leased a brand new BMW. Like I said it was a terrible investment, but I do not regret it for one day. Ive had so much fun in that car that I can't even begin to explain. We only live once and you don't want to be one of those guys that looks back and says I should've this I should've that, JUST DO IT. We all know it won't be possible when you have a wife and kids so just splurge now and be responsible later LOL."""
"""Should I pay more into company pension, or is there a better way to save?""","""In the UK you have an allowance of \u00a340,000 per annum for tax relief into a pension. This amount includes both your and your employer's contributions. If you earn more than \u00a3150,000 per annum this allowance starts to reduce and if you earn less than the allowance, your allowance is limited to what you earn. You can also carry over unused allowance from up to 3 years previously. If you stick within this allowance you won't pay tax on your pension contributions, if you go over the excess will be subject to tax. Salary exchange normally lets you avoid the National Insurance value of your contribution being taxed. If you paid your own money into your pension (without going through salary exchange), your contributions would have the 20% basic rate of tax credited to them and if you're a higher rate taxpayer you could reclaim the difference between the basic rate of tax and the higher rate of tax you pay but the National Insurance you've paid on your own money would not be reclaimable. You can't get the money back you've paid into your pension till you are are 58 (given that you are 27 now), the minimum age has risen from its historic 55 for your age group.  That's the pension trade off, you forgo tax now in the expectation that, once retired, you will be paying tax at a lower rate (because your income will be lower and you are much less likely to be subject to higher rate taxation) in return for locking in your money till you're older. Your pension income will be subject to tax when you eventually take it. There are other options such as ISAs which have lower annual limits (\u00a320,000 currently) and on which your contributions do not attract tax relief, but which are not taxed as income when you eventually spend them. ISAs and pensions are not mutually exclusive so if you have the money, you can do both. It's up to you to determine what mix of savings will be appropriate to generate income for your eventual retirement. If you are living in some other country when you retire your pension will be paid net of UK tax. You might then be able to claim (or pay) any difference between that and your local tax rate depending on what agreement exists between the UK government and the other country's government."""
"""How an ETF pays dividend to shareholders if a holding company issues dividend""","""Join me for a look at the Quote for SPY.  A yield of 1.82%. So over a year's time, your $100K investment will give you $1820 in dividends.  The Top 10 holdings show that Apple is now 3% of the S&P. With a current dividend of 2.3%. Every stock in the S&P has its own different dividend. (Although the zeros are all the same. Not every stock has a dividend.) The aggregate gets you to the 1.82% current dividend. Dividends are accumulated and paid out quarterly, regardless of which months the individual stocks pay."""
"""Is it possible for credit card companies to check credit score in India?""","""Is it possible for the card issuing banks to check my score without my permission? As far as I understand these things, that is exactly the whole purpose of these sorts of credit-rating institutions. The banks and other financial businesses are their customers. They exist to serve those customers. Their relationship, if any, with a consumer is probably secondary to that. When you apply for credit, you give that business any permission needed."""
"""How to get a down payment for your next home?  Use current home as the down payment on the new one?""","""This is of course a perfectly normal thing to happen. People trade up to a bigger house every day. When you've found a bigger house you want to move to and a buyer for your existing one, you arrange 'closing dates' for both i.e. the date on which the sale actually happens. Usually you make them very close, either on the same day or with an overlap of a few weeks. You use the equity (i.e. the difference between the house value and the mortgage) in the old house as the down payment on the new house. You can't of course use the part of the old house that is mortgaged. If the day you buy the new and sell the old is the same, your banks and lawyers do everything for you on that day. If there is an overlap then you need something called 'bridge financing' to cover the period when you own two houses. Banks are used to doing this, and it's not really that expensive when you take into account all the other costs of moving house. Talk to them for details. As a side note, it is generally reckoned not to be worth buying a house if you only intended to live there one or two years. The costs involved in the process of buying, selling and moving usually outweigh any gains in house value. You may find yourself with a higher down payment if you rent for a year or two and save up a down payment for your 'bigger' house instead."""
"""What does it mean for a normal citizen like me when my country's dollar value goes down?""","""Essentially imported goods from the country (in this case the US) that is improving against your local currency will become more expensive. For the most part, that is the only practical effect on you on an individual financial level."""
"""What are the best software tools for personal finance?""","""KMyMoney Pros: Cons:"""
"""Accepted indicators for stock market valuation ""","""There are several camps for stock valuation, and much of it boils down to your investment style.  A growth investor will not consider something with a 50x P\/E ratio to be overvalued, but a value investor certainly would. I would recommend looking up the Fama-French n-factor model (it was 3-factor, I believe they have released newer papers which introduce other factors), and reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.  Graham's methodology is practically canon for many investors, and the methodology focuses on value, while outlining quantitative factors for determining if a stock is under or over valued."""
"""Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?""","""Yes. From their TOS: \""By creating a Square Account, you confirm that you are either a legal resident of the United States, a United States citizen, or a business entity...\""."""
"""Do I need to own all the funds my target-date funds owns to mimic it?""","""If you read Joel Greenblatt's The Little Book That Beats the Market, he says: Owning two stocks eliminates 46% of the non market risk of owning just one stock.    This risk is reduced by 72% with 4 stocks, by 81% with 8 stocks, by 93% with 16 stocks, by 96% with 32 stocks, and by 99% with 500 stocks.  Conclusion: After purchasing 6-8 stocks, benefits of adding stocks to decrease risk are small.   Overall market risk won't be eliminated merely by adding more stocks.  And that's just specific stocks. So you're very right that allocating a 1% share to a specific type of fund is not going to offset your other funds by much. You are correct that you can emulate the lifecycle fund by simply buying all the underlying funds, but there are two caveats: Generally, these funds are supposed to be cheaper than buying the separate funds individually. Check over your math and make sure everything is in order. Call the fund manager and tell him about your findings and see what they have to say. If you are going to emulate the lifecycle fund, be sure to stay on top of rebalancing. One advantage of buying the actual fund is that the portfolio distributions are managed for you, so if you're going to buy separate ETFs, make sure you're rebalancing. As for whether you need all those funds, my answer is a definite no. Consider Mark Cuban's blog post Wall Street's new lie to Main Street - Asset Allocation. Although there are some highly questionable points in the article, one portion is indisputably clear:  Let me translate this all for you. \""I want you to invest 5pct in cash and the rest in 10 different funds about which you know absolutely nothing. I want you to make this investment knowing that even if there were 128 hours in a day and you had a year long vacation, you could not possibly begin to understand all of these products. In fact, I don\u2019t understand them either, but because I know it sounds good and everyone is making the same kind of recommendations, we all can pretend we are smart and going to make a lot of money. Until we don\u2019t\"" Standard theory says that you want to invest in low-cost funds (like those provided by Vanguard), and you want to have enough variety to protect against risk. Although I can't give a specific allocation recommendation because I don't know your personal circumstances, you should ideally have some in US Equities, US Fixed Income, International Equities, Commodities, of varying sizes to have adequate diversification \""as defined by theory.\"" You can either do your own research to establish a distribution, or speak to an investment advisor to get help on what your target allocation should be."""
"""Where can I find accurate historical distribution data for mutual funds?""","""I keep spreadsheets that verify each $ distribution versus the rate times number of shares owned. For mutual funds, I would use Yahoo's historical data, but sometimes shows up late (a few days, a week?) and it isn't always quite accurate enough. A while back I discovered that MSN had excellent data when using their market price chart with dividends \""turned on,\"" HOWEVER very recently they have revamped their site and the trusty URLs I have previously used no longer work AND after considerable browsing, I can no longer find this level of detail anywhere on their site !=( Happily, the note above led me to the Google business site, and it looks like I am \""back in business\""... THANKS!"""
"""Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT""","""You could setup a Ally account to use solely for this. There is no minimum, no opening balance requirement, and you can do up to 6 transfers a month for free.  This would partition your money from other accounts, while giving you the flexibility to move it to other accounts with ease."""
"""What does the Fed do with the extra money it is printing? ""","""Usually the FED uses newly printed money to buy US treasuries from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc..  These banks then lend out the new cash which expands the money supply. During the height of the crisis the FED printed over $1.0 Trillion and bought....well...almost anything the banks couldn't offload elsewhere.  Mortgage Backed Securities, Credit Default Swaps, you name it - they bought it.  Must be nice to always have a customer to sell your junk investments to.  They also bought these securities at face value - not at market value.  Chart from here.  The FED announced in early November, 2010 that they will print another $600 billion and buy US Treasuries.  They will be buying ALL the debt that will be sold by the US government for the next 8 months.  This was admitted by the Dallas FED chairman in this article: For the next eight months, the   nation\u2019s central bank will be   monetizing the federal debt. \""Monetizing\"" is a fancy word for printing money. I think this was done because the US government ran out of customers for its debt.  China has reduced its purchases of US debt and the Social Security Trust Fund is no longer buying US debt since it is running a deficit."""
"""How to find a reputable company to help sell a timeshare?""","""The one thing I would like to add to Ben's answer is that you will be lucky to get out of this with no proceeds.   So that 30-40K paid for the timeshare maybe a total loss. If this purchase was financed with the timeshare used as collateral you may need to pay it off prior to being released. One tactic I heard used is to offer the sales team, that sold you the timeshare, a bonus for selling yours instead of one out of inventory.  Assuming their commission is typically 25% of the sales price, you might consider offering them 40% or some higher figure.  Doing it this way, you will have all the slick marketing on your side probably generating the highest amount of revenue possible. Timeshares are really bad deals.  If you know this you can score some cheap vacations by attending their seminars and continuing to say no.  The wife and I recently got back from a nice trip to Aruba mostly paid for with airline points, and a 2 hour timeshare tour."""
"""Tax consequences when foreign currency changes in value""","""If you buy foreign currency as an investment, then the gains are ordinary income. The gains are realized when you close the position, and whether you buy something else go back to the original form of investment is of no consequence. In case #1 you have $125 income. In case #2 you have $125 income. In case #3 you have $166 loss. You report all these items on your Schedule D. Make sure to calculate the tax correctly, since the tax is not capital gains tax but rather ordinary income at marginal rates. Changes in foreign exchange between a transaction and the conversion of the proceeds to USD are generally not considered as income (i.e.: You sold a property in Mexico, but since the money took a couple of days to clear, the exchange rate changed and you got $2K more\/less than you would based on the exchange rate on the day of the transaction - this is not a taxable income\/loss). This is covered by the IRC Sec. 988. There are additional rules for contracts on foreign currency, TTM rules, etc. Better talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) for anything other than trivial."""
"""How to acquire skills required for long-term investing?""","""Far and away the most valuable skill in investing, in my opinion, is emotional fortitude.  You need to have the emotional stability and confidence to trust your decision making and research to hold on down days."""
"""Should I invest $35,000 for 3-5 months? [duplicate]""","""Yes, and there are several ways, the safest is a high-yield savings account which will return about 1% yearly, so $35 per month. That's not extremely much, but better than nothing (you probably get almost zero interest on a regular checking account)."""
"""When should I walk away from my mortgage?""","""The worth of a credit score (CS) is variable.  If you buy your stuff outright with 100% down then your CS is worthless. If you take a loan to buy stuff then it is worth exactly what you save in interest versus a poor score. But there is also the \""access\"" benefit of CS where loans will no longer be available to you, forcing you to rent. If you consider rent as money down teh tiolet then this could factor in. The formula for CS worth is different for everyone. Bill Gates CS is worth zero to him. Walking away from a mortage is not the same as walking away from a loan.  A mortage has collateral. There are 2 objects: the money, and the house. If you walk away the bank gets the house as a fair trade. They keep all money you put against the house to boot! Sometimes the bank PROFITS when you walk away.  So in a good market you could consider walking away to be the Moral Michael thing to do. :)"""
"""Pros\/cons of borrowing money using a mortgage loan and investing it in a low-fee index fund?""","""Well for a start funds don't pay interest.  If you pick an income-paying fund (as opposed to one that automatically reinvests any income for you) you will receive periodic income based on the dividends paid by the underlying stocks, but it won't be the steady predictable interest payment you might get from a savings account or fixed-rate security. This income is not guaranteed and will vary based on the performance of the companies making up the fund. It's also quite likely that the income by itself won't cover the interest on your mortgage.  The gains from stock market investment come from a mixture of dividends and capital growth (i.e. the increase in the price of the shares).  So you may have to sell units now and again or cover part of the interest payments from other income. You're basically betting that the after-tax returns from the fund will be greater than the mortgage interest rate you're paying.   3 facts: If you're comfortable with these 3 facts, go for it. If they're going to keep you awake at night, you might not want to take the risk."""
"""Form as LLC or S Corp to reduce tax liability""","""This is actually quite a complicated issue. I suggest you talk to a properly licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State). Legal advice (from an attorney licensed in your State) is also highly recommended. There are many issues at hand here. Income - both types of entities are pass-through, so \""earnings\"" are taxed the same. However, for S-Corp there's a \""reasonable compensation\"" requirement, so while B and C don't do any \""work\"" they may be required to draw salary as executives\/directors (if they act as such). Equity - for S-Corp you cannot have different classes of shares, all are the same. So you cannot have 2 partners contribute money and third to contribute nothing (work is compensated, you'll be getting salary) and all three have the same stake in the company. You can have that with an LLC. Expansion - S-Corp is limited to X shareholders, all of which have to be Americans. Once you get a foreign partner, or more than 100 partners - you automatically become C-Corp whether you want it or not. Investors - it would be very hard for you to find external investors if you're a LLC. There are many more things to consider. Do not make this decision lightly. Fixing things is usually much more expensive than doing them right at the first place."""
"""How to do thorough research into a company to better understand whether to buy stock?""","""So, first -- good job on making a thorough checklist of things to look into. And onto your questions -- is this a worthwhile process? Even independent of specific investing goals, learning how to research is valuable. If you decided to forgo investing in stocks directly, and chose to only invest in index funds, the same type of research skills would be useful. (Not to mention that such discipline would come in handy in other fields as well.) What other 80\/20 'low hanging fruit' knowledge have I missed? While it may not count as 'low hanging fruit', one thing that stands out to me is there's no mention of what competition a company has in its field. For example, a company may be doing well today, but you may see signs that it's consistently losing ground to its competition. While that alone may not dissuade you from investing, it may give you something to consider.  Is what I've got so far any good? or am I totally missing the point. Your cheat sheet seems pretty good to me. But a lot depends on what your goals are. If you're doing this solely for your education and experience, I would say you've done well. If you're looking to invest in a company that is involved in a field you're passionate about, you're on the right track. But you should probably consider expanding your cheat sheet to include things that are not 'low hanging fruit' but still matter to you.  However, I'd echo the comments that have already been made and suggest that if this is for retirement investments, take the skills you've developed in creating your cheat sheet and apply that work towards finding a set of index funds that meet your criteria.  Otherwise happy hunting!"""
"""What is 'consolidating' debt and why do people do it?""","""The debt on Credit Cards is pretty high. Its in the range of 30-40% APR. There could also be a case very high personal loan for medical or other personal emergencies at a rate in excess of 15%. The debt consolidation would offer this at a very low APR There are institutions that offer debt consolidation services that would consolidate all your debt into a single loan at a lower rate of interest. They would also negotiate with all your lenders to waive charges and accrued interests to the max extent. The benefit to the institution offering this service is that they have a larger loan on books and hence the servicing cost is less. Most of the time the debt consolidation is offered with some asset as the guarantee for the new loan. By doing this the advantages are: Of course if you are looking for the balance transfer on cards to new one, then its same and in fact may at times be more expensive."""
"""How Technical Analysts react to non-market hours effects""","""You can't. Even as a technical trader you should know what events are coming up and be prepared. You can't prepare for everything but you should know when the earnings dates are. You should also pay attention to the market in general. Stocks also have personalities and you should get to know that personality.  Most important thing in trading is deciding when to get out before buying and stick to it when it goes against you. It is also one of the hardest things to do."""
"""Teaching school kids about money - what are the real life examples of math, budgeting, finance?""","""My education on this topic at this age range was a little more free-form. We were given a weeklong project in the 6th grade, which I remember pretty clearly:  Fast forward 6 years (we were 12). You are about to be kicked out of   your parents' house with the clothes on your back, $1,000 cash in your   pocket, your high school diploma, and a \""best of luck\"" from your   parents. That's it. Your mission is to not be homeless, starving and   still wearing only the clothes on your back in 3 months. To do this, you will find an apartment, a job (you must meet the qualifications fresh out of high school with only your diploma; no college, no experience), and a means of transportation. Then,   you'll build a budget that includes your rent, estimated utilities,   gasoline (calculated based on today's prices, best-guess fuel mileage of the car, and 250% of the best-guess one-way distance between home and job), food (complete nutrition is not a must, but 2000cal\/day is), toiletries, clothing, and anything else you want or   need to spend your paycheck or nest egg on. Remember that the laundromat isn't free, and neither is buying the washer\/dryer yourself. Remember most apartments aren't furnished but do have kitchen appliances, and you can't say you found anything on the side of the road. The end product of your work will be a narrative report of the first   month of your new life, a budget for the full 3 months, plus a \""continuing\"" budget for a typical month thereafter to prove you're not just lasting out the 3 months, and all supporting   evidence for your numbers, from newspaper clippings to in-store   mailers (the Internet and e-commerce were just catching on at the time, Craigslist and eBay didn't exist yet, and not everyone had home Internet to begin with).  Extra Credit: Make your budget work with all applicable income and   sales taxes. Extra Extra Credit: Have more than your original $1000 in the bank at   the end of the 3 months, after the taxes in the Extra Credit. This is a pretty serious project for a 12-year-old. Not only were we looking through the classified ads and deciphering all the common abbreviations, we were were taking trips to the grocery store with shopping lists, the local Wal-Mart or Target, the mall, even Goodwill. Some students had photos of their local gas station's prices, to which someone pointed out that their new apartment would be on the other side of town where gas was more expensive (smart kid). Some students just couldn't make it work (usually the mistakes were to be expected of middle-class middle-schoolers, like finding a job babysitting and stretching that out full-time, only working one job, buying everything new from clothes to furniture, thinking you absolutely need convenience items you can do without, and\/or trying to buy the same upscale car your dad takes to work), though most students were able to provide at least a plausible before-tax budget. A few made the extra credit work, which was a lot of extra credit, because not only were you filling out a 1040EZ for your estimated income taxes, you were also figuring FICA and Social Security taxes which even some adults don't know the rates for, and remember, no Internet. Given that the extra-extra credit required you to come out ahead after taxes (good luck), I can't remember that anyone got that far. The meta-lesson that we all learned? Life without a college education is rough."""
"""Zero volatility stocks in intraday trading in India""","""Find a stock screener that has data for the BSE and NSE. You may be able to look directly at volatility but a good stock screener will have the technical analysis indicator called \""average true range\"", ATR for short. This will let you see the average range of price moves over several days."""
"""Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC?""","""Your recruiter is likely trying to avoid having to pay the employer's side of employment taxes, and may even be trying to avoid having to file a 1099 for you by treating your relationship as a vendor\/service provider that he is purchasing services from, which would make your pay just a business expense. It's definitely in his best interest for you to do it this way. Whether it's in your best interest is up to you. You should consult a licensed legal\/tax professional to help you determine whether this is a good arrangement for you. (Most of the time, when someone starts playing tax avoidance games, they eventually get stung by it.) The next big question: If you already know this guy is a snake, why are you still working with him? If you don't trust him, why would you take legal\/tax advice from him? He might land you a high-paying job. But he also might cause you years of headaches if his tax advice turns out to be flawed."""
"""Which is better when working as a contractor, 1099 or incorporating?""","""Unless the amounts involved are very small, it is MUCH better to incorporate. First, incorporation gives you limited liability for your acts as an employee. As an individual, you have unlimited liability. Second, incorporating allows you to deduct (for tax purposes) the costs of doing business, including all of your health insurance, most transportation, and some meals. The exception to the rule is if the amounts you are earning are so small that they don't cover the cost of incorporating, accounting fees, etc. (a few hundred, or at most a few thousand dollars)."""
"""How to calculate the standard deviation of stock returns?""","""For implied volatility it is okey to use Black and scholes but what to do with the historical volatility which carry the effect of past prices as a predictor of future prices.And then precisely the conditional historical volatility.i suggest that you must go with the process like, for stock returns  1) first download stock prices into excel sheet 2) take the natural log of (P1\/po) 3) calculate average of the sample  4) calculate square of (X-Xbar) 5) take square root of this and you will get the standard deviation of your required data."""
"""What effect would sovereign default of a European country have on personal debt or a mortgage?""","""This is a hard question to answer.  Government debt and mortgages are loosely related.  Banks typically use yields on government bonds to determine mortgage interest rates.  The banks must be able to get higher rates from the mortgage otherwise they would buy government bonds. Your question mentions default so I'm assuming a country has reneged on its promise to pay either the principal or interest on government bonds. The main thing to consider is \""Who does not get their money?\"".  In other words, who does the government decide not to pay.  This is the important part.  The government will have some money so they could pay some bond holders.  They must decide who to shaft. For example, let's look at who holds Greek government debt.  Around 70% of Greek government debt is held outside Greece.  See table below.  The Greek government could decide to default only on the debt to foreign holders.  In that case the banks in France and Switzerland would take the loss on their bonds.  This could cause severe problems in France and Switzerland depending on the percentage of Greek bonds that make up the banks' assets.  Greek banks would still face losses, however, since the price of their Greek bond holdings would drop sharply when the government defaults.  Interestingly, the losses for the Greek banks may be smaller than the losses faced by the French and Swiss banks.  This is usually the favored option chosen by government since the French and Swiss don't vote in Greece. Yields on Greek government bonds would rise dramatically.  If your Greek mortgage is an adjustable rate mortgage then you could see some big adjustments upward.  If you live in France or Switzerland then the bank that owns your mortgage may go under if Greece defaults.  During liquidation the bank will sell their assets which includes mortgages and you will probably not notice any difference in your mortgage. As I stated earlier: this is a hard question to answer since the two financial instruments involved (bonds and mortgages) are similar but may or may not be related."""
"""Term loan overpayment options: applied to principal, or\u2026?""","""It may have been the standard practice for a long time, and indeed it still is the common practice for my credit union to apply all excess payment directly to the principal. At the risk of sounding a little cynical, I will suggest that there is a profit motive in the move to not applying excess payments to principal unless directly instructed to do so. Interest accrued isn't reduced until the principal is reduced, so it benefits the creditor to both have the money in advance and to not apply it to the principal. You should probably move forward with the expectation that all of your creditors are adversarial even if only in a passive-aggressive manner."""
"""Should I invest in my house, when it's in my wife's name?""","""I'm not going to speculate on the nature of your relationship with your wife, but the fact that you are worried about what would happen in the event of a divorce is a bit concerning.  Presumably you married her with the intent of staying together forever, so what's the big deal if you spend 50k upgrading the house you live in, assuming you won't get divorced? Now, if you really are worried about something happening in the future, you might want to seek legal advice about the content of the prenup.  I am guessing if the 400k were your assets before marriage, you have full claim to that amount in the event of a divorce*.  If you document the loan, or make some agreement, I would think you would have claim to at least some of the house's appreciation due to the renovations if they were made with your money*. *obligatgory IANAL"""
"""Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire?""","""This is a reasonable idea and many people have done it. But there are some risks that you need to mitigate. This is a viable business model, but it is a business and you need to treat it as such and expect to work quite hard at it."""
"""Switching Roth IRA ( from American Funds to Vanguard)""","""You can have as many IRA accounts as you want (whether Roth or Traditional), so you can have a Roth IRA with American Funds and another Roth IRA with Vanguard if you like. One disadvantage of  having too many IRA accounts with small balances in each is that most custodians  (including Vanguard) charge an annual fee for maintaining IRA accounts with small balances but waive the fee if the balance is large. So it is best to keep your Roth IRA in just one or two funds with just one or two custodians until such time as investment returns plus additional contributions made over the years makes the balances large enough to diversify further. Remember also that you cannot contribute the maximum to each IRA; the sum total of all your IRA contributions (doesn't matter whether to Roth or to Traditional IRAs) for any year must satisfy the limit for that year. You can move money from one IRA of yours to another IRA (of the same type) of yours without any tax issues to worry about. Such movements (called rollovers or transfers) are  not contributions and do not count towards the annual contribution limit. The easiest way to do move money from one IRA account to another IRA account is by a trustee-to-trustee transfer where the money goes directly from one custodian (American Funds in this case) to the other custodian (Vanguard in this case). The easiest way of accomplishing this is to call Vanguard or go online on their website, tell them that you are wanting to  establish a Roth IRA with them, and that you want to fund it by transferring money held in a Roth IRA with American Funds. Give Vanguard the account  number of your existing American Funds IRA, tell them how much  you want to transfer over -- $1000 or $20,000 or the entire balance as the case may be -- and tell Vanguard to go get the money.  In a few days' time, the money will appear in your new Vanguard Roth IRA and the American Funds Roth IRA will have a smaller balance, possibly a zero balance, or might even be closed if you told Vanguard to collect the entire balance.  DO NOT approach American Funds and tell them that you want to transfer money to a new Roth IRA with Vanguard: they will bitch and moan and drag their heels about doing so because  they are unhappy to lose your business, and will probably screw up the transfer. Talk to Vanguard only. They are eager to get their hands on your IRA money and will gladly take care of the whole thing for you at no charge to you. DO NOT cash in any stock shares, or mutual fund shares, or whatever is in your Roth IRA in preparation for \""cashing out of the old account\"". There is a method where you take a \""rollover distribution\"" from your American Funds Roth IRA and then deposit the money into your new Vanguard Roth IRA within 60 days, but I recommend most strongly against using this because too many people manage to screw it up. It is 60 days, not two months; the clock starts from the day American Funds cuts your check, not when you get the check, and it is stopped when the money gets deposited into your new account, not the day you mailed the check to Vanguard or the day that Vanguard received it,  and so on. In short, DO NOT try this at home:  stick to a trustee-to-trustee transfer and avoid the hassles."""
"""How do I determine ownership split on a franchise model?""","""There is no one solution to every project finance problem. Two models might make sense in this situation, however. In this case, you would count all the money that you give to your friend as a loan which he will pay back with interest. The interest rate and loan amounts will have to be agreed on by both of you. One one hand, the interest should be high enough to reward you in a successful outcome for the amount of risk that you take on if things don't work out. On the other, the interest rate needs to be low enough where his earnings after loan repayment justify your friend's effort, in addition to being competitive to ant rate your friend could secure from a bank. The downside to this plan is you don't directly benefit from the franchise's profits. In this model, you will record the cash that each of you invests. Since your friend is also adding \""sweat equity\"" by setting up and operating the franchise, you will need to quantify the work that your friend and you invest into the franchise. Then you can determine how much each of you has invested in terms of dollars and split any franchise profits based on those proportions. The downside of this plan is that it is difficult to estimate how much time each of you invests and how much that time is worth."""
"""What's the point of a chargeback when they just ask the merchant whether they owe money to the buyer?""","""So, what's the point of a charge-back, if they simply take the word of the merchant? tl;dr: They don't. As both a merchant and a consumer I have been on both ends of credit card chargebacks, and have received what I consider to be mostly fair outcomes in all cases. Here are some examples: Takeaways from this: I strongly urge all consumers who are considering doing a chargeback to try to work with the merchant first, and use the CC dispute as a last resort. In general, you can think of the credit card dispute department like a judge. They hear the arguments presented by both sides, and consider them to the best of their ability. They don't always get it right, but they make their best attempt given the limited information they are provided."""
"""Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?""","""Sorry to be boring but you have the luxury of time and do not need high-risk investments. Just put the surplus cash into a diversified blue-chip fund, sit back, and enjoy it supporting you in 50 years time. Your post makes me think you're implicitly assuming that since you have a very high risk tolerance you ought to be able to earn spectacular returns. Unfortunately the risks involved are extremely difficult to quantify and there's no guarantee they're fairly discounted. Most people would intuitively realise betting on 100-1 horses is a losing proposition but not realise just how bad it is. In reality far fewer than one in a thousand 100-1 shots actually win."""
"""SBI term deposit versus SBI bonds""","""I wrote one to check against the N3 to N6 bonds: http:\/\/capitalmind.in\/2011\/03\/sbi-bond-yield-calculator\/ Things to note:"""
"""If I were to get into a life situation where I would not be able to make regular payments, do lenders typically provide options other than default?""","""For insight on what will happen, I suggest looking at the situation from the lender's perspective: If your setbacks are temporary, and you are likely to get back on your feet again, they will protect their investment by making accommodations, and probably charging you extra fees along the way. If your financial hardship seems irredeemable, they probably try to squeeze you for as much as possible, and then eventually take your house, protecting their investment as best they can. If they are going to foreclose, they may be reluctant to do it quickly, as foreclosure is expensive, takes man power, and looks bad on their books.  So it may get pushed off for a Quarter, or a fiscal year. But if you are asking if they'll help you out from the goodness of their heart, well, a bank has no heart, and creditors are interested in ROI.  They'll take the easiest path to profit, or failing that, the path to minimum financial losses.   The personal consequences to you are not their concern. Once you realize this, it may change your thinking about your own situation.   If you think you have a path to financial recovery, then you need to make that clear to them, in writing, with details.  Make a business case that working with you is in their own best interests. If you cannot make such a case, recognize that they'll likely squeeze you for as much as possible in penalties, fees, interest payments, etc, before eventually foreclosing on you anyway.  Don't play that game. If your home is a lost cause financially, plan how to get out from it with the smallest losses possible.  Don't pay more than you need to, and don't throw good money after bad."""
"""Could there be an interest for a company to make their Share price fall?""","""Not directly Nintendo, but: A company would want its share price to be high if it wants to sell its stock, e.g. on IPO or on subsequent offerings. However, if they want to buy back some shares, it would be in their interest to get more stock for the buck. There may of course be derivative values associated with a high share price, e.g. if they bet on the price or have agreements with investors for particular milestones to be reached. Employees might hold shares and be motivated by share price increases, so a decrease may not be desired, unless they are into some kind of insider trading (buy low, sell high). And last, over-valued share prices may undermine trust in a company, and failing to inform shareholders sufficiently may be outright illegal. Besides those reasons related to law, funding, sales, public relations and company image, companies should be pretty much independent from their own share prices, in contrast to share distribution."""
"""Suitable Vanguard funds for a short-term goal (1-2 years)""","""If you are younger, and you not under undue pressure to buy a home at any particular time, investing in the market is a reasonable way to prepare.  Your risk tolerance should be high.   Understand that this means you may buy in 3-4 years instead of 1-2 if the market takes a down turn.  It took ~3-4 years for the S&P 500 to recover from the 2008 crash. I doubt anything that severe is in the making, but there is always an element of risk involved in investing. If you and your family will be busting at the seams of your current rental in a year, then maybe the bond fund advice others have provided is a better option.  If you are willing to be flexible, a more aggressive strategy might be appropriate. Likely, you want something along the lines of the Vanguard S&P 500 mutual fund - something that is diversified (a large number of stocks), in relatively safe companies (in this case the 500 companies that Standard and Poor's think are most likely to repay corporate bonds), and 'indexed' vice 'actively managed' (indexed funds have lower fees because they are using 'rules' to pick the stocks rather than paying a person to evaluate them.) It's going to depend on you and your situation - and regardless of what you choose consistency will be key: put your investment on automatic so it happens every month without your input."""
"""Can I add PMI to my principal balance when I take out a mortgage?""","""There are few different types of MI you can choose from, they are: Borrower-Paid Monthly (this is what most people think of when they think MI) Borrower-Paid Single Premium (you may have QM issues on this) Lender Paid Single Premium Split Up-front and Monthly The only way to determine which option will ultimately cost you less is to come up with a time estimate or range for how long you anticipate you will hold this mortgage, then look at each option over that time, and see where they fall. To answer your question about the single-premium being added to your loan, this typically does not happen (outside of FHA\/VA).  The reason for that is you would now have 90%+ financing and fall into a new pricing bracket, if not being disqualified altogether.  What is far more typical is the use of premium pricing to pay this up-front premium.  Premium pricing is where you take a lender credit in exchange for an elevated rate; it is the exact opposite of paying points to buy down your rate. For example:  say a zero point rate is 4.25%, and you have monthly MI of say .8%.  Your effective rate would be 5.05%.  It may be possible to use premium pricing at an elevated rate of say 4.75% to pay your MI up front--now your effective rate is the note rate of 4.75%.  This is how a single premium can save you money.  Keep in mind though, the 4.75% will be your rate for the life of the loan, and in the other scenario, once the MI drops off, the effective rate will go back down from 5.05% to 4.25%.  This is why it is critical to know your estimated length of financing."""
"""Do banks give us interest even for the money that we only had briefly in our account?""","""It depends on your bank's terms (which may in turn be influenced by laws and regulations), but most banks calculate interest on a per-day basis, so if you leave the money in the account for more than a day, it will generate interest. However, it will most likely be so little that you could make more money doing any kind of paid work in the time it took you to write this question..."""
"""Why have I never seen a stock split?""","""You haven't seen one because you haven't looked for one properly. You can set a google alert for stock split and get information about major issues splitting their stocks quite regularly, as well as a daily dose of recommendations from people without a say in the matter for big companies to split their stock. Stock splits are announced in advance by company management."""
"""Preferred vs Common Shares in Private Corporation""","""To follow up on Quid's comment, the share classes themselves will define what level of dividends are expected. Note that the terms 'common shares' and 'preferred shares' are generally understood terms, but are not as precise as you might believe.  There are dozens\/hundreds of different characteristics that could be written into share classes in the company's articles of incorporation [as long as those characteristics are legal in corporate law in the company's jurisdiction]. So in answering your question there's a bit of an assumption that things are working 'as usual'. Note that private companies often have odd quirks to their share classes, things like weird small classes of shares that have most of the voting rights, or shares with 'shotgun buyback clauses'. As long as they are legal clauses, they can be used to help control how the business is run between various shareholders with competing interests. Things like parents anticipating future family infighting and trying to prevent familial struggle. You are unlikely to see such weird quirks in public companies, where the company will have additional regulatory requirements and where the public won't want any shock at unexpected share clauses. In your case, you suggested having a non-cumulative preferred share [with no voting rights, but that doesn't impact dividend payment]: There are two salient points left related to payout that the articles of incorporation will need to define for the share classes: (1) What is the redemption value for the shares? [This is usually equal to the cost of subscribing for the shares in the first place; it represents how much the business will need to pay the shareholder in the event of redemption \/ recall] (2) What is the stated dividend amount? This is usually defined at a rate that's at or a little above a reasonable interest rate at the time the shares are created, but defined as $ \/ share. For example, the shares could have $1 \/ share dividend payment, where the shares originally cost $50 each to subscribe [this would reflect a rate of payment of about 2%]. Typically by corporate law, dividends must be paid to preferred shares, to the extent required based on the characteristics of the share class [some preferred shares may not have any required dividends at all], before any dividends can be paid to common shares. So if $10k in dividends is to be paid, and total preferred shares require $15k of non-cumulative dividends each year, then $0 will be paid to the common shares. The following year, $15k of dividends will once again need to be paid to the preferred shares, before any can be paid to the common shares."""
"""Withdraw funds with penalty or bear high management fees for 10 years?""","""Here's the purely mathematical answer for which fees hurt more. You say taking the money out has an immediate cost of $60,000. We need to calculate the present value of the future fees and compare it against that number. Let's assume that the investment will grow at the same rate either with or without the broker. That's actually a bit generous to the broker, since they're probably investing it in funds that in turn charge unjustifiable fees. We can calculate the present cost of the fees by calculating the difference between: As it turns out, this number doesn't depend on how much we should expect to get as investment returns. Doing the math, the fees cost: 220000 - 220000 * (1-0.015)^40 = $99809 That is, the cost of the fees is comparable to paying nearly $100,000 right now. Nearly half the investment! If there are no other options, I strongly recommend taking the one-time hit and investing elsewhere, preferably in low-cost index funds. Details of the derivation. For simplicity, assume that both fees and growth compound continuously. (The growth does compound continuously. We don't know about the fees, but in any case the distinction isn't very significant.) Fees occur at a (continuous) rate of rf = ln((1-0.015)^4) (which is negative), and growth occurs at rate rg. The OPs current principal is P, and the present value of the fees over time is F. We therefore have the equation P e^((rg+rf)t) = (P-F) e^(rg t) Solving for F, we notice that the e^rg*t components cancel, and we obtain F = P - P e^(rf t) = P - P e^(ln((1-0.015)^4) t) = P - P (1-0.015)^(4t)"""
"""How can I calculate a \""running\"" return using XIRR in a spreadsheet?""","""Set your xirr formula to a very tall column, leaving lots of empty rows for future additions. In column C, instead of hardcoding the value, use a formula that tests if it's the current bottom entry, like this: =IF(ISBLANK(A7),-C6, C6) If the next row has no date entered (yet), then this is the latest value, and make it negative. Now, to digress a bit, there are several ways to measure returns. I feel XIRR is good for individual positions, like holding a stock, maybe buying more via DRIP, etc. For the whole portfolio it stinks. XIRR is greatly affected by timing of cash flows. Steady deposits and no withdrawals dramatically skew the return lower. And the opposite is true for steady withdrawals. I prefer to use TWRR (aka TWIRR). Time Weighted Rate of Return. The word 'time' is confusing, because it's the opposite. TWRR is agnostic to timing of cashflows. I have a sample Excel spreadsheet that you're welcome to steal from: http:\/\/moosiefinance.com\/static\/models\/spreadsheets.html (it's the top entry in the list). Some people prefer XIRR. TWRR allows an apples-to-apples comparison with indexes and funds. Imagine twin brothers. They both invest in the exact same ideas, but the amount of cash deployed into these ideas is different, solely because one brother gets his salary bonus annually, in January, and the other brother gets no bonus, but has a higher bi-weekly salary to compensate. With TWRR, their percent returns will be identical. With XIRR they will be very different. TWRR separates out investing acumen from the happenstance timing of when you get your money to deposit, and when you retire, when you choose to take withdrawals. Something to think about, if you like. You might find this website interesting, too: http:\/\/www.dailyvest.com\/"""
"""To use a line of credit or withdraw from savings""","""No one can really answer this for you.  It is a matter of personal preference and the details of your situation.  There are some really smart people on here, when placed in your exact situation, would do completely different things.  Personal finance is overall, personal. If it was me, I'd never borrow money in retirement.  If I had the cash, I'd use it to help fund the purchase.  If I didn't, I simply wouldn't.  For me wealth retention (in your case) is surprisingly more about behavior than math (even though I am a math guy).  You are simply creating a great deal of risk at a season in your life with a diminished ability to recover from negative events.  In my opinion you are inviting \""tales of woe\"" to be part of your future if you borrow. Others would disagree with me.  They would point to the math and show how you would be much better off on borrowing instead of pulling out of investments provided a sufficient return on your nest egg.  They may even have a case as you might have to pay taxes on money pulled out magnifying the difference in net income on borrowing versus pulling out in a lump sum.  Here in the US, the money you pulled out would be taxed at the highest marginal rate.  To help with a down payment of 50K, you might have to pull out 66,500 to pay the taxes and have enough for the down payment. The third option is to not help with a down payment or to help them in a different way.  Perhaps giving them a few hundred per month for two years to help with their mortgage payment.  Maybe watch their kids some to reduce day care costs or help with home improvements so they can buy a lower price home.  Those are all viable options.  Perhaps the child is not ready to buy a home. Having said all that it really depends on your situation.  Say your sitting on 5 million in investments, your pensions is sufficient to have some disposable income, and they are asking for a relatively small amount.  Then pull the money out and don't be concerned.  You nest egg will quickly recover the money."""
"""How do you get out of a Mutual Fund in your 401(k)?""","""Most 401k plans (maybe even all 401k plans as a matter of law) allow the option of moving the money in your 401k account from one mutual fund to another  (within the group of funds that are in the plan).  So, you can exit from one fund and put all your 401k money (not just the new contributions) into another fund in the group if you like.  Whether you can find a fund within that group that invests only in the companies that you approve of is another matter. As mhoran_psprep's answer points out, changing investments inside a 401k (ditto IRAs, 403b and 457 plans) is without tax consequence which is not the case when you sell one mutual fund and buy another in a non-retirement account."""
"""Is there a \""reverse wash sale\"" rule? ""","""Yes, the newly bought shares will have a long-term holding period, regardless of when you sell them.  In addition, it's only a wash sale if you sold the first shares for a loss; it's not a wash sale if you sold them for a gain. Wikipedia mentions this: When a wash sale occurs, the holding period for the replacement stock includes the period you held the stock you sold. Example: You've held shares of XYZ for 10 years. You sell it at a loss but then buy it back within the wash sale period. When you sell the replacement stock, your gain or loss will be long-term \u2014 no matter how soon you sell it. Charles Schwab also mentions this: Here's a quick example of a wash sale. On 9\/30\/XX, you buy 500 shares of ABC at $10 per share. One year later the stock price starts to drop, and you sell all your shares at $9 per share on 10\/4\/XY. Two days later, on 10\/6, ABC bottoms out at $8 and you buy 500 shares again. This series of trades triggers a wash sale. The holding period of the original shares will be added to the holding period of the replacement shares, effectively leaving you with a long-term position."""
"""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."""
"""Someone asks you to co-sign a loan. How to reject & say \""no\"" nicely or politely?""","""I have been in this situation and I essentially went for the truthful answer.  I first explained that co-signing for a loan wasn't just vouching for the person, which I certainly would do, but it was putting my name on the loan and making me the person they loan company would go after if a payment was ever missed. Then I explained that even within married couples, money can be a major source of strife and fights, it would be even worse for someone not quite as close like a family member or friend. Essentially I wouldn't want to risk my relationship with a good friend or family member over some financial matter."""
"""What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?""","""The reason is the same as with cell phones payment plans. As competition grows cell phone companies offer better payment plans for the same price or the same plans for lower price or both so that you stay with that cell operator. Banks also make better offers if the financial situation allows. Suppose several banks offer refinancing with better terms but prohibit refinancing loans from the same bank. Okay, you refinance from another bank and them maybe refinance the new loan again from the original bank - it's a new loan after the first refinance and prohibition no longer works. They just make you jump through more loops and it doesn't make sense neither for them nor for you"""
"""Can my spouse be the primary signer on my car's loan?""","""Go to your local bank or credit union before talking to a dealership. Ask them if putting both names on the loan makes a difference regarding rates and maximum loan you qualify for. Ask them to run the loan application both ways. Having both names on the loan helps build the credit of the spouse that has a lower score.    You may find that both incomes are needed for a car loan if the couple has a mortgage or other joint obligations. The lender will treat the entire mortgage payment or rent payment as a liability against the person applying for the loan, they won't split the housing payment in half if only one name will be on the car loan. Therefore sometimes the 2nd persons income is needed even if their credit is not as good. That additional income without a significant increase in liabilities can make a huge difference regarding the loan they can qualify for. Once the car is in your possession, it doesn't matter who drives it. In general the insurance company will put both spouses as authorized drivers. Note: it is almost always better to ask your bank or credit union about a car loan before going to the dealership. That gives you a solid data point regarding a loan, and removes a major complexity to the negotiations at the dealership."""
"""Should I continue to invest in an S&P 500 index fund?""","""I would be very cautious about investing any more funds into the S&P500 at this stage. You are quite correct in your observation with the charts regarding the 2001 and 2008 crashes, and below is the chart of the S&P500 over the last 20 years with some indicators on it.  The green line on the price chart is the 100 week Moving Average (MA) and the pink line below the price chart is the Moving Average of the Rate of Change (ROC) Indicator. In general the market is moving up if price is above the 100 week MA and the ROC is above 0%, and vise-versa the market is moving down if price is below the 100 week MA and the ROK is below 0%. Both times in 2001 and in 2008 when prices broke below the 100 week MA and then the ROC crossed below the zero line, well we all know what happened next. In 2001 prices kept falling and the ROC didn't cross back above zero for about 2.5 years, in 2008 much the same happened and the ROC didn't cross back above zero for over 20 months. Now as we are reaching the end of 2015 prices have once again broken below the 100 week MA and the ROC is just above the zero line quickly heading down towards it. If you have a 5 to 8 year time frame, and prices do continue to fall much further after the ROC crosses below the zero line, your current funds and any new funds you invest in this ETF will potentially see heavy losses for the next one to two years and then take another year to two years or more to recover to current levels. This means that your funds will potentially have no gains at all in 5 or 6 years time. A better option is to get out of the market once the ROC crosses below zero and then look to get back in once the recovery has started, when the ROC crosses back above the Zero line. You might be out of the market for a year or two, but once you get back in you can expect robust gains over the next 3 to 5 years. If you do get out and things reverse quite quickly you can easily just get back in. In mid-2010 and mid-2011 the price broke below the 100 week MA but the ROC remained above Zero and prices continued moving up after short corrections. In mid-2012 the ROC got very close to the Zero line but did not cross below it, and again prices continued to go up after a small correction. You should plan for the worst and be ready if it occurs. If you don't plan you're just hoping and hoping is what will keep you awake at night whist things are going against you."""
"""Why do people buy stocks at higher price in merger?""","""There are kind of two answers here: the practical reason an acquirer has to pay more for shares than their current trading price and the economic justification for the increase in price. Why must the acquirer must pay a premium as a practical matter?  Everyone has a different valuation of a company.  The current trading price is the lowest price that any holder of the stock is willing to sell a little bit of stock for and the highest that anyone is willing to buy a little bit for. However, Microsoft needs to buy a controlling share.  To do this on the open market they would need to buy all the shares from people who's personal valuation is low, and then a bunch from people whose valuation is higher and so on.  The act of buying that much stock would push the price up by buying all the shares from people who are really willing to sell.  Moreover, as they buy more and more, the remaining people increase their personal valuation so the price would really shoot up.  Acquirers avoid this situation by offering to buy a ton of stock at a substantially higher, single price. Why is Linkedin suddenly worth more than it was yesterday? Microsoft is expecting to be able to use its own infrastructure and tools to make more money with Linkedin than Linkedin would have before.  In other words, they believe that the Linkedin division of Microsoft after the merger will be worth more than Linkedin alone was before the merger.  This synergistic idea is the theoretical foundation for mergers in general and the main reason people use to argue for a higher price. You could also argue that by expressing an interest in Linkedin, Microsoft may be telling us something it knows about Linkedin's value that maybe we didn't realize before because we aren't as smart and informed as the people on Microsoft's board.  But since it's Microsoft that's doing the buying in this case, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is not the main effect.  Given Microsoft's history, the idea that they buy expensive things because they have money to burn is more compelling than the idea that they have an insight into a company's value that we don't."""
"""Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house?""","""You can explore the scenarios in which it is better to rent or to buy using this application: http:\/\/demonstrations.wolfram.com\/BuyOrRentInvestmentReturnCalculator\/ In the possibly unlikely scenario shown below, at the term of the mortgage (20 years) the tenant and the buyer have practically the same return on investment.  At this point the tenant's savings would be sufficient to buy a house equivalent to the buyer's, and this would be the advisable course of action (based on the figures alone)."""
"""Stock portfolio value & profit in foreign currency ""","""I think this will do the trick:"""
"""Calculating profits for a private fund""","""The total number of shares on April 1st is 100 + 180 + 275 = 555.  The price on April 1st is required.  The current price is stated as $2, but $2 * 555 = $1110 and the current fund values is stated as $1500.  Opting to take the current value as $1500, the price on April 1st can be calculated as $1500\/555 = $2.7027. The amounts invested as number of shares x share price are: (Note these investment amounts do not match the example scenario's investment amounts, presumably because the example numbers are just made up.) The monthly returns can be calculated: The current values for each investor as invested amount x returns are: Checking the total:"""
"""What is a good rental yield?""","""Our two rentals have yielded 8.5% over the past two years (averaged). That is net, after taxes, maintenance, management, vacancy, insurance, interest. I am only interested in cash flow - expenses \/ original investment. If you aren't achieving at least 4.5-5% net on your original investment you probably could invest elsewhere and earn a better return on a similar risk profile."""
"""Do I even need credit cards?""","""Credit cards are great. You get free money for 30+ days and a bunch of additional benefits like insurance, extended warranties and reward programs. When vendors don't behave, you dispute the charge with the credit card and they deal with it on your behalf. Just get a fee-free American Express card and pay the balance off each month.  There's nothing wrong with using cash either, but I would avoid debit cards like the plague."""
"""Student loan payments and opportunity costs""","""Already a lot of great answers, but since I ask myself this same question I thought I'd share my 2 cents.  As @user541852587 pointed out, behavior is of the essence here. If you're like most recent grads, this is probably the first time in your life you are getting serious about building wealth. Can you pay your loans down quickly and then have the discipline to invest just as much -- if not more -- than you were putting towards your loans? Most people are good at paying bills in full and on time, yet many struggle to \""pay themselves\"" in full and on time.  As @Brandon pointed out, you can do both. I find this makes a great deal of practical sense. It helps form good behaviors, boosts confidence, and \""diversifies\"" those dollars. I have been paying double payments on my student loans while at the same time maxing out my IRA, HSA, & 401k. I also have a rental property (but that's another can of worms). I'm getting on top and feeling confident in my finances, habits, etc. and my loans are going down. With each increase in pay, I intend to pay the loans down faster than I invest until they're paid off.  Again -- I like the idea of doing both."""
"""Invest in (say, index funds) vs spending all money on home?""","""The short answer is that it depends on the taxation laws in your country. The long answer is that there are usually tax avoidance mechanisms that you can use which may make it more economically feasible for you to go one way or the other. Consider the following: The long term average growth rate of the stock market in Australia is around 7%.  The average interest on a mortgage is 4.75%.  Assuming you have money left over from a 20% deposit, you have a few options.  You could: 1) Put that money into an index fund for the long term, understanding that the market may not move for a decade, or even move downwards; 2) Dump that money straight into the mortgage; 3) Put that money in an offset account Option 1 will get you (over the course of 30-40 years) around 7% return.  If and when that profit is realised it will be taxed at a minimum of half your marginal tax rate (probably around 20%, netting you around 5.25%) Option 2 will effectively earn you 4.75% pa tax free Option 3 will effectively earn you 4.75% pa tax free with the added bonus that the money is ready for you to draw upon on short notice. Of the three options, until you have a good 3+ months of living expenses covered, I'd go with the offset account every single time. Once you have a few months worth of living expenses covered, I would the adopt a policy of spreading your risk.  In Australia, that would mean extra contributions to my Super (401k in the US) and possibly purchasing an investment property as well (once I had the capital to positively gear it). Of course, you should find out more about the tax laws in your country and do your own maths."""
"""How can I deposit a check made out to my business into my personal account?""","""I have checked with Bank of America, and they say the ONLY way to cash (or deposit, or otherwise get access to the funds represented by a check made out to my business) is to open a business account. They tell me this is a Federal regulation, and every bank will say the same thing.  To do this, I need a state-issued \""dba\"" certificate (from the county clerk's office) as well as an Employer ID Number (EIN) issued by the IRS. AND their CHEAPEST business banking account costs $15 \/ month. I think I can go to the bank that the check is drawn upon, and they will cash it, assuming I have documentation showing that I am the sole proprietor. But I'm not sure.... What a racket!!"""
"""22-year-old inherited 30k from 529 payout - what is the best way to invest?""","""First, I applaud you for caring.  Most people don't!  In fact, I was in that category.   You bring up several issues and I'll try to address them separately. (1) Getting a financial planner to talk with you.  I had the same experience!  My belief is that they don't want to admit that they don't know how things work. I even asked if I could pay them an hourly fee to ask questions and review stocks with them.  Most declined.  You'll find that very few people actually take the time to get trained to evaluate stocks and the stock market as a whole.  (See later Investools.com). After looking, however, I did find people who would spend an hour or two with me when we met once a quarter to review my \""portfolio\""\/investments.  I later found training that companies offered.  I would attend any free training I could get because they actually wanted to spend time and talk and teach investors. Bottom line is: Talking to their clients is the job of a financial planner.  If he (or she) is not willing to take this time, it is in your best interest to find someone who will spend that time. (2) Learning about investing! I'm not affiliated with anyone.  I'm a software developer and I do my own trading\/investments.  The opinions I share are my own. When I was 20 years away from retirement, I started learning about the stock market so that I would know how it worked before I retired so that (a) I could influence a change if one was needed, and (b) so I wouldn't have to blindly accept the advice of the \""experts\"" even when the stock market is crashing. I have used Investools.com, and TDAmeritrade's Think-or-Swim platform.  I've learned a tremendous amount from the Investools training.  I recommend them.  But don't expect to learn how to get rich from them or any training you take. The TDA Think-or-swim platform I highly recommend BECAUSE it has a feature called \""Paper Money\"".  It lets you trade using the real market but with play money.  I highly recommend ANY platform that you can use to trade IN PAPER money! The think-or-swim platform would allow you to invest $30,000 in paper money (you can have as much as you want) into any stock.  This would let you see if you can make more money than your current investment advisor.  You could invest $10K in one SPY, $10K in DIA and $10K in IWM (these are symbols for the S&P 500, Dow 30, and Small Cap stocks).  This is just an example, I'm not suggesting any investment advise! It's important that you actually do this not just write down on a piece of paper or Excel spreadsheet what you were going to do because it's common to \""cheat\"" and change the dates to meet your needs.  I have found it incredibly helpful to understand how the market works by trying to do my own paper and now real money investing. I was and you will be surprised to find that many trades lose money during the initial start part of the trade because it's very difficult to buy at the exact right time. An important part of managing your own investments is learning to trade with rules and not get \""emotionally involved\"" in your trades. (3) Return on investment. You were not happy with $12 return.  Low returns are a byproduct of the way most investment firms (financial planners) take (diversification).  They diversify to take a \""hands off\"" approach toward investment because that approach has been the only approach that they have found that works relatively well in all market conditions.  It's not (necessarily) a bad approach.  It avoids large losses in down markets (most riskier approaches lose more than the market).  The downside is it also avoids the high returns.  If the market goes up 15% the investment might only go up 5%. 30K is enough to give to multiple investment firms a try.  I gave two different firms $25K each to see how they would invest.  The direction was to accept LOTS of risk (with the potential for large losses or large gains). In a year that the market did very well, one lost money, and one made a small gain.  It was a learning experience.  I, now, have taken the money back and invest it myself. NOTE: I would be happy with a guy who made me 10-15% year over year (in good times and bad) and didn't talk with me, but I haven't found someone who can do that. :-) NOTE 2: Don't believe what you hear from the news about the stock market being up 5% year to date.  Do your own analysis. NOTE 3: Investing in \""the market\"" (S&P 500 for example) is a great way to go if you're just starting.  Few investment firms can beat \""the market\"" although many try to do so.  I too have found it's easier to do that than other approaches I've learned.  So, it might be a good long term approach as well. Best wishes to you in your learning about the market and desires to make money with your money.  That is what is all about."""
"""What is market capitalization? [duplicate]""","""Market capitalization is one way to represent the value of the company. So if a company has 10 million shares, which are each worth $100, then the company's market capitalization is 1 billion. Large cap companies tend to be larger and more stable. Small cap companies are smaller, which indicates higher volatility. So if you want more aggressive investments then you may want to invest in small cap companies while if you lean on the side of caution then big cap companies may be your friend."""
"""What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?""","""Bullets, canned goods, and farm supplies that don't need gas (e.g. seed, feed, plows)."""
"""Advice for opening an IRA as a newbie""","""As other people have indicated, traditional IRAs are tax deductable for a particular year. Please note, though, that traditional IRAs are tax deferred (not tax-free) accounts, meaning that you'll have to pay taxes on any money you take out later regardless of why you're making the withdrawal. (A lot of people mistakenly call them tax free, which they're not). There is no such thing as a \""tax-free\"" retirement account. Really, in terms of Roth vs. Traditional IRAs, it's \""pay now or pay later.\"" With the exception of special circumstances like this, I recommend investing exclusively in Roth IRAs for money that you expect to grow much (or that you expect to produce substantial income over time). Just to add a few thoughts on what to actually invest in once you open your IRA, I strongly agree with the advice that you invest mostly in low-cost mutual funds or index funds. The advantage of an open-ended mutual fund is that it's easier to purchase them in odd increments and you may be able to avoid at least some purchase fees, whereas with an ETF you have to buy in multiples of that day's asking price. For example, if you were investing $500 and the ETF costs $200 per share, you could only purchase 2 shares, leaving $100 uninvested (minus whatever fee your broker charged for the purchase). The advantage of an ETF is that it's easy to buy or sell quickly. Usually, when you add money to a mutual fund, it'll take a few days for it to hit your account, and when you want to sell it'll similarly take a few days for you to get your money; when I buy an ETF the transaction can occur almost instantly. The fees can also be lower (if the ETF is just a passive index fund). Also, there's a risk with open-ended mutual funds that if too many people pull money out at once the managers could be forced to sell stocks at an unfavorable price."""
"""Limits and taxation of receiving gift money, in India, from a friend in Italy?""","""He wants to send me money, as a gift. Do you know this friend? It could easily be a scam. What I don't know is that how much money can he send and what are the taxes that would be applicable in this case? There is no limit; you have to pay taxes as per your tax brackets. This will be added as \""income from other sources\"". I'll probably be using that money to invest in stock market. If the idea is you will make profits from stock market and pay this back, you need to follow the Foreign Exchange Management Act. There are restrictions on transfer of funds outside of India."""
"""Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? ""","""So their programmers don't have to deal with floating point arithmetic. This is why they're so far ahead in technology!"""
"""Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building?""","""The core competency of banks is to lend money from depositors and re-lend that money to borrowers.  They do not have the expertise to develop real estate.   They have trouble evening managing foreclosed real estate, such that they have to sell them at a discount."""
"""Superannuation: When low risk options have higher return, what to do?""","""The long term view you are referring to would be over 30 to 40 years (i.e. your working life). Yes in general you should be going for higher growth options when you are young. As you approach retirement you may change to a more balanced or capital guaranteed option. As the higher growth options will have a larger proportion of funds invested into higher growth assets like shares and property, they will be affected by market movements in these asset classes. So when there is a market crash like with the GFC in 2007\/2008 and share prices drop by 40% to 50%, then this will have an effect on your superannuation returns for that year. I would say that if your fund was invested mainly in the Australian stock market over the last 7 years your returns would still be lower than what they were in mid-2007, due to the stock market falls in late 2007 and early 2008. This would mean that for the 7 year time frame your returns would be lower than a balanced or capital guaranteed fund where a majority of funds are invested in bonds and other fixed interest products. However, I would say that for the 5 and possibly the 10 year time frames the returns of the high growth options should have outperformed the balanced and capital guaranteed options. See examples below: First State Super  AMP Super  Both of these examples show that over a 5 year period or less the more aggressive or high growth options performed better than the more conservative options, and over the 7 year period for First State Super the high growth option performed similar to the more conservative option. Maybe you have been looking at funds with higher fees so in good times when the fund performs well the returns are reduced by excessive fees and when the fund performs badly in not so good time the performance is even worse as the fees are still excessive. Maybe look at industry type funds or retail funds that charge much smaller fees. Also, if a fund has relatively low returns during a period when the market is booming, maybe this is not a good fund to choose. Conversely, it the fund doesn't perform too badly when the market has just crashed, may be it is worth further investigating. You should always try to compare the performance to the market in general and other similar funds. Remember, super should be looked at over a 30 to 40 year time frame, and it is a good idea to get interested in how your fund is performing from an early age, instead of worrying about it only a few years before retirement."""
"""Is investing in housing considered an adequate hedge against inflation?""","""Even if the price of your home did match inflation or better \u2014 and that's a question I'll let the other answers address \u2014 I propose that owning a home, by itself, is not a sufficient hedge against inflation. Consider: Inflation will inflate your living expenses. If you're lucky, they'll inflate at the average. If you're unlucky, a change in your spending patterns (perhaps age-related) could result in your expenses rising faster than inflation. (Look at the sub-indexes of the CPI.) Without income also rising with inflation (or better), how will you cope with rising living expenses? Each passing year, advancing living expenses risk eclipsing a static income. Your home is an illiquid asset. Generally speaking, it neither generates income for you, nor can you sell only a portion. At best, owning your principal residence helps you avoid a rent expense and inflation in rents \u2014 but rent is only one of many living expenses. Some consider a reverse-mortgage an option to tap home equity, but it has a high cost. In other words: If you don't want to be forced to liquidate [sell] your home, you'll also need to look at ways to ensure your income sources rise with inflation. i.e. look at your cash flow, not just your net worth. Hence: investing in housing, as in your own principal residence, is not an adequate hedge against inflation. If you owned additional properties to generate rental income, and you retained pricing power so you could increase the rent charged at least in line with inflation, your situation would be somewhat improved \u2014 except you would, perhaps, be adopting another problem: Too high a concentration in a single asset class. Consequently, I would look at ways other than housing to hedge against inflation. Consider other kinds of investments. \""Safe as houses\"" may be a clich\u00e9, but it is no guarantee."""
"""Query regarding international transaction between governments ""","""For the US government, they've just credited Person B with a Million USD and haven't gained anything (afterall, those digits are intangible and don't really have a value, IMO). Two flaws in this reasoning: The US government didn't do anything. The receiving bank credited the recipient. If the digits are intangible, such that they haven't gained anything, they haven't lost anything either. In practice, the role of governments in the transfer is purely supervisory. The sending bank debits the sender's account and the receiving bank credits the recipient's account. Every intermediary makes some money on this transaction because the cost to the sender exceeds the credit to the recipient. The sending bank typically receives a credit to their account at a correspondent bank. The receiving bank typically receives a debit from their account at a correspondent bank. If a bank sends lots of money, eventually its account at its correspondent will run dry. If a bank receives lots of money, eventually its account at its correspondent will have too much money. This is resolved with domestic payments, sometimes handled by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies. In the US, banks have an account with the federal reserve and adjust balances there. The international component is handled by the correspondent bank(s). They also internally will credit and debit. If they get an imbalance between two currencies they can't easily correct, they will have to sell one currency to buy the other. Fortunately, worldwide currency exchange is extremely efficient."""
"""Value of a call option spread""","""On expiry, with the underlying share price at $46, we have : You ask :  How come they substract 600-100. Why ? Because you have sold the $45 call to open you position, you must now buy it back to close your position.  This will cost you $100, so you are debited for $100 and this debit is being represented as a negative (subtracted); i.e., -$100 Because you have purchased the $40 call to open your position, you must now sell it to close your position.  Upon selling this option you will receive $600, so you are credited with $600 and this credit is represented as a positive (added) ; i.e., +$600. Therefore, upon settlement, closing your position will get you $600-$100 = $500.  This is the first point you are questioning.   (However, you should also note that this is the value of the spread at settlement and it does not include the costs of opening the spread position, which are given as $200, so you net profit is $500-$200 = $300.) You then comment :  I know I am selling 45 Call that means : As a writer: I want stock price to go down or stay at strike. As a buyer: I want stock price to go up. Here, note that for every penny that the underlying share price rises above $45, the money you will pay to buy back your short $45 call option will be offset by the money you will receive by selling the long $40 call option.  Your $40 call option is covering the losses on your short $45 call option. No matter how high the underlying price settles above $45, you will receive the same $500 net credit on settlement.  For example, if the underlying price settles at $50, then you will receive a credit of $1000 for selling your $40 call, but you will incur a debit of $500 against for buying back your short $45 call.  The net being $500 = $1000-$500.  This point is made in response to your comments posted under Dr. Jones answer."""
"""I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?""","""I am very surprised no one mentioned the Stock Repair Option Strategy which has real benefits and is one of the mainstream Option Strategies. Quote: Who Should Consider Using the Stock Repair Strategy? In a nutshell, you are buying call options with current strike price (at-the-money) and sell call options with higher strike price (out-of-the-money), all with the same expiry dates.  The only reason to also sell call options here is to recover your premium paid for the other call options. If you are comfortable paying that premium, you just buy the call options without selling the others. In case your stock will rise moderately to a price between the two strike prices, your call option will rise together with your stock, so you will be faster to recover your money. This is the main reason it is called Repair. If you have sold any call options, as the price rises, you have to be careful when it reaches the strike price of the options sold, as from there on you will begin incurring losses. It is however exactly the lucky outcome you were hoping for, your stock is higher, and you can buy back those loss making options - then or shortly before. If you didn't sell any options and payed your premium, you don't need to worry at all at this stage. WARNING It should be noted that the Stock Repair Strategy offers no protection for your stock price further falling down. In that case all those options will expire worthless or you can sell back the ones your bought but likely not for much. In order to have the downside protection for your stock, there are other strategies, the simplest one being buying a Put Option at-the-money or slightly lower. That will effectively cut your possible losses to the Option Premium (which is the main use of that option).  Again, if you hate to pay that premium, you can offset it by selling other options that you either hope won't be exercised or take steps to protect you against those."""
"""Resources on Buying Rental Properties""","""The book HOLD: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth by Chader et al. was one of the best I've read on the subject. It has all of the basics, explanations, examples, and gives you real-life assumptions for your inputs when you do your analysis. It does contain some less-relevant information now that was more realistic before 2007, but it's a worthwhile read (or listen). They have some good starter worksheets, as well, on their website to help you do your analysis, which I found useful despite already having my own."""
"""Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \""highest interest\"" first?""","""This is a slightly different reason to any other answer I have seen here about irrationality and how being rationally aware of one's irrationality (in the future or in different circumstances) can lead you to make decisions which on the face of it seem wrong. First of all, why do people sometimes maintain balances on high-interest debt when they have savings? Standard advice on many money-management sites and forums is to withdraw the savings to pay down the debt. However, I think there is a problem with this. Suppose you have $5,000 in a savings account, and a $2,000 credit card balance. You are paying more interest on the credit card than you get from the savings account, and it seems that you should withdraw some money from the savings account, and pay off the cc. However, the difference between the two scenarios, other than the interest you lose by keeping the cc balance, is your motivation for saving. If you have a credit card balance of $2,000, you might be obliged to pay a minimum payment of $100 each month. If you have any extra money, you will be rewarded if you pay more in to the credit card, by seeing the balance go down and understanding that you will soon be free from receiving this awful bill each month. To maintain your savings goal, it's enough to agree with yourself that you won't do any new spending on the cc, or withdraw any savings.  Now suppose that you decide to pay off the cc with the savings. There is now nothing 'forcing' you to save $100 each month. When you get to the end of the month, you have to motivate yourself that you will be adding spare cash to your $3,000 savings balance, rather than that you 'have to' pay down your cc. Yes, if you spend the spare cash instead of saving it, you get something in return for it. But it is possible that spending $140 on small-scale discretionary spending (things you don't need) actually gets you less for your money than paying the credit card company $40 interest and saving $100? You might even be tempted to start spending on your credit card again, knowing that you have a 0 balance, and that you 'can always pay it off out of savings'. It's easy to analogize this to a situation with two types of debt. Suppose that you have a $2,000 debt to your parents with no interest and a $2,000 loan at high interest, and you get a $2,000 windfall. Let's assume that your parents don't need the money in a hurry and aren't hassling you to pay them (otherwise you could consider the guilt or the hassle as a form of emotional interest rate). Might it not be better to pay your parents off? If you do, you are likely to keep paying off your loan out of necessity of making the regular payments. In 20 paychecks (or whatever) you might be debt free. If you pay off your loan, you lose the incentive to save. After 20 months you still owe your parents $2,000. I am not saying that this is always what makes sense. Just that it could make sense. Note that this is an opposite to the 'Debt Snowball' method. That method says that it's better to pay off small debts, because that way you have more free cash flow to pay off the larger debts. The above argues that this is a bad idea, because you might spend the increased cash flow on junk. It would be better to keep around as many things as possible which have minimum payments, because it restricts you to paying things rather than gives you the choice of whether to save or spend."""
"""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 Wikipedia article on the federal funds rate has a nice description that I'll summarize here. The interest rate that's usually referred to is the federal funds rate, and it's the rate at which banks can lend money to each other through the Federal Reserve. The nominal federal funds rate - this is a target set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve at each meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). When you hear in the media that the Fed is changing interest rates, this is almost always what they're referring to. The actual federal funds rate - through the trading desk of the New York Federal Reserve, the FOMC conducts open market operations to enforce the federal funds rate, thus leading to the actual rate, which is the rate determined by market forces as a result of the Fed's operations. Open market operations involve buying and selling short-term securities in order to influence the rate. As an example, the current nominal federal funds rate is 0% (in economic parlance, this is known as the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB)), while the actual rate is approximately 25 basis points, or 0.25%. Why is it assumed that interest rates are going to increase when the Federal Reserve ends QE3? I don't understand why interest rates are going to increase. In the United States, quantitative easing is actually a little different from the usual open market operations the Fed conducts. Open market operations usually involve the buying and selling of short-term Treasury securities; in QE, however (especially the latest and ongoing round, QE3), the Fed has been purchasing longer-term Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). By purchasing MBS, the Fed is trying to reduce the overall risk of the commercial housing debt market. Furthermore, the demand created by these purchases drives up prices on the debt, which drives down interest rates in the commercial housing market. To clarify: the debt market I'm referring to is the market for mortgage-backed securities and other debt derivatives (CDO's, for instance). I'll use MBS as an example. The actual mortgages are sold to companies that securitize them by pooling them and issuing securities based on the value of the pool. This process may happen numerous times, since derivatives can be created based on the value of the MBS themselves, which in turn are based on housing debt. In other words, MBS aren't exactly the same thing as housing debt, but they're based on housing debt. It's these packaged securities the Fed is purchasing, not the mortgages themselves.  Once the Fed draws down QE3, however, this demand will probably decrease. As the Fed unloads its balance sheet over several years, and demand decreases throughout the market, prices will fall and interest rates in the commercial housing market will fall. Ideally, the Fed will wait until the economy is healthy enough to absorb the unloading of these securities.  Just to be clear, the interest rates that QE3 are targeting are different from the interest rates you usually hear about. It's possible for the Fed to unwind QE3, while still keeping the \""interest rate\"", i.e. the federal funds rate, near zero. although this is considered unlikely. Also, the Fed can target long-term vs. short-term interest rates as well, which is once again slightly different from what I talked about above. This was the goal of the Operation Twist program in 2011 (and in the 1960's). Kirill Fuchs gave a great description of the program in this answer, but basically, the Fed purchased long-term securities and sold short-term securities, with the goal of twisting the yield curve to lower long-term interest rates relative to short-term rates. The goal is to encourage people and businesses to take on long-term debt, e.g. mortgages, capital investments, etc. My main question that I'm trying to understand is why interest rates are what they are. Is it more of an arbitrary number set by central banks or is it due to market activity? Hopefully I addressed much of this above, but I'll give a quick summary. There are many \""interest rates\"" in numerous different financial markets. The rate most commonly talked about is the nominal federal funds rate that I mentioned above; although it's a target set by the Board of Governors, it's not arbitrary. There's a reason the Federal Reserve hires hundreds of research economists. No central bank arbitrarily sets the interest rate; it's determined as part of an effort to reach certain economic benchmarks for the foreseeable future, whatever those may be.  In the US, current Fed policy maintains that the federal funds rate should be approximately zero until the economy surpasses the unemployment and inflation benchmarks set forth by the Evans Rule (named after Charles Evans, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, who pushed for the rule). The effective federal funds rate, as well as other rates the Fed has targeted like interest rates on commercial housing debt, long-term rates on Treasury securities, etc. are market driven. The Fed may enter the market, but the same forces of supply and demand are still at work. Although the Fed's actions are controversial, the effects of their actions are still bound by market forces, so the policies and their effects are anything but arbitrary."""
"""What are the important differences between mutual funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)?""","""Behind the scenes, mutual funds and ETFs are very similar.  Both can vary widely in purpose and policies, which is why understanding the prospectus before investing is so important. Since both mutual funds and ETFs cover a wide range of choices, any discussion of management, assets, or expenses when discussing the differences between the two is inaccurate.  Mutual funds and ETFs can both be either managed or index-based,  high expense or low expense, stock or commodity backed. Method of investing When you invest in a mutual fund, you typically set up an account with the mutual fund company and send your money directly to them.  There is often a minimum initial investment required to open your mutual fund account.  Mutual funds sometimes, but not always, have a load, which is a fee that you pay either when you put money in or take money out. An ETF is a mutual fund that is traded like a stock.  To invest, you need a brokerage account that can buy and sell stocks.  When you invest, you pay a transaction fee, just as you would if you purchase a stock.  There isn't really a minimum investment required as there is with a traditional mutual fund, but you usually need to purchase whole shares of the ETF.  There is inherently no load with ETFs. Tax treatment Mutual funds and ETFs are usually taxed the same.  However, capital gain distributions, which are taxable events that occur while you are holding the investment, are more common with mutual funds than they are with ETFs, due to the way that ETFs are structured.  (See Fidelity: ETF versus mutual funds: Tax efficiency for more details.)  That having been said, in an index fund, capital gain distributions are rare anyway, due to the low turnover of the fund. Conclusion When comparing a mutual fund and ETF with similar objectives and expenses and deciding which to choose, it more often comes down to convenience.  If you already have a brokerage account and you are planning on making a one-time investment, an ETF could be more convenient.  If, on the other hand, you have more than the minimum initial investment required and you also plan on making additional regular monthly investments, a traditional no-load mutual fund account could be more convenient and less expensive."""
"""Helping girlfriend accelerate credit score improvement""","""This is an all too common problem and is not easy to resolve. Divorce agreements do not alter prior mortgage contracts. Most importantly, the bank is not required, and will not normally, remove the girlfriend from the mortgage even if she quitclaimed it to her Ex. If he has abandoned the property there is a good chance he will not make any more future payments. She should be prepared to make the payments if he doesn't or expect her credit to continue to deteriorate rapidly. She needs to contact her divorce attorney to review their mutual obligations. A court can issue orders to try to force the Ex to fulfill the divorce agreement.  However, a court cannot impose a change to the mortgage obligations the borrowers made to the bank. Focus on this. It's far more important than adding her to a car loan or credit card. Sorry for the bad news. As for the car loan, it's best to leave her off the loan. You will get better terms without her as a joint owner. You can add her as an additional driver for insurance purposes. Adding her to your credit cards will help her credit but not a lot if the mortgage goes to default or foreclosure."""
"""ESPP taxes after relocating from Europe to the United States?""","""If you haven't been a US resident (not citizen, different rules apply) at the time you sold the stock in Europe but it was inside the same tax year that you moved to the US, you might want to have a look at the \""Dual Status\"" part in IRS publication 519."""
"""What can I do to remedy ISA cash\/shares transfer latency?""","""One possibility you may consider is to keep all of your funds in the stocks and shares ISA while investing that proportion you wish to keep in cash into a tradeable \""Money Market\"" ETF. A Money Market ETF will give you rates comparable to interest rates on cash and at the same time it will give you \""instant access\"" subject to normal 3 day settlement of equities.   This is not exactly a perfect solution.  Most Money Market ETFs will pay monthly dividends, so depending on your timing, you may have to give up some interest.  In the worst case, if you were to sell the day before going ex-dividend, then you would be giving up a months interest.  In the best case,  if you were to sell on the day of going ex-dividend, you would be giving up no interest."""
"""How to find out if a company has purchased government (or other) bonds?""","""This is in the balance sheet, but the info is not usually that detailed. It is safe to assume that at least some portion of the cash\/cash equivalents will be in liquid bonds. You may find more specific details in the company SEC filings (annual reports etc)."""
"""Receive money from US Client to Myself in India by selling services""","""You can receive funds from US Client as an individual. There is no legal requirement for you to have a company. If the transactions are large say more than 20 lacs in a year, its advisable to open a Private Ltd. Although its simple opening & Registering a company [A CA or a Laywer would get one at a nominal price of Rs 5000] you can do yourself. Whatever be the case, its advisable to have seperate accounts for this business \/ professional service transactions. Maintain proper records of the funds received. There are certain benefits you can claim, a CA can help you. Paying taxes in Advance is your responsibility and hence make sure you keep paying every quarter as advance tax. Related questions Indian citizen working from India as freelancer for U.S.-based company. How to report the income & pay tax in India? Freelancer in India working for Swiss Company Freelancing to UK company from India How do I account for money paid to colleagues out of my professional income?"""
"""When (if) I should consider cashing in (selling) shares to realize capital gains?""","""How about this rule? Sell 10% of your shares every time they double in price.  (of course, only buy stocks that repeatedly double in price)"""
"""Tax whilst starting a business in full time employment""","""With a limited company, you'll have to pay yourself a salary through PAYE. With income from your other job taking you over the higher-rate threshold, you should inform HMRC of this and get a tax code of DO for the second job, meaning 40% tax (and also both employer's and employee's National Insurance) will be deducted from the whole amount of the salary. See here.  Dividends should be like any other dividend -- you won't pay extra tax when you receive them, but will have to declare them on your tax return and pay the tax later. See the official information here. You'll get a \u00a35,000 tax allowance for dividends, but they'll still count as income for purposes of hitting the higher-rate threshold. I think in practice this means the first \u00a35,000 will be tax-free, and the rest will be taxed at 32.5%. But note that you have to pay yourself at least the minimum wage as salary, not as dividend.  I can't see IR35 being an issue.  However, I'm not a professional, and this situation is complicated enough to need professional advice. Talk to an accountant or a tax advisor."""
"""Ordering From UK to Base Overseas - VAT exempt?""","""If you are an UK citizen and resident, then no. If you are an EU resident or non-EU resident then yes, but there are conditions. Source You can sometimes get VAT refunds on goods bought in the UK if you: You can\u2019t get a VAT refund for: As bringing a laptop PCSpecialist is an online sale(I bought my desktop from them), I don't think you can claim VAT."""
"""Is it possible to see option prices from the past?""","""Yes, past option prices are available for many options, but as far as I know not for free.  You can get them from, for example, OptionMetrics.  Probably there are other providers as well, which may be cheaper for an individual or small institution. OptionMetrics data comes from the National Best Bid and Offer.  Probably there are some over-the-counter options that are not included here, but for someone asking this question, OptionMetrics will most likely have the option you are interested in."""
"""Credit card statement dates follow pattern?""","""My guess:  they are giving you a constant number of days between when the bill is sent and when it is due.  Due dates are usually set either: same date each month IE the 3rd of each month. same day IE first thursday of the month. Note: due date might vary based on weekends. Number of days in the month - date on bill should be pretty constant if due date option #1 is being used.  Note how Feb dates were usually earlier, since it is a shorter month."""
"""What market conditions favor small cap stocks over medium cap stocks?""","""Small companies are generally able to adapt quickly to take advantage of changing conditions to enter new markets when the economy is growing. This gives them a lot of growth potential under those circumstances. However, in times of crisis, there may not be a lot of new markets to enter, and financing to expand any operations may be impossible to get. Under these conditions, small-caps will suffer relative to large-caps."""
"""Canadian Citizen and Non Resident for tax purposes""","""However, you might have to pay taxes on capital gains if these stocks were acquired during your prior residency."""
"""Is gold subject to inflation? [duplicate]""","""The general argument put forward by gold lovers isn't that you get the same gold per dollar (or dollars per ounce of gold), but that you get the same consumable product per ounce of gold. In other words the claim is that the inflation-adjusted price of gold is more-or-less constant. See zerohedge.com link for a chart of gold in 2010 GBP all the way from 1265. (\""In 2010 GBP\"" means its an inflation adjusted chart.) As you can see there is plenty of fluctuation in there, but it just so happens that gold is worth about the same now as it was in 1265. See caseyresearch.com link for a series of anecdotes of the buying power of gold and silver going back some 3000 years. What this means to you: If you think the stock market is volatile and want to de-risk your holdings for the next 2 years, gold is just as risky If you want to invest some wealth such that it will be worth more (in real terms) when you take it out in 40 years time than today, the stock market has historically given better returns than gold If you want to put money aside, and it to not lose value, for a few hundred years, then gold might be a sensible place to store your wealth (as per comment from @Michael Kj\u00f6rling) It might be possible to use gold as a partial hedge against the stock market, as the two supposedly have very low correlation"""
"""Should I pay off a 0% car loan?""","""Ultimately the question is more about your personality and level of discipline than about money.   The rational thing to do is hang on to your cash, invest it somewhere else, and pay off the 0% loan as late as possible without incurring penalties or interest.  Logically it's a no-brainer.  Problem is, we're humans, so there's a risk you'll slip up somewhere along the way and not pay off the loan in time.  How much do you trust yourself?"""
"""Buying a home with down payment from family as a \""loan\""""","""I'll compare it to a situation that is different, but will involve the same cash flow.  Imagine the buyer agrees that you buy only 70% of the house right now, and the remaining 30% in 7 years time.  It would be obviously fair to pay 70% of today's value today, pay 30% of a reasonable rent for 7 years (because 30% of the house isn't owned by you), then pay 30% of the value that the house has in 7 years time. 30% of the value in 7 years is the same as 30% of the value today, plus 30% of whatever the house gained in value.  Instead you pay 70% of today's value, you pay no rent for the 30% that you don't own, then in 7 years time you pay 30% of today's value, plus 50% of whatever the house gained in value. So you are basically exchanging 30% of seven years rent, plus interest, for 20% of the gain in value over 7 years. Which might be zero. Or might be very little. Or a lot, in which case you are still better off.   Obviously you need to set up a bullet proof contract. A lawyer will also tell you what to put into the contract in case the house burns down and can't be rebuilt, or you add an extension to the home which increases the value.  And keep in mind that this is a good deal if the house doesn't increase in value, but if the house increases in value a lot, you benefit anyway. A paradoxical situation, where the worse the deal turns out to be after 7 years, the better the result for you. In addition, the relative carries the risk of non-payment, which the bank obviously is not willing to do."""
"""Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?)""","""There are two basic ways you can separate your investments from the dollar (or any other currency)."""
"""Legitimate unclaimed property that doesn't appear in any state directory?""","""for full disclosure I'm an Independent Contractor and work with Jeff Richman. @ Neil:  Question 1: How legitimate is this?  If you were never contacted by the company you would never know about the money. Period, end of story. Not trying to be rude but that is the bottom line truth. Look up asset recovery businesses. They are in every city almost. They work for individuals, governments and businesses. Very legitimate business. Question 2: Since this doesn't seem to be the case, how does this company know that I potentially have unclaimed assets to claim?  I understand your concern and the best analogy I can think of to explain this is:  A company's copier breaks down. A copy machine repair man is called. He shows up and opens the copier and studies it intensely and closes it back up. He takes a hammer out of his bag and hits the copier on the side in two different places, twice. The copier starts working. He charges the company owner a $1000.00. The company owner is glad to pay it because without the knowledge of the repair man, his business is not making money. This is the same: The professionals at Keane have specific knowledge about how to, where to and who to ask for these lists. Granted, it's not your business we're talking about here but without them, you get nothing.  2 professionals have advised you to move forward; your brother's accountant and lawyer. Take the money. It costs you nothing. If they want money from you up front or want you to pay for stuff, run."""
"""Can my employer limit my maximum 401k contribution amount (below the IRS limit)?""","""One description of what happened is at 401(k) Plan Fix-It Guide.  The issue is the plan was \""Top Heavy,\"" i.e. those making a high income were making disproportionately larger deposits than the lower paid employees. As the IRS article suggests, a nice matching deposit from the employer can eliminate the lower limit caused by the top heavy-ness.  Searching on [top heavy 401(k)] will yield more details if you wish to research more."""
"""How to plan in a budget for those less frequent but mid-range expensive buys?""","""We have what we call \""unallocated savings\"" that go into a fund for this purpose. We'll also take advantage of \""6 months no interest\"" or similar financing promotions, and direct this savings towards the payments."""
"""High dividend stocks""","""You might want to look up Dividend Yield Trap. Many stocks with high dividend yields got that way not because they decided to increase their dividend, but because their prices have dropped. Usually the company is not in good shape and will reduce their dividend, and you're stuck with a low-yield stock which has also decreased in price."""
"""Is it a good strategy to +cash out refi every six months?""","""When you refinance, there is cost (guess: around $2000-$3000) to cover lawyers, paperwork, surveys, deed insurance, etc. etc. etc. Someone has to pay that cost, and in the end it will be you. Even if you get a \""no points no cost\"" loan, the cost is going to be hidden in the interest rate. That's the way transactions with knowledgeable companies works: they do business because they benefit (profit) from it. The expectation is that what they need is different from what you need, so that each of you benefits. But, when it's a primarily cash transaction, you can't both end up with more money. So, unless value will be created somewhere else from the process (and don't include the +cash, because that ends up tacked onto the principle), this seems like paying for financial entertainment, and there are better ways to do that."""
"""splitting a joint mortgage - one owner in home""","""Get a lawyer to put this in contract form, with everything spelled out explicitly. What is fair is what the two of you agree upon. My own suggestion: Divide the property into things which are yours, his, and shared, then have each of you be responsible for all your costs plus half the shared costs, but get all the benefits of your half. That would mean that if he rents out his half, all the rental income is his; if you decide to live in your half, all the savings of not paying rent are yours.  Each of you pays your half of mortgage, insurance, and other shared costs. Repairs to shared infrastructure should be done by someone both of you trust. If you agree the work is needed and he does it rather than your hiring someone, you owe him the appropriate percentage of the costs; the two of you will need to agree on whether you owe him for that percentage of his time as well. Make sure you agree on some mechanism for one person offering to buy the other out, or to sell their half to the other party... or potentially to someone else entirely. (Personally, I would try to do that at soonest opportunity, to avoid some of the ways this can go wrong -- see past comments about the hazards of guaranteeing a loan; this works or doesn't work similarly.) Does that address your question?"""
"""When does selling (writing) options count for tax purposes?""","""If you take the profit or loss next year, it counts on next year's taxes.  There's no profit or loss until that happens."""
"""What benefits do \""title search companies\"" have over physically visiting a land records offices?""","""Title agencies perform several things: Research the title for defects. You may not know what you're looking at, unless you're a real-estate professional, but some titles have strings attached to them (like, conditions for resale, usage, changes, etc). Research title issues (like misrepresentation of ownership, misrepresentation of the actual property titled, misrepresentation of conditions). Again, not being a professional in the domain, you might not understand the text you're looking at. Research liens. Those are usually have to be recorded (i.e.: the title company won't necessarily find a lien if it wasn't recorded with the county). Cover your a$$. And the bank's. They provide title insurance that guarantees your money back if they missed something they were supposed to find. The title insurance is usually required for a mortgaged transaction. While I understand why you would think you can do it, most people cannot. Even if they think they can - they cannot. In many areas this research cannot be done online, for example in California - you have to go to the county recorder office to look things up (for legal reasons, in CA counties are not allowed to provide access to certain information without verification of who's accessing). It may be worth your while  to pay someone to do it, even if you can do it yourself, because your time is more valuable. Also, keep in mind that while you may trust your abilities - your bank won't. So you may be able to do your own due diligence - but the bank needs to do its own. Specifically to Detroit - the city is bankrupt. Every $100K counts for them. I'm surprised they only charge $6 per search, but that is probably limited by the State law."""
"""What exactly is a \""derivative\""?""","""A derivative is a financial instrument of a special kind, the kind \""whose price depends on, or is derived from, another asset\"".  This definition is from John Hull, Options, Futures and Other Derivatives \u2013 a book definitely worth to own if you are curious about this, you can easily find old copies for a few dollars. The first point is that a derivative is a financial instrument, like credits, or insurances, the second point is that its price depends closely from the price of something else, the mentioned asset. In most cases derivatives can be understood as financial insurances against some risk bound to the asset. In the sequel I give a small list of derivatives and highlight the assets and the risk they can be bound to.  And first, let me point out that the definition is (marginally) wrong because some derivatives depend on things which are not assets, nor do they have a price, like temperature, sunlight, or even your own life in the case of mortgages.  But before going in this list, let me go through the remaining points of your question. What is the basic idea and concept behind a derivative? As already noted, in most cases, a derivative can be understood as a financial insurance compensating from a risk of some sort.  In a classical insurance contract, one party of the contract is an insurance company, but in the broader case of a derivative, that counterparty can be pretty anything: an insurance, a bank, a government, a large company, and most probably market makers. How is it really used, and how does this deviate from the first point? Briefly, how does is it affecting people, and how is it causing problems? An important point with derivatives is that it can be arbitrarily complicated to compute their prices.  Actually what is hidden in the attempt of giving a definition for derivatives, is that they are products whose price Y is a measurable function of one or several random variables X_1, X_2, \u2026 X_n on which we can use the theory of arbitrage pricing to get hints on the actual price Y of the asset \u2013 this is what the depends on means in technical terms.  In the most favorable case, we obtain an easy formula linking Y to the X_is which tells us what is the price of our financial instrument. But in practice, it can be very difficult, if at all possible, to determine a price for derivatives. This has two implications: Persons possessing sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives have a strategic advantage on derivatives market, in comparison to less advanced actors on the market. Organisation owning assets they cannot price cannot compute their bilan anymore, so that they cannot know for sure their financial situation. They are somehow playing roulette. But wait, if derivatives are insurances they should help to mitigate some financial risk, which precisely means that they should help their owners to more accurately see their financial situation! How is this not a contradiction? Some persons with sophisticated techniques to compute the price of derivatives are actually selling complicated derivatives to less knowledgeable persons.  For instance, many communes in France and Germany have contracted credits whose reimbursements have a fixed interest part, like in a classical credit, and a variable interest part whose rate is computed against a complicated formula involving the value of the Swiss frank at each quarter starting from the inception of the credit.  (So, for a 25 years running credit of theis type, the price Y of the credit at its inception depends on 100 Xs, which are the uncertain prices for the Swiss frank each quarter of the 25 next years.)  Some of these communes can be quite small, with 5.000 inhabitants, and needless to say, do not have the required expertise to analyse the risks bound to such instruments, which in that special case led the court call the credit a swindling and to cancel the credit.  But what chain of events leads a 5.000 inhabitants city in France to own a credit whose reimbursements depends on the Swiss frank?  After the credit crunch in 2007 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, it has begun to be very hard to organise funding, which basically means to conclude credits running long in time on large amounts of money.  So, the municipality needs a 25 years credit of 10.000.000 EUROS and goes to its communal bank.  The communal bank has hundreds or thousands of municipalities looking for credits and needs itself a financing.  So the communal bank goes to one of the five largest financial institutions in the world, which insists on selling a huge credit whose reimbursements have a variable part depending on hundred of values the Swiss frank will have in the 25 next years. Since the the big bank has better computation techniques than the small bank it makes a big profit.  Since the small bank has no idea, how to compute the correct price of the credit it bought, it cuts this in pieces and sell it in the same form to the various communes it works with.  If we were to attribute this kind of intentions to the largest five banks, we could ask about the possibility that they designed the credit to take advantage of the primitive evaluation methods of the small bank. We could also ask if they organised a cartel to force communal banks to buy their bermudean snowballs. And we could also ask, if they are so influent that they eventually can manipulate the Swiss frank to secure an even higher profit.  But I will not go into this.  To the best of my understanding, the subprime crisis is a play along the same plot, with different actors, but I know this latter subject only by what I could read in French newspapers. So much for the \""How is it causing problems?\"" part. What is some of the terminology in relation to derivatives (and   there meanings of course)? Answering this question is basically the purpose of the 7 first chapters of the book by Hull, along with deriving some important mathematical principles.  And I will not copy these seven chapters here! How would someone get started dealing in derivatives (I'm playing a     realistic stock market simulation, so it doesn't matter if your     answer to this costs me money)? If you ask the question, I understand that you are not a professional, so that your are actually trying to become the one that has money and zero knowledge in the play I outlined above. I would recommand not doing this.  That said, if you have a good mathematical background and can program well, once you are confindent with the books of Hull and Joshi, you can have fun implementing various market models and implementing trading strategies. Once you are confident with this, you can also read the articles on quantitative finance on arXiv.org. And once you are done with this, you can decide for yourself if you want to play the same market as the guys writing these articles. (And yes, even for the simplest options, they have better models than you have and will systematically outperform you in the long run, even if some random successes will give you the feeling that you do well and could do better.) (indeed, I've made it a personal goal to somehow lose every last cent of my money) You know your weapons! :) Two parties agree today on a price for one to deliver a commodity to the other at some future instant.  This is a classical future contract, it can be modified in every imaginable way, usually by embedding options.  For instance one party could have the option to choose between different delivery points or delivery days. Two parties write today a contract allowing the one party to buy at some future time a commodity to the the second party.  The price is written today, as part of the contract.  (There is the corresponding option entitling the owner to sell something.)  Unlike the future contract, only one party can be obliged to do something, the other jas a right but no obligation. If you buy and option, your are buying some sort of insurance against a change of price on some asset. This is the most familiar to anybody.  Credits can come in many different flavours, especially the formula to compute interests, or also embed options.  Common options are early settlement options or restructuration options. While this is not completely inutitive, the credit works like an insurance.  This is most easily understood from the side of the organisation lending the money, that speculates that the ratio of creanciers going bankrupt will be low enough for her to make profit, just like a fire insurance company speculates that the ratio of fire accidents will be low enough for her to make a profit. This is like a mortgage on a financial institution.  Two parties agree that one will recive an upfront today and give a compensation to the second one if some third party defaults. Here this is an explicit insurance against the unfortuante event, where a creancier goes bankrupt. One finds here more or less standard options on electricity. But electricity have delicious particularities as it can practically not be stored, and fallout is also (usually) avoided. As for classical options, these are insurances against price moves. A swap is like two complementary credits on the same amount of money, so that it ends up in the two parties not actually exchanging the credit nominal and only paying interest one to the other \u2014 which makes only sense if these interests are computed with different formulas. Typical example are fixed rate vs. EURIBOR on some given maturity, which we interpret as an insurance against fluctuations of the EURIBOR, or a fixed rate vs. the exchange ratio between two currencies, which we interpret as an insurance against the two currencies decorrelating. Swaps are the richest and the most generic category of financial derivatives.  The off-the-counter market features very imaginative, very customised insurance products. The most basic form is the insurance against drought, but you can image different dangers, and once you have it you can put it in options, in a swap, etc.  For instance, a restaurant with a terrasse could enter in a weather insurance, paying each year a fixed amount of money and becoming in return an amount of money based on the amount of rainy day in a year. Actually, this list is virtually without limits!"""
"""Is interest on a personal loan tax deductible?""","""Assuming USA: It is possible to make the interest deductible if you go to the trouble of structuring, and filing, the loan as an actual mortgage on a primary residence. Websearching \""intra-family loan\"" will find several firms which specialize in this. It costs about $700 for all the paperwork and filing fees as of last time I checked, so unless you're going to pay at least three times that in interest over the life of the loan it probably isn't worth considering. (For an additional fee they'll take care of the payment processing,  if you'd really rather be hands-off about it.) I have no idea whether the paperwork fees and processing fees can be deducted from the interest as a cost of producing that income. In theory that ought to be true, but I Am Not A Lawyer. Or accountant. Note: one of the interesting factors here is that the IRS sets a minimum interest rate on intra-family loans. It's pretty low (around 0.3%), so in most cases you can say you gifted the difference if you'd prefer to charge less... but that does set a floor on what the IRS will expect the lender to declare, and pay taxes on. There's a lot more that can be said about this, but since I am NOT an expert I'll refer you to those who are. I have no affiliation with any of this except as a customer, once; it seemed pretty painless but I can't claim to know whether they were really handling everything exactly correctly. The website seemed to do a pretty good job of explaining what choices had to be made and their effects, as well as discussing how these can be used to avoid excess gift taxes by spreading the gift over a number of years."""
"""Is it a good investment for a foreigner to purchase a flat\/apartment in China?""","""It is a lousy investment to purchase an apartment in China. Chinese citizens purchase apartments in China because, well... here's how China works: There's some fundamentals driving Chinese property values higher, but mostly it's a bubble caused by those reasons."""
"""College student - I'm a 'dependent' and my parents won't apply for the Parent PLUS loan or cosign a private loan""","""Smart parents not wanting to get stuck with a student loan or co-signing on a loan.   because rent is so high Are you able to live with your parents?  Is there anyway to reduce the cost of rent like renting a room?  Can you move somewhere where the rent is cheaper? working 25 hours per week Working 25 hours per week and taking 6 hours is a pretty light schedule.  It is not even 40 hours per week.  What is stopping you from working 40 hours and paying for school from your salary?   In my own life I created a pretty crappy situation for myself when I was a young man.  I really wanted to go to a prestigious university, but ended up going to a community college, and then to a university that was lesser known in a less expensive area.  I had to work like crazy, upwards of 50 hours per week.  I also took a full load in a difficult degree program.   You probably don't have to go to the extremes that I went through, but you can work more.  Most adults work at their jobs well more than 40 hours per week, then come home and continue to work (on the house, raising kids, trying to start a side business, etc...).  So you might as well become an adult now. There are ways to become independent from your parents for FAFSA like have a baby, get married, or join the military.  I'd only recommend the last one as you will also receive the GI Bill.  Another option is to try and obtain a job that offers financial aid."""
"""Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest?""","""Many people who do transfer a balance from one credit card to another have no clue as to what is going on and how credit cards work. If you transfer a balance from one credit card to another, you are charged a fee of anywhere from 3% upwards (subject to a minimum of $10 or so) up front. If Credit Card A has balance $1000 and you transfer it to Credit Card B which is offering no interest for a year on the transferred balance, you owe Credit Card B $1050 (say). In most cases, that $50 has to be paid off as part of the following month's bill. If you are carrying a revolving balance on Credit Card B, that $50 will typically be charged interest from the day of the transfer. Your monthly bill will not (necessarily) include that $1000  you owe for one year or six months or whatever the transfer agreement you accepted says. If you tend to pay anything less (even a penny) than  full payment of each month's bill on Credit Card B, your partial payment will be applied to that $1000 first, and anything left over will be applied to the monthly balance. In short, if you don't pay in full each month, that $1000 will not be \""yours\"" for a year; you may end up paying $50 interest for  borrowing $1000 for just one or two months, and the rest of your balance is the gift that keeps on giving as the credit card company likes to say. UPDATE: This has changed slightly in the United States. Any amount paid over the minimum amount due is charged to the higher-interest balances. So in this case, if you had $1000 at a 0% promotional rate and a regular balance of $500, and the minimum payment was $100, and you paid $150, $100 would pay down the promotional balance, and the extra $50 would pay down the regular balance.  About the only way to make the deal work in your favor is to Transfer money only if you have paid the full amount due   on the last two statements before the date of the transfer and are   not carrying a revolving balance. Check your monthly statements   to make sure they show Finance Charge of 0.00.  Many people have   never seen such a sight and are unaware that this can be observed   in nature. Make sure that you pay each month's bill in full (not   the minimum monthly payment due) each month for a whole year   after that. Make sure that the bill containing that $1000 (coming out a   year after the transfer date) is also paid in full. Very many credit-card users do not have the financial discipline to go through with this program.  That is why credit card companies love to push transfer balances on consumers: the whole thing is a cash cow for them where they in effect get to charge usurious rates of interest without running afoul of the law. $50 interest for a one-year loan of $1000 is pretty high at current rates; $50 interest for a two or three month loan where the customer does not even notice the screwing he is getting is called laughing all the way to the bank. See also the answers to  this question"""
"""What are the best software tools for personal finance?""","""I like You Need A Budget (YNAB) Pros: Cons:"""
"""Single investment across multiple accounts\u2026 good, bad, indifferent?""","""The other issue you could run into is that each deferred account is going to be subject to its own RMD's (Required Minimum Distributions) when you've retired or hit 70.5 years of age.  Roth's don't generally care about RMD's at first, but are still subject to them once the person that created the Roth has passed.  Having fewer accounts will simplify the RMD stuff, but that's really only a factor in terms of being forced to sell 'something' in each account in order to make the RMD.   Other than that, it's just a matter of remembering to check each account if you come to a decision that it's time to liquidate holdings in a given security, lest you sell some but forget about the rest of it in another account.  (and perhaps as Chris pointed out, maybe having to pay fee's on each account for the sale)  Where this really can come into play is if you choose to load up each individual account with a given kind of investment, instead of spreading them across the accounts.  In that case RMD's could force you into selling something that is currently 'down' when you want to hold onto it, because that is your only choice in order to meet RMD's for account X.  So if you have multiple accounts, it's a good idea to not 'silo' particular vehicles into a single account, but spread similar ivestments across multiple accounts, so you always have the choice in each account of what to sell in order to meet an RMD. If you have fewer accounts, it's thus a lot easier to avoid the siloing effect"""
"""How do government bond yields work?""","""Why does the rising price of a bond pushes it's yield down? The bond price and its yield are linked; if one goes up, the other must go down. This is because the cash flows from the bond are fixed, predetermined. The market price of the bond fluctuates. Now what if people are suddenly willing to pay more for the same fixed payments? It must mean that the return, i.e. the yield, will be lower. Here we see that risk associated with the bonds in question has   skyrocketed, and thus bonds' returns has skyrocketed, too. Am I right? The default risk has increased, yes. Now, I assume that bonds' price is determined by the market (issued by   a state, traded at the market). Is that correct? Correct, as long as you are talking about the market price. Then who determines bonds' yields? I mean, isn't it fixed? Or - in the   FT quote above - they are talking about the yields for the new bonds   issued that particular month? The yield is not fixed - the cash flows are. Yield is the internal rate of return. See my answer above to your first question."""
"""S-Corp partnership startup. How to pay owners with minimal profit?""","""If you're really interested in the long-term success of your business, and you can get by in your personal finances without taking anything from the business for the time being, then don't.   There is no \""legal requirement\"" to pay yourself a prevailing wage if doing so would put the company out of business.  it is common for a company's principals not to draw wages from the business until it is viable enough to sustain payroll.  I was in that situation when I first began my business, so the notion that somehow I'm violating a law by being fiscally responsible for my own company is nonsense. Be wise with your new business.  You didn't state why you feel the need to take some kind of payment out, but this can be a crucial mistake if it imperils your business or if that money could be better spent on marketing or some other areas which improve revenues. You can always create a salary deferral agreement between yourself and your own company which basically states that the company owes you wages but you are, for the time being, willing to defer accepting them until such time that the company has sufficient revenues to pay you.  That's one solution, but the simplest answer is, if you don't need the money you're thinking of paying yourself, don't do it.  Let that money work for you in the business so that it pays off better in the long run. Good luck!"""
"""How are long-term\/short-term capital gains tax calculated on restricted stock?""","""Fidelity has a good explanation of Restricted Stock Awards: For grants that pay in actual shares, the employee\u2019s tax holding period begins at the time of vesting, and the employee\u2019s tax basis is equal to the amount paid for the stock plus the amount included as ordinary compensation income. Upon a later sale of the shares, assuming the employee holds the shares as a capital asset, the employee would recognize capital gain income or loss; whether such capital gain would be a short- or long-term gain would depend on the time between the beginning of the holding period at vesting and the date of the subsequent sale. Consult your tax adviser regarding the income tax consequences to you. So, you would count from vesting for long-term capital gains purposes.  Also note the point to include the amount of income you were considered to have earned as a result of the original vesting [market value then - amount you paid].  (And of course, you reported that as income in 2015\/2016, right?) So if you had 300 shares of Stock ABC granted you in 2014 for a price of $5\/share, and in 2015 100 of those shares vested at FMV $8\/share, and in 2016 100 of those shares vested, current FMV $10\/share, you had $300 in income in 2015 and $500 of income in 2016 from this.   Then in 2017 you sold 200 shares for $15\/share:"""
"""Having a separate bank account for business\/investing, but not a \""business account?\""""","""Having a separate checking account for the business makes sense. It simplifies documenting your income\/expenses. You can \""explain\"" every dollar entering and exiting the account without having to remember that some of them were for non-business items. My credit union allowed me to have a 2nd checking account and allowed me to put whatever I wanted as the name on the check. I think this looked a little better than having my name on the check. I don't see the need for a separate checking account for investing. The money can be kept in a separate savings account that has no fees, and can even earn a little interest. Unless you are doing a lot of investment transactions a month this has worked for me. I fund IRAs and 529 plans this way. We get paychecks 4-5 times a month, but send money to each of the funds once a month. You will need a business account if the number of transactions becomes large. If you deposit dozens of checks every time you go to the bank, the bank will want to move you to a business account."""
"""What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]""","""Yes, I agree with you. Saying that the value of the stock will grow as the company grows and acquires more assets ... I don't see why. Okay, I'm a nice guy and I want to see other people do well, but what do I care how much money they're making if they're not giving any of it to ME?  Frankly I think it's like people who buy commemorative plates or beanie babies or other \""collectibles\"" as an investment. As long as others are also buying them as an investment, and buying and reselling at a profit, the value will continue to go up. But one day people say, Wait, is this little stuffed toy really worth $10,000? and the balloon bursts. Confer Dutch tulips: http:\/\/www.damninteresting.com\/the-dutch-tulip-bubble-of-1637\/ As I see it, what gives a non-dividend-paying stock value is mostly the expectation that at some time in the future it will pay dividends. This is especially true of new start-up companies. As you mentioned, there's also the possibility of a takeover. It wouldn't have to be a hostile takeover, any takeover would do. At that point the buying company either buys the stock or exchanges it for shares of their own. In the first case you now have cash for your investment and in the second case you now have stock in a dividend-paying company -- or in another non-dividend-paying company and you start the cycle over."""
"""If I sell a stock that I don't have, am I required to buy it before a certain amount of time?""","""Answers here are correct but I'll offer an extremely (overly) simple explanation that should help you in understanding the more detailed answers.  When most people own stock they do so through a broker.  Unless you jump through some hoops, the broker keeps the shares in the name of the brokerage.  This is called holding the stock in street name. When you sell short through a brokerage, the broker is letting you borrow a certain number of shares owned by someone else and sell them for cash now.  At some point, you need to repay this loan with the same number of shares you borrowed.  Ideally, you want the stock to drop to $0.  The reason you might be forced to purchase the stock is that the actual owner(s) of the stock want to sell.  If the broker has too many people wanting to sell, you will need to repay some of all of the loan (in shares) i.e. purchasing shares at the current market price."""
"""Diversify my retirement investments with a Roth IRA""","""Yep, most 401k options suck. You'll have access to a couple dozen funds that have been blessed by the organization that manages your account. I recently rolled my 401k over into a self-directed IRA at Fidelity, and I have access to the entire mutual fund market, and can trade stocks\/bonds if I wish.  As for a practical solution for your situation: the options you've given us are worryingly vague -- hopefully you're able to do research on what positions these funds hold and make your own determination. Quick overview: Energy \/ Utilities: Doing good right now because they are low-risk, generally high dividends. These will underperform in the short-term as the market recovers. Health Care: riskier, and many firms are facing a sizable patent cliff. I am avoiding this sector. Emerging Markets: I'm also avoiding this due to the volatility and accounting issues, but it's up to you. Most large US companies have \""emerging markets\"" exposure, so not necessary for to invest in a dedicated fund in my unprofessional opinion. Bonds: Avoid. Bonds are at their highest levels in decades. Short-term they might be ok; but medium-term, the only place to go is down. All of this depends on your age, and your own particular investment objectives. Don't listen to me or anyone else without doing your own research."""
"""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money?""","""The answer is partly and sometimes, but you cannot know when or how. Most clearly, you do not take somebody else's money if you buy shares in a start-up company. You are putting your money at risk in exchange for a share in the rewards. Later, if the company thrives, you can sell your shares for whatever somebody else will pay for your current share in the thriving company's earnings. Or, you lose your money, when the company fails. (Much of it has then ended up in the company's employees' pockets, much of the rest with the government as taxes that the company paid).  If the stockmarket did not exist, people would be far less willing to put their money into a new company, because selling shares would be far harder. This in turn would mean that fewer new things were tried out, and less progress would be made. Communists insist that central state planning would make better decisions than random people linked by a market. I suggest that the historical record proves otherwise. Historically, limited liability companies came first, then dividing them up into larger numbers of \""bearer\"" shares, and finally creating markets where such shares were traded.  On the other hand if you trade in the short or medium term, you are betting that your opinion that XYZ shares are undervalued against other investors who think otherwise. But there again, you may be buying from a person who has some other reason for selling. Maybe he just needs some cash for a new car or his child's marriage, and will buy back into XYZ once he has earned some more money.  You can't tell who you are buying from, and the seller can only tell if his decision to sell was good with the benefit of a good few years of hindsight.  I bought shares hand over fist immediately after the Brexit vote. I was putting my money where my vote went, and I've now made a decent profit. I don't feel that I harmed the people who sold out in expectation of the UK economy cratering. They got the peace of mind of cash (which they might then reinvest in Euro stocks or gold or whatever). Time will tell whether my selling out of these purchases more recently was a good decision (short term, not my best, but a profit is a profit ...)  I never trade using borrowed money and I'm not sure whether city institutions should be allowed to do so (or more reasonably, to what extent this should be allowed). In a certain size and shortness of holding time, they cease to contribute to an orderly market and become a destabilizing force. This showed up in the financial crisis when certain banks were \""too big to fail\"" and had to be bailed out at the taxpayer's expense. \""Heads we win, tails you lose\"", rather than trading with us small guys as equals! Likewise it's hard to see any justification for high-frequency trading, where stocks are held for mere milliseconds, and the speed of light between the trader's and the market's computers is significant."""
"""Debit cards as bad as credit cards?""","""This sounds more like a behavioral than a debit card issue to me TBH. Did you put the money you're putting away into a separate savings account that you (mentally) labelled 'for investment'? That's pretty much what I do (and I have a couple of savings accounts for exactly that reason) and even though I know I've got $x in the savings accounts, the debit card I carry only lets me spend money from my main bank account. By the time I've transferred the money, the urge to spend has usually gone away, even though it often only takes seconds to make the transfer."""
"""How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car?""","""As an absolute basic in life you always need 1 month's salary free and clear sitting in the bank. You do not have this. You don't even get to count that. It's what Napoleon would refer to as an \""iron reserve\"": you have to have this. You actually won't even have this for some two or three months. Note that you have a staggering amount of debt. You have absolutely no assets. You own nothing. You have no savings. So at this point we can say \""Could your situation be any worse?\"" and the answer is \""It could not be any worse.\"" On the \""good things in your outlook\"" side you have the idea that you probably have a job (it's unfortunate how you refer to it as \""will pay\"" when you mean \""might pay\"") but you're in perhaps the highest-expense, most-flakey economic zone on Earth.  Recall that i) every company eventually closes and ii) every job eventually ends. The next incredible problem you face is that I'm guessing you just have no clue how expensive it is to insure and run a car. Any ideas of buying anything more than a junker is a non-starter, but on top of that you're not realizing how expensive it is going to be for you to run a car. Disturbingly, you have a very poor idea of even how far it is you have to drive each day. The only realistic solution for you is to bike each day to work (buy the cheapest possible bike); become the \""eccentric guy\"" who really focusses on health. Bike in for an hour, shower at the office or a nearby gym, enjoy your day and bike home. You'll need a backpack to carry your pack lunch, buy the cheapest backpack. Since it's LA, it may be impractical. You may literally need a car. In that case, your only solution is That's the only thing you can do.  Plain lean on your parents or relatives to borrow some old car and use that. (It will still cost you an awful lot of money to do so - repairs, tires, insurance, and everything else.) A reminder, You do not have your one-month \""iron reserve\"". You have a staggering amount of debt. You have absolutely no assets. You own nothing. You have no savings. Additionally you live with the parents; you have a dream of a job (in one the highest-priced, most flakey regions) and \""job\"" is another word for no security - jobs evaporate all the time for many reasons. Please be careful. Regarding a car, find a way to borrow one; offer to make a repair on it, say.  Don't spend one cent on anything your first six months at work, concentrate only on your job.  See where you are after six months."""
"""When is the right time to buy a new\/emerging technology?""","""If you're looking for a purely financial answer (ignoring the social\/environmental aspects) there are a few different ways you can look at it. For these types of improvements the simplest is a payback calculation.  How long would it take you to recoup the initial costs?   For example, if the entire installation cost $5,000 (including any tax credits), and you save $100 per month (I'm making both numbers up), you'll pay back your investment in 50 months, or about 4 years.   (Note that if you borrow money to do the improvement, then your payback period is longer because you're reducing the amount that you're saving each month by paying interest.) If you're deciding between different uses for the money (like investing, or paying down other debt) then you can look at the return that you're getting.  Using the same example, you are spending $5,000 and getting $100 per month back, for a 24% annual return ($1,200 \/ $5,000), which is better than you can get on almost anything but a 401(k) match (meaning don't stop your 401(k) contributions to do this either). The decision on whether or wait or not then becomes - will the price drop faster than the amount of savings you will realize.  So if you will save $100 per month in your electric bill, is the price of the complete installation going down by more than $100 each month?  If not, you'd be better off buying now and start paying back the investment sooner."""
"""At what point should I begin paying off student loans?""","""If you have sufficient money to support yourself until you have a career, then paying off your student loan principal on unsubsidized, federal loans, is probably your best bet. This is because interest accumulates before you're actually required to pay. If they are private, make the payment on the highest interest rate loans."""
"""Where to find Vanguard Index Funds?""","""You cannot actually buy an index in the true sense of the word.  An index is created and maintained by a company like Standard and Poor's who licenses the use of the index to firms like Vanguard.  The S&P 500 is an example of an index.  The S&P 500 \""index includes 500 leading companies\"", many finical companies sell products which track to this index.  The two most popular products which track to indexes are Mutual Funds (as called Index Funds and Index Mutual Funds) and Exchange Traded Funds (as called ETFs).  Each Index Mutual Fund or ETF has an index which it tracks against, meaning they hold securities which make up a sample of the index (some indexes like bond indexes are very hard to hold everything that makes them up). Looking at the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Mutual Fund (ticker VFINX) we see that it tracks against the S&P 500 index.  Looking at its holdings we see the 500-ish stocks that it holds along with a small amount of bonds and cash to handle cash flow for people buying and sell shares.  If we look at the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (ticker VOO) we see that it also tracks against the S&P 500 index.  Looking at its holdings we see they are very similar to the similar Index Mutual Fund. Other companies like T. Rowe Price have similar offering.  Look at the T. Rowe Price Equity Index 500 Fund (ticker PREIX) its holdings in stocks are the same as the similar Vanguard fund and like the Vanguard fund it also holds a small amount of bonds and cash to handle cash flow. The only real difference between different products which track against the same index is in the expense ratio (fees for managing the fund) and in the small differences in the execution of the funds.  For the most part execution of the funds do not really matter to most people (it has a very small effect), what matters is the expense (the fees paid to own the fund).  If we just compare the expense ratio of the Vanguard and T. Rowe Price funds we see (as of 27 Feb 2016) Vanguard has an expense ratio of 0.17% for it Index Mutual Fund and 0.05% for its ETF, while T. Rowe Price has an expense ratio of 0.27%.  These are just the fees for the funds themselves, there are also account maintenance fees (which normally go down as the amount of money you have invested at a firm go up) and in the case of ETFs execution cost (cost to trade the shares along with the difference between the bid and ask on the shares). If you are just starting out I would say going with the Index Mutual Fund would easier and most likely would cost less over-all if you are buying a small amount of shares every month.  When choosing a company look at the expense ratio on the funds and the account maintenance fees (along with the account minimals).  Vanguard is well known for having low fees and they in fact were the first to offer Index Mutual Funds. For more info on the S&P 500 index see also this Investopedia entry on the S&P 500 index. Do not worry if this is all a bit confusing it is to most people (myself included) at first."""
"""Does it make any sense to directly contribute to reducing the US national debt?""","""The US national debt isn't the problem. If the Bush-era tax cuts had been allowed to expire then US debt would have been paid off reasonably quickly. The CBO\u2019s \""baseline\"" budget forecast,   which assumes that the cuts do indeed   expire as planned, sees the deficit   falling from 9.1% of GDP in 2010 to   2.5% in 2014. These are just the debts the US has already incurred. The problem is the future entitlements the US is promising to its soon-to-be-retired generation of Baby Boomers.  Medicare, health insurance, and so on are all future costs that can be calculated fairly accurately when considering the size and earnings of the work-force relative to the size, longevity and health of the newly-retired. Governments can \""solve\"" the problems of entitlements simply be reneging on their promises. The concern that investors have is that either entitlements will be paid by raising taxes (and so cutting profits and investment returns) or countries will simply default on their existing debts as their tax receipts run out. As Europe has shown (from French workers rioting about having to retire at 62, to British students rioting about paying their tuition fees), breaking promises has consequences for elected politicians too. Europe is already going rather painfully through this process of economic restructuring.  The US will eventually come round as well.  Just don't expect it to be painless. So keep your money and invest it wisely.  No doubt that tax collectors will be round in a while to take their cut so you can make your contribution."""
"""How will I pay for college?""","""There are some useful comments about the tradeoffs of the decisions in front of you.  Intertwined with the financial choices, hopefully you can see a map opening up.   Make a little chart if it helps.  Benefit and Cost.  If you're looking for financial options, you will have to also add more columns to that chart:  Option and Cost. An example is the comment on making connections with rich kids.  Trust fund babies are everywhere in this country.  Did you know any rich kids while growing up?  How were those rich kids you knew of back then... in your school... in your town?  How did they treat you?  Were you ever invited to their parties or gatherings?  Now there's an opportunity for the privilege to pay a lot of money to sit in a classroom next to them?  Even in the early days of American history with merit based millionaires... tycoons who made it rich by the seat of their pants.  At fancy dinner parties and soirees, a new term emerged to put each other again out of reach: old money (the deserving) and new money (uncultured climbers).   That's my bias.  You'll have some of your own.  What is important to YOU has to come through because these days, the price tag of any higher education implies a considerable piece of your life's timeline will be committed to... something.  Make sure you get what you feel is worth that commitment. Take stock of what has been said here by the others, but put a value on those choices and seriously consider what you're willing to pay for... and what you're not.  There is no formula for your success as there's been thousands of exceptions... ESID (Every Situation is Different)."""
"""Over how much time should I dollar-cost-average my bonus from cash into mutual funds?""","""I'm staring at this chart and asking myself, How long a period is enough to have an average I'd be happy with regardless of the direction the market goes?  3 years? 4 years? Clearly, a lump sum investment risks a 2000 buy at 1500. Not good. Honestly, I love the question, and find it interesting, but there's likely no exact answer, just some back and forth analysis. You're investing about $40K\/yr anyway. I'd suggest a 4 year timeframe is a good time to invest the new money as well. Other folk want to offer opinions? Edit - with the OP's additional info, he expects these bonuses to continue, my updated advice is to DCA quarterly if going into assets with a transaction fee or monthly if into a no-fee fund, over just a one year period."""
"""Restricting a check from being deposited via cell phone""","""I don't see any reason to worry about a check being deposited via cell phone. There isn't anything you can write on a check to make it physical deposit only or similar.  If you really want to keep your check from being read electronically you could always smudge the numbers but you run the risk of the bank not cashing it and possibly getting a return check fee."""
"""Does \""cash in lieu of dividend\"" incur any tax consequences in an IRA?""","""In a (not Roth) IRA, withdrawals are generally already taxed as regular income. So there should be no tax disadvantage to earning payment in lieu of dividends.  It's possible that there is an exception for IRAs but I was unable to find one and I cannot see the reason for one since the dividend tax rate is usually lower than the income tax rate (which is why some company owners elect to receive part of the company profits via dividend rather than all through their salary)."""
"""Credit cards: How is a cash advance different from a purchase? Why are the fees so high?""","""Think about the credit card business model... they have two revenue generators: interest and fees from borrowers and commissions and fees to merchants. The key to a successful credit card is to both sign up lots of borrowers AND lots of merchants. Credit card fortunes have improved dramatically since the 1990's when formerly off-limits merchants like grocery stores began to accept cards. So when a credit card lets you just pull cash out of any ATM, there are a few costs they need to account for when pricing the cost for such a service: Credit card banks have managed to make cash advances both a profit center and a self-serving perk. Knowing that you can always draw upon your credit line for an emergency when cash is necessary makes you less likely to actually carry cash and more likely to just rely on your credit card."""
"""Do companies that get taken-over have to honour the old gift card\/certificate?""","""I know this is old, but Joe Taxpayer is wrong.  When you dissolve a corporation in selling it, all liabilities go with the old owners and the new owners, smartly starting with a new corporation and taxpayer ID, start with a clean slate.  The only way this is not true is if the new owners did not change a thing legally and kept everything the same, other than there names, which would be entirely insane if you asked any lawyer in the country.  Gift cards are a touchy situation, if not negotiated in the deal, by law the new owners DO NOT have to take them.  Yes, it's good PR, but when there's a considerable amount of money out there it could bury the new owners by giving away free stuff."""
"""If I make over 120k a year, what are my options for retirement plans?""","""The other alternative: just invest it in tax-efficient investments. You will have limited tax-deferral options outside of your 401k, but don't let that limit you. You can invest in a variety of ETFs, stocks and mutual funds for growth, and tax-free investments like municipal bonds as you get older and need to draw income."""
"""Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity?""","""Well, I know why the Rabobank in the Netherlands does it. I can go back around one year and a half with my internet banking. But I can only go further back (upto 7 years) after contacting the bank and paying \u20ac5,- per transcript (one transcript holds around a month of activities).  I needed a year worth of transcripts for my taxes and had to cough up more than \u20ac50. EDIT It seems they recently changed their policy in a way that you can request as many transcripts as you like for a maximum cost of \u20ac25,- so the trend to easier access is visible."""
"""Investing tax (savings)""","""If you have a mortgage, making part of it a mortgage-backed overdraft (ANZ call theirs a Flexi loan) is worth looking at. I'm in a similar situation, consulting since 2010. I pay GST and provisional tax every six months. If I've budgeted right, the balance on the mortgage-backed overdraft loan goes to zero right before I send the massive payment to the tax department in May and October.  One problem is that some banks don't like to give these accounts to sole traders. Using a mortgage broker may help get around that restriction."""
"""Why would you ever turn down a raise in salary?""","""One \""economic reason\"" to turn down a raise is if your company gives bonuses based on performance reviews. When you get a raise in salary, your boss usually expects a better performance from you. That being said, if you get the raise, and your performance review is worse, you might get a smaller annual income."""
"""What is the best use of \""spare\"" money?""","""Investing in mutual funds, ETF, etc. won't build a large pool of money. Be an active investor if your nature aligns. For e.g. Invest in buying out a commercial space (on bank finance) like a office space and then rent it out. That would give you better return than a savings account. In few years time, you may be able to pay back your financing and then the total return is your net return. Look for options like this for a multiple growth in your worth."""
"""Is it possible to split taxation of funds earned from a crowdfunding campaign over multiple years?""","""I think you should really start a limited company for this. It'll be a lot simpler to spread the income over multiple years if your business and you have completely separate identities. You should also consult an accountant, if only once to understand the basics of how to approach this. Having a limited company would also mean that if it has financial problems, you don't end up having to pay the debts yourself. With a separate company, you would keep any money raised within the company initially and only pay it to yourself as salary over the three years, so from an income tax point of view you'd only be taxed on it as you received it. The company would also pay for project expenses directly and there wouldn't be any income tax to pay on them at all. You would have to pay other taxes like VAT, but you could choose to register for VAT and then you'd be able to reclaim VAT on the company's expenses but would have to charge VAT to your customers. If you start making enough money (currently \u00a382,000\/year) you have to register for VAT whether you want to or not. The only slight complication might be that you could be subject to corporation tax on the surplus money in the first year because it might seem like a profit. However, given that you would presumably have promised something to the funders over a three year period, it should be possible to record your promises as a \""liability\"" for \""unearned income\"" in the company accounts. In effect you'd be saying \""although there's still \u00a360,000 in the bank, I have promised to spend it on the crowdfunded thing so it's not profit\"". Again you should consult an accountant at least over the basics of this."""
"""which types of investments should be choosen for 401k at early 20's?""","""If you don't want to pay much attention to your investments, target date funds -- assuming you find one (like Vanguard's) with no management fees beyond those acquired from the underlying funds -- are usually a great choice: when the target date is far off, they invest almost entirely (usually 90% or so) in (mutual funds that in turn consist of many) stocks, with the remainder in bonds; as the date gets closer, the mix is automatically shifted to more bonds and less stocks (i.e. less risk, but less potential return too)."""
"""Where do I-Bonds fit into personal finance plans?""","""tl,dr: I-bonds do not fit well into most personal finance plans. First the questions (succinct reference): I like your thought process weighing your liquidity and risk versus your return.  This is very important.  However, I think you might be sidetracked a bit by I-Bonds.  I-Bonds are not generally good for personal investment as they are not marketable when necessary, have redemption penalties and hold lower overall yields in general.  Finally, they are significantly harder to trade as you can buy and hold a TIPS ETF and get exposure to all maturities and get the current competitive rate all in one purchase. Inflation protection is in general an interesting problem.  While inflation-protected bonds sound like they are great for inflation protection (after all it is in the name), they may not be the best instruments for long\/medium term protection.  It is really important to remember that inflation protected bonds have significantly lower returns and one form of inflation protection is to just have more money in the future.  TIPS really protect against large inflation changes as normal bonds have the future expected inflation already baked in their higher rates. Also, when you own a stock you own part of a company and inflation will increase the value of the company relative to the inflated currency.  Foreign stocks can give even more protection if you think inflation in your local currency is going to be higher then the foreign currency.  Stocks in the past have had significantly higher return overall than inflation protected bonds but have higher risk as well. As a medium term, low-risk portfolio, it is worth looking into some combination of TIPS, normal bonds and a small to medium allocation of local\/foreign stocks all done through low-fee mutual funds or index ETFs."""
"""How can I get a mortgage I can't afford?""","""Save up a bigger downpayment.  The lender's requirement is going to be based on how much you finance, not the price of the house."""
"""Where can I find all public companies' information?""","""Here are some approaches you may value: Wolfram Alpha This is a search engine with a difference. It literally is connected to thousands of searchable databases, including financial databases. http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=list+of+public+companies+ Just keep clicking the \""more\"" button until you have them all.You can also get great company specific information there: http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=NYSE%3ADIS&lk=1&a=ClashPrefs_*Financial.NYSE%3ADIS- Just keep clicking the \""more\"" button until you have them all.Then the company it'self will have great information for investors too:  [http:\/\/thewaltdisneycompany.com\/investors][3] (Just keep clicking the \""more\"" button until you have them all.) Regards, Stephen"""
"""What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money?""","""A financial planner can help with investments, insurance, estate planning, budgeting, retirement planning, saving for college, tax planning\/prep, and other money topics. One way to get a sense is to look at this Certified Financial Planner topic list. Another idea is to look at this book (my favorite I've read) which covers roughly a similar topic list in a concise form: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People\/dp\/0743269942 It could not hurt at all to read that before deciding to visit a planner, so you have baseline knowledge. By the way, look for the CFP certification which is a generalist certification. A CFP might also have a deeper cert in certain topics or connect you with someone who does. For example: You really want a generalist (CFP) who may have an additional credential as well. The idea is to holistically look at what you're trying to accomplish and all finance-related areas. Especially because there may be tradeoffs. The CFP would then refer you to or work with lawyers, accountants, etc. Importantly, some advisors are fiduciaries (must act in your interests) and some are not. In particular many stockbrokers are neither qualified planners (no CFP or equivalent) nor are they fiduciaries. Stay away. There are several models for paying a financial planner, including: There's an organization called NAPFA (napfa.org) for fiduciary non-commission-based planners. Membership there is a good thing to look for since it's a third party that defines what fee-only means and requires the no-commissions\/fiduciary standard. Finally, the alternative I ended up choosing was to just take the CFP course myself. You can do it online via correspondence course, it costs about the same as 1 year of professional advice. I also took the exam, just to be sure I learned the stuff. This is the \""extreme DIY\"" approach but it is cheaper over time and you know you are not going to defraud yourself. You still might do things that are counterproductive and not in your interests, but you know that already probably ;-) Anyway I think it's equivalent to about a quarter's worth of work at a decent college, or so. There are about 6 textbooks to dig through. You won't be an experienced expert at the end, but you'll know a lot. To get an actual CFP cert, you need 3 years experience on top of the courses and the exam - I haven't done that, just the book learning. Someone who puts \""CFP\"" after their name will have the 3 years on top of the training. Some editorial: many planners emphasize investing, and many people looking for planners (or books on finance) emphasize investing. This is a big mistake, in my view. Investing is more or less a commodity and you just need someone who won't screw it up, overcharge, and\/or lose your money on something idiotic or inappropriate. Some people are in plain-bad and inappropriate investments, don't get me wrong. But once you fix that and just get into anything decent, your biggest planning concerns are probably elsewhere. On investments, I'd look for a planner to just get you out of overpriced annuities and expensive mutual funds you may have been sold (anything you were sold by a salesperson is probably crap). And look for them to help you decide how much to invest, and how much in stocks vs. bonds. Those are the most important investment decisions."""
"""How do I calculate the actual dividend amount for a monthly dividend payout mutual fund?""","""So if someone would invest 14000 credits on 1st April 2016, he'd get monthly dividend = ((14000 \u00f7 14) \u00d7 0.0451) \u00d7 (1 - 1.42 \u00f7 100) = 44.459 credits, right? One would get ((14000 \u00f7 14) \u00d7 0.0451) = 45.1 is what you would get. The expenses are not to be factored. Generally if a scheme has less expense ratio, the yield is more. i.e. this has already got factored in 0.0451. If the expense ratio was less, this would have been 0.05 if expense ration would have been more it would have been 0.040. Can I then consider the bank deposit earning a higher income per month than the mutual fund scheme? As the MIP as classified as Hybrid funds as they invest around 30% in equities, there is no tax on the income. More so if there is a lock-in of 3 years. In Bank FD, there would be tax applicable as per tax brackets."""
"""Advice on replacing my savings account""","""Liquid cash (emergency, rainy day fund) should be safe from a loss in value.  Mutual funds don't give you this, especially stock funds.  You can find \""high yield\"" savings accounts that are now at around .8% to .9% APY which is much better than .05% and will hopefully go up.  Barclays US and American Express are two big banks that normally have the highest rates. Most\/all Savings and Money Market accounts should be FDIC insured.  Mutual funds are not, though the investment IRA, etc. holding them may be."""
"""Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall?""","""I'm assuming you're operating on the cash basis of accounting, based on your comment \""Cash, I think that's the only way for a sole propriator (sic)\"" Consider: There are two distinct but similar-name concepts here: \""paid for\"" (in relation to a expense) and \""paid off\"" (in relation to a debt).  These both occur in the case you describe: Under the cash basis of accounting, when you can deduct an expense is based on when you paid for the expense, not when you eventually pay off any resulting debt arising from paying for the expense. Admittedly, \""cash basis\"" isn't a great name because things don't solely revolve around cash. Rather, it's when money has changed hands \u2013 whether in the form of cash, check, credit card, etc.  Perhaps \""monetary transaction basis\"" might have been a better name since it would capture the paid-for concept whether using cash or credit.  Unfortunately, we're stuck with the terminology the industry established."""
"""Is the return on investment better with high or low dividends?""","""Someone (I forget who) did a study on classifying total return by the dividend profiles. In descending order by category, the results were as follows: 1) Growing dividends. These tend to be moderate yielders, say 2%-3% a year in today's markets. Because their dividends are starting from a low level, the growth of dividends is much higher than stocks in the next category. 2) \""Flat\"" dividends. These tend to be higher yielders, 5% and up, but growing not at all, like interest on bonds, or very slowly (less than 2%-3% a year). 3) No dividends. A \""neutral\"" posture. 4) Dividend cutters. Just \""bad news.\"""""
"""Comprehensive tutorial on double-entry personal finance? ""","""The GnuCash tutorial has some basics on double entry accounting:  http:\/\/www.gnucash.org\/docs\/v1.8\/C\/gnucash-guide\/basics_accounting1.html#basics_accountingdouble2"""
"""Who could afford a higher annual deductible who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment?""","""Your title question, Who could afford a higher premium who couldn't afford a higher monthly payment?, contrasts premium with monthly payment, but those are the same thing.  In the body of your question, you list monthly payment and deductible, which is entirely different. The deductible is paid only if you need that much medical care in any one year.  Most years a person in good health pays little because of the deductible.  Thus, the higher deductible options offer catastrophic health insurance without giving much in the way of reimbursement for regular medical expenses. Note - the original question has been edited since."""
"""How to share income after marriage and kids?""","""I won't answer in a detailed manner because most people at this site like answers with certain bias' on these questions, like pool resources always relative to which partner is asking.  If you follow the above advice, you are hoping things work out.  Great!  What if they don't?  It will be very messy.  Unlike most of my peers, I did NOT follow the above advice and had a very clean exit with both of us feeling very good (and no lawyers got involved either; win-win for both of us with all the money we saved). One assumption people make is the person with the lowest income has the strictest limits.  This is not always true; I grew up in poverty, but have a very high income and detest financial waste.  I can live on about \u20ac12,000 a year and even though my partner made a little less, my partner liked to spend.   Counter intuitive, right?  I was supposed to be the spender because I had a large income, but I wasn't.  Also, think about an example with food - sharing expenses.  Is it fair for one partner to split whey protein if one partner consumes it, but the other doesn't (answer: in my view, no)? My advice based on your questions: Balance the frugal vs. spendthrift mentality rather than income ratios.  If you're both frugal, then focus on income ratios - but one may be more frugal than the other and the thought of spending \u20ac300 a month on housing is just insane to a person like me, whereas to most it's too little.  Are you both exactly the same with this mentality - and be honest? Common costs that you both agree on can be easily split 50-50 and you can often benefit from economies of scale (like internet, cell phone). Both of us feel very strongly about being financially independent and if possible we both don't want to take money from each other. This is so healthy for a relationship.  My partner and I split and we both still really love each other.  We're headed in different directions, but we did not want to end bitterly.  What you wrote is part of why we ended so well; we both were very independent financially.   Kids are going to be a challenge because they come with expenses that partners don't always agree on.  What do you and her think of childcare, for instance?  You really want to know all this upfront; again a frugal vs. spendthrift mindset could cause some big tensions."""
"""Do overall 401(k) contribution limits sum across employers?""","""Let me first start off by saying that you need to be careful with an S-Corp and defined contribution plans.  You might want to consider an LLC or some other entity form, depending on your state and other factors. You should read this entire page on the irs site:  S-Corp Retirement Plan FAQ, but here is a small clip: Contributions to a Self-Employed Plan You can\u2019t make contributions to a self-employed retirement plan from your S corporation   distributions. Although, as an S corporation shareholder, you receive   distributions similar to distributions that a partner receives from a   partnership, your shareholder distributions aren\u2019t earned income for   retirement plan purposes (see IRC section 1402(a)(2)). Therefore, you   also can\u2019t establish a self-employed retirement plan for yourself   solely based on being an S corporation shareholder. There are also some issues and cases about reasonable compensation in S-Corp.  I recommend you read the IRS site's S Corporation Compensation and Medical Insurance Issues page answers as I see them, but I recommend hiring CPA You should be able to do option B.  The limitations are in place for the two different types of contributions:  Elective deferrals and Employer nonelective contributions.  I am going to make a leap and say your talking about a SEP here, therefore you can't setup one were the employee could contribute (post 1997). If your doing self employee 401k, be careful to not make the contributions yourself. If your wife is employed the by company, here calculation is separate and the company could make a separate contribution for her. The limitation for SEP in 2015 are 25% of employee's compensation or $53,000.  Since you will be self employed, you need to calculate your net earnings from self-employment which takes into account the eductible part of your self employment tax and contributions business makes to SEP.  Good read on SEPs at IRS site. and take a look at chapter 2 of Publication 560. I hope that helps and I recommend hiring a CPA in your area to help."""
"""Smart to buy a house in college?""","""I've heard success stories but personally, I was considering it and I'm so glad I didn't. I ended up hating the atmosphere; left after one semester. To take care of that house I rent out, I'd need to hire someone, or drive 2.5h each way for anything that needed my attention. If you plan to stay in the area, I'd consider the housing prices, the rental market, considering the responsibility of maintenance, your expected margin (trust me, it will be lower. I've never heard a landlord say he didn't encounter significant unintended expenses.) It's such a unique situation, it really requires more detail. After all, you'd be saving rent, have control over the house and who lives there, but you have a whole hell of a lot of responsibility. I met one guy who had basically became the house's mom because he had a vested interest and was always cleaning up spills, preventing staining or damage to the paint, facing awkward social situations as they tried to chase down rent. With the right people I've seen it go very well. Oh, one more caveat. With a live-in super', they can provide notice of any necessary repairs instantly and from there, the clock starts. They can legally withhold rent until the repairs are completed and if you're not too liquid after that down payment and the mortgage payments, plus school, etc.. this could put you between a rock and some hard ass creditors."""
"""Dispute credit card transaction with merchant or credit card company?""","""Most merchants (also in Europe) are reasonable, and typically are willing to work with you. credit card companies ask if you tried to work with the merchant first, so although they do not enforce it, it should be the first try. I recommend to give it a try and contact them first. If it doesn't work, you can always go to the credit card company and have the charge reversed. None of this has any effect on your credit score (except if you do nothing and then don't pay your credit card bill). For the future: when a transaction supposedly 'doesn't go through', have them write this on the receipt and give it to you. Only then pay cash. I am travelling 100+ days a year in Europe, using my US credit cards all the time, and there were never any issues - this is not a common problem."""
"""How can I cash out a check internationally?""","""I've been a landlord and also a tenant. I have been able to deposit money in an account, where I have the account number, and\/or a deposit slip. In a foreign bank you can deposit by a machine if in the bank or someone is there for you and knows the account number. With regards to cashing a check in another country, it is up to the bank and the time is at least 14 to 21 business days, with a fee is added. As of a winning check, since its in your name, if you are in another country sign the check, for deposit only with a deposit slip and send it to your out of country bank by FedEx - you will have a tracking number, where as regular mail it might get there in 3 months. I hope by now you came to your solution."""
"""What are the ins\/outs of writing equipment purchases off as business expenses in a home based business?""","""Keep this rather corny acronym in mind. Business expenses must be CORN: As other posters have already pointed out, certain expenses that are capital items (computers, furniture, etc.) must be depreciated over several years, but you have a certain amount of capital items that you can write off in the current tax year."""
"""How should I decide whether to buy more shares of a stock when its price drops?""","""A key principle of economics is: Sunk costs are irrelevant. You bought the stock at 147 and it has now fallen to 144. That's too bad. This has nothing to do with whether it is wise or foolish to buy shares at 144. The only relevant thing to consider is: Do I expect the stock to go up or down from 144? You have lost $3 per share on the original buy. Buying more shares will not \""reduce your loss\"" in any way. Suppose you bought 100 shares at 147. The price then drops to 144. You have lost $3 per share, or $300 total. You buy another 50 more shares at 144. The price stays at 144. So your average purchase price is now (147 x 100 + 144 x 50) \/ 150 = 146. So I guess you could say that your \""average loss per share\"" is now only $2. But it's $2 x 150 shares instead of $3 x 100 shares. You still lost $300. You didn't reduce your loss by a penny. Maybe it made you feel better that you reduced your average loss per share, but this is just an arithmetic game. If you believe that the stock will continue to drop, than buying more shares just means you will lose even more money. Your average loss per share may go down, but you're just multiplying that average by more and more shares. Of course if you believe that the stock is now at an unjustifiably low price and it will likely go back up, then sure, buy. If you buy at 144 and it goes back up to 147, then you'll be making $3 per share on the new shares you purchased. But I repeat, whether or not you buy more shares should have nothing to do with your previous buy. Buy more shares if you think the price will go up from the present price; don't buy more shares if you don't think it will go up. The decision should be exactly the same as if you had never previously bought shares. (I'm assuming here that you are a typical small investor, that you not buying enough shares to have any significant effect on the market, nor that you are in a position to buy enough shares to take control of the company.)"""
"""What actions should I be taking to establish good credit scores for my children?""","""When I was in high school, my mom got me a joint credit account with both of our names on it for exactly this reason. Well, that, and to have in case I found myself in some sort emergency, but it was mostly to build credit history. That account is still on my credit report (it's my oldest by a few years), and looking at the age of it, I was 17 at the time we opened it (and I think my younger sister got one around the same time).  In my case, I now have an \""excellent\"" credit score and my weakest area is the age of my accounts, so having that old account definitely helps me. I don't think I've really taken advantage of it, and I'm not sure if I'd really be worse off if my mom hadn't done that, but it certainly hasn't hurt. And I plan on buying a house in the next year or so, so having anything to bump up the credit score seems like a good thing."""
"""How should I interpret this industry research? ""","""As BobbyScon said in the comments, invest in a company that is developing in that field. Or invest in a company which supplies that field. The people who got rich in the California gold rush were those selling shovels and other miners' supplies. Or bet against whatever you think this will displace. If automobiles are the hot new thing, it might be a bad time to invest in harness leather. Or ... figure out how else it might impact the economy and invest appropriately. But you have to do that evaluation yourself. Or ignore it and stick with your existing strategy, which should have been diversified enough to deliver reasonable results whether this sector takes off or not. Remember that if someone gives you a free tip, they are probably just hoping to pump up the value of their own stock rather than help you."""
"""What are \""headwinds\"" and \""tailwinds\"" in financial investments?""","""Headwinds in an economic situation represent events or conditions e.g. a credit crisis, rising costs, natural disasters, etc, that slow down the growth of an economy. So headwinds are negative. Tailwinds are the opposite and help to increase growth of an economy."""
"""How much money are you actually trading with options?""","""You would have paid $880.00 plus commission in this case, and made $85 before commissions. How much you would have made on expiration depends on the price that TSLA has on April 1, which hasn't come yet.  If it expires worthless, you typically don't pay a commission but you will have lost the full $880.  If it expires in the money and you want to exercise it, then you would pay a commission (often different than the commission to buy\/sell the option itself) and you would have 100 shares of TSLA.  You won't know how much you make or lose in this case until you ultimately sell the shares of TSLA."""
"""New to options trading and need help understanding an options spread risk graph. What am I missing?""","""Suppose the stock is $41 at expiry. The graph says I will lose money. I think I paid $37.20 for (net debit) at this price. I would make money, not lose. What am I missing? The `net debit' doesn't have anything to do with your P\/L graph. Your graph is also showing your profit and loss for NOW and only one expiration. Your trade has two expirations, and I don't know which one that graph is showing. That is the \""mystery\"" behind that graph. Regardless, your PUTs are mitigating your loss as you would expect, if you didn't have the put you would simply lose more money at that particular price range. If you don't like that particular range then you will have to consider a different contract. it was originally a simple covered call, I added a put to protect from stock going lower.. Your strike prices are all over the place and NBIX has a contract at every whole number.... there is nothing simple about this trade. You typically won't find an \""always profitable\"" combination of options. Also, changes in volatility can distort your projects greatly."""
"""Different ways of looking at P\/E Ratio vs EPS""","""all other things being equal if you have two stocks, both with a P\/E   of 2, and one has an EPS of 5 whereas the other has an EPS of 10 is   the latter a better purchase? What this really boils down to is the number of shares a company has outstanding.  Given the same earnings & P\/E, a company with fewer shares will have a higher EPS than a company with more shares.  Knowing that, I don't think the number of shares has much if anything to do with the quality of a company.   It's similar to the arguments I hear often from people new to investing where they think that a company with a share price of $100\/share must be better than a company with a share price of $30\/share simply because the share price is higher."""
"""What are the typical repayment plans for Credit Cards in the United States?""","""It is called \""Credit card installments\"" or \""Equal pay installments\"", and I am not aware of them being widely used in the USA. While in other countries they are supported by banks directly (right?), in US you may find this option only in some big stores like home improvement stores, car dealerships, cell phone operators (so that you can buy a new phone) etc. Some stores allow 0% financing for, say, 12 months which is not exactly the same as installments but close, if you have discipline to pay $250 each month and not wait for 12 months to end. Splitting the big payment in parts means that the seller gets money in parts as well, and it adds risks of customer default, introduces debt collection possibility etc. That's why it's usually up to the merchants to support it - bank does not care in this case, from the bank point of view the store just charges the same card another $250 every month. In other countries banks support this option directly, I think, taking over or dividing the risk with the merchants. This has not happened in US. There is a company SplitIt which automates installments if stores want to support it but again, it means stores need to agree to it. Here is a simple article describing how credit cards work: https:\/\/www.usbank.com\/credit-cards\/how-credit-cards-work.html In general, if you move to US, you are unlikely to be able to get a regular credit card because you will not have any \""credit history\"" which is a system designed to track each customer ability to get & pay off debt. The easiest way to build the history - request \""secured credit card\"", which means you have to give the bank money up front and then they will give you a credit card with a credit limit equal to that amount. It's like a \""practice credit card\"". You use it for 6-12 months and the bank will report your usage to credit bureaus, establishing your \""credit score\"". After that you should be able to get your money back and convert your secured card into a regular credit card. Credit history can be also built by paying rent and utilities but that requires companies who collect money to report the payments to credit bureaus and very few do that. As anything else in US, there are some businesses which help to solve this problem for extra money."""
"""Where to find out conversion ratio between General Motors bonds and new GM stock?""","""I would imagine that as a holder you will receive information in the post when it's made public, but I don't think it's been decided yet. This thread on the Motley Fool boards is keeping an eye on them - you might want to keep an eye on the thread."""
"""I cosigned on a house for my brother""","""This is why we tell people not to co-sign unless they are able and willing to risk that money becoming a gift... or are able and willing to treat it as business rather than family. Unfortunately that advice is a bit late now to help you. When you cosigned, you promised the bank that you would make any payments he didn't. The bank doesn't care why he didn't, they just want their money on time. Getting him to repay you for covering this is strictly between the two of you, and unless you signed paperwork at the time establishing a contract other than the promise to cover his loan this becomes Extremely Messy. First step is to make the payments so the loan doesn't continue acquiring fees and hurting your credit rating, and keep it from falling behind again. Then you have to convince him to repay the money you have effectively given him. Depending on your relationship, and financial situations, you may decide to carry him for a while and trust that he'll pay you back when he can, or sic a lawyer on him. You need to make that decision, recognizing that it may be a matter of how much family drama you are willing to tolerate."""
"""Can paying down a mortgage be considered an \""investment\""?""","""If by \""investment\"" you mean something that pays you money that you can spend, then no. But if you view \""investment\"" as something that improves your balance sheet \/ net worth by reducing debt and reducing how much money you're throwing away in interest each month, then the answer is definitely yes, paying down debt is a good investment to improve your overall financial condition. However, your home mortgage might not be the first place to start looking for pay-downs to save money.  Credit cards typically have much higher interest rates than mortgages, so you would save more money by working on eliminating your credit card debt first. I believe Suze Orman said something like: If you found an investment that paid you 25% interest, would you take it?  Of course you would!  Paying down high interest debt reduces the amount of interest you have to pay next month.  Your same amount of income will be able to go farther, do more because you'll be paying less in interest. Pay off your credit card debt first (and keep it off), then pay down your mortgage. A few hundred dollars in extra principal paid in the first few years of a 30 year mortgage can remove years of interest payments from the mortgage term. Whether you plan to keep your home for decades or you plan to move in 10 years, having less debt puts you in a stronger financial position."""
"""How did this day trader lose so much?""","""Learn something new every day... I found this interesting and thought I'd throw my 2c in. Good description (I hope) from Short Selling: What is Short Selling First, let's describe what short selling means when you purchase shares of stock. In purchasing stocks, you buy a piece of ownership in the company. You buy\/sell stock to gain\/sell ownership of a company. When an investor goes long on an investment, it means that he or she has bought a stock believing its price will rise in the future. Conversely, when an investor goes short, he or she is anticipating a decrease in share price. Short selling is the selling of a stock that the seller doesn't own. More specifically, a short sale is the sale of a security that isn't owned by the seller, but that is promised to be delivered.  Still with us? Here's the skinny: when you short sell a stock, your broker will lend it to you. The stock will come from the brokerage's own inventory, from another one of the firm's customers, or from another brokerage firm. The shares are sold and the proceeds are credited to your account. Sooner or later, you must \""close\"" the short by buying back the same number of shares (called covering) and returning them to your broker. If the price drops, you can buy back the stock at the lower price and make a profit on the difference. If the price of the stock rises, you have to buy it back at the higher price, and you lose money. So what happened? The Plan The Reality Lesson I never understood what \""Shorting a stock\"" meant until today. Seems a bit risky for my blood, but I would assume this is an extreme example of what can go wrong. This guy literally chose the wrong time to short a stock that was, in all visible aspects, on the decline.  How often does a Large Company or Individual buy stock on the decline... and send that stock soaring? How often does a stock go up 100% in 24 hours? 600%?  Another example is recently when Oprah bought 10% of Weight Watchers and caused the stock to soar %105 in 24 hours. You would have rued the day you shorted that stock - on that particular day - if you believed enough to \""gamble\"" on it going down in price."""
"""Events that cause major movement in forex?""","""Anything related to the central bank will have a large impact, as they are the ones who determine interest rates, and interest rates have a big effect on currency flows.  GDP is also important, as when there is an economic slowdown it may result in the central bank reducing rates to boost economic activity. The opposite is also true, large increases in GDP may mean that an interest rate hike might be needed. Inflation data is also very important. Again, large changes in inflation either way may push the central bank towards changing rates. This data typically is in the form of CPI Note that each central bank is different. They all have specific mandates and specific pieces of economic data that they place emphasis on. The Federal Reserve as of late has closely been watching inflation data, especially wage inflation data, and employment. Significant deviations in these data points from whats expected by investors can greatly move the market. However, these specific factors are a little less important for, say, Mexico, which is mostly concerned with headline inflation. Read the statements issued by the central banks to find out whats important to them. Central banks also issue expectations for things like growth, CPI, etc. If these expectations are not met, it may result in a policy change, or at least talk of a policy change, at the next meeting of the central bank. Anticipating these policy changes and trading accordingly is one strategy to be a profitable forex trader Also, there are several forex news calendars online that indicate what is likely to be high impact news. These can be helpful starting out."""
"""Why does selling and then rebuying stock not lead to free money?""","""The main thing you're missing is that while you bear all the costs of manipulating the market, you have no special ability to capture the profits yourself. You make money by buying low and selling high. But if you want to push the price up, you have to keep buying even though the price is getting high. So you are buying high. This gives everyone, including you, the opportunity to sell high and make money. But you will have no special ability to capture that -- others will see the price going up and will start selling within a tiny fraction of a second. You will have to keep buying all the shares they keep selling at the artificially inflated price. So as you keep trying to buy more and more to push the price up enough to make money, everyone else is selling their shares to you. You have to buy more and more shares at an inflated price as everyone else is selling while you are still buying. When you switch to selling, the price will drop instantly, since there's nobody to buy from you at the inflated price. The opportunity you created has already been taken -- by the very people you were trading with. Billions have been lost by people who thought this strategy would work."""
"""How can I find data on delisted stocks?""","""You need a source of delisted historical data. Such data is typically only available from paid sources. According to my records, AULT (Ault Inc) began as an OTC stock in the 1980s prior it having an official NASDAQ listing.  It was delisted on 27 Jan 2006.  Its final traded price was $2.94.  It was taken over at a price of $2.90 per share by SL Industries. Source: Symbol AULT-200601 within Premium Data US delisted stocks historical price data set available from http:\/\/www.premiumdata.net\/products\/premiumdata\/ushistorical.php Disclosure: I am a co-owner of Norgate \/ Premium Data."""
"""When (if) I should consider cashing in (selling) shares to realize capital gains?""","""You should know when to sell your shares before you buy them. This is most easily done by placing a stop loss conditional order at the same time you place your buy order. There are many ways to determine at what level to place your stop losses at. The easiest is to place a trailing stop loss at a percentage below the highest close price, so as the price reaches new highs the trailing stop will rise. If looking for short to medium term gains you might place your trailing stop at 10% below the highest close, whilst if you were looking for more longer term gains you should probably place a 20% trailing stop. Another way to place your stops for short to medium term gains is to keep moving your trailing stop up to just below the last trough in an existing uptrend."""
"""What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable\/uncertain economy?""","""Even Gold lost 1\/2 of it's value between 1980 and 2000.   You would not have fared well if you retired during that period heavily invested in Gold. http:\/\/www.usagold.com\/reference\/prices\/history.html You said yourself that one can not foresee what the future will bring. At least IRA's force you to into dollar cost averaging, whereas if your money was outside of a retirement account, you might be tempted to speculate. -Ralph Winters"""
"""Deceived by car salesman""","""The only thing that is important here is the documentation you and your daughter signed. If that documentation states that you were a co-signer and that your daughter was the primary on the loan, and then if the loan is not being reported in your daughter's name, you have a cause for action. If, however, the documentation says the loan is entirely in your name, the mistake is yours. Even in that case, though, your daughter may be able to take over the loan, or she may be able to take out a loan from a separate institution and use that to pay off the current loan. Obviously, this may be difficult if she does not have a credit history, which is what got you here in the first place. :("""
"""What's the best use for this money? Its only a small amount but can make a big difference to me""","""First and foremost, it's about changing habits.  It seems like you've learned a painful lesson with the car financing.  That's a good start.  I'd work on developing the habit of making a budget every month before you spend a penny. As for this money, I would pay off the Apple loan and put the rest in savings.  Then pay off the entire credit card balance the month before the rate increases. The point of putting the money in savings is not about making the small amount of interest.  You need to get in the habit of having money in an emergency fund and paying for unexpected emergencies out of that, not just throwing it on a credit card.  Ideally, budget over the next few months to pay off the credit card out of your income, not out of savings."""
"""What happens when PayPal overdrafts a checking account (with an ample backup funding source available)?""","""You should check directly with the seller. I suspect you will find they have not recieved any money. Paypal tend to hang on to money as long as possible in all transactions, and will do anything to avoid giving out cash before it has come in."""
"""Mexican Index Mutual Funds""","""The recommendations you read were, very probably, talking about US listed funds in US dollars. The mexican Bolsa de Valores says that they list over 600 mutual funds  so \""Yes\"" you can invest in Mexico using Pesos if that is what you want.  You need a Corredor de Bolsa or mexico broker. Here they are.  Most international investors use exchange traded funds ETF because theirs fees are cheaper than mutual funds.  The ETF are mostly listed and traded in us stock exchange. Here they are. US mutual funds are in dollars and, because you are living in Mexico, you will have a currency risk and probably taxes.  Mexico mutual funds in Pesos do not carry any currency exposure unless the companies involved do business in the United States. You have to think about your currency exposure. B. Veo"""
"""Is there a Canadian credit card which shows holds?""","""PC MasterCard recently added this as a new feature to their online system. It lets you see \""Pending Authorizations\"" for your card when you log in. Their email said: Along with your purchases, you'll see a list of every transaction that's been approved, but not yet applied to your balance. You'll be able to identify these with the word \""Pending\"" in the date column.  Here's a link with more information: http:\/\/pcfinancial.ca\/pendingauthorization\/"""
"""Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority?""","""For some people, it should be a top priority.  For others, there are higher priorities.  What it should be for you depends on a number of things, including your overall financial situation (both your current finances and how stable you expect them to be over time), your level of financial \""education\"", the costs of your mortgage, the alternative investments available to you, your investing goals, and your tolerance for risk. Your #1 priority should be to ensure that your basic needs (including making the required monthly payment on your mortgage) are met, both now and in the near future, which includes paying off high-interest (i.e. credit card) debt and building up an emergency fund in a savings or money-market account or some other low-risk and liquid account.  If you haven't done those things, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, and do not consider making advance payments on your mortgage.  Mason Wheeler's statements that the bank can't take your house if you've paid it off are correct, but it's going to be a long time till you get there and they can take it if you're partway to paying it off early and then something bad happens to you and you start missing payments.  (If you're not underwater, you should be able to get some of your money back by selling - possibly at a loss - before it gets to the point of foreclosure, but you'll still have to move, which can be costly and unappealing.)  So make sure you've got what you need to handle your basic needs even if you hit a rough patch, and make sure you're not financing the paying off of your house by taking a loan from Visa at 27% annually. Once you've gotten through all of those more-important things, you finally get to decide what else to invest your extra money in.  Different investments will provide different rewards, both financial and emotional (and Mason Wheeler has clearly demonstrated that he gets a strong emotional payoff from not having a mortgage, which may or may not be how you feel about it).  On the financial side of any potential investment, you'll want to consider things like the expected rate of return, the risk it carries (both on its own and whether it balances out or unbalances the overall risk profile of all your investments in total), its expected costs (including its - and your - tax rate and any preferred tax treatment), and any other potential factors (such as an employer match on 401(k) contributions, which are basically free money to you).  Then you weigh the pros and cons (financial and emotional) of each option against your imperfect forecast of what the future holds, take your best guess, and then keep adjusting as you go through life and things change. But I want to come back to one of the factors I mentioned in the first paragraph.  Which options you should even be considering is in part influenced by the degree to which you understand your finances and the wide variety of options available to you as well as all the subtleties of how different things can make them more or less advantageous than one another.  The fact that you're posting this question here indicates that you're still early in the process of learning those things, and although it's great that you're educating yourself on them (and keep doing it!), it means that you're probably not ready to worry about some of the things other posters have talked about, such as Cost of Capital and ROI.  So keep reading blog posts and articles online (there's no shortage of them), and keep developing your understanding of the options available to you and their pros and cons, and wait to tackle the full suite of investment options till you fully understand them. However, there's still the question of what to do between now and then.  Paying the mortgage down isn't an unreasonable thing for you to do for now, since it's a guaranteed rate of return that also provides some degree of emotional payoff.  But I'd say the higher priority should be getting money into a tax-advantaged retirement account (a 401(k)\/403(b)\/IRA), because the tax-advantaged growth of those accounts makes their long-term return far greater than whatever you're paying on your mortgage, and they provide more benefit (tax-advantaged growth) the earlier you invest in them, so doing that now instead of paying off the house quicker is probably going to be better for you financially, even if it doesn't provide the emotional payoff.  If your employer will match your contributions into that account, then it's a no-brainer, but it's probably still a better idea than the mortgage unless the emotional payoff is very very important to you or unless you're nearing retirement age (so the tax-free growth period is small).  If you're not sure what to invest in, just choose something that's broad-market and low-cost (total-market index funds are a great choice), and you can diversify into other things as you gain more savvy as an investor; what matters more is that you start investing in something now, not exactly what it is. Disclaimer: I'm not a personal advisor, and this does not constitute investing advice.  Understand your choices and make your own decisions."""
"""Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns?""","""This sound like a very bad idea. If you invest exclusively in silver, your investment is not diversified in any way. This is what I would call risky. Have a look at index funds and ETFs and build a diversified portfolio. It does not take much time, and you don't need to let it do by someone else. They are risky too, but I see \""silver only\"" as much riskier. You reduce the risk by holding on to the funds for a long time."""
"""Why are typical 401(k) plan fund choices so awful?""","""I would point this out to the committee or other entity in charge of handling this at work. They do have a fiduciary responsibility for the participant's money and should take anything reasonable seriously. The flip side to this is 95% of participants -- especially participants under 35 or so -- really pay next to no attention to this stuff. We consider it a victory to get people to pony up the matching contributions. Active participation in investment would blow our minds."""
"""Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \""Buy Low, Sell High\""?""","""You should sell all your stock immediately and reinvest the money in index funds. As of right now you're competing against prop trading shops, multinational banks, and the like, who probably know a teensy bit more about that particular stock than you do. I'm sorry, any other advice is missing the point that you shouldn't be picking stocks in the first place."""
"""Best ISA alternative ""","""Your question is actually quite broad, so will try to split it into it's key parts: Yes, standard bank ISAs pay very poor rates of interest at the moment. They are however basically risk free and should track inflation.  Any investment in the 6-7% return range at the moment will be linked to stock. Stock always carries large risks (~50% swings in capital are pretty standard in the short run. In the long run it generally beats every other asset class by miles). If you can\u2019t handle those types of short terms swings, you shouldn\u2019t get involved. If you do want to invest in stock, there is a hefty ignorance tax waiting at every corner in terms of how brokers construct their fees. In a nutshell, there is a different best value broker in the UK for virtually every band of capital, and they make their money through people signing up when they are in range x, and not moving their money when they reach band y; or just having a large marketing budget and screwing you from the start (Nutmeg at ~1% a year is def in this category). There isn't much of an obvious way around this if you are adamant you don't want to learn about it - the way the market is constructed is just a total predatory minefield for the complete novice. There are middle ground style investments between the two extremes you are looking at: bonds, bond funds and mixes of bonds and small amounts of stock (such as the Vanguard income or Conservative Growth funds outlined here), can return more than savings accounts with less risk than stocks, but again its a very diverse field that's hard to give specific advice about without knowing more about what your risk tolerance, timelines and aims are. If you do go down this (or the pure stock fund) route, it will need to be purchased via a broker in an ISA wrapper. The broker charges a platform fee, the fund charges a fund fee. In both cases you want these as low as possible. The Telegraph has a good heat map for the best value ISA platform providers by capital range here. Fund fees are always in the key investor document (KIID), under 'ongoing charges'."""
"""How can I figure out how much to bid on a parking space?""","""Scenario 1: Assume that you plan to keep the parking space for the rest of your life and collect the income from the rental. You say these spaces rent for $250 per month and there are fees of $1400 per year. Are there any other costs? Like would you be responsible for the cost of repaving at some point? But assuming that's covered in the $1400, the net profit is 250 x 12 - 1400 = $1600 per year. So now the question becomes, what other things could you invest your money in, and what sort of returns do those give? If, say, you have investments in the stock market that are generating a 10% annual return and you expect that rate of return to continue indefinitely, than if you pay a price that gives you a return of less than 10%, i.e. if you pay more than $16,000, then you would be better off to put the money in the stock market. That is, you should calculate the fair price \""backwards\"": What return on investment is acceptable, and then what price would I have to pay to get that ROI? Oh, you should also consider what the \""occupancy rate\"" on such parking spaces is. Is there enough demand that you can realistically expect to have it rented out 100% of the time? When one renter leaves, how long does it take to find another? And do you have any information on how often renters fail to pay the rent? I own a house that I rent out and I had two tenants in a row who failed to pay the rent, and the legal process to get them evicted takes months. I don't know what it takes to \""evict\"" someone from a parking space. Scenario 2: You expect to collect rent on this space for some period of time, and then someday sell it. In that case, there's an additional piece of information you need: How much can you expect to get for this property when you sell it? This is almost surely highly speculative. But you could certainly look at past pricing trends. If you see that the value of a parking space in your area has been going up by, whatever, say 4% per year for the past 20 years, it's reasonable to plan on the assumption that this trend will continue. If it's been up and down and all over the place, you could be taking a real gamble. If you pay $30,000 for it today and when the time comes to sell the best you can get is $15,000, that's not so good. But if there is some reasonable consistent average rate of growth in value, you can add this to the expected rents. Like if you can expect it to grow in value by $1000 per year, then the return on your investment is the $1600 in rent plus $1000 in capital growth equals $2600. Then again do an ROI calculation based on potential returns from other investments."""
"""What does ES1 refer to in this picture?""","""ES1 is the Bloomberg symbol for the CME E-mini S&P 500 front-month continuous contract.  ES2, ES3, etc. will likewise yield the 2nd and 3rd months.  Which exact futures contract this symbol refers to will change about once a month."""
"""Why is the number of issued shares less than the number of outstanding shares""","""The language in the starbucks accounts is highly ambiguous. But Starbucks has no treasury shares which helps work out what is going on.  Where it says \""respectively\"" it is referring to the years 2014 and 2013 rather than \""issued and outstanding\""...even though it doesn't read that way. Not easy to work out. The figures are:  Authorised 1200 2014 Issued 749.5 2014 Outstanding 749.5 2013 Issued 753.2 2013 Outstanding 753.2"""
"""How should I be investing in bonds as part of a diversified portfolio?""","""For most people, you don't want individual bonds. Unless you are investing very significant amounts of money, you are best off with bond funds (or ETFs). Here in Canada, I chose TDB909, a mutual fund which seeks to roughly track the DEX Universe Bond index. See the Canadian Couch Potato's recommended funds. Now, you live in the U.S. so would most likely want to look at a similar bond fund tracking U.S. bonds. You won't care much about Canadian bonds. In fact, you probably don't want to consider foreign bonds at all, due to currency risk. Most recommendations say you want to stick to your home country for your bond investments. Some people suggest investing in junk bonds, as these are likely to pay a higher rate of return, though with an increased risk of default. You could also do fancy stuff with bond maturities, too. But in general, if you are just looking at an 80\/20 split, if you are just looking for fairly simple investments, you really shouldn't. Go for a bond fund that just mirrors a big, low-risk bond index in your home country. I mean, that's the implication when someone recommends a 60\/40 split or an 80\/20 split. Should you go with a bond mutual fund or with a bond ETF? That's a separate question, and the answer will likely be the same as for stock mutual funds vs stock ETFs, so I'll mostly ignore the question and just say stick with mutual funds unless you are investing at least $50,000 in bonds."""
"""Why certain currencies are considered safe havens in times of turmoil""","""Switzerland is presumably where one moves the money in case of an apocalypse; although, they have lost some of that appeal now with the tax reporting to the EU and USA. Switzerland has a very old, stable banking industry, but this isn't the only appeal.  Their reputation for safeguarding money, be it despot or Nazi, is most of the attraction.  Low to no taxes is the second.  Also, there isn't much financially illegal despite recent changes.  Put that all together, and if a country is about to go to hell in handbasket because it borrowed too much or goes to war while Switzerland stays stable and very strict about paying depositors, those residents are going to try to move as much money to Switzerland as possible before its confiscated for one reason or another, sending the CHF up. Japan is a different duck.   They have persistently ~0% inflation thus low nominal and real interest rates.  With them, the so-called \""cash & carry trade\"" or more ubiquitous \""carry trade\"" dominates.  Many investors choose to borrow in JPY to buy investments denominated in other currencies.  If the countries of those other currencies are about to take their residents' money or go to war, putting money at jeopardy, the residents doing the carry trading will try to unwind their levered investments to reduce risk, sending the JPY up."""
"""What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?""","""Since the question asked for options, rather than advice, I\u2019ll offer a few.  And you can ignore the gratuitous advice that may sneak in. There are countries that will happily give you citizenship for a fee.  And others where an investment of far less than your million will get you well on your way.  Having citizenship and a passport from another country can be handy if your current one is or becomes unpopular or unstable. From data at numbeo.com, I estimate that my lifestyle would cost me $3300 (US) in Geneva, Switzerland, and that everywhere else on the planet would be less.  I haven\u2019t been to Geneva, but I have spent only $2500 (average) per month in eleven countries over three years, and could have been comfortable on far less.  $2500\/month will go through 1.2 million in only forty years, but if you use it to generate income, and are less wasteful than me, ... With the first few dollars you get, you might take steps to hedge the possibility of not actually getting it all.  Appeals can take a long time, and if the defendant runs out of money or figures out how to hide, the size of the judgment is irrelevant. Believe strongly enough in something to donate money for\/to it? I\u2019ll leave the investment options to others."""
"""What are the reasons to get more than one credit card?""","""3 reasons I can think of: I once worked for a bank and when credit scoring for loans, if you had been approved by different institutions, you were given a better score. So if you held a Visa and Mastercard (as opposed to two Visa cards) your credit score would go higher. More than 6 cards though looked suspicious and your score would take a big hit. Having more than card has helped me when getting special offers multiple times from some websites where it was limited to \""one per customer\"" though most just used your address or email account. If you owed $1000 in total which you can't pay off in one go, it is better to have that split across two cards. You would be paying interest on $500 on each card but when you have one card paid off, the interest you would be paying on the other would be based on the original debt to that one card of $500 (not $1000). I hope that makes sense."""
"""What should I do with the change in my change-jar?""","""In the U.S. at least, a lot of these CoinStar machines are now owned and operated by the store or other venue in which they're placed, as a convenience to customers, and the fee for using it is waived.  These machines, even without a fee attached, are still beneficial to the store, for two reasons. First, they bring in potential customers; the machine usually spits out a ticket that you take to the cashier, meaning you pass by all the impulse items they put in the checkout lines, and someone using the change catcher will invariably pick up a pack of gum or a magazine to spend your newfound wealth. The fact that one store has a change machine while another doesn't can also be the difference between choosing that store over the other for a planned shopping trip. Second, and less obvious, a store that owns a CoinStar machine has full access to the change people put in it (hey, they own the machine and are paying out cash on the receipts it spits out). During normal use of a cash drawer or register to take in money, large bills ($20\/20\u20ac or larger) are accumulated to be \""broken\"", small to medium bills (1-10 units) stay roughly static in number as payments are made and larger bills are broken, and coins are invariably depleted as change is paid out. This means the average retail store needs a constant incoming supply of coinage, and that generally happens either through armored car service or similar commercial banking (which costs the store money), or through \""change catchers\"" like gumball machines (which usually can't supply all the needed denominations). The Coinstar machine effectively reverses at least a portion of this attrition of coins and accumulation of large bills; the store can now receive coins and pay out large bills as a part of its day to day business, reducing or even eliminating the need to have a bank or armored car perform this service. Anyway, check and see whether the CoinStar machine you last used is still operating on a percentage-fee basis; it might be the case that the store has purchased the machine outright and is offering its services free of charge. If not, look around; other stores may be waiving the CoinStar fee where this one isn't (or they may have similar, non-CoinStar branded machines). Lastly, as other answers have mentioned, if you cash out in the form of a gift card, there's no fee, so you can pick a gift card to a store you're likely to visit anyway; in the U.S. there are a lot of good choices, like home improvement stores, Starbucks, major department stores\/clothing retailers, and even an airline."""
"""How much should I be contributing to my 401k given my employer's contribution?""","""Contribute as much as you can.  When do you want to retire and how much income do you think you'll need? A $1M portfolio yielding 5% will yield $50,000\/year. Do some research about how to build a portfolio... this site is a good start, but check out books on retirement planning and magazines like Money and Kiplinger. If you don't speak \""money\"" or are intimidated by investing, look for a fee-based financial advisor whom you are comfortable with."""
"""Buy on dip when earnings fail?""","""What is cheap? A stock may fall from $20 per share to $10 per share, but it may have gone from making a $100M profit last year to a $100M loss this year. So now at $10 per share it may still be considered expensive. You need to be very careful when to consider that a stock is cheap or not, you'll have to look at more than just the share price."""
"""How can I invest in an index fund but screen out (remove) certain categories of socially irresponsible investments?""","""You could certainly look at the holdings of index funds and choose index funds that meet your qualifications.  Funds allow you to see their holdings, and in most cases you can tell from the description whether certain companies would qualify for their fund or not based on that description - particularly if you have a small set of companies that would be problems. You could also pick a fund category that is industry-specific. I invest in part in a Healthcare-focused fund, for example.  Pick a few industries that are relatively diverse from each other in terms of topics, but are still specific in terms of industry - a healthcare fund, a commodities fund, an REIT fund.  Then you could be confident that they weren't investing in defense contractors or big banks or whatever you object to. However, if you don't feel like you know enough to filter on your own, and want the diversity from non-industry-specific funds, your best option is likely a 'socially screened' fund like VFTSX is likely your best option; given there are many similar funds in that area, you might simply pick the one that is most similar to you in philosophy."""
"""How to incentivize a real-estate broker to find me a cheap house""","""Here in the U.S., a realtor can act as a \""seller's agent\"" or a \""buyer's agent\"". I think what you are calling a \""broker\"" in the U.S. we call a \""buyer's agent\"", and this may just be a difference in terminology, from your post it sounds like the concept is the same. I am answering from a U.S. perspective, please let me know if something doesn't make sense in the Israeli context. Here, each typically gets 3% to 3.5% of the sale price (at least in my part of the country). So yes, the buyer's agent has an incentive to get a higher price, even though this is contrary to the interests of the person he is supposed to represent. On the other hand, the buyer's agent has a strong incentive to find a house at a price that you consider acceptable. If the absolute most you are willing to pay is, say, \u20aa1,000,000, and he keeps showing you houses that cost \u20aa1,500,000, he's just wasting his time. (He's wasting your time too, of course, but let's assume he doesn't care about that.) (I don't know what housing prices are in Israel today, just making up numbers.) Suppose he has two houses that he can show you, one in your price range and one not. If he shows you the first you may buy it and we will very quickly get his commission. If he shows you the second, you probably won't buy it and he'll get zero. If he keeps showing you houses above your price range, he's doing a bunch of work for which he will never be paid. The worst case from your point of view is if you're thinking that you're expecting and prepared to pay, say, \u20aa1,000,000 to \u20aa1,300,000, and you tell the broker that, his incentive is to concentrate on the upper end, maybe even push it a little. But still, if he shows a house that's well within your range so you'll quickly buy, he can get \u20aa30,000 today, versus trying to push you to go higher so he can maybe get \u20aa39,000 in a few months. Is the extra \u20aa9,000 worth several months of extra work? Probably not. Personally, I've never had a problem with a realtor trying to push me to buy a house more expensive than I said I was prepared to pay. At least not that I noticed. Maybe they were very skillful at it and I didn't realize they were doing it, like showing me houses that were totally run-down dumps until I decided I was willing to pay more. As to your specific suggestion: I don't know if a realtor would be willing to negotiate an alternative deal from their standard contract. I've never tried to do such a thing. Yes, this would give him an incentive to find the lowest possible price. Arguably this would create a perverse incentive to show you houses of very low quality just because they're cheap. And there would be the problem that he'd have no incentive to show you houses at or just over your stated maximum, as his commission would be zero. (Negative if it goes over slightly?) What I did on my last house was tell the realtor, I want to start by looking at houses costing under \\$X. If I can't find anything I like, I'll go a little higher. By not telling the realtor my maximum, I discouraged her from immediately going for the maximum. At least that was my theory."""
"""Pros\/Cons of Buying Discounted Company Stock""","""I see another way of looking at this that hasn't been addressed yet. By offering the discount, the company is attempting to change your behavior into doing something irrational, that benefits them at your expense. The company hopes for one (or more) of the following psychological effects to happen to you: The proper thing to do, if you have enough capital to prevent margin calls, it to short-sell the stock at the same instant the price is set, thus locking in the profit. Eventually you can take possession of the shares and deliver them to offset the short -- hopefully before you get a margin call from the stock dropping."""
"""What is \""beta\"" for an investment or a portfolio, and how do I use it?""","""I don't think either of these answers are accurate. A beta of 0 means that your stock\/portfolio does not change accordingly or with the market, rather it acts independent. A beta above 0 means the stock follows what the market does. Which means if the market goes up the stock goes up, if the market goes down, the stock goes down. If the stock's beta is more than 1 the stock will go up more if the market goes up, or go down more if the market goes down. Inversely if the stock is less than 0 the stock will follow the market inversely. So if the market goes up, the stock goes down. If the market goes down, the stock goes up. Again a greater negative beta, the more this relationship will be exaggerated."""
"""Does the IRS reprieve those who have to commute for work?""","""Short answer, yes. But this is not done through the deductions on Schedule A. This can happen if the employer creates a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for its employees. This can be created for certain approved uses like medical and transportation expenses (a separate account for each category). You can contribute amounts within certain limits to these accounts (e.g. $255 a month for transportation), with pre-tax income, deduct the contributions, and then withdraw these funds to cover your transportation or medical expenses. They work like a (deductible) IRA, except that these are \""spending\"" and not \""retirement\"" accounts. Basically, the employer fulfills the role of \""IRA\"" (FSA, actually) trustee, and does the supporting paperwork."""
"""still have mortgage on old house to be torn down- want to build new house""","""I could be wrong, but I doubt you're going to be able to roll the current mortgage into a new one. The problem is that the bank is going to require that the new loan is fully collateralized by the new house.  So the only way that you can ensure that is if you can construct the house cheaply enough that the difference between the construction cost and the end market value is enough to cover the current loan AND keep the loan-to-value (LTV) low enough that the bank is secured. So say you currently owe $40k on your mortgage, and you want to build a house that will be worth $200k. In order to avoid PMI, you're going to have to have an LTV of 80% or less, which means that you can spend no more than $160k to build the house.  If you want to roll the existing loan in, now you have to build for less than $120k, and there's no way that you can build a $200k house for $120k unless you live in an area with very high land value and hire the builders directly (and even then it may not be possible). Otherwise you're going to have to make up the difference in cash. When you tear down a house, you are essentially throwing away the value of the house - when you have a mortgage on the house, you throw away that value plus you still owe the money, which is a difficult hole to climb out of. A better solution might be to try and sell the house as-is, perhaps to someone else who can tear down the house and rebuild with cash. If that is not a viable option (or you don't want to move) then you might consider a home equity loan to renovate parts of the house, provided that they increase the market value enough to justify the cost (e.g. modernize the kitchen, add on a room, remodel bathrooms, etc. So it all depends on what the house is worth today as-is, how much it will cost you to rebuild, and what the value of the new house will be."""
"""How to resolve imbalances and orphan transactions in Gnucash?""","""I have been following some of these threads. Some of them are really old. I have read used recording to equity accounts to resolve the imbalance USD issue. The thing I noticed is that all my imbalances occur when paying bills. I took all the bills and set them up as vendor accounts, entered the bills in the new bills, and used the process payment when paying bills. The imbalance issue stopped. It makes sense. The system is a double entry. That's it will credit and debit. Assets accounts are increased with a debit and decreased with a credit. Equity accounts are increased with a credit and decreased with a debit. ie; Say you have an monthly insurance bill for $100. You enter it into the new vendor bill. This credits Accounts Payable. When paying the bill it credits checking, debits account payable, credits vendor account, debits the expense insurance. In short for each credit there has to be a debit for the books to balance. When there is no account for it to record to it will record in Imbalance USD to balance the books."""
"""How can I check my credit score?""","""http:\/\/annualcreditreport.com\/ That's the official site for getting your free yearly credit report (one free per year from each of the 3 reporting bureaus)."""
"""Against what income are broker fees deducted?""","""You don't \""deduct\"" transaction fees, but they are included in your cost basis and proceeds, which will affect the amount of gain\/loss you report. So in your example, the cost basis for each of the two lots is $15 (10$ share price plus $5 broker fee).  Your proceeds for each lot are $27.50 (($30*2 - $5 )\/2).  Your gain on each lot is therefore $12.50, and you will report $12.50 in STCG and $12.50 in LTCG in the year you sold the stock (year 3).   As to the other fees, in general yes they are deductible, but there are limits and exceptions, so you would need to consult a tax professional to get a correct answer in your specific situation."""
"""Dividend yield for multiple years?""","""Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target.  Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently).   I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend payment divided by my cost basis per share.  As an example, say you have shares in X, Co.  X issues a quarterly dividend of $1 per share and the share price is $100; coincidentally this is the price at which you purchased your shares. But a few years goes by and now X issues it's quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, and the share price is $160. However your shares only cost you $100. Your annual yield on X is 6%, not the published 3.75%.  All of this is to say that looking back on dividend yields is somewhat similar to nailing jello to the wall.  Do you look at actual dividends paid through the year divided by share price?  Do you look at the annualized dividend at the time of issue then average those?  The stock price will fluctuate, that will change the yield; depending on where you bought your stock, your actual yield will vary from the published amount as well."""
"""What is a bull put spread?""","""Bull means the investor is betting on a rising market. Puts are a type of stock option where the seller of a put option promises to buy 100 shares of stock from the buyer of the put option at a pre-agreed price called the strike price on any day before expiration day.  The buyer of the put option does not have to sell (it is optional, thats why it is called buying an option).  However, the seller of the put is required to make good on their promise to the buyer. The broker can require the seller of the put option to have a deposit, called margin, to help make sure that they can make good on the promise.   Profit... The buyer can profit from the put option if the stock price moves down substantially.   The buyer of the put option does not need to own the stock, he can sell the option to someone else.  If the buyer of the put option also owns the stock, the put option can be thought of like an insurance policy on the value of the stock.  The seller of the put option profits if the stock price stays the same or rises.  Basically, the seller comes out best if they can sell put options that no one ends up using by expiration day. A spread is an investment consisting of buying one option and selling another. Let's put bull and put and spread together with an example from Apple. So, if you believed Apple Inc. AAPL (currently 595.32) was going up or staying the same through JAN you could sell the 600 JAN put and buy the 550 put.  If the price rises beyond 600, your profit would be the difference in price of the puts.  Let's explore this a little deeper (prices from google finance 31 Oct 2012): Worst Case:  AAPL drops below 550.  The bull put spread investor owes (600-550)x100 shares = $5000 in JAN but received $2,035 for taking this risk. EDIT 2016: The \""worst case\"" was the outcome in this example, the AAPL stock price on options expiry Jan 18, 2013 was about $500\/share. Net profit = $2,035 - $5,000 = -$2965 = LOSS of $2965 Best Case:  AAPL stays above 600 on expiration day in JAN. Net Profit = $2,035 - 0 = $2035 Break Even:  If AAPL drops to 579.65, the value of the 600 JAN AAPL put sold will equal the $2,035 collected and the bull put spread investor will break even. Commissions have been ignored in this example."""
"""Safe method of paying for a Gym Membership?""","""Shady isn't quite the right word.  They know that most of their customers are going to quit soon after they begin -- as in \""before the end of January\"" -- so they lock you in while you're motivated.  And of course they're going to make it difficult for you to quit. No choice but to read their contract, understand it completely, follow their rules, and meet their deadlines.  There's lots of freedom for them and lots of restrictions for you.  It's like this if you're not the one writing up the contract.   However ... do you have a YMCA around?  Our YMCA has an initiation fee, but beyond that it's month to month.  Most flexible gym membership I've heard of.  If you lapse for too long they'll make you pay another initiation fee to rejoin, but there's no penalty for canceling.  Not all Y's are like that, but check around to see."""
"""How do investment banks evaluate a private firm going public? Is it based on the assets owned by the company?""","""Will the investment bank evaluate the worth of my company more than or less than 50 crs. Assuming the salvage value of the assets of 50 crs (meaning that's what you could sell them for to someone else), that would be the minimum value of your company (less any outstanding debts). There are many ways to calculate the \""value\"" of a company, but the most common one is to look at the future potential for generating cash.   The underwriters will look at what your current cash flow projections are, and what they will be when you invest the proceeds from the public offering back into the company.  That will then be used to determine the total value of the company, and in turn the value of the portion that you are taking public. And what will be the owner\u2019s share in the resulting public company? That's completely up to you.  You're essentially selling a part of the company in order to bring cash in, presumably to invest in assets that will generate more cash in the future.  If you want to keep complete control of the company, then you'll want to sell less than 50% of the company, otherwise you can sell as much or as little as you want."""
"""Why use accounting software like Quickbooks instead of Excel spreadsheets?""","""I would add to your reasons: Would you mow an entire lawn with a string trimmer just because you can, or would you buy a lawnmower? Use the right tool for the job."""
"""The life cycle of money""","""Echoing JohnF, and assuming you mean the physical, rather than abstract meaning of money?  The abstract concept obviously isn't replaced (unless the currency is discredited, or like the creation of the Euro which saw local currencies abandoned). The actual bits of paper are regularly collected, shredded (into itty-bitty-bits) and destroyed.  Coinage tends to last a lot longer, but it also collected and melted down eventually. Depends on the country, though.  No doubt, many people who took a gap year to go travelling in points diverse came across countries where the money is a sort of brown-grey smudge you hold with care in thick wadges. The more modern economies replace paper money on a dedicated cycle (around three years according to Wikipedia, anyway)."""
"""What are some time tested passive income streams?""","""I owned and managed a few residential properties.  At one time the net cash flow was on the order of $1000 per month.  But it was work.  Lots of work.  I was managing about 7 units. This does not count the gains in capital appreciation which were significant.   Using a management company would have put the cash flow at 0 or in the negative and would have lowered the quality of management IMO.   Nothing comes for free..."""
"""Fund or ETF that simulates the investment goals of an options \""straddle\"" strategy?""","""*Volatility and the VIX can be very tricky to trade.  In particular, going out longer than a month can result in highly surprising outcomes because the VIX is basically always a one month snapshot, even when the month is out in the future."""
"""Maintaining \""Woman Owned Business\"" while taking on investor""","""In addition to finding another woman investor, you have an equitable option that is not unreasonable: ask your partner to buy out 3% worth of shares from you (which then gives her 54%, allowing you to then sell 5% to an investor and have it not dilute her below 51%: .54 * .95 = .513).   That keeps you whole but also keeps your woman-owned-business status."""
"""What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage?""","""How can one offset exposure created by real-estate purchase? provides a similar discussion. Even if such a product were available in the precise increments you need, the pricing would make it a loser for you. \""There's no free lunch\"" in this case, and the cost to insure against the downside would be disproportional to the true risk. Say you bought a $100K home. At today's valuations, the downside over a given year might be, say, 20%. It might cost you $5000 to 'insure' against that $20K risk.  Let me offer an example - The SPY (S&P ETF) is now at $177. A $160 (Dec '14) put costs $7.50. So, if you fear a crash, you can pay 4%, but only get a return if the market falls by over 14%. If it falls 'just' 10%, you lose your premium.   With only 5% down, you will get a far better risk-adjusted return by paying down the mortgage to <78% LTV, and requesting PMI, if any, be removed. Even if no PMI, in 5 years, you'll have 20% more equity than otherwise. Over the long term, 5 year's housing inflation would be ~ 15% or so. This process would help insure you are not underwater in that time. Not guarantee, but help."""
"""Would you withdraw your money from your bank if you thought it was going under?""","""The article you link scares me; but I still have faith that the FDIC will keep me protected.  Personally, if the FDIC goes broke, there is something more fundamentally wrong with the government as a whole and dollars won't worry me much. There are lots of issues with the FDIC, and I think the answers lie outside of simply printing more money and funding the FDIC further.  There is likely more bad before this storm is over, and I might be ignorant, but I still want to operate normally. My money would stay where it is with things being how I see them in today"""
"""Tax implications of holding EWU (or other such UK ETFs) as a US citizen?""","""My understanding is that EWU (and EWUS) are both traded on US stock markets (NYSE & BATS), and as such these are not classified as PFIC. However, they do contain PFICs, so iShares takes the responsibility of handling the PFICs they contain and make adjustments in December. This contains the information about the adjustments made in 2016. https:\/\/www.ishares.com\/us\/literature\/tax-information\/pfic-2016.pdf On page 106 of the statement of the summary information they describe how they handle paying the necessary tax as an expense of the fund. https:\/\/www.ishares.com\/us\/library\/stream-document?stream=reg&product=WEBXGBP&shareClass=NA&documentId=925898~926077~926112~1180071~1242912&iframeUrlOverride=%2Fus%2Fliterature%2Fsai%2Fsai-ishares-trust-8-31.pdf (I'm not a tax professional)"""
"""Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries""","""Here's another way to think about.  Let's assume it is 2011 and we have a married couple who are 25 and make a combined salary of $50,000\/yr net.  A suitable first house in their area is $300,000, six times their annual net salary.  Assuming they could scrimp so that 1\/2 of take-home went toward saving for their home, they could save enough to buy the house using cash in 12 years, at the age of 37.  Onerous, but they could do it. But now let's allow salaries to increase by 3% a year and homes at 10%\/yr, as in your question, and let's run things out for 20 years. Now a 25 year old couple at the same sort of jobs would be making $87,675\/yr.  But the houses in that town would be worth not $300k but $1,834,772.  Instead of six times their salary, a house is now nearly 21 times their salary.  This means that if they saved 1\/2 of take-home to save up for a house, they could afford to buy the house using cash when they were 67 years old. It gets worse quickly.  If you run it out for just ten more years, to 30 years, a couple would be able to buy the house -- at $4.8 million or 40x a year's salary -- in cash when they were 105 years old.  (Let's hope they ate brown rice). Mortgages can't save them, since even if they could put down ten years' worth of savings on the 2041 house (that'd be 14% down), they'd still carry a $4.1 million mortgage with a $118k annual net salary."""
"""How are proceeds from writing covered calls taxed?""","""The tax comes when you close the position. If the option expires worthless it's as if you bought it back for $0. There's a short-term capital gain for the difference between your short-sale price and your buyback price on the option. I believe the capital gain is always short-term because short sales are treated as short-term even if you hold them open more than one year. If the option is exercised (calling away your stock) then you add the premium to your sale price on the stock and then compute the capital gain. So in this case you can end up treating the premium as a long-term capital gain. See IRS pub 550 http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p550\/ch04.html#en_US_2010_publink100010619 Search for \""Writers of puts and calls\"""""
"""What are investment options for young married couple with no debt that have maxed out retirement savings?""","""Paying the mortgage down is no different than investing in a long term taxable fixed instrument. In this economy, 4.7% isn't bad, but longer term, the stock market should return higher.  When you have the kid(s), is your wife planing to work? If not, I'd first suggest going pre-tax on the IRAs, and when she's not working, convert to Roth. I'd advise against starting the 529 accounts until your child(ren) is actually born.  As far as managed funds are concerned, I hear \""expenses.\"" Why not learn about lower cost funds, index mutual funds or ETFs? I'd not do too much different aside from this, until the kids are born."""
"""Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership?""","""Any car manufacturer that undercuts their own dealer network would have that network fall apart quickly.  Tesla is using a dealer-free distribution model from the start, so they don't have that problem.  Toyota doesn't work that way, though. GM imposed a uniform no-haggling policy with their Saturn brand, but that policy was coupled with local monopolies for dealers to make it work.  Lexus has also experimented with no-haggling and online ordering (with delivery still taking place at a dealership).  The rest of Toyota doesn't work that way, though. Some car manufacturers, such as BMW and Audi, allow you to take delivery of your new car at the factory for a discount. But even then, the transaction still takes place through a dealer.  Toyota doesn't work that way, though.  For one thing, they work at a different scale.  If you buy a Camry in the US, it might be produced in Kentucky, Indiana, or Aichi, depending on business conditions. You say that you want to cut out the middleman, but the fact is that you do require someone to deliver a Toyota to you, like it or not. If you're interested in saving money, consider trying various well documented tips, such as negotiating by e-mail before showing up, pitting dealerships against each other.  If you don't want to negotiate, you might be able to take advantage of pre-negotiated dealer prices through Costco. You mentioned that the dealership offered you a 7.99% interest rate for your 710 FICO score.  That sounds insanely high \u2014 I'd expect deals more like 2% advertised by buyatoyota.com.  (Remember, Toyota Motor Credit Corporation exists to help Toyota Motor Corporation sell more cars cheaply.)  You can also seek alternate financing online (example) or through your own bank."""
"""I have an extra 1000\u20ac per month, what should I do with it?""","""What about getting the saving account - \""Bausparen\"" (~100EUR\/month) which you can later use for credit to get better mortgage deal and to buy a flat for renting to others (Anlegerwohnung)?"""
"""Is leveraging notoriety to raise stock prices illegal in the US?""","""There are obviously lots of complexities here, and there are rules against price or market manipulation that are somewhat interpretive due to the rules' inclusion of the manipulator's intent, but: Generally speaking, you can publicly promote the value of a company whose stock you own provided that you: Now, if you extol the value of a company publicly, and sell it immediately thereafter, \""pump and dump,\"" the regulators might suggest that your actions imply that you didn't believe it was so wonderful, and were misleading the public to move the price.     That said, a fair retort might be that you loved it for all the reasons you said at [lower price], but thought it had run its course once it got to [higher price].   Again, if it can be demonstrated that your reason for praising it was to push the price higher, your intent may land you in hot water. This isn't legal advice or a full analysis, but if Fitty essentially declared his honest reasons for loving a stock in which he is invested, and discloses that investment, letting others know he is biased, he's probably ok, especially if he intends to hold it long term."""
"""Pay online: credit card or debit card?""","""I completely agree with @littleadv in favor of using the credit card and dispute resolution process, but I believe there are more important details here related to consumer protection. Since 1968, US citizens are protected from credit card fraud, limiting the out-of-pocket loss to $50 if your card is lost, stolen, or otherwise used without your permission. That means the bank can't make you pay more than $50 if you report unauthorized activity--and, nicely, many credit cards these days go ahead and waive the $50 too, so you might not have to pay anything (other than the necessary time and phone calls). Of course, many banks offer a $50 cap or no fees at all for fraudulent charges--my bank once happily resolved some bad charges for me at no loss to me--but banks are under no obligation to shield debit card customers from fraud. If you read the fine print on your debit card account agreement you may find some vague promises to resolve your dispute, but probably nothing saying you cannot be held liable (the bank is not going to lose money on you if they are unable to reverse the charges!). Now a personal story: I once had my credit card used to buy $3,000 in stereo equipment, at a store I had never heard of in a state I have never visited. The bank notified me of the surprising charges, and I was immediately able to begin the fraud report--but it took months of calls before the case was accepted and the charges reversed. So, yes, there was no money out of my pocket, but I was completely unable to use the credit card, and every month they kept on piling on more finance fees and late-payment charges and such, and I would have to call them again and explain again that the charges were disputed... Finally, after about 8 months in total, they accepted the fraud report and reversed all the charges. Lastly, I want to mention one more important tool for preventing or limiting loss from online purchases: \""disposable\"", one-time-use credit card numbers. At least a few credit card providers (Citibank, Bank of America, Discover) offer you the option, on their websites, to generate a credit card number that charges your account, but under the limits you specify, including a maximum amount and expiration date. With one of these disposable numbers, you can pay for a single purchase and be confident that, even if the number were stolen in-transit or the merchant a fraud, they don't have your actual credit card number, and they can never charge you again. I have not yet seen this option for debit card customers, but there must be some banks that offer it, since it saves them a lot of time and trouble in pursuing defrauders. So, in short: If you pay with a credit card number you will not ever have to pay more than $50 for fraudulent charges. Even better, you may be able to use a disposable\/one-time-use credit card number to further limit the chances that your credit is misused. Here's to happy--and safe--consumering!"""
"""Is sales tax for online purchases based on billing- or shipping address?""","""From my understanding as a seller, and having read through Amazon's 8 page calculation methodology document, the default is the ship to address, however the seller still has the option to charge the tax or not, only charge the state rate and local (city, county, district, etc.) rate(s), or even set their own self-determined default tax rate.  In other words, the seller has a lot of control in determining what rate they use and the billing and shipping addresses may not even matter.  Just remember that whatever tax you pay to Amazon, your state will probably still hold you responsible for calculating and reporting any additional use tax, based on your location.  And if the seller does overcharge for tax you may have a right to request a refund from them."""
"""Is inflation a good or bad thing? Why do governments want some inflation?""","""If there's no inflation (or alternately there's deflation) people would tend to sit on money and wait for the prices to drop. This in pretty bad for pricier stuff like real estate\/housing industry where a few percent can make a big difference.  For a growing economy a small inflation is good as people would go out and buy new stuff when they want it knowing they will not get a better deal if they wait a year or so."""
"""what is difference between stock and dividend?""","""From Wikipedia - Stock: The stock (also capital stock) of a corporation constitutes the equity   stake of its owners. It represents the residual assets of the company   that would be due to stockholders after discharge of all senior claims   such as secured and unsecured debt. Stockholders' equity cannot be   withdrawn from the company in a way that is intended to be detrimental   to the company's creditors Wikipedia - Dividend: A dividend is a payment made by a corporation to its shareholders,   usually as a distribution of profits. When a corporation earns a   profit or surplus, it can re-invest it in the business (called   retained earnings), and pay a fraction of this reinvestment as a   dividend to shareholders. Distribution to shareholders can be in cash   (usually a deposit into a bank account) or, if the corporation has a   dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of   further shares or share repurchase. Wikipedia - Bond: In finance, a bond is an instrument of indebtedness of the bond issuer   to the holders. It is a debt security, under which the issuer owes the   holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to   pay them interest (the coupon) and\/or to repay the principal at a   later date, termed the maturity date. Interest is usually payable   at fixed intervals (semiannual, annual, sometimes monthly). Very often   the bond is negotiable, i.e. the ownership of the instrument can be   transferred in the secondary market. This means that once the transfer   agents at the bank medallion stamp the bond, it is highly liquid on   the second market. Thus, stock is about ownership in the company, dividends are the payments those owners receive, which may be additional shares or cash usually, and bonds are about lending money. Stocks are usually bought through brokers on various stock exchanges generally. An exception can be made under \""Employee Stock Purchase Plans\"" and other special cases where an employee may be given stock or options that allow the purchase of shares in the company through various plans. This would apply for Canada and the US where I have experience just as a parting note. This is without getting into Convertible Bond that also exists: In finance, a convertible bond or convertible note or convertible debt   (or a convertible debenture if it has a maturity of greater than 10   years) is a type of bond that the holder can convert into a specified   number of shares of common stock in the issuing company or cash of   equal value. It is a hybrid security with debt- and equity-like   features.  It originated in the mid-19th century, and was used by   early speculators such as Jacob Little and Daniel Drew to counter   market cornering. Convertible bonds are most often issued by   companies with a low credit rating and high growth potential."""
"""I have $12k in a Chase checking account, but want to start earning interest\/saving\/investing\/etc to make more money. What should I do?""","""These are the basics in order: Max your employer contributions to your 401k if available Pay off any loans Contribute to an IRA  Perhaps max out your 401k Look into other investment options (refinance your mortgage, buy stocks) Those are the typical rules, special situations may need specials actions..."""
"""Is it possible for the average person to profit on the stock market?""","""Of course. \""Best\"" is a subjective term. However relying on the resources of the larger institutions by pooling with them will definitely reduce your own burden with regards to the research and keeping track. So yes, investing in mutual funds and ETFs is a very sound strategy. It would be better to diversify, and not to invest all your money in one fund, or in one industry\/area. That said, there are more than enough individuals who do their own research and stock picking and invest, with various degrees of success, in individual securities. Some also employe more advanced strategies such as leveraging, options, futures, margins, etc. These advance strategies come at a greater risk, but may bring a greater rewards as well. So the answer to the question in the subject line is YES. For all the rest - there's no one right or wrong answer, it depends greatly on your abilities, time, risk tolerance, cash available to invest, etc etc."""
"""Why do passive ETFs require so much trading (and incur costs)?""","""Now, if I'm not mistaken, tracking a value-weighted index is extremely easy - just buy the shares in the exact amount they are in the index and wait. Yes in theory. In practise this is difficult. Most funds that track S&P do it on sample basis. This is to maintain the fund size. Although I don't have \/ know the exact number ... if one wants to replicate the 500 stocks in the same %, one would need close to billion in fund size. As funds are not this large, there are various strategies adopted, including sampling of companies [i.e. don't buy all]; select a set of companies that mimic the S&P behaviour, etc. All these strategies result in tracking errors. There are algorithms to reduce this. The only time you would need to rebalance your holdings is when there is a change in the index, i.e. a company is dropped and a new one is added, right? So essentially rebalance is done to; If so, why do passive ETFs require frequent rebalancing and generally lose to their benchmark index? lets take an Index with just 3 companies, with below price. The total Market cap is 1000  The Minimum required to mimic this index is 200 or Multiples of 200. If so you are fine.    More Often, funds can't be this large. For example approx 100 funds track the S&P Index. Together they hold around 8-10% of Market Cap. Few large funds like Vangaurd, etc may hold around 2%. But most of the 100+ S&P funds hold something in 0.1 to 0.5 range. So lets say a fund only has 100. To maintain same proportion it has to buy shares in fraction. But it can only buy shares in whole numbers. This would then force the fund manager to allocate out of proportion, some may remain cash, etc. As you can see below illustrative, there is a tracking error. The fund is not truly able to mimic the index.  Now lets say after 1st April, the share price moved, now this would mean more tracking error if no action is taken [block 2] ... and less tracking error if one share of company B is sold and one share of company C is purchased.  Again the above is a very simplified view. Tracking error computation is involved mathematics.  Now that we have the basic concepts, more often funds tracking S&P; Thus they need to rebalance."""
"""Can the risk of investing in an asset be different for different investors?""","""Capping the upside while playing with unlimited downside is a less disciplined investment strategy vis-a-vis a stop-loss driven strategy. Whether it is less risky or high risky also depends on the fluctuations of the stock and not just long-term movements. For example, your stop losses might get triggered because of a momentary sharp decline in stock price due to a large volume transaction (esp more so in small-cap stocks). Although, the stock price might recover from the sudden price drop pretty soon causing a seemingly preventable loss. That being said, playing with stop losses is always considered a safer strategy. It may not increase your profits but can certainly cap your losses."""
"""If I take a loss when I sell my car, can I claim a capital loss deduction on my income tax return?""","""While you'd need to pay tax if you realized a capital gain on the sale of your car, you generally can't deduct any loss arising from the sale of \""personal use property\"". Cars are personal use property. Refer to Canada Revenue Agency \u2013 Personal-use property losses.  Quote: [...] if you have a capital loss, you usually cannot deduct that   loss when you calculate your income for the year. In addition, you   cannot use the loss to decrease capital gains on other personal-use   property. This is because if a property depreciates through personal   use, the resulting loss on its disposition is a personal expense. There are some exceptions. Read up at the source links."""
"""How do I protect money above the FDIC coverage limit?""","""If you are concerned about FDIC coverage, then yes, you can spread your money across multiple banks. The limit is $250k, so after you invest in property, 4 banks should do it.  That having been said, in my opinion, it would be a waste to keep all this money in a bank's savings account. You will slowly lose value over time due to inflation. I suggest you spend a little money on an independent fee-based investment advisor. Choose someone who will teach you about investing in mutual funds, so you can feel comfortable with it. He or she should take into account your tolerance for risk, look at your goals, and help you come up with a low cost plan for investing your money.  It's certainly okay to keep the money in a bank short-term, but don't wait too long; take steps toward putting that money to work for you."""
"""What's my risk of buying a house for a friend and sell back to him?""","""Risks:"""
"""Investment Options for 14-year old?""","""A Junior ISA might be one option if you are eligible do you have a CTF? (child trust fund) though the rules are changing shortly to allow those with CTF's to move to a junior ISA. JISA are yielding about 3.5% at the moment  Or as you are so young you could invest in one or two of the big Generalist Investment trusts (Wittan, Lowland) - you might need an adult open this and it would be held via a trust for you.  Or thinking really far ahead you could start a pension with say 50% of the lumpsum"""
"""How can cold-callers know about my general financial status""","""There are multiple social engineering ways."""
"""I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment""","""Without all the details it's hard to tell what options you may have, but none of them are good.  When you cosign you are saying that, you believe the primary signer will make good on the loan, but that if he doesn't you will. You are 100% responsible for this debt. As such, there are some actions you can take. First, really try to stress to your friend, that they need to get you outta this loan. Urge them to re-finance with out you if they can. Next look for \""better\"" ways of defaulting on the loan and take them. Depending on what the loan is for you could deed-in-lue or short sale. You may just have to admit default. If you work with the bank, and try not to drag out the process, you will likely end up in a better place down the line.  Also of importance is ownership. If you pay the loan, do you get ownership of the thing the loan was secured against? Usually not, but working with an attorney and the bank, maybe. For example, if it's a car, can the \""friend\"" sign over the car to you, then you sell it, and reduce your debt.  Basically as a cosigner, you have some rights, but you have all the responsibilities. You need to talk to an attorney and possibly the bank, and see what your options are. At this point, if you think the friend is not that much of a friend anymore, it's time to make sure that any conversation you have with them is recorded in email, or on paper."""
"""Do you know of any online monetary systems?""","""I'm the equivalent of the FED at ROBLOX. I run a virtual economy there worth millions of dollars. Even though we are in the business of printing our own money, we've seen much more stability in our currency than in the USD. It actually appreciates over time. I don't think it would make a good investment though, nor would any of the online virtual currencies that I am aware of."""
"""How can I compare the risk of different investing opportunities?""","""Let us consider the risks in the investment opportunities: Now, what are the returns in each of the investment: What are the alternatives to these investments, then?"""
"""If throwing good money after bad is generally a bad idea, is throwing more money after good Ok?""","""The response to this question will be different depending which of the investment philosophies you are using.  Value investors look at the situation the company is in and try to determine what the company is worth and what it will be worth in the future. Then they look at the current stock price and decide whether or not the stock is priced at a good deal or not. If the stock price is priced lower than they believe the company is worth, they would want to buy stock, and if the price rises above what they believe to be the true value, they would sell. These types of investors are not looking at the history or trend of what the price has done in the past, only what the current price is and where they believe the price should be in the future.  Technical analysis investors do something different. It is their belief that as stock prices go up and down, they generally follow patterns. By looking at a chart of what a stock price has been in the past, they try to predict where it is headed, and buy or sell based on that prediction.  In general, value investors are longer-term investors, and technical analysis investors are short-term investors.  The advice you are considering makes a lot of sense if you are using technical analysis. If you have a stock that is trending down, your strategy probably tells you to sell; buying more in the hopes of turning things around would be seen as a mistake. It is like the gambler in Vegas who keeps playing a game he is losing, hoping that his luck changes.  However, for the value investor, the historical price of a stock, and even the amount you currently have gained or lost in the stock, are essentially ignored. All that matters is whether or not the stock price is above or below the true value determined by the investor. For him, if the stock price falls and he believes the company still has a high value, it could be a signal to buy more. The above advice doesn't really apply for them.  Many investors don't follow either of these strategies. They believe that it is too difficult and risky to try to predict the future price of an individual stock. Instead, they invest in many companies all at once using index mutual funds, believing that the stock market as a whole always heads up over a long time frame. Those investors don't care at all if the prices of stock are going up or down. They simply keep investing each month, and hold until they have another use for the money. The above advice isn't useful for them at all.  No matter which kind of investing you are doing, the most important thing is to pick a strategy you believe in and follow the plan without emotion. Emotions can cause investors to make mistakes and start buying when their strategy tells them to sell.  Instead of trying to follow fortune cookie advice like \""Don't throw good money after bad,\"" choose an investment strategy, make a plan, test it, and follow it, cautiously (after all, it may be a bad plan). For what it is worth, I am the third type of investor listed above. I don't buy individual stocks, and I don't look at the stock prices when investing more each month. Your description of your own strategy as \""buy and hold\"" suggests you might prefer the same approach."""
"""How to compare the value of a Masters to the cost?""","""I wasn't 100% on which columns of the scale you were referring to, but think I captured the correct ones in this comparison, using the scale for BA and MA (MA scale starting 2 years later, with decreased income reflected for first two years), applying a 1% cost of living increase each year to the scale or to prior year after the scale maxes out and assuming you borrow 40k and repay years 3-10, then the difference and cumulative difference between each scenario:  So it would be about 16 years to start coming out ahead, but this doesn't account for the tax deduction of student loan interest. Some things in favor of borrowing for a MA, there are loan forgiveness programs for teachers, you might only make 5-years of minimum payments before having the remainder forgiven if you qualify for one of those programs. Not sure how retirement works for teachers in WA, but in some states you can get close to your maximum salary each year in retirement. Additionally, you can deduct student loan interest without itemizing your tax return, so that helps with the cost of the debt. Edit: I used a simple student loan calculator, if you financed the full 40k at 6% you'd be looking at $444 monthly payments for 10 years, or $5,328\/year (not calculating the tax deduction for loan interest)."""
"""What is the difference between \""good debt\"" vs. \""bad debt\""?""","""None of the previous answers (which are all good) mention margin accounts (loans from your broker).  You may also have heard them described as \""leverage\"".  It may seem odd to mention this rather narrow form of debt here, but it's important because overuse of leverage has played a large part in pretty much every financial crisis you can think of (including the most recent one).  As the Investopedia definitions indicate, leverage magnifies gains, but also magnifies losses. I consider margin\/leverage to be \""bad\"" debt."""
"""Pay Yourself With Credit Card Make Money With Cash Back [duplicate]""","""This is basically a form of credit card kiting, it's not necessarily illegal but it can be. It is, however, against the TOS in pretty much every merchant agreement (including Paypal and Square), so you'd most likely have your account suspended, and the merchant could pursue legal action if they felt they could prove intent to deceive. It's not practical given actual fee structures, but even if it were, most merchants are quite good at detecting this sort of thing and quick to shut down accounts."""
"""Medical Bill Consolidation""","""In short, no, or not retroactively. There really are multiple companies involved, each of which bills you separately for the services they provided. This can be partly avoided by selecting either a high-end health plan with lower out-of-pocket maximum, (costs more up front, of course) or by selecting a genuine Health Management Organization (not a PPO) which gathers more of the services into a single business. Either of these would result in fewer cash payments needing to be sent.  But I don't know of any way to simplify things after the fact. Even if there was a consolidation service, you would have to forward the bills to them, which really wouldn't be any easier than just paying the bills. (I'm assuming you are in the US, where we have a health insurance system rather than a health system. Other countries may handle this differently.)"""
"""How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros?""","""Be careful of transferring through the large banks. They may say no\/low fees, but they hide their cut in the spread, or worsen the exchange rate, to their favor. Try:  - http:\/\/fxglobaltransfer.oanda.com\/"""
"""How do I hedge stock options like market makers do?""","""Buying the underlying asset will not completely hedge you, only what lies above 155 dollars (strike + price of option) - you still have the risk of losing everything but 5. You have a maximum earnings-potential of 55 dollars (strike of 150 - investment of 100 + option of 5) but you have a risk of losing 95$ (investment of 100 - option of 5). Say chance of winning everything or losing everything is 50-50, your expected outcome is 0.5 x -95 + 0.5 x 55 = -20$. Is this a great investment? Sure you don't know your odds - otherwise it would be a sure thing. You shouldn't sell the call option if you do not expect prices to go up - but in that case - why not just buy the underlying alone? Speculating in options is a dangerous game with infinite earnings-potential but also infinite loss potential. (Consider selling a call option and not buying the underlying and the price goes from 100 to 1.000.000.000)."""
"""Is compounding interest on investments a myth?""","""The S&P 500 index from 1974 to present certainly looks exponential to me (1974 is the earliest data Google has).  If you read Jeremy Siegel's book there are 200 year stock graphs and the exponential nature of returns on stocks is even more evident.  This graph only shows the index value and does not include the dividends that the index has been paying all these years.  There is no doubt stocks have grown exponentially (aka have grown with compound interest) for the past several decades and compounded returns is definitely not a \""myth\"".  The CAGR on the S&P 500 index from 1974 to present has been 7.54%: (1,783 \/ 97.27) ^ (1 \/ 40) - 1 Here is another way to think about compounded investment growth: when you use cash flow from investments (dividends, capital gains) to purchase more investments with a positive growth rate, the investment portfolio will grow exponentially.  If you own a $100 stock that pays 10% dividends per year and spend the dividends every year without reinvesting them, then the investment portfolio will still be worth $100 after 40 years.  If the dividends are reinvested, the investment portfolio will be worth $4,525 after 40 years from the many years of exponential growth: 100*(1 + 10%)^40"""
"""Why liquidity implies tight spread and low slippage""","""You have just answered your question in the last sentence of your question:  More volume just means more people are interested in the stock...i.e supply and demand are matched well. If the stock is illiquid there is more chance of the spread and slippage being larger. Even if the spread is small to start with, once a trade has been transacted, if no new buyers and sellers enter the market near the last transacted price, then you could get a large spread occurring between the bid and ask prices. Here is an example, MDG has a 50 day moving average volume of only 1200 share traded per day (obviously it does not trade every day).  As you can see there is already an 86% spread from the bid price. If a new bid price is entered to match and take out the offer price at $0.039, then this spread would instantly increase to 614% from the bid price."""
"""Why does short selling require borrowing?""","""why can't I just use the same trick with my own shares to make money on the way    down? Because if you sell shares out of your own portfolio, by definition, you are not selling short at all. If you sell something you own (and deliver it) - then there is no short involved. A short is defined as a net negative position - i.e. you sell shares you do not have. Selling shares you own is selling shares you own - no short involved. You must borrow the shares for a short because in the stock market, you must DELIVER. You can not deliver shares you do not own. The stock market does not work on promises - the person who bought the shares expects ownership of them with all rights that gives them. So you borrow them to deliver them, then return them when you buy them back."""
"""Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?""","""A Tweep friend asked me a similar question. In her case it was in the larger context of a marriage and house purchase. In reply I wrote a detail article Student Loans and Your First Mortgage.  The loan payment easily fit between the generally accepted qualifying debt ratios, 28% for house\/36 for all debt. If the loan payment has no effect on the mortgage one qualifies for, that's one thing, but taking say $20K to pay it off will impact the house you can buy. For a 20% down purchase, this multiplies up to $100k less house. Or worse, a lower down payment percent then requiring PMI.  Clearly, I had a specific situation to address, which ultimately becomes part of the list for \""pay off student loan? Pro \/ Con\""  Absent the scenario I offered, I'd line up debt, highest to lowest rate (tax adjusted of course) and hack away at it all. It's part of the big picture like any other debt, save for the cases where it can be cancelled.  Personal finance is exactly that, personal. Advisors (the good ones) make their money by looking carefully at the big picture and not offering a cookie-cutter approach."""
"""What happens to my savings if my country defaults or restructures its debt?""","""In theory, anything can happen, and the world could end tomorrow.  However, with a reasonably sane financial plan you should be able to ride this out. If the government cannot or won't immediately pay its debt in full, the most immediate consequence is that people are going to be unwilling to lend any more money in future, except at very high rates to reflect the high risk of future default.   Presumably the government has got into this state by running a deficit (spending more than they collect in tax) and that is going to have to come to an abrupt end.  That means: higher taxes, public service retrenchments and restrictions of service, perhaps cuts to social benefits, etc. Countries that get into this state typically also have banks that have lent too much money to risky customers.  So you should also expect to see some banks get into trouble, which may mean customers who have money on deposit will have trouble getting it back.  In many cases governments will guarantee deposits, but perhaps only up to a particular ceiling like $100k. It would be very possible to lose everything if you have speculative investments geared by substantial loans.  If you have zero or moderate debt, your net wealth may decrease substantially (50%?) but there should be little prospect of it going to zero. It is possible governments will simply confiscate your property, but I think in a first-world EU country this is fairly unlikely to happen to bank accounts, houses, shares, etc. Typically, a default has led to a fall in the value of the country's currency.  In the eurozone that is more complex because the same currency is used by countries that are doing fairly well, and because there is also turbulence in other major currency regions (JPY, USD and GBP).  In some ways this makes the adjustment harder, because debts can't be inflated down. All of this obviously causes a lot of economic turbulence so you can expect house prices to fall, share prices to gyrate, unemployment to rise.  If you can afford it and come stomach the risk, it may turn out to be a good time to buy assets for the long term.   If you're reasonably young the largest impact on you won't be losing your current savings, but rather the impact on your future job prospects from this adjustment period. You never know, but I don't think the Weimar Republic wheelbarrows-of-banknotes situation is likely to recur; people are at least a bit smarter now and there is an inflation-targeting independent central bank. I think gold can have some room in a portfolio, but now is not the time to make a sudden drastic move into it.  Most middle class people cannot afford to have enough gold to support them for the rest of their life, though they may have enough for a rainy day or to act as a balancing component. So what I would do to cope with this is: be well diversified, be sufficiently conservatively positioned that I would sleep at night, and beyond that just ride it out and try not to worry too much."""
"""why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?""","""Given that the 6 answers all advocate similar information, let me offer you the alternate scenario - You earn $60K and have an employer offering a 50% match on all deposits. All deposits. (Note, I recently read a Q&A here describing such an offer. If I see it again, I'll link).  Let the thought of the above settle in. You think about the fact that $42K isn't a bad salary, and decide to deposit 30%, to gain the full match on your $18K deposit. Now, you budget to live your life, pay your bills, etc, but it's tight. When you accumulate $2000, and a strong want comes up (a toy, a trip, anything, no judgement) you have a tough decision. You think to yourself, \""after the match, I am literally saving 45% of my income. I'm on a pace to have the ability to retire in 20 years. Why do I need to save even more?\""  Your budget has enough discretionary spending that if you have a $2000 'emergency', you charge it and pay it off over the next 6-8 months. Much larger, and you know that your super-funded 401(k) has the ability to tap a loan. Your choice to turn away from the common wisdom has the recommended $20K (about 6 months of your spending) sitting in your 401(k), pretax deposited as $26K, and matched to nearly $40K, growing long term.  Note: This is a devil's advocate answer. Had I been the first to answer, it would reflect the above.  In my own experience, when I got married, we built up the proper emergency fund. As interest rates fell, we looked at our mortgage balance, and agreed that paying down the loan would enable us to refinance and save enough in mortgage interest that the net effect was as if we were getting 8% on the money. At the same time as we got that new mortgage, the bank offered a HELOC, which I never needed to use. Did we somehow create high risk? Perhaps. Given that my wife and I were both still working, and had similar incomes, it seemed reasonable."""
"""Is refinancing my auto loan just to avoid dealing with the lender that issued it a crazy idea?""","""they apply it to my next payment That's what my bank did with my auto loan.  I got so far ahead that once I was able to skip a payment and use the money I would have sent the bank that month for something else.  Still, though, I kept on paying extra, and eventually it was paid off faster than \""normal\"". EDIT:  what does your loan agreement say is supposed to happen to extra payments?"""
"""Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?""","""I think people are missing the most obvious thing.  The yearly rate increases are just part of the landlord schtick and it is good business for them.  My grandmother owned several large apartment complexes.  She would raise rates for any resident that had been there between 1-5 years by 5-7% a year.  Even when she had vacancies and property values didn't go up.  For the following reasons: So yes it is not only normal but just part of the business.  If there are better apartments for less money I suggest you move there.  Soon those other apartments will even out and if they are better they will be much more.  So if you see a gap take advantage of it.  If you would rather stay, then simply say you will not pay the increase.  There is no use arguing about why.  The landlord will either be OK with it or say no.  Probably the biggest factors include whether you will tell other tenants (or their perception if you would) and how good of a tenant\/risk they feel you are."""
"""What happens to dividends on stock held in TFSA or RRSP account?""","""For an RRSP, you do not have to pay taxes on money or investments until you withdraw the money. If you do not reinvest the dividends but instead, take them out as cash, that would be withdrawing the money. For mutual funds, you would normally reinvest the dividends if holding the investment inside an RRSP. For stocks, I believe the dividends would end up sitting in the cash part of your RRSP account (and you'd probably use the money to buy more stocks, though would not be required to do so). Either way, you do not pay tax on this investment income unless you withdraw it from your RRSP. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your RRSP. You get the tax benefit from doing so. You get dividends of $1,000 (hey, it was a good year), and use these to buy more stock. As the money never left your RRSP account, you are considered to have invested only your initial $10,000. If instead, you withdraw the $1,000 in dividends, you are taxed on $1000 income. TFSA are slightly more complicated. You don't get a tax benefit from your initial contribution, but then do not pay tax when you withdraw from the TFSA. Your investment income is still tax-free, and you are (generally) much more limited in how much you can contribute. For example, you invest $10,000 inside your TFSA. You get dividends of $1,000, and use these to buy more stock. Your total contributions to your TFSA remains at $10,000 as the money never left your account. You could instead withdraw the $1000 from your TFSA and would not pay tax on it. In the next calendar year (or later) after the withdrawal, you could \""repay\"" the $1000 you took out without suffering an overcontribution penalty. This makes TFSA an excellent place to park emergency funds, as you can withdraw and subsequently replace the investment while continuing to get the tax benefits on your investment income. RRSPs are better for retirement or for the home buyers plan. In general, you should not be withdrawing money from either your TFSA or RRSP, except in emergencies, when retiring, or when purchasing a home. I prefer indexed mutual funds or money market accounts for both my RRSP and TFSA rather than individual stocks, but that's up to you."""
"""Is there a NY tax form to use when one is missing a K-1 (or 1065) from an LLC?""","""Form 10-K is filed by corporations to SEC. You must be thinking of form 1065 (its schedule K) that a partnership (and multi-member LLC) must file with the IRS. Unless the multi-member LLC is legally dissolved, it must file this form. You're a member, so it is your responsibility, with all the other members, to make sure that the manager files all the forms, and if the manager doesn't - fire the manager and appoint another one (or, if its member managed - chose a different member to manage). If you're a sole member of the LLC - then you don't need to file any forms with the IRS, all the business expenses and credits are done on your Schedule C, as if you were a sole propriator."""
"""For young (lower-mid class) investors what percentage should be in individual stocks?""","""You should only invest in individual stocks if you truly understand the company's business model and follow its financial reports closely.  Even then, individual stocks should represent only the tiniest, most \""adventurous\"" part of your portfolio, as they are a huge risk. A basic investing principle is diversification.  If you invest in a variety of financial instruments, then: (a) when some components of your portfolio are doing poorly, others will be doing well.  Even in the case of significant economic downturns, when it seems like everything is doing poorly, there will be some investment sectors that are doing relatively better (such as bonds, physical real estate, precious metals). (b) over time, some components of your portfolio will gain more money than others, so every 6 or 12 months you can \""rebalance\"" such that all components once again have the same % of money invested in them as when you began.  You can do this either by selling off some of your well-performing assets to purchase more of your poorly-performing assets or (if you don't want to incur a taxable event) by introducing additional money from outside your portfolio.  This essentially forces you to \""buy (relatively) low, sell (relatively) high\"". Now, if you accept the above argument for diversification, then you should recognize that owning a handful (or even several handfuls) of individual stocks will not help you achieve diversification.  Even if you buy one stock in the energy sector, one in consumer discretionary, one in financials, etc., then you're still massively exposed to the day-to-day fates of those individual companies.  And if you invest solely in the US stock market, then when the US has a decline, your whole portfolio will decline.  And if you don't buy any bonds, then again when the world has a downturn, your portfolio will decline.  And so on ... That's why index mutual funds are so helpful.  Someone else has already gone to the trouble of grouping together all the stocks or bonds of a certain \""type\"" (small-cap\/large-cap, domestic\/foreign, value\/growth) so all you have to do is pick the types you want until you feel you have the diversity you need.  No more worrying about whether you've picked the \""right\"" company to represent a particular sector.  The fewer knobs there are to turn in your portfolio, the less chance there is for mistakes!"""
"""Why sometimes payable date is BEFORE the ex-dividend date?""","""Do you realise that the examples you have given are for stock splits not for dividends, that is why the date payable is before the ex-date for the split. The payments for the split occur on 30th June and the first day the stock trades with the new split is on the next trading day, being the ex-date, 1st July."""
"""How can I save money on a gym \/ fitness membership? New Year's Resolution is to get in shape - but on the cheap!""","""If you're determined to save money, find ways to integrate exercise into your daily routine and don't join a gym at all. This makes it more likely you'll keep it up if it is a natural part of your day. You could set aside half the money you would spend on the gym towards some of the options below. I know it's not always practical, especially in the winter, but here are a few things you could do.  One of the other answers makes a good point. Gym membership can be cost effective if you go regularly, but don't kid yourself that you'll suddenly go 5 times a week every week if you've not done much regular exercise.  If you are determined to join a gym, here are a few other things to consider."""
"""How do I go about finding an honest & ethical financial advisor?""","""I think the other answers raise good points.  But to your question, \""How do I find an honest financial adviser\"" ask your friends and family.  See who they talk to and confide in.  Go meet that person, understand what they do and how they view things and if you gel, great.  Honesty and strong ethics exist in individuals regardless of laws. What is it you're trying to accomplish?  You just have some money you want to put aside?  You want to save for something?  You want to start a budget or savings plan?  Your first step may be talking to a tax person, not an investment adviser.  Sometimes the most significant returns are generated when you simply retain more of your earnings and tax people know how to accomplish that.  You're just graduating university, you're just going to get your first job.  You don't need to hunt for the right heavy hitter 30% gains generating financial adviser.  You need to establish your financial foundation.  Crawl, walk, then run. There are some basics (that transcend international borders).  If you don't know much about investing, most (if not all) retirement and individual brokerage type accounts will give you access to some kind of market index fund.  You don't need to multinationally diversify in to high fee funds because \""emerging markets are screaming right now.\""  Typically, over a few years the fees you pay in the more exotic asset classes will eat up the gains you've made compared to a very low fee market index fund. You can open free accounts at a number of financial institutions.  These free accounts at these banks all have a list of zero commission zero load funds, all have something resembling an index fund.  You can open your account for free, deposit your money for free, and buy shares in an index fund for free."""
"""Yahoo finance vs SEC filings fundamentals""","""Sure, Yahoo Finance makes mistakes from time to time.  That's the nature of free data. However, I think the issue here is that yahoo is aggregating several line items into one.  Like maybe reporting cash equivalents plus total investment securities minus loans as \""cash equivalents.\""  This aggregation is done by a computer program somewhere and may or may not be appropriate for a particular purpose and firm. For this reason, if you are trying to do top quality research, it's always better to go to the original SEC filings, if you can.  Then you will know for sure which items you are looking at.  The only mistakes will be the ones made by the accountants at the firm in question. If there's a reason you prefer to use yahoo, like if it's easier for your code to scrape, then spend a little time comparing to the SEC filing to ensure you know where the numbers really come from before using it."""
"""How fast does the available amount of gold in the world increase due to mining?""","""Approximately 5.3 billion ounces have been mined. This puts the total value of all gold in the world at about $9.5 trillion, based on $1800\/oz. Total world net worth was $125T in 2006. There's an odd thing that happens when one asset's value is suddenly such a large percent of all assets. (This reminds me of how and why the tech bubble burst. Cisco and EMC would have been worth more than all other stocks combined if they grew in the 00's like they did in the 90's.) Production (in 2005\/6) ran about 80 million oz\/yr. Just over 1.5% impact to total supply, so you are right in that observation.  On the other hand, the limited amount out here, means that if everyone decided to put their wealth in gold, it would be done by driving the price to bubblicious levels.  One can study this all day, and parse out how much is in investment form (as compared to jewelry, etc) and realize that a few trillion dollars in value pales in comparison to the wealth of the US alone, let alone the world. Half the world can't buy two oz if they tried.  Of course there's pressure to reopen mines that had costs pushing $800\/oz. Understand that the supply of $300 gold is long gone. As the easy gold has been mined, and cost goes up, there's a point where mines close. But as the price of gold trades at these levels, the mines that couldn't produce at $600 are now opening."""
"""Are there any statistics that support the need for Title Insurance?""","""The point of title insurance is that when you buy a house, it is possible that you may eventually find out that the seller didn't actually own the property - either because they were trying to deceive you, or some transfer of ownership in the past wasn't carried out properly. If that happens you can find yourself with no house, and still owing the mortgager the purchase price. Hardly anybody can afford to take that kind of hit, which is why you need some form of protection against it. The traditional way of doing this was to get a lawyer to do a title search, in which they check that everything in order. However this costs tens of dollars at least to do the work for every sale, and hardly ever finds anything. Title Insurance is a company volunteering to take the hit for you if there turns out to be a problem, in return for a payment of less than the title search would cost. In essence they are saying that it's cheaper to take the risk than do the work. What are the statistics? This report seems to indicate that payout is around 5% of premium, but title insurance is a one-off premium and the payout can theoretically happen many years down the line. However it is almost certain that the insurance companies have done the math and believe that selling this insurance will be profitable for them, so they believe that payouts are going to be substantially less than 100%. Is title insurance worth it for you? If the payout is 5% of premiums, the in a purely statistical sense it is not worth it. You would on average gain more by not taking it. However that is true of almost all insurance. The policy is there to protect you in the unlikely but not impossible event where you would otherwise lose a huge amount of money. Unless you can afford to lose the value of your house, you need some form of protection. We've already seen that the only other form of protection is a title search, and they cost more. The other issue is that if you are taking a mortgage, your mortgager will absolutely insist that you have either a title search or title insurance. There is no other way - and title insurance is the cheaper of the two. In this case it is best to look on the title insurance as simply a cost of doing business. It's irrelevant whether it's worth it or not - you can't do the transaction without it."""
"""What is the standard deviation and mean return of oil?""","""Your question is a moving target. And my answer will be subject to revision. I disagree with the votes to close, as you are asking (imho) what role commodities and specifically oil, play in one's asset allocation. Right? How much may be opinion, but there's a place to ask if.  I'm looking at this chart, and thinking, long term, the real return is zero. The discussion regarding gold has been pretty exhausted. For oil, it's not tough to make the case that it will fluctuate, but long term, there's no compelling reason to believe its price will rise any faster than inflation over the really long term."""
"""How is the opening-day price of a stock decided?""","""When a stock is going to become public there's a level of analysis required to figure out the range of IPO price that makes sense. For a company that's somewhat mature, and has a sector to compare it to, you can come up with a range that would be pretty close. For the recent linkedin, it's tougher to price a somewhat unique company, running at a loss, in a market rich with cash looking for the next great deal. If one gives this any thought, an opening price that's so far above the IPO price represents a failure of the underwriters to price it correctly. It means the original owners just sold theirvshares for far less than the market thought they were worth on day one. The day of IPO the stock opens similar to how any stock would open at 9:30, there are bids and asks and a price at which supply (the ask) and demand (bid) balance. For this IPO, it would appear that there were enough buyers to push the price to twice the anticipated open and it's maintained that level since.  It's possible to have a different system in which a Dutch auction is used to make the shares public, in theory this can work, it's just not used commonly."""
"""Do real nappies (reusable \/ cloth diapers) really save money?""","""I don't think they do. And here's why. If you don't want your child to get skin irritation, you need to watch closely and change the \""nappy\"" right when it got wet. For newborns it means like every 2 hours. It creates a big pile of laundry, but the main thing \u2014 additional burden on mother. So, even if you save a little on diapers, you will spend that on water+electricity bill + comforting the mother more often than you would otherwise."""
"""Is it worth trying to find a better minimum down payment for a first time home buyer?""","""If you are putting down less than 20% expect to need to pay PMI.  When you first applied they should have described you a group of options ranging from minimal to 20% down. The monthly amounts would have varied based on PMI, down payment, and interest rate. The maximum monthly payment for principal, interest, taxes, and insurance will determine the maximum loan you can get. The down payment determines the price of the house above the mortgage amount.  During the most recent real estate bubble, lenders created exotic mortgage options to cover buyers who didn't have cash for a down-payment; or not enough income for the principal and interest, or ways to sidestep PMI. Many of these options have disappeared or are harder to get. You need to go back to the bank and get more information on your different options, or find a lender broker who will help you."""
"""How To Record Income As An Affiliate ( UK )""","""Adsense don't pay you daily. They pay you every month (as they have to calculate the final value). I'd say you only have to declare it when it hits your bank account. \u00a360 actually isn't that much. It only took me a couple of months of just making a few quid, to making enough to get a monthly payment, and I only tot up what goes into my bank account. I've opened up a second account with my bank to send and receive payments relating to my online adventures. Then any in\/out goes into a spreadsheet that I do at the end of the month keeping track of everything. If Mr. Taxman want to investigate at the end of the tax year, it's all logged in that account.  It gets a bit murkier if you start doing US Amazon affiliates. The simplest method is to get the cheque delivered, and then log the amount that goes into your bank (after $->\u00a3 conversion). I have a Payoneer account, and transfer most of the money into my account (after it hits $500), and keep a little bit in for things I buy that are in USD. Hope that helps."""
"""Do I need to file taxes jointly with my girlfriend if we live together?""","""In Ontario, common law marriage requires 3 years of cohabitation, and doesn't give rights to property (which remains separate). I'd say in your situation you can still file as single, but I'd suggest asking your tax accountant to be sure."""
"""Cash-basis accounting and barter""","""If you don't track the accrued costs involved, then it means that the valuation of the deal will be somewhat arbitrary, but it still can be made by looking at the value of equivalent or similar goods or services. It's rather similar to accounting treatment of (noncash) gifts, for example. You make up a valuation, and as there are obvious tax reasons to make it as low as possible, the valuation should be justifiable or you risk the wrath of IRS. If you sell the same goods or services for cash, then the value of the barter deal is obvious. If this barter is the only time you're handling this particular type of goods, a wholesale price of similar items (either of your items, or the items that you're receiving in barter) could work."""
"""What are pros and cons of volatility trading over directional stock trading""","""Can't totally agree with that. Volatility trading is just one trading type of many. In my opinion it doesn't depend on whether you are a professional trader or not.  As you might have heard, retail traders are said to create 'noise' on the market, mainly due to the fact that they aren't professional in their majority. So, I would assume, if an average retail trader decided to trade volatility he would create as much noise as if would have been betting on stock directions. Basically, most types of trading would require a considerable amount of effort spent on fundamental analysis of the underlying be it volatility or directional trading. Arbitrage trading would be an exception here, I guess. However, volatility trading relies more on trader's subjective expectations about future deviations, whereas trading stock directions requires deeper research of the underlying. Is it a drawback or an advantage? I.d.k. On the other hand-side volatility trading strategies cover both upward and downward movements, but you can set similar hedging strategies when going short or long on stocks, isn't it? To summarise, I think it is a matter of preference. Imagine yourself going long on S&P500 since 2009. Do you think there are many volatility traders who have outperformed that?"""
"""Companies that use their cash to buy back stock, issue dividends, etc. \u2014 how does this this typically affect share price?""","""So far buying of own by own companies like Apple, is concerned it will surely raise the price of the script. At some level, the share prices are a factor of supply and demand at a given price. Apple being a very demanded script, its supply in the market goes down with the buy back. After a while, this will surely make the script price rise. It also depends at what price the buy back is affected. If the buy back is done at a right price, it will help the existing shareholder. If a very high price is paid, it will erode shareholders wealth.  Hence each buy back needs to be studies separately. There are several and at times complex variables which determines if the buy back is good for continuing shareholders or not."""
"""How do you determine the dividend payout date for Mutual Funds?""","""Determine which fund company issues the fund. In this case, a search reveals the fund name to be Vanguard Dividend Growth Fund from Vanguard Funds. Locate information for the fund on the fund company's web site. Here is the overview page for VDIGX. In the fund information, look for information about distributions. In the case of VDIGX, the fourth tab to the right of \""Overview\"" is \""Distributions\"". See here. At the top: Distributions for this fund are scheduled Semi-Annually The actual distribution history should give you some clues as to when. Failing that, ask your broker or the fund company directly. On \""distribution\"" vs. \""dividend\"": When a mutual fund spins off periodic cash, it is generally not called a \""dividend\"", but rather a \""distribution\"". The terminology is different because a distribution can be made up of more than one kind of payout. Dividends are just one kind. Capital gains, interest, and return of capital are other kinds of cash that can be distributed. While cash is cash, the nature of each varies for tax purposes and so they are classified differently."""
"""15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15""","""Actually the extra payment comes off the back end of the mortgage. So technically the mortgage is ony reduced one month.  However, banks always recalculate the amortization table when the last payment is paid or a payoff amount is requested. There is a difference between the two situations but that is a minor amount. The 30 year note offers flexibility that the 15 does not. Pick one, save money-15 year, get flexibility-30 year."""
"""How do I set up my finances when first moving out?""","""The first thing you need to do is to set yourself a budget. Total all your money coming in (from jobs, allowances, etc.) and all your money going out (including rent, utilities, loan repayments, food, other essential and the luxuries).  If your money coming in is more than your money going out, then you are onto a positive start. If on the other hand your money going out is more than the money coming in, then you are at the beginning of big trouble. You will have to do at least one of 2 things, either increase your income or reduce your expenses or both. You will have to go through all your expenses (money going out) and cut back on the luxuries, try to get cheaper alternatives for some of your essential, and get a second job or increase your hours at your current job. The aim is to always have more money coming in than the money you spend. The second thing to do is to pay off any outstanding debts by paying more than the minimum amounts and then have some savings goals. You said you wanted to save for a car - that is one saving goal. Another saving goal could be to set up a 6 month emergency fund (enough money in a separate account to be able to survive at least 6 months in case something happened, such as you lost your job or you suddenly got sick). Next you could look at getting a higher education so you can go out and get higher paying jobs. When you do get a higher paying job, the secret is not to spend all your extra money coming in on luxuries, you should treat yourself but do not go overboard. Increase the amounts you save and learn how to invest so you can get your savings to work harder for you. Building a sound financial future for yourself takes a lot of hard work and discipline, but once you do get started and change the way you do things you will find that it doesn't take long for things to start getting easier. The one thing you do have going for you is time; you are starting early and have time on your side."""
"""How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal?""","""Most bank bill pay services will work for this purpose. Generally you can pay any person or business that has a valid address. As an added Paypal will no longer take ~3% of the money."""
"""Avoiding timing traps with long term index investing""","""It's amusing that despite all the evidence that \""you can't time the market\"", everyone still wants to try.  Of course I understand your fear.  If you invest all your money in the stock market today and it suddenly falls tomorrow you will feel very bad.  There are a few things you can do to reduce your risk with respect to timing, however: Don't plop all your money down on the same day.  Invest in the market over time, perhaps a few hundred dollars per month worth (depending on your appetite).  This averages your purchase cost to ensure you aren't buying at the time when prices are highest.  The down side is of course that if you leave cash sitting around, you might also not be buying when the prices are lowest either and will probably miss out on some gains.  Still, if risk is your concern, this is a sound strategy. Invest in various markets overseas.  This will expose you to some currency risk, but lower your timing risk, as even with globalization markets don't rise and fall in tandem.   Even with both of the above, you can still be just plain unlucky (or lucky).  I would recommend that you invest only money that you don't need to take out in the near future (in order to reduce the chance that the money will have lost value since you put it in!), and that you don't watch the markets since it makes a lot of people nervous and tends to prod them into doing exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time."""
"""What's so hard about a mutual fund manager pricing their mutual fund?""","""Remember that in most news outlets journalists do not get to pick the titles of their articles.  That's up to the editor.  So even though the article was primarily about ETFs, the reporter made the mistake of including some tangential references to mutual funds.  The editor then saw that the article talked about ETFs and mutual funds and -- knowing even less about the subject matter than the reporter, but recognizing that more readers' eyeballs would be attracted to a headline about mutual funds than to a headline about ETFs -- went with the \""shocking\"" headline about the former. In any case, as you already pointed out, ETFs need to know their value throughout the day, as do the investors in that ETF.  Even momentary outages of price sources can be disastrous. Although mutual funds do not generally make transactions throughout the day, and fund investors are not typically interested in the fund's NAV more than once per day, the fund managers don't just sit around all day doing nothing and then press a couple buttons before the market closes.  They do watch their NAV very closely during the day and think very carefully about which buttons to press at the end of the day.  If their source of stock price data goes offline, then they're impacted almost as severely as -- if less visibly than -- an ETF. Asking Yahoo for prices seems straightforward, but (1) you get what you pay for, and (2) these fund companies are built on massive automated infrastructures that expect to receive their data from a certain source in a certain way at a certain time.  (And they pay a lot of money in order to be able to expect that.)  It would be quite difficult to just feed in manual data, although in the end I suspect some of these companies did just that.  Either they fell back to a secondary data supplier, or they manually constructed datasets for their programs to consume."""
"""Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?""","""Sheesh, are people kidding here? It's a gift. It's not fraud. Just keep in mind that, because it's a gift, you cannot get it \""back\"" if you break up--you are giving it to her. If you happen to get married at some point in the future, you will then own part of the apartment, but that is a completely separate matter. Give her the money, don't expect it back. Ever."""
"""Does investing in a company support it?""","""As others have said, it simply makes you a part owner. Even if you have ethical objections to a company's behavior, I'd argue that investing in it and using the proxy votes to influence the company's decisions might be even more ethical than not investing."""
"""Solid reading\/literature for investment\/retirement\/income taxes?""","""Something that introduces the vocabulary and treats the reader like an intelligent individual? It's a bit overkill for 'retirement', but Yale has a free online course in Financial Markets. It's very light on math, but does a good job establishing jargon and its history. It covers most of the things you'd buy or sell in financial markets, and is presented by Nobel Prize winner Robert Schiller. This particular series was filmed in 2007, so it also offers a good historical perspective of the start of the subprime collapse. There's a number of high profile guest speakers as well. I would encourage you to think critically about their speeches though. If you research what's happened to them after that lecture, it's quite entertaining: one IPO'd a 'private equity' firm that underperformed the market as a whole, another hedge fund manager bought an airline with a partner firm that was arrested for running a ponzi scheme six months later.  The reading list in the syllabus make a pretty good introduction to the field, but keep in mind they're for institutional investors not your 401(k)."""
"""Thinking of doing an MBA: Is an $80K top MBA school better than a $24K online MBA school?""","""I met two MBA graduates from Harvard - both made VPs at large Canadian companies (i.e. $1B or greater annual revenue) after working 2-5 years as management consultants post-graduation - one is now a divisional president making over $500K in salary along. When I asked one of them (one that is not yet making $500K in salary) about the Harvard MBA difference, he said the brand-name and the network probably set it apart from others, since most MBA schools now uses the same material as Harvard's.   I tend to agree with his thoughts - I never did felt the caliber of my professor had much to do with my ability to apply what I learn to practical use.  In my own MBA education, the professor did more facilitation than \""teaching\"".  Apparently that is the norm, as MBA is less about being fed information than it is about demonstrating the ability to analyze and present information.  Back to M.Attia's question, I would go with the highest ranked MBA education I could afford (both financially and lifestyle).  A friend of mine was able to get his employer to pay for the $90K tuition fee from Rotman, along with job security for 5 years (not a bad idea in this economy).  I settled for Lansbridge University in Fedricton because the flexibility of distance learning and cost was important to me, though I was able to get my employer to pay for the MBA after I started (I switched group within the company shortly after I started my MBA and my new boss was able to get the approval without locking me in)."""
"""Ballpark salary equivalent today of \""healthcare benefits\"" in the US?""","""Many answers here have given what look to be useful perspectives on your question.  I want to point out an interesting technical issue. If an employer contracts with an insurer, it agrees to cover all employees (or all that fill some pre-specified definition and no one else), and to offer only a limited range of options. If you buy insurance directly, you obviously have a huge range of choices, including the (technically illegal) one of no insurance at all. Your first thought is probably, \""Hey, that's great! More options, more chances to pick the plan that's right for me.\"" Sorry, no.  Yes, you have more options, but so does everyone else. If you are working for some large company, you get insurance, period. If you suspect you have an expensive health condition, you cannot buy more insurance; if you believe yourself to be healthy as a horse, you cannot get skimpier insurance and pocket the difference.  Healthy people and sick people are all in the same predictable pool. If you buy insurance freely, the insurer knows that the sicker you are, the more likely you are buy insurance, a phenomenon called adverse selection.  As a result, the premiums (fees) a person buying his own insurance pays are much higher, because most of his fellow policy-holders are sickly -- even if he himself is just risk-averse. On the other hand, if you are risk-neutral, if you can survive a $10,000 bill if it happens to arise, you can save big by finding the skimpiest imaginable insurance, where all your fellow policy-holders will be hale and healthy people like yourself."""
"""First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house""","""No one has considered the tax write off at the end of the year? Will the house be in the parent's name or his, and can one of them take a write off for taxes and interest at the end of each year? On a small salary this may mean he has no tax liability for the four years, and can possibly make up the extra buying costs.... also, look at the comps in the area for the past five years and see if home values have increased and turnover rate for the area will tell you if people are buying in that area..."""
"""Bond prices: Why is a high yield sometimes too good to be true?""","""Looking at the list of bonds you listed, many of them are long dated. In short, in a rate rising environment (it's not like rates can go much lower in the foreseeable future), these bond prices will drop in general in addition to any company specific events occurred to these names, so be prepared for some paper losses.  Just because a bond is rated highly by credit agencies like S&P or Moody's does not automatically mean their prices do not fluctuate. Yes, there is always a demand for highly rated bonds from pension funds, mutual funds, etc. because of their investment mandates. But I would suggest looking beyond credit ratings and yield, and look further into whether these bonds are secured\/unsecured and if secured, by what. Keep in mind in recent financial crisis, prices of those CDOs\/CLOs ended up plunging even though they were given AAA ratings by rating agencies because some were backed by housing properties that were over-valued and loans made to borrowers having difficulties to make repayments. Hence, these type of \""bonds\"" have greater default risks and traded at huge discounts. Most of them are also callable, so you may not enjoy the seemingly high yield till their maturity date. Like others mentioned, buying bonds outright is usually a big ticket item. I would also suggest reviewing your cash liquidity and opportunity cost as oppose to investing in other asset classes and instruments."""
"""Why would a company like Apple be buying back its own shares?""","""I think JB King's answer is interesting from the point of view of \""is this good for me\"" but the OP's question boils down to \""why would a company do this?\"" The company buys back shares when it thinks it will better position the company financially. A Simple Scenario: If Company A wants to open a new store, for example, they need to buy the land, build the store, stock it, etc, etc and this all costs money.  The company can get a loan, use accrued capital, or raise new capital by issuing new stock.  Each method has benefits and drawbacks. One of the drawbacks of issuing new stock is that it dilutes the existing stock's value.  Previously, total company profits were split between x shares.  Now the profits are shared between x+y shares, where y is the number of new shares issued to raise the capital. This normally drives the price of the stock down, since the expected future dividends per stock have decreased. Now the company has a problem: the next time they go to raise money by issuing stock, they will have to issue MORE shares to get the same value - leading to more dilution.  To break out of this cycle, the company can buy back shares periodically.  When the company feels the the stock is sufficiently undervalued, it buys some back.  Now the profits are shared with a smaller pool, and the stock price goes up, and the next time Company A needs to raise capital, it can issue stock. So it probably has little to do with rewarding shareholders, and more to do with lowering the \""cost of capital\"" for the company in the future."""
"""Why does an option lose time value faster as it approaches expiry""","""Not cumulative volatility. It's cumulative probability density. Time value isn't linear because PDFs (probability distribution function) aren't linear. It's a type of distribution e.g. \""bell-curves\"") These distributions are based on empirical data i.e. what we observe. BSM i.e. Black-Scholes-Merton includes the factors that influence an option price and include a PDF to represent the uncertainty\/probability. Time value is based on historical volatility in the underlying asset price, in this case equity(stock). At the beginning, time value is high since there's time until expiration and the stock is expected to move within a certain range based on historical performance. As it nears expiration, uncertainty over the final value diminishes. This causes probability for a certain price range to become more likely.  We can relate that to how people think, which affects the variation in the stock market price. Most people who are hoping for a value increase are optimistic about their chances of winning and will hold out towards the end. They see in the past d days, the stock has moved [-2%,+5%] so as a call buyer, they're looking for that upside. With little time remaining though, their hopes quickly drop to 0 for any significant changes beyond the market price. (Likewise, people keep playing the lottery up until a certain age when they're older and suddenly determine they're never going to win.)  We see that reflected in the PDF used to represent options price movements. Thus your time value which is a function of probability decreases in a non-linear fashion.  Option price = intrinsic value + time value At expiration, your option price = intrinsic value = stock price - strike price, St >= K, and 0 for St < K."""
"""Financing with two mortgages: a thing of the past?""","""Depends on where we are in the credit cycle. When banks are scared like in 07 to 11, good luck.  Now (13), they'll probably start begging you.  There are more regulations that prevent it now, but they'll probably be eased as they usually are during good times. If the banks won't help you, private investors might.  Just find your local mortgage investor club."""
"""Do governments support their own bonds when their value goes down?""","""Without getting to hung-up on terminology here, the management of a company will often attempt to keep stock prices high because of a number of reasons: Ideally companies keep prices up through performance.  In some cases, you'll see companies do other things spending cash and\/or issuing bonds to continue to pay dividends (e.g. IBM), or spending cash and\/or issuing bonds to pay for stock buybacks (e.g. IBM).  These methods can work for a time but are not sustainable and will often be seen as acts of desperation.  Companies that have a solid plan for growth will typically not do much of anything to directly change stock prices. Bonds are a bit different because they have a fairly straight-forward valuation model based on the fact that they pay out a fixed amount per month.  The two main reason prices in bonds go down are: The key here is that bonds pay out the same thing per month regardless of their price or the price of other bonds available.  Most stocks do not pay any dividend and for much of those that do, the main factor as to whether you make or lose money on them is the stock price. The price of bonds does matter to governments, however.  Let's say a country successfully issued some 10 year bonds last year at the price of 1000.  They pay 1% per month (to keep the math simple.)  Every month, they pay out $10 per bond.  Then some (stupid) politicians start threatening to default on bond payments.  The bond market freaks and people start trying to unload these bonds as fast as they can.  The going price drops to $500.  Next month, the payments are the same.  The coupon rate on the bonds has not changed at all.  I'm oversimplifying here but this is the core of how bond prices work. You might be tempted to think that doesn't matter to the country but it does.  Now, this same country wants to issue some more bonds.  It wants to get that 1% rate again but it can't.  Why would anyone pay $1000 for a 1% (per month) bond when they can get the exact same bond with (basically) the same risks for $500?  Instead they have to offer a 2% (per month) rate in order to match the market price. A government (or company) could in fact put money into the bond market to bolster the price of it's bonds (i.e. keep the rates down.)  The problem is that if you are issuing bonds, it's generally (caveats apply) because you need cash that you don't have so what money are you going to use to buy these bonds?  Or in other words, it doesn't make sense to issue bonds and then simply plow the cash gained from that issuance back into the same bonds you are issuing.  The options here are a bit more limited.  I have to mention though that the US government (via a quasi-governmental entity) did actually buy it's own bonds.  This policy of Quantitative Easing (QE) was done for more complicated reasons than simply keeping the price of bonds up."""
"""How can I buy government bonds from foreign countries?""","""Significantly less effort to buy into any of several international bond index funds. Off the top of my head, VTIBX."""
"""Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities?""","""I would not argue if its more difficult, its different, and it much depends what kind of stocks you refer to, i take large caps as example. The players are different. Companies and even govts may hedge in the commodities (futures) market while in big caps this and other entities mainly invest. (Of course there\u2019s HFT in large caps too). Futures often come with way higher leverage, lower spread and less commissions than stocks attracting retail and institutional speculators\/HFT. Another big difference is that commodity prices react to all kind of news events (Stocks do too, but not that much and frequent), this kind of reactions big caps only do on earnings or on news directly affecting the company. Commodities are much more volatile on geo economic \/ political news events. This combined with higher leverage & HFT produces astounding moves.  To sum it up, the players are different and act different than in large stocks, liquidity may be another thing."""
"""How do I get rid of worthless penny stocks if there is no volume (so market\/limit orders don't work) and my broker won't buy them from me?""","""Your broker should be able to answer this. Many brokers will buy it from you for the cost of a commission, if there's no legit buyer."""
"""How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage?""","""Why not start a third account, the \""house\"" account? However you decide to fund it, equally or in proportion to income, you both chip in, and the payments for all joint expenses come from there. Rent, utilities, food, phone, cable."""
"""How much money should I lock up in my savings account?""","""One issue which I don't see addressed in the answers so far is how to structure bank accounts to get the highest return possible. What you're describing sounds like a certificate of deposit (CD): 'ranging from 1% for 9 months to 2.3% for 5 years' There is a concept which was once more common called a CD Ladder, which still allows you to access your money, while also giving you the highest interest rate offered by the bank.   To set one up you divide your account into 5 equal parts, then open 5 CDs with different periods (1-5 years).  Each time a new CD matures (once a year), you purchase another 5 year CD with those funds, plus any new money you want to save.   Thus you're getting a higher and higher rate, until all of your accounts are earning the 5 year CD rate, and you're never more than a year away from getting money out of the account if a need comes up."""
"""In Canada, how bad must your credit be for a denial of a Secured Credit Card?""","""Although now there are \""welcome\"" banking packages when I landed in 2008 I couldn't find any and Vancity gave me a secured visa nonetheless. Let me emphasize: I didn't have a credit history, score at all. I doubt this changed much. The bank has zero risk."""
"""Is it mandatory to report Capital Loss on line 21 of Schedule D?""","""On line 21 of Schedule D, you write the smaller of So, in your case, since your Line 16 shows a loss of more than $3000 on Line 21, you write 3000 on Line 21 (the parentheses indicating that is it a negative number are already included on the form). Also, you write (3000) on Form 1040 Line 13. The rest of the loss is a carryover to next year (be sure to fill out the Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet where the carryover to next year is computed). Summary: you cannot write 0 on Line 21 of Schedule D and carry over the entire loss to next year. You must deduct $3000 this year and carry over the rest of the loss to next year."""
"""RRP\/list price\/retail price and cars?""","""The retailer can sell for whatever price they like, with the caveats that if they consistently sell at a loss they will go out of business and if they set the price too high they will not sell anything! As you mentioned, RRP is only a recommended price, the manufacturer cannot enfore it at all for legal reasons. Having said that I used to work in retail (not cars) and if we discounted a certain manufacturers products and they found out about it, we would find they had suddenly run out of stock when we tried to order more. So manufacturers do have some control over this type of thing depending on how \""underhand\"" they want to be about it. My background is in retail management but not selling cars, but my understanding is the law regards RRP is the same."""
"""Is an analyst's \""price target\"" assumed to be for 12 months out?""","""I wouldn't put too much stock in the guidance generically... it's more a measure of confidence in the company. When you listen to the earnings calls and start following a particular analyst, you'll understand where they come from when they kick out a number."""
"""What happens to my savings if my country defaults or restructures its debt?""","""The danger to your savings depends on how much sovereign debt your bank is holding.  If the government defaults then the bank - if it is holding a lot of sovereign debt - could be short funds and not able to meet its obligations. I believe default is the best option for the Euro long term but it will be painful in the short term.  Yes, historically governments have shut down banks to prevent people from withdrawing their money in times of crisis.  See Argentina circa 2001 or US during Great Depression.  The government prevented people from withdrawing their money and people could do nothing while their money rapidly lost value. (See the emergency banking act where Title I, Section 4 authorizes the US president:\""To make it illegal for a bank to do business during a national emergency (per section 2) without the approval of the President.\""  FDR declared a banking holiday four days before the act was approved by Congress.  This documentary on the crisis in Argentina follows a woman as she tries to withdraw her savings from her bank but the government has prevented her from withdrawing her money.) If the printing press is chosen to avoid default then this will allow banks and governments to meet their obligations.  This, however, comes at the cost of a seriously debased euro (i.e. higher prices).  The euro could then soon become a hot potato as everyone tries to get rid of them before the ECB prints more.  The US dollar could meet the same fate. What can you do to avert these risks?  Yes, you could exchange into another currency.  Unfortunately the printing presses of most of the major central banks today are in overdrive.  This may preserve your savings temporarily. I would purchase some gold or silver coins and keep them in your possession.  This isolates you from the banking system and gold and silver have value anywhere you go.  The coins are also portable in case things really start to get interesting.  Attempt to purchase the coins with cash so there is no record of the purchase.  This may not be possible."""
"""Close to retirement & we may move within 7 years. Should we re-finance our mortgage, or not?""","""Refinance, definitely. Go for Fixed 15 years, which will leave you with the same remaining time for the loan that you have now, but a much lower interest (you can find below 4%, if you look hard enough). You might end up with lower payments and higher portion of interest to deduct from your taxes. win-win. If you're confident you're able to pay it off within 7 years, you can get an even better rate with an ARM 10\/1 or 7\/1."""
"""Can you explain why it's better to invest now rather than waiting for the market to dip?""","""With a long enough time horizon, no matter when you buy, equities almost always outperform cash and bonds. There's an article here with some info: http:\/\/www.fool.co.uk\/investing-basics\/how-when-and-where-to-invest\/ Holding period where shares have beaten cash  There was a similar study done which showed if you picked any day in the last 100 years, no matter if the market was at a high or low, after 1 year your probability of being in profit was only 0.5, but after 10-20 years it was almost certainly 1.0.  Equities compound dividends too, and the best place to invest is in diversified stock indices such as the S&P500, FTSE100, DOW30 or indices\/funds which pay dividends. The best way to capture returns is to dollar cost average (e.g. place a lump sum, then add $x every month), to re-invest dividends, and oh, to forget about it in an IRA or SIPP (Self invested pension) or other vehicle which discourages tampering with your investment.  Yes, values rise and fall but we humans are so short sighted, if we had bought the S&P in 2007 and sold in 2009 in fear, we would have missed out on the 25% gain (excluding dividends) from 2007-2014. That's about 3% a year gain even if you bought the 2007 high -beating cash or bonds even after the financial crisis. Now imagine had you dollar cost averaged the entire period from 2007-2014 where your gain would be. Your equity curve would have the same shape as the S&P (with its drastic dip in 2009) but an accelerated growth after. There are studies if you dig that demonstrate the above. From experience I can tell you timing the market is nigh impossible and most fund managers are unable to beat the indices. Far better to DCA and re-invest dividends and not care about market gyrations! .."""
"""Are there any benefits of FMLA beyond preserving your job?""","""How will your employer treat your pay and benefits status while you're on leave?   Disability income coverage and leave policies work in tandem to solve very different problems.  Disability income coverage covers your income, leave policies guarantee your status as an employee.   Typically, STD coverage requires an actual loss of income and will offset it's stated benefit for any income you're receiving.  In general you can't begin a STD claim after the 7 day waiting period and also draw income from vacation or sick time.  Also, typically STD will cover some percentage of your covered pay (sometimes including commission\/bonus income) up to some weekly maximum. FLMA requires employers to allow certain amounts of time for certain types of leave.  FMLA is not necessarily an income replacement tool like STD coverage.   Contrary to your post it's my understanding that if sick and vacation time accrue in to a single PTO bucket your employer is prohibited from requiring employees to exhaust accrued time prior to beginning FMLA leave. In general, you're not missing anything because the point of FMLA is to guarantee your job and status as an employee from a benefits perspective. Benefits language from the Department of Labor Website A covered employer is required to maintain group health insurance coverage, including family coverage, for an employee on FMLA leave on the same terms as if the employee continued to work."""
"""Non-qualified Savings Plan vs. 401(k) for Highly Compensated Employee""","""Also, in (5), is it considered unpaid wages? Because that's pretty high on the bankruptcy hierarchy.  No. It is near the bottom, in with unsecured debt. If you have access to the plan documents, see if the plan has the phrase \""rabbi trust\"" anywhere in it. This means that the money is not kept comingled with the corporation's regular accounts, but is rather deposited with a financial institution (such as Fidelity)."""
"""If I plan to buy a car in cash, should I let the dealer know?""","""If you buy a car using a loan, the dealer gets benefited by the financing institution by the way of referring fee paid to the dealer by the institution, and that too if the dealer has helped in financing the purchase. Otherwise for the dealer it doesn't matter if one pays in full or through financing. The dealer is paid in full in either cases. Hence the dealer may slightly get disappointed that you are not taking a loan."""
"""Will paying off my car early hinder my ability to build credit?""","""No. Credit scores are primarily built by doing the following: To build credit, get a few major credit cards and a couple of store cards. Use one of them to make routine purchases like gas and groceries. Pay them on time every month. You're good to go. I would hate to sell stocks to pay off a loan -- try finding a better loan. If you financed through the dealer, try joining a credit union and see if you can get a better rate."""
"""Gap in domestic Health Insurance coverage, expect higher premiums?""","""The insurance company is must assume you do have a preexisting condition you are unaware of.  The reason for that is that Affordable Care Act precludes the Insurance company from denying coverage of them if you do.  Insurance companies are businesses.  They are in business to make money(unless you have a nonprofit insurer).  They can not do that if you can buy insurance only when you need for them to pay out.  So even though you may not have a preexisting condition, they are precluded from requiring an examination that would detect the most expensive preexisting conditions (hidden cancers, neurological, autoimmune disorders).  So the companies must do what takes business sense and either deny you coverage or charge a rate that covers the risk they would be forced to take.   In your question on travel there was a response that suggested you get international health insurance instead of travel health insurance that would be considered credible coverage.  You are trying to save money which on a personal level is a good idea.  However that is against the societal and business need that you maintain health coverage during your healthy times to cover the costs of those who need expensive treatment.  So you will be monetarily penalized should you choose to reenter the society of insured people.  Once you have paid the higher rate for up to 18 months you should be able to get a better policy for people who have had continuous coverage.  Alternately you may be lucky enough to start working for a company that provides health insurance with out requiring continuous coverage."""
"""Why do gas stations charge different amounts in the same local area?""","""When I ran a gas station, our price was largely set by our neighbors-- the other gas stations in the area. We couldn't go below the current cost of replacement gas, but other than that we wanted to be at .05 over the average. (We got away with charging more because we were the last station on a major road.) Everybody else did the same thing. Also, we only set prices once a day, early in the morning before the commuter rush. Changing prices while somebody is pumping gas Was Not Done, for fairly obvious reasons. So, you'd get these ripples of price-changing, as one station changed its price, and then all its neighbors would react to that the next day, and then THEIR neighbors would change the day after that, and so on."""
"""Should I buy a house or am I making silly assumptions that I can afford it?""","""When I bought my own place, mortgage lenders worked on 3 x salary basis.  Admittedly that was joint salary - eg you and spouse could sum your salaries.   Relaxing this ratio is one of the reasons we are in the mess we are now. You are shrewd (my view) to realise that buying is better than renting.  But you also should consider the short term likely movement in house prices.  I think this could be down.  If prices continue to fall, buying gets easier the longer you wait. When house prices do hit rock bottom, and you are sure they have, then you can afford to take a gamble.  Lets face it, if prices are moving up, even if you lose your job and cannot pay, you can sell and you have potentially gained the increase in the period when it went up. Also remember that getting the mortgage is the easy bit.  Paying in the longer term is the really hard part of the deal."""
"""How to start personal finances?""","""There are many paths to success, but they all begin with education. You made the first big step just by visiting here. We have 17,000 questions, arranged by tag so you can view those on a given topic. You can sort by votes to see the ones that have the best member acceptance.  I'll agree with Ben that one of the best ones is \""The correct order of investing.\"" We both offered answers there, and that helps address a big chunk of your issue.  The book recommendations are fine, you'll quickly find that each author has his\/her own slant or focus on a certain approach. For example, one financial celebrity (note - in the US, there are private advisors, usually with credentials of some sort, there are those who work for brokers and also offers help, there are financial bloggers (I am one), and there are those who are on the radio or TV who may or may not have any credentials) suggests that credit cards are to be avoided. The line in another answer here, \""You're not going to get rich earning 1% on a credit card,\"" is a direct quote of one such celebrity. I disputed that in my post \""I got rich on credit card points!\"" The article is nearly 2 years old, the account accumulating the rewards has recently passed $34,000. This sum of money is more wealth than 81% of people in the world have.  The article was a bit tongue in cheek (sarcastic) but it made a point. A young person should get a credit card, a good one, with no fee, and generous rewards. Use the card to buy only what you can pay back that month. At year end, I can download all my spending. The use of the card helps, not hinders, the budgeting process, and provides a bit of safety with its guarantees and theft protection.  Your question really has multiple facets. If these answers aren't helpful enough, I suggest you ask a new question, but focus on one narrow issue. \""Paying off debt\"" \""Getting organized\"" \""Saving\"" \""Budgeting\"" all seem to be part of your one question here."""
"""Strategy for accounting personal finance in multiple currency?""","""How can I correctly account for having money in different currencies, without currency transfers or currency fluctuations ending up as gains or losses? In my view, your spreadsheet should be in multiple currencies. i.e. if you have gained some in specific currency, make a note of it in that specific currency. If you have spent something in a specific currency, then make a note accordingly. You can use an additional column for reporting this in a neutral currency say GBP. If you are transferring the money from account of one currency to account of another; change the balances as appropriate with the actual conversion rate. If you need this record keeping for tax purposes, then get a proper advise from accountant."""
"""As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments?""","""Whatever you do, don't take your retirement savings to Vegas. Second, you should also consider investment expenses. Your investments profit after the managers pay themselves. Get the lowest expense ratio mutual funds you can. Third, most active managers do not beat the market. Index funds are your friends. They also tend to have the lower expense ratios."""
"""Why are fund managers' average\/minimum purchase price from form 13F the same?""","""The GuruFocus Link is just reporting the high and low price of the quarter.  Price Range (Average) \u2013 The estimated trade prices. The average price   is calculated from the time weighted average during the period. If no   price range is shown, the trade prices are estimated trade prices,   which are more accurate estimates. AAPL: $420.05 - $549.03 ($467.26) The numbers for the high and low match what I found for AAPL on Yahoo Finance. Keep in mind their definition uses estimate 3 times."""
"""Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?""","""I think, the top three answers by Joe, Anthony and Bigh are giving you all the detail that you need on a technical sense. Although I would like to add a simple picture that underlines, that you can not really compare day trading to long-term trading and that the addictive and psychologic aspect that you mentioned can not be taken out of consideration. The long term investor is like someone buying a house for investment. You carefully look at all offers on the market. You choose by many factors, price, location, quality, environment, neighborhood and extras. After a long research, you pick your favorites and give them a closer look until you finally choose the object of desire, which will pay off in 10 years and will be a wise investment in your future. Now this sounds like a careful but smart person, who knows what he wants and has enough patience to have his earnings in the future. The short term investor is like someone running into the casino for a game of black-jack, roulette or poker. He is a person that thinks he has found the one and only formula, the philosopher's stone, the money-press and is seeking immense profits in just one night. And if it does not work, he is sure, that this was just bad coincidence and that his \""formula\"" is correct and will work the next night. This person is a pure gambler and running the risk of becoming addicted. He is seeking quick and massive profits and does not give up, even though he knows, that the chances of becoming a millionaire in a casino are quite unrealistic and not better than playing in a lottery. So if you are a gamer, and the profit is less important than the \""fun\"", then short term is the thing for you. If you are not necessarily seeking tons of millions, but just want to keep your risk of loss to a minimum, then long term is your way to go. So it is a question of personality, expectations and priorities. The answer why losses are bigger on high frequency signals is answered elsewhere. But I am convinced in reality it is a question of what you want and therefore very subjective. I have worked for both. I have worked for a portfolio company that has gone through periods of ups and downs, but on the long term has made a very tempting profit, which made me regret, that I did not ask for shares instead of money as payment. These people are very calm and intelligent people. They spend all their time investigating and searching for interesting objects for their portfolio and replace losers with winners. They are working for your money and investors just relax and wait. This has a very serious taste to it and I for my part would always prefer this form of investment. I have worked for an investment broker selling futures. I programmed the account management for their customers and in all those years I have only seen one customer that made the million. But tons of customers that had made huge losses. And this company was very emotional, harsh, unpersonal - employees changing day by day, top sellers coming in corvettes. All the people working there where gamblers, just like their customers. Well, it ended one day, when the police came and confiscated all computers from them, because customers have complained about their huge losses. I am glad, that I worked as a remote developer for them and got paid in money and not in options. So both worlds are so different from each other. The chances for bigger profits are higher on day trading, but so are the chances for bigger losses - so it is pure gambling. If you like gambling, split your investment: half in long term and other half in short term, that is fun and wise in one. But one thing is for sure: in over ten years, I have seen many customers loosing loads of money in options in the future markets or currencies. But I have never seen anyone making a loss in long term portfolio investment. There have been hard years, where the value dropped almost 30%, but that was caught up by the following years, so that the only risk was minimizing the profit."""
"""Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses?""","""I think we'd need to look at actual numbers to see where you're running into trouble. I'm also a little confused by your use of the term \""unexpected expenses\"". You seem to be using that to describe expenses that are quite regular, that occur every X months, and so are totally expected. But assuming this is just some clumsy wording ... Here's the thing: Start out by taking the amount of each expense, divided by the number of months between occurrences. This is the monthly cost of each expense. Add all these up. This is the amount that you should be setting aside every month for these expenses, once you get a \""base amount\"" set up. So to take a simple example: Say you have to pay property taxes of $1200 twice a year. So that's $1200 every 6 months = $200 per month. Also say you have to pay a water bill once every 3 months that's typically $90. So $90 divided by 3 = $30. Assuming that was it, in the long term you'd need to put aside $230 per month to stay even. I say \""in the long term\"" because when you're just starting, you need to put aside an amount sufficient that your balance won't fall below zero. The easiest way to do this is to just set up a chart where you start from zero and add (in this example) $230 each month, and then subtract the amount of the bills when they will hit. Do this for some reasonable time in the future, say one year. Find the biggest negative balance. If you can add this amount to get started, you'll be safe. If not, add this amount divided by the number of months from now until it occurs and make that a temporary addition to your deposits. Check if you now are safely always positive. If not, repeat the process for the next biggest negative. For example, let's say the property tax bills are April and October and the water bills are February, May, August, and November. Then your chart would look like this: The biggest negative is -370 in April. So you have to add $370 in the first 4 months, or $92.50 per month. Let's say $93. That would give: Now you stay at least barely above water for the whole year. You could extend the chart our further, but odds are the exact numbers will change next year and you'll have to recalculate anyway. The more irregular the expenses, the more you  will build up just before the big expense hits. But that's the whole point of saving for these, right? If a $1200 bill is coming next week and you don't have close to $1200 saved up in the account, where is the money coming from? If you have enough spare cash that you can just take the $1200 out of what you would have spent on lunch tomorrow, then you don't need this sort of account."""
"""How To Report Cryptocurrency Earnings?""","""As cryptocurrencies are rather new compared to most assets, there hasn't been a lot of specific guidance for a lot of situation, but in 2014 the IRS announced that it published guidance in Notice 2014-21. I'm not aware of further guidance that has been published beyond that, though it wouldn't surprise me if treatments changed over time. In that notice, the answer to the first question describes the general treatment: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. Your specific questions (about what constitutes a \""business\"", and when you're considered to be \""selling\"" the cryptoproperty) are likely to be considered on a case by case basis by the IRS. As the amounts involved here are so small (relatively speaking), my recommendation would be to read through what the IRS has published carefully, make reasonable assumptions about what scenarios that are described are closest to what you're doing, and document doing so clearly as part of your tax preparations. And when in doubt, erring on the side of whichever option incurs more tax is unlikely to be objected to by them. Of course, I'm not a lawyer or tax advisor, I'm a stranger on the Internet, so for \""real\"" advice you should contact somebody qualified. I doubt you'd be faulted too much for not doing so given the amounts involved. You could also attempt contacting a local IRS office or calling them with your specific questions, and they may be able to provide more specific guidance tailored to you, though doing so may not save you from an auditor deciding something differently if they were to examine your return later. There are also phone numbers to contact specific people listed at the end of Notice 2014-21; you could try calling them as well."""
"""Intrinsic value of non-voting shares which don't pay dividends""","""Even with non-voting shares, you own a portion of the company including all of its assets and its future profits.  If the company is sold, goes out of business and liquidates, etc., those with non-voting shares still stand collect their share of the funds generated.  There's also the possibility, as one of the comments notes, that a company will pay dividends in the future and distribute its assets to shareholders that way. The example of Google (also mentioned in the comments) is interesting because when they went to voting and non-voting stock, there was some theoretical debate about whether the two types of shares (GOOG and GOOGL) would track each other in value.  It turned out that they did not - People did put a premium on voting, so that is worth something.  Even without the voting rights, however, Google has massive assets and each share (GOOG and GOOGL) represented ownership of a fraction of those assets and that kept them highly correlated in value.  (Google had to pay restitution to some shareholders of the non-voting stock as a result of the deviation in value. I won't get into the details here since it's a bit of tangent, but you could easily find details on the web.)"""
"""Do I make money in the stock market from other people losing money?""","""There is one other factor that I haven't seen mentioned here.  It's easy to assume that if you buy a stock, then someone else (another stock owner) must have sold it to you.  This is not true however, because there are people called \""market makers\"" whose basic job is to always be available to buy shares from those who wish to sell, and sell shares to those who wish to buy.  They could be selling you shares they just bought from someone else, but they also could simply be issuing shares from the company itself, that have never been bought before. This is a super oversimplified explanation, but hopefully it illustrates my point."""
"""Why so much noise about USA's credit rating being lowered?""","""Pension- and many \""low-risk\"" investment funds may only invest in AAA-rated stocks and bonds.  While the S&P rating alone doesn't imply that such funds must immediately disinvest in US bonds (Fitch and Moody's are holding), it does create the risk that the other rating agencies will follow suite and also lower the US rating. As the largest issuer of bonds, controller of the world's reserve currency, and with many emerging markets placing almost all their current account surpluses in US bonds, this risk change has implications everywhere. Some companies will already start disinvestment while some investors will start demanding higher interest returns in order to buy US bonds.  It isn't yet a stampede, but the gates are now open. That said, S&P is simply reflecting the opinions of bond traders. Markets were already unstable long before the downrating.  However, from the US perspective, it is a timely reminder to politicians that the global balance is shifting and that the US cannot count on incumbency to protect it from the disapproval of financial analysts."""
"""Full-time work + running small side business: Best business structure for taxes?""","""You should look into an LLC.  Its a fairly simple process, and the income simply flows through to your individual return.  It will allow you to deduct supplies and other expenses from that income.  It should also protect you if someone sues you for doing shoddy work (even if the work was fine), although you would need to consult a lawyer to be sure. For last year, it sounds like your taxes were done wrong.  There are very, very few ways that you can end up adding more income and earning less after taxes. I'm tempted to say none, but our tax laws are so complex that I'm sure you can do it somehow."""
"""Trade? Buy and hold? Or both? ""","""You mentioned three concepts: (1) trading (2) diversification (3) buy and hold.   Trading with any frequency is for people who want to manage their investments as a hobby or profession.  You do not seem to be in that category.  Diversification is a critical element of any investment strategy.  No matter what you do, you should be diversified.  All the way would be best (this means owning at least some of every asset out there).  The usual way to do this is to own a mutual or index fund.  Or several.  These funds own hundreds or thousands of stocks, so that buying the fund instantly diversifies you. Buy and hold is the only reasonable approach to a portfolio for someone who is not interested in spending a lot of time managing it.  There's no reason to think a buy-and-hold portfolio will underperform a typical traded portfolio, nor that the gains will come later.  It's the assets in the portfolio that determine how aggressive\/risky it is, not the frequency with which it is traded. This isn't really a site for specific recommendations, but I'll provide a quick idea:  Buy a couple of index funds that cover the whole universe of investments.  Index funds have low expenses and are the cheapest\/easiest way to diversify.  Buy a \""total stock market\"" fund and a \""total bond fund\"" in a ratio that you like.  If you want, also buy an \""international fund.\""  If you want specific tickers and ratios, another forum would be better(or just ask your broker or 401(k) provider).  The bogleheads forum is one that I respect where people are very happy to give and debate specific recommendations. At the end of the day, responsibly managing your investment portfolio is not rocket science and shouldn't occupy a lot of time or worry.  Just choose a few funds with low expenses that cover all the assets you are really interested in, put your money in them in a reasonable-ish ratio (no one knows that the best ratio is) and then forget about it."""
"""Can written options be exercised against you prior to expiry when they become \""in-the-money\""?""","""Yes, if it's an American style option. American style options may be exercised at any time prior to expiration (even if they're not in-the-money). Generally, you are required to deliver or accept delivery of the underlying by the beginning of the next trading day. If you are short, you may be chosen by the clearinghouse to fulfill the exercise (a process called \""assignment\""). Because the clearinghouse is the counter-party to every options trade, you can be assigned even if the specific person who purchased the option you wrote didn't exercise, but someone else who holds a long position did. Similarly, you might not be assigned if that person did exercise. The clearinghouse randomly chooses a brokerage to fulfill an assignment, and the brokerage will randomly choose an individual account. If you're going to be writing options, especially using spreads, you need to have a plan ahead of time on what to do if one of your legs gets assigned. This is more likely to happen just before a dividend payment, if the payment is more than the remaining time value."""
"""A good investment vehicle for saving for a mortgage down payment?""","""Assuming this'll be a taxable account and you're an above-average wage earner, the following seem to be biggest factors in your decision: tax-advantaged income w\/o retirement account protection - so I'd pick a stock\/stocks or fund that's designed to minimize earnings taxable at income and\/or short-term gains rates (e.g. dividends) declining risk profile - make sure you periodically tweak your investment mix over the 2-3 year period  to reduce your risk exposure.   You want to be near savings account risk levels by the end of your timeline.  But make sure you keep #1 in mind - so probably don't adjust (by selling) anything until you've hit the 1-year holding mark to get the long-term capital gains rates. In addition to tax-sensitive stock & bond funds at the major brokerages like Fidelity, I'd specifically look at tax-free municipal bond funds (targeted for your state of residence) since those generally pay better than savings on after tax basis for little increase in risk (assuming you stick w\/ higher-rated municipalities)."""
"""Online Return Policies""","""If you paid by credit card, file a dispute with the credit card company. They will credit you the money immediately while they investigate. The burden of proof will then be on the merchant. Keep your documents handy in case you need them: USPS receipt, proof of delivery, copies of all correspondance, etc. File the credit card chargeback now, because there are time limits. The FTC has more information."""
"""Car dealer saying that they cannot see any credit information for my co-applicant. Could this be a scam?""","""You say  Also I have been the only one with an income in our household for last 15 years, so for most of our marriage any debts have been in my name. She has a credit card (opened in 1999) that she has not used for years and she is also a secondary card holder on an American Express card and a MasterCard that are both in my name (she has not used the cards as we try to keep them only for emergencies). This would seem to indicate that the dealer is correct.  Your wife has no credit history.   You say that you paid off her student loans some years back.  If \""some years\"" was more than seven, then they have dropped off her credit report.  If that's the most recent credit activity, then she effectively has none.   Even if you get past that, note that she also doesn't have any income, which makes her a lousy co-signer.  There's no real circumstance where you couldn't pay for the car but she could based on the historical data.  She would have to get a job first.  Since they had no information on her whatsoever, they probably didn't even get to that."""
"""Understanding taxes when buying goods at a store""","""Grocery food is not subject to sales tax in Maryland, but some food is taxed depending on category or preparation. So you must have had a combination of grocery and taxable foods. One of the cheaper items you purchased was subject to a whopping penny of sales tax. http:\/\/taxes.marylandtaxes.com\/Individual_Taxes\/Taxpayer_Assistance\/Individual_Tax_FAQs\/Use_Tax_FAQs\/q4.shtml In general, food sales are subject to Maryland's 6 percent sales and   use tax unless a person operating a substantial grocery or market   business sells the food for consumption off the premises and the food   is not a taxable prepared food. A grocery or market business is   considered to be \""substantial\"" if the sales of grocery or market food   items total at least 10 percent of all food sales."""
"""How should I pay off my private student loans that have a lot of restrictions?""","""It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to save up and wait to make a payment on any of these loans.  Any dollar you pay today works better than saving it and waiting months to pay it, no matter which loan it will be applied to. Since your lender won't let you choose which loan your payment is being applied to, don't worry about it.  Just make as big a payment as you can each month, and try to get the whole thing out of your life as soon as possible. The result of this will be that the smaller balance loans will be paid off first, and the bigger balance loans later.  It is unfortunate that the higher interest rate loans will be paid later, but it sounds like you don't have a choice, so it is not worth worrying about. Instead of thinking of it as 5 loans of different amounts, think of it as one loan with a balance of $74,000, and make payments as quickly and as often as possible. For example, let's say that you have $1000 a month extra to throw at the loans.  You would be better off paying $1000 each month than waiting until you have $4000 in the bank and paying it all at once toward one loan.  How the lender divides up your payment is less significant than when the lender gets the payment."""
"""Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period?""","""what you aim to do is a great idea and it will work in your favor for a number of reasons. First, paying down your loan early will save you lots in interest, no brainer. Second, keeping the account open will improve your credit score by 1) increases the number of installment trade lines you have open, 2)adds to your positive payment history and 3) varies your credit mix. If your paid your car off you will see a DROP in your credit score because now you have one less trade line. To address other issues as far as credit scoring, it does not matter(much) for your score if you have a $1000 car loan or a $100,000 car loan. what matters is whether or not you pay on time, and what your balance is compared to the original loan amount. So the quicker you pay DOWN the loans or mortgages the better. Pay them down, not off! As far how the extra payments will report, one of two things will happen. Either they will report every month paid as agreed (most likely), or they wont report anything for a few years until your next payment is due(unlikely, this wont hurt you but wont help you either). Someone posted they would lower the amount you paid every month on your report and thus lower your score. This is not true. even if they reported you paid $1\/ month the scoring calculations do not care. All they care is whether or not you're on time, and in your case you would be months AHEAD of time(even though your report cant reflect this fact either) HOWEVER, if you are applying for a mortgage the lower monthly payment WOULD affect you in the sense that now you qualify for a BIGGER loan because now your debt to income ratio has improved. People will argue to just pay it off and be debt free, however being debt free does NOT help your credit. And being that you own a home and a car you see the benefits of good credit. You can have a million dollars in the bank but you will be denied a loan if you have NO or bad credit.  Nothing wrong with living on cash, I've done it for years, but good luck trying to rent a car, or getting the best insurance rates, and ANYTHING in life with poor credit. Yeah it sucks but you have to play the game. I would not pay down do $1 though because like someone else said they may just close the account. Pay it down to 10 or 20 percent and you will see the most impact on your credit and invest the rest of your cash elsewhere."""
"""With respect to insider trading, what is considered \""material information\""?""","""Some history: In the US, this is very tightly controlled and regulated. Although stock market securities insider trading is a relatively new crime around the world (20-30 year old), the United States  is exceptional for offering the longest sentences for it, although it is still far more lucrative than and carries lower sentences than something like petty larceny. The perception of illegal insider trading has changed in the US over the years, although it is based on much older fraud statutes the regulators and the courts have only really developed modern case law against insider trading in the past 20-30 years. The US relies on its vast network of registered broker-dealers to detect and report abnormal trading activity and the regulator (SEC) can quickly obtain emergency court orders from rent-a-judges (Administrative Law Judges) to freeze trader's assets to prevent them from withdrawing, or quickly enacting sanctions. So this reality helps deter trading on material inside information. So for someone that needs to get an information advantage on the market, it is [simply] necessary for them to rationalize how this information could be inferred from public sources.  Similarly there is a thin line between non-public information and public information, the \""lab experiment\"" example would be material insider information, but the fact that there will be litigation over a company's key patents may be \""public\"" as soon as the lawyer submits the complaint to the court system. It is also worth noting that there are A LOT of financial products trading in the capital markets, and illegal insider trading laws only applies to trading of shares of a company. So if a major holder in gold is about to liquidate all their holdings, being short gold futures is not subject to civil and criminal sanctions. Hope this helps. The above examples should help you understand what kind of information is material inside information and what kind is not, and how it is relevant to trading decisions."""
"""Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income?""","""It is much simpler than any of that.  People who make money have a greater capacity to pay their bills.  Credit card companies make money off of people who can afford to pay several hundred dollars a month in interest charges.  If you only make 500 a month you can not afford to pay 200 in interest.  So their cost of doing business with you is higher.  These cards are issued to make money.  And they make their money off of people paying 12-29% interest on their 5k+ credit limits they have nearly maxed."""
"""What is a good way to save money on car expenses?""","""Manage the fuel consumption price: check the pattern of fuel prices if you can for your area.  Some areas have weekly changes which are somewhat predictable and some sites will even predict the minimum price for the  next day.  Some other areas will have a discount fuel day. Switch to diesel: fuel consumption by diesel engines are much better than standard combustion engines.  Downside is not as many refueling stations. Switch to a hybrid: fuel consumption is better than comparable combustion engines alone but the downside is that the technology is new and still maturing.  Check out this site for more information."""
"""How to quickly track daily cash expenses that don't come with a receipt?""","""Go the opposite approach.  Budget a certain amount of cash and keep it combined.  Don't exceed it (but next time budget more if you need to).   If you were in the USA (where card acceptance is near universal) what I do is simply use my visa check card for all purchases and download it to my personal finance software, where you can assign categories."""
"""Does an owner of a bond etf get an income even if he sells before the day of distribution?""","""There are two 'dates' relevant to your question: Ex-Dividend and Record. To find out these dates for a specific security visit Dividend.Com. You have to purchase the security prior to the Ex-Dividend date, hold it at least until the Record Date. After the Record Date you can sell the security and still receive the dividend for that quarter.  ---- edit - - - -  I was wrong. If you sell the security after the Ex-div date but before the date of record you still get the dividend.  http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/02\/110802.asp"""
"""Is it cheaper to use car Insurance or pay out of pocket?""","""There's not a single answer here, as the premium you pay for car insurance depends on multiple factors, including (but not limited to): All these factors contribute to the likelihood of getting into an accident, and the expected damage from an accident.  So just having an accident and making a claim will likely raise your premium (all else being equal), but whether or not it will be cheaper in the long run depends (obviously) on how much your premium goes up, which cannot determined without all of the facts.  Your agent could tell you how much it would go up, but even making such an inquiry would likely be noted on your insurance record, and may cause your premium to go up (although probably not by as much). However, the point of insurance is to reduce the out-of-pocket expenses from future accidents, so the question to ask is: How likely am I to have another accident, and if I do, can I pay cash for it or will I need to offset some cost with an insurance claim.  Do you risk making a claim and having your rates go up by more than $700 over the next 3-4 years (the rough time it takes for a \""surcharge\"" to expire)?  Or do you just pay for the repair out-of-pocket and keep your premiums lower?"""
"""How do share buybacks work?""","""The short version of JB King's excellent answer is that the company will typically buy back shares from the open market at market price. Sometimes, it will specifically target larger stakeholders, even controlling interests, who are making noise that they want to divest; if such an investor were to just dump their stock on the open market, neither the investor nor the company would be very happy with the resulting price collapse. In those cases, the company may offer an incentive price above market rates. In recent times, the investor looking to divest has often been the U.S. Government, who received stock in return for bailouts, and (with notable exceptions) turned a modest profit on many of them. Not enough to break even on the entire bailout, but the Government didn't just throw $700 billion in taxpayer money down a hole as conservative pundits would have you believe. In the '80s, a specific type of buy-back was made famous, called the \""leveraged buyout\"". Basically, the company took out a huge loan against itself, and used that money to buy up all the company's publicly-traded shares, essentially becoming a private company. This became a popular tool among private equity groups, for better and worse."""
"""Correct way to amend tax return as a result of not correctly reporting gains on sale of private stock based on Installment method?""","""After much research, the answer is \""a\"": recompute the tax return using the installment sales method because (1) the escrow payment was subject to \""substantial restrictions\"" by virtue of the escrow being structured to pay buyer's indemnification claims and (2) the taxpayer did not correctly elect out of the installment method by reporting the entire gain including the escrow payments on the return in the year of the transaction."""
"""Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? ""","""If You use the car regulary, I don't think that driving on the bald tires for 3 years is a reasonable option. Have You considered buying used tires? Those will be cheaper and will last till You get to replace the car."""
"""How can I get free or discounted checks for my bank account?""","""First, if you live in\/around a reasonably populated urban area, and you're in the United States, I can't see why you would choose to bank with Chase, B of A, or another large commercial bank. I think you would be much better served by banking at a reasonably large credit union. There are many differences between banks and credit unions, but in a nutshell, credit unions are owned by the members, and operate primarily to provide benefits to their members, whereas a bank is owned by the shareholders, and operates primarily to make profits for the shareholders (not to benefit the customers). The banking industry absolutely hates the credit unions, so if you've ever been nickeled-and-dimed with this fee and that charge by your bank, I have to ask why you're still banking with a company that irritates you and\/or actively tries to screw you out of your money? I live in California, and I've banked at credit unions almost exclusively since I started working nearly 30 years ago. Every time I've strayed and started banking at a for-profit bank, I've regretted it. For example, a few years ago I opened a checking account at a now-defunct bank (WaMu) just for online use: eBay and so forth. It was a free checking account. When Chase bought WaMu, the account became a Chase account, and it seemed that every other statement brought new fees, new restrictions, and so forth. I finally closed it when they imposed some stupid fee for not carrying enough of a balance. I found out by logging in to their Web site and seeing a balance of zero dollars; they had imposed the fee a few statements back, and I had missed it, so they kept debiting my account until it was empty. At this point, I do about 90% of my banking at a fairly large credit union. I have a mortgage with a big bank, but that was out of my hands, as the lender\/originator sold the mortgage and I had no say in the matter. My credit union has a highly functional Web site, permits me to download my account activity to Quicken, and even has mobile apps which allow me to deposit a check by taking a picture of it, or check my account activity, etc. They (my credit union) are part of a network of other credit unions, so as long as I am using a network ATM, I never pay a fee. In sum, I can't see any reason to go with a bank. Regarding checks, I write a small number of checks per year, but I recently needed to reorder them. My credit union refers members directly to Harland-Clarke, a major-league player in the check printing business. Four boxes of security checks was around $130 plus shipping, which is not small money. However, I was able to order the very same checks via Costco for less than half that amount. Costco refers members to a check printing service, which is a front\/subsidiary of Harland-Clarke, and using a promo code, plus the discount given for my Costco membership, I got four boxes of security checks shipped to me for less than $54. My advice would be to look around. If you're a Costco member, use their check printing service. Wal*mart offers a similar service to anyone, as does Sam's Club, and you can search around to find other similar services. Bottom line, if you order your checks via your bank or credit union, chances are you will pay full retail. Shop around, and save a bit. I've not opened a new account at a credit union in some time, but I would not be surprised if a credit union offered a free box of checks when you open a new account with them."""
"""Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?""","""Don't forget to also build up an emergency fund - retirement saving is important, but you don't want to be caught in a situation where you need money for an emergency (lose your job, get hit by a bus, etc.) and it's all locked away in your 401(k)."""
"""Why is \""cheque cashing\"" a legitimate business?""","""This answer is based on my understanding of the US banking system.  We have check cashing businesses here too, which are just like what you describe, except for the spelling :-) Let's consider what \""cash it for free at the bank\"" really means, and why it might not be an option for everyone.  One key issue is \""which bank?\"" As an example, suppose that I have an account at ABC Bank.  I take out my checkbook for that account and write you a check for $500.  (Terminology: In this case, I am the drawer or maker of the check, ABC Bank is the drawee bank, and you, user54609, are the payee.  Disclaimer: \""You\"" here is meant as a generic pronoun and I do not mean to insinuate that anything here actually applies to you personally.) There are two common things you might do with the check: If you have an account at some bank, say XYZ Bank, you might take the check to XYZ Bank and deposit it in your account.  (You might be able to do this through an ATM, mobile app, or by mail, instead of in person.)  XYZ Bank does not have a way to verify with certainty that the check is valid (e.g. they don't know what my signature looks like, nor whether I actually have $500 in my account at ABC), so they send it to ABC Bank, which verifies the check and transfers $500 to XYZ.  (This is usually done through a central clearinghouse, such as the Federal Reserve in the US, and in some cases an image of the check may be sent electronically, instead of the physical check.)  This process takes some time, so XYZ may not make the $500 available to you right away - there may be a hold period before you can withdraw that $500 from your account. You could take the check to ABC Bank, in person.  They will verify on the spot that the check is valid and that you are in fact user54609.  If everything looks good, they will hand you $500 in cash (perhaps subtracting a fee of a few dollars). Now we can see some possible problems with each of these approaches. For 1: Maybe you don't have a bank account at all.  There are many possible reasons: You don't have enough money to meet the minimum balance that a bank account would require. You used to have an account, but you overdrew or otherwise misused an account, so the bank closed it.  They then entered you in a registry such as ChexSystems which ensures that other banks know about this, and so no other bank will open a new account for you. You immigrated to the country illegally and cannot get the documents (driver's license, social security number, etc) that a bank normally requires to open an account. You simply don't like the idea of keeping your money in a bank. Maybe you do have an account at XYZ Bank, but it's in another town.  You need the cash today, so you can't use mail or a mobile app, and third-party ATMs usually don't accept deposits. Maybe you need to spend the money today, and XYZ Bank would place a hold. For 2: ABC Bank may not have a branch you can conveniently visit.  Maybe the nearest one is a long way away, in another city or across the country.  Or maybe ABC is an online bank with no physical branches at all.  Maybe it's in the same city, but you don't have transportation to get you there.  Or maybe it's simply less convenient than the check-cashing business on the corner. Maybe it is after usual banking hours, or a weekend, and ABC Bank is closed, but you need cash now. In any of these situations, \""cash it at the bank\"" might not be a viable option, and so you might reasonably turn to a check cashing business instead.  As you say, you will pay a much higher fee there, but maybe it is worth it to you, or you just don't have any choice. Another possibility, of course, is that you are poorly educated about the banking system, and you don't really understand that 1 and 2 are options, or how to go about them.  But there's this storefront on the corner that says \""Check Cashing\"", so this seems like a low-stress, uncomplicated way to exchange this piece of paper for money.   As such, there certainly are people who legitimately might want to cash a valid check at a check-cashing business.   Check cashing business do of course take some risk of fraud, since they can't necessarily verify the check.  There are sometimes steps they can take to minimize this risk.  Sometimes they can call ABC Bank and check that I have sufficient money in my account.  Maybe they'll only accept certain kinds of checks, such as payroll checks from well-known companies for which you can produce a matching pay stub.  And they can demand identification from you (perhaps allowing more flexible options than a bank), which helps ensure that you are the payee, and would make you easier to track down if you did commit fraud.   But they will probably lose some money this way, so they will have to make their fees high enough to cover those losses."""
"""Downside to temporarily lowering interest rates?""","""This bit of marketing, like the zero-percent introductory rates some banks offer, is intended to make you more willing to carry a balance, and they're hoping you'll continue that bad habit after the rate goes back up. If you don't think you'll be tempted by the lower rate, yhere's no reason not to accept (unless there's something in the fine print that changes your agreement in other ways; read carefully). But as you say, there's no reason to accept ir either. I'd ignore it."""
"""Help required on estimating SSA benefit amounts""","""The social security administration has a webpage to get your Social Security estimate. It replaces the yearly estimate they used to mail everybody. It shows the amount you paid for social security and medicare and what they estimate you will receive at your retirement age. They also discuss disability benefits. Everybody should do this every year. Though it does take a few months to get the previous years numbers updated into the system. If you notice a problem with the money they think you paid into the system in a particular year, you can send them an old W-2 and get the numbers corrected."""
"""Dispute credit card transaction with merchant or credit card company?""","""You should dispute the transaction with the credit card. Describe the story and attach the cash payment receipt, and dispute it as a duplicate charge. There will be no impact on your score, but if you don't have the cash receipt or any other proof of the alternative payment - it's your word against the merchant, and he has proof that you actually used your card there. So worst case - you just paid twice. If you dispute the charge and it is accepted - the merchant will pay a penalty. If it is not accepted - you may pay the penalty (on top of the original charge, depending on your credit card issuer - some charge for \""frivolous\"" charge backs). It will take several more years for either the European merchants to learn how to deal with the US half-baked chip cards, or the American banks to start issue proper chip-and-PIN card as everywhere else. Either way, until then - if the merchant doesn't know how to handle signatures with the American credit cards - just don't use them. Pay cash. Given the controversy in the comments - my intention was not to say \""no, don't talk to the merchant\"". From the description of the situation it didn't strike me as the merchant would even bother to consider the situation. A less than honest merchant knows that you have no leverage, and since you're a tourist and will probably not be returning there anyway - what's the worst you can do to them? A bad yelp review? You can definitely get in touch with the merchant and ask for a refund, but I would not expect much to come out from that."""
"""My employer doesn't provide an electronic pay stub and I need one to get a car loan""","""You have a few options and sometimes challenges help us improve our situation. First, you can not borrow to buy a car.  Reducing the massive depreciation that cars undergo will help you be wealthier.  It is hard to find a good use car that you can buy for cash, but it will play out best for your finances in the long run. If your heart is set on borrowing, I would encourage you to go to the bank\/credit union where you have your checking account.  They will see your history of deposits and may grant you a loan based on that.  Also you are likely to get a better deal from the bank than from the car dealer. Thirdly, you can simply go to your employer's HR department and ask them.  Surely someone has applied for a loan during the company's history.  What did they do for them?"""
"""Are there any banks with a command-line style user interface?""","""I think I get your question, but your wording is throwing a lot of us off. If what you want is a clean, effective and efficient interface over port 80, then USAA.com has done some great usability work. Additionally, they have really done some pioneering work with web services and mobile applications. On top of that, they have excellent document archiving. I can navigate their site more quickly than any of the other I've used."""
"""Investing in the stock market during periods of high inflation""","""The relation between inflation and stock (or economic) performance is not well-understood.  Decades ago, economists thought inflation corresponded with periods of high growth and good real returns, but since then we have had periods of low inflation and high growth and high inflation with low growth.  It is generally understood among current economists that inflation levels (especially expected inflation) are neither indicative nor causative of real stock returns. Many things can affect inflation, and economic performance is only a minor one.  Many things can cause economic performance, and inflation is only a minor one.  It's not clear whether the overall relation between inflation and real stock returns is positive or negative. Notice, however, that in principle stock returns are real.  That is, the money companies make is in inflated dollars so profit and dividends for a company whose prospects have not changed should go up and down at the same rate as inflation. This would mean if inflation goes up by 5% and nothing else changes, you would expect stock prices to go up by the same proportion so you wouldn't have strong feelings about inflation one way or the other.  In real life stock prices will go up by either more or less than 5% but I'm not comfortable saying which, on average. Bottom line: current levels of inflation can't really be used to predict real stock returns, so you shouldn't let current inflation guide your decision about whether to buy stock."""
"""Long term drip (dividend reinvestment plan) stock""","""There are ETFs and mutual funds that pay dividends. Mutual funds and ETFs are quite similar. Your advisor is correct regarding future funds you invest. But you already had incurred the risk of buying an individual stock. That is a 'sunk cost'. If you were satisfied with the returns you could have retained the HD stock you already owned and just put future moneys into an ETF or mutual fund.  BTW: does your advisor receive a commission from your purchase of a mutual fund? That may have been his motivation to give you the advice to sell your existing holdings."""
"""Are in-kind donations from my S-Corp tax-deductible in any way?""","""You should probably have a tax professional help you with that (generally advisable when doing corporation returns, even if its a small S corp with a single shareholder). Some of it may be deductible, depending on the tax-exemption status of the recipients. Some may be deductible as business expenses. To address Chris's comment: Generally you can deduct as a business on your 1120S anything that is necessary and ordinary for your business. Charitable deductions flow through to your personal 1040, so Colin's reference to pub 526 is the right place to look at (if it was a C-corp, it might be different).  Advertisement costs is a necessary and ordinary expense for any business, but you need to look at the essence of the transaction. Did you expect the sponsorship to provide you any new clients? Did you anticipate additional exposure to the potential customers? Was the investment (80 hours of your work) similar to the costs of paid advertisement for the same audience? If so - it is probably a business expense. While you can't deduct the time on its own, you can deduct the salary you paid yourself for working on this, materials, attributed depreciation, etc. If you can't justify it as advertisement, then its a donation, and then you cannot deduct it (because you did receive something in return). It might not be allowed as a business expense, and you might be required to consider it as \""personal use\"", i.e.: salary."""
"""If you want to trade an equity that reflects changes in VIX, what is a good proxy for it?""","""VXX VZX XVIZ and there are plenty others correlated to market volatility if you want the wildest hedge, use VXX, it is also the most liquid"""
"""How long can a company keep the money raised from IPO of its stocks?""","""You realize that most of the money raised through the IPO process doesn't go into the company's bank account? Those shares were shares that were held by the investors and original owners and it's those prior pre-IPO shareholders that got their money back along with a tidy profit.  The cash on its books was there before the IPO, and after. The IPO process was more about a change in stock owners ship than anything else.   Edit - as the SEC disclosure mentioned in comments below states, the Facebook IPO raised $6.7B for facebook's use, the rest of the transaction was from the investors selling their shares. Mark Zuckerberg still owns more than 55% of shares outstanding. The $6.7B is still about 10% of the company value. Nothing to ignore, but clearly, 'most' of the money from the IPO didn't go to the company."""
"""Why do financial institutions charge so much to convert currency?""","""All institutions, financial or otherwise, seek to maximize profits. In a free market, each bank would price its services to be competitive with the current state of the market. Since the currency conversion fee is generally a small part of the decision as to which bank to choose, banks can be non-competitive in this area. If this is an important consideration for you then you would need to find a bank with a lower conversion fee, but be prepared to have higher fees in other areas. TL;DR: The market bears it."""
"""$700 guaranteed to not be touched for 15 years+, should I put it anywhere other than a savings account?""","""Well, I understand this forum is about money but I think you would be far better off if you invest the money in your daughters education or something similar that can bring much more significant future gains. I am a big fan of compound interest and investing in stocks but $700 sitting until she's 21 wont grow into a significant amount. When she's 21, what would you \""hope\"" she'd spend the money on? something valuable like education right? so why don't you take the first step now so she will get a much bigger return than the monitory value. If I were you I'd invest in a home library or something similar."""
"""Some questions about investing [duplicate]""","""What is the best form of investment? It only depends on your goals... The perfect amount of money depends also on your particular situation. The first thing you should start getting familiar with is the notion of portfolio and diversification. Managing risk is also fundamental especially with the current market funkiness... Start looking at index based ETFs -Exchange Traded Funds- and Balanced Mutual Funds to begin with. Many discounted online brokerage companies in the USA offer good training and knowledge centers. Some of them will also let you practice with a demo account that let you invest virtual money to make you feel comfortable with the interface and also with investing in general."""
"""Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money?""","""I think you are mixing two different concepts here. The average investor, in the quoted reference, means an average single investor like you or like me. the average investor consistently under-performs the market. However, you then ask the question and you seem to refer to all investors as a group; individuals, institutions, investment banks, et al. since together, investors own 100% of the stock in every company? Every investor could match the performance of the market easily and at low fees by simply buying an S&P index fund and holding it. In fact, some investors can even beat the market with the addition of some stocks. Here is the ten-year chart of Berkshire-Hathaway B compared to the S&P 500.   There are other examples. However, few of us have the discipline to do so. We read questions here every week about the coming turbulence in the market, about the next big trend, about the next bubble, etc. The average investor thinks he is smarter than the market and buys on a whim or sells likewise and misses out on the long, slow overall growth in the markets. Finally, the title of your question is \""Dalbar: How can the average investor lose money?\"" I doubt that the average investor loses money in the past several years. Not making as much money as is easily possible is not at all the same as losing money."""
"""What happens to options if a company is acquired \/ bought out?""","""When the buyout happens, the $30 strike is worth $10, as it's in the money, you get $10 ($1000 per contract). Yes, the $40 strike is pretty worthless, it actually dropped in value today. Some deals are worded as an offer or intention, so a new offer can come in. This appears to be a done deal. From Chapter 8 of CHARACTERISTICS AND RISKS OF STANDARDIZED OPTIONS - FEB 1994 with supplemental updates 1997 through 2012; \""In certain unusual circumstances, it might not be possible for uncovered call writers of physical delivery stock and stock index options to obtain the underlying equity securities in order to meet their settlement obligations following exercise. This could happen, for example, in the event of a successful tender offer for all or substantially all of the outstanding shares of an underlying security or if trading in an underlying security were enjoined or suspended. In situations of that type, OCC may impose special exercise settlement procedures. These special procedures, applicable only to calls and only when an assigned writer is unable to obtain the underlying security, may involve the suspension of the settlement obligations of the holder and writer and\/or the fixing of cash settlement prices in lieu of delivery of the underlying security. In such circumstances, OCC might also prohibit the exercise of puts by holders who would be unable to deliver the underlying security on the exercise settlement date. When special exercise settlement procedures are imposed, OCC will announce to its Clearing Members how settlements are to be handled. Investors may obtain that information from their brokerage firms.\"" I believe this confirms my observation. Happy to discuss if a reader feels otherwise."""
"""Are Certificates of Deposit worth it compared to investing in the stock market?""","""For the specific example you gave, a CD with a 0.05% rate of return, I'd shop around some more, that's a VERY low rate of return. A more realistic one would be 0.5%, depending on the terms. As has been mentioned, CDs are good when you need to preserve your capital. What might be a situation for that? They are great for Emergency funds, which you should always have a reasonable amount of cash in. I have a set up 3 CDs with 12 month terms, each carrying about 30% of my emergency savings. The remaining 10% I keep in a standard savings account, for quick access dealing with a short term emergency. The 3 are spaced about 4 months apart, so that I'm always within 4 months of having one come to term. They have a 3 month penalty if I withdraw early, but based on the fact that I have never had to touch more than 10% of my emergency savings, I'm perfectly okay with that. What about more long term savings? Well, it depends on what your timeframe is for using the money. If it's more than 10 years, and you are willing to risk losing some of it, then by all means invest in a higher risk higher reward investment. If it's only a few years, maybe a bond fund is something that would be better. And if you really need to preserve the money, then a CD can be great too."""
"""How can I pay for school to finish my degree when I can't get a student loan and have bad credit?""","""When considering such a major life decision, with such high potential costs and high potential rewards, I encourage you to consider multiple different potential options. Even if loans were available, they might not be the best option. Less debt and an engineering degree is better than more debt and an engineering degree, both of which are likely better than your current debt and no engineering degree. I encourage you to consider: revisit your aid (which is not just loans), cut expenses, consider alternative aid sources, use your engineering student status to get a better paying job (including more profitable summer employment), check for methods to cut down the cost of your degree, and double-check your plans to make sure you have a long-term plan that makes sense.  The first issue, raised in the comments, is whether or not you are getting appropriate financial aid. This does not just mean loans, it includes grants and other forms of assistance.  You should be getting in-state tuition, and by searching the tuition of UNC I believe you are. But for future readers, you should make sure you are getting in-state rates, and it not there are options to return to a state where you would get in-state tuition rates, or look into the possibility of pausing your study for one year until you meet in-state funding requirements. You should also ensure your FAFSA information is correct, including your income, family situation (whether or not you are an independent study, as it sounds like you probably are), etc. This effects how many grants you get, and if you are independent this changes maximum federal loan amounts (see website for details).  While you don't say what your pay is, the fact that you are working two jobs and having trouble making ends-meet suggests either that you have a spending issue, or that your jobs pay sucks, and possibly both. I've been in both situations, and there are methods for dealing with both. If your spending is not very carefully controlled, that's a big issue. I won't try to rehash all the personal finance advice about this, but I will just warn that when you are desperate and you know there isn't enough money even if you spend perfectly, there is a strong tendency to just give up and not even try because what's the point? Learned helplessness is hell, but it can be overcome with effort and tightly holding on to any glimmer of hope you find to do better each day. If you are in a field like engineering or computing (and some other fields, though I am less personally familiar with the current employment climate in those), there are usually companies who want to hire you as a paid intern or part-time employee in the hopes of getting you when you graduate. Those last two semesters of undergrad are a technicality to employers, they know it doesn't really change your skill set much. Many companies are actually more interesting in hiring someone on who hasn't finished the degree yet than getting someone recently post-degree, because they can get you cheaper and learn if this is a good match before they have to take the big risk of full-time hiring. You need to use this system to your advantage. Its hard when you feel destitute, but talk with career councilors in your school, your department advisor, and\/or main administrative staff in your main academic department. Make sure you are on the right mailing lists to see the job offers (many schools require you to subscribe to one because at a school like UNC it easily gets way too much traffic each day). You need field-relevant experience, not just to finish the degree, but to be able to really open up your job opportunities and earning potential. Do not be shy about directly calling\/emailing a contact who reaches out to your school looking for \""recent graduates\"", and especially any mention of flexibility on early start for those who are almost finished. You can say you are in your final year (you are), and even ask if they are open to working around a light school schedule while you finish up. Most can end up to be \""no\"", but it doesn't matter - the recruiting contacts want to hire people, so just reaching out early means you can follow up later once you get your degree and finances sorted out and you will have an even easier time getting that opportunity. In technology and engineering, the importance of summer internships cannot be understated, especially as you are now technically at the end of your degree. In engineering and tech fields, internships pay - often very well. Don't worry about it being the job of your dreams. Depending on your set of skills, apply to insurance companies, IT departments in hospitals and banks (even if you thought your coding skills in engineering were minimal), and of course any paying position that might be more directly in your field of interest. Consider ones outside your immediate area or even the more national internships from the bigger name companies, where possible. It is not at all uncommon for tech and engineering internships for undergraduate students to pay $15-$25+ per hour, even where most non-degree jobs might only pay $8 (and I've seen as high as $40 per hour+ in the high cost of living markets, depending on your skill set). I know many people who were paid more as a student intern than they were previously paid as a full-time professional employee. Many schools - including UNC - charge different tuition for distance learning and satellite campuses, and often also offer University-approved online classes. While this is not always a possibility for every student, you should consider the options. It could be that one of the final classes you need towards your degree can be taken at one of these other options, with reduced tuition. This is not always possible with all courses, but is certainly true if you have any of those general education requirements to knock out. Also consider if any of those final requirements have test-out options, such as CLEP test alternatives. Again, not always available, but sometimes you can get class credit for a general education class for   Finally, make sure you aren't paying unnecessarily for text books, once you do get the money for tuition. You can sometimes get hand-me-down copies, rent ebooks or physical books from online companies, creative searches for PDF copies, get your book from off-campus local stores, etc. It isn't tuition, but money is money. Attend Part-Time While Working Look into the option of being a half-time student, which is usually 6-8 credit hours, if you can't afford full-time tuition. There is generally a greatly reduced rate, you still qualify for aid programs, and you are still working towards the degree - so you still get access to student resources like internships and job listings that may not be publicly posted. Inquire About Scholarships and School Emergency Assistance While this varies hugely by institution, make sure you check into scholarships you can apply to (even if they are just a few hundred bucks, it helps a lot) in your school (I don't believe the big online searches help, ask the school - but YMMV). Also inquire about any sort of possible help the school provides to students who've had life emergencies, such as your medical issues. Many have programs that are not advertised, designed to help students finish their degree and recover from personal hard times. It's worth the inquiry if you are willing to ask. Any little bit of assistance can help. Don't be afraid to talk with an institution's mental health councilors either, who can help you deal with the psychological difficulty of your situation as well as often being able to connect you to other potential support resources. The pressure can take its tole, and you'll have better long-term opportunities if you build up your support network and options. Student Loan Forbearance While In School If you are trying to save up every last dollar for tuition to finish the degree, but you have to pay loans now, call up the provider to ask about temporary delays on your student loan payments. Many have time-limited hardship allowances, and between the medical bills, low income, and returning to school, they may be willing to give you a few months break until you get back to school and the in-school provisions kick in. Skip a Semester If Necessary To Save Money If you can only raise enough for one semester, then need to skip a semester to build up more funds, that happens, it's OK. Be strategic, and check on loan forbearance. Usually being out for one semester is allowed by student loan companies before you owe them payment, and if you re-enroll you don't have to start making payments yet. Double-check on Credit Expiration and Degree Requirements Make sure you talk to someone who knows what they are talking about, especially in terms of credit expiration. Policies vary, and sometimes an advisor is able to put in a special request to waive you through some of these issues. Academia is heavily, heavily reliant on developing a good relationship and clear communication with an advisor who is willing to work with you to achieve your goals. Written policies are sometimes very firm, and sometimes all you have to do is ask the right person and poof, suddenly the rules change.  It's a weird system, but don't be afraid to explain your situation and ask what can be done. Don't assume a written policy is 100% ironclad - sometimes it is, but it often isn't. Inquire About Other Government and Community-based Assistance Being destitute is awful, and having to ask for help can feel terrible in it's own way, but doing what you have to do to have a better future can mean pushing through and being willing to ask for help. This can mean asking parents and close family if they can contribute to help you finish your degree, but this also means checking with your local community programs to see if you qualify for anything. Many communities have food pantries and related programs that will help you even if you don't qualify for something like SNAP (aka food stamps), because they know times can get hard for anyone and they want you to spend what little money you have on building a better life. Your university may even run a food pantry for students in need - use it. Get what assistance you can, minimize spending in any way you can manage, put all the money towards doing what you need to do to get to a better place. It's even nicely reciprocal - once you work through your hard times and get things on track, you can return the favor and help give back to programs like the ones that helped you. Make Sure Your Long-Term Goal Makes Sense Finally, this is all predicated on pulling out all the stops to finish your degree. But this assumes that this is a good plan. Not all degrees are helpful for all people in all areas of the country. Do your own research to make sure you aren't throwing good money after bad, and are pursuing a goal that will make sense for you and what you want.  The cost of a degree keeps going up, but it remains true that many sets of skills and degree-holding candidates are in demand and can command high salaries that blow away the cost of college in comparison. If you actually have a good chance of going from struggling to make $8\/hour to making $50k-90k a year, based on your developed skills, experience, and professional network, then reasonable student loan debt is a worthy investment. If, on the other hand, you wrack up tens of thousands of more dollars in debt just to say you did and still have to work the same kinds of jobs, that's not really much of an investment at all.  Good luck on your journey, and best wishes towards better days - regardless of what path you choose.  Finally, make sure you aren't paying unnecessarily for text books, once you do get the money for tuition. You can sometimes get hand-me-down copies, rent ebooks or physical books from online companies, creative searches for PDF copies, get your book from off-campus local stores, etc. It isn't tuition, but money is money. Look into the option of being a half-time student, which is usually 6-8 credit hours, if you can't afford full-time tuition. There is generally a greatly reduced rate, you still qualify for aid programs, and you are still working towards the degree - so you still get access to student resources like internships and job listings that may not be publicly posted. While this varies hugely by institution, make sure you check into scholarships you can apply to (even if they are just a few hundred bucks, it helps a lot) in your school (I don't believe the big online searches help, ask the school - but YMMV). Also inquire about any sort of possible help the school provides to students who've had life emergencies, such as your medical issues. Many have programs that are not advertised, designed to help students finish their degree and recover from personal hard times. It's worth the inquiry if you are willing to ask. Any little bit of assistance can help. Don't be afraid to talk with an institution's mental health councilors either, who can help you deal with the psychological difficulty of your situation as well as often being able to connect you to other potential support resources. The pressure can take its tole, and you'll have better long-term opportunities if you build up your support network and options. If you are trying to save up every last dollar for tuition to finish the degree, but you have to pay loans now, call up the provider to ask about temporary delays on your student loan payments. Many have time-limited hardship allowances, and between the medical bills, low income, and returning to school, they may be willing to give you a few months break until you get back to school and the in-school provisions kick in. If you can only raise enough for one semester, then need to skip a semester to build up more funds, that happens, it's OK. Be strategic, and check on loan forbearance. Usually being out for one semester is allowed by student loan companies before you owe them payment, and if you re-enroll you don't have to start making payments yet. Make sure you talk to someone who knows what they are talking about, especially in terms of credit expiration. Policies vary, and sometimes an advisor is able to put in a special request to waive you through some of these issues. Academia is heavily, heavily reliant on developing a good relationship and clear communication with an advisor who is willing to work with you to achieve your goals. Written policies are sometimes very firm, and sometimes all you have to do is ask the right person and poof, suddenly the rules change.  It's a weird system, but don't be afraid to explain your situation and ask what can be done. Don't assume a written policy is 100% ironclad - sometimes it is, but it often isn't. Being destitute is awful, and having to ask for help can feel terrible in it's own way, but doing what you have to do to have a better future can mean pushing through and being willing to ask for help. This can mean asking parents and close family if they can contribute to help you finish your degree, but this also means checking with your local community programs to see if you qualify for anything. Many communities have food pantries and related programs that will help you even if you don't qualify for something like SNAP (aka food stamps), because they know times can get hard for anyone and they want you to spend what little money you have on building a better life. Your university may even run a food pantry for students in need - use it. Get what assistance you can, minimize spending in any way you can manage, put all the money towards doing what you need to do to get to a better place. It's even nicely reciprocal - once you work through your hard times and get things on track, you can return the favor and help give back to programs like the ones that helped you. Finally, this is all predicated on pulling out all the stops to finish your degree. But this assumes that this is a good plan. Not all degrees are helpful for all people in all areas of the country. Do your own research to make sure you aren't throwing good money after bad, and are pursuing a goal that will make sense for you and what you want.  The cost of a degree keeps going up, but it remains true that many sets of skills and degree-holding candidates are in demand and can command high salaries that blow away the cost of college in comparison. If you actually have a good chance of going from struggling to make $8\/hour to making $50k-90k a year, based on your developed skills, experience, and professional network, then reasonable student loan debt is a worthy investment. If, on the other hand, you wrack up tens of thousands of more dollars in debt just to say you did and still have to work the same kinds of jobs, that's not really much of an investment at all. Good luck on your journey, and best wishes towards better days - regardless of what path you choose."""
"""What does a reorganization fee that a company charges get applied to?""","""Its a broker fee, not something charged by the reorganizing company. E*Trade charge $20, TD Ameritrade charge $38. As with any other bank fee - shop around. If you know the company is going to do a split, and this fee is of a significant amount for you - move your account to a different broker. It may be that some portion of the fee is shared by the broker with the shares managing services provider of the reorgonizing company, don't know for sure. But you're charged by your broker. Note that the fees differ for voluntary and involuntary reorganizations, and also by your stand with the broker - some don't charge their \""premier\"" customers."""
"""Why is early exercise generally not recommended for an in-the-money option?""","""The crucial insight is that the alternative to early exercise of an American call is not necessarily to hold it to expiry, but to sell it. And selling it, at its value, is always better than exercising it.  Note that this holds only for options on assets that don't pay dividends. Here's the proof, using Put-Call-Parity. We know that at expiry T, we have (using a Call and a Put both struck at K): C(T) - P(T) = S(T) - K (if this is not clear to you, consider the case where S is less than, equal to, or greater than K at maturity, and go through each of them.) If the stock S doesn't pay any dividends (and there is no cost of carry etc.), we can replicate both sides now at time 0; we just buy one call, sell one put (that gives us the left hand side), buy the stock, and borrow money so that at time T we have to repay K (that gives us the right hand side). That means that now, we only need to borrow df * K, where df is the discount factor, and is less than one (assuming the good old pre-2009 world where interest rates are positive). Thus: C(0) - P(0) = S(0) - df * K.  Rearranging gives: C(0) = S(0) - df * K + P(0).  That's the value of the call, if we sell it (or hold it). However, if we exercise, we only get: C_ex = S(0) - K Now, we see that C(0) > C_ex, because we subtract less (df*K < K), and add P(0)."""
"""Is there a good options strategy that has a fairly low risk?""","""There isn't really a generic options strategy that gives you higher returns with lower risk than an equivalent non-options strategy. There are lots of options strategies that give you about the same returns with the same risk, but most of the time they are a lot more work and less tax-efficient than the non-options strategy. When I say \""generic\"" I mean there may be strategies that rely on special situations (analysis of market inefficiencies or fundamentals on particular securities) that you could take advantage of, but you'd have to be extremely expert and spend a lot of time. A \""generic\"" strategy would be a thing like \""write such-and-such sort of spreads\"" without reference to the particular security or situation. As far as strategies that give you about the same risk\/return, for example you can use options collars to create about the same effect as a balanced fund (Gateway Fund does this, Bridgeway Balanced does stuff like it I think); but you could also just use a balanced fund. You can use covered calls to make income on your stocks, but you of course lose some of the stock upside. You can use protective puts to protect downside, but they cost so much money that on average you lose money or make very little. You can invest cash plus a call option, which is equivalent to stock plus a protective put, i.e on average again you don't make much money. Options don't offer any free lunches not found elsewhere. Occasionally they are useful for tax reasons (for example to avoid selling something but avoid risk) or for technical reasons (for example a stock isn't available to short, but you can do something with options)."""
"""How does 1099 work with my own company""","""Can I work on 1099 from my own company instead of on W2? The reason is   on W2 I can't deduct my commute, Health Insurance and some other   expenses while on 1099 I think I can able do that. Since I am going to   client place to work not at my own office, I am not sure whether I   should able to do that or not. If you have LLC, unless you elected to tax it as a corporation, you need neither 1099 nor W2. For tax purposes the LLC is disregarded. So it is, from tax perspective, a sole proprietorship (or partnership, if multiple members). Being a W2 employee of your own LLC is a bad idea. For all these above expenses, which can I use company's debit\/credit   card or I need to use only my personal debit\/credit card? It would be better to always use a business account for business purposes. Doesn't matter much for tax per se, but will make your life easier in case of an audit or a legal dispute (limited liability protection may depend on it). If I work on 1099, I guess I need to file some reasonable taxes on   quarterly basis instead of filing at year end. If so, how do I pay my   tax on quarterly basis to IRS? I mean which forms should I file and   how to pay tax? Unless you're a W2 employee, you need to do quarterly estimate payments using form 1040-ES. If you are a W2 employee (even for a different job, and even if it is not you, but your spouse with whom you're filing jointly) - you can adjust your\/spouse's withholding using form W4 to cover the additional tax liability. This is, IMHO, a better way than paying estimates. There are numerous questions on this, search the site or ask another one for details."""
"""Why do requirements after a margin call vary?""","""I believe the reasons:"""
"""Approximation of equity value for company in default ""","""Generally \""default\"" means that the company cannot pay off their debts, and since debt holders get paid before equity holders, their equity would be effectively worthless. That said, companies can emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) and retain equity value, but it is rare. Most times, stocks are de-listed or frozen on stock exchanges, and company's reorganization plan will cancel all existing equity shares, instead focusing all of their attention on paying back as much debt as possible. If the company issues new equity after reorganizing, it might provide a way for holders of the original equity to exchange their shares for the new equity, but it is rare, and the value is usually significantly less that the value of the original equity."""
"""For young (lower-mid class) investors what percentage should be in individual stocks?""","""I would not advise any stock-picking or other active management (even using mutual funds that are actively managed).  There is a large body of knowledge that needs learning before you even attempt that. Stay passive with index funds (either ETFs or (even better) low-cost passive mutual funds (because these prevent you from buying\/selling). But I have not problem saying you can invest 100% in equity as long as your stomach can handle the price swings.  If you freek out after a 25% drop that does not recover within a year, so you sell at the market bottom, then you are better off staying with a lot less risk.  It is personal. There are a lot of valid reasons for young people to accept more risk - and equally valid reason why not.  See list at http:\/\/www.retailinvestor.org\/saving.html#norisk"""
"""Should I buy ~$2200 of a hot stock or invest elsewhere?""","""Can you afford to lose the $2200? If not, the answer is don't buy the stock. No one can tell you if a stock will continue to go up. But the general rule is that the more hype there is on a stock, the more likely it is that it's reached a top and is due for a downward correction soon. Also note that the more expectation there is for a company, the more negatively the market will react if the company's earnings report comes in even slightly below expectation, or if the company hints at a slowdown in the future. If that buyback doesn't happen you mentioned, expect the stock to drop a lot. Only a really positive surprise news announcement will make it continue to rise on earnings day. If you really want to buy this stock, my advice would be to learn about chart patterns and other basic technical analysis to have at least some idea of whether the stock is due for a correction soon. (If you see it grow in a hockey-stick shape upward, it probably is.)"""
"""Connection between gambling and trading on stock\/options\/Forex markets""","""For stocks, I would not see these as profiting at the expense of another individual.  When you purchase\/trade stocks, you are exchanging items of equal market value at the time of the trade. Both parties are getting a fair exchange when the transaction happens. If you buy a house, the seller has not profited at your expense. You have exchanged goods at market prices. If your house plummets in value and you lose $100k, it is not the sellers fault that you made the decision to purchase. The price was fair when you exchanged the goods. Future prices are speculative, so both parties must perform due diligence to make sure the exchange aligns with their interests.  Obviously, this is barring any sort of dishonesty or insider information on the part of either buyer or seller."""
"""Video recommendation for stock market education""","""In general I would recommend to stay away from any video from a successful trader, at least those that claim to share their secrets. If they were that successful, why would they want company?  What they have most likely discovered is that they can make more money through videos and seminars than they can through trading. While not a video, GetSmarterAboutMoney has a good basic section on Stock markets without being purely Canada centric (as I see from your profile you are in NY). I know that also in our city, there are continuing education courses that often go over the basics like this, if you have a college nearby they might have something. Cheapest of all would be to hit your local library.  The fundamentals don't change that quickly that you need the latest and greatest - those are much more likely to be get-poor-quick schemes. Good Luck"""
"""Why and why would\/wouldn't a company split their stock?""","""A reason not to split your stock is that the value of the company might fall back again, and if its stock price falls below $1 it will be delisted from the NYSE. So if the value of your company grows tenfold so the shares go from $5 to $50, you do a ten-for-one split, and then its value shrinks back to where it started, you're off the stock exchange."""
"""Why don't share prices of a company rise every other Friday when the company buys shares for its own employees?""","""Let's take an example: IBM has about 430,000 employees worldwide.  Assume the average yearly salary is $80K (it's probably less, since a lot of jobs are offshore).  If every employee took 10% of their pay as stock, that's $132 million every two weeks.  But IBM's market capitalization is about $153 billion, so stock purchases would be less than 0.1% of that."""
"""Determining current value for real estate for inheritance purposes""","""how is this new value determined? According to Publication 551: Inherited Property The basis of property inherited from a decedent is generally one of   the following. The FMV of the property at the date of the individual's death. The FMV on the alternate valuation date if the personal representative for the estate chooses to use alternate valuation. For   information on the alternate valuation date, see the Instructions for   Form 706. The value under the special-use valuation method for real property used in farming or a closely held business if chosen for estate tax   purposes. This method is discussed later. FMV is Fair Market Value - which is the price that a willing buyer would pay for the property with reasonable knowledge of all the facts of the property.  The rest generally apply to farmland or other special-purpose land where the amount of income it generates is not properly reflected in the market value. One or more real estate professionals will run \""comps\"" that show you recent sales in the same area for similar houses to get a rough estimate of fair market value.   Does it go off of the tax appraised value? Tax assessment may or may not be accurate depending on tax laws (e.g. limits to tax increases) and consistency with the actual market. Should you, prior to your death, get an independent appraiser to appraise the value of the property and include that assessment of the properties value with the will or something? That should not be necessary - another appraisal will likely be done as part of the estate process after death. One reason you might do one is if you are distributing different assets to different heirs, and you want to make sure that the estate is divided equitably."""
"""Consolidate my debt? Higher APR, but what does that actually mean?""","""Your question indicates you really don't have a good grasp on personal finance.  you might want to read a book or two.  I'd recommend attending Financial Peace University, but my buddy Joe Taxpayer would throw an egg at me for that.  Please take some sort of class. In the mean time, here is your plan:  Pay this off do not borrow more."""
"""taxes, ordinary income, and adjusted cost basis for RSUs""","""What happened is that they do not track (and report) your original cost basis for 1099-B purposes. That is because it is an RSU. Instead, they just reported gross proceeds ($5200) and $0 for everything else. On your Schedule D you adjust the basis to the correct one, and as a comment you add that it was reported on W2 of the previous year. You then report the correct $1200 gain. You keep the documentation you have to back this up in case of questions (which shouldn't happen, since it will match what was indeed reported on your W2)."""
"""How can a Canadian establish US credit score""","""1) The easy way is to find a job and they will assign you an SSN.  2) Here's the hard way.  If you're Canadian, open a TD Boarderless account in the U.S.  Put a small investment into any investment that would generate some type of income, such as capital gain, dividends, interest and etc...  Then you will need to file a US tax return to declare your income if you receive U.S. tax slips (although you're likely below the min filing requirement) at year end.  To file a U.S. tax return, you may  need what's called an ITIN or individual tax id number.  With the ITIN, you can get credit from the US TD boarderless account (only).  Consider getting a prepaid US credit card with the TD account to futher build credit at that specific bank.  It's not much credit, but you do start with creating a history."""
"""Are there any Social Responsibility Index funds or ETFs? ""","""Look at the Calvert Funds. They have a variety of \""socially responsible\"" funds with published selection standards. Beware of mixing personal politics with business."""
"""Is this understanding of S-corp taxes correct?""","""I think you're misunderstanding how S-Corp works. Here are some pointers: I suggest you talk with a EA\/CPA licensed in your state and get yourself educated on what you're getting yourself into."""
"""What should I do to pick the right consultant to open offshore bank account""","""It is unusual to need a consultant to open a bank account for you, and I would also be concerned that perhaps the consultant could take the money and do nothing, or continue to demand various sums of money for \""expenses\"" like permits, licenses, identity check, etc.  until you give up.    Some of the more accepted ways to open a bank account are: A: Call up an established bank and follow their instructions to open a personal account . Make sure you are calling on a real bank, one that has been around a while. Hints: has permanent locations, in the local phone book, and has shares traded on a national stock exchange.  Call the bank directly, don't use a number given to you by a 3rd party consultant, as it may be a trick... Discuss on the phone and find out if you can open an account by mail or if you need to visit in person.  B: Create a company or branch office in the foreign country, assuming this is for business or investing.   and open an account by appointing someone (like a lawyer or accountant or similar professional) in the foreign country to represent the company to open an account in person.  If you are a US citizen, you will want to ask your CPA\/accountant\/tax lawyer about the TD F 90-22.1 Foreign Account Bank Report form, and the FATCA Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. There can be very large fines for not making the required reports.   The requirements to open a bank account have become more strict in many countries, so don't be surprised if they will not open an account for a foreigner with no local address, if that is your situation."""
"""What are the reasons to get more than one credit card?""","""A friend of mine has two credit cards.  He has specifically arranged with the card issuers so that the billing cycles are 15 days out of sync.  He uses whichever card has more recently ended its billing cycle, which gives him the longest possible time between purchase and the due date to avoid interest."""
"""American taxes if living outside the US and get paid by US company on a US bank account""","""Technically, if you earn in US (being paid there, which means you have a work visa) and live in other country, you must pay taxes in both countries. International treaties try to decrease the double-taxation, and in this case, you may pay in your country the difference of what you have paid in US. ie. your Country is 20% and USA is 15%, you will pay 5%, and vice-versa. This works only with certain areas. You must know the tax legislation of both countries, and I recommend you seek for advisory. This site have all the basic information you need: http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/Individuals\/International-Taxpayers\/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion Good luck."""
"""Taking partial capital loss purely for tax purposes""","""Note that the rules around wash sales vary depending on where you live. For the U.S., the wash sale rules say that you cannot buy a substantially identical stock or security within 30 days (before or after) your sale. So, you could sell your stock today to lock in the capital losses. However, you would then have to wait at least 30 days before purchasing it back. If you bought it back within 30 days, you would disqualify the capital loss event. The risk, of course, is that the stock's price goes up substantially while you are waiting for the wash sale period. It's up to you to determine if the risk outweighs the benefit of locking in your capital losses. Note that this applies regardless of whether you sell SOME or ALL of the stock. Or indeed, if we are talking about securities other than stocks."""
"""How to motivate young people to save money ""","""I recommend pulling up a retirement calculator and having an honest conversation about how long term savings works, and the power of compound interest. Just by playing around with the sliders on an online calculator, you can demonstrate how the early years are the most important. Depending on how much they make now and are considering saving, delaying 5-10 years can easily leave 6-7 figures on the table. If it's specifically a child or close family member, I recommend pulling up your retirement account. Talk with them about how you managed it, and how much you were putting in. Perhaps show them how much is the principal and how much is interest. If you did well, tell them how. If you didn't do as well as you liked, tell them what you would have done differently. Finally, discuss a bit of psychology. Even if they don't have a professional job and are making minimum wage, getting into the habit of saving makes it easier when they eventually make more. A couple of dollars a month isn't much, but getting into the habit makes it easier to save a couple hundred dollars a month later on."""
"""Should market based health insurance premiums be factored into 6 months emergency fund savings?""","""The guideline for the size of an emergency fund is just a guideline.  I've usually heard it expressed as \""3 to 6 months,\"" but everyone has a different idea of exactly how big it should be. The purpose of the fund is to give you enough cash to be able to pay for unexpected expenses that have come up that you have not budgeted for without you having to borrow money to pay for them. To figure out how big this fund should be, we look at the worst case scenario.  Suppose that you lost your job tomorrow.  What would you do? Cut your expenses.  You'd probably be much more careful how you spend money. Secure health insurance.  This would be done by either continuing your employer's policy with COBRA, or by purchasing your own insurance, likely through the Obamacare\/ACA market.  Keep in mind that most likely your employer is paying for a portion of your insurance now, so this expense will go up quite a bit no matter which option you choose. Look for another job.  You'd probably begin your search for a new job immediately. The size of your emergency fund determines how long you will be able to go without income before you need to start a new job. Regarding cutting your expenses, it is up to you how much you would cut.  There are things that are easy to cut temporarily (or permanently), such as restaurants, entertainment expenses, vacations, etc.  You would probably stop retirement investing until you have income again.  The more you cut, the longer your emergency fund would last.  Things you don't want to cut are necessities, like housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, etc.  I would also include health insurance in this list.  Certainly, if you have a pre-existing condition, you do not want to let your health insurance coverage lapse. Your employability is also a factor.  If you believe that you would have an easy time finding similar employment to what you have now, your emergency fund might not need to be quite as big as someone who believes they would have a harder time finding another job."""
"""Is my financial plan for buying a house logically sound""","""As a rental, this is not an ideal set of numbers. You manage to show a $255 'gain' but $275 is from payment to principal. So, from the start, you're out $20\/wk.  This ignores the $170K down payment, which has an opportunity cost, however you calculate it. You can assign the same rate as the mortgage, and it's nearly $10K\/yr. Or the rate you feel your choice of stock market or alternate investment would rise. Either way, you can't ignore this money.  Your mortgage rate isn't fixed. A 1% rise and it would jump to $1663 ($842\/week) Ideally, a rental property is cash positive without counting principal paydown or even the tax refund. It's a risky proposition to buy and count on everything going right. I didn't mean to scare you off with \""1%\"" but you should research the costs of repair and maintenance. Last year my Heat\/AC system needed replacement. US$10K. This year, it's time to paint, and replace rotting trim, $7000.  In the US we have property tax that can range from 1-2% of the house value. If you don't have this tax, that's great, just please confirm this."""
"""Is it worth it to buy TurboTax Premier over Deluxe if I sold investments in a taxable account?""","""I have used turbo tax for years.  Apart from the snafu in 2014, I have had no problem using deluxe, and I have lots of asset sales to report.  I prefer form mode anyway.  I can import the data from my broker, and I can e-file with no problem.  So the only thing I'm missing is the support. I can usually find answers to questions on the web, anyway."""
"""Can I pay taxes using bill pay from my on-line checking account?""","""I wouldn't do this. There is a chance that your check could get lost\/misdirected\/misapplied, etc.  Then you would need to deal with the huge bureaucracy to try to get it fixed while interest and penalties pile up.   What you can do is have the IRS withdraw the money themselves by providing the rounting number and account number of your bank.  This should work whether is it a traditional brick and mortar bank or an online bank."""
"""Can Per Diem deductions include family travel, meals and housing?""","""You cannot deduct anything. Since you're actually moving, your tax home will move with you. You can only deduct the moving expenses (actual moving - packing, shipping, and hotels while you drive yourself there)."""
"""Why buy insurance?""","""I keep it simple. Here's what I learned when I took Personal Financial Planning: Insurance is for low likelihood, high-impact events."""
"""Do credit ratings (by Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) have any relevance?""","""The problems with ratings and the interpretation of ratings is that they are retrospective, and most people read them as prospective. They basically tell you that debtor is solvent right now. What does that mean? It means that the ratings are based on the audited financial statements of a company, government or other organization issuing debt. So, in the best case scenario where the rating agency is acting properly, they are still dependent on folks with fiduciary responsibility telling the truth. And even if they are telling the \""truth\"", accounting rules make it possible to obscure problems for years in some cases. Municipal goverments are a great example of this... the general obligation bonds cities and even states with deep structural budget problems still get good ratings, because they are solvent and have sufficient operating cash to meet obligations today. But towards the end of a 30-year bond's life, that may not be the case anymore unless they dramatically alter their budgets. At the end of the day, ratings are one aspect of due diligence. They are useful screening devices, but you need to understand who you are lending money to by purchasing bonds and diversify your holdings to protect your wealth.  The problem, of course, is when the trustees of your pension fund invests in garbage assets after getting a sales pitch on the beach in Hawaii, then conveniently place all of the blame for that bad investment on the rating agency. You unfortunately have zero control over that."""
"""How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?""","""first, let me reiterate what everyone else is saying about rental rates having nothing to do with your expenses. you should charge market rates. slightly higher if you want better tenants and slightly lower if you want to avoid prolonged vacancy. you can determine market rates by finding similar properties in your area and seeing what they are asking for rent.  you will need to adjust for location, square footage, number of bathrooms, etc. now that that is out of the way, here is a quick checklist of expenses that you will need to calculate and\/or estimate for your specific property in order to decide if you should rent or sell: if you add up all of the above expenses and it's more than the market rates for rent, you should sell.  if the above expenses are below the market rates, then you need to consider if the profit margin is enough to justify the hassle and the risk."""
"""Is this trick enough to totally prevent bankrupcy in a case of a crash?""","""Adding to the answers above, there is another source of risk: if one of the companies you are short receives a bid to be purchased by another company, the price will most probably rocket..."""
"""How to invest in stocks without using an intermediary like a broker? Can shares be bought direct?""","""Yes! What you are describing is an \""off-exchange\"" trade and can be done using stock certificates. Here, you will privately negotiate with the seller on a price and delivery details. That is the old-school way to do it. Many companies (about 20% of the S&P 500) will not issue paper certificates and you may run a hefty printing fee up to $500 (source: Wikipedia, above). Other other type of private-party transactions include a deal negotiated between two parties and settled immediately or based on a future event. For example, Warren Buffet created a deal with Goldman Sachs where Warren would have the choice to purchase GS shares in the future at a certain price. This was to be settled with actual shares (rather than cash-settled). Ignoring that he later canceled this agreement, if it were to go through the transaction would still have been handled by a broker transferring the shares. You can purchase directly from a company using a direct stock purchase plan (SPP). Just pick up the phone, ask for their investor relations and then ask if they offer this option. If not, they will be glad for your interest and look into setting it up for you."""
"""What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc""","""Term is the way to go. Whole\/universal are basically a combo of term and savings, so buy term life insurance and invest the difference in cost yourself. You should make a lot more that way (as far as savings go) than by buying whole life. By the time term life gets too expensive to be worth (when you're a lot older) you will have enough saved to become \""self-insured\"". Just don't touch the savings :) You really only need insurance when there is income to replace and debts to cover - house\/mortgage, kids\/school, job income, etc."""
"""Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash?""","""I'd suggest taking all the money you have saved up and putting in a mutual fund and hold off on buying a rental property until you can buy it outright.  I know it seems like this will take forever, but it has a HUGE advantage: I know it seems like it will take forever to save up the money to buy a property for cash, but in the long run, its the best option by far."""
"""Options for dummies. Can you explain how puts & calls work, simply?""","""A 'Call' gives you the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock at a particular price. The price, called the \""strike price\"" is fixed when you buy the option. Let's run through an example - AAPL trades @ $259. You think it's going up over the next year, and you decide to buy the $280 Jan11 call for $12.  Here are the details of this trade. Your cost is $1200 as options are traded on 100 shares each. You start to have the potential to make money only as Apple rises above $280 and the option trades \""in the money.\"" It would take a move to $292 for you to break even, but after that, you are making $100 for each dollar it goes higher. At $300, your $1200 would be worth $2000, for example. A 16% move on the stock and a 67% increase on your money. On the other hand, if the stock doesn't rise enough by January 2011, you lose it all.  A couple points here - American options are traded at any time. If the stock goes up next week, your $1200 may be worth $1500 and you can sell. If the option is not \""in the money\"" its value is pure time value. There have been claims made that most options expire worthless. This of course is nonsense, you can see there will always be options with a strike below the price of the stock at expiration and those options are \""in the money.\"" Of course, we don't know what those options were traded at.  On the other end of this trade is the option seller. If he owns Apple, the sale is called a \""covered call\"" and he is basically saying he's ok if the stock goes up enough that the buyer will get his shares for that price. For him, he knows that he'll get $292 (the $280, plus the option sale of $12) for a stock that is only $259 today. If the stock stays under $280, he just pocketed $12, 4.6% of the stock value, in just 3 months. This is why call writing can be a decent strategy for some investors. Especially if the market goes down, you can think of it as the investor lowering his cost by that $12. This particular strategy works best in a flat to down market. Of course in a fast rising market, the seller misses out on potentially high gains.  (I'll call it quits here, just to say a Put is the mirror image, you have the right to sell a stock at a given price. It's the difference similar to shorting a stock as opposed to buying it.) If you have a follow up question - happy to help. EDIT - Apple closed on Jan 21, 2011 at $326.72, the $280 call would have been worth $46.72 vs the purchase price of $12. Nearly 4X return (A 289% gain) in just over 4 months for a stock move of 26%. This is the leverage you can have with options. Any stock could just as easily trade flat to down, and the entire option premium, lost."""
"""How and Should I Invest (As a college 18 year old with minimal living expenses)?""","""You have great intentions, and a great future. As far as investing goes, you're a bit early. Unless your parents or other benefactor is going to pay every dime of your expenses, you'll have costs you need to address. $1000 is the start of a nice emergency fund, but not yet enough to consider investing for the long term. If you continue to work, it's not tough to burn through $200\/wk especially when you are in college and have more financial responsibility."""
"""Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?""","""Dividends indicate that a business is making more profit than it can effectively invest into expansion or needs to regulate cash-flow. This generally indicates that the business is well established and has stabilized in a dominant market position. This can be contrasted against businesses that: Dividends are also given preferential tax treatment. Specifically, if I buy a stock and sell it 30 days later, I will be taxed on the capital gains at the regular income rate (typically 25-33%), but the dividends would be taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate (typically 15%)."""
"""Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0?""","""I'd agree that this can seem a little unfair, but it's an unavoidable consequence of the necessary practicality of paying out dividends periodically (rather than continuously), and differential taxation of income and capital gains. To see more clearly what's going on here, consider buying stock in a company with extremely simple economics: it generates a certain, constant earnings stream equivalent to $10 per share per annum, and redistributes all of that profit as periodic dividends (let's say once annually). Assume there's no intrinsic growth, and that the firm's instrinsic value (which we'll say is $90 per share) is completely neutral to any other market factors. Under these economics, this stock price will show a \""sawtooth\"" evolution, accruing from $90 to $100 over the course of a year, and resetting back down to $90 after each dividend payment. Now, if I am invested in this stock for some period of time, the fair outcome would be that I receive an appropriately time-weighted share of the $10 annual earnings per share, less my tax. If I am invested for an exact calendar year, this works as I'd expect: the stock price on any given day in the year will be the same as it was exactly one year earlier, so I'll realise zero capital gain, but I'll have collected a $10 taxed dividend along the way. On the other hand, what if I am invested for exactly half a year, spanning a dividend payment? I receive a dividend payment of $10 less tax, but I make a capital loss of -$5. Overall, pre-tax, I'm up $5 per share as expected. However, the respective tax treatment of the dividend payment (which is classed as income) and the capital gains is likely to be different. In particular, to benefit from the \""negative\"" taxation of the capital loss I need to have some positive capital gain elsewhere to offset it - if I can't do that, I'm much worse off compared to half the full-year return. Further, even if I can offset against a gain elsewhere the effective taxation rates are likely to be different - but note that this could work for or against me (if my capital gains rate is greater than my income tax rate I'd actually benefit). And if I'm invested for half a year, but not spanning a dividend, I make $5 of pure capital gains, and realise a different effective taxation rate again. In an ideal world I'd agree that the effective taxation rate wouldn't depend on the exact timing of my transactions like this, but in reality it's unavoidable in the interests of practicality. And so long as the rules are clear, I wouldn't say it's unfair per se, it just adds a bit of complexity."""
"""How does Yahoo finance adjust stock data for splits and dividends?""","""Yahoo's \""Adj Close\"" data is adjusted for splits, but not for dividends. Despite Yahoo's webpage's footnote saying  *Close price adjusted for dividends and splits. we can see empirically that the \""Adj Close\"" is only adjusted for splits. For example, consider Siemens from Jan 27, 2017 to Mar 15, 2017: The Adj Close adjusts for splits: On any particular day, the \""Adj Close\"" is equal to the \""Close\"" price divided by the cumulative product of all splits that occurred after that day. If there have been no splits after that day, then the \""Adj Close\"" equals the \""Close\"" price. Since there is a 2-for-1 split on Mar 14, 2017, the Adj Close is half the Close price for all dates from Jan 27, 2017 to Mar 13, 2017. Note that if Siemens were to split again at some time in the future, the Adj Close prices will be readjusted for this future split. For example, if Siemens were to split 3-for-1 tomorrow, then all the Adj Close prices seen above will be divided by 3. The Adj Close is thus showing the price that a share would have traded on that day if the shares had already been split in accordance with all splits up to today. The Adj Close does not adjust for dividends: Notice that Siemens distributed a $1.87 dividend on Feb 02, 2017 and ~$3.74 dividend on Jan 30, 2017. If the Adj Close value were adjusted for these dividends then we should expect the Adj Close should no longer be exactly half of the Close amount. But we can see that there is no such adjustment -- the Adj Close remains (up to rounding) exactly half the Close amount: Note that in theory, the market reacts to the distribution of dividends by reducing the trading price of shares post-dividend. This in turn is reflected in the raw closing price. So in that sense the Adj Close is also automatically adjusted for dividends. But there is no formula for this. The effect is already baked in through the market's closing prices."""
"""What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago?""","""Now, if I wasn't concerned with the integrity of my already tainted soul I would have given myself the following advice five years ago:"""
"""My university has tranfered me money by mistake, and wants me to transfer it back""","""Really a very straightforward situation, and subsequently, answer.  Call the university pursors that you normally deal with, ask them to document the last 3 months of disbursements and highlight the incorrect one(s). If the money is already spent out, ask them if they can apply it to future disbursements via adjusting entries, and call it a day.  If not, and you CAN pay it back, go to your bank and ask them to figure it out...which they should be able to do, having the original sender's info."""
"""Making your first million\u2026 is easy! (??)""","""I think there's a measure of confirmation bias here. If you talk to somebody that started a successful business and got a million out of it, he'd say \""it's easy, just do this and that, like I did\"". If you consider this as isolated incident, you would ignore thousands of others that did exactly the same and still struggle to break even, or are earning much less, or just went broke and moved on long time ago. You will almost never hear about these as books titled \""How I tried to start a business and failed\"" sell much worse than success stories. So I do not think there's a guaranteed easy way - otherwise we'd have much more millionaires than we do now :) However, it does not mean any of those ways is not worth trying - whatever failure rate there is, it's less than 100% failure rate of not trying anything.  You have to choose what fits your abilities and personality best - frugality, risk, inventiveness? Then hope you get as lucky as those \""it's easy\"" people are, I guess."""
"""Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill?""","""If your refund is so small (like $20 - $25), and it's not worth receiving, it can be put towards next years just to give you a slight edge."""
"""How to sell a worthless option""","""The market maker will always take it off your hands. Just enter a market sell order. It will cost you a commission to pull the loss into this year. But that's it."""
"""Would it make sense to buy a rental property as an LLC and not in my own name?""","""You need to first visit the website of whatever state you're looking to rent the property in and you're going to want to form the LLC in that particular state. Find the Department of Licensing link and inquire about forming a standard LLC to register as the owner of the property and you should easily see how much it costs. If the LLC has no income history, it would be difficult for the bank to allow this without requiring you to personally guarantee the loan. The obvious benefit of protecting yourself with the LLC is that you protect any other personal assets you have in your name. Your liability would stop at the loan.  The LLC would file its own taxes and be able to record the income against the losses (i.e. interest payments and other operating expenses.). This is can be beneficial depening on your current tax situation. I would definitely recommend the use of a tax accountant at that point.  You need to be sure you can really afford this property in the worst case scenario and think about market leasing assumption, property taxes, maintenance and management (especially if you've moved to another state.)"""
"""If the housing market is recovering, why would a REIT index ETF (e.g. VNQ) not be performing well?""","""To round out something that @Chris W. Rea pointed out, the business that a REIT is in will be either A) Equity REIT... property management, B) mortgage REIT... lending, or C) hybrid REIT (both).  A very key point about why REITs broadly have been struggling lately, (and this would show up in the REIT indices\/ETFs you've linked to,) is linked to the REIT business models.  For an Equity REIT, they borrow money at the going rate (let's say ~4.5% for commercial-scale loans), and use that to take out mortgages on physical properties. If a property rents for $15K per month, and they can take out a $1.8 million loan at $9,000 per month, then their business is around managing maintenance, operating expenses, and taxes on that $6,000 per month margin. For a mortgage REIT, they borrow funds as a highly qualified borrower, (again let's say ~4.5%), and lend those funds back out at a higher rate. The basic concept is that if you borrow $10 million at 4.5% for 30 years, you need to pay it back at $50,668 per month. If you can lend it out reliably at 5%, you collect $53,682 per month... a handy $3,000 per month. The cheaper you can get money at (below 4.5%) and the higher you can lend it at (above 5%), the better your margin is.  The worry is that both REIT business models are very highly dependent on the cost of borrowing money. With the US Fed changing its bond-buying\/QE\/stimulus activity, the prevailing interest rates are likely to go up. While this has its benefits (inflation), it also will make it more expensive for these types of companies to do business."""
"""If you own 1% of a company's stock, are you entitled to 1% of its assets?""","""No.  If the share price drops to $0, it's likely that the company is in bankruptcy. Usually, debt holders (especially holders of senior debt) are paid first, and you're entitled to whatever the bankruptcy proceedings decide to give holders of equity after the debt holders are paid off. More often than not, equity holders probably won't get much. To give an example, corporate bankruptcy usually involves one of two options: liquidation or reorganization. In the US, these are called Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 bankruptcy, respectively. Canada and the United Kingdom also have similar procedures for corporations, although in the UK, reorganization is often referred to as administration. Many countries have similar procedures in place. I'll use the US as an example because it's what I'm most familiar with. In Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company is liquidated to pay its debts. Investopedia's article about bankruptcy states: During Chapter 7 bankruptcy, investors are considered especially low on the ladder. Usually, the stock of a company undergoing Chapter 7 proceedings is usually worthless, and investors lose the money they invested. If you hold a bond, you might receive a fraction of its face value. What you receive depends on the amount of assets available for distribution and where your investment ranks on the priority list on the first page. In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company is turned over to a trustee that guides it through a reorganization. The Investopedia article quotes the SEC to describe what happens to stockholders when this happens: \""During Chapter 11 bankruptcy, bondholders stop receiving interest and principal payments, and stockholders stop receiving dividends. If you are a bondholder, you may receive new stock in exchange for your bonds, new bonds or a combination of stock and bonds. If you are a stockholder, the trustee may ask you to send back your stock in exchange for shares in the reorganized company. The new shares may be fewer in number and worth less. The reorganization plan spells out your rights as an investor and what you can expect to receive, if anything, from the company.\"" The exact details will depend on the reorganization plan that's worked out, local laws, court agreements, etc.. For example, in the case of General Motor's bankruptcy, stockholders in the company before reorganization were left with worthless shares and were not granted shares in the new company."""
"""Do I even need credit cards?""","""Try to buy an airline ticket, rent a hotel room, or rent a car without a credit card. Doable? Perhaps. Easy? Nope. With a debit card, you run the risk of a hotel reserving more than your stay's cost for room service, parking, etc and potentially having a domino effect if other payments bounce.  We just spent 3 nights in NYC, room was just over $1000. Do I really want to carry that much cash?"""
"""I have $100,000 in play money\u2026 what to do?""","""For any sort of investment you need to understand your risks first. If you're going to put money into the stock or bond market I would get a hold of Graham's \""The Intelligent Investor\"" first, or any other solid value investing book, and educate yourself on what the risks are. I can't speak about real estate investing but I am sure there are plenty of books describing risks and benefits of that as well. I could see inflation\/deflation having an effect there but I think the biggest impact on the landlord front is quality of life in the area you are renting and the quality of the tenant you can get. One crazy tenant and you will be driven mad yourself. As for starting a business, one thing I would like to say is that money does not automatically make money. The business should be driven by a product or service that you can provide first, and the backing seed capital second. In my opinion you will have to put energy and time worth much more than the 100k into a business over time to make it successful so the availability of capital should not be the driving decision here. Hope this helps more than it confuses."""
"""Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings?""","""If a shop offers 0% interest for purchase, someone is paying for it. e.g., If you buy a $X item at 0% interest for 12 months, you should be able to negotiate a lower cash price for that purchase. If the store is paying 3% to the lender, then techincally, you should be able to bring the price down by at least 2% to 3% if you pay cash upfront. I'm not sure how it works in other countries or other purchases, but I negotiated my car purchase for the dealer's low interest rate deal, and then re-negotiated with my preapproved loan. Saved a good chunk on that final price!"""
"""How do top investors pull out 20% ROI?""","""Buffet is able to do many things the average investor cannot do.  For example: During the 2008 market crash Buffet purchased 5 Billion on Citi preferred stock (as somewhat of a bail out) that pays 5% Dividend. Then he also received warrants to buy another 700 million shares over the next 10 years where he can buy shares at 5% discount. So right off the bat he is up 5% anytime he buys some of those 700 million shares. http:\/\/dealbook.nytimes.com\/2011\/08\/25\/buffett-to-invest-5-billion-in-bank-of-america\/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 This is just one of the Buffet deal makings. With his cash you can move markets.  He buys, people hear about it, they buy, his positions go up.  Put that aside he loans cash, gets interest, buys companies. It is more than just investing in the stock market."""
"""Can I withdraw cash from selling investments before the settlement date?""","""Depends on your account. If you have a margin account, then you can \""withdraw\"" the margin, and it will get paid off\/settled on T+3. However if it's a cash account then you will most likely need to wait. Call your broker and ask, each broker has different rules."""
"""Theory\/Strategy for pricing by volume""","""Actually, the rate of change could be more or less constant, but you might have a minimum price that represents your fixed costs.  So you might sell a milligram for $1 (which is ridiculous in terms of per-unit pricing) to cover fixed costs, and add $0.50\/lb for each step in size to cover variable costs (cost of raw materials and packaging), so a 2lb bag would be $2, a 5lb bag would be $3.50, a ton would be $1,001, etc.  At the end of the day, you want the marginal revenue (the price that you charge for each additional pound) to be more than the marginal cost (the price per pound it takes to produce the bag).  Any amount over that goes towards your fixed costs - the cost you'd incur if you sold zero product (rent, utilities, overhead, etc.) It's not an exact science, and there are many variables that go into pricing."""
"""Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?""","""To supplement existing answers: the appraised value does not necessarily represent the net amount the bank could actually recover with a foreclosure. Let's look at it from the point of view of the bank.  Suppose the property appraises at $200,000 and they do what you want: loan you $200,000 with the property as collateral.  Now suppose a short time later, you quit paying the mortgage and they have to foreclose.  Can the bank get their $200,000 back? An appraisal is only an estimate; nobody can predict perfectly how much a property will sell for.  Maybe the appraiser missed something significant, and the property will only fetch $180,000. Even if the appraisal was accurate when it was made, property values may have dropped in the meantime.  Maybe a sudden economic crisis is driving real estate prices down across the board.  Maybe interest rates have spiked.  Maybe the county has changed the zoning regulations to locate a toxic waste dump next door to the property.  In any of these cases, the property may again fetch well under $200,000. Maybe the condition of the property has changed.  Perhaps you trashed the place and it will take $30,000 to clean it up.  (People have a tendency to do things like that when they get foreclosed.) If the bank wants to get full market value for the property, they will incur the usual costs of selling a property: paying a real estate agent's commission, painting, renting furniture to stage the property, and so on.  This will eat into the net amount they actually get from the sale. It may take some time (perhaps months) for a property to sell at its full market value.  During this time, the bank is out $200,000.  That's money they would rather be loaning out at interest to someone else, so this represents lost income. Foreclosing a mortgage is a fairly complicated procedure.  The bank has to pay its staff, including lawyers, for a significant number of hours to get the foreclosure done.  There will be court filing fees and so on.  If you refuse to leave, they may have to get the sheriff to evict you; that has a fee as well.  If you fight the foreclosure, that racks up even more legal fees.  This too eats into the net proceeds from the sale. So if the bank loans you the full $200,000, they stand a pretty significant risk of not getting all of it back, after expenses.  You can understand that risk may not be worth the interest they would get from you on the extra $40,000. On the other hand, if they loan you only 80% of the property's appraised value ($160,000), they effectively shift that risk onto you.  Should you default on the loan, and they foreclose, all they have to do is sell the property for $160,000 or a little bit more.   That shouldn't be too hard, even if it is not freshly painted or a bit trashed.  They probably don't need to hire a real estate agent: just hold a quick auction, maybe first calling up a few investors who might be interested in flipping it.  If it happens to sell for more than the outstanding principal of the loan, plus the bank's costs, then they will pay you the difference; but they have no incentive to make that happen, and every incentive to just get it sold quick.  So any difference between the property's true value and the actual sale price now represents a loss to you first, not to the bank. So you can see why the bank would rather not loan you the full value of the property.  80% is a somewhat arbitrary figure but it cuts their risk by a lot."""
"""How to read a chart after a split?""","""The share price on its own has little relevance without looking at variations. In your case, if the stock went from 2.80 to 0.33, you should care only about the 88% drop in value, not what it means in pre-split dollar values. You are correct that you can \""un-split\"" to give you an idea of what would have been the dollar value but that should not give you any more information than the variation of 88% would. As for your title question, you should read the chart as if no split occurred as for most intents and purposes it should not affect stock price other than the obvious split."""
"""Price of a call option""","""EDIT quid keenly identified the 1:7 reverse split In May 2017.  In a 1:7 reverse split, your shares are worth 7 times as much per share but you have 1\/7 the amount of shares.  A share worth $3.78 now was worth (all else being equal) $0.54 a month ago.   So a call with a $2.50 strike a month ago was well out-of-the-money, and would now be the equivalent of a call with a $17.50 strike.  A $17.50 call with a $3.78 underlying (or a $2.50 call with a $0.54 underlying) would reasonably be worth only 5 cents. So I now suspect that the quote is a stale quote that existed pre-split and hasn't been adjusted by the provider. OLD ANSWER I can find no valid reason why those calls would be so cheap.  The stock price has been trending down from its onset in 2000, so either no one expects it to be above $2.50 in a month or it's so illiquid that there's not any real data to evaluate the options.  They did pay some massive (30%) dividends in 2010 and 2012, they've been hemorrhaging cash for the past 4 years at least, and I have found at least on \""strong sell\"" rating, so there's not much to be optimistic about.  NASDAQ does not list any options for the stock, so it must be an OTC trade.   With an ask size of 10 you could buy calls on 1,000 shares for $0.05, so if you can afford to lose $50 and want to take a flyer you can give it a shot, but I suspect it's not a valid quote and is something that's been manufactured by the option broker."""
"""What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds?""","""You are right about the stock and index funds, with dollar cost averaging over several years, the daily price of the security (especially a dividend paying security) will not matter* because your position will have accumulated larger over several entry points, some entries with cheaper shares and some entries with more expensive shares. In the future your position will be so large that any uptick will net you large gains on your original equity. *not matter being a reference to even extreme forms of volatility. But if you had all your equity in a poor company and tanked, never to rise again, then you would still be in a losing position even with dollar cost averaging. If your only other holdings are bonds, then you MAY want to sell those to free up capital."""
"""Why not pay in full upfront for a car?""","""In general I'd say, yeah, if you can pay cash, pay cash. If you pay cash, then by definition you pay zero interest. If you get a loan, you'll pay interest. Most people get a loan to buy a car because they don't have the cash. Possible reasons not to pay cash when you could: One: Technically you can pay cash, but if you did, you would have little or no reserve for emergencies. Like if the car costs, say, $20,000.00, and you have $20,010.00 in your bank account, then technically you could afford to pay cash, but you probably shouldn't, because you don't want to have just $10 left. What if tomorrow something comes up? Two: Arguably, you have a place to invest money that pays more than the interest on the loan. Like say you can get a car loan for, whatever the going rate is today, say 6%. And you know a place to invest your money that is very safe and almost guaranteed to pay 10%. It would make sense to borrow to buy the car, invest the cash, and then withdraw money from the investment to make the payments on the car. You'd end up 4% ahead. There are a lot of catches to that strategy, though. The biggest is that the more the investment pays, the more likely that it is risky. If you thought the investment would pay 10% but it ends up paying only 4%, then you will lose money by this strategy. Also, there's the psychological element: Many people SAY and fully INTEND to invest their money, but then find other things they want to buy and so spend it instead. If you pay cash, you're committed."""
"""Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently?""","""No. There is no incentive for the card issuer to permanently loan you money for free (Even though they make a small amount of money with every transaction). Yes, there are many credit cards that offer introductory 0% APR, often lasting for a year, some even two years. In theory, you could keep applying for new cards with these terms, and continually transfer the balance to the new card (Though you would probably incur a fee for doing so)."""
"""Investment strategy for a 20 year old with about 30k in bank account""","""Thank you for your service.  My first suggestion since your car is a planned for the near future is keep that amount in savings and just pay cash. There are plenty of attractive offers to entice you to finance your vehicle but there really is no compelling reason to do it considering the savings you have.  Second I would keep an additional portion of savings as a rainy day emergency fund. How much is based mostly on what you feel comfortable with. The number of possible emergencies that can come up is limited and your expenses are limited which is normal given your age. This fund might be for something such as emergency travel for a sick family member, cover a deductible for an auto accident, whatever unforseen event might occur (hence the name emergency fund). What investments you are comfortable with will be determined by risk tolerance. While in the military individual stocks that are aggressive risky investments may not be a good idea because of the extra attention they require and you can't really babysit a portfolio while deployed but there are many good low or no cost mutual funds or ETFs that you could get into.  I would look into setting up a recurring purchase with a set dollar amount monthly so you will continue to accumulate whatever option you are investing in regularly even if you are deployed. Which fund or ETF you pick will depend on your goals and risk tolerance but you could very easily pick several for diversity. Good luck and thank you again for your service."""
"""How do I choose 401k investment funds?""","""I disagree strongly with chasing expenses. Don't chase pennies until your are comfortable with an allocation that makes sense to you. Focus on building a diversified portfolio. Look at all of the funds, and put them in a portfolio in a tool like Google finance. Screen out funds with 1-3 stars. Search around on this site for questions about portfolios -- there's good advice there. If you're still not comfortable, look for a fee-based advisor."""
"""Buying my first car out of college""","""Read \""Stop Acting Rich\"" by Dr Thomas Stanley. I'm concerned that even before you've earned your first paycheck you want a flashy car. $4800\/yr on $63K\/yr income is just about half what I'd recommend to someone who starts working. 10% is the minimum, if and only if, the employer matches 5, for a total 15% saved. Do it in a pretax account and when you go back to grad school convert to Roth."""
"""How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros?""","""To transfer US$30,000 from the USA to Europe, ask your European banker for the SWIFT transfer instructions.  Typically in the USA the sending bank needs a SWIFT code and an account number, the name and address of the recipient, and the amount to transfer.  A change of currency can be made as part of the transfer.   The typical fee to do this is under US$100 and the time, under 2 days.  But you should ask (or have the sender ask) the bank in the USA about the fees.  In addition to the fee the bank may try to make a profit on the change of currency.  This might be 1-2%.    If you were going to do this many times, one way to go about it is to open an account at Interactive Brokers, which does business in various countries.  They have a foreign exchange facility whereby you can deposit various currencies into your account, and they stay in that currency.  You can then trade the currencies at market rates when you wish.  They are also a stock broker and you can also trade on the various exchanges in different countries.  I would say, though, they they mostly want customers already experienced with trading. I do not know if they will allow someone other than you to pay money into your account. Trading companies based in the USA do not like to be in the position of collecting on cheques owed to you, that is more the business of banks.  Large banks in the USA with physical locations charge monthly fees of $10\/mo or more that might be waived if you leave money on deposit. Online banks have significantly lower fees.  All US banks are required to follow US anti-terrorist and anti-crime regulations and will tend to expect a USA address and identity documents to open an account with normal customers.   A good international bank in Europe can also do many of these same sorts of things for you. I've had an account with Fortis. They were ok, there were no monthly fees but there were fees for transactions.  In some countries I understand the post even runs a bank.  Paypal can be a possibility, but fees can be high ~3% for transfers, and even higher commissions for currency change.  On the other hand, it is probably one of the easiest and fastest ways to move amounts of $1000 or less, provided both people have paypal accounts."""
"""Can I contribute to an IRA from investment income?""","""Your contributions must come from \""compensation\"". Quoting IRS Publication 590 on IRAs, \""Generally, compensation is what you earn from working.\"" So it is unlikely that your stock sale proceeds, if they're your sole source of income, can be used to fund your IRA. If you do have W-2 income, or self employment income, you can use the proceeds of a stock sale to fund an IRA. The IRS doesn't care where the exact dollars that go into the IRA come from, only that you earned (from working) at least as much as you contributed."""
"""Search index futures in Yahoo Finance or Google Finance""","""Neither site offers index futures or options pricing.  Your best best is likely to get the quote from a broker who supports trading those vehicles. Free sites usually limit themselves to stocks and sometimes to options chains -- the exception is Reuters where just about any security for which you have the reuters formatted trading symbol can be quoted."""
"""company market capitalization to total (annual) stock market capitalization ""","""Market cap is speculative value, M = P * W, where W is stock (or other way of owning) percentage of ownership, P - price of percentage of ownership. This could include \""outside of exchange\"" deals. Some funds could buy ownership percentage directly via partial ownership deal. That ownership is not stock, but fixed-type which has value too. Stock market cap is speculative value, M2 = Q * D, where D is free stocks available freely, Q - price of stock, in other words Quote number (not price of ownership). Many stock types do NOT provide actual percentage of ownership, being just another type of bond with non-fixed coupon and non-fixed price. Though such stocks do not add to company's capitalization after sold to markets, it adds to market capitalization at the moment of selling via initial price."""
"""What is the ticker symbol of the mini Google stock?""","""Google will be issuing Class C shares (under the ticker symbol GOOCV) to current GOOG holders in the beginning of April.  The Class C shares and Class A shares will then change symbols, with the Class C shares trading under GOOG.  This was announced on January 30th.   Details are in this benzinga article: Projected Trading Timeline March 27 - April 2 Record Date - Payment Date Class C shares commence trading on March 27 as GOOCV on a when issued basis Class A shares continue to trade as GOOG, with entitlement to Class C shares Class A shares will also trade on an ex-distribution basis, without entitlement to the Class C shares, as GOOAV April 3 EX Date The ticker for the Class A shares will change from GOOG to GOOGL The ticker for the Class C shares will change from GOOCV to GOOG and commence regular way trading The ticker for the Class A shares that traded on an ex-distribution basis - GOOAV - will be suspended"""
"""Value of credit score if you never plan to borrow again?""","""In the United States, the Fair Credit Reporting Act allows companies to buy your credit information for \""legitimate business needs.\"" The legitimate use of credit scores and credit reporting varies state to state, but like it or not, you can expect a lot more non-lending use of your credit information in the future. Companies and individuals use credit reports as an assessment of general behavior because, unfortunately, they work. You've seen the disclaimers about \""past performance\u2026\"", but unfortunately in this case\u2026 past performance really has been shown to be a pretty reliable indicator of future behavior. So\u2026"""
"""How can I improve my auto insurance score?""","""Auto Insurance score is in no way related to your driving habits, instead it is based on your credit usage.  You are often punished for having more than one or two hard inquires in a year and they also frown upon having many lines of credit even though that helps your credit utilization."""
"""I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment""","""The point of co-signing for a friend is that they're your friend.  You signed for them in the belief that your friendship would ensure they didn't burn you.  If your friend has hung you out to dry, basically they aren't your friend any more. Before you lawyer up, how's about talking to your friend as a friend?  Sure he may have moved away from the area, but Facebook is still a thing, right?  It's possible he doesn't even realise you're taking the fall for him. And presumably you have mutual friends too.  If he's blanking you then he does know you're taking the fall and doesn't care.  So call\/message them too and let them know the situation.  Chances are he doesn't want all his other friends cutting him off because they can see he'd treat them the same way he's treating you.  And chances are they'll give you his number and new address, because they don't want to be in the middle. If this fails, look at the loan.  If it's a loan secured against something of his (e.g. a car), let it go.  The bank will repossess it, and that's job done.  Of course it will look bad on your credit for a while, but you're basically stuck with that."""