{"question":"How does a 2 year treasury note work?","answer":"Notes and Bonds sell at par (1.0). When rates go up, their value goes down. When rates go down, their value goes up. As an individual investor, you really don't have any business buying individual bonds unless you are holding them to maturity. Buy a short-duration bond fund or ETF."}
{"question":"What causes a stock to drop in price?","answer":" A rising tide lifts all ships   Most (but not all) stocks trend along with the general market. Some trend right along with the market (and have a beta at, or very near, one) some follow the Market, but are less sensitive (having a beta of less than one). Some are hypersensitive (and would have a beta of greater than one).  Beta defined  So most of the day to day movement of a stock is because the general market is moving (in the same direction). Of course, exceptional news about the company would cause its price to move independent of the general market. But more often than not the price of a stock moves just because the rest of the market is moving."}
{"question":"Why are residential investment properties owned by non-professional investors and not large corporations?","answer":"Your experience is anecdotal (outside Australia things are different). There are many companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs) that own residential properties (as well as commercial in many cases to have a balanced portfolio). They are probably more common in higher-density housing like condos, apartment buildings, flats, or whatever you like to call them, but they are certainly part of the market for single family units in the suburbs as well. What follows is all my own opinion. I have managed and rented a couple of properties that I had lived in but wasn't ready to sell yet when I moved out. In most cases, I wish I would have sold sooner, rather than renting them out. I think that there are easier\/less risky ways to get a good return on your money. Sometimes the market isn't robust enough to quickly sell when it's time to move, and some people like the flexibility of having a property that a child could occupy instead of moving back in at home. I understand those points of view even if I disagree with them."}
{"question":"Why might a robo-advisor service like Betterment be preferable to just buying a single well-performing index fund like SPY?","answer":"Good for lazy investors, time-restricted investors, investors with little knowledge, investors who want a hybrid of advice and tools without paying the crazy fees of mutual funds or an advisor. The biggest advantage, is that it is easy, quick and convenient If you have the time and knowledge, this might not be for you"}
{"question":"Do there exist any wikipedia type sites for evaluating financial service providers?","answer":"Excellent question.  I'm not aware of one. I was going to say \"go visit some personal finance blogs\" but then I remembered that I write on one, and that I often get a commission if I talk about online accounts, so unless something is really bad I'm not going to post on it because I want to make money, not chase it away. This isn't to say that I'm biased by commissions, but among a bunch of online banks paying pretty much the same (crappy) interest rate and giving pretty much the same (often not crappy) service, I'm going to give air time to the ones that pay the best commissions.  That, and some of the affiliate programs would kick me out if I trashed them on my blog. This also would taint any site, blog or not, that does not explicitly say that they do not have affiliate relationships with the banks they review. I suppose if you read enough blogs you can figure out the bad ones by their absence, but that takes a lot of time.  Seems like you'd do all right by doing a \"--bank name-- sucks\" Google search to dig up the dirt. That, or call up \/ e-mail \/ post on their forum any questions you have about their services before sending them your money.  If they're up front, they'll answer you."}
{"question":"If I use stock as collateral for a loan and I default, does the bank pay taxes when they sell my stock?","answer":"If you are planning this as a tax avoidance scheme, well it is not. The gains will be taxable in your hands and not in the Banks hands. Banks simply don't cash out the stock at the same price, there will be quite a bit of both Lawyers and others ... so in the end you will end up paying more. The link indicates that one would pay back the loan via one's own earnings. So if you have a stock worth USD 100, you can pledge this to a Bank and get a max loan of USD 50 [there are regulations that govern the max you can get against 100]. You want to buy something worth USD 50. Option1: Sell half the stock, get USD 50, pay the captial gains tax on USD 50. Option2: Pledge the USD 100 stock to bank, get a loan of USD 50. As you have not sold anything, there is no tax. Over a period pay the USD 50 loan via your own earnings. A high valued customer may be able to get away with a very low rate of intrest and very long repayment period.   The tax implication to your legal hier would be from the time the stock come to his\/her hands to the time she sold. So if the price increase to 150 by the time Mark dies, and its sold at 160 later, the gain is only of USD 10. So rather than paying 30% or whatever the applicable tax rate, it would be wise to pay an interest of few percentages."}
{"question":"what would you do with $100K saving? ","answer":"I would buy an ETF (or maybe a couple) in stable, blue chip companies with a decent yield (~3%) and then I'd play a conservative covered call strategy on the stock selling a new position about once a month. That's just me."}
{"question":"Credit card interest calculator with grace period & different interest rate calculation methods?","answer":"If you want to ensure that you stop paying interest, the best thing to do is to not use the card for a full billing cycle.  Calculating credit card interest with precision ahead of time is difficult, as how you use the card both in terms of how much and when is critical."}
{"question":"Should I take contributions out of my Roth IRA to live off of?","answer":"That's up to you, but I wouldn't play around with my retirement money if I was in your situation. Your earning potential during your retirement years will likely be at its nadir. Do you really want to risk being forced to be a Wal-Mart greeter when you are 80? Also, considering your earning potential now is probably at or near the peak, your opportunity cost for each hour of your life is much higher now than it will be later. So ultimately you'd be working a little harder now or a lot harder later for less money."}
{"question":"How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k?","answer":"The title of your question is quite different then the content.  The term \"Rat Race\" was coined in the 70's and refers to the endless cycle of working hard to consume more.  Fortunately it is very easy not to participate in the cycle and probably will lead to more happiness.  Just because one \"works\" does not mean they are participating in the \"rat race\", and I would recommend the following: When I think of \"rat race\" I picture a a bumper-to-bumper freeway of people struggling to get to work.  For others it might be different, but that kind of rat race is easily avoided by the multitude of remote work opportunities.  Some jobs allow you to work anywhere in the world. Avoiding the rugged consumerism also helps avoid the feelings of being a rat on the wheel.  Sure one can like nice things, but do we have to have everything that Madison Ave is trying to sell us?  No.  Pick some nice things and pay cash. Debt, especially consumer debt, causes a person (in effect) to work for a bank.  Avoiding debt will remove those feelings. Saving and investing also helps avoid those feelings.  There is profound satisfaction in watching ones account balances grow.  Once you see that your investment earnings can outpace your expenses, and then your salary you really feel like you are getting ahead.      Above all else giving is a paramount and often overlooked part of a person's financial life.  It causes one to be humble and recognize that most people, in this world, are less fortunate that us.  It avoids runaway provide that justifies purchases that we cannot afford.   So yea you can avoid the \"Rat Race\" and still work."}
{"question":"What is the relationship between the earnings of a company and its stock price?","answer":"In general over the longer term this is true, as a company whom continuously increases earnings year after year will generally continue to increase its share price year after year. However, many times when a company announces increased earning and profits, the share price can actually go down in the short term. This can be due to the market, for example, expecting a 20% increase but the company only announcing a 10% increase. So the price can initially go down. The market could already have priced in a higher increase in the lead up to the announcement, and when the announcement is made it actually disapoints the market, so the share price can go down instead of up."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"There's a grey area where investing and speculating cross. For some, the stock market, as in 10% long term return with about 14% standard deviation, is too risky. For others, not enough action.  Say you have chosen 10 penny stocks, done your diligence, to the extent possible, and from a few dozen this is the 10 you like. I'd rather put $100 into each of 10 than to put all my eggs in one basket. You'll find that 3 might go up nicely, 3 will flounder around, and 4 will go under. The gambler mentality is if one takes off, you have a profit.  After the crash of '08, buying both GM and Ford at crazy prices actually worked, GM stockholders getting nothing, but Ford surviving and now 7X what I bought it for.  Remember, when you go to vegas, you don't drop all your chips on Red, you play blackjack\/craps as long as you can, and get all the free drinks you can."}
{"question":"Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income?","answer":"This is a really bad idea. You are asking to be forced to pay for something at a time when you most likely NOT want to buy it. Why? There is no stability (much less any degree of predictability) to give up the right to control when and for how much you would be willing to own the S&P500. Just don't do it.....\"generate stable income\" and \"selling puts\" is an oxymoron.  ===retired investment advisor"}
{"question":"What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent?","answer":"It is easier to get a loan on a rental than a flip, which is a huge advantage to rental properties. Leverage allows you to increase your returns and make more money off appreciation and higher rents. I use ARMs to finance my rental properties that are amortized over 30 years. I have to put 20 percent down, but my portfolio lender lets me get as many loans as I want. Because I put 20 percent down on my rental properties and they still have great cash flow I can buy three times as many properties as I could with cash purchases.  Buying more rental properties amplifies the other advantages like cash flow, equity pay down and the tax advantages."}
{"question":"What exactly is a \"bad,\" \"standard,\" or \"good\" annual raise? If I am told a hard percentage and don't get it, should I look elsewhere?","answer":"Any such number would depend on the country, the market, and the economic situation - especially inflation ratio. Generally, if you are not in a booming or a dying technology, getting a raise above the inflation ratio is 'good'; anything below is poor."}
{"question":"Why is the stock market closed on the weekend?","answer":"Simply, most of the above given 'answers' are mere 'justifications' for a practice that has become anachronistic. It did make sense once in the past, but not any more. Computers and networks can run non-stop 24\/7; even though the same human beings cannot be expected to work 24\/7, we have invented the beautiful concept of multiple shifts; banks may be closed during nights and weekends, but banking is never closed in the internet era; ...The answer must lie in the vested interests of a few stakeholder groups - or - it could just be our difficult to change habits."}
{"question":"How to determine duration of a common stock whose dividends grow in perpetuity?","answer":"The fact that dividends grow in perpetuity does not prevent one from calculating duration.  In fact, many academic papers look at exactly this problem, such as Lewin and Satchell.  This Wilmott thread discusses some of the pros and cons of the concept in some detail. PS: Although I was already broadly familiar with the literature and I use the duration of equities in some of my every-day work as a professional working in finance, I found the links above doing a simple google search for \"equity duration.\""}
{"question":"Is it better to pay an insurance deductible, or get an upgrade?","answer":"You asked for simple, and I promise you this is... it just looks a bit math-heavy to start with because we have to handle a couple of different scenarios. Bear with me :) I find the best way to deal with these kinds of questions is to put together a \"Total cost\" for each option, for a sensible amount of time, and see what the difference is. We'll include the current cost for both options, plus the subsequent costs for 12 months: I find that more useful than a straight \"which is more expensive right now\" because it includes the potential costs of the next upgrade, and any changes to the plan. Let's throw some numbers together for the next 12 months (if your current plan is longer than 12 months, read the note at the bottom first) First, write down the cost of these things **The above assume that you have two options if you take the repair option (and only one option if you use the buy-out option). The two options we're assuming here are that you can either:  If you'd choose the same new plan regardless of whether you take the $100 or $150 option, there's no need to include both options: to simplify things you can just use the same numbers for both b\/c and Pu\/Py and the calculation below will still work. When you've found and written down the above, just do the sums below to find your two total costs over 12 months. Nothing fancy, just plug the numbers above into the equation. eg if Pe (eBay value of the phone) is $80, replace Pe with 80. Don't forget to do the parts in brackets first! That's your total cost for both options for the next year. Note: I'm assuming that your plan ends within the next 12 months. If not, just replace 12 in the above calculations with another term! You can also do this if you want to find out the price difference over a longer period (noting that if you upgrade to the same plan regardless of choice, you'll get the same answer for any period longer than your current contract)"}
{"question":"Are my purchases of stock, mutual funds, ETF's, and commodities investing, or speculation?","answer":"This depends on what your definition of the word is is. Strictly speaking, you are only investing in a company when you buy stock from them somehow.  This is usually done during an IPO or a secondary offering.  Or, if you are someone like Warren Buffet or an institutional investor, you strike a deal with the company to buy shares directly from them.  Otherwise, your money goes to someone else. Merriam-Webster defines speculate as 1b: to review something idly or casually and often inconclusively However, it also defines it as: 2: to assume a business risk in hope of gain; especially : to buy or sell in expectation of profiting from market fluctuations  The typical use of the term stock speculation vs stock investing involves definition 1b.  This alludes to the idea that little to no research was done about the stock.  This may be due to a lack of time, interest, knowledge, etc., or it may be due to a lack of information.  The former usually has a negative connotation.  The latter may have a negative connotation, though usually the connotation is one of greater risk. Strictly speaking, definition 2 includes investing as you define it along with investing in securities\/commodities."}
{"question":"Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer","answer":"Assuming you're in the US, you can file complaints against financial institutions (including debt collectors) through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The link to debt collector complaints is: http:\/\/www.consumerfinance.gov\/Complaint\/#debt-collection"}
{"question":"Should I have a higher credit limit on my credit card?","answer":"There is no \"golden rule\" on how high of a credit limit an individual should have. There are 22 year olds that have $100,000 credit limits and 40 year olds that have $1000. The most important thing is to not over spend and pay your balance(s) in full every month. Seeing as you are doing that now, there is no downside to getting an increase."}
{"question":"What is the p\/e ratio?","answer":"The PE ratio stands for the Price-Earnings ratio. The price-earnings ratio is a straightforward formula: Share Price divided by earnings per share. Earnings per share is calculated by dividing the pre-tax profit for the company by the number of shares in issue. The PE ratio is seen by some as a measure of future growth of a company. As a general rule, the higher the PE, the faster the market believes a company will grow. This question is answered on our DividendMax website: http:\/\/www.dividendmax.co.uk\/help\/investor-glossary\/what-is-the-pe-ratio Cheers"}
{"question":"Walking away from an FHA loan","answer":"Nearly every state in the US is full-recourse. If one doesn't seek bankruptcy protection, creditors can seek judgement, and collect assets. Foreclosures frequently sell for approximately half the market price. Considering unemployment risk, homes can be risky.  A far better way to accumulate wealth is with equities (stocks).  However, the risk converts from insolvency to liquidation since during times of high unemployment, equities are also cheap, causing any liquidation used to fund current expenses to be potentially ruinous."}
{"question":"Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?","answer":"All other factors being equal, owning your primary residence is almost always a good investment over the long haul. Why? Because you have to live somewhere, and rentals, especially long-term leases that are important when you have kids in school, etc.,  are generally in the same ballpark as a mortgage in most markets. Giving $1,500 to a landlord gets me 30 days of living somewhere. Giving $1,500 to the bank gets me a place to live and equity in an asset which requires maintenance, but always has intrinsic value.  Detroit is one extreme, Manhattan or Silicon Valley is another real estate extreme... everywhere else is somewhere in the middle. What isn't always a good investment is speculating in highly elastic \"investment property\" like vacation condos as an amateur. It's a cyclical market, but our attention spans are too short to realize that. As most of the other answers to this question indicate, people tend to be down in the dumps and see all of the problems with real estate when the market is not very good. Conversely people only see the upside and are oblivious to problems when the market is high."}
{"question":"Limiting Fees for Monthly Contributions","answer":"First off, I think you are on the right path not paying 3% to a broker; that sort of fee reduces the money you earn significantly in the long term. For your fund investing approach, 10 funds seems like a lot; one of the point of funds is that they are diversified, so I would expect that the 10th fund would give relatively little diversification over the other 9. I would think about targeting only 5 funds. To invest in the funds, rather than trying to invest in all funds every month, put all of the money into a single fund, and rotate the fund month to month. That reduces your transaction costs significantly."}
{"question":"Which practice to keep finances after getting married: joint, or separate?","answer":"Echoing Justkt, different approaches will work for different couples.  It also depends on your background, life experience, age, maturity.... Irrespective of the structure, any agreement must be based on a thorough understanding of the mechanism by which responsibility and accountability is apportioned. As in any financial relationship, when money is plentiful and covers all ends, then conflict hardly ever arises.  Problems only turn up when money vanishes. Business contracts are written with a view to such conflicts and agreements within a marriage must be equatable and based on a shared understanding. So, don't worry too much about the structure.  Think about thinkgs like the following: In other words, given that income between spouses is likely to be unbalanced, how do you manage this within a caring relationship so that neither feels like a charity case, a social worker, or dependent? There will not be one clear answer except that open and honest discussion on an ongoing bases can only serve to strengthen your relationship."}
{"question":"How do I make a small investment in the stock market? What is the minimum investment required?","answer":"A rough estimate of the money you'd need to take a position in a single stock would be: In the case of your Walmart example, the current share price is 76.39, so assuming your commission is $7, and you'd like to buy, say, 3 shares, then it would cost approximately (76.39 * 3) + 7 = $236.17. Remember that the quoted price usually refers to 100-share lots, and your broker may charge you a higher commission or other fees to purchase an odd lot (less than 100 shares, usually).  I say that the equation above gives an approximate minimum because  However, I second the comments of others that if you're looking to invest a small amount in the stock market, a low cost mutual fund or ETF, specifically an index fund, is a safer and potentially cheaper option than purchasing individual stocks."}
{"question":"Investing $50k + Real Estate","answer":"I have been on the same boat as you are right now. So basically, it depends on your goals, risk tolerance, upcoming life events! You want a plan not just for this particular 50K, but for your household assets and future earnings to come! My suggestion: Get a flat fee, online financial advisor to do the work for you. You don\u2019t have to figure this out by yourself. Personally, I would invest in a portfolio that: Offers dynamic asset allocation plans that evolves over time based on changing market conditions. Offers a healthy mix of beta and alpha strategies along with the liquidity and ability to monitor activity online. Has structural risk management in place. Risk management is as much about increasing risk as it is about cutting risk. Therefore, you want a plan for de-allocating and re-allocating risk Hope this helps."}
{"question":"What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? ","answer":"I have been using Acemony http:\/\/www.mechcad.net\/products\/acemoney\/ for a couple of years now and extremely happy with it. Very simple and intuitive to use. The best part is - life-long free upgrades"}
{"question":"How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want","answer":"There are a lot of good answers above, all of them will probably work for you in some way or another. One point to note (from the procrastination theme) is that you could invest your free money that you have currently in some investment instrument which would require you to do some paperwork etc. to get out, this way the immediate cash flow is decreased and also invested. Now from each montly budget save a small amount for the things that you would like to buy. Give this small savings some months to accumulate so that you can afford only one of the items that you want to buy or target an item that you want to buy. After the money is accumulated, if you still want to buy the item, then you probably should. One point of note is that budgeting is also important on a monthly basis, Pete has provided excellent suggestion in this regard."}
{"question":"UK: Personal finance book for a twenty-something","answer":"Consultant, I commend you for thinking about your financial future at such an early age. Warren Buffet, arguably the most successful investor ever lived, and the best known student of Ben Graham has a very simple advice for non-professional investors:  \"Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard\u2019s.)\" This quote is from his 2013 letter to shareholders. Source: http:\/\/www.berkshirehathaway.com\/letters\/2013ltr.pdf Buffet's annual letters to shareholders are the wealth of useful and practical wisdom for building one's financial future. The logic behind his advice is that most investors cannot consistently pick stock \"winners\", additionally, they are not able to predict timing of the market; hence, one has to simply stay in the market, and win over in the long run."}
{"question":"Market makers role","answer":"The role of the market maker is to make sure there is a bid and ask on a particular stock.  That's it.  The market maker ensures that there is a price at which you can buy and a price at which you can sell immediately, but these are not necessarily the best prices.  The majority of trades do not involve market makers and occur between two third parties. Whoever said a market order trades with the market maker is thinking of the way stock markets were years ago, not the way they are now. Market orders are supposed to execute immediately and at one time trading with the market makers was the method for executing immediately. If you issue a market order today, it executes with the best available limit order(s) on the other wide of the trade.  This may or may not involve a party that identifies as a market maker."}
{"question":"A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea?","answer":"I say, before investing your real capital into the Stock Market, play around on the virtual stock exchange game. It let's you invest with virtual capital and you can gain experience with the stock market. I wouldn't start investing in stock until I'm sure I can cover losses though. If you do intend to invest stocks so early in your career, then you should learn how to read SEC filings (not necessary, but helpful in understanding how investors think) such as 8-K\/10-K\/10-Q documents so you can predict profitability and growth of companies you invest in. Once you become a veteran of the stock market game, you probably won't need to read the SEC filings into too much detail - especially if you have a diverse portfolio. Good Luck. The one takeaway from this message would probably be: Stop! and play around on virtual stocks before immersing yourself in the real thing."}
{"question":"Expecting to move in five years; how to lock mortgage rates?","answer":"You could consider turning your current place into a Rental Property. This is more easily done with a fixed rate loan, and you said you have an ARM. The way it would work: If you can charge enough rent to cover your current mortgage plus the interest-difference on your new mortgage, then the income from your rental property can effectively lower the interest rate on your new home.   By keeping your current low rate, month-after-month, you'll pay the market rate on your new home, but you'll also receive rental income from your previous home to offset the increased cost. Granted, a lot of your value will be locked up in equity in your former home, and not be easily accessible (except through a HELOC or similar), but if you can afford it, it is a good possibility."}
{"question":"How is Massachusetts state tax on unrealized capital gains calculated?","answer":"Massachusets does no such thing. The 5.25% tax is only on realized gains. \"Unearned\" means \"doesn't tie to your trade\/business\", i.e.: is not gained through your personal performance."}
{"question":"Stocks in India, what is the best way to get money to US","answer":"Convert the money into United States Dollars,  put it in an NRE account in India and get 5% per annum for the USD."}
{"question":"How to keep control of shared expenses inside marriage?","answer":"Websites like neobudget dot com or mint dot com can help you see where your money is going, especially if you use mostly checks, debit cards, or credit cards for your purchases.  They are less useful if you use cash often."}
{"question":"UK: Personal finance book for a twenty-something","answer":"Public sector and private industry retirement plans, taxation and estate planning would be the most substantial differences between the two countries. The concepts for accumulating wealth are the same, and if you are doing anything particularly lucrative with an above average amount of risk, the aforementioned differences are not very relevant, for a twenty something."}
{"question":"Is human interaction required to open a discount brokerage account?","answer":"You definitely do not need human interaction to open an account at Schwab. You just need to provide a social security number and US drivers license. See http:\/\/www.schwab.com\/public\/schwab\/investing\/accounts_products\/accounts\/brokerage_account You can do it online or through the mail. They usually have some questions about your level of experience with investing. They are required to ask these questions to ensure that you don't get confused and put your money in inappropriate investments."}
{"question":"Why is the price of my investment only updated once per day?","answer":"Mutual funds are collections of investments that other people pay to join.  It would be simpler to calculate the value of all these investments at one time each day, and then to deem that any purchases or sales happen at that price.  The fund diversifies rather than magnifies risk, looking to hold rather than enjoy a quick turnaround.  Nobody really needs hourly updated price information for an investment they intend to hold for decades. They quote their prices on a daily basis and you take the daily price.  This makes sense for a vehicle that is a balanced collection of many different assets, most of which will have varying prices over the course a day.  That makes pricing complicated.  This primer explains mutual fund pricing and the requirements of the Investment Company Act of 1940, which mandates daily price reporting.  It also illustrates the complexity: How does the fund pricing process work? Mutual fund pricing is an intensive process that takes place in a short time frame at the end of the day. Generally, a fund\u2019s pricing process begins at the close of the New York Stock Exchange, normally 4 p.m. Eastern time. The fund\u2019s accounting agent, which may be an affiliated entity such as the fund\u2019s adviser, or a third-party servicer such as the fund\u2019s administrator or custodian bank, is usually responsible for calculating the share price. The accounting agent obtains prices for the fund\u2019s securities from pricing services and directly from brokers. Pricing services collect securities prices from exchanges, brokers, and other sources and then transmit them to the fund\u2019s accounting agent. Fund accounting agents internally validate the prices received by subjecting them to various control procedures. For example, depending on the nature and extent of its holdings, a fund may use one or more pricing services to ensure accuracy. Note that under Rule 22c-1 forward pricing, fund shareholders receive the next daily price, not the last daily price.  Forward pricing makes sense if you want shareholders to get the most accurate sale or purchase price, but not if you want purchasers and sellers to be able to make precise calculations about gains and losses (how can you be precise if the price won't be known until after you buy or sell?)."}
{"question":"At what age should I start or stop saving money?","answer":"There is no age-limit, in fact the sooner you start the better - the sooner the money starts to compound."}
{"question":"Will one\u2019s education loan application be rejected if one doesn't have a payslip providing collateral?","answer":"A bank can reject a loan if they feel you do not meet the eligibility criteria.  You can talk to few banks and find out."}
{"question":"Should I pay cash or prefer a 0% interest loan for home furnishings?","answer":"Two cases: You take the credit and reinvest the cash equivalent (be it a savings account or otherwise), yielding you the x% at virtually zero risk. Unless of course you consider possibility of your own negligence a risk (in case of missed payments, etc.). You pay by cash and have the peace of mind at the cost of that x%. The ultimate decision depends on which you value more - the $ you get from x%, or the peace of mind."}
{"question":"What size \"nest egg\" should my husband and I have, and by what age?","answer":"For most people, a million dollars is about right. Here's the back of the napkin math that you should consider to find your own estimate: If you take 1 and divide it by 2, that's roughly the size of the nest egg you'll need to live indefinitely. For example, if your retirement investments are earning 5% a year, and you want to live on $50,000 a year, you would need a $1,000,000 nest egg (50,000 \/ 0.05) Note that you don't have to make any assumptions about how long you'll live. The whole idea of a nest egg is that you live off the interest it earns each year without ever dipping into the principle. It's the gift that keeps on giving! When you die, you can pass it along to children, charities, etc."}
{"question":"How do you choose which mortgage structure is appropriate when buying a home?","answer":"There are several factors that you need to consider: If you have already decided on the house.  Did you prequalify for the mortgage loan - If so, did you lock in the rate. If you have not already done than your research is still valid. Consider two calculators first - Affordability + Mortgage calculator Advice :  If you can afford to pay 20% down then please do, Lesser monthly mortgage payment, you can save approx 400 $ per month, the above calculator will give you an exact idea. If you can afford go for 15 years loan - Lower interest rate over 2-5 years period. Do not assume the average ROI will + 8-10%. It all depends on market and has variable factors like city, area and demand.  In terms of Income your interest payment is Tax deductible at the end of the year."}
{"question":"historical stock data starting from 1900","answer":"Good day! Did a little research by using oldest public company (Dutch East India Company, VOC, traded in Amsterdam Stock Exchange) as search criteria and found this lovely graph from http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/rise-and-fall-of-united-east-india-2013-11?IR=T :  Why it is relevant? Below the image I found the source of data - Global Financial Data. I guess the answer to your question would be to go there: https:\/\/www.globalfinancialdata.com\/index.html  Hope this helps and good luck in your search!"}
{"question":"A merchant requests that checks be made out to \"Cash\". Should I be suspicious?","answer":"There are benefits associated with a cash only business (the link states a few). However checks made out to \"cash\" don't reap those benefits listed. For anyone on SE to say your barber hides revenue from the IRS would just be speculation.  With that said there are a great number of disadvantages for a cash only business. And from my experience, a business that goes out of their way to take cash only can be a little suspicious. Luckily you are not committing any crimes or fraud by paying her cash."}
{"question":"When is the right time to buy a car and\/or a house?","answer":"Buying a house is often more emotional than financial. Which makes that kind of advice tough to offer. Staying with the finance side - You wrote \"2 bedrooms is enough for me.\" Is it enough for your girlfriend\/fiancee? Is she on the same schedule for kids as you are? 2 bedrooms means that with just one child you are less able to host a guest and the second child will need to share the bedroom. Nothing wrong with that, just making sure you are aware of these things. If the long term plan is to move to a new house, a ten year horizon for the second house sounds good to me.  I'll make one brief comment on rent vs buy - it's easy to buy too big and discover you are paying for rooms you don't use. I have a house I'll be glad to get rid of when our daughter goes off to college. A dining room and formal living room go unused save for 3 or 4 days a year. It already sounds like you'll avoid this mistake.  Your question - the right time - when you are ready, with the downpayment, income, and desire to do so. You should at least have a feeling you plan to stay there for a time, else the cost of buying\/selling would exceed any potential gain."}
{"question":"Shorting Obvious Pump and Dump Penny Stocks","answer":"Shorting penny stocks is very risky.  For example, read this investopedia article, which explains some of the problems.  In general: If you have some sort of method for perfectly identifying Pump and Dump schemes, it's possible you could make money if you time things right, but that timing is going to be very difficult to identify."}
{"question":"What happens if a Financial Services Company\/Stockbroker goes into administration in the UK?","answer":"Nothing. Stockbrokers set up nominee accounts, in which they hold shares on behalf of individual investors. Investors are still the legal owners of the shares but their names do not appear on the company\u2019s share register. Nominee accounts are ring-fenced from brokers\u2019 other activities so they are financially secure."}
{"question":"Computer vendor not honoring warranty. What's the next step?","answer":"You're probably best off going to a different store to fix the computer. Right now you don't have \"damages.\"  You could sue him but, there's no thing to sue for.  If you sue for your original costs, you'd have to return the computer and probably only receive a portion of your original costs, less court filing fees. If you have someone else fix your computer you can sue him for the cost to fix your computer.  You'll take him to small claims court, win or lose you probably won't get anything from him.  If you win, you'll have a piece of paper (judgement) that says, \"Yep, that guy owes you money\" if you lose you won't even have that. You could report him to the BBB or some other business agency but that doesn't help you fix the computer."}
{"question":"How to acquire assets without buying them? ","answer":"Your question seems to be premised on your personal understanding of economics, and asking that people present to you an explanation of business transactions that is consistent with your own personal worldview. But your premises are flawed, so an accurate answer should not accept them. The basics of trade is that something is worth more to one person than another; a wheat farmer has more wheat that they could possibly eat, and so it has no value other than what they can get by selling it, while an accountant will starve if they do not have any food and thus is willing to pay what the market demands. The two parties can both be better off by having a transaction. The other motivation for transactions is that parties may disagree as to what something is worth; even if one party will lose from the transaction, they may both believe they will profit."}
{"question":"Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?","answer":"There is also security aspect. By reducing the number of active credit\/debit cards, one significantly reduces the surface of attack. There is smaller chance of getting one of your card information stolen and misused (cf Target data leaks and others)."}
{"question":"How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want","answer":"We all buy stuff from time to time that only satisfies us for a short time. I was able to locate a few expenses that fall under that category. I see a lot answers that focus on not getting these things. I'm going to tell you how to at least attempt to have your cake and eat it too. If you can get these things without paying for them, or by paying pennies on the dollar for them, you'll no longer want to buy them at full price. Begin by making a list of the items you can't stop thinking about.  Go to your local library and look for relevant items that are on your list. If they are not yet available, request that the library purchase them, and reserve them for when the items come in.  Yes, libraries are usually tax-supported, but to give back, if you can't afford to contribute to the Library immediately, you can still promote their fund-raising or book\/media-drive efforts. If you don't mind buying things that may be second hand, thrift stores and garage or yard sales can have anything. The ones near you may have one or two items on your list of things you were looking for - for pennies on the dollar.  Other items might be things you can share with friends. Borrow or swap things until you get bored of them. If you don't have a network of friends with shared interests, there may be a local freecycle or relevant meetup group you can join.  The key here is to try to contribute more than you take (and you probably have things you don't need that you can start with trading), and don't keep careful score. The upshot is you'll not only save money but make friends while doing it. You can sometimes have your cake and eat it too. These recommendations can get you the short-term happiness you were looking for, without spending the money. And when the happiness is gone, you won't feel like you need to hang on to the item indefinitely - you can pass it on for others to enjoy."}
{"question":"Can you lease a secondary residential apartment for a job in NYC, and declare it as expense in tax return?","answer":"As I understand it... Generally housing can't be considered a business expense unless taken at your employer's explicit direction, for the good of the business rather than the employee. Temporary assignment far enough from you home office that commuting or occasional hotel nights are impractical,  maybe.  In other words, if they wouldn't be (at least theoretically) willing to let you put it on an expense account, you probably can't claim it here."}
{"question":"Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire?","answer":"This is a well worn path and not a bad idea.  There are quite a few pitfalls but there are a lot of resources to learn for other people's mistakes. Having a plan and doing your research should help you avoid most of them.  Here is some general advice to help get you started on the right foot.  Know the market you are investing in.  The city should have more than one major employer. The population should be rising and hopefully there are other positive economic indicators.  Check the city's and state's chamber of commerce for useful information.  You do not want to be stuck holding a bunch of upside down property in Detroit.   Accurately calculate expenses.  Set aside money for repairs.  budget 5% of the rent or 100 a month for repairs if no repairs happen that money goes into the repair fund for the future.  Set aside money for capital expenditures if the roof has a 10 years of life left in 10 years you better be ready to replace it same with any major appliances. Your area should have a baseline vacancy rate 5-8% in my area. That says out of a year your property will be vacant for around 6% of the year or 21 days for turnover. You should build that cushion into the budget as well setting aside a portion of the rent to cover that lean period. Some property management will offer \"eviction insurance\" which is basically them enforcing that savings.  Financing maybe difficult a lot of banks like to see 25% down payments on investments. You will also face higher interest rates for investment properties. Banks generally also like to see enough money to cover 6 months worth of expenses in your account for all property.  Some banks will not give financing for investment property to someone without 1-2 years of landlord experience. All in all finding money will be hard when you gets started and your terms may be less than ideal.  (hopefully make around 3 - 5k a year in profit)  If that includes loan pay-down and is not just cash-flow you are probably in the right ballpark.  I can find $100-$200 dollars cash-flow a month on single family home in my area. Once loan pay-down is included your numbers are close.  It sounds like you have a good attitude and a good plan.  A book that I really enjoyed and I think may be useful is \"Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate\" by Jay DeCima.  I think of it as required reading for do-it-yourself real estate investors. Good luck and happy investing"}
{"question":"Why do I not see goods and services all change their price when inflation is high? ","answer":"In most circumstances prices do not change on a daily basis on most goods and services, and just because inflation is high does not mean all prices of every good and service has to increase over the short term.  Prices are determined by costs of doing business, manufacturing costs and wage growth, and by competition.  For example, if one product has very little competition and costs to produce it have gone up, then the seller might increase prices by 10% to cover their cost of buying the goods off the manufacturer, whilst another product may have plenty of competition, the seller has sourced a new manufacturer from overseas with lower manufacturing costs, they might lower their selling costs by 5% to better compete and increase their sales. Inflation figures are calculated from a set basket of goods and services, and if inflation increases it does not mean that all prices in that basket have gone up, only that the aggregate for the whole basket of goods and services has gone up since the last inflation figures were calculated."}
{"question":"Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income","answer":"The best strategy? Skip the loan. Find a way to invest for a low starting amount via a retirement account (such as a 401K or IRA in the United States) or non-retirement account. Use this money to buy individual stocks or funds. Every month put money from your regular income into this investment account. Then buy more stocks or sell if the conditions change based on what the market is doing, not to meet a loan payment. This helps you because if the price fluctuates you will buy more shares if the price is down; and you will buy fewer shares when the price is up. It also allows you to skip worrying about how to repay the loan. It also means that you not have to pull more money out of savings to make the final loan payments if it doesn't make as much money as you plan. Regarding your math. This is a better understanding of the money flow than the earlier question."}
{"question":"How to measure how the Australian dollar is faring independent of the US dollar","answer":"To make it simple, just use gold as the main benchmark. Gold price never moves, FIAT currencies move around the price of gold.  So, when comparing US$ and Australian dollars to the gold, you know which currency is moving up and which down."}
{"question":"Why is stock dilution legal?","answer":"For new shares to be successfully sold, the price has to be below market price. If you currently own shares of that company, you should always get an option to buy those newly sold shares at that discounted price. The number of options depends on the relative number of shares you hold. Lets say you own 100 out of 1000 shares, currently priced at $10. 100 new shares are to be sold at $9. Since you are holding 10% of all shares, you have the option (i.e. the right) to buy 10 new (cheaper) shares (10% of 100) before anybody else can buy them. Theoretically, the money you save by getting the shares at a discounted price is equal to the money you lose by the share's value being diluted. So, if you're a shareholder and the company is increasing it's capital, you're given the right to \"go with it\"."}
{"question":"How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?","answer":"I think about debt as a good option for capital investments that offer a return. In my opinion, a house and clothes you need for that new job are good things to borrow for. School is ok, depending on the amount. Car is ok, if it's a 3 year loan. The rest is not good. You should try to carry as little debt as possible, but don't let it dominate your life. If faced between the choice of paying ahead on your student loan and blowing $300 on an XBox, you should pay the loan. If the choice is between taking your kid to the zoo and paying the loan, have fun at the zoo."}
{"question":"How will interest rate changes affect my government bonds ETF?","answer":"In general, yes. If interest rates go higher, then any existing fixed-rate bonds - and hence ETFs holding those bonds - become less valuable. The further each bond is from maturity, the larger the impact. As you suggest, once the bonds do mature, the fund can replace them at a market price, so the effect tails off. The bond market has a concept known as \"duration\" that helps reason about this effect. Roughly, it measures the average time from now to each payout of the bond, weighted by the payout. The longer the duration, the more the price will change for a given change in interest rates. The concept is just an approximation, and there are various slightly different ways of calculating it; but very roughly the price of a bond will reduce by a percentage equal to the duration times the increase in interest rates. So a bond with a duration of 5 years will lose 5% of its value for a 1% rise in interest rates (and of course vice-versa). For your second question, it really depends on what you're trying to achieve by diversifying - this might be best as a different question that gives more detail, as it's not very related to your first question. Short-term bonds are less risky. But both will lose value if the underlying company is in trouble. Gilts (government bonds) are less risky than corporate bonds."}
{"question":"How to decide on split between large\/mid\/small cap on 401(k) and how often rebalance","answer":"Slice and Dice would have the approach for dividing things up into 25% of large\/small and growth\/value that is one way to go. Bogleheads also have more than a few splits ranging from 2 funds to nearly 10 funds on high end."}
{"question":"Comparing\/reviewing personal health insurance plans for the self-employed","answer":"I was in your situation a few years ago and I discovered something that worked perfectly for me - a local health insurance broker. I met with her, discussed my needs, reviewed the options with her, then acted. She received a commission from the insurer, so it cost me nothing. I would certainly follow a similar approach again."}
{"question":"Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed?","answer":"If you put it in a normal account it is (1) taxed as ordinary income now and then (2) any growth is taxed again at the capital gains rate.  Additionally, (3) any dividends will be taxed each year.  If you put it in a 401(k), you will only be taxed once, at the ordinary income rate.   Mathematically, if you start with X and have a regular tax rate of t and capital gains rate of g and your investments return r and there are n years to retirement, then your total wealth if you put it in a mutual fund (ignoring annual taxes on dividends) will be While if you used a 401(k) it would simply be The whole g term (along with any annual taxes on dividends) is gone in the second case and that's potentially a lot of taxes.  The 401(k) is much better in terms of total wealth unless tax rates dramatically rise between now and when you retire so that the t in the second case is much higher than in the first. This is virtually never the case for people retiring now.  Of course, what tax rates the future holds, we do not know."}
{"question":"What is a good rental yield?","answer":"The rule of thumb I have always heard and what we rent our rental house at is 1% per month at the minimum (in the US). The rent has to cover the mortgage, the property taxes, the homeowners insurance, your income taxes (on the rent), the maintenance of the property and the times when the property is vacant. Even at 1% per month that doesn't leave a whole lot of profit compared to what you put in.  I have no idea why anybody would buy a rental property in Australia if all they could get is 5% per year before expenses. They couldn't possibly be making money in that investment, not to mention the aggravations of getting late night phone calls because something broke in the rental house. No way I would make that investment."}
{"question":"How do I get bill collectors who call about people I know to stop calling me?","answer":"http:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/bcp\/edu\/pubs\/consumer\/credit\/cre27.pdf if you are in the US Look at section 805 and 805 about how they may contact you and what they are and aren't allowed to do. You can simply send a Certified Mail, Return Receipt (CMRR) letter explaining you have no part of it, and that they are not allowed to contact you by any means other than in writing from this point forward. Then you can either put return to sender on the letters (it costs them money) or open them and delete anything you don't need."}
{"question":"Entering the stock market in a poor economy","answer":"Are you kidding? The stock markets just took a nose dive this week. Perfect buying opportunity. Just be sure to dollar cost average your way in to avoid excessive timing risk."}
{"question":"What should I do with my money?","answer":"Some of the other answers recommended peer-to-peer lending and property markets. I would not invest in either of these. Firstly, peer-to-peer lending is not a traditional investment and we may not have enough historical data for the risk-to-return ratio. Secondly, property investments have a great risk unless you diversify, which requires a huge portfolio. Crowd-funding for one property is not a traditional investment, and may have drawbacks. For example, what if you disagree with other crowd-funders about the required repairs for the property? If you invest in the property market, I recommend a well-diversified fund that owns many properties. Beware of high debt leverage used to enhance returns (and, at the same time, risk) and high fees when selecting a fund. However, traditionally it has been a better choice to invest in stocks than to invest in property market. Beware of anyone who says that the property market is \"too good to not get into\" without specifying which part of the world is meant. Note also that many companies invest in properties, so if you invest only in a well-diversified stock index fund, you may already have property investments in your portfolio! However, in your case I would keep the money in risk-free assets, i.e. bank savings or a genuine low-cost money market fund (i.e. one that doesn't invest in corporate debt or in variable-rate loans which have short duration but long maturity). The reason is that you're going to be unemployed soon, and thus, you may need the money soon. If you have an investment horizon of, say, 10 years, then I would throw stocks into the mix, and if you're saving for retirement, then I would go all in to stocks. In the part of the world where I live in, money market funds generally have better return than bank savings, and better diversification too. However, your 2.8% interest sounds rather high (the money market fund I have in the past invested in currently yields at 0.02%, but then again I live in the eurozone), so be sure to get estimates for the yields of different risk-free assets. So, my advice for investing is simple: risk-free assets for short time horizon, a mixture of stocks and risk-free assets for medium time horizon, and only stocks for long time horizon. In any case, you need a small emergency fund, too, which you should consider a thing separate from your investments. My emergency fund is 20 000 EUR. Your 50 000 AUD is bit more than 30 000 EUR, so you don't really have that much money to invest, only a bit more than a reasonably sized emergency fund. But then again, I live in rental property, so my expenses are probably higher than yours. If you can foresee a very long time horizon for part of your investment, you could perhaps invest 50% of your money to stocks (preference being a geographically diversified index fund or a number of index funds), but I wouldn't invest more because of the need for an emergency fund."}
{"question":"What is the best way to learn investing techniques?","answer":"First, you need to figure out what your objectives for the money are.  Mostly, this boils down to how soon you are going to need the money.  If you are, as you say, very busy and you don't need the money until retirement, I'd suggest putting your money in a single target date fund, such as the BlackRock LifePath fund.  You figure out when you are going to retire, and put your money in that fund.  The fund will then pick a mix of stocks, bonds, and other investments, adjusting the risk for your time horizon. Maybe your objectives are different, and you want to become an trader.  You value being able to say at a BBQ, \"oh, I bought AAPL at $20\", or \"I think small caps are over valued\".  I'd suggest you take your $50,000, and structure it so you invest $5,000 a year over 10 years.  Nothing teaches you about investing like making or losing a bit of money in the market.  If you put it all in at once, you risk losing it all - well before you've learned many valuable lessons which only the market can teach you. I'd suggest you study the Efficient-market hypothesis before studying specific markets or strategies."}
{"question":"Are personal finance \/ money management classes taught in high school, anywhere?","answer":"In the UK there is a School Rewards System used in many schools to teach kids and teens  about finance and economy. In the UK there is a framework for schools called \"Every Child Matters\" in which \u2018achieving economic well-being\u2019 is an important element. I think is important to offer to offer a real-life vehicle for financial learning beyond the theory."}
{"question":"Official Bank Check","answer":"How? Basically all banks nowadays allow online deposits from a smartphone - you take a picture from the front and back of the check, and submit it, and that's it. You still have the paper check, and it looks pristine, but it is deposited (and the paper is worthless)."}
{"question":"Why is the stock market closed on the weekend?","answer":"There are a number of factors here. 1) It's important that there is human oversight on the system. At one level someone needs to be monitoring the computers that manage the trading to be sure they are functioning. At another level someone needs to be making judgement calls on important but rare events: when you you suspend trading in a stock? When do you close the stock exchange entirely? It is alleged that unsupervised computer trades were at least partly responsible for the May 2010 selloff. Even if that's unproven, would you really want those unsupervised computers trading with each other for a couple of days? Or even for a couple of hours? 2) Providing 24\/7 trading would increase the cost of running a stock exchange, but with only a tiny improvement in liquidity. 3) If the stock exchange ran 24\/7 then traders would have to run 24\/7. That would add hugely to the cost of trading. 4) The people who would really suffer would be day traders - because there would no longer be such a thing as a day trader. If you were a sole trader then you would need to monitor your investments 24\/7, or risk waking up in the morning to find one of your stocks had plummeted overnight."}
{"question":"0% APR first 12 months on new credit card. Can I exceed that 30% rule of thumb and not hurt my credit score?","answer":"Your utilization ratio history is irrelevant to its impact on your credit score.  If you run up 80% of your utilization In January, then pay it back to 10% in March, your score in March will reflect the new reduced ratio with no memory of the 80% utilization last month. With that said, don't go around overspending just because you have 0% apr for a little bit.  Spend what you would spend with cash."}
{"question":"Basic Info On Construction Loans","answer":"Construction loans have an entirely set of rules and factors than mortgages and that's hard to reconcile into one instrument.  Also, I'm guessing the bank would be a bit shy about giving a commitment to a home loan before they have any information about how the construction process is going.  There would have to be a ton of contingencies put into mortgage and they probably can't account for everything."}
{"question":"Would it be considered appropriate to use a market order for my very first stock trade?","answer":"If you want to make sure you pay at or below a specific price per share, use a limit order. If you want to buy the stock close to the current price, but aren't price sensitive, use a market order. Market orders are typically not a great idea because if you're buying thousands or tens of thousands of shares this can mean a large swing in cost if the market suddenly changes direction."}
{"question":"Should I have a higher credit limit on my credit card?","answer":"I'm the contrarian on this forum. Since you asked a \"should I ...\" question, I'm free to answer \"No, you shouldn't increase your limit. Instead, you should close it out\". A credit card is a money pump - it pumps money from your account to the bank's profit margins. When I look at my furniture and the bank's furniture, I know exactly who needs my money more (hint: it's not the bank). Credit cards change people's spending patterns. In my first day of training as a Sears salesman, the use of the card was drummed into our heads. People purchase on average 25% more when they use a card than when they pay cash. That's good if you're a retailer or the lender (at that time Sears was both), but no good if you're a consumer. Build up a $1,000 emergency fund (for emergencies only, not \"I need a quick latte because I stayed up too late last night\"), then savings for 6 to 12 months living expenses. Close and cut up the credit card. Save up and pay cash for everything except possibly your house mortgage. If you have that much cash in the bank, the bankers will be as willing to talk to you as if you had an 800+ score. I have lived both with and without debt. Life without debt is well worth the short term sacrifice early on."}
{"question":"How do I know if my mutual fund is compounded?","answer":"When we talk about compounding, we usually think about interest payments. If you have a deposit in a savings account that is earning compound interest, then each time an interest payment is made to your account, your deposit gets larger, and the amount of your next interest payment is larger than the last. There are compound interest formulas that you can use to calculate your future earnings using the interest rate and the compounding interval.  However, your mutual fund is not earning interest, so you have to think of it differently. When you own a stock (and your mutual fund is simply a collection of stocks), the value of the stock (hopefully) grows. Let's say, for example, that you have $1000 invested, and the value goes up 10% the first year. The total value of your investment has increased by $100, and your total investment is worth $1100. If it grows by another 10% the following year, your investment is then $1210, having gained $110.  In this way, your investment grows in a similar way to compound interest. As your investment pays off, it causes the value of the investment to grow, allowing for even higher earnings in the future. So in that sense, it is compounding. However, because it is not earning a fixed, predictable amount of interest as a savings account would, you can't use the compound interest formula to calculate precisely how much you will have in the future, as there is no fixed compounding interval.  If you want to use the formula to estimate how much you might have in the future, you have to make an assumption on the growth of your investment, and that growth assumption will have a time period associated with it. For example, you might assume a growth rate of 10% per year. Or you might assume a growth rate of 1% per month. This is what you could use in a compound interest formula for your mutual fund investment.  By reinvesting your dividends and capital gains (and not taking them out in cash), you are maximizing your \"compounding\" by allowing those earnings to cause your investment to grow."}
{"question":"Over how much time should I dollar-cost-average my bonus from cash into mutual funds?","answer":"There have been studies which show that Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) underperforms Lump Sum Investing (LSI). Vanguard, in particular, has published one such study. Of course, reading about advice in a study is one thing; acting on that advice can be something else entirely. We rolled over my wife's 401(k) to an IRA back in early 2007 and just did it as a lump sum. You know what happened after that. But our horizon was 25+ years at that time, so we didn't lose too much sleep over it (we haven't sold or gone to cash, either)."}
{"question":"Health insurance lapsed due to employer fraud. How to get medications while in transition?","answer":"Check with the manufacturer of the name brand medication.  Most of them have programs to help people who need their medication but can not afford it.  They may be able to send you coupons for discounted or free medication.  You can go to a free clinic.  If your income is low enough the free clinic will provide medicine until you can get back on insurance.   You can do what alot of people who work hard and do not have insurance do and pay for it outof pocket.  You can talk to your doctor and see if there is an alternative to the expensive medicine that your insurance used to pay for. It may not be as effective or may have other side affects but many people are forced to go with these alternatives.   You situation is certianly unfortunate but also not terribly uncommon.  You probably also have recourse against the former employer but if they commited fraud, and faked your insurance there probably is not alot of money to recoup.  If it was a person who commited fraud then you may be able to get a judgement against them that would survive bankruptcy and the business but it will probably be at least 5 years before you can recoup anything possibly much longer and your attorney will probably not take it on contingency."}
{"question":"Can institutional, quant, or other professional traders \"prey on\" (make money from) retail investors?","answer":"The primary advantage of HFTs is their speed to act upon opportunities that exist for only fractions of a second. The reason why they are able to do this is because they invest heavily in hardware, custom software, and custom algorithms.  Most of the fleeting advantage, as they all manage to top each other's hardware seemingly every other day, is from the hardware investment.  To see the extremes that HFTs will go to invest in hardware, one might view this. It is highly likely that the trader with the market making algorithm could have been ignorant of the \"hide not slide\" order and missed out on many more opportunities while still being successful.  Haim Bodek, who is very much against this order type, was not so lucky. If it was truly an investment bank then it was unlikely that they were actually front running, which is very illegal and easily possible with much more low tech means, since companies like Citadel handle most orders now, and they have not been successful in investment banking. The reality of HFT is slowly coming to light, that while HFT can provide extremely consistent returns with enormous sharpe ratios, the capital investment is equally enormous, and the amount of capital that can be employed is also as enormously limited.  After all, the richest people on the planet are not HFT owners. Also, when it comes to time periods longer than 500ms, their results become very human."}
{"question":"Monthly money transfers from US to Puerto Rico","answer":"Puerto Rico: Last I checked, the Puerto Rico banking system wasn't materially different than working within the US - though some Continental US banks exclude US Territories like Guam and Puerto Rico or charge more when dealing with them. I'm not certain as to why. However, most banks don't see them any differently than a regular US bank.  Regarding Wire Transfers (WT): $35 for an ad-hoc WT within the US and Puerto Rico is for the most part average. Wires cost money for the convenience of quick clearing and guaranteed funds. If you have a business\/commercial account where you are doing this regularly and paying a monthly fee for a WT service, $10 - $15 each may be expected. I had a business account with US Bank where I paid $15 a month for a WT transfer service and reoccurring template (always went to the same account - AMEX in this case) and the transfers were only $15 each. But, a WT as a general rule, especially when it's only a once a month thing from a personal account, will cost around $25 - $35 in the US and Puerto Rico. As others have said, you can simply mail a personal check just as you would in the US. Many people choose to use Money Orders for Puerto Rico as they can be cashed at the post office (I believe there is an amount limit though). ACH: If you want even easier, I would use ACH. Banks in Puerto Rico use this ACH (Automatic Clearing House) system as we do in the Continental US. It will take a little longer than WT, but as you said - this is fine. Not all US Banks offer free ACH, but a number of them do. Last I checked, Citibank and USAA where among them. Banks like, BAC charges a small fee. Much smaller than a WT! This post may be useful to you: What's the difference between wire transfer and ACH?"}
{"question":"Personal Loan: How to define loan purpose","answer":"I would imagine that it goes beyond purpose and also addresses the demographic as a poor credit risk. Those seeking a post secondary education are a poor credit risk.  They are at the beginning of their careers so tend to have low income, a short credit history, and a very short time of managing money on their own.  Also many don't know how to work.  This later fact, to me, is a great predictor of financial success. Reading into the financial data surrounding student loans, it pretty easy to see that this demographic makes poor money decisions.  I live near a state university.  A large percentage of students drive late model luxury cars, frequent expensive bars and restaurants, and wear pretty nice clothes.  They also graduate with, on average 60K in student loans.  Keep in mind a 4 year degree could be had for about 30K and could be paid for working a part time job.  And that, to me, is the wisdom in bank's decision.  Sure they will loan you all the money you want with a government guarantee.  However, once that disappears they will not you money for unnecessary purposes."}
{"question":"Wisest option to pay for second career education","answer":"Tl;dr by anecdata I paid for my master's degree from investments\/savings with a HELOC backstop  It appears you don't have the 62k cash needed for tuition and living expenses so your decision is between financing a degree by selling your investments or a loan.   Ultimately this comes down to the yes\/no sell decision on the investments.  Some things to consider:"}
{"question":"Benefits of Purchasing Company Stock at a Discount","answer":"Typically, the discount is taxable at sale time But what about taxes?  When the company   buys the shares for you, you do not   owe any taxes. You are exercising your   rights under the ESPP. You have bought   some stock. So far so good. When you sell the stock, the discount   that you received when you bought the   stock is generally considered   additional compensation to you, so you   have to pay taxes on it as regular   income. Source: Turbotax.   Second source. Your pretax rate of return would be: 17% (100\/85) In your scenario where the stock price is fixed at $100. Your tax rate would be your marginal rate.   If the stock stayed at 100, you would still be taxed as income on $15\/share (the discount) and would receive no benefit for holding the stock one year. Assuming you are in the 25% tax bracket, your after tax rate of return would be 13% ((15*.75)+85)\/85)"}
{"question":"How can a credit card company make any money off me? I have a no-fee card and pay my balance on time","answer":"Credit cards have two revenue streams: So yes, the are making money from your daily use of the card."}
{"question":"Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities?","answer":"There are a number of ways trading stocks is easier than commodities: But the main and most important reason is that over long periods stocks in general will tend to outperform inflation as you are investing money in enterprises that generally try to become more productive over time.  Whereas commodities in the long term tend to rise only at the pace of inflation (this is kind of the definition of inflation actually).  So even uninformed investors that pick stocks at random will generally do better than someone doing the same in commodities even before the higher commodities trading fees are taken into account. Also your orange example may be harder than you think.  Once the news that a drought is an issue the price of oranges will almost immediately change well before the oranges come to market!  So unless you can predict the drought before anyone else can you won't be able to make money this way."}
{"question":"Why do stock brokers charge fees","answer":"Retail brokers and are generally not members of exchanges and would generally not be members of exchanges unless they are directly routing orders to those exchanges. Most retail brokers charging $7 are considered discount brokers and such brokers route order to Market Makers (who are members of the exchanges). All brokers and market makers must be members of FINRA and must pay FINRA registration and licensing fees.  Discount brokers also have operational costs which include the cost of their facilities, technology, clearing fees, regulation and human capital. Market makers will have the same costs but the cost of technology is probably much higher. Discount brokers will also have market data fees which they will have to pay to the exchanges for the right to show customer real time quotes.  Some of their fees can be offset through payment for order flow (POF) where market makers pay routing brokers a small fee for sending orders to them for execution. The practice of POF has actually allowed retail brokers to keep their costs lower but to to shrinking margins and spread market makers POF has significantly declined over the years.  Markets makers generally do not pass along Exchange access fees which are capped at $.003 (not .0035) to routing brokers.  Also note that The SEC and FINRA charges transactions fees. SEC fee for sales are generally passed along to customers and noted on trade confirms. FINRA TAF is born by the market makers and often subtracted from POF paid to routing firms. Other (full service brokers) charging higher commissions are charging for the added value of their brokers providing advice and expertise in helping investors with investment strategies. They will generally also have the same fees associated with membership of all the exchanges as they are also market makers subject to some of the list of cost mentioned above.  One point of note is that Market Making technology is quite sophisticates and very expensive.  It has driven most of wholesale market makers of the 90s into consolidation.    Retail routing firm's save a significant amount of money for not having to operate such a system (as well as worry about the regulatory headaches associated with running such a system).  This allows them to provide much lower commissions that the (full service) or bulge bracket brokers."}
{"question":"What is the maximum I can have stored in a traditional 401(k) and a Roth 401(k)?","answer":"The numbers aside (I'd not assume 12%\/yr) there is no limit to the balance. There are 401(k) accounts that have great matching and profit sharing deposits putting the per year limit closer to $45k, combine that with company stock in, say, Apple which has risen 60 fold this past decade, and balances in the tens of millions are possible."}
{"question":"When should I walk away from my mortgage?","answer":"This is a very personal situation of course, but if you can afford the repayments then I recommend keeping the house!. A house is a long term investment and one has to live somewhere. You probably didn't buy the house planning to sell it in 5 years so while in the short term you could suffer a loss on paper chances are things will pick up, they have to eventually. For each boom there is a bust, one for one."}
{"question":"Why do 10 year Treasury bond yields affect mortgage interest rates?","answer":"The yield on treasury bond indicates the amount of money anyone at can make at virtually zero risk.   So lets say banks have X [say 100] amount of money. They can either invest this in treasury bonds and get Y% [say 1%] interest that is very safe, or invest into mortgage loans [i.e. lend it to people] at Y+Z% [say at 3%]. The extra Z% is to cover the servicing cost and the associated risk. (Put another way, if you wanted only Y%, why not invest into treasury bonds, rather than take the risk and hassle of getting the same Y% by lending to individuals?) In short, treasury bond rates drive the rate at which banks can invest surplus money in the market or borrow from the market. This indirectly translates into the savings & lending rates to the banks' customers."}
{"question":"Should I use regular or adjusted close for backtesting?","answer":"If you want to monitor how well you did in choosing your investments you will want to use stock prices that account for the dividends and splits and other changes (not just the closing price).  The adjusted close will include these changes where the straight close will not include them.  Using the adjusted close you will get your true percentage change.  For example I have a stock called PETS that paid an $0.18 dividend in July 2015. The adjusted closes before that day in July are all $0.18 lower per share.  Say the closing price had been unchanged at $20.00.  The close prices would say I made no profit, but the adjusted closing price would say I made $0.18 per share on this investment because the adjusted close would read $19.82 in June 2015 but would read $20.00 in August 2015 (just like the closing price).  The adjusted close allows me to know my true profit per share."}
{"question":"Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership?","answer":"You can buy a new Toyota from a non-dealer, but not from Toyota directly as they have no retail distribution capability. There is no need to buy directly from Toyota if you want to get a new car without going through a dealer. In many cases people buy new cars but have to sell them immediately for one reason or another."}
{"question":"Why would I want a diversified portfolio, versus throwing my investments into an index fund?","answer":"Diversification is extremely important and the one true \"Free Lunch\" of investing, meaning it can provide both greater returns and less risk than a portfolio that is not diversified. The reason people say otherwise is because they are talking about \"true\" portfolio diversification, which cannot be achieved by simply spreading money across stocks. To truly diversify a portfolio it must be diversified across multiple, unrelated \"Return Drivers.\" I describe this throughout my best-selling book and am pleased to provide complimentary links to the following two chapters, where I discuss the lack of diversification from spreading money solely across stocks (including correlation tables), as well as the benefits of true portfolio diversification: Jackass Investing - Myth #8: Trading is Gambling \u2013 Investing is Safer Jackass Investing - Myth #20: There is No Free Lunch"}
{"question":"Will getting a second credit card help my credit rating?","answer":"Besides your credit score, there are other smart reasons to have a second line of credit.  (Your credit score doesn't affect you the majority of your life, but when it does whoooooo boy does it.) Should the first bank you have credit with create or find a clerical error, a second line of credit can provide a cushion while you sort it out with the first Should physically damage a card, or have it stolen, having a second backup at home will be helpful as you wait for a replacement. Getting a second line of credit with a different institution than your first allows you the flexibility to cancel one and move your business should the deal become unfavorable to you. Multiple lines of credit in of itself is a plus to your credit score (albeit a small one) You can organize your finances.  One card handles the recurring payments in your life, the second incidentals.  The expected activity type might make it easier to detect fraud. When you get your second line of credit, get it from a different institution than where you have any other business now.  (A credit union if you can, or a small local bank).  Make sure there is no annual fee, and if there is a reward, be certain it is worth it.  Cash back is my favorite because I can spend cash where I like, whereas \"points\" have to come out of product in their catalogs.  Lower interest rate is best of all.  Even though you always plan on paying it off every month like clockwork, you might one day run into an issue where you cannot.  Lower interest rate becomes very important in that plannings scenario."}
{"question":"Who creates money? Central banks or commercial banks? ","answer":"Empirial evidence for the second scenario: Can banks individually create money out of nothing? \u2014 The theories and the empirical evidence. Excerpt: It was examined whether in the process of making money available to   the borrower the bank transfers these funds from other accounts   (within or outside the bank). In the process of making loaned money   available in the borrower's bank account, it was found that the bank   did not transfer the money away from other internal or external   accounts, resulting in a rejection of both the fractional reserve   theory and the financial intermediation theory. Instead, it was found   that the bank newly \u2018invented\u2019 the funds by crediting the borrower's   account with a deposit, although no such deposit had taken place. This   is in line with the claims of the credit creation theory. Thus it can now be said with confidence for the first time \u2013 possibly   in the 5000 years' history of banking - that it has been empirically   demonstrated that each individual bank creates credit and money out of   nothing, when it extends what is called a \u2018bank loan\u2019. The bank does   not loan any existing money, but instead creates new money. The money   supply is created as \u2018fairy dust\u2019 produced by the banks out of thin   air."}
{"question":"Does SIPC protect securities purchased in foreign exchanges?","answer":"I have received a response from SIPC, confirming littleadv's answer: For a brief background, the protections available under the Securities   Investor Protection Act (\"SIPA\"), are only available in the context of   a liquidation proceeding of a SIPC member broker-dealer and relate to   the \"custody\" of securities and related cash at the SIPC member   broker-dealer. Thus, if a SIPC member broker-dealer were to fail at a   time when a customer had securities and\/or cash in the custody of the   SIPC member broker-dealer, in most instances it would be SIPC's   obligation to restore those securities and cash to the customer,   within statutory limits. That does not mean, however, that the   customer would necessarily receive the original value of his or her   purchase. Rather, the customer receives the security itself and\/or the   value of the customer's account as of the day that the liquidation   commenced. SIPC does not protect against the decline in value of any   security. In a liquidation proceeding under the SIPA, SIPC may advance   up to $500,000 per customer (including a $250,000 limit on cash in the   account). Please note that this protection only applies to the extent that you   entrust cash or securities to a U.S. SIPC member. Foreign broker   dealer subsidiaries are not SIPC members. However, to the extent that   any assets, including foreign securities, are being held by the U.S.   broker dealer, the assets are protected by SIPC. Stocks listed on the   LSE are protected by SIPC to the extent they are held with a SIPC   member broker dealer, up to the statutory limit of $500,000 per   customer. As I mentioned in the comments, in the case of IB, indeed they have a foreign subsidiary, which is why SIPC does not cover it (rather they are insured by Lloyds of London for such cases)."}
{"question":"I am a small retail investor. Can I invest in the Facebook IPO at the IPO price? [duplicate]","answer":"I have an account with ETrade. Earlier this week I got an offer to participate in the IPO proper (at the IPO price). If Charles Schwab doesn't give you the opportunity, that's a shortcoming of them as a brokerage firm; there are definitely ways for retail investors to invest in it, wise investment or no. (Okay, technically it wasn't an offer to participate, it was a notice that participation was possibly available, various securities-law disclaimers etc withstanding. \"This Web site is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy these securities. The offer is by prospectus only. This Web site contains a preliminary prospectus for each offering.\" etc etc)."}
{"question":"Should I scale down my 401k?","answer":"IMHO your thinking is spot on.  More than likely, you are years away from retirement, like 22 if you retire somewhat early.  Until you get close keep it in aggressive growth.  Contribute as much as you can and you probably end up with 3 million in today's dollars.   Okay so what if you were retiring in a year or two from now, and you have 3M, and have managed your debt well.  You have no loans including no mortgage and an nice emergency fund.  How much would you need to live?  60 or 70K year would provide roughly the equivalent of 100K salary (no social security tax, no commute, and no need to save for retirement) and you would not have a mortgage. So what you decide to do is move 250K and move it to bonds so you have enough to live off of for the next 3.5 years or so.  That is less than 10% of your nest egg.  You have 3.5 years to go through some roller coaster time of the market and you can always cherry pick when to replenish the bond fund. Having a 50% allocation for bonds is not very wise.  The 80% probably good for people who have little or no savings like less than 250k and retired.   I think you are a very bright individual and have some really good money sense."}
{"question":"First time homeowner and getting a mortgage?","answer":"Make sure you shop around and ask a lot of places for a good faith estimate.  Last I knew, the good faith document is the same everywhere and long form that makes it easy enough to compare the hard numbers from place to place.  I have gotten several estimates for various scenarios and I have had them hand written and printed.  (I discounted the hand written ones because that broker seemed pretty disorganized in general) Learn the terms online, and start comparing.  Use the good faiths as a negotiation tool to get lower rates or lower costs from other brokers.  See how accurate the person is at listening to you and filling out the paperwork.  See how responsive they are to you when you call with questions and want some changes. Check with at least four places. The more places you shop, the better idea you will have of what fees are high and what interest rates are low.  I might pay a higher fee to get a lower interest rate, so there are lots of trade offs to consider."}
{"question":"Cost basis allocation question: GM bonds conversion to stock & warrants","answer":"This is a bit complicated because of all the moving parts, but is a little simpler because the two warrants are now publicly traded.  The main rule appears to be that your cost should be apportioned into the bases for the pieces you received by the proportions of the prices established in the market on the first day of trading in which they trade separately (source: costbasis.com).  Since the A and B GM warrants began trading in March 2011 (at least that's what a quick search shows), use their prices and the GM price on the same day to establish the proportions.  You also must include the factor of how much of each piece you received for each of your bonds. So, for example, if the prices of GM, WSA, and WSB, were $32, $23, and $17 on the first day of trading, and you got 3 shares GM, 2 A warrants, and 1 B warrant for your bonds, their worth on first day of separate trading would be: and so the proportion of your bond cost to be allocated to your A warrants, for instance, would be 46\/159 or about 28.9% using these example figures. The small dribbles of additional securities you have received already, I would include in the calculation above, and if you in the future receive any further dribbles, I would assign them a basis of $0 (as your full bond cost would have already been completely allocated)."}
{"question":"Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise?","answer":"I don't see balance sheet in what you're looking at, and I'd definitely suggest learning how to read a balance sheet and looking at it, if you're going to buy stock in a company, unless you know that the recommendations you're buying on are already doing that and you're willing to take that risk.  Also, reading past balance sheets and statements can give you an idea about how accurate the company is with their predictions, or if they have a history of financial integrity. Now, if you're going the model portfolio route, which has become popular, the assumption that many of these stock buyers are making is that someone else is doing that for them.  I am not saying that this assumption is valid, just one that I've seen; you will definitely find a lot of skeptics, and rightly so, about model portfolios.  Likewise, people who trade based on what [Person X] does (like Warren Buffett or David Einhorn) are assuming that they're doing the research.  The downside to this is if you follow someone like this.  Yeah, oops. I should also point out that technical analysis, especially high probability TA, generally only looks at history.  Most would define it as high risk and there are many underlying assumptions with reading the price movements by high probability TA types."}
{"question":"Was this a good deal on a mortgage?","answer":"The key question is whether this number includes taxes and insurance. When you get a mortgage in the U.S., the bank wants to be sure that you are paying your property taxes and that you have homeowners insurance. The mortgage is guaranteed by a lien on the house -- if you don't pay, the bank can take your house -- and the bank doesn't want to find out that your house burned down and you didn't bother to get insurance so now they have nothing. So for most mortgages, the bank collects money from the borrower for the taxes and insurance, and then they pay these things. This can also be convenient for the borrower as you are then paying a fixed amount every month rather than being hit with sizeable tax and insurance bills two or three times a year. So to run the numbers: As others point out, mortgage rates in the US today are running 3% to 4%. I just found something that said the average rate today is 3.6%. At that rate, your actual mortgage payment should be about $1,364. Say $1,400 as we're taking approximate numbers. So if the $2,000 per month does NOT include taxes and insurance, it's a bad deal. If it does, then not so bad. You don't say where you live. But in my home town, property taxes on a $300,000 house would be about $4,500 per year. Insurance is probably another $1000 a year. And if you have to get PMI, add another 1\/2% to 3\/4%, or $1500 to $2250 per year. Add those up and divide by 12 and you get about $600. Note my numbers here are all highly approximate, will vary widely depending on where the house is, so this is just a general ballpark. $1400 + $600 = $2000, just what you were quoted. So if the number is PITI -- principle, interest, taxes, and insurance -- it's about what I'd expect."}
{"question":"Found Mistake on 2013 1120S Form","answer":"I don't know if it's common or necessary to include capital stock as a liability? Yes, if you look at the title of the nonasset part of the balance sheet it actually is titled \"Liabilities and Shareholders' Equity\".  Your capital stock is a component of Equity.  This sounds like it was reported in a reasonable manner. \"$2,582 listed under Loans from Shareholders (Line 19).\" Did you have a basis issue with your distributions?  That is did you take shareholder distributions more than your adjusted basis that you have been taxed on?  I have seen the practice of considering distributions in excess of basis as short term loans to prevent the additional taxation of the excess distribution. Be careful when you adjust this entry, your balance sheet had to roll from one year to the next.  You must have a reasonable transaction to substantiate the removal of the shareholder loan."}
{"question":"How to understand a volatility based ETF like VXX","answer":"To understand the VXX ETF, you need to understand VIX futures, to understand VIX futures you need to understand VIX, to understand VIX you need to understand options pricing formulas such as the \"Black Scholes\" formula Those are your prerequisites. Learn at your own pace. Short Answer: When you buy VXX you are buying the underlying are front month VIX futures. Limited by the supply of the ETF's NAV (Net Asset Value) units. It is assumed that the ETF manager is actually buying and selling more VIX front month futures to back the underlying ETF. Long Answer: Assume nobody knows what an options contract should be worth. Therefore formulas have been devised to standardize how to price an options contract. The Black-Scholes formula is widely used, one of the variables in this formula is \"Implied Volatility\", which basically accounts for the mispricing of options when the other variables (Intrinsic Value, delta, gamma, theta...) don't completely explain how much the option is worth. People are willing to pay more for options when the perception is that they will be more profitable, \"implied volatility\" tracks these changes in an option's demand, where the rest of the black-scholes formula creates a price for an option that will always be the same. Each stock in the market that also trades standardized options will have implied volatility which can be computed from the price of those options. The \"Volatility Index\" (VIX), looks at the implied volatility of MANY STOCK's options contracts. Specifically the \"implied volatility of out the money puts on the S&P 500\". If you don't know what that quoted part of the sentence means, then you have at least five other individual questions to ask before you re-read this answer and understand the relevance of these followup questions: Why would people buy out-the-money puts on the S&P 500? Why would people pay more for out-the-money puts on the S&P 500 on some days and pay less for them on other days? This is really the key to the whole puzzle. Anyway, now that we have this data, people wanted to speculate on the future value of the VIX. So VIX futures contracts began trading and with it there came a liquid market. There doesn't need to be anything physical to back a financial product anymore. A lot of people don't trade futures, retail investors have practically only heard of \"the stock market\". So one investment bank decided to make a fund that only holds VIX futures that expire within a month. (front month futures). They split that fund up into shares and listed it on the stock market, like alchemy the VXX was formed. Volatility studies are fascinating, and get way more complex than this now that the VXX ETF also has liquid options contracts trading on it too, and there are leveraged VIX ETF funds that also trade options"}
{"question":"Weekly budgets based on (a variable) monthly budget","answer":"Try reading about budgeting.  Make a list of all income coming in and all expenses going out. Eliminate any unnecessary expenses and try to increase income, which could include a part-time second job.  Try to always put a portion of the income away as savings - try 10%, but if this is too hard to start with try saving at least 5% of the income."}
{"question":"Is it possible to trade US stock from Europe ?","answer":"Yes, it's possible and even common but it depends on your bank or broker. One of the main differences is that you might assume FX risk if your account is in EUR and you trade stock denominated in USD. You might also encounter lower liquidity or price differences if you don't trade on the primary exchange where stocks are listed, i.e. NYSE, Nasdaq..."}
{"question":"How does Yahoo finance adjust stock data for splits and dividends?","answer":"Should be noted that pacoverflow's answer is wrong. Yahoo back-adjusts all the previous (not current or future) values based on a cumulative adjustment factor. So if there's a dividend ex-date on December 19, Yahoo adjusts all the PREVIOUS (December 18 and prior) prices with a factor which is: 1 - dividend \/ Dec18Close"}
{"question":"What does a Dividend \"will not be quoted ex\" mean?","answer":"The ex indicator is meant to be a help for market participants.  On the ex-day orders will go into a different order book, the ex order book, which at the start of the ex day will be totally empty, i.e. no orders from the non-ex day book have been copied over. Why does this help?  Well imagine you had a long-standing buy order in the book, well below the current price, and now the share price halves due to a 2-for-1 split, would you want to see your order executed? If so, your order should have gone into the ex-book which is only active on the ex-day (and orders in the ex book are usually copied over to the normal book on the day after the ex-day but this is exchange-specific). Think of it as an additional safety net to tell the exchange: \"I know what I'm doing: I want to buy this stock totally overpriced after the 2-for-1 split\". Now some exchanges and\/or some securities (mostly derivatives) linked with the security in question don't have this notion of ex or the ex-book, and they will tell you by \"will not be quoted ex\" or \"the ex indicator is missing\". In your case (SNE) it is a sponsored ADR, the ex-date was Mar 28 2016, one day before the ex date of the Japanese original.  According to my understanding of NYSE rules, there is no specific rule for or against omitting the ex-indicator.  It seems to be a decision on a case by case basis.  Looking through the dividends of other Japanese ADRs I drew the conclusion none of them have an ex-book and so all of them are announced as: \"Will not be quoted ex by the exchange\".  Again, this is based on my observations."}
{"question":"How does the importance of a cash emergency fund change when you live in a country with nationalized healthcare?","answer":"There are, of course, many possible financial emergencies. They range from large medical expenses to losing your job to being sued to major home or car repairs to who-knows-what. I suppose some people are in a position where the chances that they will face any sort of financial emergency are remote. If you live in a country with national health insurance and there is near-zero chance that you will have any need to go outside this system, you are living with your parents and they are equipped to handle any home repairs, you ride the bus or subway and don't own a car so that's not an issue, etc etc, maybe there just isn't any likely scenario where you'd suddenly need cash. I can think of all sorts of scenarios that might affect me. I'm trying to put my kids through college, so if I lost my job, even if unemployment benefits were adequate to live on, they wouldn't pay for college. I have terrible health insurance so big medical bills could cost me a lot. I have an old car so it could break down any time and need expensive repairs, or even have to be replaced. I might suddenly be charged with a crime that I didn't commit and need a lawyer to defend me. Etc. So in a very real sense, everyone's situation is different. On the other hand, no matter how carefully you think it out, it's always possible that you will get bitten by something that you didn't think of. By definition, you can't make a list of unforeseen problems that might affect you! So no matter how safe you think you are, it's always good to have some emergency fund, just in case. How much is very hard to say."}
{"question":"What is Fibonacci values?","answer":"This is how I've understood this concept. Fibonacci nos\/levels\/ratios\/%s is based on concept of sequential increment. You may find lot of info about Fibonacci on net. In stock market this concept is used to predict psychological level. While a trend is form, usually price tend to accumulate\/consolidate at these level. How the percentage\/ ratio make impact is  - check any long trend...Now draw a fibbo retracement from immediate previous high and connect it's low. You will see new levels of intermediate trend. In broader term you will find after reversal a leg (trend) is formed, then body and then head which is smaller; then price reverses. The first leg that forms if it refuses to break 23.6% or 38.2% then the previous trend may continue. 50% is normal; usually this level is indecision phase. Even 61.8% is seen as indecision but it is crucial level as it is breakout level towards 100%. Now if the stock retraces 100% then it is sign a new big trend is forming. Now for day trader 23.6%,38.2% and 50% level are very crucial from trading purpose. This concept is so realistic that every level is considered and respected. Suppose if a candle or bar starts at 23.6% level and crosses 38.2% and directly hits 50%. Then the next bar or candle will revert and first hit 38.2% and then continue with the trend. It means price comes back, forms it area at this level and then continue whichever direction the force directs it. You never trade fibo alone, you need help of oscillators or other tools to confirm it."}
{"question":"Does my net paycheck decrease as the year goes on due to tax brackets filling up?","answer":"No, you will (generally speaking) not see a decrease in your net earnings from crossing a tax bracket: This means that your highest marginal rate (the top bracket you fall into) only applies to the portion of your income that is in that bracket, not your total income. This helps ensure that your total tax burden does not increase measurably from crossing a tax bracket. Be aware that you can still see measurable changes in your total taxes due if increases in income make you no longer eligible for certain deductions and\/or benefits that were otherwise reducing your tax burden, but this is not the same as how changes in your highest marginal rate affect your overall average tax rate. Note that when you see a rate table such as the one on efile.com's federal income tax rates page or on Wikipedia's Income tax in the United States page, the rates listed are for each segment of income, not for your overall income: In other words the 15% rate below (for 2014, filing single) only applies to the portion of your income falling between the listed numbers, not to income below it or above it: that would be calculated under the respective rates given. You can use the i1040tt tax tables to gain a sense of how this works in practice: (The linked resource is for 2014 taxes) The threshold in 2014 for the 25% rate vs 15% was $36,900. Using the linked table, if you were single and made between 36,850 and 36,900 in gross income, your tax liability before other considerations was $5,078. If you made between 36,900 and 36,950, your base tax liability was $5,088."}
{"question":"If a put seller closes early, what happens to the buyer?","answer":"You're assuming options traded on the open market. To close open positions, a seller buys them back on the open market. If there's little on offer, this will drive the price up."}
{"question":"How can I identify a likely bull trap?","answer":"Remember the 1st Law of Technical Analysis: \"For every analysis there exists an equal and opposite analysis.\"  And the 2nd Law of Technical Analysis: \"They're both wrong.\" Technical analysis in the absence of hard data is just a lot of hand-waving meant to dazzle CNBC viewers and rope would-be day traders into paying for colored-plot-filled trading platforms. How, mathematically, do you define a bull trap?  Does the lead in trendline have to have a certain minimum\/maximum slope?  Does the trough have to be below\/above a certain percentage of the peaks?  Does the entire period have to encompass less\/more than a certain number of trading days?  Etc. Before you attempt to use such an analysis to predict the future direction of a stock price you need to be able to answer the above questions (and more) rigorously.  Only then can you test your definition against historical stock movements to see whether it has predictive power.  If it doesn't have predictive power, then you start over or tweak your definition until it does. Notice that once you're done with all of the above work you are no longer doing technical analysis and are now doing statistics!"}
{"question":"How can a Canadian get exposure to safe haven currencies?","answer":"If S&P crashes, these currencies will appreciate. Note that the above is speculation, not fact. There is definitely no guarantee that, say, the CHF\/CAD currency pair is inversely linked to the performance of the US stock market when measured in USD, let alone to the performance of the US stock market as measured in CAD. How can a Canadian get exposure to a safe haven currency like CHF and JPY? I don't want a U.S. dollar denominated ETF. Three simple options come to mind, if you still want to pursue that: Have money in your bank account. Go to your bank, tell them that you want to buy some Swiss francs or Japanese yen. Walk out with a physical wad of cash. Put said wad of cash somewhere safe until needed. It is possible that the bank will tell you to come back later as they might not have the physical cash available at the branch office, but this isn't anything really unusual; it is often highly recommended for people who travel abroad to have some local cash on hand. Contact your bank and tell them that you want to open an account denominated in the foreign currency of your choice. They might ask some questions about why, there might be additional fees associated with it, and you'll probably have to pay an exchange fee when transferring money between it and your local-currency-denominated accounts, but lots of banks offer this service as a service for those of their customers that have lots of foreign currency transactions. If yours doesn't, then shop around. Shop around for money market funds that focus heavily or exclusively on the currency area you are interested in. Look for funds that have a native currency value appreciation as close as possible to 0%. Any value change that you see will then be tied directly to the exchange rate development of the relevant currency pair (for example, CHF\/CAD). #1 and #3 are accessible to virtually anyone, no large sums of money needed (in principle). Fees involved in #2 may or may not make it a practical option for someone handling small amounts of money, but I can see no reason why it shouldn't be a possibility again in principle."}
{"question":"Advantage of credit union or local community bank over larger nationwide banks such as BOA, Chase, etc.?","answer":"Fees mostly.  BOA, for example, just announced $5\/month for for all debit cards.  Chase has foreign transaction fees, mostly hidden. BOA once famously raised interest rates on credit card holders to 28%, legally.  Also, some people do not like patronizing a bank with CEOs that bankrupt the company and then get multi-million dollar golden parachutes. Finally some people have a problem with banks or institutions that suspend accounts based on political or unproven legal proceedings (ala Wikileaks and BOA).  Credit unions are less like to be involved in this sort of activity since they are not privately traded, and as such they are not ruled by shareholders who demand bottom line results at all costs."}
{"question":"Is it best to exercise options shares when they vest, or wait","answer":"The general rule with stock options is that it's best to wait until expiration to exercise them.  The rationale depends on a few factors and there are exceptions. Reasons to wait: There would be cases to exercise early: Tax implications should be checked with a professional advisor specific to your situation. In the employee stock option plans that I have personally seen, you get regular income tax assessed between exercise price and current price at the time you exercise.  Your tax basis is then set to the current price.  You also pay capital gains tax when you eventually sell, which will be long or short term based on the time that you held the stock. (The time that you held the options does not count.)  I believe that other plans may be set up differently."}
{"question":"Do Fundamentals Matter Anymore in Stock Markets? ","answer":"All you have to do is ask Warren Buffet that question and you'll have your answer! (grin)  He is the very definition of someone who relies on the fundamentals as a major part of his investment decisions. Investors who rely on analysis of fundamentals tend to be more long-term strategic planners than most other investors, who seem more focused on momentum-based thinking. There are some industries which have historically low P\/E ratios, such as utilities, but I don't think that implies poor growth prospects.  How often does a utility go out of business?   I think oftentimes if you really look into the numbers, there are companies reporting higher earnings and earnings growth, but is that top-line growth, or is it the result of cost-cutting and other measures which artificially imply a healthy and growing company?  A healthy company is one which shows year-over-year organic growth in revenues and earnings from sales, not one which has to continually make new acquisitions or use accounting tricks to dress up the bottom line. Is it possible to do well by investing in companies with solid fundamentals?  Absolutely.  You may not realize the same rate of short-term returns as others who use momentum-based trading strategies, but over the long haul I'm willing to bet you'll see a better overall average return than they do."}
{"question":"Got a \"personal\" bonus from my boss. Do I have to pay taxes and if so, how do I go about that?","answer":"Yes, it's taxable. If anyone suggests it's a gift, they are mistaken. There's a line on the 1040 for \"other\" and as long as you claim it, you're fine with the IRS. It's 2012 income as you already got it.  Edit - mhoran makes two good points I'm not really able to address. (a) does a late bonus such as this effect one's penalty? (b) since it skipped payroll, will there be an issue by not having FICA withheld?"}
{"question":"How to fix Finance::Quote to pull quotes in GnuCash","answer":"The Yahoo Finance API is no longer available, so Finance::Quote needs to point at something else.  Recent versions of Finance::Quote can use AlphaVantage as a replacement for the Yahoo Finance API, but individual users need to acquire and input an AlphaVantage API key. Pretty decent documentation for how to this is available at the GnuCash wiki. Once you've followed the directions on the wiki and set the API key, you still need to tell each individual security to use AlphaVantage rather than Yahoo Finance: As a warning, I've been having intermittent trouble with AlphaVantage.  From the GnuCash wiki:  Be patient. Alphavantage does not have the resources that Yahoo! did and it is common for quote requests to time out, which GnuCash will present as \"unknown error\". I've certainly been experiencing those errors, though not always."}
{"question":"What does a stock's quoted value represent?","answer":"Stock price is set to the price with the highest transaction volume at any given time.  The stock price you cited was only valid in the last transaction on a specific stock exchange. As such it is more of an \"historic\" value. Next trade will be done with the next biggest volume. Depending on the incoming bids and asks this could be higher or lower, but you can assume it will not be too far off if there is no crash underway. Simple example stock exchange:"}
{"question":"If a mutual fund did really well last year, then statistically speaking, is it likely going to do bad this year?","answer":"This can be answered by looking at the fine print for any prospectus for any stock, bond or mutual fund. It says: \"Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.\". A mutual fund is a portfolio of common stocks, managed by somebody for a fee. There are many factors that can drive performance of a fund up or down. Here are a few:  I'm sure there are many more market influences that I cannot think of that push fund prices up or down. What the fund did last year is not one of them. If it were, making money in the mutual fund market would be as easy as investing in last year's winners and everyone would be doing it."}
{"question":"In-laws moving in (financial\/tax implications)?","answer":"You are \"pool[ing] the sales from both houses as downpayment on the new house.\" But they are going to pay you rent.  Your question as it stands, just opens more questions. What, exactly is the ownership of the new house? If your's (and your wife's) was the money a gift?  Ignoring the gift, if that's what it is, and if the in-law suite is 25% of the house value, you have a rental. You claim 25% of the expenses, including property tax and mortgage interest, along with 25% of the utilities, unless their part has its own meters.  That's a start, if you add details, I may edit my answer. (Not to be pedantic, but whose parents are they. They can't be \"our in-laws,\" can they?)"}
{"question":"One of my stocks dropped 40% in 2 days, how should I mentally approach this?","answer":"There are 2 approaches. One of them is already mentioned by @Afforess. If the approach by @Afforess is not feasible, and you can not see yourself making an unbiased decision, close the position.  By closing the position you will not get the best price. But by removing a distraction you will reduce amount of mistakes you make in the other stocks."}
{"question":"Retirement formula for annual compound interest with changing principal","answer":"I've found the systems that seem to work. Firstly, you need to find how much money is required to pay for the withdrawals after retirement, while still accruing interest.  I couldn't seem to do this with an equation, but this bit of javascript worked: yearsToLast: Number of years of yearly withdrawals yearlyWithdrawal: Amount to withdraw each year interest: Decimal form of yearly compounding interest Now that we have how much is required at the beginning of the retirement, to figure out how much to add yearly to hit this mark, you'd use: amount: Previously found required amount to reach interest: Decimal form of yearly compounding interest yearsSaving: Number of years saving till amount needs to be hit I hope this helps some other poor soul, because I could find squat on how to do this. Max"}
{"question":"Why do people buy stocks that pay no dividend?","answer":"You can think of the situation as a kind of Nash equilibrium.  If \"the market\" values stock based on the value of the company, then from an individual point of view it makes sense to value stock the same way. As an illustration, imagine that stock prices were associated with the amount of precipitation at the company's location, rather than the assets of the company.  In this imaginary stock market, it would not benefit you to buy and sell stock according to the company's value.  Instead, you would profit most from buying and selling according to the weather, like everyone else.  (Whether this system \u2014 or the current one\u00a0\u2014 would be stable in the long-term is another matter entirely.)"}
{"question":"How to invest a small guaranteed monthly income?","answer":"In my opinion, you can't save too much for retirement. An extra $3120\/yr invested at 8% for 30 years would give you $353K more at retirement.  If your \"good amount in my 401k\" is a hint that you don't want us to go in that direction, then how about saving for the child's college education? 15 years' savings, again at 8% will return $85K, which feels like a low number even in today's dollars, 15 years of college inflation and it won't be much at all.  Not sure why there's guilt around spending it. If one has no debt, good retirement savings level, and no pressing need to save for something else, enjoying one's money is an earned reward.  Even so, if you want a riskless 'investment' just prepay the mortgage. You'll see an effective return of the mortgage rate, 4%(?) or so, vs the .001% banks are paying. Of course, this creates a monthly windfall once the mortgage is paid off, but it buys you time to make this ultimate decision.  In the end, I'd respond that similar to Who can truly afford luxury cars?, one should produce a budget. I don't mean a set of constraints to limit spending in certain categories, but rather, a look back at where the money went last year and even the year before that. What will emerge are the things that are normal, the utility bills, tax bill, mortgage, etc, as well as the discretionary spending. If all your current saving is on track, the investment may be in experiences, not financial products."}
{"question":"Why do new car loans, used car loans, and refinanced loans have different rates and terms?","answer":"According to AutoTrader, there are many different reasons, but here are three:  New cars have a better resale value and it's easier to predict its resale value in case you default on the loan and they repossess the car. Lenders that are through auto makers can use different incentives for getting you to buy a new car. Used car financing is usually through other banks. People with higher credit scores tend to buy new cars, and therefore can get a lower rate because of their higher credit score."}
{"question":"Setting up auto-pay. Should I use my bank that holds mortage or my personal bank?","answer":"Depending on your bank you may receive an ACH discount for doing automatic withdrawals from a deposit account at that bank. Now, this depends on your bank and you need to do independent research on that topic. As far as dictating what your extra money goes towards each month (early payments, principal payments, interest payments) you need to discuss that with your bank. I'm sure it's not too difficult to find. In my experience most banks, so long as you didn't sign a contract on your mortgage where you're penalized for sending additional money, will apply extra money toward early payments, and not principal. I would suggest calling them. I know for my student loans I have to send a detailed list of my loans and in what order I want my extra payments toward each, otherwise it will be considered an early payment, or it will be spread evenly among them all."}
{"question":"First time homeowner and getting a mortgage?","answer":"If you have good credit, you already know the rate -- the bank has it posted in the window. If you don't have good credit, tell the loan officer your score. Don't have them run your credit until you know that you're interested in that bank. Running an application or prequal kicks off the sales process, which gets very annoying very quickly if you are dealing with multiple banks. A few pointers: You're looking for a plain vanilla 30 year loan, so avoid mortgage brokers -- they are just another middleman who is tacking on a cost. Brokers are great when you need more exotic loans. Always, always stay away from mortgage brokers (or inspectors or especially lawyers) recommended by realtors."}
{"question":"How would one follow the \"smart money\" when people use that term?","answer":"To supplement Ben's answer: Following 'smart money' utilizes information available in a transparent marketplace to track the holdings of professionals.  One way may be to learn as much as possible about fund directors and monitor the firms holdings closely via prospectus. I believe certain exchanges provide transaction data by brokers, so it may be possible for a well-informed individual to monitor changes in a firms' holdings in between prospectus updates.  An example of a play on 'smart money':  S&P500 companies are reviewed for weighting and the list changes when companies are dropped or added. As you know there are ETFs and funds that reflect the holdings of the SP500.  Changes to the list trigger  'binary events' where funds open or close a position. Some people try to anticipate the movements of the SP500 before 'smart money' adjusts their positions. I have heard some people define smart money as people who get paid whether their decisions are right or wrong, which in my opinion, best captures the term. This Udemy course may be of interest: https:\/\/www.udemy.com\/tools-for-trading-investing\/"}
{"question":"Do credit checks affect credit scores?","answer":"I've seen my score dip a little bit after every hard pull.  (Admittedly, a fako score.)  You apply for credit or for a credit increase and your score is going to dip. Any check that is not intended to grant credit (either an existing creditor rechecking, or when you check your own credit) has no effect on your score.  Likewise, a check done to screen for a solicitation have no effect as you are not trying to borrow.  (Taking them up on the offer will normally cause a hit, though.)"}
{"question":"Getting Cash from Credit Card without Fees","answer":"While I think this is generally inadvisable, there are sites and communities dedicated to \"points churning\" credit card reward programs.  In general, no there is no easy way to get cash from a credit card, and receive the spending rewards, and not pay fees well in excess of your rewards value. However, there are people who figure out ways to do this kind of thing.  Like buying prepaid Visa cards $500 at a time from drug stores on a 5% bonus rewards month.  Or buying rolls of $1 coins from the US treasury with free shipping. The issue is the source of the fees.  When you spend money on your card the merchant pays a fee.  When you get cash from an ATM not only is there no merchant remitting a fee there is an ATM operator and a network both charging fees."}
{"question":"Do stock option prices predicate the underlying stock's movement?","answer":"Options are an indication what a particular segment of the market (those who deal a lot in options) think will happen. (and just because people think that, doesn't mean it will)  Bearing in mind however that people writing covered-calls may due so simply as part of a strategy to mitigate downside risk at the expense of limiting upside potential.  The presence of more people offering up options is to a degree an indication they are thinking the price will fall or hold steady, since that is in effect the 'bet' they are making.  OTOH the people buying those options are making the opposite bet.. so who is to say which will be right.  The balance between the two and how it affects the price of the options could be taken as an indication of market sentiment (within the options market) as to the future direction the stock is likely to take. (I just noticed that Blackjack posted the forumula that can be used to model all of this)  To address the last part of your question 'does that mean it will go lower' I would say this.  The degree to which any of this puts actual pressure on the stock of the underlying instrument is highly debatable, since many (likely most) people trading in a stock never look at what the options for that stock are doing, but base their decision on other factors such as price history, momentum, fundamentals and recent news about the company.  To presume that actions in the options market would put pressure on a stock price, you would need to believe that a signficant fraction of the buyers and sellers were paying attention to the options market.  Which might be the case for some Quants, but likely not for a lot of other buyers.   And it could be argued even then that both groups, those trading options, and those trading stocks, are both looking at the same information to make their predictions of the likely future for the stock, and thus even if there is a correlation between what the stock price does in relation to options, there is no real causality that can be established.  We would in fact predict that given access to the same information, both groups would by and large be taking similar parallel actions due to coming to similar conclusions regarding the future price of the stock.  What is far MORE likely to pressure the price would be just the shear number of buyers or sellers, and also (especially since repeal of the uptick rule) someone who is trying to actively drive down the price via a lot of shorting at progressively lower prices.  (something that is alleged to have been carried out by some hedge fund managers in the course of 'bear raids' on particular companies)"}
{"question":"Trustable, official sources on holdings, purchases and sales by finance academics\/professionals?","answer":"You won't be able to know the trading activity in a timely, actionable method in most cases. The exception is if the investor (individual, fund, holding company, non-profit foundation, etc) is a large shareholder of a specific company and therefore required to file their intentions to buy or sell with the SEC. The threshold for this is usually if they own 5% or greater of the outstanding shares. You can, however, get a sense of the holdings for some of the entities you mention with some sleuthing. Publicly-Traded Holding Companies Since you mention Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway is an example of this. Publicly traded companies (that are traded on a US-based exchange) have to file numerous reports with the SEC. Of these, you should review their Annual Report and monitor all filings on the SEC's website. Here's the link to the Berkshire Hathaway profile. Private Foundations Harvard and Yale have private, non-profit foundations. The first place to look would be at the Form 990 filings each is required to file with the IRS. Two sources for these filings are GuideStar.org and the FoundationCenter.org. Keep in mind that if the private foundation is a large enough shareholder in a specific company, they, too, will be required to file their intentions to buy or sell shares in that company. Private Individuals Unless the individual publicly releases their current holdings, the only insight you may get is what they say publicly or have to disclose \u2014\u00a0again, if they are a major shareholder."}
{"question":"What is S\/P in \"Tax Deduction S\/P\"? ","answer":"From reading the manual, SP means summary punching.  Summary punching is the automatic preparation of one total card to   replace a group of detail cards."}
{"question":"What does it mean to a life insurance policy holder to convert from a stock to mutual insurance company?","answer":"A stock insurance company is structured like a \"normal\" company. It has shareholders (that are the company's investors), who elect a board of directors, who select the senior executive(s), who manage the people who run the actual company. The directors (and thus the executives and employees) have a legal responsibility to manage the company in a way which is beneficial for the shareholders, since the shareholders are the ultimate owner of the company. A mutual insurance company is similar, except that the people holding policies are also the shareholders. That is, the policyholders are the ultimate owners of the company, and there generally aren't separate shareholders who are just \"investing\" in the company. These policyholder-shareholders elect the board of directors, who select the senior executive(s), who manage the people who run the actual company. In practice, it probably doesn't really make a whole lot of difference, since even if you're just a \"customer\" and not an \"owner\" of the company, the company is still going to want to attract customers and act in a reasonable way toward them. Also, insurance companies are generally pretty heavily regulated in terms of what they can do, because governments really like them to remain solvent. It may be comforting to know that in a mutual insurance company the higher-ups are explicitly supposed to be working in your best interest, though, rather than in the interest of some random investors. Some might object that being a shareholder may not give you a whole lot more rights than you had before. See, for example, this article from the Boston Globe, \"At mutual insurance firms, big money for insiders but no say for \u2018owners\u2019 \u2014 policyholders\": It has grown into something else entirely: an opaque, poorly understood, and often immensely profitable world in which some executives and insiders operate with minimal scrutiny and, no coincidence, often reap maximum personal rewards. Policyholders, despite their status as owners, have no meaningful oversight of how mutual companies spend their money \u2014 whether to lower rates, pay dividends, or fund executive salaries and perks \u2014 and few avenues to challenge such decisions. Another reason that one might not like the conversion is the specific details of how the current investor-shareholders are being paid back for their investment in the process of the conversion to mutual ownership, and what that might do to the funds on hand that are supposed to be there to keep the firm solvent for the policyholders. From another Boston Globe article on the conversion of SBLI to a mutual company, \"Insurer SBLI wants to get banks out of its business,\" professor Robert Wright is cautiously optimistic but wants to ensure the prior shareholders aren't overpaid: Robert Wright, a professor in South Dakota who has studied insurance companies and owns an SBLI policy, said he would prefer the insurer to be a mutual company that doesn\u2019t have to worry about the short-term needs of shareholders. But he wants to ensure that SBLI doesn\u2019t overpay the banks for their shares. \"It\u2019s fine, as long as it\u2019s a fair price,\" he said. That article also gives SBLI's president's statement as to why they think it's a good thing for policyholders: If the banks remained shareholders, they would be likely to demand a greater share of the profits and eat into the dividends the insurance company currently pays to the 536,000 policyholders, about half of whom live in Massachusetts, said Jim Morgan, president of Woburn-based SBLI. \"We\u2019re trying to protect the policyholders from having the dividends diluted,\" Morgan said. I'm not sure there's an obvious pros\/cons list for either way, but I'd think that I'd prefer the mutual approach, just on the principle that the policyholders \"ought\" to be the owners, because the directors (and thus the executives and employees) are then legally required to manage the company in the best interest of the policyholders. I did cast a Yes vote in my proxy on whether SBLI ought to become a mutual company (I'm a SBLI term-life policyholder.) But policy terms aren't changing, and it'd be hard to tell for sure how it'd impact any dividends (I assume the whole-life policies must be the ones to pay dividends) or company solvency either way, since it's not like we'll get to run a scientific experiment trying it out both ways. I doubt you'd have a lot of regrets either way, whether it becomes a mutual company and you wish it hadn't or it doesn't become one and you wish it had."}
{"question":"Is is possible to dispute IRS underpayment penalties?","answer":"When you say \"set aside,\" you mean you saved to pay the tax due in April? That's underpaying. It's a rare exception the IRS makes for this penalty, hopefully it wasn't too large, and you now know how much to withhold through payroll deductions.  Problem is, this wasn't unusual, it was an oversight. You have no legitimate grounds to dispute. Sorry."}
{"question":"Ensuring payment from client","answer":"Use some form of escrow agent: Some freelancer sites provide payment escrow services (e.g. E-Lance). In this system the client puts money in escrow for the project in advance and then when they accept the project it forwards the payment to the provider. Progress Payments Arrange a progress payment approach with the client where they pay at certain milestones rather than a single payment at the end of the project. Ideally you would have them pre-pay for each milestone before you start work on it. However, you could ask for payment after each milestone, which might be easier to sell to your client. It does leave some risk, but minimizes that risk somewhat."}
{"question":"Is there a government-mandated resource that lists the shareholders of a public company?","answer":"There are several such \"lists.\" The one that is maintained by the company is called the shareholder registry. That is a list that the company has given to it by the brokerage firms. It is a start, but not a full list, because many individual shareholders hold their stock with say Merrill Lynch, in \"street name\" or anonymously. A more useful list is the one of institutional ownership maintained by the SEC. Basically, \"large\" holders (of more than 5 percent of the stock) have to register their holdings with the SEC. More to the point, large holders of stocks, the Vanguards, Fidelitys, etc. over a certain size, have to file ALL their holdings of stock with the SEC. These are the people you want to contact if you want to start a proxy fight. The most comprehensive list is held by the Depositary Trust Company. People try to get that list only in rare instances."}
{"question":"What are good games to play to teach young children about saving money?","answer":"I also saw a lot of reference to Mutual Mania Board Game, which is geared towards kids 11yrs+ and helps them learn about spending, saving, profit and loss."}
{"question":"Can I cover a short sale with the stock I already own?","answer":"Yes you can.  This is known as a short selling against the box.  In the old days, this was used to delay a taxable event.  You could lock in a gain without triggering a taxable event.  Any loss on one side of the box would be offset by a loss on the other side, and vice versa.  However, the IRS clamped down on this, and you will realize the gain on your long position as soon as you go short on the other side.  See http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/terms\/s\/sellagainstthebox.asp. As to how to initiate the short cover, just transfer the long position to the same account as your short position and make sure your broker covers the short.  Should be relatively easy."}
{"question":"Where can one graph portfolio performance over time?","answer":"I use Yahoo Finance to plot my portfolio value over time. Yahoo Finance uses SigFig to link accounts (I've linked to Fidelity), which then allows you to see you exact portfolio and see a plot of its historical value. I'm not sure what other websites SigFig will allow you to sync with, but it is worth a try. Here is what the plot I have looks like, although this is slightly out of date, but still gives you an idea of what to expect."}
{"question":"What are the marks of poor investment advice?","answer":"Any investment advice that is not targeted to your situation should be avoided."}
{"question":"In what state should I register my web-based LLC?","answer":"I would prefer to see you register in your home state, and then focus on making money, rather than spending time looking to game the system to save a few bucks.  People worry way too much about these trivial fees when they should be focused on making their business successful.  Get registered, get insurance, and then pour it on and start making money. Make $650 your target for a week's income - you can do it!  Next year's goal should be spending $50 a month on a payroll service because you're SO BUSY you can't take the extra time to pay your own social security taxes."}
{"question":"Selling on eBay without PayPal?","answer":"I think you need to have paypal for eBay selling, just for one reason: people will avoid buying from you if they can't pay by paypal. It decreases significantly your selling."}
{"question":"Can i short securities in a normal(non-margin) account","answer":"Exact rules may be different depending on the size of the investor, the specific broker, and the country.  For both the US and Canada, short sales occur only through one's margin account.  And shares that are borrowed for shorting only come from a margin account. Shares held in a cash account are not available for shorting.  From Wikipedia Short (finance) - The speculator instructs the broker to sell the shares and the   proceeds are credited to his broker's account at the firm upon which   the firm can earn interest. Generally, the short seller does not earn   interest on the short proceeds and cannot use or encumber the proceeds   for another transaction. As with many questions, I'd suggest you contact your broker for the exact details governing your account."}
{"question":"ISA trading account options for US citizens living in the UK","answer":"I am a US citizen by birth only. I left the US aged 6 weeks old and have never lived there. I am also a UK citizen but TD Waterhouse have just followed their policy and asked me to close my account under FATCA. It is a complete nightmare for dual nationals who have little or no US connection. IG.com seem to allow me to transfer my holdings so long as I steer clear of US investments. Furious with the US and would love to renounce citizenship but will have to pay $2500 or thereabouts to follow the US process. So much for Land of the Free!"}
{"question":"Why are estimated taxes due \"early\" for the 2nd and 3rd quarters only?","answer":"Here's an answer copied from  https:\/\/www.quora.com\/Why-is-the-second-quarter-of-estimated-quarterly-taxes-only-two-months Estimated taxes used to be paid based on a calendar quarter, but in   the 60's the Oct due date was moved back to Sept to pull the third   quarter cash receipts into the previous federal budget year which   begins on Oct 1 every year, allowing the federal government to begin   the year with a current influx of cash. That left an extra month that   had to be accounted for in the schedule somewhere.  Since individuals   and most businesses report taxes on a calendar year, the fourth   quarter needed to continue to end on Dec 31 which meant the Jan 15 due   date could not be changed, that left April and July 15 dues dates that   could change.  April 15 was already widely known as the tax deadline,   so the logical choice was the second quarter which had its due date   changed from July 15 to June 15."}
{"question":"Why don't more people run up their credit cards and skip the country?","answer":"Even if you could get it with no major hassle, $100,000 is just not that much money.  In a cheap third world country, as an expat you're looking at spending about $800-$2000\/month, plus unexpected expenses. Locals live on less, but very few of us would be happy with the lifestyle of a Honduran or Thai farmer. Your 100k will last 4-10 years. This is hardly a great deal considering you're cutting off ties back home and almost becoming a fugitive. With USD going down the drain (e.g. in Thailand it went down 25% in 3 years), this period would probably be even shorter.  Of course, you could work in the new country, but if you do then you don't need 100k to start with. The initial amount may improve your security, but from that standpoint being able to go back and work in your home country is worth more."}
{"question":"Personal Loan issuer online service","answer":"It is pretty easy to setup a spreadsheet for calculating interest payments and remaining balance.  Do a quick search online.  You may want to put it in something like Google Docs, where brother can view the status, but only you can edit it.  When you get a payment, a portion goes to interest and another to principle.  The formulas will do the work for you. However, I feel that there is a bigger issue.  The math may seem like a good deal for the both of you, but I would be very hesitant to loan a family member money. What if he does not pay?  What if he is late with a payment and goes on a vacation himself?  What if his significant other resents the payment that you collect which precludes her from  buying a new TV, etc... People come to hate\/resent big corporations that they have to make payments.  How much more so one that has a face....that comes over and eats?  While this loan is outstanding holidays may never be the same.   Is the loan a real need?  Are you in a position to give them the money?  You may want to consider the latter. Is there a reason he can't just borrow the money from the bank?"}
{"question":"I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do?","answer":"If your employer is matching 50 cents on the dollar then your 401(k) is a better place to put your money than paying off credit cards This.  Assuming you can also get the credit cards paid off reasonably soon too (say, by next year).  Otherwise, you have to look at how long before you can withdraw that money, to see if the compounded credit card debt isn't growing faster than your retirement.  But a guaranteed 50% gain, your first year is a pretty hard deal to beat. And if you currently have no savings, unless all of your surplus income has been reducing your debt, you're living beyond your means. You should be earning more than you're (going to be) spending, when you start paying rent\/car bills.  If you don't know what this is going to be, you need to be budgeting.   Get this under control, by any means necessary.  New job\/career?  Change priorities\/expectations?  Cut expenses?  Live to your budget?  Whatever it takes. I don't think you should be in any investment that includes bonds until you're 40, and maybe not even then - equities and cash-equivalents all the way (cash is for emergency funds, and for waiting for buying opportunities).  Otherwise Michael has some good ideas. I would caveat that I think you should not buy any investments in one chunk, but dollar average it over some period of time, in case the market is unnaturally high right when you decide to invest. You should also gauge possible returns and potential tax liabilities. Debt is good to get rid of, unless it is good debt (very low interest rates - ie: lower than you could borrow the money for).  Good debt should still get paid off - who knows how long your job could last for - but maybe not dump all of your $50K on it. Roth is amazing.  You should be maxing that contribution out every year."}
{"question":"Organizing finances and assigning a number to each record type","answer":"What you are describing is a Chart of Accounts.  It's a structure used by accountants to categorise accounts into sub-categories below the standard Asset\/Liability\/Income\/Expense structure. The actual categories used will vary widely between different people and different companies.  Every person and company is different, whilst you may be happy to have a single expense account called \"Lunch\", I may want lots of expense accounts to distinguish between all the different restaurants I eat at regularly.  Companies will often change their chart of accounts over time as they decide they want to capture more (or less) detail on where a particular type of Expense is really being spent. All of this makes any attempt to create a standard (in the strict sense) rather futile.  I have worked at a few places where discussions about how to structure the chart of accounts and what referencing scheme to use can be surprisingly heated!  You'll have to come up with your own system, but I can provide a few common recommendations: If you're looking for some simple examples to get started with, most personal finance software (e.g. GnuCash) will offer to create an example chart of accounts when you first start a session."}
{"question":"Finding stocks following performance of certain investor, like BRK.B for Warren Buffet","answer":"Since nobody seems to have an answer here is the list I've came up so far: I'll keep adding to the list - also feel free to edit or comment if can add to the list."}
{"question":"Debit cards as bad as credit cards?","answer":"If it is one of those debit cards you use just like a credit card without a PIN, I'd cancel it regardless of whatever you are trying to do with your finances. They just seem too dangerous to me.  Unlike a credit card, if someone makes fraudulent purchases on a debit card the money is gone from your bank account until you resolve the issue with the issue. With a credit card, the BANK is out the money until it gets worked out. My brother once had his credit card number (not the card) stolen and the criminals emptied his bank account. Eventually the bank put the money back after an investigation, but it had two really nasty side effects: 1) Dozens of checks bounced. The bank refunded the bounced check fees, but not all of the stores would.   2) He had no money in his account until it was resolved. Luckily in his case they resolved it in a few days, but he was already making preparations to borrow money to pay his rent\/bills."}
{"question":"Is there such a thing as \"stock insurance\"?","answer":"Put options are basically this. Buying a put option gives you the right but not the obligation to sell the underlying security at a certain date for a fixed price, no matter its current market value at that time. However, markets are largely effective, and the price of put options is such that if you bought them to cover you the whole time, you would on average pay more than you'd gain from the underlying security. There is no such thing as a risk-free investment."}
{"question":"Should I pay off a 0% car loan?","answer":"The question posted was, \"Should I pay off a 0% car loan\"? The poster provided a few details: I'm ahead on 0% interest car loan. I don't have to make a payment until October. I currently owe $3,000 and I could pay it all off. Should I do that or leave that money in my savings account that earns 2% interest? The question seems to seek a general rule of thumb for how to behave with smaller debts. And a general rule of thumb could be taken from one of two principles (which seem to be religious camps). The \"free money\" camp believes that you can invest (even small amounts) of money risk-free and receive high returns, tax free, for zero effort. The \"reduce debt\" camp believes that you should pay off debts so that you have the freedom to live your life unfettered. Which religion do you prefer? I tend to prefer paying off debts. The \"free money\" tent wants you to pay the car off over the next 6 months, earning interest. Suppose you can earn 2% interest (.02\/12 per month), paying $500 per month for 6 months. So you earn interest on 3000 the first month, 2500, the second month, 2000 the third month, So, are you feeling rich, earning $13.13? How much time did you spending making the 5 additional payments? You could skip coffee once\/month and make a bigger difference. The \"reduce debt\" tent would have you pay off the car. Suppose you change your deductible on the car (or drop collision) to save money, and you will also same time by avoid 5 bill payments, But do you still have enough money in your emergency fund, how do you feel about having less insurance coverage, and did you notice the time savings? We really need more information about the poster's situation. The answer should consider the relevant details of the situation to provide an informed response. Here are questions that would enable a response to address the whole situation. Why are these important? Here are a few reasons why the above might be important."}
{"question":"Online streaming video\/audio financial\/stock programs","answer":"The CNBC site is littered with videos. Whenever I click a link to one of their articles, it seems to be a video instead. Not like having the channel streamed, but most of the top stories."}
{"question":"Do you have to be mega-rich to invest in companies pre-IPO?","answer":"There are a couple of ways to buy into a private company.  First, the company can use equity crowd funding (approved under the JOBS act, you don't need to be an accredited investor for this).   The offering can be within one state (i.e. Intrastate offerings) which don't have the same SEC regulations but will be governed by state law.   Small companies (small assets, under $1 million) can be made under Regulation D, Rule 504.  For assets under $5 million, there is Rule 505, which allows a limited number of non-accredited investors.  Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of 504 and 505 issues. Rule 506 issues are common, and it does allow a few non-accredited investors (I think 35), but non-accredited investors have to be given lots of disclosure, so often companies use a Rule 506 issue but only for accredited investors."}
{"question":"Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?","answer":"Every time you buy or sell a share for some price, somebody must have thought that that was exactly the right moment to sell or buy that share at that price (and to trade with you). Every time a trade is made, both sides think they are doing the smart thing. Most of the time, one will turn out to be wrong, the other right. Nothing in your proposed method of trading explains why you would be the side that was right more often. So they'll probably even out. Or maybe there are people in the market who actually do have a slightly better than average method, and you'll be wrong somewhat more often than right. Each trade has transaction costs. If you simply hang on to your shares, that's more or less the same as evening out good trades and bad trades, but without the transaction costs."}
{"question":"Ray Dalio - All Weather Portfolio","answer":"Here are the specific Vanguard index funds and ETF's I use to mimic Ray Dalio's all weather portfolio for my taxable investment savings. I invest into this with Vanguard personal investor and brokerage accounts. Here's a summary of the performance results from 2007 to today:  2007 is when the DBC commodity fund was created, so that's why my results are only tested back that far. I've tested the broader asset class as well and the results are similar, but I suggest doing that as well for yourself. I use portfoliovisualizer.com to backtest the results of my portfolio along with various asset classes, that's been tremendously useful. My opinionated advice would be to ignore the local investment advisor recommendations. Nobody will ever care more about your money than you, and their incentives are misaligned as Tony mentions in his book.  Mutual funds were chosen over ETF's for the simplicity of auto-investment.  Unfortunately I have to manually buy the ETF shares each month (DBC and GLD). I'm 29 and don't use this for retirement savings. My retirement is 100% VSMAX. I'll adjust this in 20 years or so to be more conservative. However, when I get close to age 45-50 I'm planning to shift into this allocation at a market high point.  When I approach retirement, this is EXACTLY where I want to be. Let's say you had $2.7M in your retirement account on Oct 31, 2007 that was invested in 100% US Stocks. In Feb of 2009 your balance would be roughly $1.35M. If you wanted to retire in 2009 you most likely couldn't. If you had invested with this approach you're account would have dropped to $2.4M in Feb of 2009.  Disclaimer: I'm not a financial planner or advisor, nor do I claim to be. I'm a software engineer and I've heavily researched this approach solely for my own benefit. I have absolutely no affiliation with any of the tools, organizations, or funds mentioned here and there's no possible way for me to profit or gain from this. I'm not recommending anyone use this, I'm merely providing an overview of how I choose to invest my own money. Take or leave it, that's up to you. The loss\/gain incured from this is your responsibility, and I can't be held accountable."}
{"question":"Is there such a thing as \"stock insurance\"?","answer":"First off, the jargon you are looking for is a hedge. A hedge is \"an investment position intended to offset potential losses\/gains that may be incurred by a companion investment\" (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hedge_(finance)) The other answers which point out that put options are frequently used as a hedge are correct. However there are other hedging instruments used by financial professionals to mitigate risk.  For example, suppose you would really prefer that Foo Corporation not go bankrupt -- perhaps because they own you money (because you're a bondholder) or perhaps because you own them (because you're a stockholder), or maybe you have some other reason for wanting Foo Corp to do well. To mitigate the risk of loss due to bankruptcy of Foo Corp you can buy a Credit Default Swap (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Credit_default_swap). A CDS is essentially a bet that pays off if Foo Corp goes bankrupt, just as insurance on your house is a bet that pays off if your house burns down.   Finally, don't ever forget that all insurance is not just a bet that the bad thing you're insuring against is going to happen, it is also a bet that the insurer is going to pay you if that happens.  If the insurer goes bankrupt at the same time as the thing you are insuring goes bad, you're potentially in big trouble."}
{"question":"Valuation, pricing, and analysis of securities","answer":"Pricing would just be another way to describe valuation. I guess if you want to get technical, pricing - is the act of getting somethings valuation. While valuation - is the estimate of somethings worth. Security analysis -  An examination and evaluation of the various factors affecting the value of a security. Side Note: While pricing is valuation, price is not. Price is how much the stock, or security costs most commonly determined by a market. Add On: The meaning of two words might matter depending on what context it is being used in. For example if we were talking about a market where an individual actually sets a price at random without doing any type of evaluation then this->answer that AlexR provides would better highlight the differences."}
{"question":"What are some pre-tax programs similar to FSA that I can take advantage of?","answer":"2014 Limit: $2,500 Notes 2014 Limit: $3,300 individual, $6,550 family Notes 2014 Limit: $5,000 Notes 2014 Limit: $2,500 Notes 2014 Limit: $250\/month Notes 2014 Limit: $130\/month Notes"}
{"question":"Are marijuana based investments promising, or just another scam?","answer":"Is there any truth to this, or is this another niche scam that's been brewing the last few years? While it may not be an outright scam, such schemes do tend to be on borderline of scams. Technically most of what is being said claimed can be true, however in reality such windfall gains never happen to the investors. Whatever gains are there will be cornered by the growers, trades, other entities in supply chain leaving very little to the investors.  It is best to stay away from such investments."}
{"question":"Where do countries \/ national governments borrow money from? ","answer":"It's more complicated than that. Governments raise money in a number of ways.  First, they tax economic activity within their borders and for connected companies and individuals.  Then, some governments have actual revenues from state-owned enterprises (licences, patents, courts, business revenues, and so on). Whatever shortage arises between state expenditure and this income is the deficit which is usually financed through debt. Government usually issues a bond (Wikipedia for a list of government bonds) of various types, some with extremely lengthy maturation dates.  These bonds can be purchased both locally and by foreign investment funds.  The nature of who buys is important. From the Wikipedia link you'll see that most government debt is very highly rated based on the ability of the state to simply raise taxes in order to fund redemption.  Pension funds are legally bound to only invest in highly-rated investment classes and the bulk of bonds may be purchased to support local pensioners. A state that defaults on debt will first hit its own most vulnerable citizens.  In addition, the fall-out will result in a savage cut in ratings.  Countries like Argentina and Zimbabwe, which have both refused to repay their debts even to the IMF, are currently unable to raise investment at all.  This has a tremendous impact on local economic development. So, default is out of the question without severe penalties. The second part of your question is about paying down the debt.  As debts increase, more and more of the revenue that a country does earn is spent on servicing debt repayments.  Sometimes bonds are issued merely to refinance old debt.  A country that spends too much on refinancing debt is no different from an individual.  Less and less money is available to do other things. In conclusion: governments can neither default nor binge-borrow unless they wish to severely limit economic opportunities for their citizens."}
{"question":"Switch from DINK to SIWK: How do people afford kids?","answer":"How do people do it? Firstly, I'd advise you to explicitly budget all taxes. The reason is because taxes get complicated when you have a child deduction. Not that raising a child is profitable post taxes, but it can change your perspective. SIWKs with high income get by just fine. The rest sacrifice. They buy less house, or rent. They drive more than 30 minutes to work every day. They work second jobs. They stop saving for retirement. And when they fail to save or plan, they borrow from family or rack up huge credit card debt. They don't buy the sweet new truck they were planning on. They cut cable and cook meals at home. They skip church, because they can't afford the tithe, and say it's because they don't have time, don't want their children to disrupt services, etc.  So right now, that \"other\" basket is looking pretty juicy, and the taxes can maybe be examined as well. But ultimately, if you're looking at a 30 percent hit in pay, that won't cut it. Mortgage + food alone is nearly half your budget!"}
{"question":"How to diversify IRA portfolio given fund minimum investments and IRA contribution limits?","answer":"If you have other savings, the diversification occurs across the accounts. e.g. my 401(k) has access to the insanely low .02% fee VIIIX (Vanguard S&P fund) You can bet it's 100% in. My IRAs are the other assets that make the full picture look better allocated.  A new investor has the issue you suggest, although right now, you can deposit $5500 for 2013, and $5500 for 2014, so with $11K available, you can start with $6 or $9K and start with 2 or 3 funds. Or $9K now, but with $500 left over for the '14 deposit, you can deposit $6K in early '15.  The disparity of $3K min\/$5500 annual limit is annoying, I agree, but shouldn't be a detriment to your planning."}
{"question":"why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?","answer":"My take on this is that this reduces your liquidity risk. Stocks, bonds and many other investment vehicles on secondary markets you may think of are highly liquid but they still require that markets are open and then an additional 3-5 business days to settle the transaction and for funds to make their way to your bank account.  If you require funds immediately because of an emergency, this 3-5 business days (which gets longer as week-ends and holidays are in the way) can cause a lot of discomfort which may be worth a small loss in potential ROI.  Think of your car breaking down or a water pipe exploding in your home and having to wait for the stock sale to process before you can make the payment. Admittedly, you have other options such as margin loans and credit cards that can help absorb the shock in such cases but they may not be sufficient or cause you to pay interest or fees if left unpaid."}
{"question":"What are some examples of unsecured loans","answer":"Auto loans are secured agains the car.  \"Signature\" loans, from a bank that knows and trusts you, are typically unsecured. Unsecured loans other than informal ones or these are fairly rare. Most lenders don't want to take the additional risk, or balance that risk with a high enough interest rate to make the unsecured loan unattractive."}
{"question":"If I want a Credit Card offered through a different Credit Union should I slowly transition my banking to that CU?","answer":"No. There's no inherent reason to link the place that you bank with any other financial service. There may occasionally be benefits; for instance you can sometime get lower rates on mortgages or loans by having a a checking account with an institution. Or perhaps it'll be easier for you to make a same-day payment on a credit account. There could be some negatives as well. If you fall behind on a loan account, the bank may take money from your savings\/checking account to satisfy your debt. Choose a bank or CU that's convenient to you. Choose a credit card from whatever bank or CU provides you with the best benefits. If that credit card is coming from a CU that requires a savings account for membership, open a minimum balance savings account and apply for the product you're interested in. If your credit is as good as you claim, they'll be happy to offer you the credit card regardless of whether you do your day-to-day banking with them."}
{"question":"Didn't apply for credit card but got an application denied letter?","answer":"fine because the application was declined anyway. No it isn't fine. Credit card applications generally need a hard pull, so get it rectified. Firstly check if an application was really made on your behalf. Some companies use this ploy to pull you into a scheme of making you apply for a credit card. Secondly call up the credit card company and ask them about the details of who had made the application as you haven't done so and inform them that it was a fraudulent application. It might be somebody is using your personal details to do a identity theft in your name. Thirdly get in touch with the credit rating firms and see if a check has been made on your credit report. Dispute it if you see a check in your record and have it removed from your report. If you subscribe to credit agency, get the identity theft protection, helps you in such cases. And finally keep a diligent eye on your credit records from now on. Once bitten, twice shy."}
{"question":"How can I withdraw money from my LLC?","answer":"There are TWO parts to an LLC or any company structure.  This being the entire point of creating an LLC.  The context is that a lawyer is after your LLC, and he's arguing that the LLC is not genuine, so he can go after your personal assets - your house, car, IRAs, tap your wife's salary etc.  This is called \"piercing the corporate veil\".  What would he use to claim the LLC is not genuine?  The determination here is between you and the judge in a lawsuit.  Suffice it to say, the way you withdraw money must consider the above issues, or you risk breaking the liability shield and becoming personally liable, which means you've been wasting the $25 every year to keep it registered.  The IRS has a word for single member LLCs: \"Disregarded entity\".  The IRS wants to know that the entity exists and it's connected to you.  But for reporting tax numbers, they simply want the LLC's numbers folded into your personal numbers, because you are the same entity for tax purposes. The determination here is made by you.  *LLCs are incredible versatile structures, and you can actually choose to have it taxed like a corporation where it is a separate \"person\" which files its own tax return. * The IRS doesn't care how you move money from the LLC to yourself, since it's all the same to them.  The upshot is that while your own lawyer prohibits you from thinking of the assets as \"all one big pile\", IRS requires you to. Yes, it's enough to give you whiplash."}
{"question":"Shorting versus selling to hedge risk","answer":"It's not quite identical, due to fees, stock rights, and reporting & tax obligations.  But the primary difference is that a person could have voting rights in a company while maintaining zero economic exposure to the company, sometimes known as empty voting. As an abstract matter, it's identical in that you reduce your financial exposure whether you sell your stock or short it.  So the essence of your question is fundamentally true.  But the details make it different.  Of course there are fee differences in how your broker will handle it, and also margin requirements for shorting.  Somebody playing games with overlapping features of ownership, sales, and purchases, may have tax and reporting obligations for straddles, wash sales, and related issues.  A straight sale is generally less complicated for tax reporting purposes, and a loss is more likely to be respected than someone playing games with sales and purchases. But the empty voting issue is an important difference.  You could buy stock with rights such as voting, engage in other behavior such as forwards, shorts, or options to negate your economic exposure to the stock, while maintaining the right to vote.  Of course in some cases this may have to be disclosed or may be covered by contract, and most people engaging in stock trades are unlikely to have meaningful voting power in a public company.  But the principle is still there. As explained in the article by Henry Hu and Bernie Black: Hedge funds have been especially creative in decoupling voting rights from economic ownership. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership - a pattern we call empty voting. In an extreme situation, a vote holder can have a negative economic interest and, thus, an incentive to vote in ways that reduce the company's share price. Sometimes investors hold more economic ownership than votes, though often with morphable voting rights - the de facto ability to acquire the votes if needed. We call this situation hidden (morphable) ownership because the economic ownership and (de facto) voting ownership are often not disclosed."}
{"question":"What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential?","answer":"It definitely depends on your risk appetite as Joe Taxpayer pointed out in his answer. Covered calls are a good choice for someone who already own's the stock, because the premium collected reduces the cost basis for the position. The downside is that if the calls are exercised, there is a good chance that you are missing out on additional upside in the stock price (because the strike is obviously below the market value for the stocks).  Another good option trade is the spread option. This would allow you to capture the difference between the two strikes of the options in the spread. This is also one of the less risky choices because your initial cost an potential profit\/loss are known in advance of entering the position."}
{"question":"Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?","answer":"The stock market's principal justification is matching investors with investment opportunities.  That's only reasonably feasible with long-term investments.  High frequency traders are not interested in investments, they are interested in buying cheap and selling expensive.  Holding reasonably robust shares for longer binds their capital which is one reason the faster-paced business of dealing with options is popular instead.  So their main manner of operation is leeching off actually occuring investments by letting the investors pay more than the recipients of the investments receive. By now, the majority of stock market business is indirect and tries guessing where the money goes rather than where the business goes. For one thing, this leads to the stock market's evaluations being largely inflated over the actual underlying committed deals happening.  And as the commitment to an investment becomes rare, the market becomes more volatile and instable: it's money running in circles. Fast trading is about running in front of where the money goes, anticipating the market.  But if there is no actual market to anticipate, only people running before the imagination of other people running before money, the net payout converges to zero as the ratio of serious actual investments in tangible targets declines. By and large, high frequency trading converges to a Ponzi scheme, and you try being among the winners of such a scheme.  But there are a whole lot of people competing here, and essentially the net payoff is close to zero due to the large volumes in circulation as opposed to what ends up in actual tangible investments. It's a completely different game with different rules riding on the original idea of a stock market.  So you have to figure out what your money should be doing according to your plans."}
{"question":"Anonymous CC: Does \"Entropay\" really not hand my personal data over to a company - are there alternatives?","answer":"Do you guys know any options that are accessible to any global citizen? Prepaid and stored value cards are anonymous. For an arbitrary reason, the really anonymous ones only allow you to load $500 but there is no regulation that dictates this amount. In the USA, these cards are exempt from being declared at border crossings. Not because they look like credit cards, but because they are exempt by the US Treasury and Customs. The cons is that there are generally fees to use them. US DOJ has done research showing that some groups take advantage of the exemption moving upwards of $50,000 a day between borders, but Congress is fine with this exemption and the burden is always on the government to determine \"illicit origin\". Stigmatizing how money is moved is only a 30 year old phenomenon, but many free nations do not really have capital controls, they only care that you pay taxes and that the integrity of their stock markets are upheld. Aside from that there are no qualms about anonymity, except from your neighbors but they dont matter for a global citizen. In theory, the UK should have more flexibility in anonymity options, such as stored value cards with higher limits."}
{"question":"Car dealer saying that they cannot see any credit information for my co-applicant. Could this be a scam?","answer":"I actually had a similar situation when I tried to buy my house. I paid off all my loans and was proud of my \"debt free\" status. I had no car note, no student loans... absolutely no debt, but I did have a bank-issued credit card. (USAA, not Chase, but I assume the same may apply).   When I tried to get a home loan they told me I had \"absolutely no information on my credit report.\" AKA I had no credit. The mortgage lender had no idea what was going on, nor did I or anybody else. It took a lot of research before I realized that the credit bureaus use a formula for the credit rating that involves a lot of things, but if you haven't had a current line of credit reported to the agency in over a year (maybe it was longer, I didn't have anything for 3 years) you aren't going to have a credit score.   Because I was \"debt free\" I was also credit report free and eventually the credit bureaus had nothing to go on, and my score disappeared. The bank-issued credit card was on my credit report, but they didn't report monthly balances so the bureaus couldn't use it to determine if I was paying off the card or if I even had a balance on it. It was essentially not doing my credit any favors, despite what I had thought. In short, based on the fact that you have no debt in her name, and you have taken on all debt in your own name, its very plausible that she has no credit rating anymore. It won't take long to get it back. Once you have ANYTHING on your credit that's actually reported the formula can kick back in and look at credit history as well as current credit and she'll be fine."}
{"question":"Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?","answer":"I think most people have already answered this one pretty well.  (It's usually worth it, as long as you pay it off before the interest kicks in, and you don't get hit with any fees.) I just wanted to add one thing that no one else has pointed out:  Applying for the loan usually counts as a hard pull on your credit history.  It also changes your Debt-to-income ratio (DTI).  This can negatively impact your credit score. Usually, the credit score impact for these (relatively) small loans isn't that much.  And your score will rebound over time.  However, if it makes your score drop below a certain threshold, (e.g. FICO dips below 700), it could trip you up if you are also applying for other sources of credit in the immediate future. Not a big deal, but it is something to keep in mind."}
{"question":"How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer?","answer":"Short term: ask for a raise or look for a new job that pays more. Longer term:"}
{"question":"Huge return on investment, I feel like im doing the math wrong","answer":"Your math is correct. These kind of returns are possible in the capital markets. (By the way, Google Finance shows something completely different for $CANV than my trading console in ThinkorSwim, ToS shows a high of $201, but I believe there may have been some reverse splits that are not accurately reflected in either of these charts) The problems with this strategy are liquidity and timing. Let's talk about liquidity, because that is a greater factor here than the random psychological factors that would have affected you LONG LONG before your $1,000 allowance was worth a million dollars. If you bought $1000 worth of this stock at $.05 share, this would have been 20,000 shares. The week of October 11th, 2011, during the ENTIRE WEEK only 5,000 shares were traded. From this alone, you can see that it would have been impossible for you to even acquire 20,000 shares, for yourself at $.05 because there was nobody to sell them to you. We can't even look at the next week, because there WERE NO TRADES WHATSOEVER, so we have to skip all the way to November 11th, where indeed over 30,000 shares were traded. But this pushed the price all the way up to $2.00, again, there was no way you could have gotten 20,000 shares at $.05 So now, lets talk about liquidation of your shares. After several other highs and lows in the $20s and $30s, are you telling me that after holding this stock for 2 years you WOULDN'T have taken a $500,000 profit at $25.00 ? We are talking about someone that is investing with $1,000 here. I have my doubts that there was no time between October 2011 and January 2014 that you didn't think \"hm this extra $100,000 would be really useful right now.. sell!\" Lets say you actually held your $1,000 to $85.55 there were EXACTLY TWO DAYS where that was the top of the market, and in those two days the volume was ~24,000 shares one day and ~11,000 shares the next day. This is BARELY enough time for you to sell your shares, because you would have been the majority of the volume, most likely QUADRUPLING the sell side quotes. As soon as the market saw your sell order there would be a massive selloff of people trying to sell before you do, because they could barely get their shares filled (not enough buyers) let alone someone with five times the amount of shares that day. Yes, you could have made a lot of money. Doing that simplistic math does not tell you the whole story."}
{"question":"Can i have NRE accounts without OCI card?","answer":"No, you do not need an OCI card to continue to have an NRE or NRO account. You are now classified as a PIO -- Person of Indian Origin -- (and you don't need to have a PIO card issued by the Government of India to prove it) and are entitled to use NRE and NRO accounts just as you were when you were a NRI (NonResident Indian).  But, you should inform the banks where you have NRE and NRO accounts that you have changed citizenship, and they may need to go through their KYC (Know Your Customer) process with you all over again.  If you don't get an OCI Card, you will need to have an Indian visa stamped into your new US passport to visit India, and please do remember to send your Indian passport to the nearest Indian Consulate for cancellation. Keep the surrender certificate and cancelled passport in your safe deposit box forever; your grandchildren will need it to get visas to visit India. (My granddaughter just did). If you do get an OCI Card, you will need to have an OCI stamp put into your new US passport, and when you renew your US passport, you will need to get the new one stamped too (and pay the fee for that, of course). You cannot enter India with just an OCI Card and a US passport without the OCI stamp in it; that stamp is vital. If you move from one residential address in the US to another,  you will need to  get a new OCI Card issued because, unlike the US \"green card\", the OCI card has your residential address on it. Once again, a fee is involved.  All these processes take many weeks because the whole paperwork has to go to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, and meanwhile, your passport is not available to you for a trip to Europe or Japan or Taiwan or China if you need to go there on business (or for pleasure)."}
{"question":"Best way to pay off debt?","answer":"The most tax efficient way to get some cash would be to sell some stocks from the Fidelity account that have the lowest capital gains. The tax will typically be 15% of the capital gains. This will be a one-time cost which should save you money compared to paying 7.5% on the loan year after year. Tax on selling the stock options will probably be higher, since you imply there would be high capital gains, and some of the proceeds might even be taxed as income, not capital gains."}
{"question":"I am not VAT registered. Do I need to buy from my supplier with excl VAT prices or incl VAT?","answer":"You only pay VAT if you buy from a VAT-registered company; if they are not registered, you don't pay. So, thinking about your supplier, if they are VAT-registered they will charge you VAT, if they are not they won't. The buyer's status makes no difference, the seller doesn't get involved in whether the buyer is able to reclaim or not (based on their VAT-registered status)."}
{"question":"What does a CFP do?","answer":"A Certified Financial Planner has passed a licensing exam and will advise you and help you reach your financial goals. A good CFP can help you a lot, especially if you are unsure how to set up your insurance, investment, savings, and financial plans on your own. You do not need a CFP to get a life insurance policy. If you do get a CFP, he or she should help you above and beyond life insurance -- i.e. retirement planning, investment advice, education planning, etc. It's advantageous to you to pay a fixed price for services instead of a percentage or commission. Negotiate fees up front. For life insurance, in most cases a term policy will fit your needs. Whole life, universal life, etc., combine investments and life insurance into a single product and are big commission makers for the salesman. They make it sound like the best thing ever, so be aware. One of my rules of thumb is that, generally speaking, the larger the commission is for the salesperson, the worse the product is for the consumer. Welcome to life insurance pitches. Term life is far less expensive and provides a death benefit and nothing else. If you just had a baby and need to protect your family, for example, term life is often a good solution, easy to buy, and inexpensive. As you stated, any of the major providers will do just fine."}
{"question":"What is the difference between \"good debt\" vs. \"bad debt\"?","answer":"Here's what Suze Orman has to say about it: Good debt is money you borrow to purchase an asset, such as a home you can afford. History shows that home values generally rise in step with the inflation rate, so a mortgage is good debt. Student loans are, too, because they're an investment in the future. Census data pegs the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate at a million dollars below that of someone with a bachelor's degree. Bad debt is money you borrow to buy a depreciating asset or to finance a \"want\" rather than a \"need.\" A car is a depreciating asset; from the day you drive it off the lot, it starts losing value. Credit card balances or a home equity line of credit that's used to pay for indulgences\u2014vacations, shopping, spa days\u2014is bad debt."}
{"question":"How to prevent misusing my Account details","answer":"This is more legal and less personal finance question. You should immediately lodge a police complaint mentioning that some persons are using your PAN card details for activities not authorized by you. In the meantime also engage the services of a CA and reply back to income tax authorities. Do not ignore the notice."}
{"question":"Pay off credit card debt or earn employer 401(k) match?","answer":"A matching pension scheme is like free money. No wait, it actually IS free money. You are literally earning 100% interest rate on that money the instant you pay it in to the account. That money would have to sit in your credit card account for at least five years to earn that kind of return; five years in which the pension money would have earned an additional return over and above the 100%. Mathematically there is no contest that contributing to a matching pension scheme is one of the best investment there is. You should always do it. Well, almost always. When should you not do it?"}
{"question":"Isn't an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) a surefire way to make tons of money?","answer":"Given your premise is correct:  How do you cash in a large sum of YetAnotherCryptoCoin shortly after it\u00b4s ICO? The crypto-exchanges take some time to add a new currency, if they do at all. And even if they already have, trading volume is usually low.  I think that\u00b4s what really makes it unattractive for Investors as opposed to tec-enthusiasts (aside from the high volatility). Total lack of any reliable trading capability."}
{"question":"Home insurance score drastically decreases after car insurance claim?","answer":"Credit risk and insurance risk are highly correlated for a single legal party.  Trouble with one could indicate trouble with another. Any increase in credit risk such as new borrowing will be perceived to be an increased likelihood of insurance risk, manifested as a fraudulent or subconsciously induced claim.  Any claim of insurance will be perceived to be an increased likelihood of default, manifested as a default, voluntary or not. To a creditor\/insurer, only the law applies; therefore, private arrangements between the borrower\/insured and third parties do not factor because the creditor\/insurer has no hope of recourse against such third parties in most places around the world. Regardless of whether there is a price ceiling on compensation for damages to assets, limiting an insurers costs, if a risk is realized then it can be presumed through sequential sampling as well as other reliable statistical techniques that future risk has risen.  The aforementioned risk dominoes subsequently fall. Generally speaking, the lower one's financial variance, the lower the financial costs.  In other words, uncertainty can be mostly quantified with variance and other mathematical moments as well.  Any uncertainty is a cost to a producer thus a cost to the consumer.  A consumer who is perfectly predictable with good outcomes will pay much lower costs on average than not, so one who keeps a tight financial ship, not exposing oneself to financial risks and better yet not realizing financial risks, will see less financial variance, thus will enjoy lower costs to financing, which includes insuring."}
{"question":"Why would I vote for an increase in the number of authorized shares?","answer":"I'll skip the \"authorizing....\" and go right to uses of new shares: Companies need stock as another liquid asset for a variety of purposes, and if not enough stock is available, then may be forced to the open market to acquire, either by exchanging cash or taking on debt to get the cash."}
{"question":"Sell a stock and buy a new one","answer":"It depends on the broker. The one I use (Fidelity) will allow me to buy then sell or sell then buy within 3 days even though the cash isn't settled from the first transaction. But they won't let me buy then sell then buy again with unsettled cash. Of course not waiting for cash to settle makes you vulnerable to a good faith violation."}
{"question":"Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall?","answer":"Being a professional auditor and accountant, deduction against expenses are claimed in the year in which expenses has been incurred. It has no relationship with when it is paid. For example, we may buy on credit does not mean that they will be allowed in the period in which it is paid. This is against the fundamental accounting principles."}
{"question":"What type of pension should I get?","answer":"It's best to roll over a pension plan, you don't want to pay the penalties especially when you are young. Rolling over into another scheme, or rolling over into a scheme that is somewhat self directed would avoid the penalty and could help you achieve higher returns should you feel you will perform better. Making regular monthly or biweekly contributions is imperative so that you catch compounded returns on your investments. Since you state that you are inexperienced, I would suggest rolling over into the new scheme and sitting with the pension advisor for the company, ie Prudential, etc. Telling them some key information like your age, in how many years you expect to retire, your current income, your desired pension income per year and such will greatly help them ensure that you come as close to your goal as possible, providing nothing horrendous happens in the market."}
{"question":"How can I find ISIN numbers for stock options?","answer":"Go to http:\/\/www.isincodes.net\/, and enter your data. For example entering Alphabet gives you the ISIN US02079K1079 (for standard US shares). If you want to understand the number format (and build them yourself), check wikipedia: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/International_Securities_Identification_Number"}
{"question":"Can an International student of F1 VISA accept money in her US bank account on behalf of someone else?","answer":"There might be a problem. Some reporting paperwork will have to be done for the IRS, obviously, but technically it will be business income zeroed out by business expense. Withholding requirements will shift to your friend, which is a mess. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA) about these. But the immigration may consider this arrangement as employment, which is in violation of the visa conditions. You need to talk to an immigration attorney."}
{"question":"Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments with Monthly Income","answer":"Here are my re-run figures.  Not counting capital gains taxes, I calculate you need to be making 1.875% per annum or 0.155% per month on your $8,000 investment to break-even on the loan.  It's interesting that the return you need to gain to break-even is less than the interest you're paying, even with commission.  It happens because the investment is gaining a return on an increasing amount while the load is accruing interest on a decreasing amount.    Ref. r, logarithmic return"}
{"question":"Reason for \"qualified\" buyer requirements to exercise stock options\/rights spun off from parent company?","answer":"The fact that your shares are of a Canadian-listed corporation (as indicated in your comment reply) and that you are located in the United States (as indicated in your bio) is highly relevant to answering the question. The restriction for needing to be a \"qualified institutional buyer\" (QIB) arises from the parent company not having registered the spin-off company rights [options] or shares (yet?) for sale in the United States. Shares sold in the U.S. must either be registered with the SEC or qualify for some exemption. See SEC Fast Answers - Securities Act Rule 144. Quoting: Selling restricted or control securities in the marketplace can be a   complicated process. This is because the sales are so close to the   interests of the issuing company that the law might require them to be   registered. Under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, all offers   and sales of securities must be registered with the SEC or qualify for   some exemption from the registration requirements. [...] There are regulations to follow and costs involved in such registration. Perhaps the rights [options] themselves won't ever be registered (as they have a very limited lifetime), while the listed shares might be? You could contact investor relations at the parent company for more detail. (If I guessed the company correctly, there's detail in this press release. Search the text for \"United States\".)"}
{"question":"Can GoogleFinance access total return data?","answer":"This is the same answer as for your other question, but you can easily do this yourself: ( initial adjusted close \/ final adjusted close ) ^ ( 1 \/ ( # of years sampled) ) Note: \"# of years sampled\" can be a fraction, so the one week # of years sampled would be 1\/52. Crazy to say, but yahoo finance is better at quick, easy, and free data.  Just pick a security, go to historical prices, and use the \"adjusted close\". money.msn's best at presenting finances quick, easy, and cheap."}
{"question":"From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well?","answer":"There could be an impact on Facebook because just before the IPO, Morgan Stanley apparently sent information to selected clients that their analysts had just lowered their valuation of the company.  There were also reports yesterday that the lowered valuation came about because Facebook sent some revised preliminary estimates of second quarter earnings (showing lower than expected earnings) to Morgan Stanley, and least one talking head said that Facebook might also face charges depending on what the cover letters and the e-mails back and forth between Facebook and Morgan Stanley said. Investigations have already been opened.  Yes, a company wants to sell the stock being offered at the IPO at the highest price possible, but if it misled the public when offering the stock for sale (through its underwriters), it can also be liable, possibly even criminally liable. Material added in Edit: In fact, a lawsuit has already been filed  in the US District Court in Manhattan in this matter. Whether the SEC ever does anything about the matter remains to be seen."}
{"question":"Can I Accept Gold?","answer":"Of course you can accept gold as payment.  Would anyone pay in gold? Would it have tax consequences on your federal taxes? These additional questions are off-topic on this site about personal finance."}
{"question":"Can I deduct the cost of software and\/or computer that I need to do my job?","answer":"Yes, this is a miscellaneous itemized deduction. https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p529\/ar02.html For this to impact your taxes, you have to be itemizing deductions (have total deductions greater than standard deduction), and the total of all miscellaneous deductions needs to exceed the \"2% floor\" described in the IRS link above."}
{"question":"Is it normal for brokers to ask whether I am a beginner?","answer":"Yes, this is common and in some cases may be required.  They may use it for marketing at some level, but they also use it for risk management in deciding, for example, how much margin to offer and whether to approve access to \"riskier\" products like stock options."}
{"question":"Is this Employee Stock Purchase Plan worth it when adding my student loan into the equation?","answer":"It's 5% free money, if you believe the company's stock is fairly valued and likely to grow and\/or return reasonable dividends until you're ready to sell it. There's usually a minimum holding period of a few months to a year before these discounted shares can be sold; take that into account"}
{"question":"IRS \"convenience of the employer\" test when employee lives far from the office","answer":"The decision whether this test is or is not met seems to be highly dependent on the specific situation of the employer and the employee.  I think that you won't find a lot of general references meeting your needs. There is such a thing as a \"private ruling letter,\" where individuals provide specific information about their situation and request the IRS to rule in advance on how the situation falls with respect to the tax law.  I don't know a lot about that process or what you need to do to qualify to get a private ruling.  I do know that anonymized versions of at least some of the rulings are published.  You might look for such rulings that are close to your situation. I did a quick search and found two that are somewhat related: As regards your situation, my (non-expert) understanding is that you will not pass in this case unless either (a) the employer specifies that you must live on the West Coast or you'll be fired, (b) the employer would refuse to provide space for you if you moved to Boston (or another company location), or (c) you can show that you could not possibly do your job out of Boston.  For (c), that might mean, for example, you need to make visits to client locations in SF on short-notice to meet business requirements.  If you are only physically needed in SF occasionally and with \"reasonable\" notice, I don't think you could make it under (c), although if the employer doesn't want to pay travel costs, then you might still make it under (a) in this case."}
{"question":"How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money?","answer":"If you are using software like QuickBooks (or even just using spreadsheets or tracking this without software) use two Equity accounts, something like \"Capital Contributions\" and \"Capital Distributions\" When you write a personal check to the company, the money goes into the company's checking account and also increases the Capital Contribution account in accordance with double-entry accounting practices. When the company has enough retained earnings to pay you back, you use the Capital Distributions equity account and just write yourself a check. You can also make general journal entries every year to zero out or balance your two capital accounts with Retained Earnings, which (I think) is an automatically generated Equity account in QuickBooks. If this sounds too complex, you could also just use a single \"Capital Contributions and Distributions\" equity account for your contributions and distributions."}
{"question":"401K - shift from agressive investment to Money Market","answer":"If you look at history, it shows that the more people predict corrections the less was the chance they came. That doesn't prove it stays so, though. 2017 is not any different than other years in the future: Independent of this, with less than ten years remaining until you need to draw from your money, it is a good idea to move away from high risk (and high gain); you will not have enough time to recover if it goes awry. There are different approaches, but you should slowly and continuously migrate your capital to less risky investments. Pick some good days and move 10% or 20% each time to low-risk, so that towards the end of the remaining time 90 or 100% are low or zero risk investments. Many investment banks and retirement funds offer dedicated funds for that, they are called 'Retirement 2020' or 'Retirement 2030'; they do exactly this 'slow and continuous moving over' for you; just pick the right one."}
{"question":"I'm getting gouged on prices for medical services when using my HSA plan. How to be billed fairly?","answer":"I had an HSA for two or three years. I found very routinely that my insurance company had negotiated rates with in-network providers. So as I never hit the deductible, I always had to pay 100% of the negotiated rate, but it was still much less than the providers general rate. Sometimes dramatically so. Like I had some blood and urine tests done and the general rate was $450 but the negotiated rate was only $40. I had laser eye surgery and the general rate was something like $1500 but the negotiated rate was more like $500. Et cetera. Other times it was the same or trivially different, like routine office visits it made no difference. I found that I could call the insurance company and ask for the negotiated rate and they would tell me. When I asked the doctor or the hospital, they either couldn't tell me or they wouldn't. It's possible that the doctor's office doesn't really know what rates they've agreed to, they might have just signed some contract with the insurance company that says, yes, we'll accept whatever you give us. But either way, I had to go to the insurance company to find out. You'd think they'd just publish the list on a web site or something. After all, it's to the insurance company's advantage if you go to the cheapest provider. With a \"regular\" non-HSA plan, they're share of the total is less. Even with an HSA plan if you go to a cheaper provider you are less likely to hit the deductible. Yes, medical care in the U.S. is rather bizarre in that providers routinely expect you to commit to paying for their services before they will tell you the price. Can you imagine any other industry working this way? Can you imagine buying a car and the dealer saying, \"I have no idea what this car costs. If you like it, great, take it and drive it home, and in a few weeks we'll send you a bill. And of course whatever amount we put on that bill you are legally obligated to pay, but we refuse to tell you what that amount will be.\" The American Medical Association used to have a policy that they considered it \"unethical\" for doctors to tell patients the price of treatment in advance. I don't know if they still do."}
{"question":"Margin Calculations Question ","answer":"The setup is a purchase of 200 shares at $40 with a cash deposit of $4000 and margin loan of $4000 which a year later grew to $4240. With a margin requirement of 30%, the loan can be 70% or a total stock value of $6057. 1) $30.29 2) -24.3% (The stock fell to $30.29 from $40) 3) -54.6% (Your $4000 fell to $1817)"}
{"question":"In the US, does getting a loan with a cosigner, help your credit rating?","answer":"It all comes down to how the loan itself is structured and reported - the exact details of how they run the loan paperwork, and how\/if they report the activity on the loan to one of the credit bureaus (and which one they report to).  It can go generally one of three ways: A) The loan company reports the status to a credit reporting agency on behalf of both the initiating borrower and the cosigner. In this scenario, both individuals get a new account on their credit report. Initially this will generally drop related credit scores somewhat (it's a \"hard pull\", new account with zero history, and increased debt), but over time this can have a positive effect on both people's credit rating. This is the typical scenario one might logically expect to be the norm, and it effects both parties credit just as if they were a sole signor for the loan. And as always, if the loan is not paid properly it will negatively effect both people's credit, and the owner of the loan can choose to come after either or both parties in whatever order they want. B) The loan company just runs the loan with one person, and only reports to a credit agency on one of you (probably the co-signor), leaving the other as just a backup. If you aren't paying close attention they may even arrange it where the initial party wanting to take the loan isn't even on most of the paperwork. This let the person trying to run the loan get something accepted that might not have been otherwise, or save some time, or was just an error. In this case it will have no effect on Person A's credit. We've had a number of question like this, and this isn't really a rare occurrence. Never assume people selling you things are necessarily accurate or honest - always verify. C) The loan company just doesn't report the loan at all to a credit agency, or does so incorrectly. They are under no obligation to report to credit agencies, it's strictly up to them. If you don't pay then they can report it as something \"in collections\". This isn't the typical way of doing business for most places, but some businesses still operate this way, including some places that advertise how doing business with them (paying them grossly inflated interest rates) will \"help build your credit\". Most advertising fraud goes unpunished. Note: Under all of the above scenarios, the loan can only effect the credit rating attached to the bureau it is reported to. If the loan is reported to Equifax, it will not help you with a TransUnion or Experian rating at all. Some loans report to multiple credit bureaus, but many don't bother, and credit bureaus don't automatically copy each other. It's important to remember that there isn't so much a thing as a singular \"consumer credit rating\", as there are \"consumer credit ratings\" - 3 of them, for most purposes, and they can vary widely depending on your reported histories. Also, if it is only a short-term loan of 3-6 months then it is unlikely to have a powerful impact on anyone's credit rating. Credit scores are formulas calibrated to care about long-term behavior, where 3 years of perfect credit history is still considered a short period of time and you will be deemed to have a significant risk of default without more data. So don't expect to qualify for a prime-rate mortgage because of a car loan that was paid off in a few months; it might be enough to give you a score if you don't have one, but don't expect much more. As always, please remember that taking out a loan just to improve credit is almost always a terrible idea. Unless you have a very specific reason with a carefully researched and well-vetted plan that means that it's very important you build credit in this specific way, you should generally focus on establishing credit in ways that don't actually cost you any money at all. Look for no fee credit cards that you pay in full each month, even if you have to start with credit-building secured card plans, and switch to cash-value no-fee rewards cards for a 1-3% if you operate your financial life in a way that this doesn't end up manipulating your purchasing decisions to cost you money. Words to the wise: \"Don't let the credit score tail wag the personal financial dog!\""}
{"question":"What is the meaning of \"writing put options\"?","answer":"Writing options means \"selling\" options and \"put\" options are contracts to sell a defined security (the underlying), at a specific date (expiration date) and at a specific price (strike price). So, writing put options simply mean selling to others contracts to sell. Your profit is limited to the premium but your loss may be unlimited in a falling market."}
{"question":"Do altcoin trades count as like-kind exchanges? (Deferred capital gains tax)","answer":"Just a thought because this is a really good question: Would the buying and selling of blockchain based digital currency,   using other blockchain based digital currencies, be subject to like   kind treatment and exempt from capital gains until exchanged for a   non-blockchain based good or service (or national currency) Suppose someone sells 1 bitcoin to buy 100 monero.  Monero's price and bitcoin's price then change to where the 100 monero are 3 bitcoins.  The person gets their bitcoin back and has 66.67 monero remaining. This scenario could be: Suppose someone sells 1 bitcoin at $1000 to buy 100 monero at $10.  Bitcoin crashes 80% to $200 while monero crashes to only $6 per monero.  $6 times 100 is $600 and if the person gets their bitcoin back (at $200 per bitcoi), they still lost money when measured in US Dollars if they move that bitcoin back to US dollars. In reading the IRS on bitcoin, they only care about the US dollar value of bitcoin or monero and in this example, the US dollar value is less.  The person may have more bitcoins, but they still lost money if they sell."}
{"question":"Who can truly afford luxury cars?","answer":"Approximately 25% of all cars sold last year were leased, which is the highest on record. When you are leasing you don't own the car, instead you are basically renting it for a fixed term, and turning it back to the dealership.  It is very cost effective, because the manufacturers have a keen interest in making lots of cars. They are often subsidizing the lease by giving incentives to the dealer. They are gambling on the future value of their cars. They can lose on that gamble. The car business has turned into a financial nightmare for the car companies; they have huge development costs as the cars become more like mobile computing platforms loaded with sensors, and software that is constantly changing.  They can't hold a model for 20 years like Mercedes was able to do in the past. Now they have to constantly update their products. The only way to survive as a car maker is to pump out volume, and the leasing programs, which are quietly being underwritten by the manufacturers help them increase the production quantities, which helps lower the fixed development costs. If only the defense contractors could do this! they are stuck spending billions to build 20 planes, and so each one has a staggering price tag.  In the future, the car companies that will survive are those that have terrific credit, and low borrowing costs. That means Japanese and Germans will own the car business entirely in the end, and countries with higher borrowing costs (like America and Brasil) will not be competitive. Luckily Ford is so frugal, due to the lingering spirit of  its founder, that they can hold out. One thing strongly in favor of leasing is that you have zero maintenance costs typically. The repair risk is significant in luxury cars.  When you buy a 10 year old BMW, and when the tranny goes, it costs a fortune. Having a superb car for 30 months for a few hundred bucks a month is something a lot of people enjoy doing. Who can blame them? you spend an hour or 2 a day in your car, and why not live in a nice place?"}
{"question":"Tax implications of ESPP shares when company is bought out","answer":"When the deal closes, will it be as if I sold all of my ESPP shares   with regards to taxes? Probably. If the deal is for cash and not stock exchange, then once the deal is approved and closed all the existing shareholders will sell their shares to the buyer for cash. Is there any way to mitigate this? Unlikely. You need to understand that ESPP is just a specific way to purchase shares, it doesn't give you any special rights or protections that other shareholders don't have."}
{"question":"What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \"emergencies\" but are not covered by an Emergency Fund?","answer":"Here's a few. Is this what you're looking for? Also this should probably be a community wiki."}
{"question":"Should I collect receipts after paying with a card?","answer":"Keeping a receipt does allow you to verify that the expected amount was charged\/debited it also can help when you need to return an item.  Regarding double charging, the credit card companies look for that. If the same card is used at the same vendor for the same exact amount in a short period of time the credit card company will flag the transaction. They assume either a mistake was made, or fraud is being attempted. The most likely result is that the transaction is denied.  A dishonest vendor can write down the card number, expiration date and CVV number. Then after you leave make up a new transaction for any amount they want. You of course wouldn't have a paper receipt for this fraudulent transaction. The key is reviewing your transaction history every few days: looking for unexpected amounts, locations, or number of transactions."}
{"question":"Should I close unused credit cards before applying for another?","answer":"You want to have 2-4 credit cards, with a credit utilization ratio below 30%.  If you only have 2 cards, closing 1 would reduce your credit diversity and thus lower your credit score.  You also want at least 2 years credit history, so closing an older credit card may shorten your credit history, again lowering your credit score.  You want to keep around at least 1-2 older cards, even if they are not the best. You have 4 cards: But having 2-4 cards (you have 4) means you can add a 5th, and then cancel one down to 4, or cancel one down to 3 and then add a 4th, for little net effect.  Still, there will be effect, as you have decreased the age of your credit, and you have opened new credit (always a ding to your score). Do you have installment loans (cars), you mention a new mortgage, so you need to wait about 3 months after the most recent credit activity to let the effects of that change settle. You want both spouses to have separate credit cards, and that will increase the total available to 4-8.  That would allow you to increase the number of benefits available."}
{"question":"What's the difference between TaxAct and TurboTax?","answer":"Like most software it's about what you put in to them. We use ProSeries software which is like TurboTax but $4500 with no questions.   I would do your taxes on online and then have a professional do them. You then can ask any questions you may have to better understanding of what's going on. Only take copies of your documents because some unprofessional places will try to keep them.  Do this each time something big changes in your life, you have a baby, buy a house or start a business.  May cost more but could save you thousands in the long run.  I have been doing taxes professionally for 7 years."}
{"question":"Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage?","answer":"This answer is specifically for the UK, but one building society has an account set up specifically for this. You actually refer your friend\/family member to set up an account and then it can be linked to your mortgage. They don't get any interest for their account as it's all offset against your mortgage. If you then happen to give them a cash gift (up to \u00a3250 or possibly \u00a33000 per year, I can't work out which is the reliable number, as of 2015) then it's all completely above board."}
{"question":"Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest","answer":"Disadvantage is that tenant could sue you for something, and in an unfavorable judgement they would have access to your house as property to possess. You could lose the house. Even if you make an LLC to hold the house, they'll either sue you or the LLC and either way you could lose the house. This might be why the landlord is moving to Florida where their house cannot be possessed in a judgement because of the state's strong homestead exemption ;)"}
{"question":"What is the opposite of a sunk cost? A \"sunk gain\"?","answer":"It is called \"Opportunity Cost.\"   Opportunity cost is the value you lose because of a decision you made.   This is the book definition from Investopedia. The difference in return between a chosen investment and one that is necessarily passed up. Say you invest in a stock and it returns a paltry 2% over the year. In placing your money in the stock, you gave up the opportunity of another investment - say, a risk-free government bond yielding 6%. In this situation, your opportunity costs are 4% (6% - 2%)."}
{"question":"Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation?","answer":"For diversification against local currency's inflation, you have fundamentally 3 options: Depending on how sure you are on your prediction, and what amount of money you're willing to bet to \"short the country\", you might also consider a mix of approaches from the above. Good luck."}
{"question":"Is the contribution towards Employment Insurance (EI) wasted if I never get fired, or are my premiums refunded?","answer":"It is not wasted: it bought you peace of mind. Perhaps you would have had peace of mind without it, because of the particular industry you are in. But people from any industry can get sick or give birth, and not all industries are as evergreen as people think. A number of my onetime programmer colleagues now drive a truck or run a farm because new programming jobs weren't as easy to get as they once were. Like any insurance, it can't be affordable if it is bought only by those who think they will need it. The premiums you pay, in addition to giving you peace of mind, lower the premiums your neighbours pay. That contributes to social harmony. When your neighbours collect EI while looking for another job, they aren't tempted to turn to crime or legal-but-not-savoury ways to earn money. You probably like that, too. The fact they didn't get to choose whether or not to contribute means that they will be covered even if they aren't prudent and forward-looking people, which again is a benefit for you. And BTW, employers pay $1.40 in premiums for every dollar you pay. And we never collect. It's not for us. But we pay it."}
{"question":"Mortgage vs. Cash for U.S. home buy now","answer":"If you are investing in a mortgage strictly to avoid taxes, the answer is \"pay cash now.\"  A mortgage buys you flexibility, but at the cost of long term security, and in most cases, an overall decrease in wealth too.  At a very basic level, I have to ask anyone why they would pay a bank a dollar in order to avoid paying the government 28 - 36 cents depending on your tax rate. After all, one can only deduct interest- not principal. Interest is like rent, it accrues strictly to the lender, not equity. In theory the recipient should be irrelevant. If you have a need to stiff the government, go ahead. Just realize you making a banker three times as happy.  Additionally the peace of mind that comes from having a house that no banker can take away from you is, at least for me, compelling. If I have a $300,000 house with no mortgage, no payments, etc. I feel quite safe. Even if my money is tied up in equity, if a serious situation came along (say a huge doctors bill) I always have the option of a reverse mortgage later on. So, to directly counter other claims, yes, I'd rather have $300k in equity then $50k in equity and $225k in liquid assets. (Did you notice that the total net worth is $25k less? And that's even before one considers the cash flow implication of a continuing mortgage.  I have no mortgage, and I'm 41. I have a lot of net worth, but the thing that I really like is that I have a roof over my head that no on e can take away from me, and sufficient savings to weather most crises).  That said, a mortgage is not about total cost. It is about cash flow. To the extent that a mortgage makes your cash flow situation better, it provides a benefit- just not one that is quantifiable in dollars and cents. Rather, it is a risk\/reward situation. By taking a mortgage even when you have the cash, you pay a premium (the interest rate) in order to have your funds available when you need it.  A very simple strategy to calculate and\/or minimize this risk would be to invest the funds in another investment. If your rate of return exceeds the interest rate minus any tax preference (e.g. 4% minus say a 25% deduction = 3%), your money is better off there, obviously. And, indeed, when interest rates are only 4%, it may may be possible to find that. That said, in most instances, a CD or an inflation protected bond or so won't give you that rate of return. There, you'd need to look at stocks- slightly more risky. When interest rates are back to normal- say 5 or 6%, it gets even harder.  If you could, however, find a better return than the effective interest rate, it makes the most sense to do that investment, hold it as a hedge to pay off the mortgage (see, you get your security back if you decide not to work!), and pocket the difference. If you can't do that, your only real reason to hold the cash should be the cash flow situation."}
{"question":"Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of?","answer":"Affinity fraud. You see, Madoff really didn't have to sell himself, people recommended him to their friends.  In a similar way, it's easy once a scammer reels in one sucker to keep him on the hook long enough to get 10 friends to invest as well.  I've written about Mortgage Acceleration scams, and the common thread is that they are first sold to friends, relatives, neighbors. People tell their fellow church goer about it and pretty soon people's belief just takes over as they want it to work.  Edit - the scam I referenced above was the \"Money Merge Account\" and its reincarnated \"Wealth Unlimited.\" It claimed to use sophisticated software to enable one to pay their mortgage in less than half the time while not changing their budget. The sellers of the product weren't able to explain how it was supposed to work, since it was nonsense anyway. You were supposed to be able to borrow against a HELOC at a rate higher than your mortgage, yet come out ahead, enough to cut the time in half or less. The link I posted above leads to a spreadsheet I wrote in a weekend, which was better at the math than their software and free. It also linked to 66 pages of accumulated writing I did over a number of months starting in 2008. In the end, I never saw any prosecution over this scam, I suppose people were too embarrassed once they realized they wasted $3500.  How can I get scammed buying S&P ETFs through Schwab? Easy, I can't."}
{"question":"Expensive agenda book\/organizer. Office expense or fixed asset?","answer":"If your business pays taxes, it is in your best interest to expense it. Even if you don't pay taxes, setting your capitalization policy low enough to capitalize an office organizer (even a nice one) will give you headaches when your business grows larger."}
{"question":"Am I liable for an auto accident if I'm a cosigner but not on the title, registration, or insurance policy?","answer":"You can be sued if some random stranger that you never had any interaction with gets in an accident. There is really no barrier to people suing you if they get it in their head that they want to. Winning that lawsuit is another matter entirely.  Whether you would be held liable and lose the lawsuit depends on whether someone can convince a court that you are partially responsible for a financial loss. Not sure how anyone could possibly successfully argue that in this situation."}
{"question":"Stocks taxed just for selling, or just when withdrawing?","answer":"It is not a dump question because it concerns your most important invisible financial partner:the taxman. The answer depends of the legal status of this account. If your account is 401(k) in USA or RRSP in Canada, the answer is no. No capital gain taxes if your money is registered for retirement. You'll pay later on, as taxes are like death, unavoidable. Yes capital gain if your money is not in an retirement account. As soon as you realize a capital gain, it becomes taxable in that fiscal year."}
{"question":"Owning REIT vs owning real estate - which has a better hypothetical ROI?","answer":"You've already hit on the big difference. If you buy a property, you've made a big commitment, for better or worse.  If you bought wisely, you'll be very happy.  If not, you could go bankrupt. An REIT spreads out the risk, but the reward isn't as great. There's less barrier to entry in buying shares of an REIT than there is in buying an investment property:  money, time, maintenance. The answer for you depends on what level of effort you want to put into your investment.  If you are all ready to pick up an investment property, make the down payment, get appraisal and inspection, clean up the house, and fill it with tenants, then go for it.  Otherwise, research some REITs and buy some shares. (Disclaimer:  I have a rental property that's doing pretty well now.)"}
{"question":"Landlord Tax Relief Changes UK","answer":"This article on the landlord website Property118.com shows a simple example, demonstrating that a private landlord with a mortgage could see a huge jump in their effective tax rate (in this case, from 18% to 67% by 2020), while a corporate landlord will see no change at all. There's also a link in that article to a detailed report which is highly critical of the tax changes. The government obviously take a different view! (See here for more worked examples of how the tax changes will be applied). More information can be found on this on various landlord sites. A key phrase to look for is \"section 24\", referring to the section of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2015 which implements the change. Note that this change only applies to private landlords (i.e. those who own a property personally, rather than through a company), and who have a mortgage on the property, and who (after the new calculations) are higher or additional rate taxpayers."}
{"question":"Should I lease, buy new, or buy used?","answer":"Welcome to Personal Finance and Money. This answer will depend a lot on what is most important to the buyer, for example, whether it is important to always be in a newer car, to save money, or strike a balance between the two. There are trade-offs and I don't think there is one right answer for all circumstances. Leasing Leasing does make financial sense for at least two types of people I'm aware of: The company I work for provides company cars to sales executives, which we lease. We lease because it wouldn't be appropriate for a salesperson to meet a client in a car that clearly appears used. Similarly, I know people who value being in a newer car all the time, and for them, leasing makes more financial sense then buying a new car every 2-3 years, and selling their old car which is now 2-3 years old and has depreciated significantly. They understand that they are paying more to always be able to be in a newer car. I used to work with a manager who, every time the new model of the car he owned came out, would see the car and buy it on the spot, even though he already owned last year's model, and he didn't need two cars. He just couldn't help himself; he felt he had to have the new model. It's no use sermonizing about how he \"should\" learn to save money by just being content with what he had. In reality, if he is going to buy the new model every year no matter what, he should lease rather than buy. From my experience, I would only recommend leasing if you would otherwise be buying a new car on a regular basis, and the lease would be less expensive. This is probably the most cost effective way to maintain the highest possible quality, but would cost much more than buying and holding a new car or buying a value used car. I don't see reliability as much of a factor here since the seller will have a very good idea of how much maintenance will cost, but you will pay a premium to be able to pay a fixed cost for maintenance instead of risking a worse-than-average experience. Buying New According to Edmunds and BIGResearch, only a relatively small number of people are ever in the market for a new car at a given point in time. While you do pay quite a bit more to own a brand new car instead of the same car that is 2-3 years old, there are several reasons I'm aware of why people buy new cars: Number 4 is probably the biggest reason, and many people are willing to pay for the certainty of knowing that the miles are correct, the parts are new, the car is in good working condition, etc. Additionally, some makes of cars have much higher resale values than others (such as Hondas), meaning that there isn't as large of a drop in price between a new car and a used car. Many people consider buying a new car the best way to ensure they get the best reliability since they know the initial condition of the car and can care for it meticulously from that point on. This can especially make sense when the buyer intends to keep the car for the like of the car as the buyer will then benefit from having no car payments once it is paid off. Buying Used Buying a used car is the most affordable option, but for a given quality of car the reliability can be a significant potential pitfall. It can be very difficult for a non-professional to tell whether they are getting a good value. Additionally, it is hard for an owner who wants to sell a used car in excellent condition to get the true value of the car, and much easier for an unscrupulous seller to to get the market price by selling to an unaware buyer (the \"lemons\" problem in economics). You could buy an inspected car with a limited warranty from a retail seller like CarMax or a dealership, but you often pay a significant premium that cancels out much of the biggest reason to buy used - saving money. However, there is an opportunity to save money when buying used if you're willing to compromise on the condition of the car (if you don't care whether a car has hail damage, for example), or if you are able to wait until you find a motivated\/distressed seller who needs to sell quickly and is willing to sell at a discount. If cost is your primary priority, buying a used car is likely the best option, but I would recommend the following in all circumstances: If the seller isn't willing to offer both of these, I would walk away. When buying used, you will also need to consider maintenance, which will vary significantly based on the make and model of the car as well as the condition, which is another risk you need to be willing to take on if you choose to buy used."}
{"question":"Why do cash back credit cards give a higher rate for dining and gasoline purchases?","answer":"Don't really know but I can guess. Firstly, everyone thinks the price of gas is too high. You drive to work every day, and gas is basically the only product who's price is advertised from the street! From that perspective. So mentally, I argue, we overvalue an extra 1 percent discount on gas. It's only worth maybe 60 cents a month to me, but worth a lot of other interchance fees for the credit card company. Secondly, gas stations are a prime robbery target. Credit cards mean less cash in the till. And less chance for employees to steal from the till, and less chance of counterfit money. Finally, it's a competitive market. If stations don't accept a card, they'll lose business to elsewhere. There's a gas station on either side of an intersection, and you can always tell which station is a few cents cheaper because it's the one with customers fueling up while the other one is a ghost town. They feel they have to compete on convenience or go under, and the credit card companies recruit you into the game with higher cash back rewards."}
{"question":"Are the stocks of competitor companies negatively correlated?","answer":"Not especially. It depends on why sales have changed. If it's just consumer demand, that affects everyone in parallel rather than pushing in opposite direactions. If it's changes other than sales, that may have no effect on other companies. If it's because someone introduced the next must-have-it device and they're selling rapidly and drawing customers from the competing brands, maybe. And that's all neglecting the fact that this may already have been incorporated into the competitor's share price long ago, in anticipation of this news. Sorry, but the market just ain't simple."}
{"question":"Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest","answer":"First, you can look up the property tax of the building you are in for an exact number. Go to you town's tax office or look at Zillow. You need to claim the rent as income, but will take all expenses as well as depreciation on half the building. The numbers may well work in your favor, especially as a resident landlord. I still own a rental in the next state, but it's 2 hour away, so I'm paying pros to do the simplest things. On site, you can handle all maintenance and save that way.  If the cash flow looks like it's better than what you have right now, it might be time to buy. Without seeing the numbers I can't point out what you might be missing."}
{"question":"Any reason to keep IRAs separate?","answer":"I don't know about keeping different rollover IRAs separate. But I know that there is a reason to keep rollover IRAs separate from other traditional IRAs -- if you want to roll them back into a 401(k) in the future, some 401(k)s only allow funds that were rolled over from a 401(k) originally."}
{"question":"Definition of gross income (Arizona state tax filing requirements)","answer":"Many states have a simple method for assessing income tax on nonresidents.  If you have $X income in State A where you claim nonresident status and  $Y income overall, then you owe State A a fraction (X\/Y) of the income  tax that would have been due on $Y income had you been a resident of State A.  In other words, compute the state income tax on $Y as per State A rules, and send us (X\/Y) of that amount.  If you are a resident of State B, then State B  will tax you on $Y but give you some credit for taxes paid to State A. Thus, you might be required to file a State A income tax return regardless of how small $X is.  As a practical matter, many commercial real-estate  investments are set up as limited partnerships in which most of the annual taxable income is a small amount of portfolio income (usually interest income that you report on Schedule B of Form 1040), and the annual  bottom line is lots of passive losses which the limited partners report (but do not get to deduct) on the Federal return.  As a result, State A is unlikely to come after you for the tax on, say, $100 of interest income each year because it will cost them more to go after you than they will  recover from you. But, when the real estate is sold, there will (hopefully) be a big capital gain, most of which  will be sheltered from Federal tax since the passive losses finally get  to be deducted.  At this point, State A is not only owed a lot of money (it knows nothing of your passive losses etc) but, after it processes the income tax return that you filed for that year, it will likely demand that you file income tax returns for previous years as well."}
{"question":"Funding an ira or roth ira","answer":"No, you don't have to have the money deducted from your paycheck. The IRS doesn't get a copy of your paycheck anyway. When you file your annual tax return (form 1040), there's a line there to write down the amount you contributed to the IRA. In fact, you can contribute to the IRA after the year ended, until the Tax Day of the next year, so that you can make sure your contribution will actually be deductible (not always they are). The IRA custodian (the brokerage firm\/bank where you opened the IRA account) will provide you with a deposit confirmation and form 5498. A copy of form 5948 is also sent to the IRS."}
{"question":"Why not pay in full upfront for a car?","answer":"You need to do the maths exactly. The cost of buying a car in cash and using a loan is not the same. The dealership will often get paid a significant amount of money if you get a loan through them. On the other hand, they may have a hold over you if you need their loan (no cash, and the bank won't give you money).  One strategy is that while you discuss the price with the dealer, you indicate that you are going to get a loan through them. And then when you've got the best price for the car, that's when you tell them it's cash. Remember that the car dealer will do what's best for their finances without any consideration of what's good for you, so you are perfectly in your rights to do the same to them."}
{"question":"Need help with the psychology of investing: past failures and future fears","answer":"You're being too hard on yourself. You've managed to save quite a bit, which is more than most people ever do. You're in a wonderful position, actually -- you have savings and time! You don't mention how long you want\/need to continue working, but I'll assume 20 years or so? You don't have to invest it all at once. Like Pete B says, index funds (just read what Mr. Buffett said in recent news: he'd tell his widow to invest in the S&P 500 Index and not Berkshire Hathaway!) should be a decent percentage. You can also pick a target fund from any of the major investment firms (fees are higher than an Index, but it will take care of any asset allocation decisions). Put some in each. Also look at retirement accounts to take advantage of tax-deferred or tax-free growth, but that's another question and country-specific. In any case, don't even blink when the market goes down. And it will go down. If you're still working, earning, and saving, it'll just be another opportunity to buy more at lower prices. As for the house, no reason you can't invest and save for a house. Invest some for the long term and set aside the rest for the house in 1-5 years. If you don't think you'll ever really buy the house, though, invest the majority of it for the long-term: I have a feeling from the tone of your question that you tend to put off the big financial decisions. So if you won't really buy the house, just admit it to yourself now!"}
{"question":"Cash out 401k for house downpayment","answer":"Absolutely never.Even in a hot market, it's like picking up dimes in front of a bulldozer.  It's just plain stupid. If you can't afford a 20% down payment and a 15 year mortgage, just rent."}
{"question":"What actions can I take against a bank for lack of customer service?","answer":"Figure out who regulates the bank. Complain to your state banking\/consumer affairs department. Complain to your state Attorney General. The Feds regulate most banks too, there are several different agencies, and I believe the way they regulate banks has changed recently. Try contacting the US Comptroller of the Currency."}
{"question":"Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?","answer":"yes.   you can take out 500,000 form your paid of house.  you pay back 500,000 at 3.5. percent.       you do get a tax break for not owning your house.  it is less then 3.5 you are paying back the back. about one forth of that, BUT you take the 500,000 in invest.   Now cd low 1 percent,  stock is risky.    You can do REIT, with are about 8 to 12  every year. so even at 8 - tax 1.5 is 6.5 - 3.5 bank loan.  that   3 percent on your 500,000 thousand, plus tax break, but that only at 8 percent.      or 500,000 and buy a apartment building, again about 7 to 10 percent,   so that 2 to 3 percent profit, but the building goes up over years."}
{"question":"First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house","answer":"There is a mathematical way to determine the answer, if you know all the variables. (And that's a big if.) For example, suppose you rent for 4 years and the price of rent never increases. The total amount you will have paid is: 600*48 = 28,800. If you currently have money sitting in the bank earning only a negligible amount of interest, and you can purchase the house for X, and then sell it for exactly what you paid 4 years from now, and you have 0 expenses otherwise, then purchasing it will save you 28,800 compared to renting. Obviously that makes some assumptions which are not possible. Now you need to calculate the variables: All of these variables can drastically effect the profit margin, and unfortunately they will vary greatly depending on your country, location, and the condition of the home. Once you estimate each of the variables, it's important to realize that if you purchase, your profit or loss can swing unexpectedly in either direction based on appreciation\/depreciation which can be difficult to predict, in part because it is somewhat tied to the overall macro-economy of where you live (state or country). On the flip side, if you rent, it's pretty easy to calculate your cost as approximately 28,800 over 4 years. (Perhaps slightly more for modest rent increases.) Lastly, if you elect to purchase the house, realize that you're investing that money in real estate. You could just as easily rent and invest that money elsewhere, if you want to choose a more aggressive or conservative investment with your money."}
{"question":"Does an individual share of a stock have some kind of unique identifier?","answer":"I agree with the answer by @Michael that this number doesn't exist.  It's hard to see what use it would have and it would be difficult to track. I'm writing a separate answer because I also disagree with the premise of your question:  Individual shares of stock have never to my knowledge had such a number.  Your comment about numbers on stock certificates identifies the certificate document, which will generally represent multiple shares of stock.  That number no more identifies a single share of stock than the serial number on a $10 bill identifies any one of the ten dollars it represents.  Even at the \"collective\" unit of $10, when the bill is eventually replaced with a new one, the new bill has a new number.  No continuity."}
{"question":"Why does money value normally decrease?","answer":"It is in circles. Today Money is fiat money. From economic stand point a moderate inflation is good. It there is near zero inflation or deflation, then economy would come to standstill and would stagnate. Hence everything has to becomes expensive. This keeps the economy in motion. House or Gold does increase in value otherwise one would not have purchased them. If you are saying on buying a house, you keep it with someone and after a period of time you get one extra room or keep an ounce of gold and after some years it becomes 2 ounce, well it does increase but differently. There reason there aren't many such schemes is because quantifying it is difficult. It would normally fetch more money than one had bought it for."}
{"question":"Will I have to pay taxes for Australia if I have an Australian bank account?","answer":"If you are a resident of New Zealand for tax purposes, you will be taxed in New Zealand on all of your \"worldwide income\". This is income derived from New Zealand as well as income derived from all other countries Source: http:\/\/www.ird.govt.nz\/international\/nzwithos\/income\/overseas-income-index.html Another link that will be of use is this: https:\/\/www.ato.gov.au\/individuals\/international-tax-for-individuals\/work-out-your-tax-residency\/ This is Australia's rules on if you qualify as a resident for tax purposes.  I am not an accountant or a lawyer but my reading of this is you actually have to reside in Australia to be considered a resident - whether or not you have a bank account there doesn't appear to play into it. Additionally, Australia and NZ have a \"double taxation agreement\", explained here: http:\/\/www.ird.govt.nz\/yoursituation-nonres\/double-tax\/ So this should prevent you from being taxed in both places."}
{"question":"Why would I pick a specific ETF over an equivalent Mutual Fund?","answer":"In the case of VFIAX versus VOO, if you're a buy-and-hold investor, you're probably better off with the mutual fund because you can buy fractional shares. However, in general the expense ratio for ETFs will be lower than equivalent mutual funds (even passive index funds). They are the same in this case because the mutual fund is Admiral Class, which has a $10,000 minimum investment that not all people may be able to meet. Additionally, ETFs are useful when you don't have an account with the mutual fund company (i.e. Vanguard), and buying the mutual fund would incur heavy transaction fees."}
{"question":"Is there a good rule of thumb for how much I should have set aside as emergency cash?","answer":"The bare minimum should be 6-months of expenses.  Ideally, it should be at least 1 year.  My personal preference is 2+ years, but one thing at a time. Figure out your necessary expenses: food, shelter, transportation and necessary extras.  An example of a necessity, beyond the basics, for me is a decent internet connection.  Telephone costs is another good example.  (Meanwhile, electricity and such bills should be included in the figure for shelter.) You may want to include some allowance for clothing as well; especially for the 2+ year plan."}
{"question":"Does the P\/E ratio not apply to bond ETFs?","answer":"How would you compute the earnings for governments that are some of the main issuers of bonds and debt? When governments run deficits they would have a negative earnings ratio that makes the calculation quite hard to evaluate."}
{"question":"How do I figure out the next step in deciding to sell my home to the market or to a uniquely interested buyer?","answer":"You decide whether the improvements will result in a net higher price.  You also need to figure on how long the house will be on the market and the cost of carrying the home, unoccupied.  Some people would prefer the quickest sale. Others would wait to get the highest price. If you sell to a known buyer, you avoid using a real estate agent. If you plan to sell on your own and avoid the agent, there's a bit of effort dealing with the public, especially those who just want to look at houses with no real interest in buying. (As an agent, I can tell you, there's nothing like talking for nearly an hour, and then figuring out these people are from 1\/2 mile away, but just attend every open house in the area.)"}
{"question":"Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?","answer":"You are being ripped off on several counts. 1) 40k is 26% not 25%. 2) Why should you pay them $500 rent? they bought a share of the property, they should fund it if they intend to keep 75% 3) Why do you need to pay them for the 75%? why dont they need to pay you for the 25%? You are better off getting a loan for the 75% and going solo so you get to buy equity."}
{"question":"Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks? ","answer":"If it's an active stock, the Yahoo message boards are inhabited by some clueful people. But the signal-to-noise ratio is relatively low, and there are a lot of \"interesting\" characters who inhabit the boards as well."}
{"question":"What determines the price of fixed income ETFs?","answer":"The literal answer to your question 'what determines the price of an ETF' is 'the market'; it is whatever price a buyer is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept. But if the market price of an ETF share deviates significantly from its NAV, the per-share market value of the securities in its portfolio, then an Authorized Participant can make an arbitrage profit by a transaction (creation or redemption) that pushes the market price toward NAV. Thus as long as the markets are operating and the APs don't vanish in a puff of smoke we can expect price will track NAV. That reduces your question to: why does NAV = market value of the holdings underlying a bond ETF share decrease when the market interest rate rises?  Let's consider an example. I'll use US Treasuries because they have very active markets, are treated as risk-free (although that can be debated), and excluding special cases like TIPS and strips are almost perfectly fungible. And I use round numbers for convenience. Let's assume the current market interest rate is 2% and 'Spindoctor 10-year Treasury Fund' opens for business with $100m invested (via APs) in 10-year T-notes with 2% coupon at par and 1m shares issued that are worth $100 each. Now assume the interest rate goes up to 3% (this is an example NOT A PREDICTION); no one wants to pay par for a 2% bond when they can get 3% elsewhere, so its value goes down to about 0.9 of par (not exactly due to the way the arithmetic works but close enough) and Spindoctor shares similarly slide to $90. At this price an investor gets slightly over 2% (coupon*face\/basis) plus approximately 1% amortized capital gain (slightly less due to time value) per year so it's competitive with a 3% coupon at par.  As you say new bonds are available that pay 3%. But our fund doesn't hold them; we hold old bonds with a face value of $100m but a market value of only $90m. If we sell those bonds now and buy 3% bonds to (try to) replace them, we only get $90m par value of 3% bonds, so now our fund is paying a competitive 3% but NAV is still only $90.  At the other extreme, say we hold the 2% bonds to maturity, paying out only 2% interest but letting our NAV increase as the remaining term (duration) and thus discount of the bonds decreases -- assuming the market interest rate doesn't change again, which for 10 years is probably unrealistic (ignoring 2009-2016!). At the end of 10 years the 2% bonds are redeemed at par and our NAV is back to $100 -- but from the investor's point of view they've forgone $10 in interest they could have received from an alternative investment over those 10 years, which is effectively an additional investment, so the original share price of $90 was correct."}
{"question":"Why do some stocks have trading halts and what causes them?","answer":"The company may have put a trading halt due to many reasons, most of the time it is because the company is about to release some news to the market. To stop speculation driving the price up or down, it puts a halt on trading until it can get all the information together and release it to the market. This could be news about an earnings update, a purchase of other businesses, a merger with another business, or a takeover bid, just to name a few."}
{"question":"In what cases can a business refuse to take cash?","answer":"The Federal Reserve website notes that creditors must accept cash for debts on services already rendered, but that businesses may refuse cash for services not yet rendered unless prohibited by local law. The Treasury website includes examples of businesses limiting what cash they will accept:  For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or   dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas   stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually   notes above $20) as a matter of policy."}
{"question":"How can I make a profit by selling a stock short?","answer":"How so? If i sell short, then i make a profit only if the price goes down so i can buy back at a lower price. Yes, but if the price is going up then you would go long instead. Shorting a stock (or any other asset) allows you to profit when the price is going down. Going long allows you to profit when the price is going up. In the opposite cases, you lose money. In order to make a profit in either of those situations, you have to accurately assess which way the price will trade over the period of time you are dealing with. If you make the wrong judgment, then you lose money because you'll either sell for a lower price than you bought (if you went long), or have to buy back at a higher price than you sold for (if you went short). In either case, unless the trader can live with making a short-term loss and recouperating it later, one needs a good stop-loss strategy."}
{"question":"As a sole proprietor can I charge a fee for being paid by check or card","answer":"You can charge a fee to accept checks, although I think the better solution might be to offer a small discount for early payment of your invoices.  As some people here have suggested, why not add a small bit to your fees to begin with to cover your inconvenience in the case they choose to pay by check?   I often will give clients a small discount of 1.5% for paying my invoices within 10 days, which does motivate some to pay sooner, depending on the client and the amount of the invoice.  If you've already added a small amount to your fees in the first place then providing the discount is good public relations that doesn't actually cost you anything. You can always add a \"convenience fee\" for accepting checks, but this is a more negative approach, as though you're penalizing the client for paying by check rather than electronically.  Some people do see it this way, despite any efforts you make to explain otherwise. As to your question about adding fees for accepting credit cards, be very careful!  There are sometimes state or local laws on this, and you could find yourself in trouble very quickly if you run afoul of one.  Here's a good article to read on the subject: Adding fees for accepting credit cards from CreditCards.com Site I hope this is helpful. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Is there such thing as a Checking account requiring pre-approval \/ white-list?","answer":"I don't believe there is such a process.  My observation (i.e. my opinion) is that banks will have a level of security walls appropriate to the cost vs risk they experience. Since as Frazell says, your liability is limited for this type of fraud, you personally bear little if any risk.  If this fraud were common enough that the cost of your proposal outweighed the expense, they would implement it.  On a similar note. Credit card fraud can be reduced ten fold if a PIN were required for all purchases. The 3 digits on the back helps prove the card is there, and you just didn't steal the from 16 digits, but a 6-8 digit PIN required at point of sale would be tough for the thief to guess. How much software to do this would cost, I don't know, but the idea is brilliant, even if it's mine. 10 fold reduction, if not 100 fold. (Any bank guys reading?)"}
{"question":"Can a recruiting agency demand information to file an I-9 before I have a job?","answer":"Unless they're the actual employers, the I-9 is none of their business. Your employer must verify your eligibility for employment on the first day of your employment, i.e.: when you find a job you'll have to fill I-9 anyway. The only reason I can think for them to do it is to verify that you're eligible for employment before they waste any time on searching for a job for you. I'm not sure if they're legally allowed to ask for your status, so maybe that's their way of working around that. I don't think they can require you to fill I-9, and in fact I'm not sure if its even legal for them to obtain that information without actually being your employers. IMHO, that is, consult with an attorney if you want a proper legal advice."}
{"question":"I am the sole owner of an LLC. Does it make a difference if I file as an S-Corp or a sole-member LLC?","answer":"I'm assuming that when you say \"convert to S-Corp tax treatment\" you're not talking about actually changing your LLC to a Corporation. There are two distinct pieces of the puzzle here. First, there's your organizational form. Your state, which is where the business is legally formed and recognized, creates the LLC or Corporation. \"S-Corp\" doesn't come into play here: your company is either an LLC or a Corporation. (There are a handful of other organizational types your state might have, e.g. PLLC, Limited Partnership, etc.; none of these are immediately relevant to this discussion). Second, there's the tax treatment you receive by the IRS. If your company was created by the state as an LLC, note that the IRS doesn't recognize LLCs as a distinct organizational type: you elect to be taxed as an individual (for single member LLCs), a partnership (for multiple member LLCs), or as a corporation. The former two elections are \"pass through\" -- there's no additional level of taxation on corporate profits, everything just passes through to the owners. The latter election introduces a tax on corporate profits. When you elect pass-through treatment, a single-member LLC files on Schedule C; a multiple-member LLC will prepare a form K-1 which you will include on your 1040. If your company was created by the state as a Corporation (not an LLC), you could still elect pass-through taxation if your company qualifies under the rules in Subchapter S (i.e. \"an S-Corp\"). States do not recognize \"S-Corp\" as part of the organizational process -- that's just a tax distinction used by the IRS (and possibly your state's tax authorities). In your case, if you are a single-member LLC (and assuming there are no other reasons to organize as a corporation), talking about \"S-Corp tax treatment\" doesn't make any sense. You'll just file your schedule C; in my experience it's fairly simple. (Note that this is based on my experience of single- and multiple-member LLCs in just two states. Your state may have different rules that affect state-level taxation; and the rules may change from year to year. I've found that hiring a good CPA to prepare the forms saves a good bit of stress and time that can be better applied to the business.)"}
{"question":"Why do some people say a house \"not an investment\"?","answer":"Your house is not an asset, it is a liability. Assets feed you. Liabilites eat you. Robert Kiyosaki From a cash flow perspective your primary residence (ie your house) is an investment but it is not an asset. If you add up all the income your primary residence generates and subtract all the expenses it incurs, you will see why investment gurus claim this. Perform the same calculations for a rental property and you're more likely to find it has a positive cash flow. If it has a negative cash flow, it's not an asset either; it's a liability. A rental property with a negative cash flow is still an investment, but cash flow gurus will tell you it's a bad investment. While it is possible that your house may increase in value and you may be able to sell it for more than you paid, will you be able to sell it for more than all of the expenses incurred while living there? If so, you have an asset.  Some people will purchase a home in need of repair, live in it and upgrade it, sell it for profit exceeding all expenses, and repeat. These people are flipping houses and generating capital gains based on their own hard work. In this instance a person's primary residence can be an asset. How much of an asset is calculated when the renovated house is sold."}
{"question":"How to become an investment banker?","answer":"Since you are only 16, you still have time to mature what you will do with your life, always keep your mind opend. If you are really passionated about investement : read 1 book every week about investement, read the website investopedia, financial time, know about macro economic be good a math in school, learning coding and infrastructure can also be interesting since the stock is on server. learn about the history, you can watch on yoube shows about the history of money. learn accounting, the basic at least open a  broker simulating account online ( you will play with a fake wallet but on real value) for 6 month, and after open a broker account with 100 real dollards and plays the penny stocks ( stock under 3 USD a share). after doing all this for 1 year you should know if you want to spend your life doing this and can choose universtity and intership accordingly. You can look on linkedin the profile of investement banker to know what school they attended. Best of luck for your future."}
{"question":"Depositing a check with a DBA on the title","answer":"Assuming it's your business, endorse the check as yourself and your DBA name, payable to your personal account"}
{"question":"Calculating Pre-Money Valuation for Startup","answer":"When the VC is asking what your Pre-Money Valuation is, he's asking what percentage of shares his $200,000 will buy. If you say your company is worth $800K, then after he puts the money in, it will be worth $1M, and he will own 20% of all shares \u2013 you'll still own the remainder. So when the VC is asking for a valuation, what he really wants to know is how much of your company he's going to own after he funds you.  Determining your pre-money valuation, then, is a question of negotiation: how much money will you need, how likely are you to require more money later (and thus dilute the VC's shares, or give up more of your own shares), how likely is your business to survive, and how much money will it make if it does survive? It isn't about the actual value of your business right now, as much as it is \"how much work has gone into this, and how successful can it be?\" The value is going to be a bit higher than you expect, because the work is already done and you can get to market faster than someone else who hasn't started yet. VCs are often looking for long shots \u2013 they'll invest in 10 companies, and expect 7 to fail, 2 to be barely-profitable, and the last one to make hilarious amounts of money. A VC doesn't necessarily want 51% of your company (you'll probably lose motivation if you're not in charge), but they'll want as much as they can get otherwise."}
{"question":"Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA?","answer":"Rolling a 401(k) to an IRA should be your default best option. Rolling a 401(k) to another 401(k) is rarely the best option, but that does happen.  I've done it once when I started a job at a company that had a great 401(k) with a good selection of low-cost mutual funds. I rolled the 401(k) from one previous job in to this 401(k) to take advantage of it.  In all other cases, I rolled 401(k)s from previous jobs to my Rollover IRA, which gave me the most freedom of investment options. Finally, with 401(k)-to-Roth IRA rollovers, it's important to decouple two concepts so you can analyze it as a sum of two transactions:"}
{"question":"What is the opposite of Economic Bubble? ","answer":"The opposite of an economic bubble is a bubble burst :p! Jokes aside though, an economic bubble occurs when the economy is in bull market mode and asset prices are growing very fast. It's usually measured by ratio's like price to earnings and the levels of various market indices. So, the opposite would be when valuations are falling very fast or are very low, and price to earnings ratios are low.  This condition is usually a recession. A recession is a market slowdown, generally after a bubble bursts, and severe recessions can become depressions if they last long enough (Great Depression, 1930s).  A bubble is not necessarily negative - stock prices usually rise a lot so paper wealth is greatly magnified. If you can get out in time, you're golden. Similarly, a recession isn't bad for everyone. Some investors keep large amounts of cash waiting for recessions so they can \"buy low, sell high\". For most people, however, recessions are negative because unemployment increases and some people get fired, and the economy slows down. Asset prices have fallen so their investments are worth less than they used to be (on paper), and people mainly have to bide it out until the market starts growing again."}
{"question":"Automatic transaction on credit card to stay active","answer":"I agree with the rest of the answers -- you're probably better off just using it for some predictable flat-rate recurring monthly service like NetFlix, or making a charitable donation if you're into that sort of thing. But since that wasn't what you asked, I'll try to provide an answer: If you don't mind throwing away money, send money to yourself using PayPal. Here's how:  Set up a PayPal Business Account, and use your personal PayPal account to send funds to it by setting up a PayPal subscription. PayPal says \"You can have one Consumer account and one Business account.\" A PayPal Payments Standard business account has no monthly fee -- only transaction fees. According to PayPal, \"in order to set up a repeating payment, [you] would need to create a Subscription or Recurring Payments button from the Merchant Services tab\" (in the Business Account). You would then click the link\/button to set up the subscription from your personal PayPal account, to make it send money to your Business account on an automatic schedule. You can then, at your own leisure, send the money back to your personal account without paying a second transaction fee, then finally send it back to your bank account. Or, if your bank account is not yet tied to your personal account, you can tie it to the business account instead, and deposit the funds into your bank account. Unfortunately, this step can't be automated. Again, to reiterate, you're much better off just using it for something recurring."}
{"question":"Understanding a Trailing Limit if Touched Order","answer":"This is rather simple if you understand a trailing limit order but to be sure I am going to explain a limit, trailing limit, and trailing LIT order. I am going to use an example assuming that you already own a stock and want to sell it. Limit Order I place an order to sell 100 PG @ 65.00. This order will only be executed if the bid price of PG is at $65.0000 or greater. Trailing Limit Order I place an order to sell 100 CAT @ 85.25 with a trailing 5%. This order will be executed when CAT drops 5% below the highest point it reaches after you place this order. So if you place this order at 85.25 and the stock drops 5% to $80.9875, your order will be executed. However, if the stock jumps to $98, the order will not be executed until the stock falls to $93.10. The sell point will go up with the stock and will always remain at the specified % or $ amount behind the high point. Trailing Limit If Touched Order I place an order to sell 100 INTC @ 24.75 with a trailing 5% if the stock touches $25.00. Essentially, this is the same as the trailing limit except that it doesn't take effect until the stock first gets $25.00.  I think the page they provide to explain this is confusing because I think they are explaining it from the shorting a stock perspective instead of the selling a stock you want to profit from. I could also be wrong in how I understand it. My advice would be to either call their customer support and ask for a better explanation or what I do in my finances, avoid things I don't understand."}
{"question":"Individual Client or Customer fining or charging a Company a penalty fee","answer":"What's the primary factor keeping a consumer from handing out fees as liberally as corporations or small businesses do? Power. Can an individual, or more appropriately, what keeps an individual from being able to charge, fine or penalize a Business? If it could be accomplished, but at a high cost, let's assume it's based on principal and not monetary gain. And have a legal entitlement to money back?  No.  You are of course welcome to send your doctor a letter stating that you would like $50 to make up for your two hour wait last time around, but there's no legal obligation for him to pay up, unless he signed a contract stating that he would do so. Corporations also cannot simply send you a fine or fee and expect you to pay it; you must have either agreed to pay it in the past, or now agree to pay it in exchange for something. In these cases, the corporations have the power: you have to agree to their rules to play ball.   However, consumers do have a significant power as well, in well-competed markets: the power to do business with someone else.  You don't like the restocking fee?  Buy from Amazon, which offers free shipping on returns.  You don't like paying a no-show fee from the doctor?  Find a doctor without one (or with a more forgiving fee), or with a low enough caseload that you don't have to make appointments early.  Your ability to fine them exists as your ability to not continue to patronize them. In some markets, though, consumers don't have a lot of power - for example, cable television (or other utilities). The FCC has a list of Customer Service Standards, which cable companies are required to meet, and many states have additional rules requiring penalties for missed or late appointments tougher than that.   And, in the case of the doctor, if your doctor is late - find one that is.  Or, try sending him a bill.  It does, apparently, work from time to time - particularly if the doctor wants to keep your business."}
{"question":"Sleazy Bait and Switch Marketing \u2014 Is this legal?","answer":"This is completely disgusting, utterly unethical, deeply objectionable, and yes, it is almost certainly illegal. The Federal Trade Commission has indeed filed suit, halted ads, etc in a number of cases - but these likely only represent a tiny percentage of all cases. This doesn't make what the car dealer's do ok, but don't expect the SWAT team to bust some heads any time soon - which is kind of sad, but let's deal with the details. Let's see what the Federal Trade Commission has to say in their article, Are Car Ads Taking You for a Ride? Deceptive Car Ads Here are some claims that may be deceptive \u2014 and   why: Vehicles are available at a specific low price or for a specific   discount What may be missing: The low price is after a downpayment, often   thousands of dollars, plus other fees, like taxes, licensing and   document fees, on approved credit. Other pitches: The discount is only   for a pricey, fully-loaded model; or the reduced price or discount   offered might depend on qualifications like the buyer being a recent   college graduate or having an account at a particular bank. \"Only $99\/Month\" What may be missing: The advertised payments are temporary \"teaser\"   payments. Payments for the rest of the loan term are much higher. A   variation on this pitch: You will owe a balloon payment \u2014 usually   thousands of dollars \u2014 at the end of the term. So both of these are what the FTC explicitly says are deceptive practices. Has the FTC taken action in cases similar to this? Yes, they have: \"If auto dealers make advertising claims in headlines, they can\u2019t take   them away in fine print,\" said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC\u2019s   Bureau of Consumer Protection. \"These actions show there is a   financial cost for violating FTC orders.\" In the case referenced above, the owners of a 20+ dealership chain was hit with about $250,000 in fines. If you think that's a tiny portion of the unethical gains they made from those ads in the time they were running, I'd say you were absolutely correct and that's little more than a \"cost of doing business\" for unscrupulous companies. But that's the state of the US nation at this time, and so we are left with \"caveat emptor\" as a guiding principle. What can you do about it? Competitors are technically allowed to file suit for deceptive business practices, so if you know any honest dealers in the area you can tip them off about it (try saying that out loud with a serious face).  But even better, you can contact the FTC and file a formal complaint online. I wouldn't expect the world to change for your complaint, but even if it just generates a letter it may be enough to let a company know someone is watching - and if they are a big business, they might actually get into a little bit of trouble."}
{"question":"Estate taxes and the top 1 percent by net worth","answer":"Data is a funny thing. There are many different ways of constructing data sets. Keep in mind, the cite you linked is fine, I follow this kind of site when I am data mining. They got their data from the Government, and there's no reason to doubt its validity. Keep in mind, it's a survey. They extrapolate from a survey of a small population - In the 2016 survey, 6,254 families were interviewed, and in the 2013   survey, 6,026 were interviewed. 1) Let's set that aside, and look at the numbers as if they were gospel. $10.37M net worth to be top 1%. That's people at all different ages, and not the wealth cutoff for those dying, else the estate tax would hit closer to the 1%. Given the limited data set, I'd only hypothesize, if we graphed the age (along the bottom, X axis) vs number of people, the curve would peek in mid to late 60's, as people retire. With 20 years for the couple to spend and gift, it's not tough to imagine that by the time they pass away, the taxable estate $11M couple falls to just .2%.  2) When the estate tax impacted estates over just $600K, and my daughter was born, we set up a trust. Out net worth was barely positive, but insurance alone would have created enough wealth to have our orphaned child be subject to the tax of our estate before she received a dime. We also used the trust to fund her college. As a completed gift, had we made some bad decisions and lost it all, at least that money would be protected. Keep in mind, there are different flavors of trusts, but it's safe to say that in a survey to collect data, the million dollar+ trusts are considered family wealth. Not tough to imagine a good fraction of those families over $10M have a nice chunk already protected this way.  3) Last - For any illiquid assets, there's a discount that gets applied, typically 30%. I own a ranch, and want to start gifting it to the kids, the process involves creating stock, with restrictions, as a way to transfer the fractions required to gift the $14K\/yr per person combination. (That is, a couple can gift 14x4 = $56K to a child with a spouse. 4 kids, all married, and the gifting is $224K\/yr, $320K at full valuation. Again, these gifts may be to irrevocable trusts, and still thought of as their wealth."}
{"question":"What are the common income tax deductions used by \"rich\" salaried households?","answer":"You're asking explicitly about $250K+ wage earners. Well, believe it or not, but this is the most discriminated group of people in the US tax code. This is what is called \"the upper middle class\". People who still have to work for a living, but treated as if they're rich (I don't consider people who must work to keep up their life style as rich). Many of the deductions cannot be taken by them. Lets go over the list Keith made: You mentioned losses - you cannot deduct gambling losses (in excess of gambling income), and you cannot deduct passive (rental real estate, for example) losses. While for rental real estate there's a small amount of losses you could deduct, it phases out well below the $250K line (can be deducted against passive income, or when disposed of the property). 529 plans are not deductible (in fact, its a gift subject to the gift tax). Bottom line, being a high earner with wages only means you pay the most tax. You either find a way to become self employed and have a lot of business deductions on your schedule C\/1120S, or switch to capital gains. You can marry an unemployed partner, it will make your life slightly easier."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"I've never invested in penny stocks. My #1 investing rule, buy what you know and use.  People get burned because they hear about the next big thing, go invest! to just end up losing everything because they have no clue in what they're investing in. From what I've found, until you have minimum of $5k to invest, put everything in a single investment. The reason for this, as others have mentioned, is that commissions eat up just about all your profits.  My opinion, don't put it in a bond, returns are garbage right now - however they are \"safe\". Because this is $1000 we're talking about and not your life savings, put it in a equity like a stock to try and maximize your return. I aim for 15% returns on stocks and can generally achieve 10-15% consistently. The problem is when you get greedy and keep thinking it will go above once you're at 10-15%. Sell it. Sell it right away :) If it drops down -15% you have to be willing to accept that risk. The nice thing is that you can wait it out. I try to put a 3 month time frame on things I buy to make money.  Once you start getting a more sizable chunk of money to play around with you should start to diversify. In Canada at least, once you have a trading account with a decent size investment the commissions get reduced to like $10 a trade. With your consistent 10% returns and additional savings you'll start to build up your portfolio. Keep at it and best of luck!"}
{"question":"Is there any evidence that \"growth\"-style indexes and growth ETFs outperform their respective base indexes?","answer":"The value premium would state the opposite in fact if one looks at the work of Fama and French. The Investment Entertainment Pricing Theory (INEPT) shows a graph with the rates on small-cap\/large-cap and growth\/value combinations that may be of interest as well for another article noting the same research. Index fund advisors in Figure 9-1 shows various historical returns up to 2012 that may also be useful here for those wanting more detailed data. How to Beat the Benchmark is from 1998 that could be interesting to read about index funds and beating the index in a simpler way."}
{"question":"Should I set a stop loss for long term investments?","answer":"If they are truly long term investments I would not put a stop loss on them. The recent market dive related to the Brexit vote is a prime example of why not to have one. That was a brief dive that may have stopped you out of any or all of your positions and it was quite short lived. You would likely have bought your positions back (or new positions entirely) and run the risk of experiencing a loss over what turned out to be a non event. That said, I would recommend evaluating your positions periodically to see if they still make sense and are performing the way you want."}
{"question":"Why do stock prices of retailers not surge during the holidays?","answer":"Excellent question for a six year old! Actually, a good question for a 20 year old!  One explanation is a bit more complicated. Your son thinks that after the Christmas season the company is worth more. For example, they might have turned $10 million of goods into $20 million of cash, which increases their assets by $10 million and is surely a good thing. However, that's not the whole picture: Before the Christmas season, we have a company with $10 million of goods and the Christmas season just ahead, while afterwards we have a company with $20 million cash and nine months of slow sales ahead.  Let's say your son gets $10 pocket money every Sunday at 11am. Five minutes to 11 he has one dollar in his pocket. Five minutes past 11 he has 11 dollars in his pocket. Is he richer now? Not really, because every minute he gets a bit closer to his pocket money, and five past eleven he is again almost a week away from the next pocket money On the other hand... on Monday, he loses his wallet with $10 inside - he is now $10 poorer. Or his neighbour unexpectedly offers him to wash his car for $10 and he does it - he is now $10 richer.  So if the company got robbed in August with all stock gone, no insurance, but time to buy new stock for the season, they lose $10 million, the company is worth $10 million less, and the share price drops. If they get robbed just before Christmas sales start, they don't make the $20 million sales, so they are $10 million poorer, but they are $20 million behind where they should be - the company is worth $20 millions less, and the share price drops twice as much. On the other hand, if there is a totally unexpected craze for a new toy going on from April to June (and then it drops down), and they make $10 million unexpectedly, they are worth $10 million more. Expected $10 million profit = no increase in share price. Unexpected $10 million profit - increase in share price.  Now the second, totally different explanation. The share price is not based on the value of the company, but on what people are willing to pay. Say it's November and I own 100 shares worth $10. If everyone knew they are worth $20 in January, I would hold on to my shares and not sell them for $10! It would be very hard to convince me to sell them for $19!  If you could predict that the shares will be worth $20 in January, then they would be worth $20 now. The shareprice will not go up or down if something good or bad happens that everyone expects. It only goes up or down if something happens unexpectedly."}
{"question":"I can't produce a title for a vehicle I just traded","answer":"The old truck is collateral for a loan. The place that made the loan expects that if you can't pay they can repossess that old truck. If you sell it they can't repossess it.  The dealer needs clean title to be able to buy the truck from you, so they can fix up the truck and sell it to somebody else. I am assuming the the lender has filed paperwork with the state to show their lien on the title. Your options are three: As to option 2: If the deal still makes sense the new car dealer can send the $9,000 to the lender that you forgot about. That will of course increase the amount of money you have to borrow.  You will also run into the problem that this loan that you forgot to mention on your credit application may cause them to rethink the decision to loan you the money."}
{"question":"When to liquidate mutual funds for a home downpayment","answer":"This question is calling for a somewhat subjective answer. What I would recommend is liquidate now, since it is a stock fund and stocks have performed very well this year, no need to be greedy and hope that they do as well in 2014. Since it is not an enormous amount of money, put it in an interest yielding savings account which unfortunately are all sub 1%. But the key here is since we cannot predict the markets, no investment is going to be \"safer\". You want the 18k to be there when you need it for the down payment. If you invest it in a fund now, you may not be able to get at least 18k at the time you are forcing yourself to liquidate. A good rule for investing is never to have to sell to make a purchase because there is a high probability that you will be selling at a sub-optimal price. Some savings accounts that have slightly higher yields. http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2013\/10\/01\/pf\/savings-account-yields\/"}
{"question":"I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?","answer":"You probably bought the stock near the peak because \"it's been up a lot lately.\" That's the easiest way to lose money. You need to go back and do some basic research. The stock appears to have been expensive around 75. Why is that? The stock seems to be in a \"comfortable\" level around 45. Why is THAT? Maybe it's too expensive around 45 (based on the P\/E ratio, or other measures); maybe you should buy more at 45, where it is cheap, even though 75 is too expensive. The key is to study the stock where it is today (45-47). Ask yourself what you would do at TODAY's price, and today's \"fundamentals.\" That will also save you from paying 75 for a stock worth 45, and should save you from paying 45 for a stock if it is only worth 35."}
{"question":"When should I start saving\/investing for my retirement?","answer":"Start as early as possible and you will want to kiss your younger self when you get to retirement age. I know you (and everyone else at that age) thinks that they don't make enough to start saving and leans towards waiting until you get established in your career and start making better money. Don't put it off. Save some money out of each paycheck even if it is only $50.  Trust me, as little as you make now, you probably have more disposable income than you will when you make twice as much. Your lifestyle always seems to keep up with your income and you will likely ALWAYS feel like you don't have money left over to save. The longer you wait, the more you are going to have to stuff away to make up for that lost time you could have been compounding your returns as shown in this table (assuming 9.4 percent average gain annually, which has been the average return on the stock market from 1926-2010).  I also suggest reading this article when explains it in more detail: Who Wants to be a millionaire?"}
{"question":"Online transaction - Money taken out late","answer":"Debit Cards have a certain processing delay, \"lag time\", before the transaction from the vendor completes with your bank. In the US it's typically 3 business days but I have seen even a 15 day lag from Panera Bread. I guess in the UK, payment processors have similar processing delays. A business is not obliged to run its payment processing in realtime, as that's very expensive. Whatever be the lag time, your bank is supposed to cover the payment you promised through your card. Now if you don't have agreements in place (for example, overdraft) with your bank, they will likely have to turn down payments that exceed your available balance. Here is the raw deal: In the end, the responsibility to ensure that your available balance is enough is upon you (and whether you have agreements in place to handle such situations) So what happened is very much legal, a business is not obliged to run its payment processing in realtime and no ethics are at stake. To ensure such things do not happen to me, I used to use a sub-account from which my debit card used to get paid. I have since moved to credit cards as the hassle of not overdrawing was too much (and overdraft fees from banks in the US are disastrous, especially for people who actually need such a facility)"}
{"question":"I spend too much money. How can I get on the path to a frugal lifestyle?","answer":"Track your expenses. Find out where your money is going, and target areas where you can reduce expenses. Some examples: I was spending a lot on food, buying too much packaged food, and eating out too much. So I started cooking from scratch more and eating out less. Now, even though I buy expensive organic produce, imported cheese, and grass-fed beef, I'm spending half of what I used to spend on food. It could be better. I could cut back on meat and eat out even less. I'm working on it. I was buying a ton of books and random impulsive crap off of Amazon. So I no longer let myself buy things right away. I put stuff on my wish list if I want it, and every couple of months I go on there and buy myself a couple of things off my wishlist. I usually end up realizing that some of the stuff on there isn't something I want that badly after all, so I just delete it from my wishlist. I replaced my 11-year-old Jeep SUV with an 11-year-old Saturn sedan that gets twice the gas mileage. That saves me almost $200\/month in gasoline costs alone. I had cable internet through Comcast, even though I don't have a TV. So I went from a $70\/month cable bill to a $35\/month DSL bill, which cut my internet costs in half. I have an iPhone and my bill for that is $85\/month. That's insane, with how little I talk on the phone and send text messages. Once it goes out of contract, I plan to replace it with a cheap phone, possibly a pre-paid. That should cut my phone expenses in half, or even less. I'll keep my iPhone, and just use it when wifi is available (which is almost everywhere these days)."}
{"question":"Possible to use balance transfers to avoid interest with major credit cards?","answer":"IMO, it's a good deal. Pre-paying 3% interest is better than accruing it at 1-2% per month. The other nice thing about it is that all of your payments hit the principal."}
{"question":"In the stock market, why is the \"open\" price value never the same as previous day's \"close\"?","answer":"It does sometimes open one day the same as it closed the previous day.  Take a look at ESCA, it closed October 29th at 4.50, at opened November 1st at 4.50.  It's more likely to change prices overnight than it is between two successive ticks during the day, because a lot more time passes, in which news can come out, and in which people can reevaluate the stock."}
{"question":"How can I get a wholesaler ID number?","answer":"This is a state by state thing, and I'm cheating because I know you are in New York State:"}
{"question":"Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?","answer":"There is a term for this. If you google \"House Hacking\" you will get lots of articles and advice.  Some of it will pertain to multifamily properties but a good amount should be owner occupied and renting bedrooms. I would play with a mortgage calculator like Whats My Payment.  Include Principle, interest, taxes and insurance see how much it will cost.  At 110k your monthly fixed payments will depend on a number of factors (down payment, interest, real estate tax rate and insurance cost) but $700-$1000 would be a decent guess in my area.  Going off that with two roommates willing to pay $500 a month you would have no living expenses except any maintenance or utilities.  With your income I would expect you could make the payment alone if needed (and it may be needed) so it seems fairly low risk from my perspective. You need somewhere to live you are used to roommates and you can pay the entire cost yourself in a worst case. Some more things to consider.. Insurance will be more expensive, you want to ensure you as the landlord you are covered if anything happens.  If a tenant burns down your house or trips and falls and decides to sue you insurance will protect you.   Capital Expenses (CapEx) replacing things as they wear out. On a home the roof, siding, flooring and all mechanicals(furnace, water heater, etc.) have a lifespan and will need to be replaced.  On rental properties a portion of rent should be set aside to replace these things in the future.  If a roof lasts 20yrs,costs $8,000 and your roof is 10years old you should be setting aside $70 a month so in the  future when this know expense comes up it is not a hardship. Taxes Yes there is a special way to report income from an arrangement like this.  You will fill out a Schedule E form in addition to your regular tax documents. You will also be able to write off a percent of housing expenses and depreciation on the home.  I have been told it is not a simple tax situation and to consult a CPA that specializes in real estate."}
{"question":"Options for the intelligent but inexperienced","answer":"Some thoughts on your questions in order, Duration: You might want to look at the longest-dated option (often a \"LEAP\"), for a couple reasons. One is that transaction costs (spread plus commission, especially spread) are killer on options, so a longer option means fewer transactions, since you don't have to keep rolling the option. Two is that any fundamentals-based views on stocks might tend to require 3-5 years to (relatively) reliably work out, so if you're a fundamental investor, a 3-6 month option isn't great. Over 3-6 months, momentum, short-term news, short squeezes, etc. can often dominate fundamentals in determining the price. One exception is if you just want to hedge a short-term event, such as a pending announcement on drug approval or something, and then you would buy the shortest option that still expires after the event; but options are usually super-expensive when they span an event like this. Strike: Strike price on a long option can be thought of as a tradeoff between the max loss and minimizing \"insurance costs.\" That is, if you buy a deeply in-the-money put or call, the time value will be minimal and thus you aren't paying so much for \"insurance,\" but you may have 1\/3 or 1\/2 of the value of the underlying tied up in the option and subject to loss. If you buy a put or call \"at the money,\" then you might have only say 10% of the value of the underlying tied up in the option and subject to loss, but almost the whole 10% may be time value (insurance cost), so you are losing 10% if the underlying stock price stays flat. I think of the deep in-the-money options as similar to buying stocks on margin (but the \"implied\" interest costs may be less than consumer margin borrowing rates, and for long options you can't get a margin call). The at-the-money options are more like buying insurance, and it's expensive. The commissions and spreads add significant cost, on top of the natural time value cost of the option. The annual costs would generally exceed the long-run average return on a diversified stock fund, which is daunting. Undervalued\/overvalued options, pt. 1: First thing is to be sure the options prices on a given underlying make sense at all; there are things that \"should\" hold, for example a synthetic long or short should match up to an actual long or short. These kinds of rules can break, for example on LinkedIn (LNKD) after its IPO, when shorting was not permitted, the synthetic long was quite a bit cheaper than a real long. Usually though this happens because the arbitrage is not practical. For example on LNKD, the shares to short weren't really available, so people doing synthetic shorts with options were driving up the price of the synthetic short and down the price of the synthetic long. If you did actually want to be long the stock, then the synthetic long was a great deal. However, a riskless arbitrage (buy synthetic long, short the stock) was not possible, and that's why the prices were messed up. Another basic relationship that should hold is put-call parity: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Put%E2%80%93call_parity Undervalued\/overvalued options, pt. 2: Assuming the relationship to the underlying is sane (synthetic positions equivalent to actual positions) then the valuation of the option could focus on volatility. That is, the time value of the option implies the stock will move a certain amount. If the time value is high and you think the stock won't move much, you might short the option, while if the time value is low and you think the stock will move a lot, you might buy the option. You can get implied volatility from your broker perhaps, or Morningstar.com for example has a bunch of data on option prices and the implied components of the price model. I don't know how useful this really is though. The spreads on options are so wide that making money on predicting volatility better than the market is pretty darn hard. That is, the spread probably exceeds the amount of the mispricing. The price of the underlying is more important to the value of an option than the assumed volatility. How many contracts: Each contract is 100 shares, so you just match that up. If you want to hedge 100 shares, buy one contract. To get the notional value of the underlying multiply by 100. So say you buy a call for $30, and the stock is trading at $100, then you have a call on 100 shares which are currently priced at $10,000 and the option will cost $30*100=3,000. You are leveraged about 3 to 1. (This points to an issue with options for individual investors, which is that one contract is a pretty large notional value relative to most portfolios.)"}
{"question":"Comparison between buying a stock and selling a naked put","answer":"I sell a put for a strike price at the market. The stock rises $50 over the next couple months. I've gotten the premium, but lost the rest of the potential gain, yet had the downside risk the whole time.  There's no free lunch.  Edit - you can use a BS (Black-Scholes) calculator to create your own back testing. The calculator shows a 1% interest rate, 2% yield, and 15% volatility produce a put price almost identical to the pricing I see for S&P (the SPY ETF, specifically) $205 put. No answer here, including mine, gave any reference to a study. If one exists, it will almost certainly be on an index, not individual stocks. Note that Jack's answer referencing PUTX does exactly that. The SPY ETF and it put options. My suggestion here would, in theory, let you analyze this strategy for individual stock options as well.  For SPY - With SPY at 204.40, this is the Put you'd look at -  12 times the premium is $33.36 or 16% the current price. The next part of the exercise is to see how the monthly ups and downs impact this return. A drop to $201 wipes out that month's premium.  It happens that it now March 18th, and despite a bad start to the year, we are at break-even YTD. A peek back shows In Dec you picked up $2.87 premium, (1.4% the current price then) but in Jan, it closed for a loss of $12. Ouch. Now, if you started in January, you'd have picked up 2 month's premiums and today or Monday sell the 3rd. You'd have 2.8% profit so far, vs the S&P break even.  Last, for now, when selling a naked put, you have to put up margin money. Not sure how much, but I use percent of the value of underlying stock to calculate returns. That choice is debatable, it just keeps percents clean. Else you put up no money and have infinite return."}
{"question":"Refinance a land loan into a mortgage loan","answer":"The Answer is yes according to multiple online sources and my local bank. This approach is a common technique to building your own home. You finance the land, build the simplest possible dwelling (say a garage with 1 bathroom\/bedroom), refi into a mortgage and get cash back and then build your \"real house\" or add on, etc. This eliminates the banks demands that come with a \"construction loan\" and saves you 10s of thousands in the process (fees, contractors, scheduling, design, etc)"}
{"question":"Why small retail stores ask for ID with a credit card while big don't","answer":"Probably because large chains can absorb the loss from fraud better than small stores do.  Thus, small stores want to ensure that the person holding the card is the same as the name on the card."}
{"question":"How do owners in a partnership earn income?","answer":"If you business is incorporated, it's up to the two of you how to do it. Typically, you will have the company write cheques (or make transfers, whatever) to each of the humans: If you want to say that each of you gets a salary of 80% of the revenue you bring in, and then tweak things with bonuses, you can. If one of you is contributing more to marketing and awareness and less to revenue, then you may prefer to pay you each the same even though the revenue you bring are different. It's up to you - it's quite literally your business. When you're not incorporated, then for tax purposes you split the income and the expenses according to your ownership share. If that doesn't seem fair to you, then a partnership is probably not as useful to you as being incorporated. In general, it's better to be incorporated once you're past any initial phase in which the business is losing money for tax purposes (acquiring depreciable assets) and the partners have taxable income from elsewhere (day jobs, or at least income from the earlier part of the year before starting the business.) I would recommend that the \"partnership\" phase of the business be very short. Get incorporated and get a shareholder agreement."}
{"question":"Company revenue increased however stock price did not","answer":"It's great that you have gotten the itch to learn about the stock market.  There are a couple of fundamentals to understand first though. Company A has strong, growing, net earnings and minimal debt, it's trading for $100 per share.  Company B has good revenue but high costs of goods and total liabilities well in excess of total assets, it's trading for $0.10 per share.  There is no benefit to getting 10,000 shares or 10 shares for your $1,000.  Your goal is to invest in companies that have valuable products and services run by competent management teams.  Sure, the number of shares you own will dictate what percentage of the company you own, and in a number of cases, your voting power.  But even a penny stock will have a market capitalization of several million dollars so voting power isn't really a concern for your $1,000 investment.   There is a lot more in the three basic financial statements (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows) than revenue.  Seasoned accountants can have a hard time parsing out where money is coming from and where it's going. In general there are obvious red flags, like a fast declining cash balance against a fast growing liabilities balance or expenses exceeding revenue.  While some of these things are common among new and high growth companies, it's not the place for a new investor with a small bankroll. A micro-cap company (penny stocks are in this group) will receive rounds of financing via issuing preferred convertible shares which may include options on more shares.  For a company worth $20mm a $5mm financing round can materially change the finances of a company, and will likely dilute your holdings in common stock.  Small growth companies need new financing frequently to fund their growth strategies. Revenue went up, great... why?  Did you open another store?  Did you open another sales office?  Did the revenue increase this quarter based on substantially the same operation that existed last quarter or have you increased the capacity of your operation?  If you increased the capacity of your operation what was the cost of the increase and did revenue increase as expected?  Can you expect revenue to continue to grow at this rate or was it a one time windfall from an unusual order? Sure, there are spectacular gains to be had in penny stocks.  XYZ Pharma Research (or whatever) goes from $0.05 to $0.60 and you've turned your $1,000 in to $12,000.  This is a really unlikely event...  Buying penny stocks is akin to buying lottery tickets.  Unless you are a high ranking employee at the company capable of making decisions, or one of the investors buying the preferred shares mentioned in point 3, or are one of the insiders of a pump and dump scam on the stock, penny common stocks are not a place to invest.  One could argue that even a company insider should probably avoid buying common stock. Just to illustrate the points above, you mention: Doing some really heavy research into this stock has made me question the whole penny stock market. Based on your research what is the enterprise value of the company? What were the gross proceeds of the last financing round, how many shares were issued and were there any warrants attached? What do you perceive to be heavy research?  What background do you have in finance\/accounting to give weight to your ability to perform such research? Crawl. Walk. Then run. Don't kid yourself in to thinking that since you have some level of education you understand the contracts involved in enterprise finance."}
{"question":"Does an option trading below parity always indicate an arbitrage opportunity?","answer":"Probably but not necessarily.  Your question could also be posed regarding cash & carry for commodities in contango: If I can take delivery on the gold now, short the gold next year and make delivery then, paying the storage fees, is this an arbitrage opportunity? It is in the sense that you know your delivery and the money you will make, but it's not in the sense that until delivery (or execution in the options case) you are still on the hook for the margins due from price fluctuations. Additionally you need to consider what ROI you will make from the trade. Even though it's \"guaranteed\" it may be less than what you can earn from other \"zero risk\" opportunities."}
{"question":"Earning salary from USA remotely from New Zealand?","answer":"Can the companies from USA give job to me (I am from New Zealand)? Job as being employee - may be tricky. This depends on the labor laws in New Zealand, but most likely will trigger \"nexus\" clause and will force the employer to register in the country, which most won't want to do. Instead you can be hired as a contractor (i.e.: being self-employed, from NZ legal perspective). If so, what are the legal documents i have to provide to the USA for any taxes? If you're employed as a contractor, you'll need to provide form W8-BEN to your US employer on which you'll have to certify your tax status. Unless you're a US citizen\/green card holder, you're probably a non-US person for tax purposes, and as such will not be paying any tax in the US as long as you work in New Zealand. If you travel to the US for work, things may become tricky, and tax treaties may be needed. Will I have to pay tax to New Zealand Government? Most likely, as a self-employed. Check how this works locally. As for recommendations, since these are highly subjective opinions that may change over time, they're considered off-topic here. Check on Yelp, Google, or any local NZ professional review site."}
{"question":"What happens to your spouse's sole proprietorship if they die?","answer":"For sure you should get a lawyer on this one, but it would seem to me that the simplest path forward would be to convert the business to a partnership where both spouses are owners, and to write a clause into the partnership agreement stipulating what happens upon death of a partner.  Such an approach really should be done with a lawyer to make sure that it's all legally sound and will stand up in court if needed."}
{"question":"Paying myself a distribution caused a negative Owner's Equity account balance? Is this normal?","answer":"It's not abnormal for a company that is as young as yours seems to be. It seems (based on what little I know), that you have debts, or accounts payable that were formerly covered by the $200 cash, but now aren't, because you paid it to yourself. For now, you're \"entitled\" to pay yourself a draw or a salary. But if you continue to do so without earning money to cover it, your company will fail."}
{"question":"When is the best time to put a large amount of assets in the stock market?","answer":"I have been considering a similar situation for a while now, and the advice i have been given is to use a concept called \"dollar cost averaging\", which basically amounts to investing say 10% a month over 10 months, resulting in your investment getting the average price over that period. So basically, option 3."}
{"question":"How to protect yourself from fraud when selling on eBay UK","answer":"Just ship using a reputable courier (definitely not Yodel or Hermes!) that requires and obtains a surname and signature which you can view on their website (Citylink, Parcel Force to name a couple). Then remember to submit the tracking details when you mark the item as shipped on eBay. If the buyer is still brazen enough to claim the item never arrived, Paypal (in my experience) don't even entertain their claim. If however they claim the item arrived damaged\/not as described, it could be trickier to defend. I'd recommend thoroughly documenting your item with photographs and recording the serial number, just in case you need to provide the details to Paypal. Again, in my experience, this has been enough to protect me from any fraudulent claims. To answer your second question, I don't believe eBay permits you to specify 'No Paypal', but if they did then yes, bank transfer is 100% safe (short of someone using stolen money to pay for the item, in which case you'd be guilty of money laundering thanks to the UK's wonderful laws on such things...)"}
{"question":"Supporting a Kickstarter project: Should a customer's pledge payment include sales tax, e.g. GST\/HST in Canada?","answer":"You can only claim an input tax credit if tax was actually collected by the seller, irrespective of whether it should have been or not. You need to contact the seller to request an invoice that shows the GST\/HST, if any, as well as the seller's GST\/HST number, which is required to be printed on invoices. If the seller is not including GST\/HST in the prices indicated on Kickstarter, I would like to know how they get away with that!"}
{"question":"Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?","answer":"All questions regarding why is activity X taxed but activity Y taxed differently boils down to: The legislature wanted to promote or discourage the activity. By making employer provided healthcare tax free to the employee, the average worker like the plan. Not only is a significant portion not coming out of my paycheck, I also don't have to pay taxes on the benefit. Some organization pushed for this and the legislature agreed."}
{"question":"Purchasing a home using collateral","answer":"What do you see as the advantage of doing this? When you buy a house with a mortgage, the bank gets a lien on the house you are buying, i.e. the house you are buying is the collateral. Why would you need additional or different collateral? As to using the house for your down payment, that would require giving the house to the seller, or selling the house and giving the money to the seller. If the house was 100% yours and you don't have any use for it once you buy the second house, that would be a sensible plan. Indeed that's what most people do when they buy a new house: sell the old one and use the money as down payment on the new one. But in this case, what would happen to the co-owner? Are they going to move to the new house with you? The only viable scenario I see here is that you could get a home equity loan on the first house, and then use that money as the down payment on the second house, and thus perhaps avoid having to pay for mortgage insurance. As DanielAnderson says, the bank would probably require the signature of the co-owner in such a case. If you defaulted on the loan, the bank could then seize the house, sell it, and give the co-owner some share of the money. I sincerely doubt the bank would be interested in an arrangement where if you default, they get half interest in the house but are not allowed to sell it without the co-owner's consent. What would a bank do with half a house? Maybe, possibly they could rent it out, but most banks are not in the rental business. So if you defaulted, the co-owner would get kicked out of the house. I don't know who this co-owner is. Sounds like you'd be putting them in a very awkward position."}
{"question":"How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?","answer":"Would you run a marathon with ankle weights on?  It starts off as ankle weights, but then grows into a ball and chain as you dig yourself a little deeper each time you use your credit card (and then don't payoff the balance because \"something more important came up\"). I would love for my wife to be able to be home and raise our son, but we simply can't afford to do that with the amount of debt we have. We are clawing our way out, and will pay off one student loan and a car loan, then start saving for a house and once we have that, we'll get back to debt reduction. Get debt free.  That's where we are headed.  Most of it is student loans at this point, but debt will take away your freedom to do whatever you like down the line.  It just increases your overhead in the long run."}
{"question":"How does stabilization work during an IPO?","answer":"There are no \"rules\" about how the price should act after an IPO, so there are no guarantee that a \"pop\" would appear at the opening day. But when an IPO is done, it's typically underpriced. On average, the shares are 10% up at the end of the first day after the IPO (I don't have the source that, I just remember that from some finance course). Also, after the IPO, the underwriter can be asked to support the trading of the share for a certain period of time. That is the so called stabilizing agent. They have few obligations like: This price support in often done by a repurchase of some of the shares of poorly performing IPO. EDIT: Informations about the overallotment pool. When the IPO is done, a certain number of client buy the shares issued by the company. The underwriter, with the clients, can decide to create an overallotment pool, where the clients would get a little more shares (hence \"overallotment\"), but this time the shares are not issued by the company but by the underwriter. To put it another way, the underwriter oversell and becomes short by a certain number of shares (limited to 15% of the IPO). In exchange for the risk taken by this overallotment, the underwriter gets a greenshoe option from the clients, that will allows the underwriter to buy back the oversold shares, at the price of the IPO, from the clients. The idea behind this option is to avoid a market exposure for the underwriter. So, after the IPO: If the price goes down, the underwriter buys back on the market the overshorted shares and makes a profits. If the price goes up, the company exercise the greenshoe option buy the shares at the IPO prices (throught the overallotment pool, that is, the additional shares that the clients wanted ) to avoid suffering a loss."}
{"question":"Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?","answer":"If you can generate a higher ROI by renting than by cashing out and investing, then you should rent it out. Please consider your risk tolerance as well. It's always a personal decision whether to assume higher risk for a higher return."}
{"question":"Once stock prices are down, where to look for good stock market deals? ","answer":"Do your own research There are hundreds of places where people will give you all sorts of recommendations. There is as much noise in the recommendations as there is in the stock market itself. Become your own filter. You need to work on your own instinct. Pick a couple of sectors and a few stocks in each and study them. It is useful to know where the main indexes are going, but - unless you are trading the indexes - it is the individual sectors that you should focus on more."}
{"question":"What do stock market index future bid\/ask quotes mean?","answer":"Well, futures don't have a \"strike\" like an option - the price represents how much you're obligated to buy\/sell the index for at a specified date in the future.  You are correct that there's no cost to enter a contract (though there may be broker fees and margin payments).  Any difference between the contract price and the price of the index at settlement is what is exchanged at settlement.   It's analogous to the bid\/ask on a stock - the bid price represents the price at which someone is willing to \"buy\" a futures contract (meaning enter into a long position) and the ask is how much someone is willing to \"sell\" a contract. So if you want to take a long position on S&P500 mini futures you'd have to enter in at the \"ask\" price.  If the index is above your contract price on the future expiry date you'll make a profit; if it is below the contract price you'll take a loss."}
{"question":"Nominal value of shares","answer":"They are 2 different class of shares belonging to the same company. Class A shares [par value of 0.01] have 100 voting rights per share. Class B shares [par value of 0.0002] have one voting rights.  Both are listed separately with different ISN and trade at slightly different values. The Class A at higher value than Class B which looks right as it has more voting power."}
{"question":"Home Valuation in a Dodgy neighborhood","answer":"Over the last ten years you have reaped the benefits of a good financial decision. (Presumably your low mortgage has freed up money for other financial priorities.) There would be no harm in making a clean break by selling as is.  On the other hand, the resale value would probably be rather low considering the condition and the neighborhood. I don't want to assume too much here, but if a potential buyer is interested in the house by virtue of not being able to afford a house in a better neighborhood or better condition, their finances and credit history may make it difficult for them to be approved for a mortgage. That would reduce the potential buyer pool and further reduce the sale price. If you can pull more in rent than the mortgage, you definitely have an opportunity to come ahead. Maybe window A\/C units and a repaired chimney are enough if you're renting. Your rental income would pay for that in less than a year even while paying your mortgage for you. (Of course you don't want to become a sleazy slumlord either.)"}
{"question":"What are some sources of information on dividend schedules and amounts?","answer":"There are dividend newsletters that aggregate dividend information for interested investors.  Other than specialized publications, the best sources for info are, in my opinion:"}
{"question":"Pension or Property: Should I invest in more properties, or in a pension?","answer":"Investing in property hoping that it will gain value is usually foolish; real estate increases about 3% a year in the long run.  Investing in property to rent is labor-intensive; you have to deal with tenants, and also have to take care of repairs.  It's essentially getting a second job. I don't know what the word pension implies in Europe; in America, it's an employer-funded retirement plan separate from personally funded retirement.  I'd invest in personally funded retirement well before buying real estate to rent, and diversify my money in that retirement plan widely if I was within 10-20 years of retirement."}
{"question":"Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement)","answer":"First of all, congratulations on being in an incredible financial position.  you have done well. So let's look at the investment side first.   If you put 400,000 in a decent index fund at an average 8% growth, and add 75,000 every year, in 10 years you'll have about $1.95 Million, $800k of which is capital gain (more or less due to market risk, of course) - or $560k after 30% tax.  If you instead put it in the whole life policy at 1.7% you'll have about $1.3 Million, $133k of which is tax-free capital gain. So the insurance is costing you $430K in opportunity cost, since you could have done something different with the money for more return.   The fund you mentioned (Vanguard Wellington) has a 10-year annualized growth of 7.13%.  At that growth rate, the opportunity cost is $350k.  Even with a portfolio with a more conservative 5% growth rate, the opportunity cost is $178k Now the life insurance.  Life insurance is a highly personal product, but I ran a quick quote for a 65-year old male in good health and got a premium of $11,000 per year for a $2M 10-year term policy.  So the same amount of term life insurance costs only $110,000.  Much less than the $430k in opportunity cost that the whole life would cost you. In addition, you have a mortgage that's costing you about $28K per year now (3.5% of 800,000). Why would you \"invest\" in a 1.7% insurance policy when you are paying a \"low\" 3.5% mortgage? I would take as much cash as you are comfortable with and pay down the mortgage as much as possible, and get it paid off quickly. Then you don't need life insurance.  Then you can do whatever you want.  Retire early, invest and give like crazy, travel the world, whatever.   I see no compelling reason to have life insurance at all, let alone life insurance wrapped in a bad investment vehicle."}
{"question":"How do used vehicle exchange programs at car dealerships work?","answer":"You are correct to be wary. Car dealerships make money selling cars, and use many tactics and advertisements to entice you to come into their showroom. \"We are in desperate need of [insert your make, model, year and color]! We have several people who want that exact car you have! Come in and sell it to us and buy a new car at a great price! We'll give you so much money on your trade in!\" In reality, they play a shell game and have you focus on your monthly payment. By extending the loan to 4 or 5 years (or longer), they can make your monthly payment lower, sure, but the total amount paid is much higher. You're right: it's not in your best interest. Buy a car and drive it into the ground. Being free of car payments is a luxury!"}
{"question":"(Legitimate & respectable) strategies to generate \"passive income\" on the Internet?","answer":"The notion that you can put product on the web and sit back and watch the money roll in is a myth, plain and simple.  If you put content on the web and expect people to pay money for your products (t-shirts, etc), you have to do the work to get your stuff seen by people, and preferably the right kind of people who will buy your stuff. That means you need to know your market and provide something that they are eager to pay for. This doesn't necessarily mean buying advertising to direct traffic to your site - there are plenty of no-cost ways to bring people to your web site, but instead of costing $$ the cost is in effort and time that you have to put into it. Also keep in mind that the more participants you have in your production and fulfillment pipeline, the less you will make off every sale. Hands-off production services like Zazzle or Cafe Press do everything for you, all you have to do is provide the artwork.  However, they also take all the income and pay you a rather piddling percentage of sales.  You can get a larger percentage of sales if you do more of the work yourself - like handmade items sold on Etsy.  But then, you're doing work. Maybe you'll get $1 for each T-Shirt you sell.  If you just upload your artwork to the production service and type in some product description text into their web sales catalog, how many sales will you make in the first month?  Most likely somewhere between zero and two.  Why should anyone buy your shirt over the tens of thousands of other designs carried by the same production service?  It's your responsibility to tell people about your stuff and send them to the site to buy it.  And that means it's not a \"passive\" income. For truly passive income, invest in bank CD's, treasury bonds, or in stocks that pay dividends.  The only problem with that is you have to have money to make money this way. :\/"}
{"question":"Bait-and-switch on new car lease","answer":"Within some limitations, the dealer is allowed to approve or deny lending to anyone that it chooses.  Those constraints are the basics that you'd expect for any regulation in the US:  Race Religion Nationality Sex Marital Status Age  Source of income You can read more about them in this leaflet from the FDIC's Fair Lending Laws office. (Link is a pdf download.) As far as what to do in your mother's case, it sounds like it may be some slightly shady sales tactics, but it isn't entirely illegal... It's just annoying.  One thing you could do to try to head off some of the crazy bait-and-switch sales tactics is to communicate with a handful of dealerships in your area about the specifics of your mother's profile as a purchaser. It's much harder to give someone the run-around if you have already agreed to something in principle by email."}
{"question":"(Almost) no credit unions in New York City, why?","answer":"I would have been tempted to dismiss your claim, but the data I found shows that you're correct. On the plus side, the growth rate in credit union market share is higher in New York than it is in California. While there is no question that bankers hate credit unions, I can't tell you why credit unions have a smaller market share in NY. Maybe the regulatory environment is part of it. Banks have a big lobby, and they pay a lot of taxes in NYC."}
{"question":"Where can I invest for the Short Term and protect against Inflation?","answer":"Your goals are mutually exclusive.  You cannot both earn a return that will outpace inflation while simultaneously having zero-risk of losing money, at least not in the 2011 market. In 2008, a 5+% CD would have been a good choice. Here's a potential compromise... sacrifice some immediate liquidity for more earnings. Say you had $10,000 saved: In this scheme, you've diversified a little bit, have access to 50% of your money immediately (either through online transfer or bringing your bonds to a teller), have an implicit US government guarantee for 50% of your money and low risk for the rest, and get inflation protection for 75% of your money."}
{"question":"How to pay bills for one month while waiting for new job?","answer":"The first thing I would try is to take out a loan from a local credit union. If you don't know of any that you're eligible for, start looking at the National Credit Union Administration's Credit Union Locator. You should be able to get a good rate since your credit is so good. If for whatever reason you can't get the credit union loan, I would open another credit card. Try hard to get the loan though, because using a credit card will most likely be significantly more expensive. If you can't cover your cash-only expenses with cash you already have, make sure that you can get cash from the card. For example, one of my cards regularly sends me checks that I could write to myself to get cash, but be careful with this strategy. Usually the interest is much higher than normal purchases. Either way, until you've paid off this emergency debt and built up an emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses, cut your expenses as much as possible. This Experian article has some good tips:"}
{"question":"Can you explain the mechanism of money inflation?","answer":"The mechanism of supply and demand is imperfect.  Producers don't know exactly how many purchasers\/consumers for a good there are.  Some goods, by their nature, are in short supply, and some are plentiful. The process of price discovery is one where (in a nominally free market) producers and purchasers make offers and counter-offers to assess what the price should be.  As they do this the historical price changes, usually floating around some long-term average.  As it goes up, we experience inflation.  As it goes down, deflation. However, there isn't a fixed supply of producers and purchasers, so as new ones arrive and old ones leave, this too has an impact on supply and prices. Money (either in electronic or physical form) needs to be available to reflect the transactions and underpin the economy. Most central banks (at least in more established economies) aim for inflation of 2-4% by controlling the availability of money and the cost of borrowing new money.  There are numerous ways they can do this (printing, issuing bonds, etc.). The reason one wants some degree of inflation is because employees will never accept a pay cut even when one would significantly improve the overall economy.  Companies often decrease their prices in order to match lower demand, but employees don't usually accept decreased wages for decreased labour demand. A nominal degree of overall money inflation therefore solves this problem.  Employees who get a below-inflation wage increase are actually getting a wage cut. Supply and demand must be matched and some inflation is the inevitable consequence of this."}
{"question":"Why would a long-term investor ever chose a Mutual Fund over an ETF?","answer":"I see a couple of reasons why you could consider choosing a mutual fund over an ETF In some cases index mutual funds can be a cheaper alternative to ETFs. In the UK where I am based, Fidelity is offering a management fee of 0.07% on its FTSE All shares tracker. Last time I checked, no ETF was beating that There are quite a few cost you have to foot when dealing ETFs In some cases, when dealing for relatively small amounts (e.g. a monthly investment plan) you can get a better deal, if your broker has negotiated discounts for you with a fund provider. My broker asks \u00a312.5 when dealing in shares (\u00a31.5 for the regular investment plan) whereas he asks \u00a30 when dealing in funds and I get a 100% discount on the initial charge of the fund. As a conclusion, I would suggest you look at the all-in costs over total investment period you are considering for the exact amount you are planning to invest. Despite all the hype, ETFs are not always the cheapest alternative."}
{"question":"GNUCash: How to count up equity?","answer":"I would say when starting with Gnucash to start with the level of granularity you are comfortable with while sticking to the double entry bookkeeping practices. So going through each one: Refund for Parking Pass. Assuming you treat the Parking Pass as a sunk cost, i.e. an Expense account, its just a negative entry in the Expense account which turns into a positive one in your Bank account. Yes it may look weird, and if you don't like it you can always 'pay from Equity' the prior month, or your Bank Account if you're backfilling old statements. Selling physical items. If you sold it on eBay and the value is high enough you'll get tax forms indicating you've earned x. Even if its small or not done via eBay, treat it the same way and create a 'Personal Items\/Goods' Income account to track all of it. So the money you get in your Bank account would have come from there. Found jacket money would be an Equity entry, either Opening Balances into Cash or Bank account. Remember you are treating Equity \/ Opening Balances as the state before you started recording every transaction so both the value going into Assets (Banks,Stock,Mutual Funds) and Liabilities (Mortgage, Student Debt, Credit Card Debt) originate from there."}
{"question":"How do owners in a partnership earn income?","answer":"The partnership agrees to pay each of you salaries and\/or bonuses, typically based on the net profit brought in. You do have a legal document setting out the rules for this partnership, right? If so, the exact answer should be in there. If you don't or it isn't, you need a lawyer yesterday."}
{"question":"What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?","answer":"What are you missing? Volume. Bank of America is more than willing to refinance a loan from Wells Fargo as long as the loan is still profitable. There are some caveats with that, though. For one, many land have penalties if they are paid off within two or three years. Additionally, the fact that banks are offering to refinance at great rates doesn't mean that you'll be approved, or that you'll get those rates. If you could post some actual numbers, we could help you see if it's a good deal to refi, and explain exactly where the bank expects it's profit."}
{"question":"Investment Options for 14-year old?","answer":"A fourteen-year-old can invest a few thousand into commuting to a part-time job or an education. If you can wait five years for a couple hundred you can wait two to four years for a car (or gas money) or a class (or some textbooks.)"}
{"question":"What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt?","answer":"If it were me, I would pay off the 23%er.  That is as long as you don't borrow anymore.  Please consider \"your hair on fire\" and get that 26%er paid off as soon as possible.   From my calculations your big CC is sitting at 26% has a balance of 20K.  Holy cow girl, what in the world?  The goal here is to have that paid off in less than one year.  Get another job, work more than you have in your life.   Others may disagree as it is more efficient to pay down the 26%er.  However, if you pay it all of within the year the difference only comes to $260.  If you gain momentum, which is important in changing your financial life, that $260 will be meaningless.  With focus, intensity, and momentum you can get this mess cleaned up sooner than you think. However, if you are going to continue to rack up credit card debt at these rates, it does not matter what you do."}
{"question":"Company Payment Card","answer":"From the other point of view (company use) it makes sense to segregate expenses incurred on the company's behalf away from an employee's personal expenses.  This way if there were any requirement to prove that certain expenses were for the company's benefit it is not intermingled with an employee's personal expenses.   From an ethical point of view:  To avoid these types of confusing and conflicting issues, most employer's prefer to have a segregated expense process especially if an employee is regularly incurring expenses on the company's behalf.  As YMCbuzz mentions you should check with your employer about their expense policy."}
{"question":"Form 1040 - where to place my stipend?","answer":"If you're correct that it's not taxable because it's non-taxable reimbursement (which is supported by your W-2), then it should not go on your 1040 at all.  If it is taxable, then it really should have appeared on your W-2 and would probably end up on Line 7 of your Form 1040."}
{"question":"After Market Price change, how can I get it at that price?","answer":"If the price used to be 2.50 but by the time you get in an order it's 2.80, you're going to have to pay 2.80. You can't say, \"I want to buy it at the price from an hour ago\". If you could, everybody would wait for the price to go up, then buy at the old price and have an instant guaranteed profit. Well, except that when you tried to sell, I suppose the buyer could say, \"I want to pay the lower price from last July\". So no, you always buy or sell at the current price. If you submit an order after the markets close, your broker should buy the stock for you as soon as possible the next morning. There's no strict queue. There are thousands of brokers out there, they don't take turns. So if your broker has 1000 orders and you are number 1000 on his list, while some other broker has 2 orders and number 1 is someone else wanting to buy the same stock, then even if you got your order in first, the other guy will probably get the first buy. LIFO and FIFO refer to any sort of list or queue, but don't really make sense here. When the market opens a broker has a list of orders he received overnight, which he might think of as a queue. He presumably works his way down the list. But whether he follows a strict and simple first-in-first-out, or does biggest orders first, or does buys for stocks he expects to go up today and sells for stocks he expects to go down today first, or what, I don't know. Does anybody on this forum know, are there rules that say brokers have to go through the overnight orders FIFO, or what is the common practice?"}
{"question":"How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)","answer":"People who choose \"good enough\" (satisficers) tend to be happier than people who choose \"the best\" (maximizers), see link.  So decide you want to be a satisficer for most decisions, and then work at it: deliberately limit the amount of time you spend on a small decision, and celebrate a non-optimal decision.  Decide to be good to yourself, and say it out loud.  Practice the skill."}
{"question":"What increases your chance of being audited?","answer":"Here's a few things:"}
{"question":"What's the difference between Buy and Sell price on the stock exchange [duplicate]","answer":"To add to @Victor 's answer; if you are entering a market order, and not a limit order (where you set the price you want to buy or sell at), then the Ask price is what you can expect to pay to purchase shares of stock in a long position and the Bid price is what you can expect to receive when you sell stock you own in a long position."}
{"question":"How does the purchase of shares on the secondary market benefit the issuing company?","answer":"First, the stock does represent a share of ownership and if you have a different interpretation I'd like to see proof of that. Secondly, when the IPO or secondary offering happened that put those shares into the market int he first place, the company did receive proceeds from selling those shares. While others may profit afterward, it is worth noting that more than a few companies will have secondary offerings, convertible debt, incentive stock options and restricted stock that may be used down the road that are all dependent upon the current trading share price in terms of how useful these can be used to fund operations, pay executives and so forth. Third, if someone buys up enough shares of the company then they gain control of the company which while you aren't mentioning this case, it is something to note as some individuals buy stock so that they can take over the company which happens. Usually this has more of an overall plan but the idea here is that getting that 50%+1 control of the company's voting shares are an important piece to things here."}
{"question":"If I can be claimed as a dependent, what do I do without my parent's tax information?","answer":"The request for your parent's income comes from Form 8615, Tax for Certain Children Who Have Unearned Income.  I typically see this form appear as I'm doing my daughter's taxes and start to enter data from stock transactions. In other words, your earned income is your's. But if you are a dependent, or 'can be,' the flow avoids the potentially lucrative results from gifting children appreciated stock, and have them take the gain at their lower, potentially zero cap gain rate. I suggest you grab a coffee and thumb through Pub 929 Tax Rules for Children and Dependents to understand this better.  From page 14 of the linked doc - Parent's return information not available. If a child   can\u2019t get the required information about his or her parent's   tax return, the child (or the child's legal representative)   can request the necessary information from the Internal   Revenue Service (IRS). How to request. After the end of the tax year, send a   signed, written request for the information to the Internal   Revenue Service Center where the parent's return will be   filed. (The IRS can\u2019t process a request received before   the end of the tax year.) It also suggests that you file for an extension for the due date of your return. Include payment for the tax you expect to pay, say by plugging in $200K for parent income as an estimate.  My parents' accountant tells them I do not need it. Well, a piece of software told you that you do, and 3 people on line who collectively qualify as experts documented why. (Note, I am not full of myself. This board operates via the wisdom of crowds. Members DStanley, and Ben Miller, commented and edited to help me form a well documented response that would be tough to argue against.)"}
{"question":"Do query services like Google Finance and Yahoo Finance go back to correct busted and adjusted trades?","answer":"No. Busts are very infrequent, and if an equity were illiquid enough to be affected, the bust cost would be enormous. For a liquid equity, the amount of busted volume is insignificant except during a flash crash or flash spike.  Then it would be reasonable to redownload."}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"Windfalls can disappear in a heartbeat if you're not used to managing large amounts of money. That said, if you can read a bank statement and can exercise a modicum of self control over spending, you do not need a money manager. (See: Leonard Cohen)  First, spend $15 on J.L. Collins' book The Simple Path to Wealth.  https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/30646587-the-simple-path-to-wealth. Plan to spend about 4% of your wealth annually (4% of $1.2 million = $48,000) Bottom line: ALWAYS live within your means. Own your own home free and clear. Don't buy an annuity unless you have absolutely no self control. If it feels like you're spending money too fast, you almost certainly are."}
{"question":"Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?","answer":"I'm just trying to visualize the costs of trading. Say I set up an account to trade something (forex, stock, even bitcoin) and I was going to let a random generator determine when I should buy or sell it. If I do this, I would assume I have an equal probability to make a profit or a loss. Your question is what a mathematician would call an \"ill-posed problem.\"  It makes it a challenge to answer.  The short answer is \"no.\"  We will have to consider three broad cases for types of assets and two time intervals. Let us start with a very short time interval.  The bid-ask spread covers the anticipated cost to the market maker of holding an asset bought in the market equal to the opportunity costs over the half-life of the holding period.  A consequence of this is that you are nearly guaranteed to lose money if your time interval between trades is less than the half-life of the actual portfolio of the market maker.  To use a dice analogy, imagine having to pay a fee per roll before you can gamble.  You can win, but it will be biased toward losing. Now let us go to the extreme opposite time period, which is that you will buy now and sell one minute before you die.  For stocks, you would have received the dividends plus any stocks you sold from mergers.  Conversely, you would have had to pay the dividends on your short sales and received a gain on every short stock that went bankrupt.  Because you have to pay interest on short sales and dividends passed, you will lose money on a net basis to the market maker.  Maybe you are seeing a pattern here.  The phrase \"market maker\" will come up a lot. Now let us look at currencies.  In the long run, if the current fiat money policy regime holds, you will lose a lot of money.  Deflation is not a big deal under a commodity money regime, but it is a problem under fiat money, so central banks avoid it.  So your long currency holdings will depreciate.  Your short would appreciate, except you have to pay interest on them at a rate greater than the rate of inflation to the market maker. Finally, for commodities, no one will allow perpetual holding of short positions in commodities because people want them delivered.  Because insider knowledge is presumed under the commodities trading laws, a random investor would be at a giant disadvantage similar to what a chess player who played randomly would face against a grand master chess player.  There is a very strong information asymmetry in commodity contracts.  There are people who actually do know how much cotton there is in the world, how much is planted in the ground, and what the demand will be and that knowledge is not shared with the world at large.  You would be fleeced. Can I also assume that probabilistically speaking, a trader cannot do   worst than random? Say, if I had to guess the roll of a dice, my   chance of being correct can't be less than 16.667%. A physicist, a con man, a magician and a statistician would tell you that dice rolls and coin tosses are not random.  While we teach \"fair\" coins and \"fair\" dice in introductory college classes to simplify many complex ideas, they also do not exist.  If you want to see a funny version of the dice roll game, watch the 1962 Japanese movie Zatoichi.  It is an action movie, but it begins with a dice game.   Consider adopting a Bayesian perspective on probability as it would be a healthier perspective based on how you are thinking about this problem.  A \"frequency\" approach always assumes the null model is true, which is what you are doing.  Had you tried this will real money, your model would have been falsified, but you still wouldn't know the true model. Yes, you can do much worse than 1\/6th of the time.  Even if you are trying to be \"fair,\" you have not accounted for the variance. Extending that logic, then for an inexperienced trader, is it right to   say then that it's equally difficult to purposely make a loss then it   is to purposely make a profit? Because if I can purposely make a loss,   I would purposely just do the opposite of what I'm doing to make a   profit. So in the dice example, if I can somehow lower my chances of   winning below 16.6667%, it means I would simply need to bet on the   other 5 numbers to give myself a better than 83% chance of winning. If the game were \"fair,\" but for things like forex the rules of the game are purposefully changed by the market maker to maximize long-run profitability.  Under US law, forex is not regulated by anything other than common law.  As a result, the market maker can state any price, including prices far from the market, with the intent to make a system used by actors losing systems, such as to trigger margin calls.  The prices quoted by forex dealers in the US move loosely with the global rates, but vary enough that only the dealer should make money systematically.  A fixed strategy would promote loss. You are assuming that only you know the odds and they would let you profit from your 83.33 percentage chance of winning. So then, is the costs of trading from a purely probabilistic point of   view simply the transaction costs? 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? No, the cost of trading is the opportunity cost of the money.  The transaction costs are explicit costs, but you have ignored the implicit costs of foregone interest and foregone happiness using the money for other things. You will want to be careful here in understanding probability because the distribution of returns for all of these assets lack a first moment and so there cannot be a \"mean return.\"  A modal return would be an intellectually more consistent perspective, implying you should use an \"all-or-nothing\" cost function to evaluate your methodology."}
{"question":"What's the least risky investment for people in Europe?","answer":"Putting the money in a bank savings account is a reasonably safe investment. Anything other than that will come with additional risk of various kinds. (That's right; not even a bank account is completely free of risk. Neither is withdrawing cash and storing it somewhere yourself.) And I don't know which country you are from, but you will certainly have access to your country's government bonds and the likes. You may also have access to mutual funds which invest in other countries' government bonds (bond or money-market funds). The question you need to ask yourself really is twofold. One, for how long do you intend to keep the money invested? (Shorter term investing should involve lower risk.) Two, what amount of risk (specifically, price volatility) are you willing to accept? The answers to those questions will determine which asset class(es) are appropriate in your particular case. Beyond that, you need to make a personal call: which asset class(es) do you believe are likely to do better or less bad than others? Low risk usually comes at the price of a lower return. Higher return usually involves taking more risk (specifically price volatility in the investment vehicle) but more risk does not necessarily guarantee a higher return - you may also lose a large fraction of or even the entire capital amount. In extreme cases (leveraged investments) you might even lose more than the capital amount. Gold may be a component of a well-diversified portfolio but I certainly would not recommend putting all of one's money in it. (The same goes for any asset class; a portfolio composed exclusively of stocks is no more well-diversified than a portfolio composed exclusively of precious metals, or government bonds.) For some specifics about investing in precious metals, you may want to see Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum?."}
{"question":"Suitable Vanguard funds for a short-term goal (1-2 years)","answer":"1-2 years is very short-term. If you know you will need the money in that timeframe and cannot risk losing money because of a stock market correction, you should stay away from equities (stocks). A short-term bond fund (like VBISX) will pay around 1%, maybe a bit more, and only has a small amount of risk. Money Market funds are practically risk-free (technically speaking they can lose money, but it's extremely rare) but rates of return are dismal. It's hard to get bigger returns without taking on more risk."}
{"question":"Calculate Future Value with Recurring Deposits","answer":"Let's break this into two parts, the future value of the initial deposit, and the future value of the payments: D(1 + i)n For the future value of the payments A((1+i)n-1) \/ i) Adding those two formulas together will give you the amount of money that should be in your account at the end.  Remember to make the appropriate adjustments to interest rate and the number of payments.  Divide the interest rate by the number of periods in a year (four for quarterly, twelve for monthly), and multiply the number of periods (p) by the same number.  Of course the monthly deposit amount will need to be in the same terms. See also: Annuity (finance theory) - Wikipedia"}
{"question":"How high should I set my KickStarter funding goal in order to have $35,000 left over?","answer":"You are wildly over-estimating your taxes.  First, remember that your business expenses reduce your gross income.  Second, remember that taxes are progressive, so your flat 35% only applies if you're already making a high salary that pushed you into the higher brackets of US and CA. I think the deeper problems are: 1) you are expecting a super early start-up (with no finished product) to pay you the same as a steady job, including health insurance, and 2) you are expecting Kickstarter to independently fund the venture. The best source of funding is yourself.  If you believe in this venture and in your game design abilities, then pay for most of the costs out of your own savings.  Cut your expenses to the extent you can. You may want to wander over to startups.SE to get more perspective and ideas on your business plan."}
{"question":"Tax on Stocks or ETF's","answer":"If you receive dividends on an investment, those are taxed."}
{"question":"What happens to people without any retirement savings?","answer":"According to both Huffington Post and Investopedia:  Trying to retire without any savings in the bank can be difficult, and   that difficulty is compounded by other factors senior citizens need to   keep in mind as they age, like health issues and mobility. If saving   money is not possible for you, retirement doesn\u2019t have to pass you by.   There are plenty of government-assisted and nonprofit programs that   can help you, such as the Commodity Supplemental Food Program,   Medicare, senior housing help from Housing and Urban Development and   other resources. Therefore, to answer your questions:  Is this pretty much the destiny of everyone who cannot save for retirement?  Yes, if you do not have help from family (or friends) then you have a chance of ending up homeless and\/or on government assistance.  Do most people really never retire? There are people who really will never retire. There are stories in the news about Walmart greeters or McDonald's cashiers who are in their 80s and 90s working because they need to support themselves. However, that's not the case for everyone. There's a greeter at my local Costco who is in her 80s and she works because she loves it (her career was in consulting and she doesn't have a lack of retirement money. She just really likes talking to people.).  What really happens? I can't answer what really happens because I have never experienced it and don't know people that do. Therefore I have to go off of what the two articles have said."}
{"question":"What is this fund?","answer":"SMID CAP FUND is Fidelity's way of saying SMALL to MID CAP FUND.  Small to Medium is self explanatory.  Cap is capitalization, and it basically means how much the sum of all the existing shares of the company are worth.  Fidelity names the funds inside their 401k plans according to who provides the fund.  They also provide management resources for funds chosen by your employer. There should be more available about the fund you're interested in on your Fidelity 401(k) site."}
{"question":"Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement?","answer":"You are making close to 200 K a year which is great. The aggressive payments on loans takes out around 30K which is good. The fact that you are not able to save is bad. Rather than pushing off your savings to later, scale down the lifestyle and push the upgrade to lifestyle for later"}
{"question":"What is the field \"Folio\" in an accounting book for? ","answer":"It's used as a reference column:  In journals folio coloumn is used to mention the reference or   \"address\" of ledger in which the journal entry has been posted thus   giving an easy access and also easily understanding whether all the   entries has been posted in the relevant accounts or not."}
{"question":"When the Reserve Bank determines the interest rates, do they take the house prices into account?","answer":"The Central Banks sets various rate for lending to Banks and Paying interest to Banks on excess funds. Apart from these the Central Banks also sets various other ratios that either create more liquidity or remove liquidity from Market.  The CPI is just one input to the Central Bank to determine rate, is not the only deciding criteria. The CPI does not take into account the house price or the cost of renting in the basket of goods.  One of the reasons could be that CPI contains basic essentials and also the fact that it should be easily mesurable over the period of time. For example Retail Price of a particular item is easily mesurable. The rent is not easily mesurable."}
{"question":"What are the pros and cons of buying a house just to rent it out?","answer":"You should absolutely go for it, and I encourage you to look for multi-unit (up to 4) properties if there are any in your area.  With nulti-unit properties it is far more common than not that the other units pay the mortgage. To comment on your point about slowly building an asset if the renter covers the payment; that's true, but you're also missing the fact that you get to write off the interest on your income taxes, that's another great benefit. If you intend to make a habit out of being a landlord, I highly encourage you to use a property management company.  Most charge less than 10% and will handle all of the tough stuff for you, like:  fielding sob stories from tenants, evicting tenants, finding new tenants, checking to make sure the property is maintained...  It's worth it. There fees are also tax-deductible... It makes a boat load of sense.  Just look at the world around you.  How many wealthy people rent???  I've met one, but they own investment properties though..."}
{"question":"What's the best application, software or tool that can be used to track time? ","answer":"The best one I've found is TimeSnapper, I have the worst memory but this basically allows me to visually play back the day. It has a bunch of reporting functionality too."}
{"question":"When is the best time to put a large amount of assets in the stock market?","answer":"Dollar Cost Averaging isn't usually the best idea for lump sum investment unless your risk tolerance is very low or your time horizons are low (in which case is the stock market the right place for your money). Usually you will do better by investing immediately. There are lots of articles around on the web about why DCA doesn't work over the long term. http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dollar_cost_averaging http:\/\/www.efmoody.com\/planning\/dollarcost.html"}
{"question":"Are credit histories\/scores international?","answer":"Credit history is local, so when you move to the US you start with the blank slate. Credit history length is a huge factor, so in the first year expect that nobody would trust you and you may be refused credit or asked for deposits. I was asked for deposits at cell phone company and refused for store cards couple of times. My advice - get a secured credit card (that means you put certain sum of money as a deposit in the bank and you get credit equal to that sum of money) and if you have something like a car loan that helps too (of course, you shouldn't buy a car just for that ;) but if you're buying anyway, just know it's not only hurting but also helping when you pay). Once you have a year or two of the history and you've kept with all the payments, you credit score would be OK and everybody would be happy to work with you. In 4-5 years you can have excellent credit record if you pay on time and don't do anything bad. If you are working it the US, a lot of help at first would be to take a letter from your company on an official letterhead saying that you are employed by this and that company and are getting salary of this and that. That can serve as an assurance for some merchants that otherwise would be reluctant to work with you because of the absence of credit history. If you have any assets overseas, especially if they are held in a branch of international bank in US dollars, that could help too. In general, don't count too much on credit for first 1-2 years (though you'd probably could get a car loan, for example, but rates would be exorbitant - easily 10 percentage points higher than with good credit), but it will get better soon."}
{"question":"How Often Should I Chase a Credit Card Signup Bonus?","answer":"An inquiry to your credit report is a slight ding and lasts 2 years. I'd suggest that if you are playing the bonus game you watch your score closely, and if it drops below the level you'd like to maintain, hold off a while. Credit Karma offers a good simulation to show the impact of inquiries, utilization, new accounts, etc."}
{"question":"mortgage vs car loan vs invest extra cash?","answer":"Without knowing actual numbers it's tough to say.  Personally, I would pay off the car then, going forward, use the money that would have been paid on your car note toward your mortgage.  I always think of things in the worst possible scenario.  It's easier, and faster, to repossess a car than to foreclose on real estate.  Also, in an emergency situation, depleting your fund for your car loan and your mortgage would be significantly more detrimental than only paying a mortgage with a car owned outright.  Fewer obligations means fewer things to draw down your funds in an emergency. Whether the tax deductability of the mortgage interest outweighs the lower rate on your car loan will depend on a lot of factors that haven't been shared.  I think it's safe to assume with only 1% of separation the real difference isn't significant.  I think when determining which credit cards to pay off, choosing the one with the highest rate is smart.  But that's not the situation you're in. If you don't have foreclosure concerns I'd still pay off the car then start investing."}
{"question":"Who can truly afford luxury cars?","answer":"I will answer the question from the back: who can NOT afford luxury cars? Those whose parents paid for their college education, cannot afford luxury cars, but buy them anyway. Why? I have what may seem a rather shocking proposition related to the point of not saving for kids' college: parents do NOT owe children a college education. Why should they? Did your parents fund your college? Or did you get it through a mix of Pell grants, loans, and work? If they did, then you owe them $ back for it, adjusted for inflation. If they did not, well then why do you feel your children deserve more than you deserved when you were a child? You do not owe your children a college education. They owe it to themselves. Gifts do not set one up for success, they set one up for dependence.   I will add one more hypothesis: financial discipline is best learned through one's own experiences. When an 18+ year old adult gets a very large amount of money as a gift every year for several years (in the form of paid tuition), does that teach them frugality and responsibility? My proposition is that those who get a free ride on their parents' backs are not well served in terms of becoming disciplined budgeters. They become the subjects of the question in this post: those why buy cars and houses they cannot afford, and pay for vacations with credit cards. We reap what we sow as a society.  Of course, college is only one case in point, but a very illustrative one. The bigger point is that financial discipline can only be developed when there are opportunities to develop it. Such opportunities arise under one important condition: financial independence.  What does buying children cars for their high-school graduation, buying them 4 years of college tuition, and buying them who knows what else (study abroad trips, airfare, apartment leases, textbooks, etc. etc.) teach? Does it teach independence or dependence?  It can certainly (at least that's what you hope for) teach them to appreciate when others do super nice things for them. But does free money instill financial responsibility?  Try to ask kids whose parents paid for their college WHY they did it. \"Because my parents want me to succeed\" is probably the best you can hope for. Now ask them, But do your parents OWE you a college education? \"Why yes, I guess they do.\" Why? \"Well, I guess because they told me they do. They said they owe it to me to set me up for success in life.\" Now think about this: Do people who become financially successful achieve that success because someone owed something to them? Or because they recognized that nobody owes them anything, and took it upon themselves to create that success for themselves? These are not very comfortable topics to consider, especially for those of you who have either already sunk many tens of thousands of dollars into your childrens' college education. Or for those who have been living very frugally and mindfully for the past 10-15 years driven by the goal of doing so. But I want to open this can of worms because I believe fundamentally it may be creating more problems than it is solving. I am sure there are some historical and cultural explanations for the ASSUMPTION that has at some point formed in the American society that parents owe their children a college education.  But as with most social conventions, it is merely an idea -- a shared belief. It has become so ingrained in conversations at work parties and family reunions that it seems that many of those who are ardent advocates of the idea of paying for their childrens' education no longer even understand why they feel that way. They simply go with the flow of social expectations, unwilling or unable to question either the premises behind these expectations, or the long-term consequences and results of such expectations.  With this comment I want to point to the connection between the free financial gifts that parents give to their (adult!) children, and the level of financial discipline of these young adults, their spending habits, sense of entitlement, and sense of responsibility over their financial decisions. The statistics of the U.S. savings rate, average credit card debt, foreclosures, and bankruptcy indeed tell a troubling story.  My point is that these trends don't just happen because of lots of TV advertising and the proverbial Jones's. These trends happen because of a lack of financial education, discipline, and experience with balancing one's own checkbook. Perhaps we need to think more deeply about the consequences of our socially motivated decisions as parents, and what is really in our children's best interests -- not while they are in college, but while they live the rest of their lives after college. Finally, to all the 18+ y.o. adult 'children' who are reeling from the traumatic experience of not having their parents pay for their college (while some of their friends parents TOTALLY did!), I have this perspective to offer:  Like you are now, your parents are adults. Their money is theirs to spend, because it was theirs to earn. You are under no obligation to pay for your parents' retirement (not that you were going to). Similarly your parents have no obligation to pay for your college. They can spend their money on absolutely whatever they want: be it a likeside cottage, vacations, a Corvette, or slots in the casino. How they spend their money is their concern only, and has nothing to do with your adult needs (such as college education).  If your parents mismanage their finances and go bankrupt, it is their obligation to get themselves back in the black -- not yours. If you have the means and may be so inclined, you may help them; if you do not or are not, fair enough. Regardless of what you do, they will still love you as their child no less.  Similarly, if your parents have the means and are so inclined, they may help you; if they do not or are not, fair enough. Regardless of what they do, you are to love them as your parents no less.  Your task as an adult is to focus on how you will meet your own financial needs, not to dwell on which of your needs were not met by people whose finances should well be completely separate from yours at this point in life. For an adult, to harbor an expectation of receiving something of value for free is misguided: it betrays unjustified, illusory entitlement. It is the expectation of someone who is clueless as to the value of money measured by the effort and time needed to earn it. When adults want to acquire stuff or services, they have to pay for these things with their own money. That's how adults live. When adults want to get a massage or take a ride in a cab, are they traumatized by their parents' unfulfilled obligation to pay for these services? No -- they realize that it's their own responsibility to take care of these needs. They either need to earn the money to pay for these things, or buy them on credit and pay off the debt later.  Education is a type of service, just like a massage or a cab ride. It is a service that you decide you need to get, in order to do xyz (become smarter, get a better paying job, join a profession, etc.). Therefore as with any other service, the primary responsibility for paying for this service is yours.  You have 3 options (or their combination): work now so that you can earn the money to pay for this service later; work part-time while you are receiving this service; acquire the service on credit and work later to pay it off. That's it. This is called the real world. The better you can deal with it, the more successful you will become in it. Good luck!"}
{"question":"How does on-demand insurance company Trov prevent insurance fraud or high prices?","answer":"There is not necessarily a need to prevent what you describe - 'turning insurance on before high risk situations'. They just need to calculate the premiums accordingly. For example, if an insurance needs to take 50$\/year for insuring your house against flood, and a flood happens in average every 10 years, if you just insure the two weeks in the ten years where heavy rain is predicted, you might pay 500$ for the two weeks. The total is the same for the insurance - they get 500$, and you get insurance for the dangerous period. In the contrary; if a flooding (unexpectedly) happens outside your two weeks, they are out. From the home owners view, 500$ for two weeks when heavy rains and floods are expected, and nothing otherwise sounds pretty good, compared to 50$ every year. It is the same of course, but psychology works that way."}
{"question":"Why do grocery stores in the U.S. offer cash back so eagerly?","answer":"Cash-back also lets the store turn hard currency into an electronic transfer or check, which reduces the hassle\/risk of hauling bagfulls of cash to the bank. (The smaller stores I've spoken to have called this out as a major advantage of plastic over either cash or checks. I'm assuming that the problem scales with number and size of transactions.)"}
{"question":"LLC Partnership Earned Income vs. Partnership Share","answer":"It would appear that you are not actually \"equal\" partners.  You have differently valued interests and those values fluctuate based on individual performance.  The TurboTax advice is simplified for entities that don't track interests relative to partner inputs. IRC \u00a7 704(a), partner's distributive share is set by the partnership agreement, and \u00a7 704(b), failing an allocation by the agreement it is set by the partner's interest in the partnership.  But note \u00a7 704(b)(2), which prevents blatant tax-rigging in the partnership agreement."}
{"question":"How to handle capital gains on a Virginia Individual Income Tax Return","answer":"In Virginia the maximum tax rate on income is 5.75% which is the same as the capital gains rate. http:\/\/www.tax.virginia.gov\/income-tax-calculator"}
{"question":"Should I use my non-tax advantaged investment account to pay off debt?","answer":"You could pay off a portion of the debt and your minimum payments should also go down proportionately.  Your investment managers may be able to continue making returns in the markets in a sideways and a bear market. So you have 24k contributing to your net worth, and ~50k giving you a negative net worth. At best, you can bring this down to a negative 25k net worth, or you can start and keep using some of the gains from your investment account to supplement your credit payments (along with your income). This is based on chance that your investment managers can continue making gains, compared to paying down 24k and having possibly zero liquid savings now, but having more of your salary to start saving and make the lowered minimum payments, assuming you don't borrow more. Those are the options I've thought of, I don't see either option being necessarily quicker than the other."}
{"question":"Pros\/cons for buying gold vs. saving money in an interest-based account?","answer":"Just because gold performed that well in the past does not mean it will perform that well in the future.  I'm not saying you should or should not buy gold, but the mere fact that it went up a lot recently is not sufficient reason to buy it. Also note that on the house, an investment that accrues continuous interest for 30 years at an annual rate of about 7.7% will multiply by a factor of 10 in 30 years.  That rate is pretty high by today's standards, but it might have been more feasible in the past (I don't know historical interest rates very well).  Yet again note that the fact that houses went up a lot over the last 30 years does not mean they will continue to do so."}
{"question":"Shorting stocks: Indicators that a stock will drop?","answer":"First utilize a security screener to identify the security profiles you are looking to identify for identifying your target securities for shorting.  Most online brokers have stock screeners that you can utilize.   At this point you may want to look at your target list of securities to find out those that are eligible for shorting. The SHO thresold list is also a good place to look for securities that are hard to borrow to eliminate potential target securities. http:\/\/regsho.finra.org\/regsho-Index.html  Also your broker can let you know the stocks that are available for borrowing.  You can then take your target securities and then you can look at the corporate filings on the SEC's Edgar site to look for the key words you are looking for. I would suggest that you utilize XBRL so you can electronically run your key word searched in an automated manner.   I would further suggest that you can run the key word XBRL daily for issuer filings of your target list of securities.  Additional word searches you may want to consider are those that could indicate a dilution of the companies stock such as the issuance of convertible debt.  Also the below link detailing real short interest may be helpful.  Clearing firms are required to report short interest every two weeks. http:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/quotes\/short-interest.aspx"}
{"question":"Who gets the dividend when a stock is bought\/sold around the ex-dividend date? [duplicate]","answer":"Your understanding is incorrect.  The date of record is when you have to own the stock by.  The ex-dividend date is calculated so that transaction before that date settles in time to get you listed as owner by the date of record. If you buy the stock before the ex-dividend date, you get the dividend.  If you buy it on or after the ex-dividend date, the seller gets the dividend."}
{"question":"A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take?","answer":"This is somewhat unbelievable.  I mean if you had a business of collecting debts, wouldn't you want to collect said debts?  Rather than attempting to browbeat people with these delinquent debts into paying, you have someone volunteering to pay.  Would you want to service that client?  This would not happen in just about any other industry, but such is the lunacy of debt collecting. The big question is why do you need this cleared off your credit?  If it is just for a credit score, it probably is not as important as your more recent entries.  I would just wait it out, until 7 years has passed, and you can then write the reporting agencies to remove it from your credit. If you are attempting to buy a home or similarly large purpose and the mortgage company is insisting that you deal with this, then I would do the following: Write the company to address the issue.  This has to be certified\/return receipt requested.  If they respond, pay it and insist that it be marked as paid in full on your credit.  I would do this with a money order or cashiers check.  Done. Dispute the charge with the credit reporting agencies, providing the documentation of no response.  This should remove the item from your credit. Provide this documentation to the mortgage broker.  This should remove any hangup they might have. Optional:  Sue the company in small claims court.  This will take a bit of time and money, but it should yield a profit.  There was a post on here a few days ago about how to do this.  Make part of any settlement to have your name cleared of the debt. It is counterproductive to fall into the trap of the pursuit of a perfect credit score.  A person with a 750 often receives the same rate options as a person with 850.  Also your relationship with a particular lender could trump your credit score. Currently I am \"enjoying\" the highest credit score of my life, over 820.  Do you know how I did it?  I got out of debt (including paying off the mortgage) and I have no intentions of ever going into debt for anything.  So why does it matter?  It is a bit ridiculous."}
{"question":"Can I buy a new house before selling my current house?","answer":"The two most common scenarios are: Since you have more control of timing when you are the buyer compared to when you are the seller, #1 is probably more common, however, a good real estate attorney should be able to walk you through your options should #2 come up. Fortunately, many real estate attorneys do not charge you anything until the sale completes, and you will likely get a discount if you involve them in both the sale and purchase, so I would start by finding an attorney."}
{"question":"What is the preferred way to set up personal finances?","answer":"There's a lot of personal preference and personal circumstance that goes into these decisions.  I think that for a person starting out, what's below is a good system.  People with greater needs probably aren't reading this question looking for an answer. How many bank accounts should I have and what kinds, and how much (percentage-wise) of my income should I put into each one?  You should probably have one checking account and one savings \/ money market account.  If you're total savings are too low to avoid fees on two accounts, then just the checking account at the beginning.  Keep the checking account balance high enough to cover your actual debits plus a little buffer.  Put the rest in savings. Multiple bank accounts beyond the basics or using multiple banks can be appropriate for some people in some circumstances.  Those people, for the most part, will have a specific reason for needing them and maybe enough experience at that point to know how many and where to get them. (Else they ask specific questions in the context of their situation.) I did see a comment about partners - If you're married \/ in long-term relationship, you might replicate the above for each side of the marriage \/ partnership.  That's a personal decision between you and your partner that's more about your philosophy in the relationship then about finance specifically. Then from there, how do I portion them out into budgets and savings?  I personally don't believe that there is any generic answer for this question.  Others may post answers with their own rules of thumb.  You need to budget based on a realistic assessment of your own income and necessary costs.  Then if you have money some savings.  Include a minimal level of entertainment in \"necessary costs\" because most people cannot work constantly.  Beyond that minimal level, additional entertainment comes after necessary costs and basic savings.  Savings should be tied to your long term goals in addition to you current constraints. Should I use credit cards for spending to reap benefits? No. Use credit cards for the convenience of them, if you want, but pay the full balance each month and don't overdo it.  If you lack discipline on your spending, then you might consider avoiding credit cards completely."}
{"question":"Retirement Options for Income","answer":"If you withdraw all (or most) of your pension 25% is tax free but the rest is treated as income upon which you will pay income tax at the usual UK rates. Withdrawing a lump sum to buy property is therefore unlikely to be 10% per annum as you'll spend years making up lost ground on the initial capital investment. If your pension is a self invested personal pension (a SIPP) you could buy property within the pension wrapper itself which would avoid the income tax hit. if you don't have a SIPP you may be able to convert your pension to a SIPP but you would be wise to seek professional advice about that. The UK government is also introducing an additional 3% stamp duty on properties which are not your first home so this may further impact your returns. This would apply whether you withdraw your pension as cash or buy the property within a SIPP. One other alternative to an annuity in the UK is called drawdown where you keep the money invested in your pension as it is now and withdraw an annual income. This means your tax bill is reduced as you get to use your annual allowance each year and will also pay less higher rate tax. The government provides more details on its website."}
{"question":"High-risk investing is better for the young? Why?","answer":"The reason that you are advised to take more risk while you are young is because the risk is often correlated to a short investment horizon. Young people have 40-50 years to let their savings grow if they get started early enough.  If you need the money in 5-15 years (near the end of your earning years), there is much more risk of a dip that will not correct itself before you need the money than if you don't need the money for 25-40 years (someone whose career is on the rise). The main focus for the young should be growth. Hedging your investments with gold might be a good strategy for someone who is worried about the volatility of other investments, but I would imagine that gold will only reduce your returns compared to small-cap stocks, for example. If you are looking for more risk, you can leverage some of your money and buy call options to increase the gains with upward market moves."}
{"question":"What are some factors I should consider when choosing between a CPA and tax software","answer":"Hiring a CPA comes into play if you're doing something that requires judgement or planning, such as valuation of internal shares in a partnership, valuation of assets in an asset swap, or distribution of the proceeds of a liquidation. That said, I would strongly suggest hiring someone who is also a Tax Attorney over a plain old CPA. In the event you do need representation to clarify positions or assertions, you're probably going to need to hire one anyway. Qualified representation is much cheaper to hire up front than after the fact. If all you need is help filing compliance paperwork (returns), software should be more than adequate."}
{"question":"Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life","answer":"Another factor:  When you sell this house and buy the next one, the more equity you have the easier the loan process tends to be.  We rolled prior equity into this house and had a downpayment over 50%--and the lender actually apologized for a technicality I had to deal with--they perfectly well knew it was a basically zero-risk loan."}
{"question":"Should I make extra payments to my under water mortgage or increase my savings?","answer":"You say you are underwater by $10k-15k.  Does that include the 6% comission that selling will cost you?  If you are underwater and have to sell anyway, why would you want to give the bank any extra money?  A loss will be taken on the sale.  Personally i would want the bank to take as much of that loss as possible, rather than myself.  Depending on the locale the mortgage may or may not be non-recourse, ie the loan contract implies that the bank can take the house from you if you default, but if 'non-recourse' the bank has no legal way to demand more money from you. Getting the bank to cooperate on a short sale might be massively painful.  If you have $ in your savings, you might have more leverage to nego with the bank on how much money you have to give them in the event the loan is not 'non-recourse'.  Note that even if not 'non-recourse', it's not clear it would be worth the banks time and money to pursue any shortfall after a sale or if you just walk away and mail the keys to the bank. If you're not worried about your credit, the most financially beneficial action for you might be to simply stop paying the mortgage at all and bank the whole payments.  It will take the bank some time to get you out of the house and you can live cost-free during that time. You may feel a moral obligation to the bank.  I would not feel this way.  The banks and bankers took a ton of money out of selling mortgages to buyers and then selling securities based on the mortgages to investors.  They looted the whole system and pushed prices up greatly in the process, which burned most home buyers and home owners.  It's all about business -my advice is to act like a business does and minimize your costs.  The bank should have required a big enough downpayment to cover their risk.  If they did not, then they are to blame for any loss they incur.  This is the most basic rule of finance."}
{"question":"How can a 529 plan help me save for my child's college education?","answer":"You get to put money away with special tax incentives (ie - no or less taxes to pay)  They are state sponsored and therefore pretty reliable, but some states are better than others. Like with many of these tax incentive type accounts (FSA, Dependent Care Spending Accounts) they are use it or lose it.  (In a 529, use it or transfer it).  So the money put away is a sunk cost towards education and cannot be repurposed for something else should your kid not want to attend school. http:\/\/money.howstuffworks.com\/personal-finance\/financial-planning\/529.htm"}
{"question":"Do I even need credit cards?","answer":"Eventually you are going to need some sort of real credit history.  It is possible that you will be able to evade this if you never buy a house, or if you pay cash for any house\/condo\/car\/boat\/etc that you buy.  Even employers check credit history these days.  I wouldn't be surprised if some medical professionals such as surgeons check it also.  Obviously if you have a mortgage and car loan this doesn't apply, but I'd be curious how you acquired those unless you have substantial income and\/or assets. Combine this with the fact that certain things like renting a car essentially require a credit card (because they need to put a hold on more money than they are actually going to take out of your card, so they can take that money if you don't bring the car back), and I think you should have a credit card unless you and your wife are individuals with zero impulse control, which sounds highly improbable. If your concern is the financial liability of the credit line, just keep the credit line low."}
{"question":"Am I considered in debt if I pay a mortgage?","answer":"Mortgage is a (secured) debt, a combination of a promissory note, and a security interest providing the mortage holder a secured interest in the property. Yes, you are \"in debt\". But that depends upon whether you define the term \"in debt\" as a debt appearing on the balance sheet, or the net of assets - liabilities is less than zero, whether you have a \"debt\" expense on the income statement (budget), or whether the net of income - expenses is less than zero. One person might look at their budget, find the (monthly) mortgage payment listed, and judge that they have a debt payment, and thus are \"in debt\". Or they might look at their expenses, find they exceed their income, and judge that they are \"in debt\". Another person might look at their balance sheet, compare assets to liabilities, and only say they were \"in debt\" when their liabilities exceeded their assets. Some people view mortgage debt as \"good debt\", as they view certain debts as \"good\" and others as \"bad\". Trust me, having a high mortgage payment (higher 30% of your net income) is hard, and over 40% is bad. Consider you balance sheet and your income statement.  On your balance sheet, the house appears on the \"asset\" side with an (estimated) value, while the \"mortgage\" (really, the promissory note part of the mortgage) appears on the \"liability\" side. On your income statement, your house does not appear on the income side, but the mortgage (promissory note) payment appears on the expense side. So, you clearly have both a \"liability\" with a clearly-defined value and an \"expense\" with a clearly-defined payment. But do you have an \"asset\"? According to an accountant, you have an \"asset\" and a \"liability\". But you do not have a business asset that is producing revenue (income), nor do you have a business asset that can be amortized and expensed to reduce taxable income. When we think about an asset, does the word have the connotation of some thing with value, something that produces income?  Well, by that measure, a house only provides income when we rent it out, and only has value when we consider selling it. As millions of families discovered during the housing (price) collapse, when the market price of your \"asset\" falls substantially, your personal financial status can fall negative and you can be \"broke\"."}
{"question":"Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss?","answer":"You're making the assumption that a person would be aware, in advance, that they'd have enough resources to pay the costs of anything that might happen. Second, you're assuming the cost of insurance would outweigh what the person would have to pay out of pocket if they didn't have insurance.  In other words as an example, if the insurance premiums on my car are so high that it would be cheaper for me to replace it myself in cash then it might make sense, but how likely is that to be the case?   There's a gambling adage that I think applies here - \"Always bet with the house's money\".  Why would I put my own money on the line in the event of some event rather than pay for an insurance policy that takes care of it for me?  That way, my costs are predictable and manageable - I pay the premiums and perhaps a deductible, and that's it."}
{"question":"Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics?","answer":"I too was very confused when I tried to be tricky and paid down my balance BEFORE the bill date. I thought this would be a great thing because it would show my utilization near zero percent. The opposite happen, it dropped my credit score from 762 to 708. Here is the best example I can come up with when it comes to utilization. Lets pretend you are an insurance company and you trying to figure out who are the best risk drivers. The people that drive 10% of the day are a better risk than the people that drive 50% of the day. The people that drive 50% of the day are a better risk than the people that drive 90% of the day. Here is the rub when people drive 0%. When you look at the people at 0% they appear to be walking, busing or flying. What they are NOT doing is driving. Since they are not driving (using Credit) they are viewed as POOR drivers since they are not keeping up on their driving skills. (Paying bills, watching how they spend, and managing their debt). So, now before the billing date I pay down my balance to something between 5 to 10% of my utilization. After the bill is issued, I pay it off in FULL. ( I am not going to PAY these crazy interest rates). What shows up on my credit report is a person that is driving his credit between 5 and 10% utilization. It shows I know I how to manage my revolving accounts. I know it's dumb, you would think they reward people that have zero debt, I don't hate banks I hate the game. ( I do love me some reward points =))"}
{"question":"How do I calculate ownership percentage for shared home ownership?","answer":"Sister is putting down nothing, and paying sub-market rent. It looks to me like if she is assigned anything, it's a gift.  You on the other hand, have put down the full downpayment, and instead of breaking even via fair rent, are feeding the property to the tune of $645\/mo.  In the old days, the days of Robert Allen's \"no money down\" it was common to see shared equity deals where the investor would put up the down payment, get 1\/2 the equity build up, and never pay another dime. This deal reminds me of that, only you are getting the short end of the stick.  \"you never think something will cause discourse\" - I hope you meant this sarcastically. The deal you describe? No good can come of it."}
{"question":"How do you calculate the P\/E ratio by industry?","answer":"You could sum the P\/E ratio of all the companies in the industry and divide it by the number of companies to find the average P\/E ratio of the industry.  Average P\/E ratio of industry  = Sum of P\/E ratio of all companies in   Industry \/ Number of companies in industry"}
{"question":"Selecting between investment vehicles for income","answer":"It sounds like you are interested in investing in the stock market but you don't want to take too much risk. Investing in an Index EFT will provide some diversification and can be less risky than investing in individual stocks, however with potentially lower returns. If you want to invest your money, the first thing you should do is learn about managing your risk. You are still young and you should spend your time now to increase your education and knowledge. There are plenty of good books to start with, and you should prepare an investment plan which incorporates a risk management strategy. $1000 is a little low to start investing in the stock market, so whilst you are building your education and preparing your plan, you can continue building up more funds for when you are ready to start investing.  Place your funds in an high interest savings account for now, and whilst you are learning you can practice your strategies using virtual accounts. In fact the ASX has a share market game which is held  2 or 3 times per year. The ASX website also has some good learning materials for novices and they hold regular seminars. It is another good source for improving your education in the subject.  Remember, first get educated, then plan and practice, and then invest."}
{"question":"historical stock data starting from 1900","answer":"Robert Shiller published US Stock Market data from 1871.  Ken French also has historical data on his website.  Damodaran has a bunch of historical data, here is some historical S&P data."}
{"question":"Where can you find historical PEs of US indices?","answer":"Internet sites Books Academic"}
{"question":"What should I look at before investing in a start-up?","answer":"Here are the basic questions I usually ask any new business startup: Do these numbers\/answers seem reasonable to you and is some benchmark available that allows you to see how likely this is?   Remember, particularly in Internet-based advertising ventures, the client may be indirect.  The person who clicks on a Google context-based link is not directly Google's client.  The person who decided to host AdWords code on their site is the direct client. You're also going to want to see a Gant chart or some process chart indicating exactly what needs to be done, at what cost and by whom.  Answers to these questions give a sense of not only how seriously they are taking the business, but also how organised. My final question: who is your first client? They need either someone who is going to contract the service, or have a clear indication of where income is going to come from, on their first day of trading. Their task is to sell their idea to you by proving that it will return on your investment and be profitable.  From the strength of these answers you can gauge the value of your investment to them, how critical it is, how risky the opportunity and - ultimately - the stake and returns you should expect."}
{"question":"Using property to achieve financial independence","answer":"Will buying a flat which generates $250 rent per month be a good decision? Whether investing in real estate is a good decision or not depends on many things, including the current and future supply\/demand for rental units in your particular area. There are many questions on this site about this topic, and another answer to this question which already addresses many risks associated with owning property (though there are also benefits to consider). I just want to focus on this point you raised: I personally think yes, because rent adjusts with inflation and the rise in the price of the property is another benefit. Could this help me become financially independent in the long run since inflation is getting adjusted in it? In my opinion, the fact that rental income general adjusts with 'inflation' is a hedge against some types of economic risk, not an absolute increase in value. First, consider buying a house to live in, instead of to rent:  If you pay off your mortgage before your retire, then you have reduced your cost of accommodations to only utilities, property taxes, and repairs. This gives you a (relatively) known, fixed requirement of cash outflows. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - it doesn't cost you anything extra, because you already own your house. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, then you don't save anything, because you already own your house. If you instead rent your whole life, and save money each month (instead of paying off a mortgage), then when you retire, you will have a larger amount of savings which you can use to pay your monthly rental costs each month. By the time you retire, your cost of accommodations will be the market price for rent at that time. If the value of property goes up by the time you retire - you will have to pay more on rent. If the value of property goes down by the time you retire, you will save money on rent. You will have larger savings, but your cash outflow will be a little bit less certain, because you don't know what the market price for rent will be. You can see that, because you need to put a roof over your own head, just by existing you bear risk of the cost of property rising. So, buying your own home can be a hedge against that risk. This is called a 'natural hedge', where two competing risks can mitigate each-other just by existing. This doesn't mean buying a house is always the right thing to do, it is just one piece of the puzzle to comparing the two alternatives [see many other threads on buying vs renting on this site, or on google]. Now, consider buying a house to rent out to other people:  In the extreme scenario, assume that you do everything you can to buy as much property as possible. Maybe by the time you retire, you own a small apartment building with 11 units, where you live in one of them (as an example), and you have no other savings. Before, owning your own home was, among other pros and cons, a natural hedge against the risk of your own personal cost of accommodations going up. But now, the risk of your many rental units is far greater than the risk of your own personal accommodations. That is, if rent goes up by $100 after you retire, your rental income goes up by $1,000, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes up by $100. If rent goes down by $50 after you retire, your rental income goes down by $500, and your personal cost of accommodations only goes down by $50. You can see that only investing in rental properties puts you at great risk of fluctuations in the rental market. This risk is larger than if you simply bought your own home, because at least in that case, you are guaranteeing your cost of accommodations, which you know you will need to pay one way or another. This is why most investment advice suggests that you diversify your investment portfolio. That means buying some stocks, some bonds, etc.. If you invest to heavily in a single thing, then you bear huge risks for that particular market. In the case of property, each investment is so large that you are often 'undiversified' if you invest heavily in it (you can't just buy a house $100 at a time, like you could a stock or bond). Of course, my above examples are very simplified. I am only trying to suggest the underlying principle, not the full complexities of the real estate market. Note also that there are many types of investments which typically adjust with inflation \/ cost of living; real estate is only one of them."}
{"question":"How an ETF reinvests dividends","answer":"SPY does not reinvest dividends.  From the SPY prospectus: No Dividend Reinvestment Service  No dividend reinvestment service is   provided by the Trust. Broker-dealers, at their own discretion, may   offer a dividend reinvestment service under which additional Units are   purchased in the secondary market at current market prices. SPY pays out quarterly the dividends it receives (after deducting fees and expenses).  This is typical of ETFs. The SPY prospectus goes on to say: Distributions in cash that are reinvested in additional Units through   a dividend reinvestment service, if offered by an investor\u2019s   broker-dealer, will be taxable dividends to the same extent as if such   dividends had been received in cash."}
{"question":"High Leverage Inflation Hedges for Personal Investors","answer":"Look into commodities futures & options. Unfortunately, they are not trivial instruments."}
{"question":"Can I save our credit with a quickie divorce?","answer":"My advice to you? Act like responsible adults and owe up to your financial commitments.  When you bought your house and took out a loan from the bank, you made an agreement to pay it back. If you breach this agreement, you deserve to have your credit score trashed.  What do you think will happen to the $100K+ if you decide to stiff the bank? The bank will make up for its loss by increasing the mortgage rates for others that are taking out loans, so responsible borrowers get to subsidize those that shirk their responsibilities. If you were in a true hardship situation, I would be inclined to take a different stance. But, as you've indicated, you are perfectly able to make the payments -- you just don't feel like it. Real estate fluctuates in value, just like any other asset. If a stock I bought drops in value, does the government come and bail me out? Of course not! What I find most problematic about your plan is that not only do you wish to breach your agreement, but you are also looking for ways to conceal your breach. Please think about this. Best of luck with your decision."}
{"question":"Do precious metals and mining sector index funds grow as much as the general stock market?","answer":"Metals and Mining is an interesting special case for stocks.  It's relationship to U.S. equity (SPX) is particularly weak (~0.3 correlation) compared to most stocks so it doesn't behave like equity.  However, it is still stock and not a commodities index so it's relation to major metals (Gold for instance) is not that strong either (-0.6 correlation). Metals and Mining stocks have certainly underperformed the stock market in general over the past 25years 3% vs 9.8% (annualized) so this doesn't look particularly promising.  It did have a spectacularly good 8 year period ('99-'07) though 66% (annualized).  It's worth remembering that it is still stock.  If the market did not think it could make a reasonable profit on the stock the price would decrease until the market thought it could make the same profit as other equity (adjusted slightly for the risk).  So is it reasonable to expect that it would give the same return as other stock on average?  Yes.. -ish.  Though as has been shown in the past 25 years your actual result could vary wildly both positive and negative. (All numbers are from monthly over the last 25 years using VGPMX as a M&M proxy)"}
{"question":"Why do some companies offer 401k retirement plans?","answer":"I agree with the other answers that it is a benefit, but wanted to add another explanation for this: Also, why a company would prefer matching someone's contributions (and   given him or her additional free money) instead of just offering a   simple raise? In addition to a match being a benefit that is part of your total compensation, 401ks have special rules for Highly Compensated Employees.  If the lower paid employees do not contribute, the \"Highly Compensated Employees\" do not get to take full advantage of the 401k.   By offering a match, more lower paid employees will take advantage of a 401k program allowing more Highly Compensated Employees to also take advantage of the program."}
{"question":"In what ways can a public company ask for money?","answer":"There are many different methods for a corporation to get money, but they mostly fall into three categories: earnings, debt and equity.  Earnings would be just the corporation's accumulation of cash due to the operation of its business. Perhaps if cash was needed for a particular reason immediately, a business may consider selling a division or group of assets to another party, and using the proceeds for a different part of the business. Debt is money that (to put it simply) the corporation legally must repay to the lender, likely with periodic interest payments. Apart from the interest payments (if any) and the principal (original amount leant), the lender has no additional rights to the value of the company. There are, basically, 2 types of corporate debt: bank debt, and bonds.  Bank debt is just the corporation taking on a loan from a bank. Bonds are offered to the public - ie: you could potentially buy a \"Tesla Bond\", where you give Tesla $1k, and they give you a stated interest rate over time, and principal repayments according to a schedule. Which type of debt a corporation uses will depend mostly on the high cost of offering a public bond, the relationships with current banks, and the interest rates the corporation thinks it can get from either method. Equity [or, shares] is money that the corporation (to put it simply) likely does not have a legal obligation to repay, until the corporation is liquidated (sold at the end of its life) and all debt has already been repaid. But when the corporation is liquidated, the shareholders have a legal right to the entire value of the company, after those debts have been paid. So equity holders have higher risk than debt holders, but they also can share in higher reward. That is why stock prices are so volatile - the value of each share fluctuates based on the perceived value of the entire company.  Some equity may be offered with specific rules about dividend payments - maybe they are required [a 'preferred' share likely has a stated dividend rate almost like a bond, but also likely has a limited value it can ever receive back from the corporation], maybe they are at the discretion of the board of directors, maybe they will never happen. There are 2 broad ways for a corporation to get money from equity: a private offering, or a public offering. A private offering could be a small mom and pop store asking their neighbors to invest 5k so they can repair their business's roof, or it could be an 'Angel Investor' [think Shark Tank] contributing significant value and maybe even taking control of the company. Perhaps shares would be offered to all current shareholders first. A public offering would be one where shares would be offered up to the public on the stock exchange, so that anyone could subscribe to them. Why a corporation would use any of these different methods depends on the price it feels it could get from them, and also perhaps whether there are benefits to having different shareholders involved in the business [ie: an Angel investor would likely be involved in the business to protect his\/her investment, and that leadership may be what the corporation actually needs, as much or more than money]. Whether a corporation chooses to gain cash from earnings, debt, or equity depends on many factors, including but not limited to: (1) what assets \/ earnings potential it currently has; (2) the cost of acquiring the cash [ie: the high cost of undergoing a public offering vs the lower cost of increasing a bank loan]; and (3) the ongoing costs of that cash to both the corporation and ultimately the other shareholders - ie: a 3% interest rate on debt vs a 6% dividend rate on preferred shares vs a 5% dividend rate on common shares [which would also share in the net value of the company with the other current shareholders].  In summary: Earnings would be generally preferred, but if the company needs cash immediately, that may not be suitable. Debt is generally cheap to acquire and interest rates are generally lower than required dividend rates. Equity is often expensive to acquire and maintain [either through dividend payments or by reduction of net value attributable to other current shareholders], but may be required if a new venture is risky. ie: a bank\/bondholder may not want to lend money for a new tech idea because it is too risky to just get interest from - they want access to the potential earnings as well, through equity."}
{"question":"Can the IRS freeze a business Bank account?","answer":"If the business is legally separated and not commingled - they probably cannot. What they can do is put a lien on it (so that you cannot sell the business) and garnish your income. If the corporate veil is pierced (and its not that hard to have it pierced if you're not careful) - then they can treat it as if it is your personal asset. Verify this with a lawyer licensed in your state, I'm not a lawyer or a tax professional."}
{"question":"What options exist to make money in the US on a work-restricted visa?","answer":"Are you planning to not pay taxes? Any time someone has income in the U.S., it is subject to U.S. taxes. You must file tax returns (and pay taxes if necessary) if you have income above a certain threshold, regardless of whether you're not authorized to work or not. If you plan to intentionally not pay taxes, then that's a whole other matter from working without authorization. Working without authorization is an immigration issue. It probably violates the conditions of your status, which will make you to automatically lose your status. That may or may not affect when you want to want to visit, immigrate to, or get other immigration benefits in the U.S. in the future; and at worst you may be deported. It's a complicated topic, but not really relevant for this site."}
{"question":"High dividend stocks","answer":"Future tax increases on dividends are likely. The Wall Street Journal says. \"The millions of Americans who receive dividend income ... need to begin adjusting their investment strategy accordingly.\" (ref) \"Last week the Senate Budget Committee   passed a fiscal 2011 budget resolution   that includes an increase in the top   tax rate on dividends to 39.6% from   the current 15%\u2014a 164% increase.\" ...   \"You can expect fewer businesses   either to offer or increase dividend   payouts.\""}
{"question":"Where to start with personal finance?","answer":"Personal finance is a fairly broad area.  Which part might you be starting with? From the very basics, make sure you understand your current cashflow: are you bank balances going up or down?  Next, make a budget.  There's plenty of information to get started here, and it doesn't require a fancy piece of software.  This will make sure you have a deeper understanding of where your money is going, and what is it being saved for.  Is it just piling up, or is it allocated for specific purchases (i.e. that new car, house, college tuition, retirement, or even a vacation or a rainy day)? As part of the budgeting\/cashflow exercise, make sure you have any outstanding debts covered.  Are your credit card balances under control?  Do you have other outstanding loans (education, auto, mortgage, other)?  Normally, you'd address these in order from highest to lowest interest rate. Your budget should address any immediate mandatory expenses (rent, utilities, food) and long term existing debts.  Then comes discretionary spending and savings (especially until you have a decent emergency fund).  How much can you afford to spend on discretionary purchases?  How much do you want to be able to spend?  If the want is greater than the can, what steps can you take to rememdy that? With savings you can have a whole new set of planning to consider.  How much do you leave in the bank?  Do you keep some amount in a CD ladder?  How much goes into retirement savings accounts (401k, Roth vs. Traditional IRA), college savings accounts, or a plain brokerage account?  How do you balance your overall portfolio (there is a wealth of information on portfolio management)?  What level of risk are you comfortable with?  What level of risk should you consider, given your age and goals?  How involved do you want to be with your portfolio, or do you want someone else to manage it? Silver Dragon's answer contains some good starting points for portfolio management and investing.  Definitely spend some time learning the basics of investing and portfolio management even if you decide to solicit professional expertise; understanding what they're doing can help to determine earlier whether your interests are being treated as a priority."}
{"question":"Learning stock trading financing etc for someone from mathematical background [duplicate]","answer":"Security Analysis(very difficult for beginners )& Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. All about(book series by McGraw) on Stocks,Derivatives,Options,Futures,Market Timings. Reminiscence of a Stock Operator (Life of jesse Livermore). Memoirs , Popular Delusions and Madness of the Crowds by Charles Mackay. Basics of Technical analysis includig Trading Strategies via Youtube videos & Google. Also opt for Seeking alpha free version to learn about portfolio allocation under current scenario there will be few articles as it will ask for premium version if you love it then opt for it. But still these books will do."}
{"question":"How can I save on closing costs when buying a home?","answer":"Mostly ditto Pete B's answer. There's little you can do about closing costs. Some closing costs are government fees. There's nothing you can do about this. Sad and unfair as it is, taxes are not optional and not generally negotiable. Title insurance and fire insurance are required by the lender. Even if you're paying cash, you don't really want to skip on these. If your house burns down and you have no insurance ... well, if you're worried about saving a few hundred on your closing costs, I assume that losing $200,000 because your house burned down and you have no insurance would be a pretty bad thing. Title insurance protects you against the possibility that the seller doesn't really legally own the property, maybe a scam, more likely a mistake or a technicality. You can, and certainly should, shop around for a better deal on insurance. Last couple of housing transactions I made, title insurance was a one-time fee of around $200. (I'm sure this depends on the cost of the house, where you live, maybe other factors.) Maybe by shopping around I could have saved $10 or $20, but I doubt there's someone out there charging $50 when everyone else is charging $200. Fire insurance you're probably paying a couple of thousand a year, more opportunity for savings. Typically the buyer and the seller each have a realtor and they split the fee. If you go without a realtor but the seller hires one, she'll keep the entire fee. So the only way to avoid this expense is if neither of you has a realtor. I've never done that. Realtors cost a ton of money but they provide a useful service: not only helping you find a house but also knowing how to deal with all the paperwork. Plenty of people do it, though. I presume they get the title agency or the bank or somebody to help with the paperwork. There are also discount realtors out there who don't show your home, do little or nothing to market it, basically just help you with the paperwork, and then charge a very low fee. Timing closing for a certain day of the month can reduce what you owe at closing time -- by reducing the amount of interest you pay on the first month's loan payment -- but it doesn't save you any money. You'll make it up over the course of the loan. You might possibly save some money by timing closing around when property taxes are due. Theoretically this shouldn't matter: the theory is that they pro-rate property taxes between buyer and seller so each pays the taxes for the time when they own the house. So again, you might need less cash at closing but you'll make it up the next time property taxes are due. But the formulas the banks use on this are often goofy. Maybe if you live some place with high property taxes this is worth investigating. You could skip the inspection. But inspections I've had done generally cost about $500. If they found something that was a major issue, they might save you from buying a house that would cost tens of thousands in repairs. Or less dramatically, you can use the inspection report for leverage with the seller to get repairs done at the seller's expense. I once had an inspector report problems with the roof and so I negotiated with the seller that they would pay for a percentage of roof repair. I suppose if you're buying a house that you know is run down and will require major work, an inspection might be superfluous. Or if you know enough about construction that you can do an inspection yourself. Otherwise, it's like not buying insurance: sure, you save a little up front, but you're taking a huge risk. So what can you control? (a) Shop around for fire insurance. Maybe save hundreds of dollars. (b) Find a seller who's not using a realtor and then you don't use a realtor either. Save big bucks, 6 to 7% in my area, but you then have to figure out how to do all the paperwork yourself and you severely limit your buying options as most sellers DO use a realtor. Besides that, there's not much you can do."}
{"question":"When an in-the-money stock option expires does the broker always execute it or does its value become worthless if the owner doesn't execute it?","answer":"It depends on the broker, each one's rules may vary. Your broker should be able to answer this question for how they handle such a situation. The broker I used would execute and immediately sell the stock if the option was 25 cents in the money at expiration. If they simply executed and news broke over the weekend (option expiration is always on Friday), the client could wake up Monday to a bad margin call, or worse."}
{"question":"Simplifying money management","answer":"Many banks will allow you to open multiple accounts.  Create a secondary checking account that has no automatic withdrawals and doesn't allow overdraft.  This is the account you'll use for you discretionary spending.  Get an account with a debit card and always use it as a debit card (never as a credit card, even if it allows that). Your employer may allow you to split your direct deposit so that a certain amount of money goes into this account each month.  When it gets to $0, you have to stop spending.  It will automatically refill when you get your paycheck."}
{"question":"What's the fuss about Credit Score \/ History?","answer":"Use credit and pay your bills on time. That's really about it.  If you do that, you don't need to think about credit score. It's really a big distraction that is dwelled on too much."}
{"question":"Are there online brokers in the UK which don't require margin account? ","answer":"I don't know what you are on about, as most online brokers should offer standard brokerage without margin. As trading with magin is considered more risky by most (especially if you don't know what you are doing), so one would have to fill out additional application forms and possibly undergo some training before getting a margin account open. A quick search on the net provided some examples, here is one - IG, who provide 3 type of accounts - Spread Betting and CFDs (both leveraged) and Stockbroking (which is non-leveraged)."}
{"question":"Does being on the board of a bankruptcy-declaring company affect my credit rating?","answer":"The answer to your question is governed by the structure of the company and your ownership or lack thereof in the business.  Australian business can be structured the same way U.S. ones are, as a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, or company.  If you are only on the board and have no equity, you cannot be affected.  You must have some amount of equity in the business to have any chance of being affected. If the business is a sole proprietorship, then the single individual running the business is personally responsible for all debt and the inability to pay obligations would result in personal bankruptcy which would in all likelihood affect your credit score (it would in the U.S.). If it is a partnership, then anyone holding stock in the company is likewise personally responsible for a portion of the debt, and can be subject to bankruptcy and credit score implications. If the business is structured as a limited liability company or a corporation, a stakeholder's personal finances are separate from the business's and their credit score cannot be affected."}
{"question":"401(k) Investment stategies","answer":"You could end up with nothing, yes.  I imagine those that worked at Enron years ago if their 401(k) was all in company stock would have ended up with nothing to give an example here.  However, more likely is for you to end up with less than you thought as you see other choices as being better that with the benefit of hindsight you wish you had made different choices. The strategies will vary as some people will want something similar to a \"set it and forget it\" kind of investment and there may be fund choices where a fund has a targeted retirement date some years out into the future.  These can be useful for people that don't want to do a lot of research and spend time deciding amongst various choices.  Other people may prefer something a bit more active.  In this case, you have to determine how much work do you want to do, do you want to review fund reviews on places like Morningstar, and do periodic reviews of your investments, etc.  What works best for you is for you to resolve for yourself. As for risks, here are a few possible categories: Time - How many hours a week do you want to spend on this?  How much time learning this do you want to do in the beginning?  While this does apply to everyone, you have to figure out for yourself how much of a cost do you want to take here. Volatility - Some investments may fluctuate in value and this can cause issues for some people as it may change more than they would like.  For example, if you invest rather aggressively, there may be times where you could have a -50% return in a year and that isn't really acceptable to some people. Inflation - Similarly to those investments that vary wildly there is also the risk that with time, prices generally rise and thus there is something to be said for the purchasing power of your investment.  If you want to consider this in more detail consider what $1,000,000 would have bought 30 years ago compared to now. Currency risk - Some investments may be in other currencies and thus there is a risk of how different denominations may impact a return. Fees - How much do your fund's charge in the form of annual expense ratio?  Are you aware of the charges being taken to manage your money here?"}
{"question":"Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it?","answer":"\"Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it? (When printing money, one doesn't need to pay interest).\"  Good question.  Numerous leading economists, including a couple of economics Nobel Laureates have asked the same question and concluded that borrowing can be dispensed with. First, Milton Freidman set out a monetary system in a paper in the American Economic Review which involved no government borrowing, and govt just printed money (in a responsible fashion of course) as and when needed.  See: http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/pss\/1810624 A second Nobel Laureate with similar views was William Vickrey. A third economist with similar views (of Keynes\u2019 era) was Abba Lerner. Keynes said of Lerner, \"Lerner's argument is impeccable, but heaven help anyone who tries to put it across to the plain man at this stage of the evolution of our ideas\"."}
{"question":"Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage?","answer":"NO Even worse, most BTL(buy to let) lenders will not lend if you are going to be living in the property.    There are very few lenders that will touch something like this.    It is likely you will also need to use bridging for the time the building work takes at something like 1.5% per month! Try posting the question to http:\/\/www.propertytribes.com\/ as there are a few UK mortgage experts on that site."}
{"question":"Explain the HSI - why do markets sometimes appear in sync and other times not?","answer":"why do markets sometimes appear in sync, but during other times, not so much By \"markets\" I'm assuming you mean equity indices such as the HSI. Financial products fluctuate with respect to the supply\/demand of the traders. There's been a large increase in the number of hedge funds, prop desks who trade relative values between financial products, that partially explains why these products seem to pick up \"sync\" when they get out of line for a while."}
{"question":"Does FIFO cost basis applies across multiple accounts?","answer":"You decide on a cost bases attribution yourself, per transaction (except for averaging for mutual funds, which if I remember correctly applies to all the positions). It is not a decision your broker makes. Broker only needs to know what you've decided to report it to the IRS on 1099, but if the broker reported wrong basis (because you didn't update your account settings properly, or for whatever else reason) you can always correct it on form 8949 (columns f\/g)."}
{"question":"Is it normal to think of money in different \"contexts\"?","answer":"Well, this relates to how you interpret something's value. We can use that magazine and restaurant as an example. For you the extra $10-$30 more on a decent meal or wine is worth it while $5 for a magazine entertainment on a train ride might not be. This is how all markets work, people make decisions about how they value something and hence choose to spend or not. If you're asking \"should I value certain things the way I do?\" well that's a different story  e.g. should I keep that picture frame for years in the attic to sell it for $3 on eBay later. (probably not worth it) But again you are making that decision based on how YOU choose to value it. So to answer your question: How can I possibly care about this when my stock portfolio is losing (or gaining) $1000 a day? and is it normal? Yes it is normal and we all care. Everyone makes these decisions throughout each day, people will vary as to what they value something to be, but all in all everyone does just what you explained. Here is something that you may find interesting it is about how we value money: What color is your money? if the pdf doesn't work for you then try this link: What color is your money alt link"}
{"question":"Other than being able to borrow to invest, how is a margin trading account different from a cash account?","answer":"With margin accounts you will be able to use the proceeds from a closed trade INSTANTLY.  Without margin accounts this is the time you close the trade + 3 business days for clearing. In practice this means 4-5 days if there is a weekend or holiday involved between those 3 business days. This ties up your capital for an unfavorable amount of time, where as a margin account lets you continue to use the capital over and over again for more opportunities. You CANNOT sell to open a position in cash accounts. This means no short selling. This means no covered calls or spreads and MANY other strategies. These are the real differences you'll notice in a margin account vs a cash account.  Then there are the myriad of regulations that dictate how much cash you should keep in your account for any margin position."}
{"question":"How to realize capital gains before going from non-resident alien to resident alien in USA","answer":"This will work as intended, but there's another point to consider. In the US, the tax rate on proceeds from stock sales is higher for short term holdings, which are defined as held for less than one year. Both rates vary based on your income. Bracket numbers are for fiscal year 2014, filing as single. The difference between short and long term capital gains tax in the US is a minimum of ten percentage points, and works out to 15 percentage points on average. This is substantial. If you won't be reporting much income the year you move to the US (say because you only worked for a portion of the year) it is decidedly to your advantage to wait and sell the stocks in the US, to get that sweet 0% rate. At a minimum, you should hold the position for a year if you sell and rebuy, from a tax optimization perspective. Two caveats:"}
{"question":"Diversification reduces risk, but does this base on the assumption that expected return of each asset is always in proportion to its risk?","answer":"If you have 100% of your money in one security that is inherently more risky than splitting your money 50\/50 between two securities, regardless of the purported riskiness of the two securities. The calculations people use to justify their particular breed of diversification may carry some assumptions related risk\/reward calculations.  But these particular justifications don't change the fact that spreading your money across different assets protects your money from value variances of the individual assets.  Splitting your $100 between Apple and Microsoft stock is probably less valuable (less well diversified) than splitting your money between Apple and Whole Foods stock but either way you're carrying less risk than putting all $100 in to Apple stock regardless of the assumed rates of return for any of these companies stock specifically. Edit: I'm sure the downvotes are because I didn't make a big deal about correlation and measuring correlation and standard deviations of returns and detailed portfolio theory.  Measuring efficacy and justifying your particular allocations (that generally uses data from the past to project the future) is all well and good.  Fact of the matter is, if you have 100% of your money in stock that's more stock risk than 25% in cash, 25% in bonds and 50% in stock would be because now you're in different asset classes.  You can measure to your hearts delight the effects of splitting your money between different specific companies, or different industries, or different market capitalizations, or different countries or different fund managers or different whatever-metrics and doing any of those things will reduce your exposure to those specific allocations.   It may be worth pointing out that currently the hot recommendation is a plain vanilla market tracking S&P 500 index fund (that just buys some of each of the 500 largest US companies without any consideration given to risk correlation) over standard deviation calculating actively managed funds.  If you ask me that speaks volumes of the true efficacy of hyper analyzing the purported correlations of various securities."}
{"question":"Get interest on $100K by spending only $2K using FOREX rollovers?","answer":"I work at a FOREX broker, and can tell you that what you want to do is NOT possible. If someone is telling you it is, they're lying. You could (in theory) make money from the SWAP (the interest you speak of is called SWAP) if you go both short and long on the same currency, but there are various reasons why this never works. Furthermore, I don't know of any brokers that are paying positive SWAP (the interest you speak of is called SWAP) on any currency right now."}
{"question":"Evidence for timing market in the short run?","answer":"The study of technical analysis is generally used (sometimes successfully) to time the markets. There are many aspects to technical analysis, but the simplest form is to look for uptrends and downtrends in the charts. Generally higher highs and higher lows is considered an uptrend.  And lower lows and lower highs is considered a downtrend.  A trend follower would go with the trend, for example see a dip to the trend-line and buy on the rebound. Whilst a bottom fisher would wait until a break in the downtrend line and buy after confirmation of a higher high (as this could be the start of a new uptrend). There are many more strategies dealing with the study of technical analysis, and if you are interested you would need to find and learn about ones that suit your investment styles and your appetite for risk."}
{"question":"Should you always max out contributions to your 401k?","answer":"Definitely not.  You are too young.  Let me explain: Your money will be locked up for at least 40 years, and you will have to navigate some really quirky and trap-laden rules in order to get money for simple things.  Let's say you want to buy a house.  You won't be able to leverage the 401K for that.  College Tuition?  Limits. Your money is locked in and you may get some match, but that assumes your smartest decision at your age is to save money for retirement.  At your age, you should be investing in your career, and that requires cash at hand.  If you want to withdraw early you pay more of a penalty than just the tax rate.   Put differently: investing in your human capital, at a young age, can yield stronger results than just squirreling money.  I'd say don't worry until you are 30. BTW: I'm 24 now.  I used to save money in a 401K for a few months, before I understood the rules.  Since then, I decided against 401K and just saved the money in a bank.  After a few years, I had enough to start my business :)  the 401K couldn't give me that opportunity. Further Explanation: I am in the NYC area.  Many of my friends and I had to decide between living in manhattan or choosing to live in the outer boroughs or NJ.  One thing I noticed was that, while the people in manhattan were burning much more money (to the tune of 1500 per month), they were actually much more productive and were promoted more often.  Having lived in brooklyn and in manhattan, even though it is less expensive, you actually lose at least an hour a day thanks to the commute (and have to deal with crap like the 6 train).  Personally, after moving in, I invested the extra time in myself (i.e. sleeping more, working longer hours, side projects).  Now, when all is said and done, the people who decided to invest in themselves in the short term are financially more secure (both job-wise and economically, thanks to a few bonus cycles) than those who decided to save on rent and put it in a 401K. As far as the traps are concerned, my dad tried to take out a student loan and was denied thanks to a Vanguard quirk which didnt allow more than 50K to be borrowed (even though the account had over 500K to begin with)."}
{"question":"How can I find a list of self-select stocks & shares ISA providers? ","answer":"http:\/\/www.moneysupermarket.com\/shares\/CompareSharesForm.asp lists many. I found the Interactive Investor website to be excruciatingly bad. I switched to TD Waterhouse and found the website good but the telephone service a bit abrupt. I often use the data presented on SelfTrade but don't have an account there."}
{"question":"Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? ","answer":"Something that is missing from the discussion is the actual market for the lottery ticket -- if a market existed for the tickets themselves, that would make this far more obvious, but since there isn't one; buying a single ticket gives different Expected Values, but since the ticket has a defined 'game' instance, a single ticket is a gamble. Playing the lottery in the long run could be part of a high risk investment portfolio. [edited for clarity]"}
{"question":"Should my husband's business pay my business?","answer":"Just from my own experience (I am not an accountant): In addition to counting as 'business income' (1040 line 12 [1]) your $3000 (or whatever) will be subject to ~15% self-employment tax, on Schedule SE.  This carries to your 1040 line ~57, which is after all your 'adjustments to income', exemptions, and deductions - so, those don't reduce it.  Half of the 15% is deductible on line ~27, if you have enough taxable income for it to matter; but, in any case, you will owe at least 1\/2 of the 15%, on top of your regular income tax. Your husband could deduct this payment as a business expense on Schedule C; but, if (AIUI) he will have a loss already, he'll get no benefit from this in the current year.   If you do count this as income to you, it will be FICA income; so, it will be credited to your Social Security account. Things outside my experience that might bear looking into:  I suspect the IRS has criteria to determine whether spousal payments are legit, or just gaming the tax system.  Even if your husband can't 'use' the loss this year, he may be able to apply it in the future, when\/if he has net business income. [1] NB: Any tax form line numbers are as of the last I looked - they may be off by one or two."}
{"question":"Figuring out if I receive US income?","answer":"I believe the answer is no, since your income from royalties and app sales would fall under FDAP income. (another conformation of this would be the fact that Apple and Google requested a W8-BEN form from you and not a W8-ECI form) Generally, All income EXCEPT FDAP income (fixed or determinable annual or periodical income) are ECI income.  FDAP income includes income from interest, rent, dividends etc. IRS link to a list of all Income classified under FDAP below:- https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/individuals\/international-taxpayers\/fixed-determinable-annual-periodical-fdap-income https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/iw8eci.pdf (page 3 - under effectively connected income)"}
{"question":"question about short selling stocks","answer":"My take on this is that with any short-selling contract you are engaging in, at a specified time in the future you will need to transfer ownership of the item(s) you sold to the buyer. Whether you own the item(s) or in your case you will buy your friend's used  car in the meantime (or dig enough gold out of the ground - in the case of hedging a commodity exposure) is a matter of \"trust\". Hence there is normally some form of margin or credit-line involved to cover for you failing to deliver on expiry."}
{"question":"How to quantify differences in return with low expense ratio vs high expense ratio mutual funds?","answer":"Yes you should take in the expenses being incurred by the mutual fund. This  lists down the fees charged by the mutual fund and where expenses can be found in the annual statement of the fund. To calculate fees and expenses. As you might expect, fees and expenses vary from fund to fund. A fund with high costs must perform better than a low-cost fund to generate the same returns for you. Even small differences in fees can translate into large differences in returns over time. You don't pay expenses, so the money is taken from the assets of the fund. So you pay it indirectly. If the expenses are huge, that may point to something i.e. fund managers are enjoying at your expense, money is being used somewhere else rather than being paid as dividends. If the expenses are used in the growth of the fund, that is a positive sign. Else you can expect the fund to be downgraded or upgraded by the credit rating agencies, depending on how the credit rating agencies see the expenses of the fund and other factors. Generally comparison should be done with funds invested in the same sectors, same distribution of assets so that you have a homogeneous comparison to make. Else it would be unwise to compare between a fund invested in oil companies and other in computers. Yes the economy is inter twined, but that is not how a comparison should be done."}
{"question":"Should I avoid credit card use to improve our debt-to-income ratio?","answer":"The answer depends on how much you spend every month. The DTI is calculated using the minimum payment on the balance owed on your card.  Credit card minimum payments are ridiculous, often being only $50 for balances of a couple thousand dollars. In any case, when you get preapproved, the lender will tell you (based on your DTI) the maximum amount they will approve you for. If your minimum payment is $50, that's another $50 that could go towards your mortgage, which could mean an additional $10,000 financed. It's up to you to decide if $10,000 will make enough of a difference in the houses you look at."}
{"question":"What's an economic explanation for why greeting cards are so expensive? ","answer":"We generally speak of the \"elasticity of demand\". Greeting cards are expensive because they can be. We buy them in a sentimentally weakened state, and we do not buy them by the tonne. There is also the concept of \"Market Segmentation\", but not so much. Essentially the price is determined by finding the \"point of pain\" and winding it back a little. So people will pay $5 for a card.  They will not (generally) pay $5,000 unless there is a good reason (vanity ?). Why sell them for $2 ? The customers who baulk at $5 tend not to even have $2. (Market segmentation again).  In short the price is always going to need to be set before the point where demand rolls off sharply, to maximise profit."}
{"question":"When does a low PE ratio not indicate a good stock?","answer":"PE can be misleading when theres a good risk the company simply goes out of business in a few years. For this reason some people use PEG, which incorporates growth into the equation."}
{"question":"Do marketmakers always quote a bid and ask simultaneously","answer":"Market makers (shortened MM) in an exchange are generally required to list both a bid and ask price to allow both buyers and sellers to trade and keep the market moving.  However, a more general idea of a MM may includes companies off an exchange (say large banks acting as broker\/dealers in an over-the-counter market) are not required to give a simultaneous bid\/ask, but often will on request.  So, it might depend on where you are getting this data but likely the bid\/ask was quoted simultaneously. An exchange, like the NASDAQ for instance, may have multiple MMs for a given market.  The \"market\" spread will be from the highest bid to the lowest ask over all the MMs.  The highest bid and lowest ask may come from different MMs and any particular MM often will have a larger spread. The size of the spread gives a rough idea of how much a MM is trying to make off of a \"round trip\" trade (buying than immediately selling to someone else or selling than immediately buying from someone else).  Of course, immediate round-trip trades are not always possible and there are many other complications.  However, half the spread is a rough indicator of how much they hope to make off of a single trade."}
{"question":"Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?","answer":"Basically a company who provides health insurance for their employees provides it as part of the employee's salary package. This is an expense by the company in its pursuit of making income. In general, tax deductions are available on any expense incurred in deriving income (the exception is when social policy allows deductions for other types of expenses). If you pay for your own health insurance individually, then this expense is not an expense for you to derive your income, and as such is not tax deductible."}
{"question":"Where should I invest to hedge against the stock market going down?","answer":"If you were certain you would probably do best by short selling an ETF that tracked the index for the market you think was about to tank. You'd certainly make a lot more money on that strategy than precious metals. If you were feeling super confident and want to make your money earn even more, you could also buy a bunch of put options on those same ETF funds. Obligatory Warning: Short selling and options can be extremely risky. While most investments cap your potential losses to your total investment, a short sale has no theoretical limit to the amount of money you can lose."}
{"question":"Why is the breakdown of a loan repayment into principal and interest of any importance?","answer":"The breakdown between how much of your payment is going toward principal and interest is very important.   The principal balance remaining on your loan is the payoff amount.  Once the principal is paid off, your loan is finished.  Each month, some of your payment goes to pay off the principal, and some goes to pay interest (profit for the bank). Using your example image, let's say that you've just taken out a $300k mortgage at 5% interest for 30 years.  You can click here to see the amortization schedule on that loan.  The monthly payment is $1610.46. On your first payment, only $360 went to pay off your principal.  The rest ($1250) went to interest.  That money is lost.  If you were to pay off your $300k mortgage after making one payment, it would cost you $299,640, even though you had just made a payment of $1250.  Interest accrues on the principal balance, so as time goes on and more of the principal has been paid, the interest payment is less, meaning that more of your monthly payment can go toward the principal.   15 years into your 30-year mortgage, your monthly payment is paying $762 of your principal, and only $849 is going toward interest.  Your principal balance at that time would be about $203k.  Even though you are halfway done with your mortgage in terms of time, you've only paid off about a third of your house. Toward the end of your mortgage, when your principal balance is very low, almost all of your payment goes toward principal.  In the last year, only $513 of your payments goes toward interest for the whole year. You can think of your monthly loan payment as a minimum payment.  If you continue to make the regular monthly payments, your mortgage will be paid off in 30 years.  However, if you pay more than that, your mortgage will be paid off much sooner.  The extra that you pay above your regular monthly payment all goes toward principal. Even if you have no plans to pay your mortgage ahead of schedule, there are other situations where the principal balance matters.  The principal balance of your mortgage affects the amount of equity that you have in your home, which is important if you sell the house.  If you decide to refinance your mortgage, the principal balance is the amount that will need to be paid off by the new loan to close the old loan."}
{"question":"In the stock market, why is the \"open\" price value never the same as previous day's \"close\"?","answer":"A stock's price does not move in a completely continuous fashion.  It moves in discrete steps depending on who is buying\/selling at given prices. I'm guessing that by opening bell the price for buying\/selling a particular stock has changed based on information obtained overnight. A company's stock closes at $40.  Overnight, news breaks that the company's top selling product has a massive defect.  The next morning the market opens.  Are there any buyers of the stock at $40?  Probably not.  The first trade of the stock takes place at $30 and is thus, not the same as the previous day's close."}
{"question":"What are the tax implications if I do some work for a company for trade, rather than pay?","answer":"Bartering is a tricky discussion. Yes, it definitely applies when you are self-employed and do a job that you would charge anyone else for, but what if you are helping a friend in your spare time? If you receive something in exchange, the value of the item you received would be your income, but what if you don't receive anything in exchange? If the company bought a computer that they loan to you to do occasional work for them, there's no reason you couldn't take the computer home and have that company retain ownership of the property. They could still expense the depreciation of the computer without giving it to you. If it were a car though, you would have to count mileage for personal use as income. What if you exchange occasional tech support for the use of an empty desk and Internet connection? As long as they aren't renting desks for money to others, there's probably no additional marginal cost to them if they allow you to use the space, so the fair market value question breaks down."}
{"question":"How to send money across borders physically and inexpensively, but not via cash?","answer":"There are checks, international wire transfers (SWIFT), depending on country pair remittance services."}
{"question":"Why do VAT-registered businesses in the EU charge VAT to each other?","answer":"But why can't two companies exchange goods directly without paying VAT? This would make the famous carousel fraud scam impossible and businesses won't have to deal with complicated refunds. Sales tax in the United States works as you describe.  Sales tax is charged only to end customers, not to businesses that themselves charge sales tax.  But this means that a criminal business can charge tax and just pocket it unless someone else reports it.  They can also evade income tax the same way.  Not to mention other issues like cross jurisdiction taxes (e.g. internet sales often evade sales tax).   The whole point of a Value Added Tax (VAT) is that they charge at each level.  This creates a system where each buyer reports the tax paid to the seller so as to be able to deduct it.  So the seller has to pay the VAT that they charged.  Or the tax authorities know and can revoke their VAT license.   If only the end user is charged tax, then fraud is easier than under a VAT.  So easy, I doubt they have a special name for it.  The fraudulent business just collects tax from end users and disappears.  Or simply fails to record those transactions.  You could call it missing transaction record fraud, but why bother?  It's just straight up tax fraud.  The complexity of the carousel fraud arises from the difficulty of evading a VAT."}
{"question":"As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks?","answer":"How I understand it is: supply\/demand affect price of stock   negatively\/positively, respectively. Correct. Volume is the amount of buying\/selling activity in these stocks (more   volume = more fluctuation, right?). Sort of.  Higher volume means higher liquidity.  That is, a stock that is traded more is easier to trade.  It doesn't necessarily mean more fluctuation and in the real world, it often means that these are well-understood stocks with a high amount of analyst coverage.  This tends towards these stocks not being as volatile as smaller stocks with less liquidity. Company revenue (and profit) will help an investor predict company   growth. That is one factor in a stock price.  There are certain stocks that you would buy without them making a profit because their future revenue looks potentially explosive.  However, these stocks are very risky and are bubble-prone. If you're starting out in the share market, it's generally a good idea to invest in index funds (I am not a broker, my advice should not be taken as financial advice).  These funds aggregate risk by holding a lot of different companies.  Also, statistics have shown that over time, buying and holding index funds long term tends to dramatically outperform other investment strategies, particularly for people with low amounts of capital."}
{"question":"How to improve credit score and borrow money","answer":"No you should not borrow money at 44.9%.  I would recommend not borrowing money except for a home with a healthy deposit (called down payment outside UK). in December 2016, i had financial crisis So that was like 12 days ago.  You make it sound like the crisis was a total random event, that you did nothing to cause it. Financial crises are rarely without fault.  Common causes are failure to understand risk, borrowing too much, insuring too little, improper maintenance, improper reserves, improper planning, etc...  Taking a good step or two back and really understanding the cause of your financial crisis and how it could be avoided in the future is very useful.  Talk to someone who is actually wealthy about how you could have behaved differently to avoid the \"crisis\". There are some small set of crises that are no fault of your own.  However in those cases the recipe to recovery is patience.  Attempting to recover in 12 days is a recipe for further disaster. Your willingness to consider borrowing at 44% suggests this crisis was self-inflicted.  It also indicates you need a whole lot more education in personal finance.  This is reinforced by your insatiable desire for a high credit score.  Credit score is no indication of wealth, and is meaningless until you desire to borrow money.  From what I read, you should not be borrowing money. When the time comes for you to buy a home with a mortgage, its fairly easy to have a high enough credit score to borrow at a good rate.  You get there by paying your bills on time and having a sufficient deposit.    Don't chase a high credit score at the expense of building real wealth."}
{"question":"Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? ","answer":"I tend to agree with Rocky's answer.  However it sounds like you want to look at this from the numbers side of things.  So let's consider some numbers: I'm assuming you have the money to buy the new car available as cash in hand, and that if you don't buy the car, you'll invest it reasonably.  So if you buy the new car today, you're $17K out of pocket.  Let's look at some scenarios and compare.  Assuming: If you buy the new car today, then after 1 year you'll have: If you keep the old car, after 1 year you get: After 2 years, you have: And after 3 years, you're at: Or in other words, nothing depletes the value of your assets faster than buying the new car. After 1 year, you've essentially lost $5K to depreciation.    However, over the short term the immediate cost of the tires combined with the continued depreciation of the old car do reduce your purchasing power somewhat (you won't be able to muster $25K towards a new car without chipping in a bit of extra cash), and inflation will tend to drive the cost of the new car up as time goes on.  So the relative gap between the value of your assets and the cost of the new car tends to increase, though it stays well below the $5k that you lose to depreciation if you buy the new car immediately.  Which is something that you could potentially spin to support whichever side you prefer, I suppose. Though note that I've made some fairly pessimistic assumptions.  In particular, the current U.S. inflation rate is under 1%, and a new car may depreciate by as much as 25% in the first year while older cars may depreciate by less than the 8% assumed.  And I selected the cheapest new car price cited, and didn't credit the tires with adding any value to your old car.  Each of those aspects tends to make continuing to drive the older car a better option than buying the new one."}
{"question":"How does a online only bank protect itself against fraud? ","answer":"@ Daniel Anderson shared interesting insights. In my research I learned a few things Some interesting data on fraud trends  AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey 2016 As a consumer, at the very least I'd improve awareness of I'd also learn about basic types of fraud And for the techies out there, I'd recommend learning about layered security (There's no way the customer service is going to talk about this)"}
{"question":"Is 0% credit card utilization worse than 1-20% credit card utilization for any reason other than pure statistics?","answer":"One rule of thumb is that having regular activity on at least three different revolving accounts will improve your score: I agree that it may not be a great idea to have too many open credit accounts (Trade Lines) reporting on your credit report but if you don\u2019t have enough active accounts, it will  prevent you from being approved for a home mortgage. Both Conventional (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) mortgage loans and Government loans (such as FHA and VA) require that you have a minimum number of reporting trade lines that are active or have been active within the most recent 24 month period of time. An example of meeting the mortgage loan requirement is having a revolving account (credit card) that has been reporting activity for the past 24 months plus 2 other trade lines that have had activity reported for 12 months each, both within the past 24 months."}
{"question":"How big of a mortgage can I realistically afford?","answer":"You're biting off a lot. Let's say you can swing 5% for a down payment: $13k.  A 30-year loan on $247k at the rate you quote gives you a payment of $1,270 per month. This does not include taxes, insurance, or private mortgage insurance (which you'll pay because you have a down payment less than 20%).  The PMI will run you about $150-$200 per month, I think, until your loan-to-value ratio falls below 80%. Plus your HOA fee, utilities, your 401(k) loan payment, etc., you're pushing $2k\/month. You have a roommate in mind, and that will help, but the roommate can go, and you still own the property.  Then you get the whole payment all to yourself. If I had the option, I'd rent a little longer.  Save up for a decent down payment, and shop around for someone who is desperate to sell."}
{"question":"OTC Markets, Time, and Trading","answer":"Something to consider is that in the case of the company you chose, on the OTC market, that stock is thinly traded and with such low volume, it can be easy for it to fluctuate greatly to have trades occur.  This is why volume can matter for some people when it comes to buying shares. Some OTC stocks may have really low volume and thus may have bigger swings than other stocks that have higher volume."}
{"question":"What are some good books for learning stocks, bonds, derivatives e.t.c for beginner with a math background?","answer":"Start with Options, Futures and Other Derivatives by John Hull."}
{"question":"What choices should I consider for investing money that I will need in two years?","answer":"If you ever need the money in three years, imagine that today is 2006 and you need the money in 2009.  Keep it in savings accounts, money-markets, or CDs maturing at the right time."}
{"question":"Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?","answer":"I'm sorry, but your math is wrong.  You are not equally likely to make as much money by waiting for expiration. Share prices are moving constantly in both directions.  Very rarely does any stock go either straight up or straight down.  Consider a stock with a share price of $12 today.  Perhaps that stock is a bad buy, and in 1 month's time it will be down to $10.  But the market hasn't quite wised up to this yet, and over the next week it rallies up to $15. If you bought a European option (let's say an at-the-money call, expiring in 1 month, at $12 on our start date), then you lost.  Your option expired worthless. If you bought an American option, you could have exercised it when the share price was at $15 and made a nice profit. Keep in mind we are talking about exactly the same stock, with exactly the same history, over exactly the same time period.  The only difference is the option contract.  The American option could have made you money, if you exercised it at any time during the rally, but not the European option - you would have been forced to hold onto it for a month and finally let it expire worthless. (Of course that's not strictly true, since the European option itself can be sold while it is in the money - but eventually, somebody is going to end up holding the bag, nobody can exercise it until expiration.) The difference between an American and European option is the difference between getting N chances to get it right (N being the number of days 'til expiration) and getting just one chance.  It should be easy to see why you're more likely to profit with the former, even if you can't accurately predict price movement."}
{"question":"Is the Canadian Securities Course (CSC) enough to get started in the finance industry in Canada?","answer":"Wikipedia says \"The Canadian Securities Course (CSC) offered by the Canadian Securities Institute (CSI) is the initial course required for becoming licensed to work within the Canadian securities industry (outside Quebec) as a securities dealer or securities agent.\" Src: Candian Securities Course EfficientMarket Canada adds \" You require it and further courses for other jobs in the investment industry. Generally some work experience is also required. All of this is governed by various self-regulatory agencies. The material in the course is strong on money making products, and fairly weak on material that would actually protect a consumer from harm. Passing the course is very little indication that you understand what's important about investing, for example, you won't be taught much of anything about the theory of investment, or the markets, or things like the efficient market hypothesis.\" Src: EfficientMarket.ca on the CSC So it appears that the CSC is necessary to work as certain types of financial agencies. That being said, I doubt it will be enough to get your foot in the door. This seems more like a prerequisite rather than a true qualification, so you'll be competing with MBAs\/Finance students and other people who either have experience or training in the financial industry. I'd recommend you look into the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) certification as that will provide you with a rigorous knowledge of financial theory as well as asset management, which seems more appropriate for what you'd like to do. From there you'll have to network like crazy and leverage your experience to get in at a Canadian financial firm and eventually wealth management. So yes, I suppose a CSC is a good first step but more will certainly be required and I doubt it will be enough to land you a full time position.  Another important factor is age - nobody expects undergrads to have extensive certifications or experience, but it's harder for a 35 year old to enter a new industry, especially finance."}
{"question":"Snowball debt or pay off a large amount?","answer":"Pay the Best Buy first.  Most of these \"Do not pay until...\" deals require you to retire the entire debt by the deadline, or they will charge you deferred interest for the entire period. So, if this was a six-month deal, they're going to hit you for an extra $300 in December."}
{"question":"Income in zero-interest environment","answer":"Dividends. There are blue chip companies that have paid and raised their dividends for 20 or more years. As an example: Altria (MO). There are also ETFs that specialize in such stocks such as SDY."}
{"question":"Small withdrawals from IRA","answer":"First - Welcome to Money.SE. You gave a lot of detail, and it's tough to parse out the single question. Actually, you have multiple issues. $1300 is what you need to pay the tax? In the 25% bracket plus 10% penalty, you have a 65% net amount. $1300\/.65 = Exactly $2000. You withdraw $2000, have them (the IRA holder) withhold $700 in federal tax, and you're done.  All that said, don't do it. Nathan's answer - payment plan with IRS - is the way to go.  You've shared with us a important issue. Your budget is running too tight. We have a post here, \"the correct order of investing\" which provides a great guideline that applies to most visitors. You are missing the part that requires a decent sized emergency fund. In your case, calling it that, may be a misnomer, as the tax bill isn't an unexpected emergency, but something that should have been foreseeable. We have had a number of posts here that advocate the paid in full house. And I always respond that the emergency fund comes first. With $70K of income, you should have $35K or so of liquidity, money readily available. Tax due in April shouldn't be causing you this grief. Please read that post I linked and others here to help you with the budgeting issue.  Last - You are in an enviable position, A half million dollars, no mortgage, mid 40s. Easily doing better than most. So, please forgive the soapbox tone of the above, it was just my \"see, that's what I'm talking about\" moment from my tenure here."}
{"question":"Yahoo Finance not showing detailed information for foreign stocks","answer":"The cause of incomplete\/inaccurate financial data's appearing on free sites is that it is both complicated and expensive to obtain and parse these data. Even within a single country, different pieces of financial data are handled by different authorities.  In the US, for example, there is one generally recognized authority for stock prices and volumes (CQS), but a completely different authority for corporate earnings data (SEC).  For futures and options data the only authority is each individual exchange.  Each of these sources might have a vastly different interface to their data; some may have websites, others may have FTPs, others may have TCP datastreams to which you must subscribe, etc. Now throw in the rest of the world and all their exchanges and regulatory agencies, and you can see how it's a difficult job to gather all this information, parse it on a daily (or more frequent) basis, and check it all for errors. There are some companies (e.g. Bloomberg) whose entire business model is to do the above.  They spend tens of millions of dollars per year to support the infrastructure and manpower required to keep such a complex system working, and they charge their consumers a pretty penny in return. Do Google\/Yahoo pay for Bloomberg data access just to display information that we then consume for free?  Maybe.  Maybe they pay for some less expensive reduced data set.  Or a data set that is less rigorously checked for errors. Even if they pay for the best data available, there's no guarantee that a company's last earnings report didn't have a glitch in it, or that Bloomberg's latest download from the Canadian Agency for Corporate Dividends and Moose Census-Taking didn't get cut off in the middle, or that the folks at Yahoo built a robust system that can handle a particular file's not arriving on time.  Bloomberg has dozens or even hundreds of employees focused on just this one task; Yahoo probably has 5. Moral: If you really need the best available data you must go to the source(s), or you must pay a provider to whom you can then complain when something is wrong.  With free data you get what you pay for."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"This is typically an issue for local law and regulation.  Once one person moves out, I would recommend one of the following options: Generally speaking, if there are clear records of all of the payments made by both parties, all of the costs associated with the maintenance and who made what use of the place, the final ownership can be resolved fairly even in the absence of a clear agreement. The pain and hassle to do it, though, is generally not worth the effort - even if it's an amicable relationship between the two owners. Your best bet is to agree as early as possible on what you plan to do, and to write it down - if you didn't have a contract before moving in together, write one up now."}
{"question":"privacy concerns when receiving money from paypal from strangers?","answer":"You'll need to check PayPal's terms of service for that first question. I would imagine you could, as my wife and I both have personal PayPal accounts listed at the same address. When you receive money, the senders will only see the (full) name on your account, the amount, and the transaction ID. If you set up a business account, the name on your account will be replaced with the company name. Your mailing address will not be made visible. Yes, PayPal provides an export option of your transaction history. For reference: If your volume greater than $20,000 across 200 or more transactions, then they'll be issuing a 1099-K form, anyway. That depends on the payment method. Bank transfers are instant, where cards require a settlement delay. PayPal provides buyer protection, so I'd be very dutiful in logging all of your work done to provide proof of completion, in case someone disputes a payment. Disputes can take place up to 45 days from the date of the transaction. Chargebacks can take place 120 days or more after the transaction (depends on the card network)."}
{"question":"How to send money across borders physically and inexpensively, but not via cash?","answer":"I assume the same criteria apply for this as your previous question. You want to physically transfer in excess of 50,000 USD multiple times a week and you want the transportation mechanism to be instant or very quick. I don't believe there is any option that won't raise serious red flags with the government entities you cross the boundaries of. Even a cheque, which a person in the comments of OP's question suggests, wouldn't be sufficient due to government regulation requiring banks to put holds on such large amounts."}
{"question":"What is a \"fiat\" currency? Are there other types of currency?","answer":"There's two types of categories at play that define currency types - but I think the first is more like what you are after.  The first is there are essentially three currency types now recognised - see them described here: http:\/\/finance.mapsofworld.com\/money\/types\/ The second is currencies can be categorised by the type of economy from which they are generated (reserve\/commodity\/etc) - see them described here: http:\/\/www.forextraders.com\/learn-forex-trading-course\/major-currency-pairs.html"}
{"question":"Should I open a Roth IRA or invest in the S&P 500?","answer":"Your question indicates confusion regarding what an Individual Retirement Account (whether Roth or Traditional) is vs. the S&P 500, which is nothing but a list of stocks. IOW, it's perfectly reasonable to open a Roth IRA, put your $3000 in it, and then use that money to buy a mutual fund or ETF which tracks the S&P 500. In fact, it's ridiculously common...  :)"}
{"question":"Offsetting the tax on vested RSUs with short term capital loss","answer":"No. The gain on RSU is not a capital gain, it is considered wages and treated as part of your salary, for tax purposes. You cannot offset it with capital losses in excess of $3000 a year. If you have RSUs left after they vest, and you then sell them at gain, the gain (between the vesting price and the sale price) is capital gain and can be offset by your prior years' capital losses."}
{"question":"What does it mean that stocks are \"memoryless\"?","answer":"@jidugger mostly got it right. It basically mean that past performance of a stock, or a basket of stocks, are not at all useful when trying to predict its future. There is no proven correlation between past and future performance. If there was such a correlation, that was \"proven\" or known, then investors would quickly exploit this correlation by buying or selling this stock, thus nullifying the prediction. It doesn't mean the specific individuals cannot predict the future stock market - hell, if I set up 2^100 different robots, where every robots gives a different series of answers to the 100 questions \"how will stock X do Y days from now\" (for 1<=Y<=100), then one of those robots would be perfectly correct. The problem is that an outside observer has no way of knowing which of the predictor robots is right. To say that stock is memoryless strikes me as not quite right -- to   the extent that stocks are valued based on earnings, much of what we   infer about future earnings relies on past and present earnings. To put it another way - you have $1000 now, and need to decide whether to invest in a particular stock, or a stock index. The \"memoryless\" property means that no matter how many earning reports you view ... by the time you see them, the stock price already accounts for them, so they're not useful to you. If the earning reports are positive, the stock is already \"too high\" because people bought it before you did. So on average, you can't use this information to predict the stock's future performance, and are better off investing in an index fund (unless you desire extra risk that doesn't come with more profitability)."}
{"question":"Is giving my girlfriend money for her mortgage closing costs and down payment considered fraud?","answer":"There is not any fraud involved. Anybody can gift money to another person."}
{"question":"What is the best source of funding to pay off debt?","answer":"Please take a look a Dave Ramsey's Baby Step plan.  It has all the details that you need to clean up your personal finance situation.   None of your options are good.   As some of the other answers mentioned, behavior modification is the key. Any idea will be worthless if you just wind up in debt again.  Many, many people, including me, have made the change using Dave's plan.  You can too. With regard to helping your son with tuition, are there better or cheaper options?  It does not make sense to put yourself in financial peril in order to cover college expenses.  I understand that is a tough decision but he is a man now and needs to be part of the real world solution.  Following the Baby Steps: The biggest factor is a belief that you can fix the mess. 30k is not really that much, with a good plan and focus, you can clean it up.  Good luck."}
{"question":"My tenant wants to pay rent through their company: Should this raise a red flag?","answer":"The company that's apparently going to pay this rent wants to treat it as a business expense.  They are asking for your SSN because they expect to issue a 1099-MISC. (They probably gave you a Form W-9? It's not mandatory but it's common to request a taxpayer ID on this form.) There are a couple of issues at play here:"}
{"question":"Why is it rational to pay out a dividend?","answer":"The real value of a share of stock is the current cash value of all dividends the owner will receive, plus the current cash value of the final liquidation if any.  Since people with different needs may judge the current cash value of an income stream differently, there would be a market basis for people to buy and sell stocks even if everyone could predict all future payouts perfectly. If shareholders knew that a company wouldn't pay any dividends until it was liquidated in the year 2066, whereupon it would pay $2000\/share, then each share would in 2016 effectively be a fifty-year zero-coupon bond with a $2000 maturity value.  While some investors would be willing to trade in such an instrument, the amount of money a company could charge for such an instrument would be far lower than the money it could charge for one with payouts that were more evenly distributed through time. Since the founders of most companies want their companies to be around for a long time, that would mean that shareholders would have no expectation of their shares ever yielding anything of value within any foreseeable timeframe.  Even those who would be more interested in share-price appreciation than dividends wouldn't be able to see share prices rise if there wasn't any likelihood of the stock being bought by someone who wanted the dividends."}
{"question":"How Do Scammers \/ Money Launderers Profit From Loans To Victims","answer":"What was the true reason they wanted to use my accounts for? We wouldn't know the true reason. The scammer can do multiple things. What exactly he would do in your case ... I am very eager to know what a person was up to who would give to me so much information about themselves. I know some of you will jump on the chance to yell \"it was not their true address\", but.... it is where they wanted me to send the cards to. And I was to give proof of my identification ie; a copy of my drivers license, my articles of incorporation and the real estate development project prospectus. Also they were only willing to work with certain banks ie; Citibank, Bank of America etc. I can not understand what they were doing wanting such access to accounts that had no money in them save the amount I used to open them with. It looks more like they would open accounts under your name, but they would be controlling the accounts. i.e. what goes in and out. i.e. they would be able to deposit and withdraw from a new account they set-up. They would want to use this account for illegal activities, so that if caught, the account opening paper trail leads to you. Even if they gave you an address, it could be rental. Like they have copies of your Company registration and ID proofs, they can use these to get another rental property ... and then send letters to some and ask them to met there."}
{"question":"Self employed, putting away tax money","answer":"Hearing somewhere is a level or two worse than \"my friend told me.\"  You need to do some planning to forecast your full year income and tax bill. In general, you should be filing a quarterly form and tax payment. You'll still reconcile the year with an April filing, but if you are looking to save up to pay a huge bill next year, you are looking at the potential of a penalty for under-withholding.  The instructions and payment coupons are available at the IRS site.  At this point I'm required to offer the following advice - If you are making enough money that this even concerns you, you should consider starting to save for the future. A Solo-401(k) or IRA, or both. Read more on these two accounts and ask separate questions, if you'd like."}
{"question":"Do Fundamentals Matter Anymore in Stock Markets? ","answer":"Are you implying that Amazon is a better investment than GE because Amazon's P\/E is 175 while GE's is only 27?  Or that GE is a better investment than Apple because Apple's P\/E is just 13.  There are a lot of other ratios to consider than P\/E.  I personally view high P\/E numbers as a red flag.  One way to think of a P\/E ratio is the number of years it's expected for the company to earn its market cap.  (Share price divided by annual earnings per share)  It will take Amazon 175 years to earn $353 billion. If I was going to buy a dry cleaners, I would not pay the owner 175 years of earnings to take control of it, I'd never see my investment back. To your point.  There is so much future growth seemingly built in to today's stock market that even when a company posts higher than expected earnings, the company's stock may take a hit because maybe future prospects are a little less bright than everyone thought yesterday. The point of fundamental analysis is that you want to look at a company's management style and financial strategies.  How is it paying its debt?  How is it accumulating the debt?  How is it's return on assets?  How is the return on assets trending?  This way when you look at a few companies in the same market segment you may have a better shot at picking the winner over time.  The company that piles on new debt for every new project is likely to continue that path in to oblivion, regardless of the P\/E ratio. (or some other equally less forward thinking management practice that you uncover in your fundamental analysis efforts). And I'll add... No amount of historical good decision making from a company's management can prepare for a total market downturn, or lack of investor confidence in general.  The market is the market; sometimes it's up irrationally, sometimes it's down irrationally."}
{"question":"Can you beat the market by investing in double long ETFs? [duplicate]","answer":"See http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/felix-salmon\/2011\/04\/30\/why-the-sec-should-look-at-levered-etfs\/?dlvrit=60132, http:\/\/symmetricinfo.org\/2011\/04\/are-investors-in-levered-short-treasury-etfs-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-pt1\/, and the articles linked from it: The issue with holding a levered ETF past 1 day is that investors expose themselves to path dependency in the underlying.... The reason for the difference in payouts comes from the fact that the manager of the levered ETF promises you a multiple of the daily returns of the underlying. To be able to promise you these daily returns, the ETF manager has to buy\/sell some of the underlying every day to position himself to have a constant leverage ratio the next day. The short video below explains this process in detail for a 2x long ETF, but the same result holds for a 2x short ETF: the manager has to buy more of the underlying on a day when the underlying increases in value and sell more of the underlying when the underlying goes down in value ."}
{"question":"Getting Cash from Credit Card without Fees","answer":"You said: Use a credit card (to get my 3% Cash back) to withdraw cash ... Then you said: Is there any way to do this without paying a cash advance fee (or any fees in general)? Right there you have stated the inconsistency.  Withdrawing cash using a credit card is a cash advance.  You may or may not be charged a fee for doing the cash advance, but no credit card will offer you cash back on a cash advance, so you can't earn your 3% by using cash advances. As others have mentioned, you can sometimes get close by using the card to purchase things that are almost like cash, such as gift cards.  But you have to make a purchase."}
{"question":"Under what circumstance will the IRS charge you a late-payment penalty for taxes?","answer":"I just got hit with the late payment penalty due to a bug in the H&R Block tax program.  The underpayment was only $2 and the penalty was a whopping 1 cent.   The letter that informed me of the error also said that they did not consider the $2.01 worth collecting, the amount owed had been zeroed."}
{"question":"Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?","answer":"The 2 and 20 rule is a premium arrangement that hedge funds offer and venture capital funds offer, and they also offer different variations of it. The 2 is the management fee as percent of assets under management, the 20 is the profit cut, which they only get if they are profitable. There are 0\/20, 1\/15, and many variations. You're assuming that nobody offers this arrangement because it isn't offered to you, but that's because nobody offers it to people that aren't wealthy enough to legally qualify for their fund. When you park 6 or 7 figure amounts in bank accounts, they'll send your information out to the funds that operate the way you wish they operated."}
{"question":"Why does gold have value?","answer":"Gold has value because for the most of the history of mankind's use of money, Gold and Silver have repeatedly been chosen by free markets as the best form of money. Gold is durable, portable, homogeneous, fungible, divisible, rare, and recognizable.   Until 1971, most of the world's currencies were backed by Gold.  In 1971, the US government defaulted on its obligation to redeem US Dollars (by which most other currencies were backed) in Gold, as agreed to by the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944.  We didn't choose to go off the Gold Standard, we had no choice - Foreign Central Banks were demanding redeption in Gold, and the US didn't have enough - we inflated too much.   I think that the current swell of interest in Gold is due to the recent massive increase in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, plus the fast growing National debt, plus a looming Social Security \/ Medicare crisis.  People are looking for protection of their savings, and they wish to \"opt-out\" of the government bail-outs, government deficits, government run health-care, and government money printing.  They are looking for a currency that doesn't have a counter-party. \"Gold is money and nothing else\" - JP Morgan \"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.\" - Alan Greenspan"}
{"question":"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?","answer":"The ownership of the house depends on what the original deed transferring title at the time of purchase says and how this ownership is listed in government records where the title transfer deed is registered. Hopefully the  two records are consistent.  In legal systems that descended from British common law (including the US), the two most common forms of ownership are tenancy in common meaning that, unless otherwise specified in the title deed, each of the owners has an equal share in the entire property, and can sell or bequeath his\/her share without requiring the approval  of the others, and joint tenancy with right of survivorship meaning  that all owners have equal share, and if one owner  dies, the survivors form a new JTWROS. Spouses generally own property,  especially the home, in a special kind of JTWROS called tenancy by the entirety. On the other hand, the rule is that unless explicitly specified otherwise, tenancy in common with equal shares is how the owners hold the property. Other countries may have different default assumptions, and\/or have multiple other forms of ownership (see e.g. here for the intricate rules applicable in India). Mortgages are a different issue. Most mortgages state that the mortgagees are jointly and severally liable for the mortgage  payments meaning that the mortgage holder does not care who makes the payment but only that the mortgage payment is made in full. If one owner refuses to pay his share, the others cannot send in their shares of the mortgage payment due and tell the bank to sue the recalcitrant co-owner for his share of the payment: everybody is liable (and can be sued) for the unpaid amount, and if the bank forecloses, everybody's share in the property is seized, not just the share owned by the recalcitrant person.  It is, of course, possible to for different co-owners to have separate mortgages for their individual shares, but the legalities (including questions such as whose lien is primary and whose secondary) are complicated. With regard to who paid what over the years of ownership, it does not matter as far as the ownership is concerned. If it is a tenancy in common with equal shares, the fact that the various owners paid the bills (mortgage payments, property taxes, repairs and maintenance) in unequal amounts does not  change the ownership of the property unless a new deed is recorded with the new percentages.  Now, the co-owners may decide among themselves as a matter of fairness that any money realized from a sale of the property should be divided up in accordance with the proportion that each contributed during the ownership, but that is a different issue. If I were a buyer of property titled as tenancy in common, I (or the bank who is lending me money to make the purchase) would issue separate checks to each co-seller in proportion to the percentages listed on the deed of ownership, and let them worry about whether they should transfer money among themselves to make it equitable. (Careful here! Gift taxes might  well be due if large sums of money change hands)."}
{"question":"Is Pension Benefit Information (aboutmyletter.com) legitimate?","answer":"To boil down what mgkrebbs said: Yes, you should send back the form, provided that it doesn't ask for any more information than address, current telephone number, and email address.  Don't ever, ever provide any bank account information. Nor social security number unless you're absolutely positive of the validity of the requestor. Phishing via regular mail is very rare.  It's way expensive compared to email, which is basically free, plus the U.S. Postal Service takes mail fraud fairly seriously (and has the legal statutes to prosecute).   So: don't obsess; send the form back."}
{"question":"Is engaging in stocks without researching unwise?","answer":"Stock recommendations and price history are an unwise way to invest. People that recommend stocks are usually compensation for recommending it. They are paid directly by third parties, that can be paid in shares, they can simply own the stock themselves and if the stock goes up they can sell it to new investors at a higher price (or even a lower price, they may not actually care) Price history does not tell you a complete picture, what kind of price history are you even looking at: \"this stock went up, let me buy now at the very top and hope it goes higher, am I too late\" \"this stock went down let me avoid it\" if you don't know why, what, who, when, assets, debt, etc, you shouldn't be buying the stock."}
{"question":"What does a contract's worth mean?","answer":"$400M is the gross \"check\" the company will receive as payment for the project. The contract will specify payment schedule. And it can range from a payment per milestone achieved to a pay in full on completion.  The profit will hopefully be positive, but it's not impossible for a bid to underestimate the full cost, resulting in no profit at all. In theory, if you knew the expected profit from the deal, you should be able to estimate the value it adds to the company's value."}
{"question":"Does this sound like a great idea regarding being a landlord and starting a real estate empire?","answer":"This can be done, and there have been many good suggestions on things to do and watch out for.  But to my shock I don't see anyone offering any words of caution about property managers! Whatever you do, don't assume they have your best interests at heart.  Do not assume that \"no news is good news\" and that if you aren't hearing of problems and are just collecting rent checks, everything must be fine. You can easily end up with tenants you would never have allowed yourself, or tenants with pets that you would not have allowed, etc.  Especially if the manager doesn't want you to have a vacancy and potentially lose you as a client, they may very well lower their standards just to get the place occupied.  And a year or two or three later, you may find yourself looking at a very large repair bill and wonder how on earth it could have happened when you supposedly had someone looking out for your property! There are quality, ethical property managers out there.  They are not all bad to be certain.  But whatever you do, check up on them.  And with multiple properties - especially if in multiple areas\/states etc. - this can be nearly a full time job in itself.  As the saying goes, \"Trust, but verify\".  I have never found this to apply more than with rental properties and property management. Don't leave anything significant to them 100%.  You can't even assume that a rule like \"all expenses over $50 must be cleared by me first\", as that can simply mean that they don't bother to come to you for certain kinds of repairs that would cost more than that, or that they just get them \"taken care of\" by their own person (done poorly, illegally, etc.) and never tell you.  Never trust their choice of tenants blindly.  Visit the place yourself at least every few months - a quick driveby at a minimum or better if you can, arrange a reason to walk through the house personally.  Check the back yard, never assume that the front yard is indicative of anything else.  Never assume that a \"no pets\" rule will be followed, or that tenants wouldn't lie to the management about having pets.  Never assume that the tenants won't move additional people into the property as well. Always expect a bare minimum of 1 month vacancy every year, and an additional minimum of 1 month's rental revenue in unexpected maintenance\/repairs every year.  This is at a minimum!  You might do much better than this, and have a high quality tenant in place for years who costs next to nothing in extra maintenance.  But do not count on it. Rental real estate investing looks so simple on paper, where it's just numbers.  But reality has a very rude habit of surprising you when you least expect it. After all, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Good luck!"}
{"question":"Please explain: What exactly is a CDS or \"Credit Default Swap\"?","answer":"A Credit Default Swap is a derivative, a financial contract with a value dependent upon another asset. A CDS, in essence, is exactly what it sounds like a swap upon default. The typical arrangement is that a holder of non-risk free credit enters into an arrangement with a counterparty to pay the counterparty a portion of the income received from the non-risk free credit in exchange for being able to force the counterparty to deliver risk free credit if the non-risk free credit defaults. Banks use this mechanism to reduce the risk of the loans they produce while packaging them to be resold to investors.  Banks will typically buy CDSes on mortgages and corporate bonds, paying part of the income from interest payments received, to have the right to force counterparties, typically hedge funds and insurance companies, to swap national Treasuries upon the event that the mortgages or corporates default.  The banks receive less income yet are able to take on more inventory to sell to investors so that more loans can be made to borrowers, households and corporations. Hedge funds typically take on more complex arrangements while insurance companies sell CDSes because they are usually overflowing with risk-free assets yet are starved for income."}
{"question":"How do I get bill collectors who call about people I know to stop calling me?","answer":"I had a similar situation, except the debtor had no connection to us whatsoever, other than holding our phone number previously. We tried going through channels to deal with it, and had no success. At the end of the day, I was very abusive to the people calling, and forwarded the number to a very irritating destination."}
{"question":"What is the next step to collect money after a judgment has been ignored?","answer":"In general, if this is in the United States, call your local bar association.  Tell them you need a lawyer to help you collect a judgment.  They will make a referral.  The lawyer should know who can buy the judgment in return for cash.   You don't need to give details to the bar association, but you should plan on giving more details to the lawyer about why you need the money.   Since this is your ex-husband, your divorce lawyer might be able to help.  It's unclear in your question whether you've already explored that option.  The divorce lawyer might modify the divorce agreement to give you an asset instead of a monetary claim."}
{"question":"Alternative to Jumbo Mortgage","answer":"Yes, banks still offer combo loans, but it is going to depend on the appraised value of your home. Typically lenders will allow you to finance up to 80% loan to value on the first mortgage (conforming loan amount) and 95% combined loan to value on a HELOC.   I would start by checking with your local credit union or bank branch. They have more competitive rates and can be more flexible with loan amount and appraised value guidelines."}
{"question":"Should I re-allocate my portfolio now or let it balance out over time?","answer":"As you note, your question is inherently opinion-based.  That said, if I were in your situation I would sell the stock all at once and buy whatever it is you want to buy (hopefully some index ETF or mutual fund). According to what I see, the current value of the HD stock is about $8500 and the JNJ stock is worth less than $500.  With a total investment of less than $10,000, any gain you are likely to miss by liquidating now is not going to be huge in absolute terms. This is doubly true since you were given the stock, so you have no specific reason to believe it will do well at all.  If you had picked it yourself based on careful analysis, it could be worth keeping if you \"believed in yourself\" (or even if you just wanted to test your acumen), but as it is the stock is essentially random.  Even if you want to pursue an aggressive allocation, it doesn't make sense to allocate everything to one stock for no reason.  If you were going to put everything in one stock, you'd want it to be a stock you had analyzed and picked.  (I still think it would be a bad idea, but at least it would be a more defensible idea.) So I would say the risk of your lopsided allocation (just two companies, with more than 90% of the value in just one) outweighs any risk of missing out on a gain.  If news breaks tomorrow that the CEO of Home Depot has been embezzling (or if Trump decides to go on the Twitter warpath for some reason), your investment could disappear. Another common way to think about it is: if you had $9000 today to buy stocks with, would you buy $8500 worth of HD and $500 worth of JNJ?  If not, it probably doesn't make sense to hold them just because you happen to have them. The only potential exception to my advice above would be tax considerations.  You didn't mention what your basis in the stock is.  Looking at historical prices, it looks like if all the stock was 20 years old you'd have a gain of about $8000, and if all of it was 10 years old you'd have a gain of about $6000.  If your tax situation is such that selling all the stock at once would push you into a higher tax bracket, it might make sense to sell only enough to fit into your current bracket, and sell the rest next year.  However, I think this situation is unlikely because: A) since the stock has been held for a long time, most of the gains will be at the lower long-term rate; B) if you have solid income, you can probably afford the tax; and C) if you don't have solid income, your long-term capital gains rate will likely be zero."}
{"question":"Are social media accounts (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) considered assets? ","answer":"The buyer of such an account is likely treating it as an asset, and if they ever resell it capital gains (or loss) would be realized. I don't see why this would be any different for the person that created the account initially, except that the basis starts at $0 making the entire sale price taxable. How you figure the value of the account before the initial sale would be more difficult, but fortunately you may not ever need to know the value (for tax purposes) until you actually sell it."}
{"question":"If a trendline or pattern breaks due to some bad news but it returns back what to do?","answer":"There is a technique called the Elliott wave which explains these 'shocks'. The reversal directions you are questioning are part of the pattern, it is known as corrections. The Elliott wave is an indicator based on psychology of investors. Think about it this way, if you see a huge up trend what are you most likely to do, sell and make profit or continue, this is why there is a shock before it continues. Many people will sell to be safe, especially after hearing the bad news they won't risk it. By learning the Elliott wave you'll be able to make an educated decision on whether or not to stay or leave. Here are websites on the Elliott wave: http:\/\/stockcharts.com\/school\/doku.php?id=chart_school:market_analysis:elliott_wave_theory http:\/\/www.swing-trade-stocks.com\/elliott-wave.html The Elliott wave is helpful in any time frame and works well with momentum. Hope this helps."}
{"question":"My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking?","answer":"The risk is that you will owe the bank the principal amount of the mortgage. Based on your question it would be foolish for you to sign. Anyone who describes a mortgage as \"something\" obviously has no idea what they are doing and should never sign a mortgage which is a promise to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. You would be doubly foolish to sign the mortgage because if you are guaranteeing the loan, you own nothing. So, for example, if your friend sold the house, pocketed the money, then left the country you would owe the full amount of the mortgage. Since you are not on the deed there is no way you can prevent this from happening. He does not need your approval to sell the house. So, essentially what your \"friend\" is doing is asking you to assume all the risk of the mortgage with none of the benefits, since he gets the house, not you. If a \"girlfriend\" is involved, that just increases the risk you will have a problem. Also, although it is not clear, it appears this is a second house for him. If so, that disqualifies him from any mortgage assistance or relief, so the risk is even higher. Basically, it would foolish in the extreme to co-sign the loan."}
{"question":"I have $100,000 in play money\u2026 what to do?","answer":"If you want a concrete investment tip, precious metals (e.g. gold, silver) are on a pretty good run these days, personally I still think they have ways to go as there are just too many problems with modern monetary policy of an almost existential nature, and gold and silver are better stores of value than fiat money. Silver is particularly hot right now, but keep in mind that the increased volatility means increased risk. If the Fed keeps its foot on the pedals of the dollar printing press and we get QE3 this summer, that will most likely mean more people piling into the PMs to hedge against inflation. If the Fed starts to tighten it's policy then that's probably bad news for both equities and bonds and so PMs could be seen as a safe haven investment. These are the main reasons why PMs take up a good portion of my portfolio and will continue to do so untill I see how the global economy plays out over the next couple of years."}
{"question":"When will Canada convert to the U.S. Dollar as an official currency?","answer":"I would say at about the same time as the US converts to having a public health system that covers everyone with very few people with private insurance."}
{"question":"How much do large sell orders affect stock price?","answer":"The volume required to significantly move the price of a security depends completely on the orderbook for that particular security. There are a variety of different reasons and time periods that a security can be halted, this will depend a bit on which exchange you're dealing with. This link might help with the halt aspect of your question: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trading_halt"}
{"question":"What is the minimum lot size (number of shares) for the London Stock Exchange?","answer":"Good question! It seems to me that there is no minimum order size for shares trading on the LSE. Please note, I couldn't find an definite answer, but: According to the \"International Order Book\" document (see: http:\/\/www.londonstockexchange.com\/traders-and-brokers\/rules-regulations\/change-and-updates\/stock-exchange-notices\/2010\/n2210_attach1.pdf) from the LSE (page 7): Question 7: Would respondents support a revision of the minimum order    size of 50 units?   Whilst there was   limited support for a low value based   minimum order size the  majority of   respondents requested its complete   removal.  This was  incorporated into   the September 2010 quarterly review as   per Service  Announcement 001\/100910   and as from 20 September 2010, the   minimum  order size in all IOB   securities has been 1 unit Even though not all trading on the LSE is performed on this IOB system, it would be very wierd if the international stocks can be traded in any size, while domestic stocks will have an minimum size. Further, consider looking to the times and sales of various stocks (here you can find an example http:\/\/www.londonstockexchange.com\/exchange\/prices-and-markets\/stocks\/exchange-insight\/trade-data.html?page=0&fourWayKey=GB0006731235GBGBXSET1&formName=frmRow&upToRow=-1). Those trades also suggest that there is no minimum order size (for example, I just saw an executed trade with an size of 13). At last, look at the Interactive Brokers (no relationship with) Exchange List at http:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/en\/trading\/exchanges.php?exch=lse&showcategories=&ib_entity=llc. Here you can click on various stock names, and in the popup window that opens, look for 'size parameters' and the size increment. I could only find stocks with an size increment of 1 (i.e. you can trade anything with a minimum of 1 stock, and more needs to be in steps of 1 stock). Even though I couldn't find official information on the LSE site (like a leaflet for beginners or such), it does seem to me that you can trade any size you want on LSE.  Please note that mutual funds and illiquid OTC stocks which don't have an continuous market can have different rules, so double-check with your broker."}
{"question":"What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?","answer":"You lose your agent services. When my wife wrecked our car 3 years ago our agent took care of everything.  He got us a rental car, made the arrangements to get it fixed, checked in to see how we were doing, and even helped us set up a second opinion on my wifes wrist surgery.  The accident was ruled the fault of the uninsured driver who decided to take off through the red light.  But our insurance was the one that covered it all total expenses over 80k.  We would have had to eat most of those with out full coverage.   Most everything was set up (our rental car, estimates on repair, even her inital consutation with the surgeon) before the investigator had filed her report. Our agents first question was is everyone ok. His second was what can i do to help? He never asked us what happened and was always ahead of our needs in dealing with it.   If these things are not important to you, you can probably save quite a bit of money self insuring.  But if you are in an accident and unable to do them yourself, do you have someone to do it for you?  Do you trust them to handle your business and are you willing to saddle them with the responsibility of dealing with it?  To me insurance is less about me and more about my family.  It was nice that my agent did all of that for me.  I would have been willing to do it myself though.  But I am glad to know he is there for my wife if something happens to me."}
{"question":"Boyfriend is coowner of a house with his sister, he wants to sell but she doesn't","answer":"It seems likely that the mortgage is not in your boyfriend's name because he never would have qualified if he can't even afford utilities after paying the mortgage. It also seems unfair that his sister continues to have a 50% share of the equity if your boyfriend has been making the entire payment on the mortgage every month. What would happen if your boyfriend stopped making the payments? His sister would have no choice if the property went into foreclosure. Your boyfriend has all the leverage he needs by simply refusing to continue making the payments. Why he won't push his sister to make a deal is the real question you need to ask him. In the meantime, if he wants out, all he has to do is decide not to keep paying whether his sister feels attached or not."}
{"question":"Diagnostic Questions to Determine if Renter intends to pay","answer":"Firstly, how far behind on rent are they? Have you sent them notices in writing about late rent, and if so how many have you had to send? How often do they say they are going to do things (like pay overdue rent) and they never do? To tell you the truth IMHO, if they are starting to be regularly late in rent payments and they don't do things they say they are going to do - then it is time to evict them. In NSW Australia, if the tenant is more than 2 weeks late in rent, and prior to them reaching 2 weeks late you have called them asking for late rent and sent notices, you can evict the tenants. If the tenants do not leave you can apply to the Tribunal to get them out and ask for outstanding money to be paid to you. However, if it does get to this stage, the tenants may be pissed off so may do some damage to the property in retaliation. Then you have to go back to the Tribunal to get the Tenant's Bond (Security Deposit) and any other funds to repair any damages done to your place. The longer you leave it the worse it will get. We had some tenants similar to this which we finally got out earlier this year. They would say they would pay rent due by the end of the week and no money would come by the end of the week. We took them to Tribunal and got them out, and we got the Bond plus unpaid rent and other money for damages and leaving the place dirty (over and above the Bond) awarded to us - just under $4K.  The tenants said they couldn't pay and so went on a payment plan to pay about $135 every 2 weeks. They didn't pay any of the payments, so then we went to the local court to get a sheriff to go to their new place and take their property. The must have gotten scared from this because they approached the local court and agreed to pay $60 per week. We have currently received about 10 payments so it will be a long time before we get all our money back. As I said the longer you leave it the worse it can get. You should also look at improving your criteria for selecting new tenants. I have given an answer to this question How to choose a good tenant as a private landlord? Hopefully it can give you some ideas of what to ask for when searching for your next tenant. Update due update in Question Six weeks behind in rent is quite a bit to be behind. If the landlord had been asking the tenant to pay the late rent during this period and the tenant had been giving excuses why the rent was late and saying they would pay it by a certain time but never did - it is a big sign that they will tell you lies.  If this is the first time they have been late in paying rent and now they are back up to date with the rent, you might want to give them one more chance. If this is a pattern that happens regularly it is better to get them out, as it will happen again, you will get in an argument with them and then they might stop paying rent altogether. You can usually gain a better perspective of the tenants from their action rather than their words - that is why ascertaining their past rental history is so important when finding a new tenant."}
{"question":"Rules for SEP contributions in an LLC?","answer":"From Schwab -  What are the eligibility requirements for a business to establish a SEP-IRA? Almost any type of business is eligible to establish a SEP-IRA, from self-employed individuals to multi-person corporations (including sole proprietors, partnerships, S and C corporations, and limited liability companies [LLCs]), tax-exempt organizations, and government agencies. What are the contribution limits? You may contribute up to 25% of compensation (20% if you\u2019re self-employed3) or $49,000 for 2011 and $50,000 for 2012, whichever is less. If we set the PC aside, you and the son have an LLC renting office space, this addresses the ability of the LLC to offer the retirement account."}
{"question":"Why do people take out life insurance on their children? Should I take out a policy on my child?","answer":"Adam Davis's answer is pretty good. However, I think he misses something with regard to the costs of a funeral. According to funeralplanning101.com, a traditional funeral can cost upwards of $15,000. Having just planned and paid for a funeral for an adult, I can assure you that this figure is low. I've heard \"$10,000 - $30,000\", and that seems a reasonable ball-park given my experience. Additionally, grief affects people differently. If your child died, would you be able to continue work afterwards? Most people can, but some people have to take extended leave (generally with no income) because of the emotional impact. Combined, these expenses can easily outstrip the savings for an average family. Almost by definition, insurance is not cost-effective; insurance companies profit by selling it to you, after all. But you may decide that it is appropriate to mitigate your risk by buying insurance. I do not have children and would likely not choose to insure them if I did. Nevertheless, other people may reasonably choose differently."}
{"question":"Understanding Put Options","answer":"Options, both puts and calls, are typically written\/sold at different strike prices. For example, even though the stock of XYZ is currently trading at $12.50, there could be put options for prices ranging from $0.50 to $30.00, just as an example. There are several factors that go into determining the strike prices at which people are willing to write options. The writer\/seller of an option is the person on the other side of the trade that has the opposite opinion of you. If you are interested in purchasing a put on a stock to hedge your downside, that means the writer\/seller of the put is betting that you are wrong and that the stock price will rise instead."}
{"question":"I co-signed a car but i am listed as the primary account holder for the loan","answer":"First of all you do not \"co-sign a car\". I assume what you mean by this is that you co-signed a loan, and the money was used to buy a car. Once you signed that loan YOU OWED THE MONEY. Once a loan exists, it exists, and you will owe the money until the loan is paid. If you do not want to owe the money, then you need to pay back the money you borrowed. You may not think \"you\" borrowed the money because the car went to someone else. THE BANK AND THE COURTS DO NOT CARE. All they care about is that YOU signed the loan, so as far as they are concerned YOU owe the money and you owe ALL of the money to the bank, and the only way to change that is to pay the money back."}
{"question":"Can you explain \"time value of money\" and \"compound interest\" and provide examples of each?","answer":"I will just explain the time value of money in general, descriptive terms and save the math for someone else. Imagine: You have half a million dollars. I'd like to borrow it all from you. I'll pay it all back, every penny, but no more. And I'll pay it back in about, oh, thirty years or so. (Imagine also that you can be 100% sure that I'll pay it back.) Does this sound like a good deal? Not really. Why not? Well, you could do something with that sort of money. With that sort of money, you could do a lot of things for 30 years. You could buy a nice house and live in it for 30 years and save yourself from spending a lot of money on rent during that time (or save money on interest by paying off a mortgage early) even if the price of the house goes nowhere. If you already had a house, you could do some home improvement, like insulate the place better (to save on heating bills) or even just on something that you're going to enjoy for part of those 30 years (a patio in the back yard). If you were feeling entrepreneurial, you could take that money and start a business. Or you could invest that money in the stock market, and get a lot more back.... and if that's too risky for you, just start a savings account and earn interest. And finally, in 30 years, the value of the dollar will be lower because of inflation, so it won't buy as much now as it will then. That's the time value of money. It's the opportunity cost of the best of the things that you could have done with that money during the time it was gone. When you take out a loan, your interest payments will depend in part on the time value of the money you're borrowing: the people making the loan could be investing that money somewhere else, like government bonds. (It will also depend on factors like the risk of default on the loan - this is why credit card debt is more expensive than debt like a mortgage that's backed by a big fat asset like a house which can be seized and sold if you happen to default.) This is how the Federal Reserve can affect interest rates across the economy by just buying or selling government bonds."}
{"question":"Pros and cons of investing in a cheaper vs expensive index funds that track the same index","answer":"Cheaper would refer to the fees of a fund rather than the share price, IMO. Are 2 quarters worth more or less than 10 nickels? This is another way to express your question though most open-end funds bought directly from the fund family or through fund supermarkets would do fractional shares that may be better than going through ETFs though there can be some brokers like Sharebuilder that used to do fractional shares though not necessarily having the best execution as I recall."}
{"question":"What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential?","answer":"I think you need to be very careful here. Covered calls don't reduce risk or increase performance overall. If they did, every investment manager would be using them. In a typical portfolio, over the long term, the gains you give up when your stock goes beyond the strike of your calls will negate the premiums you receive over time. Psychologically, covered calls are appealing because your gains happen over a long period and this is why many people suggest it. But if you believe the Black-Scholes model (used for pricing options) this is what the model predicts over the long term - that you won't do any better than just holding stock (unless you have some edge other traders don't). Now you say you want to reduce diversification and raise your risk. Keeping in mind that there is no free lunch, there are several ways to reduce your risk but they all come at a price. For simplicity, there are three elements to consider - risk, potential gain and cash. These are tradeoffs and you can't simultaneously make them all favorable. You must trade one or more of them to gain in the others. Let's say you wanted to concentrate into a few stocks... how could you counteract the additional risk? 1) Covered calls: very popular strategy usually intended (erroneously) for increasing returns. You get the bonus of cash along with marginally less risk. But you give up a substantial amount of potential return. You won't have blowout returns if you do this. You still face substantial risk. 2) Collar your stock: You sell a covered call while using the cash from the sale to buy puts for protection. You give up potential gains, you're neutral on cash but gain significantly on reducing risk.  3) Use calls as proxy for stock: You don't hold stock but only calls in equivalent delta to the stock you would have held. Substantially lower risk while still having potential gain. Your tradeoff is the cash you have to pay for the calls. When using this, one must be very, very careful not to overleverage.  4) Puts as protection for stocks: This is basically the same as #3 in tradeoffs. You won't overleverage and you also get dividends. But for the most part it's the same. These are the main ways to reduce the risk you gain by concentrating. Options themselves are far broader. But keep in mind that there is no free money. All these techniques involve tradeoffs that you have to be aware of."}
{"question":"BATS\/Chi-X Europe Smart Order routing ","answer":"It is explained on their website.  Just look for the word \"routing\" on the Features page: Choose Your Venues Liquidity Pools Group 1: Bats Europe Group 2: Liquidity Partner (LP) Add this group to access dark pool liquidity. Group 3: Exchanges and MTFs Choose to access additional Exchanges and MTFs across Europe."}
{"question":"What constitutes illegal insider trading?","answer":"It becomes illegal when it is both material and nonpublic information. Material being defined as: Information that you would want and significantly alters the perception of the stock. To your point -- \"materiality\" is really up to the courts Nonpublic This is a little easier to define, but need to be careful if the information is disclosed selectively -- ie to just a small number of investment analysts -- this may still be nonpublic There is also an exception to this -- Mosaic Theory - This is the research you are referring to where the analyst calls up suppliers, etc and obtains information that is nonmaterial (wouldn't move the price of the security) but using experience and combined with public information creates something that is meaningful and could move the price of the security.  This is perfectly legal.  Material examples:"}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"This may be a great idea, or a very bad one, or it may simply not be applicable to you, depending on your personal circumstances and interests. The general idea is to avoid passive investments such as stocks and bonds, because they tend to grow by \"only\" a few percent per year. Instead, invest in things where you will be actively involved in some form. With those, much higher investment returns are common (but also the risk is higher, and you may be tied down and have to limit the traveling you want to do). So here are a few different ways to do that: Get a college degree, but only if you are interested in the field, and it ends up paying you well. If you aren't interested in the field, you won't land the $100k+ jobs later. And if you study early-childhood education, you may love the job, but it won't pay enough to make it a good investment. Of course, it also has to fit with your life plans, but that might be easier than it seems. You want to travel. Have you thought about anthropology, marine biology or archeology? Pick a reputable, hard-to-get-into, academic school rather than a vocation-oriented oe, and make sure that they have at least some research program. That's one way to distinguish between the for-profit schools (who tend to be very expensive and land you in low-paying jobs), and schools that actually lead to a well-paying future. Or if your interest runs more in a different direction: start a business. Your best bet might be to buy a franchise. Many of the fast-food chains, such as McDonalds, will let you buy as long as you have around $300k net worth. Most franchises also require that you are qualified. It may often make sense to buy not just one franchised store, but several in an area. You can increase your income (and your risk) by getting a loan - you can probably buy at least $5 million worth of franchises with your \"seed money\". BTW, I'm only using McDonalds as an example. Well-known fast food franchises used to be money-making machines, but their popularity may well have peaked. There are franchises in all kinds of industries, though. Some tend to be very short-term (there is a franchise based on selling customer's stuff on ebay), while others can be very long-lived (many real-estate brokerages are actually franchises). Do be careful which ones you buy. Some can be a \"license to print money\" while others may fail, and there are some fraudsters in the franchising market, out to separate you from your money. Advantage over investing in stocks and bonds: if you choose well, your return on investment can be much higher. That's generally true for any business that you get personally involved in. If you do well, you may well end up retiring a multimillionaire. Drawback: you will be exposed to considerable risk. The investment will be a major chunk of your net worth, and you may have to put all your eggs in none basket. If your business fails, you may lose everything. A third option (but only if you have a real interest in it!): get a commercial driver's license and buy an 18-wheeler truck. I hear that owner-operators can easily make well over $100k, and that's with having to pay off a bank loan. But if you don't love trucker culture, it is likely not worth doing. Overall, you probably get the idea: the principle is to use your funds as seed money to launch something profitable and secure, as well as enjoyable for you."}
{"question":"Creating a Limited company while still fully employed","answer":"You can register a limited company and leave it dormant, that's no problem. You just need to make sure that later on you notify HMRC within 3 months of any trading activity. As pointed out, you can register a company in a few hours now so I wouldn't worry about that. Your confusion about Private Limited Companies is understandable, it's often not made clear but UK formation services standard packages are always Private Limited by Shares companies. Limited by Guarantee is something else, and normally used by charities or non-profits only. See explanations here. Registering for VAT is optional until you reach the \u00a381,000 turnover threshold but it can make your services more attractive to large companies - especially in your field of business. You should really seek professional advice on whether or not this is the best option for you."}
{"question":"Cash out 401k for house downpayment","answer":"As @AlexKuhl says, ever? yes, but generally? no. If your 401k is invested in stocks and bonds, the long term return is very likely higher than the interest on a mortgage. Long term return on the stock market is around 7%. Mortgage rates these days are around 4%. Add the tax penalty on top of that and you're almost surely better to keep your money in the 401k. There's also the psychological\/budgeting factor. People very often say, \"I'll pull money out of my retirement fund for this important purchase and then put it back later.\" And then later comes and there are other expenses and things they want to do and they never put the money back."}
{"question":"Should I switch to this high rate checking account for my emergency fund?","answer":"Check out the \"rewards checking\" accounts listed on this thread at fatwallet finance forums. You could easily get 3.5% - 4% right now if you are willing to do the rewards checking dance. If not, you should look into the 1-2% accounts at the top. I use Alliant CU and their website is nice (and they give you your credit score every six months)."}
{"question":"How does the currency between countries relate","answer":"Firstly currency prices, like any asset, depend on supply and demand. Meaning how many people want to exchange a currency to another one vs. wanting to buy that currency using another currency. Secondly, it really depends on which country and economy you are talking about. In emerging economies, currencies are very often influenced by the politics of that country. In cases like the US, there are a myriad reasons. The USD is mostly governed by psychology (flight to safety) and asset purchases\/sales. In theory, currencies balance, given the inflation of a country and its trade with other countries. e.g. Germany, which was always exporting more than it was importing, had the problem of a rising currency. (Which would make its exports more expensive on foreign markets. This is the balancing act.)"}
{"question":"How will the fall of the UK Pound impact purchasing my first property?","answer":"Just to get the ball rolling, here's an answer: it won't affect you in the slightest. The pound happened to be tumbling anyway.  (If you read \"in the papers\" that Brexit is \"making the pound fall\", that's as valuable as anything else you've ever read in the papers.) Currencies go up and down drastically all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it. We by fluke once bought a house in Australia when that currency was very low; over the next couple years the currency basically doubled (I mean per the USD) and we happened to sell it; we made a 1\/2 million measured in USD. Just a fluke. I've had the opposite happen on other occasions over the decades. But... Currency changes mean absolutely nothing if you're in that country. The example from (2) was only relevant because we happened to be moving in and out of Aus. My various Australian friends didn't even notice that their dollar went from .5 to 1 in terms of USD (how could it matter to them?) All sorts of things drastically affect the general economy of a given country. (Indeed, note that a falling currency is often seen as a very good thing for a given nation's economy: conspiracy theorists in the states are forever complaining that ) Nobody has the slightest clue if \"Brexit\" will be good bad or indifferent for the UK. Anything could happen. It could be the beginning of an incredible period of growth for the UK (after all, why does Brussels not want your country to leave - goodwill?) and your house could triple in value in a year. Or, your house price could tumble to half in a year. Nobody has the slightest clue, whatsoever about the effects on the \"economy\" of a country going forward, of various inputs."}
{"question":"Are those \"auto-pilot\" programs a scam or waste of time?","answer":"Genuine (nearly) passive income can be had from some kinds of investing. Index funds are an example of a mostly self-managing investment. Of course investment involves some risk (the income is essentially paying you for taking that risk) and returns are reasonable but proportional to the risk -- IE, not spectacular unless the risk is high. If someone is claiming they can get you better than market rate of return, look carefully at what they are getting out of it and what the risks are. Fees subtract directly from your gains, and if they claim there is no additional risk, they need to prove that. You are giving someone your money. Be very sure you are going to get it back. If it isn't self-evident where the income comes from, it's probably a scam. If someone is using the term \"auto-pilot\", it is almost certainly a scam. If they are talking about website advertising and the like, it is far from autopilot if you want to make any noticable amount of money (though you may make money for them)."}
{"question":"If I had no income due to a net operating loss, will I be refunded the Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld?","answer":"If you have a CPA working for you already - this is a question you should be asking that CPA. Generally, NOL only affects the tax stemming from the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26 Subtitle A of the US Code). Social Security and Medicare, while based on income, are not \"income tax\", these are different taxes stemming from different laws. Social Security and Medicare withheld from your salary are FICA taxes (Title 26 Subtitle C of the US Code). They're deducted at source and not on your tax return, so whatever changes you have in your taxable income on the tax return - FICA taxes are not affected by it. Self Employment tax (Schedule SE) on your Schedule C earnings in the carry-back years will also not be affected, despite being defined in the IRC, because the basis of the tax is the self-employment income while the carryback reduces the AGI."}
{"question":"After consulting HR Block, are you actually obligated to file your taxes with them, if they've found ways to save you money?","answer":"As I have worked for H&R Block I know for a fact that they record all your activity with them for future reference. If it is their opinion that you are obligated to use their service if you use some other service then this, most likely, will affect your future dealings with them.  So, ask yourself this question: is reducing their income from you this year worth never being able to deal with them again in future years? The answer to that will give you the answer to your question."}
{"question":"Ethics and investment","answer":"Peer to peer lending such as Kiva, Lending Club, Funding Circle(small business), SoFi(student loans), Prosper, and various other services provide you with access to the 'basic form' of investing you described in your question.  Other funds: You may find the documentary '97% Owned' fascinating as it provides an overview of the monetary system of England, with parallels to US, showing only 3% of money supply is used in exchange of goods and services, 97% is engaged in some form of speculation.   If speculative activities are of concern, you may need to denounce many forms of currency. Lastly, be careful of taking the term addiction too lightly and deeming something unethical too quickly.  You may be surprised to learn there are many people like yourself working at 'unethical' companies changing them within."}
{"question":"If a country can just print money, is global debt between countries real? ","answer":"I think the important fact here is that all of our currencies are Fiat Currencies. So currency technically means nothing, because (as you mentioned) the country could print more any time it wants. Now what makes it useful is the combination of two big things: So I would say, we know they owe us 100 \"dollars\", and the dollar is just a word we use to represent value. It is not technically worth anything, beyond the fact that the government controls the amount of that currency in circulation and you trust that people still want more of that currency."}
{"question":"Effect on Bond asset allocation if Equity markets crash?","answer":"what will happen to the valuation of Tom's bond holdings after the equity crash? This is primarily opinion based. What will happen is generally hard to predict. Bond Price Bump due to Demand:  Is a possible outcome; this depends on the assumption that the bonds in the said country are still deemed safe. Recent Greece example, this may not be true. So if the investors don't believe that Bonds are safe, the money may move into Real Estate, into Bullion [Gold etc], or to other markets. In such a scenario; the price may not bump up. Bond Price Decline due to Rising Interest Rates:  On a rising interest rates, the long-term bonds may loose in value while the short term bonds may hold their value. Related question How would bonds fare if interest rates rose?"}
{"question":"Explanations on credit cards in Canada","answer":"Is my understanding okay ? If so, it seems to me that this system is   rather error prone. By that I mean I could easily forget to make a   wire some day and be charged interests while I actually have more than   enough money on the check account to pay the debt. Which is where the credit card company can add fees so you pay more and they make more money. Don't forget that in the credit case, you are borrowing money rather than using your own. Another thing that bothers me is that the credit card apparently has a   rather low credit limit. If I wanted to buy something that costs $2500   but only have a credit limit of $1500, can I make a preemptive wire   from my check account to the VISA account to avoid facing the limit ?   If so, what is the point for the customer of having two accounts (and   two cards for that matter...) ? If you were the credit card company, do you believe people should be given large limits first? There are prepaid credit cards where you could put a dollar amount on and it would reject if the balance gets low enough. Iridium Prepaid MasterCard would be an example here that I received one last year as I was involved in the floods in my area and needed access to government assistance which was given this way. Part of the point of building up a credit history is that this is part of how one can get the credit limits increased on cards so that one can have a higher limit after demonstrating that they will pay it back and otherwise the system could be abused. There may be a risk that if you prepay onto a credit card and then want to take back the money that there may be fees involved in the transaction. Generally, with credit cards the company makes money on the fees involved for transactions which may come from merchants or yourself as a cash advance on a credit card will be charged interest right away while if you buy merchandise in a store there may not be the interest charged right away."}
{"question":"What are the usual terms of a \"rent with an option to buy\" situation?","answer":"Things I would specifically draw your attention to: the contract typically allows for an \"option\" to purchase; it does not typically compel purchase, although this is seen the purchase price is negotiated before anything gets signed the option to buy is typically available to the renter for the period of the lease contract (ie., if it's a 12 month contract the renter can opt to buy at any time in that 12 months) the amount of rent paid over time that will be applied to the purchase price is negotiated up-front before anything gets signed rent is paid at a slight premium (as Joe notes, if the rent should be $1000 per month, expect to pay $1200 per month) if the renter walks away they walk away empty handed; they do not get back the premium Having said all that - it's a contract negotiated between renter and seller and all of this is negotiable.  See also, ehow for a good overview."}
{"question":"Why is there such disparity of max contribution limits between 401K accounts and regular IRA accounts?","answer":"The 401k was not written with the specific intent of enabling retirement savings.  Why do tax advantages favor employees of large employers... It seems that large businesses have been more effective at influencing legislators despite that there are more people are employed by small than large businesses."}
{"question":"Why futures has a mark to market concept that is not present in stocks","answer":"All margin is marked to market. Option longs do not post margin because long margin trading is forbidden. Equity longs must post margin if cash is borrowed to fund the purchase. Shorts of all kinds must post margin, and the rates are generally the same: a few standard deviations away from the mean daily change of the underlying. A currency futures trader, because of the involatility of most major monies, can get away with a few percentage points.  Commodities can get to around 10%.  Single equities are frequently around 20%, while indices can get back down to 10%. A future is a special case because both sides are technically short and long at the same time.  The easiest example to perceive is a currency future.  Which one is the buyer and which is the seller?  Both and neither. Contracts may be denominated for one side as the seller and the other the buyer, but contractually, legally, and effectively, both are liable to the other, and both must take delivery.  For non-currency assets, it only appears as if the cash seller is the buyer because cash is not considered an asset in the same way all other assets are, but the \"long\" is obligated to sell cash and buy the \"asset\"."}
{"question":"Can a trade happen \"in between\" the bid and ask price?","answer":"I can think of the following situations in which one could see a trade occur between the visible best bid & offer: 1) on a public exchange, people have posted hidden limit orders with either bid prices above the best visible bid or offers below the best visible offer, and incoming orders have executed against this hidden liquidity[1]; 2) some orders may have been matched in dark pools which offer \"mid-point matching\" where buy and sell orders are matched using the mid-point of the best available publicly posted bid and offer as the reference price, and which executed trades are then reported to the public markets; or 3) some internalising broker has traded off exchange directly with a client and is now reporting the trade to the public as is often required. Now how exactly any of the above situations indicates that a \"trend is about to come to an end\", I do not know. [1] Exchanges often match orders on a price\/visibility\/time basis, whereby the orders are prioritised by price (better prices get to trade first), then by visibility (visible orders get to trade first) then by time (first come, first serve)."}
{"question":"Are real estate prices memory-less?","answer":"I would argue no. It's easy to correlate home prices based on size, neighborhood, school district, condition and other factors, such as property taxes. In fact, real estate people and government assessors use those characteristics to assess property value. The demographics of a home will drive desirability\/demand for the property. Combine that with the cost and availability of capital, and house prices are relatively predictable."}
{"question":"What one bit of financial advice do you wish you could've given yourself five years ago?","answer":"Planned my grocery shopping better.  You can't just wake up on Saturday hungry go to the grocer and buy what looks good. Take the time to clip some coupons and more importantly make a shopping list."}
{"question":"Pros & cons in Hungary of investing retirement savings exclusively in silver? What better alternatives, given my concerns?","answer":"I think precious metals as an investment might set one up for disappointment.  Why does it seem to continually decline despite the variance?  As many have noted, there isn't much productive use for precious metals, and no major wars are taking place, so they aren't being used as currency substitutes, not to mention that more is being pulled out of the ground every day. The real reason why this graph shows silver to decline in real value over time is because its using a suboptimal price index.  An optimal one would most likely show a stable price over the long run. Silver is a great speculation if one can determine with high confidence the direction."}
{"question":"Is there a standard or best practice way to handle money from an expiring UTMA account?","answer":"I'd first put it in CDs or other short term account. Get through school first, then see where you land.  If you have income that allows you to start a Roth IRA, I'd go for that, but keep it safe in case you actually need it back soon. After school, if you don't land a decent job fast, this money might be needed to live on. How long will it last if you take a few months to find work?  If you do find a good job, moving, and setting up an apartment has a cost. Once you're there, I'd refer you to the many \"getting started\" Q&As on this site."}
{"question":"Why do people buy new cars they can not afford? ","answer":"If you don't know how to fix your own car or have time to take car parts off of a car at a junk yard, the average amount of money per month you spend on repairing an old car will be greater than the amount of money you spend per month on a new car payment. This is because car repair shops are charging $85 per hour for labor for car repairs. Many parts that wear out on a car are difficult to replace because of their location on the engine. The classic example is piston rings."}
{"question":"Closing a futures position","answer":"Futures exchanges are essentially auction houses facilitating a two-way auction. While they provide a venue for buyers and sellers to come together and transact (be that a physical venue such as a pit at the CME or an electronic network such as Globex), they don't actively seek out or find buyers and sellers to pair them together. The exchanges enable this process through an order book. As a futures trader you may submit one of two types of order to an exchange: Market Order - this is sent to the exchange and is filled immediately by being paired with a limit order.   Limit Order - this is placed on the books of the exchange at the price you specify. If other participants enter opposing market orders at this price, then their market order will be paired with your limit order. In your example, trader B wishes to close his long position. To do this he may enter a market sell order, which will immediately close his position at the lowest possible buy limit price, or he may enter a limit sell order, specifying the price at or above which he is willing to sell. In the case of the limit order, he will only sell and successfully close his position if his order becomes the lowest sell order on the book. All this may be a lot easier to understand by looking at a visual image of an order book such as the one given in the explanation that I have published here: Stop Orders for Futures Finally, not that as far as the exchange is concerned, there is no difference between an order to open and an order to close a position. They're all just 'buy' or 'sell' orders. Whether they cause you to reduce\/exit a position or increase\/establish a position is relative to the position you currently hold; if you're flat a buy order establishes a new position, if you're short it closes your position and leaves you flat."}
{"question":"Should I Use an Investment Professional?","answer":"People ... are nearly twice as likely to ... feel confident Great, confidence is amazing. That and $5 will buy you a cup of coffee. 44% [who hired a pro] have $100K or more [vs.] 9% of DIYers There's no way to examine these numbers without a link to the source, but it stands to reason that if you have a plan that you're sticking to you'll save more money than if you are just investing haphazardly. It's too bad that we can't see what the returns are for those using a pro vs. DIYers. That would be much more valuable than an arbitrary dollar level. Unfortunately $100K isn't really that much money if you live in the US, so it's an irrelevant talking point. The real question is whether investment knowledge is readily available to the masses or if having a person who specializes in finance is required to make good decisions about investment. I think the fact that the conventional wisdom prefers index funds to actively managed funds demonstrates that investment professionals are less useful than they might have been even a decade or two ago. If money should be spent on professional advice, it's probably better spent on CPAs or other tax professionals who can help optimize your investments for tax efficiency, though even that is now available as more common knowledge."}
{"question":"understanding the process\/payment of short sale dividends","answer":"I would suggest the following rationale : This appears to be a most unsatisfactory state of affairs, however, you can bet that this is how things are handled. As to who receives the dividend you have payed, this will be whoever the counter-party (or counter-parties) are that were assigned the exercise. EDIT Looking at the Dec16 SPY options, we see that the expiry date is 23 Dec.  Therefore, your options have been exercised prior to expiry.  The 3AM time stamp is probably due to the \"overnight batch processing\" of your brokers computer system.  The party exercising the options will have chosen to exercise on the day prior to ex-dividend in order to receive the dividends."}
{"question":"How can I figure out how much to bid on a parking space?","answer":"If the cash flow information is complete, the valuation can be determined with relative accuracy and precision. Assuming the monthly rent is correct, the annual revenue is $1,600 per year, $250\/mo * 12 months - $1,400\/year in taxes. Real estate is best valued as a perpetuity where P is the price, i is the income, and r is the rate of interest.  Theoreticians would suggest that the best available rate of interest would be the risk free rate, a 30 year Treasury rate ~3.5%, but the competition can't get these rates, so it is probably unrealistic. Anways, aassuming no expenses, the value of the property is $1,600 \/ 0.035 at most, $45,714.29. This is the general formula, and it should definitely be adjusted for expenses and a more realistic interest rate. Now, with a better understanding of interest rates and expenses, this will predict the most likely market value; however, it should be known that whatever interest rate is applied to the formula will be the most likely rate of return received from the investment. A Graham-Buffett value investor would suggest using a valuation no less than 15% since to a value investor, there's no point in bidding unless if the profits can be above average, ~7.5%.  With a 15% interest rate and no expenses, $1,600 \/ .15, is $10,666.67.  On average, it is unlikely that a bid this low will be successful; nevertheless, if multiple bids are placed using this similar methodology, by the law of small numbers, it is likely to hit the lottery on at most one bid."}
{"question":"Using pivot points to trade in the short term","answer":"What are Pivot Points? Pivot Points indicate price levels that are of significance in technical analysis of securities. Pivot Points are used to provide clarity for a trader as they are a predictive indicator of where a security might go. There are at least 6 different types of Pivot Points (Woodie Pivot Point, Fibonacci Pivot, Demark etc..) and they are different based on their formulas but generally serve the same concept. I will be answering your question using the Camarilla Pivot Point formula. Camarilla Pivot Point Formula Generally any Pivot Point formula uses a combination of the Open, High, Low and Close of the previous timeframe. Since you are technically a swing trader indicated by  say between a couple of days to a couple of weeks, as I don't want to   do day trading you should use a weekly 5 to 30 minute chart but you can also use a daily chart as well. So for example if you use a daily chart, you would use the Open, High, Low and Close of the previous day. Example of fictitious stock: MOSEX (Money Stack Exchange) 01\/14\/16: Open: 10.25, High: 12.55, Low: 9.65, Close: 11.50 On 01\/15\/16: R4 Level: 13.10, R3 Level: 12.30, R2 Level: 12.03, R1 Level: 11.77, Pivot Point: 11.23, S1 Level: 11.23, S2 Level: 10.97, S3 Level: 10.70, S4 Level: 9.91 R = Resistance, S = Support  How to identify these Pivot Points? Most charting software already have built in overlays that will identify the pivot points for you but you can always find and draw them yourself with an annotation tool. Since we are using the Camarilla Pivot Point formula, the important Pivot Point levels are the R4 which is considered as the Breakout Pivot, the S4 which is considered as the Breakdown Pivot. R3 and S3 are Reversal Pivot Points. Once identify the Pivot Points how should you proceed in a trade? This is the million dollar question and without spoon feeding you requires you to come up with your own strategy. To distinguish yourself from being a novice and pro trader is to have a strategy in a trade. Now I don't really have the time to look for actual charts to provide examples with but generally this is what you should look for to proceed in a trade: Potential Buy\/Short Signals: Potential Sell Signals: If a stock moves above the R3 Level but then crosses below it, this would be a sell signal. This is confirmed when their is a lower lower then the candle that first crosses below it. Sell a stock when S4 Level is confirmed. See above for the confirmation. Other Useful Tips: Use the Pivot Point as your support or resistance. The Pivot Point levels can be used for your stop loss. For example, with an S3 reversal buy signal, the S4 should be used as a stop loss. Conversely, the Pivot Point levels can also be used for your target prices. For example, with an S3 reversal buy signal, you should take some profits at R3 level. You should also use a combination of other indicators to give you more information to confirm if a signal is correct. Examples of a good combination is the RSI, MACD and Moving Averages. Read that book in my comment above!!"}
{"question":"Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum?","answer":"It is only wise to invest in what you understand (ala Warren Buffet style). Depending on how much money you have, you might see fit to consult a good independent financial advisor instead of seeking advice from this website. A famous quote goes: \"Those who say, do not know. Those who know, do not say\""}
{"question":"How does a small worker co-op track\/manage stocks\/shares ","answer":"What I know about small companies and companies who are not listed on the stock markets is this: If a small company has shares issued to different people either within an organization or outside the value of the shares is generally decided by the individual who wants to sell the share and the buyer who wants to buy it. Suppose my company issued 10 shares to you for your help in the organization. Now you need money and you want to sell it. You can offer it at any price you want to to the buyer. If the buyer accepts your offer thats the price you get. So the price of the share is determined by the price a buyer is willing to buy it at from you. Remember the Face value of the shares remains the same no matter what price you sell it for. Now annual profit distribution is again something called dividends. Suppose my company has 100 shares in total out of which I have given you 10. This means you are a 10% owner of the company and you will be entitled to 10% of the net profit the company makes. Now at the end of the year suppose my company makes a 12,000 USD net profit. Now a panel called board of directors which is appointed by share holders will decide on how much profit to keep within the company for future business and how much to distribute about share holders. Suppose they decide to keep 2000 and distribute 10,000 out of total profit. Since you own 10% shares of the company you get 1000. The softwares you are talking are accounting softwares. You can do everything with those softwares. After-all a company is only about profit and loss statements."}
{"question":"What is the probabiltiy of being assigned if the call expires in the money","answer":"If you are in the money at expiration you are going to get assigned to the person on the other side of the contract. This is an extremely high probability. The only randomness comes from before expiration. Where you may be assigned because a holder exercised the option before expiration, this can unbalance some of your strategies. But in exchange, you get all the premium that was still left on the option when they exercised. An in the money option, at expiration, has no premium. The value of your in the money option is Current Stock price - Strike Price, for a call. And Strike price - Current Stock price, for a put. Thats why there is no free lunch in this scenario."}
{"question":"How does a public company issue new shares without diluting the value held by existing shareholders?","answer":"As others have posted, the company gains capital in return for its new shares. However, the share price can still fall. The problem is that the share marked is affected by supply and demand like any other marked.  If the company just issues the new shares at marked price, they will have problems finding buyers.  The people who are willing to pay that price has already bought as many shares as they want. The company does this to raise capital, and depends on the shares actually selling for this to work.  So, they issue shares at below marked price to attract buyers and the shares get diluted.  In the end the share will usually end up somewhere between the old marked price and the issue price. The old share owners are probably not too happy about this and will not accept this plan. (At least here in Norway, share issue has to be accepted at a shareholder meeting) So, what is often done instead is to issue buy options for the required number of shares at the below-marked price.  These options are given (for free) to the current share holders proportional to their current holding. If everybody exercises their options they get new cheap shares that compensates for the loss of share value.  If they don't have the capital themselves, they can sell the options and get compensation that way instead."}
{"question":"Is there a good tool to view a stock portfolio's value as a graph?","answer":"I have no idea if Wikivest can handle options, but I've been pretty satisfied with it as a portfolio visualization tool. It links automatically with many brokerage accounts, and has breakdowns by both portfolio and individual investment levels."}
{"question":"How to withdraw money from currency account without having to lose so much to currency conversion?","answer":"In answer to the \"how I can perform withdrawal with the lower rate (having GBP)?\" part of your question, as Joe stated you need to use another bank or currency exchange company to convert the GBP to PLN.  Most of the UK banks charge similar amounts, and it's usually not possible to transfer the GBP to a foreign bank unless you have a GBP account with them. Some currency exchange firms are Transferwise, FairFX, CaxtonFX, a web search will show a fuller range. You could also use Paypal to do the transfer (if you have a paypal account) by transferring the GBP from Barclays to your paypal account and then from there to your PLN account."}
{"question":"How much time would I have to spend trading to turn a profit?","answer":"Very subjective question. some may do it in the first year, some lose money all their life. Some make a fortune and then lose it. Investing time is only a small part of it. some people can never do it just because investing is not for everyone. Just like any other business. or you can invest into t-bill and CDs, you'll be profitable from day one."}
{"question":"How to rescue my money from negative interest?","answer":"This does not really fit your liquidity requirement but consider buying a one or two room apartment to rent out with part of your savings. You will get income from it and small apartments sell quickly if you do need the money. This will help offset the negative interest from the rest. One downside is that other people have the same idea at the moment and the real estate prices are inflated somewhat."}
{"question":"Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses?","answer":"I don't think there is a definite single answer for this. I think it largely depends on where you are on your financial journey. In the ideal world you'd have everything in bucket 2 built into your budget and be putting a little bit aside every paycheck to cover each of those things when they do come up but that takes a fair bit of discipline to do and experience (and data) to estimate reasonably. When you are just starting out in actually setting and keeping a budget or digging yourself out of CC debt\/living paycheck to paycheck the odds are you aren't going to have the experience or disciple necessary to actually budget for those things in bucket 2 and even if you did the better option might well be to pay off that high interest debt you already have rather than saving up for an eventual expense. How ever as you start to improve your situation and pay off that debt, develop the disciple to set and follow a budget that is when you should start adding more of those things into your budget. How you track them doesn't really matter. A separate account at your bank. A total for a category in your budgeting software. An XLS file or even paper (ick). Ultimately it isn't about how you plan for and track things but more about actually doing that. So my question to the OP is where are you? If you already have a budget and do a good job of following it but don't have those items in it then consider that the next step in your financial journey."}
{"question":"Why is Insider Trading Illegal?","answer":"I'm surprised at the tone of the answers to this question! Trading with insider information is corruption and encourages fraud. As in many areas, there's an ethical line where behavior the gap between \"ok\" and \"illegal\" or unethical is thin. The classic local government insider information example is when the local councilman finds out that a highway exit is being constructed in an area that consists mostly of farmland. Knowing this, he buys out the farmers at what they think is a premium, and turns around for 10x profit a few months later. In that context, do you think that the councilman acting on that insider information is committing a crime or ethical lapse? Most people say yes.  Even in this case, the line is thin. If the same councilman has his finger on the pulse of growth patterns in the area, and realizes that the terrain makes a certain area a prime candiate for a highway and exit, buying up land would not be criminal -- but it would be risky as it creates a perception that he is abusing his position."}
{"question":"Mortgage company withholding insurance proceeds","answer":"Fire insurance, as you have discovered, is a complete ripoff. Most people pay fire insurance all their lives with no benefit whatsoever, and those such as yourself who are lucky enough to get a payout find that it is completely insufficient to replace their loss. I once computed the actual beneficial net present financial value of my fire insurance policy and it came out to $40 per month. The cost was $800 per month. That is typical. Homeowners pay $500 to $800 per year for something that is worth $30 to $50 per year. Ironically banks would actually make more money from mortgages if they did not require mortgagees to buy insurance, but nevertheless they insist on it. It is not about logic, but about fear and irrationality. When I paid off my mortgage and gained ownership of my home the first thing I did was cancel my fire insurance. I now invest the money I would have wasted on insurance, making money instead of losing it. Being compelled to throw money down the toilet on fire insurance is one of the hidden costs of a homeowners mortgage in the United States. In your situation, the main option is to borrow the money to rebuild the house using the land as collateral, if the land is valuable enough. Of course, you still owe the money for your original mortgage on your now (non-existent) home. So, to get a home, you will have to have the income to service two mortgages. A loan officer at a reputable bank can tell you whether you have the income necessary to support two mortgages. If you were maxed out on your original mortgage, then you may not have enough income and you are screwed. In that case you will have to go back to renting and gradually paying off your old mortgage. (If it were me, I would sue the insurance company pro se as a way to get the necessary money to rebuild the home, because insurance companies roll over like a $20 hooker when they get sued. Juries hate insurance companies. But I am unusual in that I love courtrooms and suing people. Most people are terrified of courtrooms though, so it may not be an option for you.)"}
{"question":"What's the point of a benchmark?","answer":"One reason it matters whether or not you're beating the S&P 500 (or the Wilshire 5000, or whatever benchmark you choose to use) is to determine whether or not you'd be better off investing in an index fund (or some other investment vehicle) instead of pursuing whatever your current investment strategy happens to be.  Even if your investment strategy makes money, earning what the S&P 500 has averaged over multiple decades (around 10%) with an index fund means a lot more money than a 5% return with an actively managed portfolio (especially when you consider factors like compound interest and inflation). I use the S&P 500 as one of my criteria for judging how well (or poorly) my financial adviser is doing for me. If his recommendations (or trading activity on my behalf, if authorized) are inferior to the S&P 500, for too long, then I have a basis to discontinue the relationship. Check out this Wikipedia entry on stock market indices. There are legitimate criticisms, but on the whole I think they are useful. As an aside, the reason I point to index funds specifically is that they are the one of the lowest-cost, fire-and-forget investment strategies around.  If you compare the return of the S&P 500 index over multiple decades with most actively managed mutual funds, the S&P 500 index comes out ahead."}
{"question":"Is it preferable to move emergency savings\/retirement into offset mortgage?","answer":"Assuming no constraints on how much you can move (or how frequently) into and out of your offset mortgage account, the question becomes one of what rate of return you expect from your long-term savings\/emergency cash fund. The rate you are getting from the offset mortgage account is known; since it reduces the principal amount owing and thus reduces interest charges, the return is the mortgage rate (though I would not be surprised if the offset mortgage account contract has bells and whistles reducing the effective rate, saying something like 3 pounds reduction of principal for every 5 pounds you put in). So, as a movie character once said, \"Do you feel lucky today?\"  If so, move money from your offset mortgage account to savings, and earn more.  If not, move money in the opposite direction. A \"guaranteed\" 2% return on the offset mortgage account might be better than taking a risk on the vagaries of the stock market, and even the possibility of loss in your long term savings account."}
{"question":"Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period?","answer":"Not sure if it is the same in the States as it is here in the UK (or possibly even depends on the lender) but if you have any amount outstanding on the loan then you wouldn't own the vehicle, the loan company would. This often offers extra protection if something goes wrong with the vehicle - a loan company talking to the manufacturer to get it resolved carries more weight than an individual. The laon company will have an army of lawyers (should it get that far) and a lot more resources to deal with anything, they may also throw in a courtesy car etc."}
{"question":"What's the appropriate way to signify an S-Corp?","answer":"Subchapter S Corporations are a special type of corporation; the difference is how they are taxed, not how they relate to their vendors or customers.  As a result, they are named the same way as any other corporation. The rules on names of corporations vary by state.  \"Corporation\" and \"Incorporated\" (and their abbreviations) are allowed by every state, but some states allow other names as well.  The Wikipedia article \"Types of business entity\" lists an overview of corporation naming rules for each state. The S-Corp that I work for has \"Inc.\" at the end of its name."}
{"question":"Will ADR holder be taxed twice","answer":"Surprisingly enough, this one isn't actually all that complicated.  No, you will not be taxed twice. Dividends are paid by the company, which in this case is domiciled in Spain.  As a Spanish company, the Spanish government will take dividend witholding tax from this payment before it is paid to a foreign (i.e. non-Spanish resident) shareholder. What's happening here is that a Spanish company is paying a dividend to a Malaysian resident.  The fact that the Spanish stock was purchased in the form of an ADR from a US stock market using US dollars is actually irrelevant.  The US has no claim to tax the dividend in this case. One brave investor\/blogger in Singapore even set out to prove this point by buying a Spanish ADR just before the dividend was paid.  Bravo that man! http:\/\/www.investmentmoats.com\/money-management\/dividend-investing\/how-to-calculate-dividend-withholding-taxes-on-us-adrs-for-international-investors-my-experience-with-telefonica\/"}
{"question":"Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question","answer":"A stock, at its most basic, is worth exactly what someone else will pay to buy it right now (or in the near future), just like anything else of value. However, what someone's willing to pay for it is typically based on what the person can get from it. There are a couple of ways to value a stock. The first way is on expected earnings per share, most of would normally (but not always) be paid in dividends. This is a metric that can be calculated based on the most recently reported earnings, and can be estimated based on news about the company or the industry its in (or those of suppliers, likely buyers, etc) to predict future earnings. Let's say the stock price is exactly $100 right now, and you buy one share. In one quarter, the company is expected to pay out $2 per share in dividends. That is a 2% ROI realized in 3 months. If you took that $2 and blew it on... coffee, maybe, or you stuffed it in your mattress, you'd realize a total gain of $8 in one year, or in ROI terms an annual rate of 8%. However, if you reinvested the money, you'd be making money on that money, and would have a little more. You can calculate the exact percentage using the \"future value\" formula. Conversely, if you wanted to know what you should pay, given this level of earnings per share, to realize a given rate of return, you can use the \"present value\" formula. If you wanted a 9% return on your money, you'd pay less for the stock than its current value, all other things being equal. Vice-versa if you were happy with a lesser rate of return. The current rate of return based on stock price and current earnings is what the market as a whole is willing to tolerate. This is how bonds are valued, based on a desired rate of return by the market, and it also works for stocks, with the caveat that the dividends, and what you'll get back at the \"end\", are no longer constant as they are with a bond. Now, in your case, the company doesn't pay dividends. Ever. It simply retains all the earnings it's ever made, reinvesting them into doing new things or more things. By the above method, the rate of return from dividends alone is zero, and so the future value of your investment is whatever you paid for it. People don't like it when the best case for their money is that it just sits there. However, there's another way to think of the stock's value, which is it's more core definition; a share of the company itself. If the company is profitable, and keeps all this profit, then a share of the company equals, in part, a share of that retained earnings. This is very simplistic, but if the company's assets are worth 1 billion dollars, and it has one hundred million shares of stock, each share of stock is worth $10, because that's the value of that fraction of the company as divided up among all outstanding shares. If the company then reports earnings of $100 million, the value of the company is now 1.1 billion, and its stock should go up to $11 per share, because that's the new value of one ten-millionth of the company's value. Your ROI on this stock is $1, in whatever time period the reporting happens (typically quarterly, giving this stock a roughly 4% APY). This is a totally valid way to value stocks and to shop for them; it's very similar to how commodities, for instance gold, are bought and sold. Gold never pays you dividends. Doesn't give you voting rights either. Its value at any given time is solely what someone else will pay to have it. That's just fine with a lot of people right now; gold's currently trading at around $1,700 an ounce, and it's been the biggest moneymaker in our economy since the bottom fell out of the housing market (if you'd bought gold in 2008, you would have more than doubled your money in 4 years; I challenge you to find anything else that's done nearly as well over the same time). In reality, a combination of both of these valuation methods are used to value stocks. If a stock pays dividends, then each person gets money now, but because there's less retained earnings and thus less change in the total asset value of the company, the actual share price doesn't move (much). If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then people only get money when they cash out the actual stock, but if the company is profitable (Apple, BH, etc) then one share should grow in value as the value of that small fraction of the company continues to grow. Both of these are sources of ROI, and both are seen in a company that will both retain some earnings and pay out dividends on the rest."}
{"question":"Why do banks insist on allowing transactions without sufficient funds?","answer":"The laws about this changed in 2010 with the new Overdraft Protection Law HR 1261.  \u00a7 140B. (c) Consumer consent opt-In.\u2014A depository institution may   charge overdraft coverage fees with respect to the use of an automatic   teller machine or point of sale transaction only if the consumer has   consented in writing, in electronic form, or in such other form as is   permitted under regulations of the Bureau. Now when you sign up for a bank account you have to opt in to overdraft coverage (the bank transfers funds from other accounts to cover overdrafts), or overdraft protection (the bank simply bounces NSF checks).  I'm pretty sure you could always set this option on your account, but banks were defaulting everyone's account that didn't think to ask such that overdrafts got paid and incurred fees. The law now prohibits them from using that as the default option."}
{"question":"How smart is it really to take out a loan right now?","answer":"You are not \"the economy\". The economy is just the aggregate of what is going on with everyone else. You should make the decision based on your own situation now and projected into the future as best you can. Loan rates ARE at historical lows, so it is a great time to take a loan if you actually need one for some reason. However, I wouldn't go looking for a loan just because the rates are low for the same reason it doesn't make sense to buy maternity clothes if you are a single guy just because they are on sale."}
{"question":"Where can I find a Third Party Administrator for a self-directed solo 401K?","answer":"Fidelity Investments offers Solo 401(k) plans without any management fees. The plan administrator is typically the employer itself (so, your business, or you as the principal manager). You (as the individual employee) are the participant."}
{"question":"I'm 23, living at home, and still can't afford my own property. What could I do?","answer":"I wouldn't be too concerned, yet.  You're young.  Many young people are living longer in the family home.  See this Guardian article: Young adults delay leaving family home.  You're in good company.  Yet, there will come a time when you ought to get your own place, either for your own sanity or your parents' sanity.  You should be preparing for that and building up your savings. Since you've got an income, you should \u2013 if you're not already \u2013 put away some of that money regularly.  Every time you get paid, make a point of depositing a portion of your income into a savings or investment account.  Look up the popular strategy called Pay Yourself First. Since you still live at home, it's possible you're a little more loose with spending money than you should be \u2013 at least, I've found that to be the case with some friends who lived at home as young adults.  So, perhaps pretend you're on your own.  What would your rent be if you had to find a place of your own?  If, say, \u00a3600 instead of the \u00a3200 you're currently paying, then you should reduce your spending to the point where you can save at least \u00a3400 per month.  Follow a budget. With respect to your car, it's great you recognize your mistake.  We're human and we can learn from our mistakes.  Plan to make it your one and only car mistake.  I made one too. With respect to your credit card debt, it's not an insurmountable amount.  Focus on getting rid of that debt soon and then focus on staying out of debt.  The effective way to use credit cards is to never carry a balance \u2013 i.e. pay it off in full each month.  If you can't do that, you're likely overspending. Also, look at what pensions your employer might offer. If they offer matching contributions, contribute at least as much to maximize the tax free extra pay this equates to. If you have access to a defined benefit plan, join it as soon as you are eligible. Last, I think it's important to recognize that at age 23 you're just starting out.  Much of your career income earning potential is ahead of you.  Strive to be the best at what you do, get promotions, and increase your income.  Meanwhile, continue to save a good portion of what you earn.  With discipline, you'll get where you want to be."}
{"question":"Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \"Buy Low, Sell High\"?","answer":"Selling as well as buying a stock are part science and part art form.  I remember once selling a stock at its 52 week high too. That particular stock \"quadrupled\" in value over the next 52 weeks.  Mind you I made 50% ROI on the stock but my point is that none of us have a crystal ball on whether a particular stock will ever stop or start going up or stop or start going down. If someone had those answers they wouldn't be telling you they would be practicing them to make more money! Make up your mind what you want to make and stick by your decisions.  Bulls make money when stocks go up and Bears make money when they go down but pigs don't make money. -RobF"}
{"question":"How does high frequency trading work if money isn't available for 2-3 days after selling?","answer":"High frequency trades are intra day. The would buy a stock for 100 and sell for 100.10 multiple times. So If you start with 100 in your broker account, you buy something [it takes 2-3 days to settle], you sell for 100.10 [it takes 2-3 days to settle]. You again buy something for 100. It is the net value of both buys and sells that you need to look at. Trading on Margin Accounts. Most brokers offer Margin Accounts. The exact leverage ratios varies. What this means is that if you start with 10 [or 15 or 25] in your broker you can buy stock of 100. Of course legally you wont own the stock unless you pay the broker balance, etc."}
{"question":"Why does it take 3 days to do electronic transfers between banks? [duplicate]","answer":"When Laurence Olivier took the role of Douglas Macarthur in the Unification Church's filming of Inchon, he told the press, \"People ask me why I'm playing in this picture. The answer is simple: Money, dear boy.\" Banking systems are typically decades old and subject to innumerable legal and technical restrictions. Moving money more quickly from one client's account to another would definitely be in the clients' interest, but"}
{"question":"What are the benefits of investing to IRA\/Roth IRA, 401(k) in comparison to investing in long term CDs?","answer":"First, you need to understand the difference in discussing types of investments and types of accounts. Certificate of Deposits (CDs), money market accounts, mutual funds, and stocks are all examples of types of investments. 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, and taxable accounts are all examples of types of accounts. In general, those are separate decisions to make.  You can invest in any type of investment inside any type of account.  So your question really has two different parts:   Tax-advantaged retirement accounts vs. Standard taxable accounts FDIC-insured CDs vs. at-risk investments (such as stock mutual funds) Retirement accounts are special accounts allowed by the federal government that allow you to delay (or, in some cases, completely avoid) paying taxes on your investment.  The trade-off for these accounts is that, in general, you cannot access any of the money that you put into these accounts until you get to retirement age without paying a steep penalty.  These accounts exist to encourage citizens to save for their own retirement.  Examples of retirement accounts include 401(k) and IRAs. Standard taxable accounts have no tax advantages, but no restrictions, either.  You can put money in and take money out whenever you like.  However, anything that your investment earns is taxable each year. Inside any of these accounts, you can invest in FDIC-insured bank accounts, such as savings accounts or CDs, or you can invest in any number of non-insured investments, including money market accounts, bonds, mutual funds, stocks, precious metals, etc. Something you need to understand about investing in general is that your potential returns are directly related to the amount of risk that you take on.  Investing in an insured investment, which is guaranteed by the government to never lose its value, will result in the lowest potential investment returns that you can get. Interest-bearing savings accounts are currently paying less than 1% interest.  A CD will get you a slightly higher interest rate in exchange for you agreeing not to withdraw your money for a period of time. However, it takes a long time for your investments to grow with these investments.  If you are earning 1%, it takes 72 years for your investment to double. If you are willing to take some risk, you can earn much more with your investments.  Bonds are often considered quite safe; with a bond, you loan money to a government or corporation, and they pay you back with interest.  The risk comes from the possibility that the government or corporation won't pay you back, so it is important to choose a bond from an entity that you trust. Stocks are shares in for-profit companies.  Your potential investment gain is unlimited, but it is risky, as stocks can go down in value, and companies can close.  However, it is important to note that if you take the largest 500 stocks together (S&P 500), the average value has consistently gone up over the long term.  In the last 35 years, this average value has gone up about 11%.  At this rate, your investment would double in less than 7 years. To avoid the risk of picking a losing stock, you can invest in a mutual fund, which is a collection of stocks, bonds, or other investments.  The idea is that you can, with one investment, invest in many stocks, essentially earning the average performance of all the stocks.  There is still risk, as the market can be down as a whole, but you are insulated from any one stock being bad because you are diversified. If you are investing for something in the long-term future, such as retirement, stock mutual funds provide a good rate of return at an acceptably-low level of risk, in my opinion."}
{"question":"What ways are there for us to earn a little extra side money?","answer":"It depends on where you live and how you can think out of the box on earning little extra income on the side. If  you live in North America and based on the needs in your city, you can try out these ideas. Here is what one of my friend has done,  The family has two kids and the wife started a home day care as she was already taking care of two kids anyways. Of course, she had to be qualified and she took the relevant child care classes and got certified, which took six months. And she is managing 4 kids in addition to her two kids bringing in at least 2000$ per month in addition. And my friend started a part time property management business on the side, with one client. For example there is always work on real estate whether its going up or going down. You have to be involved locally to increase your knowledge on real estate. You can be a property manager for local real estate investors. If its going down, you can get involved in helping people sell and buy real estate. Be a connector, bring the buyers and sellers together."}
{"question":"Pros and cons of using a personal assistant service to manage your personal finances?","answer":"Not knowing anything about your situation or what makes it so complex, I would have to agree with the other commenters.  If your accountant screws up your business goes under, but at least your personal finances are safe from that and you'll recover (unless all your wealth is tied up in your business).  If your virtual assistant uses your personal information to take all your money, ruin your credit, or any number of other things, you're going to spend a loooong time trying to get things \"back to normal\". If the few hours per month spent managing your finances is starting to add up, I might suggest looking into other ways to automate and manage them.  For instance, are all of your bills (or as many as you can) e-bills that can be issued electronically to your bank?  Have you set up online bill pay with your bank, so that you can automatically pay all the bills when they arrive?  Have you tried using any number of online services (Mint, Thrive, your bank's \"virtual wallet\/portfolio\") to help with budget, expense tracking, etc.? Again, I don't know your exact situation, but hopefully some of these suggestions help.  Once I started automating my savings and a lot of my bill paying, it gave me a lot of peace of mind."}
{"question":"Question about dividends and giant companies [duplicate]","answer":"I see a false assumption that you are making.  (Almost always) When you buy stock the cash you spend does not go to the company. Instead it goes to someone else who is selling their shares.  The exception to this is when you buy shares in an IPO.  Those of us who have saved all our lives for retirement want income producing investments once we retire. (Hopefully) We have saved up quite a bit of money. To have us purchase their stock companies have to offer us dividends."}
{"question":"Does anyone offer no interest loans?","answer":"This is very much possible and happens quite a lot. In the US, for example, promotional offers by credit card companies where you pay no interest on the balance for a certain period are a very common thing. The lender gains a new customer on such a loan, and usually earns money from the spending via the merchant fees (specifically for credit cards, at least). The pro is obviously free money. The con is that this is usually for a short period of time (longest I've seen was 15 months) after which if you're not careful, high interest rates will be charged. In some cases, interest will be charged retroactively for the whole period if you don't pay off the balance or miss the minimum payment due."}
{"question":"Is an interest-only mortgage a bad idea?","answer":"Generally, interest-only mortgages are a bad idea, because a lot of people get them so that they can buy more house than they could otherwise afford (lower payment = affordable, in their minds).  If the house continues to go up in value, they probably get away with it, because when the balance becomes due, they can refinance.  However, the last few years has shown how risky that strategy can be, and this kind of things is what cost a lot of people their houses. In your case, if the house is something you could afford on a regular 15 or 30-year mortgage, and you really are as disciplined as you say you are, you might get away with it.  But you have to take into account the risk, and consider what happens if there is a job loss or similar difficulty in the future. Another thing to consider is the term of the mortgage.  How many years will you get this lower interest rate?  Interest rates are at historic lows right now, and pretty much everyone thinks they're going up soon.  You might be better off locking in a higher rate for 15 years."}
{"question":"Does reading financial statements (quarterly or annual reports) really help investing?","answer":"Financial statements provide a large amount of specialized, complex, information about the company. If you know how to process the statements, and can place the info they provide in context with other significant information you have about the market, then you will likely be able to make better decisions about the company. If you don't know how to process them, you're much more likely to obtain incomplete or misleading information, and end up making worse decisions than you would have before you started reading. You might, for example, figure out that the company is gaining significant debt, but might be missing significant information about new regulations which caused a one time larger than normal tax payment for all companies in the industry you're investing in, matching the debt increase. Or you might see a large litigation related spending, without knowing that it's lower than usual for the industry. It's a chicken-and-egg problem - if you know how to process them, and how to use the information, then you already have the answer to your question. I'd say, the more important question to ask is: \"Do I have the time and resources necessary to learn enough about how businesses run, and about the market I'm investing in, so that financial statements become useful to me?\" If you do have the time, and resources, do it, it's worth the trouble. I'd advise in starting at the industry\/business end of things, though, and only switching to obtaining information from the financial statements once you already have a good idea what you'll be using it for."}
{"question":"Non Resident aliens - Question of standard vs itemized","answer":"The IRS' primary reference Pub 519 Tax Guide for Aliens -- current year online (current and previous years downloadable in PDF from the Forms&Pubs section of the website) says NO: Students and business apprentices from India.   A special rule applies .... You can claim the standard deduction .... Use Worksheet 5-1 to figure your standard deduction. If you are married and your spouse files a return and itemizes deductions, you cannot take the standard deduction. Note the last sentence, which is clearly an exception to the 'India rule', which is already an exception to the general rule that nonresident filers never get the standard deduction. Of course this is the IRS' interpretation of the law (which is defined to include ratified treaties); if you think they are wrong, you could claim the deduction anyway and when they assess the additional tax (and demand payment) take it to US Tax Court -- but I suspect the legal fees will cost you more than the marginal tax on $6300, even under Tax Court's simplified procedures for small cases."}
{"question":"Should I invest or repay my debts?","answer":"You didn't mention how much is the interest rate of your debts. It is a very simple rule.  If you think you can make more money by investing (the best way you can) in spite of having debts then go ahead and invest.  Else, if you donno what you're doing and can't make sure you earn more than what you're paying off for interest then may be you should focus on clearing up the debts first. You can read more about similar topic discussion here Now, that you've presented the interest rate of your loans i.e. 11% which is your average, then I suggest you to clear up the high interest rate loans first i.e. which are above 11%  because it is very difficult to make an investment and get returns more than 11% of what you invest.  What ever be it, now that you won't be having big events in the coming 5 years, I suggest you to clear up all your loans and stay debt free i.e. tr to become stable and tension free. You know, because you can't run away anywhere with all those loans up on your shoulders, you HAVE to clear them today or tomorrow. So, now that you're free (in the next 5 yrs) and burden less, so why not clear them up today?"}
{"question":"How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee?","answer":"If you are a temp-to-hire, or you are asked to setup a company then you are not an employee. They expect you to fund everything from your hourly rate. This includes pay, insurance, taxes, social security, sick, vacation, holidays... The rule of thumb for an established company is 1.75 to 2.25 times the salary rate is the rate they need to charge a customer. For example: employee get paid checks for $25\/hour x 80 hours x 26 times a year.: 2080 hours or $52,000 per year. Company can only bill customers for 1800 to 1900 hours of labor. They need to bill at 2 times the salary rate or $50 per hour. They will collect $90,000 (1800*50). The numbers have to be run by the particular company based on their actual costs for benefits, overhead and profits.  If they were giving you $25 an hour as a contractor. They expect you to be making $12.50 an hour as an employee."}
{"question":"Finding stocks following performance of certain investor, like BRK.B for Warren Buffet","answer":"Since the vast majority of fund managers\/big investors run private entities, it's not possible to track their performance. It's possible to look at what they are holding (that's never real-time information) and emulate their performance."}
{"question":"Loan to son - how to get it back","answer":"I started a business a few years ago.  At one point it wasn't going so well and my father \"loaned\" me an amount not too dissimilar to what you've done. From a personal perspective, the moment I took that loan there was a strain the relationship.  Especially when I was sometimes late on the interest payments...  Unfortunately thoughts like \"he doesn't need this right now, but if I don't pay the car loan then that is taken away\" came up a few times and paying the interest fell to the bottom of the monthly bill payment stack. At some point my wife and I finally took a hard look at my finances and goals.  We got rid of things that simply weren't necessary (car payment, cable tv, etc) and focused on the things we needed to.  Doing the same with the business helped out as well, as it helped focus me to to turn things around.  Things are now going great. That said, two of my siblings ran into their own financial trouble that our parents helped them on.  When this happened my father called us together and basically forgave everyone's debt by an equal amount which covered everything plus wrote a check to the one that was doing fine.  This \"cleared the air\" with regards to future inheritance, questions about how much one sibling was being helped vs another, etc.  Honestly, it made family gatherings more enjoyable as all that underlying tension was now gone. I've since helped one of my children.  Although I went about it an entirely different way.   Rather than loan them money, I gave it to them.  We also had a few discussions on how I think they ought to manage their finances and a set of goals to work towards which we co-developed.  Bearing in mind that they are an individual and sometimes you can lead a horse...  Given the current state of things I consider it money well \"spent\"."}
{"question":"How to treat miles driven to the mechanic, gas station, etc when calculating business use of car?","answer":"Alright, IRS Publication 463: Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses Business and personal use. If you use your   car for both business and personal purposes,   you must divide your expenses between business   and personal use. You can divide your expense   based on the miles driven for each purpose. Example. You are a sales representative   for a clothing firm and drive your car 20,000   miles during the year: 12,000 miles for business   and 8,000 miles for personal use. You can   claim only 60% (12,000 \u00f7 20,000) of the cost of   operating your car as a business expense Obviously nothing helpful in the code.  So I would use option 1, weight the maintenance-related mileage by the proportion of business use.  Although if you use your car for business a lot (and perhaps have a spouse with a car), an argument could be made for 3.  So I would consider my odds of being audited (even lower this year due to IRS budget cuts) and choose 1 or 3. And of course never throw anything away until you're room temperature."}
{"question":"Bank will not accept loose change. Is this legal?","answer":"Is this even legal? How can a bank refuse to deposit legal tender in   the United States? Legal for all debts, public or private, doesn't mean quite what I used to think, either.  Per The Fed: This statute means that all United States money as identified above is   a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a   creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a   private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or   coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to   develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a   state law which says otherwise. Yes, they can refuse loose change. Also, they aren't refusing your deposit, just requiring that it be rolled. What do I do with my change? I do not want to spend the time rolling   it, and I am not going to pay a fee to cash my change. There aren't many other options, change is a nuisance. I believe Coinstar machines reduce\/remove their fee if you exchange coins for gift cards, so that might be the best option for convenience and retaining value."}
{"question":"Investing: P\/E Ratio basic question","answer":"Let's take a step back. My fictional company 'A' is a solid, old, established company. It's in consumer staples, so people buy the products in good times and bad. It has a dividend of $1\/yr. Only knowing this, you have to decide how much you would be willing to pay for one share.  You might decide that $20 is fair. Why? Because that's a 5% return on your money, 1\/20 = 5%, and given the current rates, you're happy for a 5% dividend. But this company doesn't give out all its earnings as a dividend. It really earns $1.50, so the P\/E you are willing to pay is 20\/1.5 or 13.3.  Many companies offer no dividend, but of course they still might have earnings, and the P\/E is one metric that used to judge whether one wishes to buy a stock.  A high P\/E implies the buyers think the stock will have future growth, and they are wiling to pay more today to hold it. A low P\/E might be a sign the company is solid, but not growing, if such a thing is possible."}
{"question":"Leasing a car I intend to buy","answer":"I have a colleague who always leases cars first.  He's very well off, has piles of money in savings, owns a home, and the cherry on top, he could just write a check for the car....   He sees the lease as an insurance policy on the first couple of years of the car's life.  If it gets in an accident or he finds something about it he doesn't like, he can give it back to the dealer at the end of the term with no hassle and move on to the next car.  Some people value the fact that a lease is a rental.   If you're leasing a luxury car or something you couldn't otherwise afford, no amount of mental gymnastics will turn this in to a good idea.   Separately, you should never make a down payment on a lease.  If the car is totaled early on, you will not recoupe the money you put down.  The issue here is that while the numbers all work out the same between a lease and a purchase your situation is different.  If the leased car is totaled, the bank gets its money back from an insurer.  If that payment doesn't cover the value of the car, the GAP insurance will cover it.  In either situation, if there's an excess remaining it will be returned to you.  The issue is the excess may not fully replace your down payment.  If you then went to lease another car you would need to come up with that down payment again because you couldn't just simply choose to lease a used car; like you could in the case of a purchase.  Additionally, GAP is generally included in a lease whether you want it or not.  As far as I'm concerned it doesn't make financial sense to mitigate the value of the GAP coverage once you've decided to live in a lease situation."}
{"question":"Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?","answer":"Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Then check their prices daily. With daily price swings of over 10% (both up and down) being a common occurrence, you'll quickly learn how high your risk tolerance really is. :) A lot of IT people believe that cryptocurrencies will stay. Whether Bitcoin or Ethereum will be among them is anyone's guess. Compare to the Dotcom boom, which will be Amazon.com and which will be Pets.com?"}
{"question":"Why is being \"upside down\" on a mortgage so bad?","answer":"I can think of a few reasons why they seem like a bigger deal to people than similar situations with other loans. As you point out, though, being underwater on your home loan is a less serious condition than having large student loans and a poor paying job, for example.  If the student loan situation ever comes to a head, we may have people talking about student loans in hushed tones."}
{"question":"Is it possible to quantify the probability of sudden big movements for a high-volume stock?","answer":"In general, when companies are regarded as \"hot\" growth stocks, they are expected to keep up an accelerated level of growth for a good long time. That accelerated growth justifies a high PE relative to a slow-growth stock. When companies that are supposed to grow miss expectations or (worse) lose money, the markets punish the stock severely... Particularly if the company doesn't make analysts aware of problems early on. Netflix is a great example of a company bungling a few different business problems, creating a much bigger one in the process. A poorly conceived rate hike killed the reliable cash flow of the company, and that crazy Quixter thing just confused everyone. Now nobody trusts the management. BlackBerry is another example of a high performing company that just screwed up, damaging shareholders in the process. We're living in a very challenging era today, but growth stocks are always risky by nature -- growing a company rapidly is very difficult."}
{"question":"What to do with old company's 401k? [duplicate]","answer":"I suggest rolling it over to the 401(k) with your new employer.  Particularly if they match any percentage of your contribution, it would be in your interest to take as much of that money as possible. When it comes to borrowing money from your 401(k), it looks like the issues AbraCadaver mentioned only apply if you don't pay back the money (http:\/\/www.kiplinger.com\/article\/real-estate\/T010-C000-S002-borrowing-from-your-retirement-plan-to-buy-a-home.html).  The reasonable argument against taking money out of your 401(k) to buy a home is that it leaves a dent in your retirement nest egg (and its earning power) during key earning years.  On the plus side for borrowing from your 401(k), it's very low interest--and it's interest you're paying back to yourself over a 5-year period.  At its current value, the most you could borrow from your 401(k) is $35K.  If you're fortunate in where you live, that could be most or all of the downpayment. In my own experience, my wife borrowed against her 401(k) balance for the earnest money when we purchased a new home.  Fortunately for us, an investor snapped up my previous home within 4 days of us listing it, so she was able to pay back her loan in full right away."}
{"question":"What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?","answer":"Keep a notebook. (or spreadsheet, etc. whatever works) Start to track what things cost as few can really commit this all to memory.  You'll start to find the regular sale prices and the timing of them at your supermarkets. I can't even tell you the regular price of chicken breasts, I just know the sale is $1.79-1.99\/lb, and I buy enough to freeze to never pay full price.  The non-perishables are easy as you don't have to worry about spoilage. Soap you catch on sale+coupon for less than half price is worth buying to the limit, and putting in a closet.  Ex Dove soap (as the husband, I'm not about to make an issue of a brand preference. This product is good for the mrs skin in winter) - reg price $1.49. CVS had a whacky deal that offered a rebate on Dove purchase of $20, and in the end, I paid $10 for 40 bars of soap. 2 yrs worth, but 1\/6 the price.  This type of strategy can raise your spending in the first month or two, but then you find you have the high runners \"in stock\" and as you use products from the pantry or freezer, your spending drops quite a bit. If this concept seems overwhelming, start with the top X items you buy. As stated, the one a year purchases save you far less than the things you buy weekly\/monthly."}
{"question":"Easiest way to diversify savings","answer":"You can apply for Foreign currency accounts. But they aren't saving accounts by any means, but more like current accounts. Taking money out will involve charges. You have to visit the bank website to figure out what all operations can be performed on your account. Barclays and HSBC allow accounts in foreign currency. Other banks also will be providing the same services. Are there banks where you can open a bank account without being a citizen of that country without having to visit the bank in person Depends on country by country.  Are there any online services for investing money that aren't tied to any particular country? Get yourself a trading account and invest in foreign markets i.e. equities, bonds etc.  But all in all be ready for the foreign exchange risks involved in denominating assets in multiple currencies."}
{"question":"When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option?","answer":"In absolute terms the risk is about the same.  If you own the stock and your put option goes in the money, then you have the option to get rid of your stock at yesterday's higher price.  If you don't, you can sell the option for a higher price than you paid for it. But, as you calculated yourself, the net gain or loss (in absolute terms, not percentage terms) is the same either way."}
{"question":"How can rebuilding a city\/large area be considered an economic boost?","answer":"The problem here is that the metrics that are used to track the economy are looking for things like growth and change. In a perfect world, everyone would have exactly what they need and there would no need for economists because the economy would be static."}
{"question":"Good yield vs. safer route (Checking vs. Savings)","answer":"In personal finance, most of your success is determined by personal habit rather than financial savvy.  Getting in the habit of making regular deposits to your savings account will have a much larger effect on your situation than worrying about which account pays the highest interest rate (particularly as neither one of them matches the current inflation rate, which is over 3%). So go ahead and put your money in a savings account, but not because of the interest or safety, but because it's a \"savings\" account."}
{"question":"Stock market transaction cost calculation","answer":"An order is your command to the broker to, say, \"sell 100 shares of AAPL\". An executed order (or partially executed order) is when all (or some) of that command is successfully completed. A transaction is an actual exchange of shares for money, and there may be one or more transactions per executed order.  For example, the broker might perform all of the following 5 transactions in order to do what you asked: On the other hand, if the broker cannot execute your order, then 0 transactions have taken place. The fee schedule you quote is saying that no matter how many transactions the broker has to perform in order to fill your order -- and no matter what the share prices are -- they're only going to charge you $0.005 per share ($0.50 in this example of 100 shares), subject to certain limits. However, as it says at the top of the page you linked, Our Fixed pricing for stocks, ETFs (Exchange Traded Products, or ETPs) and warrants charges a fixed amount per share or a set percent of trade value, and includes all IB commissions, exchange and most regulatory fees with the exception of the transaction fees, which are passed through on all stock sales. certain transaction fees are passed through to the client.  The transaction fee you included above is the SEC fee on sales.  Many (but not all) transaction fees DO depend on the prices of the shares involved; as a result they cannot be called \"fixed\" fees. For example, if you sell 100 shares of AAPL at $150 each, But if you sell 100 shares of AMZN at $940 each, So the broker will charge you the same $0.50 on either of those orders, but the SEC will charge you more for the expensive AMZN shares than for the cheaper AAPL shares. The reason this specific SEC fee mentions aggregate sales rather than trade value is because this particular SEC fee applies only to the seller and not to the buyer.  So they could have written aggregate trade value, but they probably wanted to highlight to the reader that the fee is only charged on sells."}
{"question":"How can I determine if a FHA loan refinance offer is from a reputable lender","answer":"In my book if it comes in the mail with official looking envelopes, language and seals to try and get you to open it, the company isn't trust worthy enough for my business. I get a pile of these for my VA loan every week, I imagine FHA loans get similar junk mail. Rates are very low at the moment so it is likely that rates from reputable lenders are 1 to 2%  lower than say a year or 2 years ago.  In general if a lender gives you a GFE the numbers on it are going to be pretty accurate and there isn't a great deal of wiggle room for the lender so the concerns with reputation should focus on is this outfit some type of scam and then reviews on how good or bad their customer service is. Chances of running into a scam seem pretty low but the costs could be really high. As far as checking if an unknown lender is any good it is kind of tough to do. There is a list of Lenders on HUD's site. Checking BBB can't hurt but I wouldn't put a lot of stock into their recommendations. Doing some general Google searches certainly can't hurt but aren't fool proof either. Personally I would start by checking what prevailing rates are for your current situation. You could go to your proffered bank or to any number of online sites to get a couple of quotes."}
{"question":"Will a credit card company close my account if I stop using it?","answer":"There is no universal answer here.  Some card issuers will.  Some that will close the account will warn you first.  For my \"sock drawer\" cards I'll try to take each out semi-annually to make a single transaction, then put it back in the drawer. I've heard you should charge something quarterly, I've never had one closed with semi-annual charges."}
{"question":"Capital gains and flow through tax treatment","answer":"For some reason this can result in either   the flow through income being UNTAXED or the flow through income being   taxed as a capital gains. Either way this allows a lower tax rate for   LLC profits. I'm not sure that correct. I know it has something to do   with capital accounts. This is incorrect. As to capital accounts - these are accounts representing the members\/partners' capital in the enterprise, and have nothing to do with the tax treatment of the earnings. Undistributed earnings add to the capital accounts, but they're still taxed. Also, is it true that if the LLC loses money, that loss can be offset   against other taxable income resulting in a lower total taxation? It can offset taxable income of the same kind, just like any other losses on your tax return. Generally, flow-through taxation of partnerships means that the income is taxed to the partner with the original attributes. If it is capital gains - it is taxed as capital gains. If it is earned income - it is taxed as earned income. Going through LLC\/partnership doesn't re-characterize the income (going through corporation - does, in many cases)."}
{"question":"I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?","answer":"Basically, your question boils down to this: Where and how do I squeeze the stock market so that within time period X, it will make me Y dollars. (Where I'm emotionally attached to the Y figure because I recently lost it, and X is \"as soon as possible\".) To make money on the stock market (in a quasi-guaranteed way), you have to adjust X and Y so that they are realistic. For instance, let X be twenty-five years, and Y be \"7% annual return\". Small values of X are risky, unless X is on the order of milliseconds and you have a computer program working for you. To mitigate some of the risk of short term trading, you have to treat trading seriously and study like mad: study the stock market in general, and not only that, but carefully research the companies whose stocks you are buying. Work actively to discover stocks which are under-valued relative to the performance of their corporation, and which might correct upward relative to the performance of similar stocks. Always have an exit strategy for every position and stick to it. Use instruments like \"trailing stops\": automatic tracking which follows a price in one direction, and then produces an order to close the position when the price reverses by a certain amount."}
{"question":"Digital envelope system: a modern take ","answer":"While Googling answers for a similar personal dilemma I found Mvelopes. I already have a budget but was looking for a digital way for my husband and I to track our purchases so we know when we've \"used the envelope\". It's a free app."}
{"question":"What actions can I take against a bank for lack of customer service?","answer":"You can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service in Australia.  I've never used them in particular but generally organizations will respond much faster once you get the ombudsman involved. However, since you say they've now kept their promises, the ombudsman is unlikely to do much more than listen sympathetically."}
{"question":"What laws\/regulations are there regardings gifts in the form of large sums of money?","answer":"This forum is not intended to be a discussion group, but I would like to add a different perspective, especially for @MrChrister, on  @littleadv's rhetorical question  \"... estates are after-tax money, i.e.: income tax has been paid on them,    yet the government taxes them again. Why?\" For the cash in an estate, yes, that is after-tax money, but consider other assets such as stocks and real estate. Suppose a rich man bought stock in a small computer start-up company at $10 a share about 35 years ago, and that stock is now worth $500 a share. The man dies and his will bequeaths the shares to his son. According to US tax law, the son's basis in the shares is $500 per share, that is, if the son sells the shares, his capital gains are computed as if he had purchased the shares for $500 each. The son pays no taxes on the inheritance he receives. The deceased father's last income tax return (filed by the executor of the father's will) does not list the $490\/share gain as a capital gain since the father did not sell the stock (the gain is what is called an unrealized gain), and so there is no income tax due from the father on the $490\/share. Now, if there is no estate tax whatsoever, the father's estate  tax return pays no tax on that gain of $490 per share either. Would this be considered an equitable system? Should the government not tax the gain at all? It is worth noting that it would be possible for a government to eliminate estate taxes entirely, but instead have tax laws  that say that unrealized gains on the deceased's property would be taxed (as capital gains) on the deceased's final tax return."}
{"question":"What's the difference when asked for \"debit or credit\" by a store when using credit and debit cards?","answer":"Just to add about using debit card as \"credit\" vs \"debit\" way: In addition to the difference of having to enter the PIN when using \"debit\" mode (vs having to sign in \"credit\" mode), for stores that offer cash back (i.e. get cash out of your account at the same time as paying), you can only get cash back when using \"debit\" mode."}
{"question":"What is street-side booking?","answer":"The way I would use it is, every trade done by a broker has a client side and a street side.  The client side is for their brokerage account, and the street side is whoever they traded with Say, John Doe calls me at Charles Schwab and wants to buy 100 IBM.  I look at the market and decide that the best execution is on Arca.  I trade on Arca for the client.  Then, I book a client side trade into his account, and a street side trade against Arca.  If I myself was a dealer in IBM and executed against my inventory, the street side would basically be internal, booking a trade against my account."}
{"question":"Can Form 1040a, Line 10 be left blank if the broker's 1099-Div shows 0?","answer":"Capital gain distribution is not capital gain on sale of stock. If you have stock sales (Schedule D) you should be filing 1040, not 1040A. Capital gain distributions are distributions from mutual funds\/ETFs that are attributed to capital gains of the funds (you may not have actually received the distribution, but you still may have gain attributed to you). It is reported on 1099-DIV, and if it is 0 - then you don't have any. If you sold a stock, your broker should have given you 1099-B (which is not the same as 1099-DIV, but may be consolidated by your broker into one large PDF and not provided separately). On 1099-B the sales proceeds are recorded, and if you purchased the stock after 2011 - the cost basis is also recorded. The difference between the proceeds and the cost basis is your gain (or loss, if it is negative). Fees are added to cost basis."}
{"question":"How are credit unions initially financed","answer":"\u200bEstimated Start-Up and Operating Costs in Chartering a Credit Union notes in part: Given the significant costs involved, most groups seek grant money and   non-member deposits (if pre-approved for the low-income designation)   to help subsidize the pre-chartering costs and annual operating   expenses. Thus, in forming the union there would be the money from members and possible grants to ensure completion of the chartering process which is how one starts a CU in the US."}
{"question":"Legal Financing","answer":"Find a lawyer or law firm who wants to represent you and talk to them."}
{"question":"What is the best use of \"spare\" money?","answer":"With 40% of your take-home available, you have a golden opportunity here. Actually two, and the second builds out easily from the first.  Golden Opportunity # 1: Layoff Immunity Ok, not really immunity. Most people don't think of themselves getting laid off, and don't prepare. Of course it may not happen to you, but it can. It's happened to me twice. The layoff itself is an emotional burden (getting rejected is hard), but then you're suddenly faced with a gut-wrenching, \"how am I gonna pay the rent????\" If you have no savings, it's terrifying. Put yourself in that spot. Imagine that tomorrow, you're out of a job. For how many months could you pay your expenses with the money you have? Three months? One? Not even that?  How about shooting for 12 months? It's really, really comforting to be able to say: \"I don't have to worry about it for a year\". 12 months saved up gives you emotional and financial stability, and it gives you options -- you don't have to take the first job that comes along.  Now, saving 12 months of expenses is huge. But, you're in the wonderful spot where you can save 40% of your income. It would only take 2.5 years to save up a year's worth of income! But, actually, it's better than that. Because your 12-month Layoff Immunity fund doesn't have to include the amount for retirement, or taxes, or that 40% we're talking about. Your expenses are less than 60% of take-home -- you'd only need 12 months of that. So, you could have a fully funded 12-Month Layoff Immunity Fund only in a year and a half!  Golden Opportunity #2: Freedom Fund Do you like your Job? Would you still do it, if you didn't need the money? If so, great. But if not, why not get yourself into a position where you don't need it? That is, build up enough money from saving and investing to where you can pay your expenses - forever - from your investments. The number to keep in mind is 25. Figure out your annual expenses, and multiply it by 25. That's the amount you'd need to never need a job again. (That works out to a 4% withdrawal rate, adjusting for inflation every year, with a low risk of running out of money. It's a rule of thumb, but smart people doing a lot of math worked it out.) Here you keep saving and investing that 40% in solid mutual funds in a regular, taxable account. Between your savings and the compounding returns off the investments, you could easily have a fully funded \"Freedom Fund\" by the time you're 50. In fact, by 45 isn't unreasonable.  It could be even better. If you live in that high-rent area because of the job, and wouldn't mind living were the rents are lower once you quit, your target amount would be lower. Between that, working dedicatedly toward this goal, and maybe a little luck, you might even be able to do this by age 40.  Final Thoughts There are other things you could put that money toward, like a house, of course. The key take-away here, is to save it, and invest it.  You're in a unique position of being able to do that with 40% of your income. That's fabulous! But don't think it's the norm. Most people can't save that much, and, once you lose the ability to save that much, it's very difficult to get it back. Expenses creep in, lifestyle \"wants\" become \"needs\", and so on. If you get into the habit of spending it, it's very difficult to shrink your lifestyle back down - down to what right now you're perfectly comfortable with. So, spend some time figuring out what you want out of life -- and in the mean time, sock that 40% away."}
{"question":"What are the top \"market conditions\" to follow?","answer":"If you're investing for the long term your best strategy is going to be a buy-and-hold strategy, or even just buying a few index funds in several major asset classes and forgetting about it. Following \"market conditions\" is about as useful to the long term trader as checking the weather in Anchorage, Alaska every day (assuming that you don't live in Anchorage, Alaska). Let me suggest treating yourself to a subscription to The Economist and read it once a week. You'll learn a lot more about investing, economics, and world trends, and you won't be completely in the dark if there are major structural changes in the world (like gigantic housing bubbles) that you might want to know about."}
{"question":"How can I set up a recurring payment to an individual (avoiding fees)?","answer":"Many U.S. banks now support POPMoney, which allows recurring electronic transfers between consumer accounts.  Even if your bank doesn't support it, you can still use the service.  See popmoney.com."}
{"question":"Is buying a lottery ticket considered an investment? ","answer":"Although this has been touched upon in comments, I think the following line from the currently accepted answer shows the biggest issue: There is a clear difference between investing and gambling. The reality is that the difference isn't that clear at all. Tens of comments have been written arguing in both directions and looking around the internet entire essays have been written arguing both positions. The underlying emotion that seems to shape this discussion primarily is whether investing (especially in the stock market) is a form of gambling. People who do invest in this way tend to get relatively emotional whenever someone argues that this is a form of gambling, as gambling is considered a negative thing. The simple reality of human communication is that words can be ambiguous, and the way investors will use the words 'investments' and 'gambles' will differ from the way it is used by gamblers, and once again different from the way it's commonly used. What I definitely think is made clear by all the different discussions however is that there is no single distinctive trait that allows us to differentiate investing and gambling. The result of this is that when you take dictionary definitions for both terms you will likely end up including lottery tickets as a valid form of investment.  That still however leaves us with a situation where we have two terms - with a strong overlap - which have a distinctive meaning in communication and the original question whether buying lottery tickets is an investment. Over on investorguide.com there is an absolutely amazing strongly recommended essay which explores countless of different traits in search of a difference between investing and gambling, and they came up with the following two definitions: Investing: \"Any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): sufficient research has been conducted; the odds are favorable; the behavior is risk-averse; a systematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play no role; the activity is ongoing and done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is not motivated solely by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is involved; a net positive economic effect results.\" Gambling: \"Any activity in which money is put at risk for the purpose of making a profit, and which is characterized by some or most of the following (in approximately descending order of importance): little or no research has been conducted; the odds are unfavorable; the behavior is risk-seeking; an unsystematic approach is being taken; emotions such as greed and fear play a role; the activity is a discrete event or series of discrete events not done as part of a long-term plan; the activity is significantly motivated by entertainment or compulsion; ownership of something tangible is not involved; no net economic effect results.\" The very interesting thing about those definitions is that they capture very well the way those terms are used by most people, and they even acknowledge that a lot of 'investors' are gambling, and that a few gamblers are 'investing' (read the essay for more on that). And this fits well with the way those two concepts are understood by the public. So in those definitions normally buying a lottery ticket would indeed not be an investment, but if we take for example Vadim's operation example If you have $1000 and need $2000 by next week or else you can't have an operation and you will die (and you can't find anyone to give you a loan). Your optimal strategy is to gamble your $1000, at the best odds you can get, with a possible outcome of $2000. So even if you only have a 1\/3 chance of winning and getting that operation, it's still the right bet if you can't find a better one. this can suddenly change the perception and turn 'gambling' into 'high-risk investing'."}
{"question":"How do I analyse moving averages?","answer":"If you are going to be a long term investor you are only going to buy and hold. You will not sell. Thus future price is not relevant. Only dividend payout is relevant. Divide the dividend by the price you paid to get the yeald.  Edit:  once again the sitesite will not allow me to add a comment, so I have to edit a previous post...  What you call 'active investor' is not really investing, it is speculating. When you try to 'buy low, sell high' you have, at best, a 50-50 chance of picking the low. You then pay a commission on that buy. After you buy then you have a 50-50 chance, at best, of picking the high. You also have to pay the commission on the sell. 50% times 50% is 25%.So you have, at best a 25% chance of buying low and selling high. You are churning your account which makes money for the broker whether you make money or not. If, instead, you buy and hold a dividend paying security then the going price is irrelevant. You paid for the security once and do not have to pay for it again. Meanwhile the dividends roll in forever. 'Buy low, sell high' is a fools game. Warren Buffet does not do it, he buys and holds."}
{"question":"Can I actually get a share of stock issued with a piece of paper anymore?","answer":"Yes, indeed.  For example, Ford Motor Company's website has a bit about them. Is there any advantage to having an actual physical note instead of a website? You can safeguard them yourself.  Which may or may not be a good thing.  It certainly brings up a bit of hassle and extra costs if you want to sell them.  Though you can have lost certificates replaced, so there is more to it than just having physical possession of the certificates."}
{"question":"Why buy insurance?","answer":"There are several insurance products that I buy for legal reasons: Both of these protect me from lawsuits and fines. Many people buy similar products to protect their business operations. (e.g. medical malpractice insurance) There are some insurance products I buy for tax planning and financial planning purposes: I have a large amount of savings available, so I have several tricks to reduce my insurance costs, and I have several products that I avoid. Several of these reasons are mentioned in other answers, but I thought I would collect them into a single answer to demonstrate that there are reasons other than the rational calculation of what the payout will be for the insurance products vs. the premium paid. If I gain access to a tax advantaged Health savings account, that is a bigger benefit to me than avoiding the premium, especially when my employer is paying the majority of the premium. Perhaps it makes no sense to buy insurance given sufficient savings (like the products I listed that make no sense for me given my finances) but not everyone can self-insure; it does require a certain level of wealth."}
{"question":"What is meant by a market that is technically strong","answer":"A technically strong stock or market is simply a stock or market which is up-trending and has been up-trending for a while. Just as a fundamentally strong stock is one with good fundamentals (a stock that is healthy and making higher profits year after year and continually improving), a technically strong stock has a healthy uptrend that continues to go up and up. Apple was technically strong until it hit $700 (its price stayed above the 200 day MA for a long period until after it hit $700, then broke down through the 200 day MA shortly after - the uptrend was over). I will usually buy stocks which are both fundamentally and technically strong, as a technically strong stock will generally stay technically strong longer if it also has strong and good fundamentals."}
{"question":"How to convert coins into paper money or deposit coins into bank account, without your bank in local?","answer":"We have machines in several grocery store chains that will take your coins, sort them, and give you two ways to get your money back: I've seen these many places, but, of course, I cannot say for sure if there are any near you."}
{"question":"Employer reported ESPP ordinary income on wrong year's W-2","answer":"Based on the statement in your question you think it should have been on the 2014 W-2 but it was included on the 2015 W-2. If you are correct, then you are asking them to correct two w-2 forms: the 2014 form and the 2015 form. You will also have to file form 1040-x for 2014 to correct last years tax forms. You will have to pay additional tax with that filing, and there could be penalties and interest. But if you directed them on the last day of the year, it is likely that the transaction actually took place the next year. You will have to look at the paperwork for the account to see what is the expected delay. You should also be able to see from the account history when it actually took place, and when the funds were credited to your account.  or you could just pay the tax this year. This might be the best if there is no real difference in the result. Now if you added the sale to your taxes lat year without a corresponding tax statement from your account, that is a much more complex situation. The IRS could eventually flag the discrepancy, so you may have to adjust last year filing anyway."}
{"question":"What is the correct way to report a tender offer fee on my taxes?","answer":"It is perfectly legitimate to adjust your 1099-B income by broker's fees.  Publication 17 (p 116) specifically instructs taxpayers to adjust their Schedule D reporting by broker's fees: Form 1099-B transactions.   If you sold property, such as stocks, bonds, or certain commodities, through a broker, you should receive Form 1099-B or substitute statement from the broker. Use the Form 1099-B or the substitute statement to complete Form 8949. If you sold a covered security in 2013, your broker should send you a Form 1099-B (or substitute statement) that shows your basis. This will help you complete Form 8949. Generally, a covered security is a security you acquired after 2010. Report the gross proceeds shown in box 2a of Form 1099-B as the sales price in column (d) of either Part I or Part II of Form 8949, whichever applies. However, if the broker advises you, in box 2a of Form 1099-B, that gross proceeds (sales price) less commissions and option premiums were reported to the IRS, enter that net sales price in column (d) of either Part I or Part II of Form 8949, whichever applies. Include in column (g) any expense of sale, such as broker's fees, commissions, state and local transfer taxes, and option premiums, unless you reported the net sales price in column (d). If you include an expense of sale in column (g), enter \"E\" in column (f). You can rely on your own records and judgment, if you feel comfortable doing so.  Brokers often make incomplete tax reporting.  This may have been simpler from their perspective if the broker fees were variable, or integrated, or unknown for a number of clients party to a transaction.  If a taxpayer has documentation of the expenses that justify an adjustment, then it's perfectly appropriate to include that in the calculations. It is not necessary to report the discrepancy, and it may increase scrutiny to include a written addendum.  The Schedule D, Form 8949, and Form 1099-B will probably together adequately explain the source of the deduction."}
{"question":"Taking out a loan to pay down a mortgage","answer":"You have the 2 properties, and even though the value of property B is less than the amount you owe on it hopefully you have some equity in propery A. So if you do have enough equity in property A, why don't you just go to the one lender and get both property A and B refinanced under the same mortgage. This way hopefully the combined equity in both properties would be enough to cover the full amount of the loan, and you have the opportunity to refinance at favourable rate and terms. Sounds like you are in the USA with an interest rate of 3.25%, I am in Australia and my mortgage rates are currently between 6.3% to 6.6%."}
{"question":"My university has tranfered me money by mistake, and wants me to transfer it back","answer":"Confirming whether the payment was an error The simplest method is to confirm manually with the University whether the payment was a mistake and satisfy that between yourselves. If you're concerned it's fraudulant, I recommend calling the University finance office on a phone number you find on their website, or call one of the people you know. Reversing the payment To formally reverse the payment, I'd check your Product Disclosure Statement on your account with the bank. There's almost always a fee involved where a payment is reversed. It's probably easiest to just issue the payment back to the university to an agreed BSB\/Account Number."}
{"question":"How does owning a home and paying on a mortgage fit into family savings and investment?","answer":"Have you ever tried adding up all your mortgage payments over the years? That sum, plus all the money that you put as a down payment (including various fees paid at closing) plus all the repair and maintenance work etc) is the amount that you have \"invested\" in your house. (Yes, you can account for mortgage interest deductions if you like to lower the total a bit).  Do you still feel that  you made a good \"investment\"?"}
{"question":"In the UK, could low-income pensioners (or those near a low-income retirement) find a student loan useful for boosting their finances? ","answer":"In theory - Yes. So as long as someone will accept you as a (very) mature student, you plan to never earn over 21k a year for the next 30 years (no longer wiped out at 65), you could get a loan, slightly unethically (unless you fancy doing the course). Also if you did have to start paying it back - since interest rates are currently 6.1% this means the loan is doubling potentially just under every 12 years (approx) As to the side question of is it fraud?  I couldn't say.  Is a student getting maximum loans but planning on being a jobless bum for the rest of their lives and never paying back loans also committing fraud?  One could argue Yes, but i don't believe a lack of ambition is currently illegal."}
{"question":"Investment strategy for 401k when rolling over soon","answer":"The time horizon for your 401K\/IRA is essentially the same, and it doesn't stop at the day you retire. On the day you do the rollover you will be transferring your funds into similar investments. S&P500 index to S&P 500 index; 20xx retirement date to 20xx retirement date; small cap to small cap... If your vested portion is worth X $'s when the funds are sold, that is the amount that will be transferred to the IRA  custodian or the custodian for the new employer. Use the transfer to make any rebalancing adjustments that you want to make. But with as much as a year before you leave the company if you need to rebalance now, then do that irrespective of your leaving. Cash is what is transferred, not the individual stock or mutual fund shares. Only move your funds into a money market account with your current 401K if that makes the most sense for your retirement plan. Also keep in mind unless the amount in the 401K is very small you don't have to do this on your last day of work. Even if you are putting the funds in a IRA wait until you have started with the new company and so can define all your buckets based on the options in the new company."}
{"question":"Debt collector has wrong person and is contacting my employer","answer":"Don't waste your time threatening legal action or screwing around with certified mail. If they're contacting your employer to garnish your wages they probably already have a summary judgment against you for failing to appear at a court date you didn't know about.  Your employer might have had your back but these guys will continue to try to locate your assets and attempt garnishment until someone does accept their claim and hands over your bank account.  Contact a bankruptcy attorney immediately (they are most experienced with dealing with debt collectors and related issues). Consultations are generally free."}
{"question":"Looking for a good source for Financial Statements","answer":"The best source of financial statements would be from the company in question. On corporate websites of public listed companies, you can find such financial statements uploaded in the Investor's Relations section of their website. If their company does not have an online presence, another alternative would be to go to the website of the exchange the company is trading in (e.g. NYSE or NASDAQ) for financial data."}
{"question":"How can you correlate a company stock's performance with overall market performance?","answer":"Generally, if you are trend trading, and if the market as a hole is going up strongly and an individual stock is falling sharply on the same day, I would tend to stay away from buying that stock at the moment. The market is showing strength whilst at the same time the stock is showing weakness. The general rule of thumb for trend trading is to buy rising stocks in a rising market. Or you could look to short sell falling stocks in a falling market."}
{"question":"Should I continue to invest in an S&P 500 index fund?","answer":"Cycle analysis indicates that the current bear market, which began in May\/June, should last until late 2016 \/ early 2017. So if you want to trade the short side, then it's a great time to be short for the next 15-18 months."}
{"question":"What were the main causes of the spike and drop of DRYS's stock price?","answer":"Because it's a declining company and used as an institutional sized pump and dump with a new toxic financing every week. Look up Kalani Investments - they're behind it all."}
{"question":"Is there such thing as a Checking account requiring pre-approval \/ white-list?","answer":"There is no bank that I know of offering such a feature and I'm not sure what the point of it would be (other than to annoy their customers). If you've been subjected to a fraudulent check your best bet is to either choose to write checks only to trusted parties and\/or use your banks BillPay service (they usually issue checks on another account while transferring the money from your account). The drawbacks of your current plan, bounced legitimate checks and high maintenance nature, outweigh the potential benefits of catching a fraudulent check since you're not legally obligated to pay checks you haven't written."}
{"question":"If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting?","answer":"Paying tax is a Good Thing. However, warren has made good point and I would like you to consider this other thing: Go into your payees bank with the payee, get the money withdrawn from the teller and take it with you. Unless I am missing something, or the teller handed your payee fake notes, you are \"safe\""}
{"question":"Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment?","answer":"This does not directly address the question, but how the Bank views your behaviour is not the same as a credit reporting bureau.  If you do not \"go deep\" on your card at all, you may be deemed not to be exercising the facility, indeed they may ask you to reduce your credit limit. This is not the same as \"missing a payment\". At the same time, do not just make the minimum payment. Ideally you should clear it within 3 months. Think of it as a very short term line of credit. Not clearing the balance within three months (or turning it over) demonstrates a cash flow problem, as does clearing it from another card. Some banks call this \"kite flying\" after similar behaviour in older days with cheque accounts. If you use the credit and show you can pay it off, you should never need to ask for a credit increase, it will be offered. The Bureau will be informed of these offers. Also, depending upon how much the bank trusts you, the Bureau may see a \"monthly\" periodic credit review, which is good if you have no delinquencies. Amex does this as a rule."}
{"question":"What to do with an expensive, upside-down car loan?","answer":"Does the full time PHD student extend to 70-80 hours\/week or more? If not, can you pick up an extra job to aid with living expenses? Also, whose name is the debt in? Is your wife paying to avoid the black mark on her credit record or her mother's? Basically what it looks like to me is that you guys currently have a car you cannot afford and that her mother doesn't seem to be able to afford either, at a ridiculous interest rate on top. Refinancing might be an option but at a payoff amount of 12k you're upside down even when it comes to the KBB retail value. I'm somewhat allergic to financing a deprecating asset (especially at a quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that she's already paid them around $18k if you are indeed three years into the loan). What I would be tempted to do in your situation is to attempt to negotiate a lower payoff to see if they're willing to settle for less and give you clean title to the car - worst thing they can say is no, but you might be able to get the car for a little less than the $12k, then preferably use your emergency money to pay off the car and put it up for sale. Use some of the money to buy her a cheaper car for, say, $4k-$5k (or less if you're mechanically inclined) and put the rest back into your emergency fund. The problem I see with refinancing it would be that it looks like you're underwater from a balance vs retail value perspective so you might have a problem finding someone to refinance it with you throwing some of your emergency money at it in the first place."}
{"question":"Transferring money from 403B to 401K?","answer":"You can move money from a 403b to a 401k plan, but the question you should ask yourself is whether it is a wise decision. Unless there are specific reasons for wanting to invest in your new employer's 401k (e.g. you can buy your employer's stock at discounted rates within the 401k, and this is a good investment according to your friends, neighbors, and brothers-in-law), you would be much better off moving the 403b money into an IRA, where you have many more choices for investment and usually can manage to find investments with lower investment costs (e.g. mutual fund fees) than in a typical employer's 401k plan. On the other hand, 401k assets are better protected than IRA assets in case you are sued and a court finds you to be liable for damages; the plaintiff cannot come after the 401k assets if you cannot pay.  To answer the question of \"how?\", you need to talk to the HR people at your current employer to make sure that they are willing to accept a roll-over from another tax-deferred plan (not all plans are agreeable to do this) and get any paperwork from them, especially making sure that you find out where the check is to be sent, and to whom it should be payable. Then, talk to your previous employer's HR people and tell them that you want to roll over your 403b money into the 401k plan of your new employer, fill out the paperwork, make sure they know to whom to cut the check to, and where it is to be sent etc. In my personal experience, I was sent the check payable to the custodian of my new (IRA) account, and I had to send it on to the custodian; my 403b people refused to send the check directly to the new custodian. The following January, you will receive a 1099-R form from your 403b plan showing the amount transferred to the new custodian, with hopefully the correct code letter indicating that the money was rolled over into another tax-deferred account."}
{"question":"Buying a car - advice needed","answer":"If it costs more to fix the car than the car is worth, then those repairs are not worth it.  Hit craigslist and look for another junker that runs, but is in your cash price range.  Pay to get it looked at by a mechanic as a condition of sale.  Use consumer reports to try and find a good model. Somebody in your position does not need a $15K car.  You need a series of $2K or $4K cars that you will replace more often, but pay cash for.  Car buying, especially from a dealer financed, place isn't how I would recommend building your credit back up. EDIT in response to your updates: Build your credit the smart way, by not paying interest charges.  Use your lower limit card, and annually apply for more credit, which you use and pay off each and every month.  Borrowing is not going to help you.  Just because you can afford to make payments, doesn't automatically make payments a wise decision.  You have to examine the value of the loan, not what the payments are.  Shop for a good price, shop for a good rate, then purchase.  The amount you can pay every month should only be a factor than can kill the deal, not allow it. Pay cash for your vehicle until you can qualify for a low cost loan from a credit union or a bank.  It is a waste of money and time to pay a penalty interest rate because you want to build your credit.  Time is what will heal your credit score. If you really must borrow for the purchase, you must secure a loan prior to shopping for a car.  Visit a few credit unions and get pre-qualified.  Once you have a pre-approved loan in place, you can let the deal try and beat your loan for a better deal.  Don't make the mistake of letting the dealer do all the financing first."}
{"question":"Ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader","answer":"FINRA Description of Day Trading rules The rules adopt a new term \"pattern day trader,\" which includes any   margin customer that day trades (buys then sells or sells short then   buys the same security on the same day) four or more times in five   business days, provided the number of day trades are more than six   percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same   five-day period. So, there's several ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader:"}
{"question":"Better to have a non-registered (taxable) investment account in one\/both names and\/or based on income?","answer":"It should be in the name(s) of whomever puts money in the account.  When filing your taxes there will be a question or space to mark the percentage of income in each others name. If you're just looking for small amounts of income splitting, then it's legal for the higher earning spouse to pay household expenses and then the lower earning spouse can save all or some of his\/her income. Whether or not to have 2 accounts or not has more to do with estate planning and minimizing account fees if applicable.  It can also help in a small way for asset allocation if that's based on family assets and also, minimizing commissions."}
{"question":"What are some good books for learning stocks, bonds, derivatives e.t.c for beginner with a math background?","answer":"Not perhaps practically useful, but I found it conceptually useful to learn the basics of mathematical finance, a way of describing financial markets via probability theory and stochastic processes. It's a little like trying to understand horse racing by studying spherical horses rolling without friction in a vacuum, but it does give you some ways of thinking that may be more appealing to someone with a math background. For instance, there's the idea that shorting a stock is effectively owning negative shares. Option pricing is a common motivation. There's a brief introduction, at the advanced undergraduate level, in Durrett's Essentials of Stochastic Processes. At the graduate level, I liked Ruth Williams' Introduction to the Mathematics of Finance."}
{"question":"Is it possible to make money off of a private company?","answer":"Yes, but only if they're looking for investors. You would need to contact them directly. Unless you're looking to invest a significant sum, they may not be interested in speaking with you. (Think at least 6 figures, maybe 7 depending on their size and needs). This is otherwise known as being a Venture Capitalist. Some companies don't want additional investors because the capital isn't yet needed and they don't want to give up shares in the profit\/control. Alternatively, you could try and figure out which investment groups already have a stake in the company you're interested in. If those companies are publicly traded, you could buy stocks for their company with the expectation that their stock price will increase if the company you know of does well in the long run."}
{"question":"Is there any way to pay online in a country with no international banking system","answer":"According to Paypal, they support transactions in Ethiopia:  https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/webapps\/mpp\/country-worldwide https:\/\/developer.paypal.com\/docs\/classic\/api\/country_codes\/ However those appear to be limited to transferring money out of the country.  (link) There is an article here (link) which talks about how to transfer money from paypal back to your bank in Ethiopia.  It sounds like you have to set up a US bank account, withdraw the funds to that then somehow transfer the money from their to your bank.   NOTE: I have no relationship to any of the sites above, nor do I know if the information is accurate or the trustworthiness of those businesses."}
{"question":"Can you buy gift cards at grocery store to receive a higher reward rate?","answer":"(I agree with the answers above; would just like to make a couple of additional points.) It's a good and simple strategy to try it out with a small amount as suggested by @JoeTaxpayer\u2666. It's also generally safe to assert that card issuers currently don't receive or actively look at itemized transaction details. But that does not mean they cannot in the future. Some stores utilize level 3 data processing, which tells the card issuers exactly what you bought in a transaction. An example of level 3 data being utilized to reject rewards is with Discover, which announced a 10% cashback reward for any transactions made with Apple Pay last year. It later introduced an additional term to exclude gift card purchases. And this has been verified to be effective - no more reward on gift card purchases; clawback of cashback on existing gift card transactions. As far as I know, Amex does receive and look at some level 3 data retrospectively. That does not necessarily mean they will claw back your cashback after initially rewarding the 6%. But it might show up if you ever trigger an account review, and be used as evidence of your \"abuse\" of the program (which BTW is defined rather subjectively). There has been many cases of account shutdowns because of this. Card issuers are also trying to do a better job preventing \"abuses\" by proactively setting caps on rewards (as opposed to closing those accounts afterwards and taking the rewards away altogether). Given the trend in recent years, I have to speculate that at some point the card issuers would put clear language in the terms against gift card purchase and enforce it effectively (if they haven't already). This reward game is constantly changing. It's good while it lasts. Just be prepared and don't get surprised when things go south."}
{"question":"In general, is it financially better to buy or to rent a house?","answer":"The general answer is: \"it depends on how long you want to live there\". Here is a good calculator to figure it out: http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/business\/buy-rent-calculator.html Basically, if you plan to move in a few years, then renting makes more sense.  It is a lot easier to move from an apartment when your lease is up versus selling a house, which can be subject to fluctuations in the real-estate market.  As an example, during the real estate bubble, a lot of \"young professional\" types bought condos and town homes instead of renting.  Now these people are married with kids, need to move somewhere bigger, but they can't get rid of their old place because they can't sell it for what they still owe.  If these people had rented for a few years, they would be in a better position financially.  (Many people fell for the mantra \"If you are renting, you are throwing your money away\", without looking at the long-term implications.) However, your question is a little unique, because you mentioned renting for the rest of your life, and putting the savings into an investment, which is a cool idea.  (Thinking outside the box, I like it.) I'm going to assume you mean \"rent the same place for many years\" versus \"moving around the country every few years\".  If you are staying in one place for a long time, I am going to say that buying a house is probably a better option.  Here's why: So what about investing?  Let's look at some numbers: So, based on the above, I say that buying a house is the way to go (as long as you plan to live in the same place for several years).  However, if you could find a better investment than the Dow, or if mortgage interest rates change drastically, things could tip in another direction. Addendum:  CrimsonX brought up a good point about the costs of owning a house (upkeep and property taxes), which I didn't mention above.  However, I don't think they change my answer.  If you rent, you are still paying those costs.  They are just hidden from you.  Your landlord pays the contractor or the tax man, and then you pay the landlord as part of your rent."}
{"question":"Can I claim the standard deduction being an Indian citizen and non-resident in USA for tax purposes?","answer":"Prachi - While most non-resident aliens are not allowed to claim the standard deduction here are some exceptions: IRS Law under Article 21: ARTICLE 21 Payments Received by Students and Apprentices This falls under the U.S.A.-India Tax Treaty. Sources: I hope this helps. So, yes, I do believe you would be able to claim the standard deduction, although it's always good to check with a tax adviser."}
{"question":"What taxes are assessed on distributions of an inherited IRA?","answer":"For an inherited IRA, there are a few options for taking distributions. You clearly haven't done option 1. It sounds like you haven't done option 2 because otherwise you would probably know how it is taxed. That leaves you with option 3.  With option 3, you must distribute the entire amount within 5 years.  For you, I'm not sure if that means you need to distribute the entire amount by the end of 2016 or 2017.  If it was 2016, then you'll probably have to pay penalties. Distributions from an inherited IRA are taxed as ordinary income regardless of your age or the distribution option you select."}
{"question":"How to report a personal expense for an LLC partnership paid in one year and reimbursed in another?","answer":"You report it when the expense was incurred\/accrued. Which is, in your case, 2014. There's no such thing as \"accounts payable\" on tax forms, it is an account on balance sheet, but most likely it is irrelevant for you since your LLC is probably cash-based. The reimbursement is a red-herring, what matters is when you paid the money."}
{"question":"How to explain quick price changes early in the morning","answer":"You may simply be asking why stocks 'gap up' or 'gap down' when the stock market opens. This is because the price adjusts to news that occurred while the exchanges were closed overnight. Perhaps Asian stocks crashed, or perhaps a news story was released in the New York Times about some major company. There are thousands of factors that affect market sentiment, and the big gaps that happen at the open of every trading day is the price of the stocks catching up to those factors."}
{"question":"Is it better to pay an insurance deductible, or get an upgrade?","answer":"I'm going to guess you're on Verizon and your wife has an iPhone. I just went through this exact same situation with my mom's phone last week. When you're off contract with Verizon you're saving $25\/month on your plan (at least, I am), so staying off contract is big. If you do the monthly payment you're paying full retail over 2 years, without interest, so you do stay off contract at least. Here's the thing, as long as it's a 16GB iPhone 5 or better, you're going to be able to Craigslist it for the cost of the deductible, no problems. To me that makes the decision pretty easy to make. As long as you can Craigslist it for more than the deductible, get the insurance replacement. Then when you want a new phone you can sell your old one. Since you can sell the phone, I think that makes the comparison between the deductible and deciding to pay off the $100 now and start payments on the new phone less relevant. The real comparison I'd suggest looking at is the value of the phone and the deductible."}
{"question":"Is it impossible to get a home loan with a poor credit history after a divorce?","answer":"I am sorry for your troubles, but impressed with your problem solving skills.  Keep going, things will get better.   Your best hope is to find a place that does manual underwriting.  If they do computer generated stuff, then you will be kicked for sure.  If you can show 20% down, and have some savings, and have some history of paying bills, then you might be approved.   Here in Florida, RP Funding still does manual underwriting.  Another one that is mentioned is Church Hill mortgage.  Also you might check with local credit unions. Of course your best bet to be approved is to be open and state upfront the challenges.  You have to find someone that has the ability to think, has the ability to see passed the challenges, and has the authority to do so."}
{"question":"Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? ","answer":"Some answers already informed about denomination. There are currencies, doing the cut off of two digits, for example the french franc. See http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/French_franc#New_franc  When you look to old french movies, they often talked about 'old franc' when talking about values (at least in French original, I don't know what happens in English translations)."}
{"question":"What should I invest in to hedge against a serious crash or calamity?","answer":"Are you willing to risk the possibility of investing to prepare for these things and losing money or simply getting meager returns if those crises don't happen? Just invest in a well diversified portfolio both geographically and across multiple sectors and you should be fine."}
{"question":"Why is stock dilution legal?","answer":"Here's another way that I look at it:  Say you and me were 50-50 partners in a small business. Suppose we wanted to expand our business but that needed money. Someone (let's call him Warren) has the money we need & hence in return for the money we offer Warren an equal stake in the business.  i.e. All three of us own 33% stake now. For both you and me our stake reduced from  50% that it was before Warren's entry to only 33% now.  While that reduction in our share may seem at first sight a bad deal for us, we both agreed to give Warren his share consciously not out of altruism but because it made business sense to helps us expand.  Ergo, what matters is not just your share of the pie but the size of the pie itself! And hence dilution of stake can make sense under certain circumstances.  Two small points: (a) This doesn't  in any way show the dilution must make sense. Only that it can sometimes make sense (b) Of course, in the case of a large corporation they do not need your personal approval for the dilution. But hey, neither do they ask you when they buy a new plant or start a new product."}
{"question":"Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined?","answer":"Mining\/discovery of gold can be inflationary -- the Spanish looting of Central America for a few hundred years or the gold rush in the 19th century US are examples of that phenomenon. The difference between printing currency and mining is that you have to ability to print money on demand, while mining is limited to whatever is available to extract at a given time. The rising price of gold may be contributing to increased production, as low-grade ore that wasn't economically viable to work with in the 1980's are now affordable."}
{"question":"Is it wise to sell company stock to pay down a mortgage?","answer":"If by \"Company Stock\" you mean \"stock in the company I work for\" then absolutely sell your stock.  It is too big a risk to have your investments tied into the same company that is also providing your salary. If you mean stock as in general investments, I like to look at it this way.   If you have $25,000 stock and a $100,000 mortgage you ask this question: If I had a $75,000 mortgage would I borrow an additional $25,000 against my house to invest in the stock market? If the answer is yes, then you are taking a risk consistent with your tolerance for risk.   If you answer no, then your tolerance for risk says you'd be happier paying down your mortgage."}
{"question":"What are some simple techniques used for Timing the Stock Market over the long term?","answer":"Buy low, sell high - the problem, of course, finding a crystal ball that will tell you when the highs and lows are going to happen :-) You could, for instance, save your money in cash and wait for the occasional sharp drop, but then you've lost profits & dividends from having that cash under the mattress all those years you were waiting. About the closest I've ever gotten to market timing, and I think the closest anyone can get in real life, is that I cut personal spending to the bone from 2008 to 2011, and invested every spare cent.  But such opportunities only come along a few times in a lifetime. The other thing is to avoid what a lot of people do, which you might call anti-timing.  When the market is high, they jump on the bandwagon, then when it drops they panic-sell, and lose money."}
{"question":"Where does the stock go in a collapse?","answer":"Just before a crash or at the start of the crash most of the smart money would have gotten out, the remaining technical traders would be out by the time the market has dropped 10 to 15%, and some of them would be shorting their positions by now.  Most long-term buy and hold investors would stick to their guns and stay in for the long haul. Some will start to get nervous and have sleepless nights when the markets have fallen 30%+ and look to get out as well. Others stay in until they cannot stand it anymore. And some will stick it out throughout the downturn. So who are the buyers at this stage? Some are the so called bargain hunters that buy when the market has fallen over 30% (only to sell again when it falls another 20%), or maybe buy more (because they think they are dollar cost averaging and will make a packet when the price goes back up - if and when it does). Some are those with stops covering their short positions, whilst others may be fund managers and individuals looking to rebalance their portfolios. What you have to remember during both an uptrend and a downtrend the price does not move straight up or straight down. If we take the downtrend for instance, it will have lower lows and lower highs (that is the definition of a downtrend). See the chart below of the S&P 500 during the GFC falls.  As you can see just before it really started falling in Jan 08 there was ample opportunity for the smart money and the technical traders to get out of the market as the price drops below the 200 MA and it fails to make a higher peak. As the price falls from Jan 08 to Mar 08 you suddenly start getting some movement upwards. This is the bargain hunters who come into the market thinking the price is a bargain compared to 3 months ago, so they start buying and pushing the price up somewhat for a couple of months before it starts falling again. The reason it falls again is because the people who wanted to sell at the start of the year missed the boat, so are taking the opportunity to sell now that the prices have increased a bit. So you get this battle between the buyers (bulls) and seller (bears), and of course the bears are winning during this downtrend. That is why you see more sharper falls between Aug to Oct 08, and it continues until the lows of Mar 09. In short it has got to do with the phycology of the markets and how people's emotions can make them buy and\/or sell at the wrong times."}
{"question":"How to learn about doing technical analysis?  Any suggested programs or tools that teach it?","answer":"A great way to learn is by watching then doing. I run a very successful technical analysis blog, and the first thing I like to tell my readers is to find a trader online who you can connect with, then watch them trade. I particularly like Adam Hewison, Marketclub.com - This is a great website, and they offer a great deal of eduction for free, in video format. They also offer further video based education through their ino.tv partner which is paid. Here is a link that has their free daily technical analysis based stock market update in video format. Marketclub Daily Stock Market Update Corey Rosenblum, blog.afraidtotrade.com - Corey is a Chartered Market Technician, and runs a fantastic technical analysis blog the focuses on market internals and short term trades. John Lansing, Trending123.com - John is highly successful trader who uses a reliable set of indicators and patterns, and has the most amazing knack for knowing which direction the markets are headed. Many of his members are large account day traders, and you can learn tons from them as well. They have a live daily chat room that is VERY busy. The other option is to get a mentor. Just about any successful trader will be willing to teach someone who is really interested, motivated, and has the time to learn. The next thing to do once you have chosen a route of education is to start virtual trading. There are many platforms available for this, just do some research on Google. You need to develop a trading plan and methodology for dealing with the emotions of trading. While there is no replacement for making real trades, getting some up front practice can help reduce your mistakes, teach you a better traders mindset, and help you with the discipline necessary to be a successful trader."}
{"question":"Why is everyone saying how desperately we need to save money \"in this economy\"?","answer":"It's all about risk. In 1990, expressing the idea of the US defaulting on debt payments would result in you being labelled as a crank.  Yet in 2011, the President and Speaker of the House played chicken with the credit of the United States, and have a date to do it again in December 2011."}
{"question":"Should I use Mint.com?  Is it secure \/ trusted? [duplicate]","answer":"So could someone working at your bank directly.  Of at your HR department at work.  Most of the wait staff at the restaurant I ate at technically had access to my credit card and could steal money.  While you are at work, someone could break into your house and steal your stuff too. The point is, Mint and everything else is a matter of the evaluating the risk.  Since you already understand the vulnerability (they have your accounts) and you know the risk (they could steal your money) what are the chances it happens? 1.)  Mint will make lots more money if it doesn't happen, so it benefits Intuit to pay their employees well and put in safeguards to prevent theft.  Mint.com is on your side even if a specific employee isn't. 2.)  You have statements and such, so you can independently evaluate mint.  I do not just trust mint with my stuff, I check info in Quicken and at the bank sites themselves.  I don't do them all equally, but I will catch problems. 3.)  Laws mean that if theft happens, you will have the opportunity to be made whole. If you are worried about theft, don't trust other people or generally get a bad feeling, don't do it.  If you check your accounts online with the same computer you log into Facebook with, them I would suggest it doesn't bother you.  You might have legal or business reasons to be more adverse to risk then me. However, just because somebody could steal your money, I personally don't consider it an acceptable risk compared to the reward. I will also be one of the first people to be robbed, I am not unrealistic."}
{"question":"Is there any way to know how much new money the US is printing?","answer":"This chart summarizes the FED's balance sheet (things the FED has purchased - US treasuries, mortgage backed securities, etc.) nicely.  It shows the massive level of \"printing\" the FED has done in the past two years.  The FED \"prints\" new money to buy these assets. As lucius has pointed out the fractional reserve banking process also expands the money supply.  When the FED buys something from Bank A, then Bank A can take the money and start lending it out.  This process continues as the recipients of the money deposit the newly printed money in other fractional reserve banks. FYI....it took 95 years for the FED to print the first $900 billion.  It took one year to print the next $900 billion."}
{"question":"If I short-sell a dividend-paying stock, do I have to pay the dividend?","answer":"Well, if the short seller has to pay the dividend out of their pocket, what happens to the dividend the company paid out ??  Sounds like there are 2 divdends floating around, the short's, and the company's, but only 1 share of stock."}
{"question":"Can you explain why it's better to invest now rather than waiting for the market to dip?","answer":"Your chance of even correctly recognizing the actual lowest point of a dip are essentially zero, so if you try to time the market, you'll most likely not get the \"buy cheap\" part perfectly right. And as you write yourself, while you wait for the dip, you have an ongoing opportunity cost. Cost averaging is by far the best strategy for non-professional and risk averse investors to deal with this. And yes, over the long run, it's far more important to invest at all than when you do it."}
{"question":"How to rescue my money from negative interest?","answer":"I'd prefer having it (more or less) fluent at any time, if possible... And the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will do their darndest to make this a costly option. That's exactly the point of negative interest rates. They don't want to help you saving money. So you will have to choose what to give up: liquidity, or profitability.  But for now, you still have alternatives. The way you described it one could think that all banks will soon start to charge all their clients. That's just a distortion of facts.  If you are happy with a (close to) 0 income, you might consider opening multiple bank accounts. Many banks charge the negative interest only from certain thresholds (i.e. CHF 100k). Since you're clearly a Swiss resident, that's easy to do for you.  If you don't want to give up making an income, then you have to sacrifice liquidity. There simply aren't any short term (less than 2-3 years) instruments in Swiss Franc that are both safe and yielding a positive income. Which means that you will have to take much more risk then you had with a savings account. Ask your advisor for an investment proposal, but also consider bank independent advisors."}
{"question":"One company asks for picture of my debit card","answer":"Believe it or not, what they're asking you is not as unusual as you might think.  Our company sells a tremendous amount of expensive merchandise over the Internet, and whenever there's something odd or suspicious about the transaction, we may ask the customer to provide a picture of the card simply to prove they have physical possession of it.  This is more reassurance to us (to the extent that's possible) that the customer isn't using a stolen card number to order stuff.   It doesn't help too much, but if the charge is disputed, at least we have something to show we made reasonable efforts to verify the ownership of the card.   I think it's pretty thin, but that's what my employer does."}
{"question":"How do I find the value of British Energy Nuclear Power Notes?","answer":"This BBC article says that nuclear power notes came about when the French energy company EDF purchased British Energy in 2008: The note changes in value with wholesale energy prices and power output levels from British Energy's existing nuclear stations. EDF Energy's website describes these notes under the section titled \"Nuclear Power Notes\": When EDF acquired British Energy in January 2009, Nuclear Power Notes were issued to British Energy shareholders who chose to take them in lieu of 74 pence of cash per British Energy share held. The Nuclear Power Notes are ten year financial instruments (2009 \u2013 2019) which give ex British Energy shareholders a continuing interest in the \"EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Fleet\". They are traded on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange (formerly known as the PLUS Quoted exchange).   Each year a pre-defined calculation is performed to determine whether any cash will be paid to Nuclear Power Note holders. The calculation is dependent on the nuclear output of the EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Fleet (\"Eligible Nuclear Output\") and market power prices (\"Power Prices\"). This calculation may or may not result in a cash payment each year to Nuclear Power Note holders. The MWh\/TWh are figures you see are measures of watt-hours, i.e. energy output. The value of nuclear power notes is tied to this output. Looking at the most recent statement (June 2013), you can see a line that looks like this: Month Ahead Price in respect of July 2013: 47.46 GBP\/MWh which is an energy spot price for the output of the nuclear plants. I'm not entirely sure of the relationship between this and the payment to shareholders, but if you look at the 2012 Yearly Payment Calculation Notice on the same page, you'll see this in the first section: (a) the Yearly Payment for the period 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2012, (the   Relevant Year ) payable in respect of each CVR on 31 January 2013 shall be zero; The payments were also zero for 2010 and 2011. The 2009 calculation notice, however, states that (a) the Yearly Payment for the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2009, (the Relevant Year) payable in respect of each CVR on 31 January 2010 shall be 11.497164 pence stated to 6 decimal places I presume that payment would have appeared in whatever account holds these notes, e.g. your brokerage account. Technically, the financial statements above refer to a Contingent Value Rights (CVR) instrument, which is a derivative linked to the Nuclear Power Notes. This site sums it up better than I can: The British Energy CVRs were created by the issue of nuclear power notes (NPNs) to the target\u2019s shareholders who opted to take up this alternative. The NPNs were issued by Barclays Bank plc and were linked to guaranteed contingent value rights instruments that were issued to Barclays by EDF\u2019s acquisition vehicle (Lake Acquisitions) and which were ultimately guaranteed by EDF Energy plc (Lake CVRs). Barclays is required to make yearly payments to noteholders for 10 years, the amount of which is limited to the corresponding amount paid by Lake Acquisitions to Barclays for the Lake CVRs. Basically, there is a chain of payments through these derivatives that eventually links back to nuclear energy output."}
{"question":"Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often?","answer":"What prevents a company from doing secondary public stock offerings on regular basis? The primary goal of a company doing secondary public offering is to raise more funds, that can be utilized for funding the business. If no funding is needed [i.e. company has sufficient funds, or no expansion plans], this funding creates a drag and existing shareholder including promoters loose value. For example with the current 100 invested, the company is able to generate say 125 [25 as profit]. If additional 100 is taken as secondary public offering, then with 200, the company should mark around 250, else it looses value. So if the company took additional 100 and did not \/ is not able to deploy in market, on 200 they still make 25 as profit, its bad. There are other reasons, i.e. to fight off hostile acquisition or dilute some of promoters shares etc. Thus the reasons for company to do a secondary PO are few and doing it often reduces the value for primary share holders as well as minority share holders."}
{"question":"Will paying off my car early hinder my ability to build credit?","answer":"12% is ridiculously high and routine for loans with no credit history, esp. from the dealer. I don't think though paying off would hurt your credit - you've already got installment loan on your report, and you have history of payments, so it shouldn't matter how long the history is (warning: this is kind of guesswork compiled from personal experience and stuff read on the net, since officially how credit score calculated is Top Secret).  If you have the loan and credit card with good payments, only thing you need to build credit is time (and, of course, keeping everything nicely paid). Of course, if you could find a loan with lower rate somewhere it's be great to refinance but with low credit you would probably not get the best rates from anywhere, unfortunately."}
{"question":"Relocating and buying a house simultaneously - How to handle pre-approval on fluctuating yearly income?","answer":"Assuming the numbers you gave are forecasted 2013 annual income, you should really use an average and give the lender 1 number, as long as you can provide documentation to back it up. Lenders aren't as sophisticated as considering your monthly income fluctuations into their underwriting algorithm.  If you're not tied down to your existing lender, I highly recommend you to shop around. There isn't an \"universal lending requirement\". You'll be surprised at how flexible they are. Not as a recommendation to get around the rules, but just finding a lender that'll work with your situation. Try personal finance forums such as FatWallet or Slickdeal to find low-cost lenders: http:\/\/goo.gl\/vIojT"}
{"question":"Why are there hidden bids and offers in the US stock market for the more illiquid stocks?","answer":"When you place a bid between the bid\/ask spread, that means you are raising the bid (or lowering the ask, if you are selling). The NBBO (national best bid and offer) is now changed because of your action, and yes, certain kinds of orders may be set to react to that (a higher bid or lower ask triggering them), also many algorithms (that haven't already queued an order simply waiting for a trigger, like in a stop limit) read the bid and ask and are programmed to then place an order at that point."}
{"question":"23 and on my own, what should I be doing?","answer":"I also had a student loan and glad you are taking a good look on interest rate as it really makes a huge difference. One of the strategies I followed was since my credit improved as I stepped out of school. I took advantage of a good 0 percent credit card. I applied for discover and got a decent credit limit. There are 2 particular things you are looking for in a credit card in this situation  Usually the initial $0 transaction charge is only for a couple of months so ensure you take advantage of that. What is the benefit: Imagine being able to pay off that higher interest rate balance with 0% and not have to worry about it immediately. That way you save on the interest you would be paying and stress as well Watch out for: Although you have to ensure that you do payoff the money you paid through the 0 percent credit card ( which may have been put off for a year or even 15 months or so) other wise you may have to pay it all at once as the offer is expiring. Note: for credit cards ensure to note when the 0% is expiring as that is usually not mentioned on the statement and you may have to call the customer service. I was in a similar situation and was able to pay it all off fairly quickly. I am sure you will as well."}
{"question":"How much of each stock do index funds hold?","answer":"Yes, it depends on the fund it's trying to mirror.  The ETF for the S&P that's best known (in my opinion) is SPY and you see the breakdown of its holdings.  Clearly, it's not an equal weighted index."}
{"question":"When the market crashes, should I sell bonds and buy equities for the inevitable recovery? ","answer":"In a comment you say,  if the market crashes, doesn't \"regress to the mean\" mean that I should still expect 7% over the long run? That being the case, wouldn't I benefit from intentionally unbalancing my portfolio and going all in on equities? I can can still rebalance using new savings. No.  Regress to the mean just tells you that the future rate is likely to average 7%.  The past rate and the future rate are entirely unconnected.  Consider a series:   The running average is  That running average is (slowly) regressing to the long term mean without ever a member of the series being above 7%.   Real markets actually go farther than this though.  Real value may be increasing by 7% per year, but prices may move differently.  Then market prices may revert to the real value.  This happened to the S&P 500 in 2000-2002.  Then the market started climbing again in 2003.  In your system, you would have bought into the falling markets of 2001 and 2002.  And you would have missed the positive bond returns in those years.  That's about a -25% annual shift in returns on that portion of your portfolio.  Since that's a third of your portfolio, you'd have lost 8% more than with the balanced strategy each of those two years.   Note that in that case, the market was in an over-valued bubble.  The bubble spent three years popping and overshot the actual value.  So 2003 was a good year for stocks.  But the three year return was still -11%.  In retrospect, investors should have gone all in on bonds before 2000 and switched back to stocks for 2003.  But no one knew that in 2000.  People in the know actually started backing off in 1998 rather than 2000 and missed out on the tail end of the bubble.   The rebalancing strategy automatically helps with your regression to the mean.  It sells expensive bonds and buys cheaper stocks on average.  Occasionally it sells modest priced bonds and buys over-priced stocks.  But rarely enough that it is a better strategy overall.   Incidentally, I would consider a 33% share high for bonds.  30% is better.  And that shouldn't increase as you age (less than 30% bonds may be practical when you are young enough).  Once you get close to retirement (five to ten years), start converting some of your savings to cash equivalents.  The cash equivalents are guaranteed not to lose value (but might not gain much).  This gives you predictable returns for your immediate expenses.  Once retired, try to keep about five years of expenses in cash equivalents.  Then you don't have to worry about short term market fluctuations.  Spend down your buffer until the market catches back up.   It's true that bonds are less volatile than stocks, but they can still have bad years.  A 70%\/30% mix of stocks\/bonds is safer than either alone and gives almost as good of a return as stocks alone.  Adding more bonds actually increases your risk unless you carefully balance them with the right stocks.  And if you're doing that, you don't need simplistic rules like a 70%\/30% balance."}
{"question":"Understanding stock market terminology","answer":"Opening - is the price at which the first trade gets executed at the start of the trading day (or trading period). High - is the highest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Low - is the lowest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Closing - is the price at which the last trade gets executed at the end of the trading day (or trading period). Volume - is the amount of shares that get traded during the trading day (or trading period). For example, if you bought 1000 shares during the day and another 9 people also bought 1000 shares each, then the trading volume for the day would be 10 x 1000 = 10,000."}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"I agree with Grade 'Eh' Bacon's answer, but there are a couple of ideas that are relevant to your particular situation: If I were you, I would invest at least half of the cash in growth ETFs because you're young enough that market variability doesn't affect you and long term growth is important. The rest should be invested in safer investments (value and dividend ETFs, bonds, cash) so that you have something to live off in the near term. You said you wanted to invest ethically.  The keyword to search is \"socially responsible ETFs\".  There are many, and if this is important to you, you'll have to read their prospectus to find one that matches your ethics. Since you're American, the way I understand it, you need to file taxes on income; selling stocks at a gain is income.  You want to make sure that as your stocks appreciate, you sell some every year and immediately rebuy them so that you pay a small tax bill every year rather than one huge tax bill 20 years from now.  Claiming about $20600 of capital gains every year would be tax free assuming you are not earning any other money.  I would claim a bit more in years where you make a lot. You can mitigate your long term capital gains tax exposure by opening a Roth IRA and maxing that out.  Capital gains in the Roth IRA are not taxable.  Even if you don't have income from working, you can have some income if you invest in stocks that pay dividends, which would allow you to contribute to a Roth IRA. You should figure where you're going to be living because you will want to minimize the currency risk of having your money in USD while you're living abroad.  If the exchange rate were to change by a lot, you might find yourself a lot poorer.  There are various hedging strategies, but the easiest one is to invest some of your money in securities of the country you'll be living in. You should look into how you'll be converting money into the foreign currency.  There are sometimes way of minimizing the spread when converting large amounts of money, e.g., Norbert's gambit.  Shaving off 1.5% when exchanging $100k saves $1500."}
{"question":"1000 pound to invest","answer":"ChrisW's comment may appear flippant, but it illustrates (albeit too briefly) an important fact - there are aspects of investing that begin to look exactly like gambling. In fact, there are expressions which overlap - Game Theory, often used to describe investing behavior, Monte Carlo Simulation, a way of convincing ourselves we can produce a set of possible outcomes for future returns, etc.  You should first invest time. 100 hours reading is a good start. 1000 pounds, Euros, or dollars is a small sum to invest in individual stocks. A round lot is considered 100 shares, so you'd either need to find a stock trading less than 10 pounds, or buy fewer shares. There are a number of reasons a new investor should be steered toward index funds, in the States, ETFs (exchange traded funds) reflect the value of an entire index of stocks. If you feel compelled to get into the market this is the way to go, whether a market near you of a foreign fund, US, or other."}
{"question":"What does PMI mean?","answer":"Yes, PMI is what the lender requires to loan you more than 8O% of the home's value. I could easily present scenarios where it's exactly the right decision to use PMI and get the purchase done. A 100K mortgage at 90% LTV will cost you $521\/year in PMI.  If you are renting and struggling to get a higher downpayment, it can take quite a long time to save the additional $11K to put down. Only the buyer can know if the house is such s bargain, or if rates have bottomed, but the decision isn't so clear cut."}
{"question":"How can my friend send $3K to me without using Paypal?","answer":"Many banks offer online payment. He can add a payee and just type your name and address in. The bank will mail the check out if they cannot deliver payment electronically. Edit: Recently I came across this (Citibank Global Transfer), you and your friend should see if your bank offers a similar service. Citibank requires both of you to have an account with them."}
{"question":"Where can you find dividends for Australian Stock Market Shares (ASX) for more than 2 years of data? ","answer":"You can register with an online broker. You can usually join most online brokers for free and only have to fund your account if you decide to place a trade. You may also check out the website of the actual companies you are interested in. They will provide current and historic data of the company's financials. For BHP you can click on the link at the bottom of this webpage to get a PDF file of past dividends from 1984."}
{"question":"When would one actually want to use a market order instead of a limit order?","answer":"You put in a market order when you want to sell to whomever raises their hand first.  It results in the fastest possible liquidation of your stock. It's appropriate when you need to sell now, regardless of price. An example of when to use it: It's 3:55 PM, the market's going to close in 5 minutes and you need to sell some stocks to make some kind of urgent payment elsewhere.  If instead you have a limit order in place, you might not reach the limit price before the market closes, and you'll still own the stock, which might not be what you want."}
{"question":"In the USA, does the income tax rate on my wages increase with the amount of money in my bank account?","answer":"I know that if you make more, you pay more, but do those who have   more, not make more, pay higher income tax? In general, no. In most locales, income tax is based on income, not on wealth. I am retired. I have little income but a fair amount of wealth. I play very little income tax. (But I do pay other kinds of taxes.) Here's a scenario. 2 people of average wealth with similar situations   have the same job with equal pay. After 5 years, their situations   haven't changed and they still earn equal pay, but now 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? In most locales, you pay income tax on everything that is counted as income. Your salary is income. In some cases, earned interest is income.  But aside from the earned interest from your bank accounts, neither the $40,000 nor the $9,000 is income. Your huge mansion isn't income. Your expensive car isn't income. The huge amount of land you own isn't income. The pricey artwork on your walls isn't income. You don't pay income tax on any of these, but your local may impose other taxes on these (such as property tax, etc.) [Note: consult the tax laws of your specific locale if you want to know details.]"}
{"question":"My friend wants to put my name down for a house he's buying. What risks would I be taking?","answer":"You should only loan money to friends or relatives if you are fully accepting the possibility of never ever getting that money back.  And in this situation it can happen that you will be forced to give him a very large loan if something bad ever happens to him. (Paying the monthly rates instead of him and expecting he will someday pay it back to you is technically the same as loaning him money).  Something might happen in the future which will result in him not paying his monthly payments. Maybe not now, but in 5 years. Or 10. The economy might change, he might be out of a job, his personal values might change. A house mortgage is long term, and during that time a lot can happen."}
{"question":"How is the Dow divisor calculated?","answer":"The details of the DJIA methodology is outlined in the official methodology document on their website.  In addition, you will need their index mathematics document, which gives the nitty-gritty details of any type of adjustments that must be made. Between the two you should have the complete picture in as fine a detail as you want, including exactly what is done in response to various corporate actions like splits and structural changes."}
{"question":"Short Term Capital Gains tax vs. IRA Withdrawal Tax w\/o Quarterly Est. Taxes","answer":"Bottom line is this: there's no \"short term capital gains tax\" in the US. There's only long term capital gains tax, which is lower than the regular (aka ordinary) tax rates. Short term capital gains are taxed using the ordinary tax rates, depending on your bracket. So if you're in the 25% bracket - your short term gains are taxed at 25%. You're describing two options: For the case #1 you'll pay 25% tax (your marginal rate) + 10% penalty (flat rate), total 35%. For the case #2 you'll pay 25% tax (your marginal rate) + 0% penalty. Total 25%. Thus, by withdrawing from IRA you'll be 10% worse than by realizing capital gains. In addition, if you need $10K - taking it from IRA will make the whole amount taxable. While realizing capital gains from a taxable account will make only the gains taxable, the original investment amount is yours and had been taxed before. So not only there's a 10% difference in the tax rate, there's also a significant difference in the amount being taxed. Thus, withdrawing from IRA is generally not a good idea, and you will never be better off with withdrawing from IRA than with cashing out taxable investments (from tax perspective). That's by design."}
{"question":"Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?","answer":"Congratulations on being in this position. Your problem - which I think that you identified - is that you don't know much about investing. My recommendation is that you start with three goals: The Motley Fool (www.fool.com) has a lot of good information on their site. Their approach may or may not align with what you want to do; I've subscribed to their newsletters for quite a while and have found them useful. I'm what is known as a value investor; I like to make investments and hold them for a long time. Others have different philosophies. For the second goal, it's very important to follow the money and ask how people get paid in the investment business. The real money in Wall Street is made not by investment, but by charging money to those who are in the investment business. There are numerous people in line for some of your money in return for service or advice; fees for buying\/selling stocks, fees for telling you which stocks to buy\/sell, fees for managing your money, etc. You can invest without spending too much on fees if you understand how the system works.  For the third goal, I recommend choosing a few stocks, and creating a virtual portfolio. You can then then get used to watching and tracking your investments. If you want a place to put your money while you do this, I'd start with an S&P 500 index fund with a low expense ratio, and I'd buy it through a discount broker (I use Scottrade but there are a number of choices).  Hope that helps."}
{"question":"Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers?","answer":"I want to shop in the currency that will be cheapest in CAD at any   given time. How do you plan to do this? If you are using a debit or credit card on a CAD account, then you will pay that bank's exchange rate to pay for goods and services that are billed in foreign currency. If you plan on buying goods and services from merchants that offer to bill you in CAD for items that are priced in foreign currency (E.g. buying from Amazon.co.uk GBP priced goods, but having Amazon bill your card with equivalent CAD) then you will be paying that merchant's exchange rate. It is very unlikely that either of these scenarios would result in you paying mid-market rates (what you see on xe.com), which is the average between the current ask and bid prices for any currency pair. Instead, the business handling your transaction will set their own exchange rate, which will usually be less favorable than the mid-market rate and may have additional fees\/commission bolted on as a separate charge.  For example, if I buy 100 USD worth of goods from a US vendor, but use a CAD credit card to pay, the mid-market rate on xe.com right now indicates an equivalent value of 126.97 CAD. However the credit card company is more likely to charge closer to 130.00 CAD and add a foreign transaction fee of maybe $2-3, or a percentage of the transaction value. Alternatively, if using something like Amazon, they may offer to bill the CAD credit card in CAD for those 100 USD goods. No separate foreign transaction fee in this case, but they are still likely to exchange at the less favorable 130.00 rate instead of the mid-market rates. The only way you can choose to pay in the cheapest equivalent currency is if you already have holdings of all the different currencies. Then just pay using whichever currency gets you the most bang for your buck. Unless you are receiving payments\/wages in multiple currencies though, you're still going to have to refill these accounts periodically, thus incurring some foreign transaction fees and being subject to the banker's exchange rates. Where can I lookup accurate current exchange rates for consumers? It depends on who will be handling your transaction. Amazon will tell you at the checkout what exchange rate they will apply if you are having them convert a bill into your local currency for you. For credit\/debit card transactions processed in a different currency than the attached account, you need to look at your specific agreement or contact the bank to see which rate they use for daily transactions (and where you can obtain these rates), whether they convert on the day of the transaction vs. the day it posts to your account, and how much they add on ($ and\/or %) in fees and commission."}
{"question":"\"Occupation\" field on IRS Form 1040","answer":"It doesn't generally matter, and I'm not sure if it is in fact in use by the IRS other than for general statistics (like \"this year 20% of MFJ returns were with one spouse being a 'homemaker'\"). They may be able to try and match the occupation and the general levels and types of income, but for self-employed there's a more precise and reliable field on Schedule C and for employees they don't really need to do this since everything is reported on W2 anyway. So I don't think they even bother or give a lot of value to such a metric. So yes, I'm joining the non-authoritative \"doesn't matter\" crowd."}
{"question":"Can another tax loss be used to offset capital gains taxes? How does it work?","answer":"Capital losses do mirror capital gains within their holding periods. An asset or investment this is certainly held for a year into the day or less, and sold at a loss, will create a short-term capital loss. A sale of any asset held for over a year to your day, and sold at a loss, will create a loss that is long-term. When capital gains and losses are reported from the tax return, the taxpayer must first categorize all gains and losses between long and short term, and then aggregate the sum total amounts for every single regarding the four categories. Then the gains that are long-term losses are netted against each other, therefore the same is done for short-term gains and losses. Then your net gain that is long-term loss is netted against the net short-term gain or loss. This final net number is then reported on Form 1040. Example Frank has the following gains and losses from his stock trading for the year: Short-term gains - $6,000 Long-term gains - $4,000 Short-term losses - $2,000 Long-term losses - $5,000 Net short-term gain\/loss - $4,000 ST gain ($6,000 ST gain - $2,000 ST loss) Net long-term gain\/loss - $1,000 LT loss ($4,000 LT gain - $5,000 LT loss) Final net gain\/loss - $3,000 short-term gain ($4,000 ST gain - $1,000 LT loss)   Again, Frank can only deduct $3,000 of final net short- or long-term losses against other types of income for that year and must carry forward any remaining balance."}
{"question":"Credit Card Points from Refund","answer":"Because your friend isn't going to like the ~2% charge they have to pay to the credit card company on the $10,000 purchase. Credit card companies make money off of transactions. The cardholder normally doesn't pay any transaction fees (and in fact can make a profit via rewards), but the merchant has to pay a certain amount of money to the credit card company for the transaction. In this case, the apartment owners ate the charge, likely because it was easier for them to send a check than to refund the cost of the fee through the credit card company. If you started doing this a lot to take advantage of this, I would imagine they would get smart and refuse your business (it'll be pretty obvious what you're doing if you're not signing any leases)."}
{"question":"Advice for college student: Should I hire a financial adviser or just invest in index funds?","answer":"Two things to consider: When it comes to advice, don't be \"Penny wise and Pound foolish\". It is an ongoing debate whether active management vs passive indexes are a better choice, and I am sure others can give good arguments for both sides. I look at it as you are paying for advice. If your adviser will teach you about investing and serve your interests, having his advise will probably prevent you from making some dumb mistakes. A few mistakes (such as jumping in\/out of markets based on fear\/speculation) can eliminate any savings in fees. However, if you feel confident that you have the resources and can make good decisions, why pay for advise you don't need? EDIT In this case, my opinion is that you don't need a complex plan at this time. The money you would spend on financial advise would not be the best use of the funds.  That said, to your main question, I would delay making any long-term decisions with these funds until you know you are done with your education and on an established career path. This period of your life can be very volatile, and you may find yourself halfway through college and wanting to change majors or start a different path. Give yourself the option to do that by deferring long-term investment decisions until you have more stability. For that reason, I would avoid focusing on retirement savings. As others point out, you are limited in how much you can contribute per year. If you want to start, ROTH is your best bet, but if you put it in don't pull it out. That is a bad habit to get into. Personal finance is as much about developing habits as it is doing math... A low-turnover index fund may be appropriate, but you don't want to end up where you want to buy a house or start a business and your investment has just lost 10%...  I would keep at least half in a liquid, safe account until after graduation. Any debt you incur because you tied up this money will eliminate any investment gains (if any). Good Luck! EDITED to clarify retirement savings"}
{"question":"Funds in closed bank account have gone to the government","answer":"Legally speaking, if you do close a limited company, the funds belong to the government (\"bona vacantia\"). There's some guidance on this at Companies House and there is indeed a substantial amount of administration work to get it undone. Notable excerpts: You should deal with any loose ends, such as closing the company\u2019s   bank account, the transfer of any domain names - before you apply. [...] From the date of dissolution, any assets of a dissolved company will   belong to the Crown. The company\u2019s bank account will be frozen and any   credit balance in the account will pass to the Crown. [...] 4. What happens to the assets of a dissolved company? From the date of dissolution, any assets of a dissolved company will   be 'bona vacantia'. Bona vacantia literally means \"vacant goods\" and   is the technical name for property that passes to the Crown because it   does not have a legal owner. The company\u2019s bank account will be frozen   and any credit balance in the account will be passed to the Crown. [...] Chapter 3 - Restoration by Court Order The registrar can only restore a company if he receives a court order,   unless a company is administratively restored to the register (see   chapter 4).  Anyone who intends to make an application to the court to   restore a company is advised to obtain independent legal advice. [...] Chapter 4 - Administrative Restoration 1. What is Administrative Restoration? Under certain conditions, where a company was dissolved because it   appeared to be no longer carrying on business or in operation, a   former director or member may apply to the registrar to have the   company restored. [...]"}
{"question":"Do governments support their own bonds when their value goes down?","answer":"Companies do not support their stock. Once the security is out on the wild (market), its price fluctuates according to what investors think they are worth. Support is a whole different concept, financially speaking: Support or support level refers to the price level below which, historically, a stock has had difficulty falling. It is the level at which buyers tend to enter the stock. So it is the lowest assumed price for that stock. Once it reaches its price, buyers will rush to the stock, raising its price. The company wants to keep the stock price at acceptable levels, as it can be seen as the general view of the company's health. Also several employees\/executives in the company have stock or stock options, so it is in their interest to keep their stock price up. A bond that goes down in value may indicate a believe the bond issuer (government in this case) won't honor the bond when it matures. As for bonds, there is a wealth of reading in this site: Can someone explain how government bonds work? Who sets the prices on government bonds?  Basic understanding of bonds, values, rates and yields"}
{"question":"Buying my first car out of college","answer":"Generally speaking, buying a fancy new car out of college is dumb. Buying a 3 year old flashy car with a 60 month loan is going to eat up your income, and when the thing starts breaking down, you'll get sick of buying $900 mufflers and $1,000 taillights pretty quickly. Buy a car that nobody wants for cheap and save up some money. Then buy yourself your dream car. Edit based on question update. You're posting to a Q&A site about money, and you're asking if spending over $30k (don't forget taxes) on a luxury car when you're making $60k is a good idea. You have car fever, and you're trying to sell this transaction as a good deal from a financial POV. At the end of the day, there is no scenario where buying an expensive car is a good financial transaction.  For example, since you're planning on driving too many miles for a lease to make sense, the certified pre-owned warranty is a non-factor, because you'll have no warranty when the car breaks down in 4 years. The only reason CPO programs exist is to boost residual values to make leases more attractive -- luxury car makers are in the car leasing (as opposed to selling) business."}
{"question":"Is there a finance API of some kind to get all holdings for a specific mutual fund?","answer":"Generally, the answer to the availability of holdings of a given mutual fund on a daily basis is no. Thus, an API is non-existent. The reasons for the lack of transparency on a daily basis is that it could\/would impact the portfolio managers ability to trade. While this information would not necessarily permit individuals from front running the fund manager's trades, it does give insight in to the market outlook and strategy the fund is employing. The closest you'll be able to get to obtaining a list of holdings is by reading the most recent annual report and the quarterly filings each fund is required to file with the SEC."}
{"question":"moving family deposits away from Greece (possibly in UK)","answer":"I can't comment about your tax liability in Greece. You will have to pay tax on interest in the UK. If you are earning massive amounts of interest, unlikely with the current interest policies from Merv, then you might be bumped up a tier. The receiving bank may ask for proof of the source of the funds, particularly if it is a fair chunk of change."}
{"question":"What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]","answer":"Instead of giving part of their profits back as dividends, management puts it back into the company so the company can grow and produce higher profits. When these companies do well, there is high demand for them as in the long term higher profits equates to a higher share price. So if a company invests in itself to grow its profits higher and higher, one of the main reasons investors will buy the shares, is in the expectation of future capital gains. In fact just because a company pays a dividend, would you still buy it if the share price kept decreasing year after year? Lets put it this way: Company A makes record profits year after year, continually keeps beating market expectations, its share price keeps going up, but it pays no dividend instead reinvests its profits to continually grow the business. Company B pays a dividend instead of reinvesting to grow the business, it has been surprising the market on the downside for a few years now, it has had some profit warnings lately and its share price has consistently been dropping for over a year. Which company would you be interested in buying out of the two? I know I would be interested in buying Company A, and I would definitely stay away from Company B. Company A may or may not pay dividends in the future, but if Company B continues on this path it will soon run out of money to pay dividends. Most market gains are made through capital gains rather than dividends, and most people invest in the hope the shares they buy go up in price over time. Dividends can be one attractant to investors but they are not the only one."}
{"question":"Selling put and call Loss Scenario Examples","answer":"The question you are asking concerns the exercise of a short option position.  The other replies do not appear to address this situation. Suppose that Apple is trading at $96 and you sell a put option with a strike price of $95 for some future delivery date - say August 2016.  The option contract is for 100 shares and you sell the contract for a premium of $3.20. When you sell the option your account will be credited with the premium and debited with the broker commission.  The premium you receive will be $320 = 100 x $3.20.  The commission you pay will depend on you broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple drops to $90 and your option is exercised, either on expiry or prior to expiry.  Then you would be obliged to take delivery of 100 Apple shares at the contracted option strike price of $95 costing you $9,500 plus broker commission.  If you immediately sell the Apple shares you have purchased under your contract obligations, then assuming you sell the shares at the current market price of $90 you would realise a loss of $500 ( = 100x($95-$90) )plus commission.  Since you received a premium of $320 when you sold the put option, your net loss would be $500-$320 = $180 plus any commissions paid to your broker. Now let's look at the case of selling a call option.  Again assume that the price of Apple is $96 and you sell a call option for 100 shares with a strike price of $97 for a premium of $3.60.  The premium you receive would be $360 = 100 x $3.60.  You would also be debited for commission by your broker. Now suppose that the price of Apple shares rises to $101 and your option is exercised.  Then you would be obliged to deliver 100 Apple shares to the party exercising the option at the contracted strike price of $97.  If you did not own the shares to effect delivery, then you would need to purchase those shares in the market at the current market price of $101, and then sell them to the party exercising the option at the strike price of $97.  This would realise an immediate loss of $400 = 100 x ($101-$97) plus any  commission payable.  If you did own the shares, then you would simply deliver them and possibly pay some commission or a delivery fee to your broker.  Since you received $360 when you sold the option, your net loss would be $40 = $400-$360 plus any commission and fees payable to the broker. It is important to understand that in addition to these accounting items, short option positions carry with them a \"margin\" requirement.  You will need to maintain a margin deposit to show \"good faith\" so long as the short option position is open.  If the option you have sold moves against you, then you will be called upon to put up extra margin to cover any potential losses."}
{"question":"How to \"pay\" one self in a single member LLC w\/ separate checking account?","answer":"Basically, yes. Don't use your business account for personal spending because it may invalidate your limited liability protection. Transfer a chunk of money to your personal account, write it down in your books as \"distribution\" (or something similar), and use it in whatever way you want from your personal account. The IRS doesn't care per se, but mixing personal and business expenses will cause troubles if you're audited because you'll have problems distinguishing one from another. You should be using some accounting software to make sure you track your expenses and distributions correctly. It will make it easier for you to prepare reports for yourself and your tax preparer, and also track distributions and expenses. I suggest GnuCash, I find it highly effective for a small business with not so many transactions (if you have a lot of transactions, then maybe QuickBooks would be more appropriate)."}
{"question":"How to plan in a budget for those less frequent but mid-range expensive buys?","answer":"Personally I solve this by saving enough liquid capital (aka checking and savings) to cover pretty much everything for six months. But this is a bad habit. A better approach is to use budget tracking software to make virtual savings accounts and place payments every paycheck into them, in step with your budget. The biggest challenge you'll likely face is the initial implementation; if you're saving up for a semi-annual car insurance premium and you've got two months left, that's gonna make things difficult. In the best case scenario you already have a savings account, which you reapportion among your various lumpy expenses. This does mean you need to plan when it is you will actually buy that shiny new Macbook Pro, and stick to it for a number of months. Much more difficult than buying on credit. Especially since these retailers hate dealing in cash."}
{"question":"I have an extra 1000\u20ac per month, what should I do with it?","answer":"1: Low fees means: a Total Expense Ratio of less than 0,5%. One detail you may also want to pay attention to whether the fund reinvests returns (Thesaurierender Fonds) which is basically good for investing, but if it's also a foreign-based fund then taxes get complicated, see http:\/\/www.finanztip.de\/indexfonds-etf\/thesaurierende-fonds\/"}
{"question":"Best personal finance software for Mac for German resident","answer":"I haven't used it in years, but look at GnuCash. From the site, one bullet point under Feature Highlights:"}
{"question":"what is a mortgage gift exchange?","answer":"I'm guessing since I don't know the term, but it sounds like you're asking about the technique whereby a loan is used to gather multiple years' gift allowance into a single up-front transfer. For the subsequent N years, the giver pays the installments on the loan for the recipient, at a yearly amount small enough to avoid triggering Gift Tax. You still have to pay income tax on the interest received (even though you're giving them the money to pay you), and you must charge a certain minimum interest (or more accurately, if you charge less than that they tax you as if the loan was earning that minimum). Historically this was used by relatively wealthy folks, since the cost of lawyers and filing the paperwork and bookkeeping was high enough that most folks never found out this workaround existed, and few were moving enough money to make those costs worthwhile. But between the \"Great Recession\" and the internet, this has become much more widely known, and there are services which will draw up standard paperwork, have a lawyer sanity-check it for your local laws, file the official mortgage lien (not actually needed unless you want the recipient to also be able to write off the interest on their taxes), and provide a payments-processing service if you do expect part or all of the loan to be paid by the recipient. Or whatever subset of those services you need.  I've done this. In my case it cost me a bit under $1000 to set up the paperwork so I could loan a friend a sizable chunk of cash and have it clearly on record as a loan, not a gift. The amount in question was large enough, and the interpersonal issues tricky enough, that this was a good deal for us. Obviously, run the numbers. Websearching \"family loan\"  will find much more detail about how this works and what it can and can't do, along with services specializing in these transactions. NOTE: If you are actually selling something, such as your share of a house, this dance may or may not make sense. Again, run the numbers, and if in doubt get expert advice rather than trusting strangers on the web. (Go not to the Internet for legal advice, for it shall say both mu and ni.)"}
{"question":"Buying a home with down payment from family as a \"loan\"","answer":"Keep in mind that lenders will consider the terms of any loans you have when determining your ability to pay back the mortgage. They'll want to see paperwork, or if you claim it is a gift they will require a letter to that effect from your relative. Obviously, this could effect your ability to qualify for a loan."}
{"question":"What is the rationale behind stock markets retreating due to S&P having a negative outlook on the USA?","answer":"I think a big part of the issue is ignorance. For instance, the US govt cannot default on its loans, yet you keep hearing people speak as if it could. The US govt also does not have to borrow to pay for anything, it creates its own money whenever it wants. These 2 facts often evade many people, and they feel the US govt should act like a household, business, or a state govt. This disconnect leads to a lot of confusion, and things like \"fiscal crisis\". Just remember Rahm Emanuel - don't let a crisis go to waste.  Disclaimer: this is not to say the US should create money whenever it wants without thought. However, the simple fact is it can. For those interested in more, check out Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Its economic study in a world not based on gold standard, or convertible currency (fiat currency)."}
{"question":"How to calculate my estimated taxes. 1099 MISC + Self Employment","answer":"There are a couple of things that are missing from your estimate. In addition to your standard deduction, you also have a personal exemption of $4050.  So \"D\" in your calculation should be $6300 + $4050 = $10,350. As a self-employed individual, you need to pay both the employee and employer side of the Social Security and Medicare taxes.  Instead of 6.2% + 1.45%, you need to pay (6.2% + 1.45%) * 2 = 15.3% self-employment tax. In addition, there are some problems with your calculation. Q1i (Quarter 1 estimated income) should be your adjusted annual income divided by 4, not 3 (A\/4). Likewise, you should estimate your quarterly tax by estimating your income for the whole year, then dividing by 4.  So Aft (Annual estimated federal tax) should be: Quarterly estimated federal tax would be: Qft = Aft \/ 4 Annual estimated self-employment tax is: Ase = 15.3% * A with the quarterly self-employment tax being one-fourth of that: Qse = Ase \/ 4 Self employment tax gets added on to your federal income tax.  So when you send in your quarterly payment using Form 1040-ES, you should send in Qft + Qse. The Form 1040-ES instructions (PDF) comes with the \"2016 Estimated Tax Worksheet\" that walks you through these calculations."}
{"question":"Should I pay off a 0% car loan?","answer":"I struggle with 0% interest things in my personal life.  A responsible me that thinks logically says continue to pay it on time and take advantage of the benefit of the interest free loan you got. It will keep your funds liquid in the case of an emergency, build your credit and teach you self control.  Paying it off now has little to no benefit. It does however tie up $3,000 worth of capital you could be using for building interest or leveraging against other purchases."}
{"question":"What is the purpose of property tax?","answer":"Property taxes are levied by the local authorities to pay for their services. Since the services are continuous - so are the charges. You need someone to pave a road to your house, to build infrastructure, to maintain the police force, fire department, local schools etc. That's what your property taxes are going to. However, at times the property taxes become more than what the owners have actually paid for the house. Think of a house bought in the midst of a recession at a bargain price of $20K, but at the top of the market bubble costs $2M. The poor guy who bought it for $20K should pay as if he had ever had $2M?   It can certainly be the case that the property taxes change drastically over the years and sometimes people have to give up their property because they cannot afford the taxes. That is exactly the thought that had led Californians to amend the Constitution in Prop 13."}
{"question":"Economics Books ","answer":"The free Yale Course taught by Bob Shiller called Financial Markets is really good. Find it on youtube, iTunes U, academic earth, or yale's site."}
{"question":"What evidence is there that rising interest rates causes Canadian condo prices to go down?","answer":"In the US market at least, there is long-term evidence that there's no strong correlation between interest rates and house prices. A less detailed Canadian study found that house prices tended to increase when rates increase.  One possible reason: interest rates can increase when the economy is doing well (needs less help), which is also the time when people feel more confident about buying. The are many reasons why Toronto condo prices may come down (such as oversupply), or may increase (empty nesters downsizing).  But, by itself, a small increase in interest rates appears, based on history, to be unlikely to lead to a substantial drop in prices over a short timescale."}
{"question":"Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?","answer":"I'd suggest you start by looking at the mutual fund and\/or ETF options available via your bank, and see if they have any low-cost funds that invest in high-risk sectors.  You can increase your risk (and potential returns) by allocating your assets to riskier sectors rather than by picking individual stocks, and you'll be less likely to make an avoidable mistake. It is possible to do as you suggest and pick individual stocks, but by doing so you may be taking on more risk than you suspect, even unnecessary risk.  For instance, if you decide to buy stock in Company A, you know you're taking a risk by investing in just one company.  However, without a lot of work and financial expertise, you may not be able to assess how much risk you're taking by investing in Company A specifically, as opposed to Company B.  Even if you know that investing in individual stocks is risky, it can be very hard to know how risky those particular individual stocks are, compared to other alternatives. This is doubly true if the investment involves actions more exotic than simply buying and holding an asset like a stock.  For instance, you could definitely get plenty of risk by investing in commercial real estate development or complicated options contracts; but a certain amount of work and expertise is required to even understand how to do that, and there is a greater likelihood that you will slip up and make a costly mistake that negates any extra gain, even if the investment itself might have been sound for someone with experience in that area.  In other words, you want your risk to really be the risk of the investment, not the \"personal\" risk that you'll make a mistake in a complicated scheme and lose money because you didn't know what you were doing.  (If you do have some expertise in more exotic investments, then maybe you could go this route, but I think most people -- including me -- don't.) On the other hand, you can find mutual funds or ETFs that invest in large economic sectors that are high-risk, but because the investment is diversified within that sector, you need only compare the risk of the sectors.  For instance, emerging markets are usually considered one of the highest-risk sectors.  But if you restrict your choice to low-cost emerging-market index funds, they are unlikely to differ drastically in risk (at any rate, far less than individual companies).  This eliminates the problem mentioned above: when you choose to invest in Emerging Markets Index Fund A, you don't need to worry as much about whether Emerging Markets Index Fund B might have been less risky; most of the risk is in the choice to invest in the emerging markets sector in the first place, and differences between comparable funds in that sector are small by comparison.  You could do the same with other targeted sectors that can produce high returns; for instance, there are mutual funds and ETFs that invest specifically in technology stocks. So you could begin by exploring the mutual funds and ETFs available via your existing investment bank, or poke around on Morningstar.  Fees will still matter no matter what sector you're in, so pay attention to those.  But you can probably find a way to take an aggressive risk position without getting bogged down in the details of individual companies.  Also, this will be less work than trying something more exotic, so you're less likely to make a costly mistake due to not understanding the complexities of what you're investing in."}
{"question":"What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: \u2018this time it\u2019s different'?","answer":"To play devil\u2019s advocate to much of what has been written before, it's also worth noting that this is quite an important quote for a sort of reverse reason to what has been discussed before us, that of that fact that virtually every economic situation is different. As it's such a reflexive problem, each and every set of exact circumstances is always different from before. Technology radically changes, monetary policy and economic thinking shift, social needs and market expectations change and thus change the very fabric of markets as they do. It's only in its most basic miss projections of growth that economics repeats, and much like warfare, has constant shifts that radically change the core assumptions about it and do create completely new circumstances that we have to struggle to deal with predicting. People betting on the endless large scale mechanised warfare between western powers continuing post nuclear weapons would have been very, very wrong for example. That time it actually was different, and this actually happens with surprisingly often in finance in ways people quickly bury in the memories and adopt to the new norm. Remember when public ownership of stock wasn't a thing? When bonds didn't exist? No mortgages? Pre insurance? These are all inventions and changes that did change the world forever and were genuinely different and have been ever since, creating huge structural changes in economies, growth rates and societies interactions.  As the endless aim of the game is predicting growth well, we often see people\/groups over extend on one new thing, and\/or under extend on another as they struggle to model these shifts and step changes.  Talking as if the fact that people do this consistently as if it is some kind of obvious thing we can easily learn from (or easily take advantage of) in the context of such a vague and complex problem could be argued to be highly na\u00efve and largely useless. This time it is different. Last time it was too."}
{"question":"What can I take from learning that a company's directors are buying or selling shares?","answer":"You can learn very little from it. Company directories are often given share options or shares as a bonus, and because of that they are unlikely to buy shares. When they sell shares, you'll hear people shouting \"so-and-so sold his or her shares, they must know something bad about the company\".  The truth is that you can't eat or drink shares. If that company director owning shares worth a million dollars wants to buy a new Ferrari, he will find that Ferrari doesn't give free cars to people owning lots of shares. He actually has to sell the shares to get the money for the car, and that's what he does."}
{"question":"Why are interbank payment (settlement) systems closed for weekends and holidays?","answer":"The second part of your question is the easiest to answer, how much manual work is involved in settlement processes? Payment systems which handle low value (i.e. high volume) transactions work on the basis of net settlement. Each of the individual payments are netted across all of the participant banks, so that only one \"real\" payment is made by each bank. Some days banks will receive money, others they will pay money. This is arbitrary and depends on whether their outbound payments exceed their inbound payments for that day.   The payment system will notify each Bank how much it owes\/will receive for the day. The money is then transferred between all of the banks simultaneously by the payment system to remove the risk that some pay and others don't. If you're going to make or receive a very large payment, you're going to want to make certain that its correct. This means that if there's a discrepancy, you need operations people available to find out why its wrong.   When dealing with this many payments, answering that question can be hard. Did we miss a payment? Is there a duplicate? Etc.  The vast majority of payments will process without any human involvement, but to make the process work, you always need human brains there to fix problems that occur. This brings me to your first question. On every day that settlement happens, a bank will receive (or pay) a very large sum of money. As a settlement bank you must settle that money - the guarantee that every bank will pay is one of the main reasons these systems exist. For settlement to happen, every bank has to agree to participate, and be ready to verify the data on their side and deliver the funds from their account. So there is no particular reason that this doesn't happen on weekends and holidays other than history. But for any payment system to change, it would require the support of (at least) a majority of participants to pay staff to manage the settlement process on weekends. This would increase costs for banks, but the benefits would only really be for you and me (if at all). That means it's unlikely to happen unless a government forces the issue."}
{"question":"Are there any investment strategies which take advantage of an in-the-money option price that incorporates no \"time value\"?","answer":"It depends on the volatility of the underlying stock. But for \"normal\" levels of volatility, the real value of that option is probably $3.50! Rough estimates of the value of the option depending on volatility levels: Bottom line: unless this is a super volatile stock, it is trading at $3.50 for a reason. More generally: it is extremely rare to find obvious arbitrage opportunities in the market."}
{"question":"Book capital losses in gnucash","answer":"It depends on whether or not you are referring to realized or unrealized gains.  If the asset appreciation is realized, meaning you've sold the asset and actually collected liquidity from it, then Derek_6424246 has provided a good route to follow.   However, if the gains are unrealized, meaning only that the current value of the underlying asset(s) have increased or decreased, then you might want to record this under an Income:Unrealized Gains account.  One of the main distinctions between the two are whether or not you have a taxable event (realized) or just want to better track your net worth at a given time (unrealized).   For example, I generally track my retirement accounts increase in value sans interest, dividends and contributions, as income from an Income:Unrealized Gains account.  I can still reconcile it with my statements, and it shows an accurate picture for my net worth, but the money is not liquid nor taxed and is more for informational purposes than anything.   And no, I don't create an additional Expense account here to track losses.  Just think of Unrealized Gains as an income account where the balance will fluctuate up and down (and potentially even go negative) over time."}
{"question":"Starting an investment portfolio with Rs 5,000\/-","answer":"Given that you are starting with a relatively small amount, you want a decent interest rate, and you want flexibility, I would consider fixed deposit laddering strategy. Let's say you have \u20b915,000 to start with. Split this in to three components: Purchase all of the above at the same time. 30 days later, you will have the first FD mature. If you need this money, you use it. If you don't need it, purchase another 90-day fixed deposit. If you keep going this way, you will have a deposit mature every 30 days and can choose to use it or renew the fixed deposit. This strategy has some disadvantages to consider: As for interest rates, the length of the fixed deposit in positively related to the interest rate. If you want higher interest rates, elect for longer fixed deposit cycles.For instance, when you become more confident about your financial situation, replace the 30, 60, 90 day cycle with a 6, 12, 18 month cycle The cost of maintaining the short term deposit renewals and new purchases. If your bank does not allow such transactions through on line banking, you might spend more time than you like at a bank or on the phone with the bank You want a monthly dividend but this might not be the case with fixed deposits. It depends on your bank but I believe most Indian banks pay interest every three months"}
{"question":"Are credit cards not viewed as credit until you miss one payment?","answer":"There's a difference between missing a payment and \"carrying a balance\" (making an on-time payments that are less than the full balance due). I have heard mortgage brokers claim that, if you have no other credit history, carrying a small balance here and there on a credit card may improve your score.  (\"Small\" is in relation to your available credit and your ability to pay it off.)  But actually missing a payment will probably hurt your score. Example: You have a card with a credit limit of $1000.  In July you charge $300 worth of stuff.  You get the next statement and it shows the balance due of $300 and a minimum payment of $100. If you pay the entire $300 balance in that cycle, most cards won't charge you any interest.  You are not carrying a balance, so the credit scores may not reflect that you actually took a $300 loan and paid it off. If you instead pay $200, you'll be in good standing (because $200 is greater than the minimum payment).  But you'll be carrying a $100 balance into the next statement cycle.  Plus interest will accrue on that $100.  If you do this regularly, your credit score will probably take into account that you've taken a small loan and made the payments.  For those with no other credit history, this may be an appropriate way to increase your credit score.  (But you're paying interest, so it's not free.)  And if the average balance you carry is considered high relative to your ability to pay or to the total credit available to you, then this could adversely affect your score (or, at least, the amount of credit another provider is willing to extend to you). If you instead actually miss a payment, or make a payment that's less than the minimum payment, that will almost certainly hurt your credit score.  It will also incur penalties as well as interest.  You want to avoid that whenever possible. My guess is that, in the game of telephone from the banker to you, the \"carrying a balance\" was misinterpreted as \"missing a payment.\""}
{"question":"If I get cash compensation for my stocks (following a merger for example) does that qualify for capital gains tax?","answer":"In the US this is considered a sale, and the proceeds will be taxed as if you've sold the stocks in any other way. The decision about the treatment (capital, ordinary, etc) is dependent on what kind of stock that is, how you acquired it, how long have you held it, etc. If it is a regular stock that you bought as an investment and held it for more than a year - then it will likely to be a capital gain treatment. However, this is only relevant for the US taxation. Since you're a UK person, you should also check how it is handled in the UK, which may or may not be different."}
{"question":"Possibility to buy index funds and individual funds in a Canadian TFSA","answer":"This page from the CRA website details the types of investments you can hold in a TFSA. You can hold individual shares, including ETFs, traded on any \"designated stock exchange\" in addition to the other types of investment you have listed.  Here is a list of designated stock exchanges provided by the Department of Finance.  As you can see, it includes pretty well every major stock exchange in the developed world. If your bank's TFSA only offers \"mutual funds, GICs and saving deposits\" then you need to open a TFSA with a different bank or a stock broking company with an execution only service that offers TFSA accounts.  Almost all of the big banks will do this.  I use Scotia iTrade, HSBC Invest Direct, and TD, though my TFSA's are all with HSBC currently.  You will simply provide them with details of your bank account in order to facilitate money transfers\/TFSA contributions. Since purchasing foreign shares involves changing your Canadian dollars into a foreign currency, one thing to watch out for when purchasing foreign shares is the potential for high foreign exchange spreads.  They can be excessive in proportion to the investment being made.  My experience is that HSBC offers by far the best spreads on FX, but you need to exchange a minimum of $10,000 in order to obtain a decent spread (typically between 0.25% and 0.5%).  You may also wish to note that you can buy unhedged ETFs for the US and European markets on the Toronto exchange.  This means you are paying next to nothing on the spread, though you obviously are still carrying the currency risk.  For example, an unhedged S&P500 trades under the code ZSP (BMO unhedged) or XUS (iShares unhedged). In addition, it is important to consider that commissions for trades on foreign markets may be much higher than those on a Canadian exchange.  This is not always the case.  HSBC charge me a flat rate of $6.88 for both Toronto and New York trades, but for London they would charge up to 0.5% depending on the size of the trade.  Some foreign exchanges carry additional trading costs.  For example, London has a 0.5% stamp duty on purchases. EDIT One final thing worth mentioning is that, in my experience,  holding US securities means that you will be required to register with the US tax authorities and with those US exchanges upon which you are trading.  This just means fill out a number of different forms which will be provided by your stock broker. Exchange registrations can be done electronically, however US tax authority registration must be submitted in writing.  Dividends you receive will be net of US withholding taxes.  I am not aware of any capital gains reporting requirements to US authorities."}
{"question":"Ethics and investment","answer":"Markets are amoral. If you don't buy stock in a company that has high growth\/earnings, someone else will. By abstaining you will actually make it cheaper for someone else who is interested in making money.  Investing in \"socially responsible\" funds will only ensure that you have less money to make a moral difference in the world when you decide to transition from working to philanthropy. Edit to clarify -- You aren't interested in buying individual stocks directly, that leaves you with two general options: You can make a statement with your investment now, or you can take the better returns and make a difference with your money later."}
{"question":"Is www.onetwotrade.com a scam?","answer":"OneTwoTrade is a binary option seller, and they are officially licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority. They are not in any way licensed or regulated as an investment, because they don't do actual investing. Is your money safe? If you mean will they take your money and run off with it, then no they probably won't just take your deposit and refuse to return any money to you for nothing - that would be a terrible way to make money for the long-term. If you mean \"will I lose my money?\" - oh yeah, you probably will! Binary options - outside of special sophisticate financial applications - are for people who think day trading has too little risk, or who would prefer online poker with a thin veneer of \"it's an investment!\"  In the words of Forbes, Don't Gamble On Binary Options:  If people want to gamble, that\u2019s their choice. But let\u2019s not confuse   that with investing. Binary options are a crapshoot, pure and simple. These kinds of businesses run like a casino - there's a built-in house advantage, you are playing odds (which are against you), and the fundamental product is trying to bet on short-term volatility in financial markets. This is often ridiculously short-terms, measured in minutes. It's often  called \"all or nothing options\", because if you bet wrong you lose almost everything - they give you a little bit of the money you bet back (so you will bet again, preferably with more of your own money). If you bet correctly you get a pay-out, just like in craps or roulette. If you are looking to gamble online, this is one method to do it. But this isn't investing, you are as mathematically likely to lose your money and\/or become addicted as any other form of money-based gambling, and absolutely treat it the same way you would a casino: decide how much money you are willing to spend on the adventure before you start, and expect you'll likely not get much or any of that money back. However, I will moralize on this point - I really hate being lied to. Casinos, sports betting, and poker all generally have the common decency to call it what it is - a game where you are playing\/betting. These sorts of \"investment\" providers are woefully dishonest: they say it's an exciting financial market, a new type of investment, investors are moving to this to secure their futures, etc. It's utterly deceptive and vile, and it's all about as up-front and honest as penny auction websites. If you are going to gamble, I'd urge you to do it with people who have the decency to to call it gambling and not lie to you and ask for a \"minimum investment\"."}
{"question":"Do you know of any online monetary systems?","answer":"I'm not sure, but I think the monetary system of Second Life or World of Warcraft would correspond to what you are looking for. I don't think they are independent of the dollar though, since acquiring liquidity in those games can be done through exchange for real dollars. But there can be more closed systems, maybe Sim type games where this is not the case. I hope this helps."}
{"question":"Why do car rental companies prefer\/require credit over debit cards?","answer":"A hotel can accept the debit card because each night they can withdraw the money. If you don't have sufficient funds they can instantly lock you out of your room. They an also limit your ability to access room service, and other extra expensive options. The rental car can't do that once you have the car. Plus they never know if you will bring the car back with damages, toll charges, and an empty tank of gas."}
{"question":"Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of?","answer":"If some one ever offers High returns and low risk they are either extremely stupid or scamming you. If they did find a high return low risk investment a smart person would buy it then repackage it as a low return low risk investment and then sell it to you. People would still buy and they would make a ton.   Either they are lying (scam) or a fool(about as bad)"}
{"question":"How to measure a currencies valuation or devaluation in relevance to itself","answer":"As the value of a currency declines, commodities, priced in that currency, will rise. The two best commodities to see a change in would be oil and gold."}
{"question":"How to make money from a downward European market?","answer":"If you are interested in short term trading and live in the UK you can do some Spread Betting. If you know what you are doing you can make money no matter which way the market is moving. Note that most people don't know what they are doing and lose their money pretty quickly."}
{"question":"What does \"\/\" and \"^\" mean in ticker symbols? How to translate these symbols into yahoo?","answer":"There isn't a single universal way to reference a stock, there are 4 major identifiers with many different flavours of exchange ticker (see xkcd:Standards) I believe CUSIPs and ISINs represent a specific security rather than a specific listed instrument. This means you can have two listed instruments with one ISIN but different SEDOLs because they are listed in different places. The difference is subtle but causes problems with settlement Specifically on your question (sorry I got sidetracked) take a look at  CQS Symbol convention to see what everything means"}
{"question":"Are U.S. salaries typically measured\/reported before tax, or after tax?","answer":"In the U.S., virtually all salaries are expressed as \"gross salaries\", which are before the taxes that the individual must pay on their income. The numbers shown in the links are almost certainly gross salary figures. However, the \"gross salary\" is not the entire \"total compensation\" number, which is the total value of all compensation and benefits that the employee receives for his work. Total compensation includes not only salary and bonuses, but the cost or value of any employer-paid healthcare, retirement, company car, expense account, stock options, and other valuable goods or services. That's still not the total amount of money the company has to pay to have you; there are employer-paid payroll taxes totaling 6.2% of your gross salary, plus practical costs like the cost of your computer, cubicle or office furniture, and the portion of utility costs that keep you well-lit, clean and comfortable. This complete number is called \"total employee cost\", and the general rule of thumb is that it's double your gross cash compensation (salary + bonuses). Lastly, $100k in California isn't worth as much, in real terms, as $100k in other parts of the U.S. The cost of living in California, especially in Silicon Valley where the majority of the people who make six figures by being C++ programmers are located, is ridiculously expensive. There are other tech hubs in the U.S., like DFW, Austin TX, Atlanta GA, St Louis MO, Raleigh NC, etc where people earn less, but also spend less to live and so can use more of their salary in a \"discretionary\" manner."}
{"question":"Is there a way I can get bid\/ask price data on the NSE in real time? ","answer":"Quite a few Banks\/brokers offer direct terminals to NSE where you can see live prices."}
{"question":"What is expense growth in this diagram?","answer":"The \"c.\" is probably circa, or \"about.\"  Regulatory settlements is in blue because it's negative; the amount is in parentheses, which indicates a loss. WB and CB might be wholesale banking and commercial banking? BAU probably means \"business as usual\" or things that don't directly apply to the project. Incremental investment is the additional cash a company puts towards its long-term capital assets. FX is probably foreign exchange."}
{"question":"Car financed at 24.90% \u2014 what can I do?","answer":"You could look into refinancing with a bank or credit union.  But to weed out options quickly, use a service like LendingTree, which can vet multiple options for you a whole lot more quickly than you could probably do yourself.  (I don't work for, or get any benefit from LendingTree.)  Whatever you do, try to do all the applying within a short span of time, as to not negatively affect your credit score (read here) by creating extraneous inquiries.   Then again, if your credit sucks, you might not qualify for a re-fi.  If you are turned down, make your payments on time for six months or so, and try again."}
{"question":"I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent\/adult present?","answer":"I had a cat growing up--most of the time I was the one who got her supplies.  It was never an issue."}
{"question":"Automate Savings by Percentage on varying paychecks?","answer":"When I have been faced with this sort of situation I have done the split at the bank.  They had the ability to recognize the deposit as a payroll transfer and split it the way I wanted. I put a specific amount of money into checking, another amount of money into the mortgage, and a specific amount of money into another fund. The balance, whether it was $1 or any other amount, went in to savings. That meant that I transferred the amounts I needed to pay my budgeted living expenses and what ever I made above that went to savings. In months I made extra, more was available to be saved."}
{"question":"Do Options take Dividend into account?","answer":"No can't make quick bucks. It depends very much on what the strike price was. Dividends which are below 10% of the market value of the underlying   stock, would be deemed to be ordinary dividends and no adjustment in   the Strike Price would be made for ordinary dividends. For   extra-ordinary dividends, above 10% of the market value of the   underlying security, the Strike Price would be adjusted. Refer more at NSE India Edit: The Nifty consists of 50 stocks. The largest one has weight of around 8%. So 10% on this will only translate to .8% on index."}
{"question":"Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries","answer":"Those folks should be introduced to some real estate folks I know, they'd get along famously, being as how they still think it's 2007. The amount of housing out there requires that a large market of consumers is available to purchase them. If housing prices rose infinitely ahead of salaries, the market for potential buyers would continue to shrink until supply would outstrip demand. And then we have the wonderful housing bubble like the one that we just went through (or in some places like China, have the potential to go through). Short version: It violates the relationship between supply and demand."}
{"question":"Saving tax for long term stock investment capital gain by quiting my current job?","answer":"The capital gains is counted towards your income. If you cash out 1 Million dollars, you have a 1 Million dollar income for that year, which puts you at the 39.6% tax bracket. However, because that 1 Million dollars is all long term capital gains, you will only have to pay 20% of it in long term capital gains taxes. The best you can do is to cash the 1 Million dollars through several years instead of just all at once. This will put in a lower tax bracket and thus will pay lower capital gains tax."}
{"question":"What to bear in mind when considering a rental home as an investment?","answer":"First off, I would label this as speculation, not investing.  There are many variables that you don't seem to be considering, and putting down such a small amount opens you to a wide variety of risks.  Not having an \"emergency fund\" for the rental increases that risk greatly.  (I assume that you would not have an emergency fund based upon \"The basic idea is to save up a 20% down payment on a property and take out a mortgage\".) This type of speculation lent a hand in the housing bubble. Is your home paid off?  If not you can reduce your personal risk (by owning your home), and have a pretty safe investment in real estate.  Mission accomplished. My hope for you would be that you are also putting money in the market.  Historically it has performed quite well while always having its share of \"chicken littles\"."}
{"question":"How can I determine how much my car insurance will cost me?","answer":"Don't be afraid to shop around. Every couple of years when it's time to renew my auto insurance I call a couple of places to see if I can get a better deal. It's especially important to do this as you get older (because your rates go down assuming you keep a clean driving record). Also as your life changes, e.g. if you get married, move, buy a home, get a new car, etc. At 30 my rates dropped a lot. When I bought a home, I qualified for a discount by combining my home and auto insurance through the same carrier. My suggestion would be to call 3 insurance companies for quotes, all on the same day. You'll need to be able to identify the car you'll be insuring for the most accurate quote. Do you belong to any organizations that offer insurance discounts? (E.g. my college alumni association had a program with one of the larger carriers that had the best rates on auto+home that I could find.)"}
{"question":"Why are bank transactions not instant?","answer":"It is a rather complex system, but here is a rough summary. Interbank tranfers ultimately require a transfer of reserves at the central bank. As a concrete example, the bank of england system is the rtgs. Only the clearing banks and similar (e.g. bacs) have access to rtgs. You can send a chaps payment fairly quickly, but that costs. Chaps immediately triggers an rtgs transfer once the sending bank agrees and so you can be certain that the money is being paid.  Hence its use for large amounts. Bacs also sits on the rtgs but to keep costs down it batches tranfers up. Because we are talking about bank reserve movements, checks have to be in place and that can take time. Furthermore the potential for fraud is higher than chaps since these are aggregrated transactions a layer removed, so a delay reduces the chance of payment failing after apparently being sent. Faster payments is a new product by bacs that speeds up the bacs process by doing a number of transfers per day. Hence the two hour clearing. For safety it can only be used for up to 10k. Second tier banks will hold accounts with clearing banks so they are another step down. Foreign currency transfers require the foreign Central Bank reserve somewhere, and so must be mediated by at least one clearing bank in that country. Different countries are at different stages in their technology.  Uk clearing is 2h standard now but US is a little behind I believe.  Much of Europe is speeding up. Rather like bitcoin clearing, you have a choice between speed and safety. If you wait you are more certain the transaction is sound and have more time to bust the transfer."}
{"question":"How is \"The People's Trust\" not just another Investment Trust?","answer":"Well the People's Trust's IPO prospectus is now (2017-09-08) available for all to read (or there's a smaller \"information leaflet\").  (May need some disclaimers to be clicked to get access).  Both have a \"highlights\" bullet-point list: Coverage here has a comment thread with some responses by the founder attempting to answer the obvious objection that there's other multi-manager trusts on a discount (e.g Alliance Trust on ~ -5.5%), so why would you buy this one on a (very small) premium?  (Update: There's also another recent analysis here.) Personally, I'm thinking the answer to the original question \"How is The People's Trust not just another Investment Trust?\" is pretty much: \"it's just another Investment Trust\" (albeit one with its own particular quirks and goals).  But good luck to them."}
{"question":"Deductible expenses paid with credit card: In which tax year would they fall?","answer":"According to this discussion, there was a Tax Court ruling that likened deductibility for charitable giving by credit card to business expenses incurred by businesses operating under cash-basis accounting.  (The point is made by Larry Hess on that site.) Short answer: According to this argument, you can claim the deduction when the charge is incurred.  You don't have to wait until you pay it back.  (Again this is for cash basis.) Publication 538 states that \"under the cash method of accounting, you generally deduct business expenses in the tax year you pay them.\"  I think the ruling above was meant to clarify when the expense is \"paid\".  In my totally unofficial opinion, I suppose this makes sense.  If I go to Office Depot to buy a box of envelopes, I walk out with the envelopes at the same time regardless of whether I paid cash or swiped a credit card.  I wouldn't walk out thinking: \"HA!  I haven't actually paid for these yet.\"  If the shoplifting alarm went off at the door and I was asked if I had bought those, I'd say yes, right? If this doesn't convince you, you can always get professional tax advice."}
{"question":"Asking price went through the roof","answer":"As folks have explained in the comments:"}
{"question":"Should I keep most of my banking, credit, and investment accounts at the same bank?","answer":"I've had all my account with the same bank for all my life. Generally, the disadvantage is that if I want some kind of product like a credit extension or a mortgage, I have the one bank to go to and if they don't want to help me I'm out of luck. However, occasionally there are also perks like the bank spontaneously offering you increased credit or even a whole line of credit. They can do this because they have your whole history and trust you."}
{"question":"Why can Robin Hood offer trading without commissions?","answer":"Robinhood does offer premium products that they charge for-I suspect we will see more of that in the future. They do not change the bid\/ask spread as some have said because they have to give you the NBBO."}
{"question":"Does an index have a currency?","answer":"From Wikipedia -  To calculate the value of the S&P 500 Index, the sum of the adjusted   market capitalization of all 500 stocks is divided by a factor,   usually referred to as the Divisor. For example, if the total adjusted   market cap of the 500 component stocks is US$13 trillion and the   Divisor is set at 8.933 billion, then the S&P 500 Index value would be   1,455.28. From a strictly mathematical perspective, the divisor is not canceling out the units, and the S&P index is dollar denominated even though it's never quoted that way. A case in point is that the S&P is often said to have a P\/E, and especially an E, the earnings attributed to one 'unit' of S&P. And if you buy a mutual fund sporting a low expense ratio, you can invest exactly that much money (the current S&P index value) and see the dividends accrue to your account, less the fee."}
{"question":"Is there an online cost-basis calculator that automatically accounts for dividend re-investments and splits? ","answer":"Google Finance portfolios take into account splits and cash deposits\/withdrawals."}
{"question":"Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans?","answer":"My biggest concern with this plan is that there's no going back should you decide that it is not going to work, either due to the strain on the relationship or for some other reason.   If you were borrowing from a relative in place of a mortgage or a car loan, you can always refinance, and might just pay a little more interest or closing costs from a bank.  Student loans are effectively unsecured, so your only option for a \"refinance\" would be to get a personal, unsecured loan (or borrow against existing collateral if you have it). You are going to have a tough time getting another 50k unsecured personal loan at anywhere near student-loan rates.   The other negative aspects (overall risk of borrowing from family, loss of possible tax deduction) make this plan a no-go for me. (I'm NOT saying that it's always a good idea to borrow from family for homes or cars, only that there's at least an exit plan should you both decide it was a bad idea)."}
{"question":"Can I use losses from sale of stock to offset capital gains from sale of property","answer":"Capital losses from the sale of stocks can be used to offset capital gains from the sale of a house, assuming that house was a rental property the whole time.  If it was your principal residence, the capital gains are not taxed.  If you used it as both a rental and a principal residence, then it gets more complicated: http:\/\/www.cra-arc.gc.ca\/tx\/ndvdls\/tpcs\/ncm-tx\/rtrn\/cmpltng\/rprtng-ncm\/lns101-170\/127\/rsdnc\/menu-eng.html"}
{"question":"Shifting income to 401k","answer":"This will be difficult to achieve.  It can be done, but it's very rare to have an agreement where your employer is willing to max out your contribution limit unless you are a partner in the business or a family relation. In this situation the extra employer money would probably come from a profit sharing contribution. If your employer increases your match, others are correct that your employer would have to increase the match for everyone. Not so with a profit sharing contribution. This is assuming 2 things though: Both of those are BIG if's, and I'd say 99% of the time it's not gonna happen for either of those two reasons. Your chances are better if you don't own >5% of the company, don't make over $120,000\/year, and are related to you employer. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Should I pay off a 0% car loan?","answer":"Between now and October, your $3,000 will earn $30 in your savings account. If you are late on a payment for your 0% loan, your interest rate will skyrocket.  In my opinion, the risk is just not worth the tiny gain you are trying to achieve in the savings account. If it was me, I would pay off the loan today. A few more thoughts: There is a reason that businesses offer 0% consumer loans.  They are designed to trick you into thinking that you are getting a better deal than you are.  Businesses don't lose money on these loans.  The price of the loan is built into the cost of the purchase, whether you are buying expensive furniture, or a car.  Typically with a car, you forfeit a rebate by taking the 0% loan, essentially paying all the interest up-front.  Now that you have the loan, you might be ahead a few dollars by waiting to pay it off, but only because you've already paid the interest.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that you can come out ahead by buying things at 0%.  It's really not free money. In the comments, @JoeTaxpayer mentioned that fear of mistakes can lead to missed rewards.  I understand that; however, these 0% loans are full of small print designed to trip you up.  A single mistake can negate years and years of these small gains.  You don't want to be penny wise and pound foolish."}
{"question":"How to withdraw money from currency account without having to lose so much to currency conversion?","answer":"In your position I would use one of the existing Polish currency exchange platforms (you can find a list here: http:\/\/jakikantor.pl). A few of them have bank accounts in Britain so the exchange rate will be close to market price."}
{"question":"How can I find the historical stock price for a specific stock on a specific date?","answer":"Go to a large reference library and ask to see the Wall Street Journal for October 13 1992."}
{"question":"How (or is it necessary) to rebalance a 401k with only one index fund?","answer":"Rebalance is across asset-classes which are mutually independent [like stocks and bonds; they may be inversely correlated at times as when stocks go down, bonds go up] 80%-20% (stock-bond) split is good for a young investor [say in 30s, some suggest 110-age as a good stock allocation percentage]. Here rebalance is done when say the asset-allocation(AA) strays away more than say 3 to 5% (again just a rule of thumb). E.g. if due to a recent run-up in stocks, AA could become 85%-15%. Then you sell stocks to buy bonds to make the AA 80%-20% And since this method always sells the winner -- you automatically make gains [selling high and buying low] S&P 500 index gives decent diversification within stocks; you want a total-bond-fund to take care of the bond side of your AA."}
{"question":"Can someone help me understand my student loans?","answer":"If you want to pay them off as quickly as possible, pay the minimum payment on the larger two and dump as much as you can into the one with the 8.75% interest.  Then, even though it has a slightly lower interest rate, I would attack the one with the next smallest balance after that, while continuing to make the minimum payment on the one with the largest balance."}
{"question":"What are your experiences with 'self directed' 401ks?","answer":"My employer matches 1 to 1 up to 6% of pay. They also toss in 3, 4 or 5 percent of your annual salary depending on your age and years of service. The self-directed brokerage account option costs $20 per quarter. That account only allows buying and selling of stock, no short sales and no options. The commissions are $12.99 per trade, plus $0.01 per share over 1000 shares. I feel that's a little high for what I'm getting. I'm considering 401k loans to invest more profitably outside of the 401k, specifically using options. Contrary to what others have said, I feel that limited options trading (the sale cash secured puts and spreads) can be much safer than buying and selling of stock. I have inquired about options trading in this account, since the trustee's system shows options right on the menus, but they are all disabled. I was told that the employer decided against enabling options trading due to the perceived risks."}
{"question":"What is a good investment vehicle for introducing kids to investing?","answer":"For \"real\" investing I would usually recommend mutual funds.  But if you are trying to teach a kid about investing, I would recommend they choose individual stocks.   That will give them a great opportunity to follow the companies they bought in the news.  It also gives you an opportunity to sit down with them periodically and discuss their companies performance, economic news, etc. and how those things play into stock prices."}
{"question":"Is it possible for an individual to refuse a cheque in France?","answer":"In any country, individuals (and shops) can reject any form of payment that is not Legal Tender - defined by law as a payment form that must be accepted. Shops are typically more generous, because they want to do business with you, but individuals are in a different position. In France, only official coins and bills are declared as Legal Tender (so if they don't want to, individuals don't even need to accept bank transfers). This is for doubts you need to pay. In addition, as you are not forced to do business with them, people and shops can require whatever they feel like to require - if you want to buy their car, they can ask you to stand on your head and spit coins, and if you don't like it, they don't sell to you. (They won't do much business then, probably)"}
{"question":"Tax on Stocks or ETF's","answer":"If you sell a stock, with no distributions, then your gain is taxable under \u00a71001.  But not all realized gains will be recognized as taxable.  And some gains which are arguably not realized, will be recognized as taxable. The stock is usually a capital asset for investors, who will generate capital gains under \u00a71(h), but dealers, traders, and hedgers will get different treatment.  If you are an investor, and you held the stock for a year or more, then you can get the beneficial capital gain rates (e.g. 20% instead of 39.6%).  If the asset was held short-term, less than a year, then your tax will generally be calculated at the higher ordinary income rates.  There is also the problem of the net investment tax under \u00a71411.  I am eliding many exceptions, qualifications, and permutations of these rules. If you receive a \u00a7316 dividend from a stock, then that is \u00a761 income.  Qualified dividends are ordinary income but will generally be taxed at capital gains rates under \u00a71(h)(11).  Distributions in redemption of your stock are usually treated as sales of stock.  Non-dividend distributions (that are not redemptions) will reduce your basis in the stock to zero (no tax due) and past zero will be treated as gain from a sale. If you exchange stock in a tax-free reorganization (i.e. contribute your company stock in exchange for an acquirer's stock), you have what would normally be considered a realized gain on the exchange, but the differential will not be recognized, if done correctly. If you hold your shares and never sell them, but you engage in other dealings (short sales, options, collars, wash sales, etc.) that impact those shares, then you can sometimes be deemed to have recognized gain on shares that were never sold or exchanged. A more fundamental principle of income tax design is that not all realized gains will be recognized.  IRC \u00a71001(c) says that all realized gains are recognized, except as otherwise provided; that \"otherwise\" is substantial and far-ranging."}
{"question":"Borrow from 401k for down payment on rental property?","answer":"the most important information that you provided was \"I'm 25 years old\". You have a few years to save for a rental property. Taking a loan against your 401k only invites a lot of paperwork and a good deal of risk. Not only the \"if I lose my job I have to pay it back (in 60 days)\", but it effectively locks you into your current job because changing jobs also causes the same repayment consequences. Do you really love your job that much that you would stick with it for the loan you have? (rhetorical) One could argue that real estate is a good way to diversify away from the stock market (assuming you have your 401k invested in stocks). Another way to get the same diversification is to invest in REITs through your 401k. Owning rental property isn't something to rush into. You really have to like it.The returns and headaches that accompany it can be a drag and it's harder to get out of then stocks."}
{"question":"First job: Renting vs get my parents to buy me a house","answer":"As everyone is saying, this depends on a lot of variables. However... I had my dad help me with the downpayment on my house. In my case, the cost of mortgage payment and all maintenance expenses is still lower than paying rent. If I sell my house and walk away from the closing office with just $1 then I've still come out ahead compared to renting. The New York Times has a fantastic tool figure out if it's a good idea to buy vs. rent. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/upshot\/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=0 It's asks all the relevant questions, and then it tells you how cheap rent would have to be make it the better option."}
{"question":"Does inflation equal more loans? ","answer":"In terms of operations, banks are indifferent to inflation. Short rates except right before a recession or near-recession are always lower than long rates, regardless of inflation level, assuming no quotas or price controls. Banks produce credit by borrowing short to lend long, so as long as short rates are lower than long rates, they can be expected to produce loans, again assuming no quotas or price controls. In short, from the banks' perspective, inflation does not affect their desire to produce credit."}
{"question":"Are buyouts always for higher than the market value of a stock?","answer":"Buyouts are usually for more than the ORIGINAL value of a stock. That's because the price \"premium\" represents an incentive for holders to \"tender\" their shares to the would-be buyer. Sometimes in these situations, the stock price rises above the proposed buyout price, in anticipation of a higher takeover bid from a SECOND party (that may or may not materialize). To answer the other part of the question, does a bidder have a chance of taking over a dying company for less than the market price? That is a strategy sometimes referred to as a \"take under,\" and it has not been a notably successful strategy. That's because it goes against \"human nature\" (of the seller). \"Where there is life, there is hope.\" They would seldom accept a lower price for \"sure\" survival, when the market is telling them that they are worth a higher price. Very few people realize that the market may disappear tomorrow. Think of all the homeowners who won't cut their price, but insist on bids that meet recent \"comps.\" And if the company is really dying, the prospective buyer may be best served by waiting until it does, and then pick up the individual pieces at auction."}
{"question":"When should I walk away from my mortgage?","answer":"To put a different spin on it, suppose you loaned someone $100K, expecting that they would pay it back, and then a little later they decided not too. They are perfectly capable of paying back the money, but just decided they didn't want to, and it seems the laws of your state said you couldn't make them. How would you feel about that? Since this is supposed to be an answer to the question, the answer is: \"only if you can't afford to repay it\". That's what foreclosure is supposed to be about, not you deciding you would rather not pay your debts. Let's not forget who pays that bill for you - every one of your bank's other customers. EDIT:For the people decrying the moral aspect and saying \"it's perfectly alright because the law says that's the punishment and I'm willing to pay it\", the law also says \"if you kill someone, you go to prison for life\". Does that mean that someone who decides they are going to kill someone has a perfect right to do it as long as they are prepared to take the consequences?"}
{"question":"Why does selling and then rebuying stock not lead to free money?","answer":"There are a few people that do this for a living. They are called \"market makers\" or \"specialists\" in a particular stock. First of all, this requires a lot of capital. You can get burned on a few trades, a process known as \"gambler's ruin,\" but if you have enough capital to weather the storm, you can make money. Second, you have to be \"licensed\" by the stock market authorities, because you need to have stock market trading experience and other credentials. Third, you are not allowed to buy and sell at will. In order to do your job, you have to \"balance the boat,\" that is buy, when others are selling, and sell, when others are buying, in order to keep the market moving in two directions. It's a tough job that requires a lot of experience, plus a license, but a few people can make a living doing this."}
{"question":"Saving for a non-necessity","answer":"The same as you would save for anything else, buget and make sure your expenses are less than your income each week. Put away a little each week for the item you want to buy, and when you have saved up enough for the item you can buy it. In the mean time whilst you are saving for it, you can shop around to see where you can buy it at the lowest price."}
{"question":"Why is Net Asset Value (NAV) only reported by funds, but not stocks?","answer":"Nobody tracks a single company's net assets on a daily basis, and stock prices are almost never derived directly from their assets (otherwise there would be no concept of 'growth stocks').  Stocks trade on the presumed current value of future positive cash flow, not on the value of their assets alone. Funds are totally different.  They own nothing but stocks and are valued on the basis on the value of those stocks.  (Commodity funds and closed funds muddy the picture somewhat, but basically a fund's only business is owning very liquid assets, not using their assets to produce wealth the way companies do.) A fund has no meaning other than the direct value of its assets.   Even companies which own and exploit large assets, like resource companies, are far more complicated than funds: e.g. gold mining or oil extracting companies derive most of their value from their physical holdings, but those holdings value depends on the moving price and assumed future price of the commodity and also on the operations (efficiency of extraction etc.) Still different from a fund which only owns very liquid assets."}
{"question":"How can I help others plan their finances, without being a \"conventional\" financial planner?","answer":"I am a Certified Financial Planner and provide tactical advice on everything from budgeting to saving for retirement. You do not have to have any series exams or a CFP to do this work, although it helps give you credibility. As long as you DO NOT provide investment advice, you likely do not need to register as an investment advisor or need any certification."}
{"question":"Does a stock really dip in price on the ex-dividend date? And why would it do this?","answer":"The stock should fall by approximately the amount of the dividend as that is what is paid out. If you have a stock trading at $10\/share and it pays a $1\/share dividend, the price should drop to $9 as what was trading before the dividend was paid would be both the dividend and the stock itself. If the person bought just for the dividend then it would likely be neutral as there isn't anything extra to be gained. Consider if this wasn't the case. Wouldn't one be able to buy a stock a few days before the dividend and sell just after for a nice profit? That doesn't make sense and is the reason for the drop in price. Similarly, if a stock has a split or spin-off there may be changes in the price to reflect that adjustment in value of the company. If I give you 2 nickels for a dime, the overall value is still 10 cents though this would be 2 coins instead of one. Some charts may show a \"Dividend adjusted\" price to factor out these transactions so be careful of what prices are quoted."}
{"question":"What does Capital Surplus mean?","answer":"Capital surplus is used to account for that amount which a firm raises in excess of the par value (nominal value) of the shares (common stock).. Investopedia has a much simpler answer. Somebody has tried to be smart on wikipedia and have done the calculations without much explanation. The portion of the surplus of a business arising from sources other than earnings :  all surplus other than earned surplus usually including amounts received from sale or exchange of capital stock in excess of par or stated value, profits on resale of treasury stock, donations to capital by stockholders or others, or increment arising from revaluation of fixed or other assets The number of shares a company wants to issue is decided and agreed with the regulators. They decide the par value and then decide how much premium will be charged, extra money above the par value. Take out any RHP of an issue and you find all these details. Par Value = 1  Issue price(Price at which investors buy) = 10 Premium = 9 For a single share the capital surplus is 9, multiply it by the number of shares issued and you have the total capital surplus."}
{"question":"Hedging your personal assets","answer":"No. Such companies don't exist. Derivative instruments have evolved over a period and there is a market place, stock exchange with members \/ broker with obligations etc clearly laid out and enforceable. If I understand correctly say the house is at 300 K. You would like a option to sell it to someone for 300 K after 6 months. Lets say you are ready to pay a premium of 10K for this option. After 6 months, if the market price is 400 K you would not exercise the option and if the market price of your house is 200 K you would exercise the option and ask the option writer to buy your house for 300 K. There are quite a few challenges, i.e. who will moderate this transaction. How do we arrive that house is valued at 300K. There could be actions taken by you to damage the property and hence its reduction in value, etc. i.e. A stock exchange like market place for house is not there and it may or may not develop in future."}
{"question":"What does the Fed do with the extra money it is printing? ","answer":"First of all, just for the sake of clarity, the Federal Reserve doesn't actually \"print\" money - that's the job of the BEP. What they do is they buy US Treasury bonds - i.e., loan money to the US government. The money they do it with are created \"from thin air\" - just by adding some numbers in certain accounts, thus it is described as \"printing money\". The US government then spends the money however it wishes to. The idea is that this money is injected into the economy - since the only way the US government can use the money from these loans is to spend them on buying something or give it to some people that would spend them.  As it is a loan, sometime in the future the US government would pay these loans back, and in this moment the Fed would decide - if they want to \"contract\" the supply of money back, they just \"destroy\" the money they've got, by erasing the numbers they created before. They could also do it by selling the bonds they hold on the open market and then again \"destroy\" the money they got as proceeds, thus lowering the amount of money existing in the economy. This way the Fed can control how much money is out there and thus supposedly influence inflation and economic activity.  The Fed could also inject money in the economy by buying any assets after creating the money - for example, right now they own about a trillion dollars worth of various mortgage-based securities. But since buying specific security would probably give unfair advantage to the issuers and owners of this security, usually US treasury bonds if what they buy. The side effect of increased supply of money denominated in dollars would be, as you noted, devaluation of dollars compared to other currencies."}
{"question":"What are the reasons to get more than one credit card?","answer":"I got a Capital One credit card because they don't charge a fee for transactions in foreign currencies. So I only use it when I travel abroad. At home, I use 3 different credit cards, each offering different types of rewards (cash back on gas, movies, restaurants, online shopping etc)."}
{"question":"Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?","answer":"I linked my bank account (by making a transfer from bank account to Paypal) without linking a card. This should not give Paypal any rights to do anything with my bank account - transfer that I made to link it was exactly the same as any other outgoing transfer from my bank account. On attempting to pay more that resides in my Paypal balance I get  To pay for this purchase right now, link a debit or credit card to your PayPal account. message. Paypal is not mentioning it but one may also transfer money to Paypal account form bank to solve this problem. Note, that one may give allow Paypal to access bank account - maybe linking a card will allow this? Paypal encourages linking card but without any description of consequences so I never checked this. It is also possible that Paypal gained access to your bank balance in other way - for example in Poland it just asked for logins and passwords to bank accounts (yes, using \"Add money instantly using Trustly\" in Poland really requires sharing full login credentials to bank account - what among other things breaks typical bank contract) source for \"Paypal attempts phishing\": https:\/\/niebezpiecznik.pl\/post\/uwaga-uzytkownicy-paypala-nie-korzystajcie-z-najnowszej-funkcji-tego-serwisu\/"}
{"question":"Can't the account information on my checks be easily used for fraud?","answer":"The bottom line is to keep most of your money in accounts with no check privileges and to not give the account numbers for these accounts to anyone. Keep just enough in your checking account for the checks you are going to write."}
{"question":"What expenses do most people not prepare for that turn into \"emergencies\" but are not covered by an Emergency Fund?","answer":"The way you ask this is interesting, it implies (quite correctly) that for many, an annual bill for house insurance, property tax, etc, can turn into an emergency. My answer to the true emergency is a breakage that can't be foreseen (although you have to know the furnace isn't going to last forever) or a medical bill that's not covered (our dental is limited and the Mrs root canal can be $1000 out of pocket)"}
{"question":"1000 pound to invest","answer":"Depending what your timeframe preferences are, here are a couple of options: Stock indexes: as per Fool's investing guide, historically this had the highest return \/ risk ratio. On a 5-year horizont, with no extra work, this seems the best option. Premium bonds, similar to most cash ISAs currently available, have a rather rubbish ROI ATM (~3-5% AER at max) Invest it into yourself, in the form of personal development, classes & courses, or starting a business. Disadvantage: this also will carry an opportunity cost in the form of your time. On a longer timeline, however, if this improves your market value only by 1%, that pays extreme dividends over the rest of your carrier. With a single grand at hand, I'd definitely recommend going for option 3 -considering yourself as an investing vehicle, and ask yourself: how can you best improve stakeholder value?  You'd be surprised at the kind of results a single grand can make."}
{"question":"Where can I borrow money for investing?","answer":"If you are looking for money to speculate in the capital markets, then your brokers will already lend to you at a MUCH more favorable rate than an outside party will. For instance, with $4,000 you could EASILY control $40,000 with many brokers, at a 1% interest rate. This is 10:1 leverage, much like how US banks operate... every dollar that you deposit with them, they speculate with 10x as much. Interactive Brokers will do this for you with your current credit score. They are very reputable and clear through Goldman Sachs, so although reputable is subjective in the investment banking world, you won't have to worry the federal government raiding them or anything. If you are investing in currencies than you can easily do 50:1 leverage as an American, or 100:1 as anyone else. This means with only $400 dollars you can control $40,000 account. If you are investing in the futures market, then there are many many ways to double and triple and quadruple your leverage at the lowest interests rates. Any contract you enter into is a loan from the market. You have to understand, that if you did happen to have $40,000 of your own money, then you could get $4,000,000 account size for speculating, at 1% interest. Again, these are QUICK ways to lose your money and owe a lot more! So I'd really advise against it. A margin call in the futures market can destroy you. I advise you to just think more efficiently until you come up with a way to earn that much money initially, and then speculate."}
{"question":"Is there a measure that uses both cost of living plus income?","answer":"But what if I am getting paid salary from a source in India? In other words, it may be that in India a research assistant at a college on average earns a third of what a research assistant like me earns here in US. In that case, even if my cost of living there is much less, so is my salary. There are sites that provide a good guidance for what the average salary for an profession with x years of experience would be. Of course some would get paid more than average. So you can try and make a logic, if in US say you are being paid more than average, you would be paid more than average elsewhere. Plus If moving from Developed to Developing country, one has the Advantage of positive pedigree bias.  There are also websites that would give the Purchasing Power Parity for quite a few currency pairs. The Real difficulty to find is whether the Lifestyle you have in a specific country would be similar in other country. If you compare like for like it becomes slightly skewed. If you compare equivalence, then can you adjust.  A relevant example my friend in US had a Independent Bungalow in US. It was with Basement and attic, 2 levels of living space with 4 bedroom. He shifted to India and got a great salary compared to normal Indian salary. However this kind of house in India in Bangalore would be affordable only to CEO's of top companies. So is living in a 3 room apartment fine? There are multiple such aspects. Drinking a Starbucks coffee couple of times a day is routine for quite a few in US. In India this would be considered luxury. A like for equivalent comparison is \"One drinks 3-4 mugs of Coffee\" in US, and average Indian drinks \"Tea\/Coffee 3-4 mugs\". In India the local Tea \/ Coffee would be Rs 10 - Rs 20. A Starbucks would come with starting price of Rs 150. The same applies to food. A McBurger in India would be around Rs 100. The Indian equivalent Wada Pav is for Rs 10. A Sub Way would be Rs 150. A Equivalent Mumbai Sandwich around Rs 25. I personally am picky about food, so it doesn't matter where I go, I can only eat specific things, which means I spend a huge amount of money if I am outside of India. When I was in US, I couldn't afford a maid, driver or any help. In India I have 2 maids, a cooking maid and a driver. Plus I get plumber, electrician, window cleaner, and all the help without costing me much. Things that I absolutely can't dream in US. My colleague in UK preferred to stay in a specific locality as it has a very good Church. So if its important, one may find few good ones in India if one is Roman Catholic, if one follows Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, tough luck.  Citizenship: Does it matter ... A foreign national may never get an Indian citizenship. Children don't qualify either unless both parents are Indian. Health Care: Again is quite different. One may feel Health care in US is not good or very expensive ... but there are multiple aspects of this. So in essence its very broad there is traffic, cleanliness, climate, culture, etc ... PS: A research assistant in India is poorly paid, because colleges don't have funds. Research in fundamental science is quite low. Industry to university linkages are primitive and now where close to what we have in US."}
{"question":"Freelancer in India working for Swiss Company","answer":"I have some more inputs to investigate: India has dual tax avoidance treaty signed with european countries so that NRIs dont pay tax in both countries. Please check if India has some agreement with Swiss Also for freelance job that is delivered from India, u need to make sure where you have to pay taxes as you are still in India so the term NRI will not hold good here. Also, if Swiss company is paying tax there, and you are  a freelancer from India(resident in india) how to tax filing \/rate etc has to be investigated. Also, can you apply for tax back from swiss( a portion of tax paid can be refunded eg: in Germany) but I dont know if this is true for Freelancers and also for people out side SWISS. Bip"}
{"question":"Is it ever a good idea to close credit cards?","answer":"You mentioned you have a bunch of credit cards with no balance, while others have fairly high balances I would not recommend you to close the 0 balance credit cards if they have lower APR. You can transfer the balance to those cards with lower APR. Now, if those 0 balance cards do not have lower APR, closing them will reduce my overall balance and hurt my credit rating and that is true, assume that you mean overall credit line instead of overall balance. But to my understanding, if you keep the payments good and on time, that effect is only temporary, and therefore you can definitely close them.  Don't forget, paying off your balance can also lower your utilization rate and therefore increase your credit ratings, and you can focus more on that instead. Also larger number of accounts with amounts owed can indicate higher risk of over-extension, therefore you should pay off your low balance accounts first, and do not open new credit accounts until you have paid off the current balance."}
{"question":"Why won't my retirement account let me write a \"covered put\"?","answer":"You're correct in your implied point: Selling a cash secured put has less risk (in terms of both volatility and maximum loss) than buying the security outright. However, many brokerages don't allow cash-secured put writing in IRA accounts.   There are three reasons this tends to be the case:"}
{"question":"Investing in commodities, pros and cons?","answer":"The main advantage of commodities to a largely stock and bond portfolio is diversification and the main disadvantages are investment complexity and low long-term returns. Let's start with the advantage.  Major commodities indices and the single commodities tend to be uncorrelated to stocks and bonds and will in general be diversifying especially over short periods.  This relationship can be complex though as Supply can be even more complicated (think weather) so diversification may or may not work in your favor over long periods. However, trading in commodities can be very complex and expensive.  Futures need to be rolled forward to keep an investment going.  You really, really don't want to accidentally take delivery of 40000 pounds of cattle.  Also, you need to properly take into account roll premiums (carry) when choosing the closing date for a future.  This can be made easier by using commodities index ETFs but they can also have issues with rolling and generally have higher fees than stock index ETFs. Most importantly, it is worth understanding that the long-term return from commodities should be by definition (roughly) the inflation rate.  With stocks and bonds you expect to make more than inflation over the long term.  This is why many large institutions talk about commodities in their portfolio they often actually mean either short term tactical\/algorithmic trading or long term investments in stocks closely tied to commodities production or processing. The two disadvantages above are why commodities are not recommended for most individual investors."}
{"question":"Is it true that 90% of investors lose their money?","answer":"It depends on the market that you participate in. Stock markets are not zero sum as JoeTaxpayer explained. On the other hand, any kind of derivative markets (such as options or futures) are indeed zero sum, due to the nature of the financial instruments that are exchanged. Those markets tend to be more unforgiving. I don't have evidence for this, but I believe one of the reasons that investors so often lose their money is psychology. The majority of us as humans are not wired to naturally make the kinds of rigorous and quick decisions that markets require, especially if day trading. Some people can invest time and energy to improve themselves and get over that. Those are the ones who succeed."}
{"question":"MasterCard won't disclose who leaked my credit card details","answer":"Others have already commented on the impact of anything which dissuades merchants from raising possible breaches, so I won't dwell on that. Maybe we need stronger legislation, maybe we don't, but it doesn't change today's answer. Often it works the other way around to what you might expect - rather than the merchant noticing and notifying Visa\/MC\/others, Visa\/MC\/others spot patterns of suspicious activity (example 1). I don't have any data on the relative numbers of who is being notified\/notifying between merchants and payment processors, but at the point when your card is identified as compromised there's no reason to suppose that an individual merchant in the traditional sense has been compromised, let alone identified. In fact because there's a fast moving investigation it could even be a false alarm that led to your card getting cancelled. Conversely it could be a hugely complex multinational investigation which would be jeopardised. It's simply not safe to assume that simply \"brand X\" has been compromised, therefore everything \"brand X\" knows about you is also compromised: Furthermore there's no reason to assume the merchant has even admitted to, or discovered the root cause. MC\/Visa\/Banks, at the point at which they're cancelling cards simply can't say (at least not in a way that might expensively backfire involving lots of lawyers) because the standard of proof needed to go on record blaming someone is simply not yet met. So: yes it's common that you aren't told anything for all of the above reasons. And of course if you really want to find out more you may have some success with your local data protection legislation and formally make a subject access request (or local equivalent) to see what that brings back. Be sure to do it in writing, to the official address of both mastercard and your bank."}
{"question":"New or Used Car Advice for Recent College Grad","answer":"Never buy a new car if cost is an issue. A big chunk of the price will disappear to depreciation as you drive it off the lot. If you want a shiny new car with the latest equipment (and if you can afford it!), buy a lightly-used car. Normally I would recommend a 1-3 year old car. 95% of the value, with a big cost savings. But this depends on your financial situation. Given that you just need a commuter car for mostly highway driving, in a place where the weather is easier on cars, you could be fine with a 5-6 year old import. Camry's, Accords, Civics, etc are all well-built, reliable, and affordable due to their numbers. As for financing, shop around. Don't blindly use dealer financing. Check with banks and especially local credit unions and see what rate they can offer you. Then, when you are ready to go, get pre-approved (this is when they pull your credit) and get the car."}
{"question":"Should I sell my stocks to put a down payment on a house before it becomes a long term investment?","answer":"In the United States Short-term capital gains are taxed at rates similar to regular income which is 25% if you make less than $91,000 and 28% if you make more than that but less than $190,000. If you make more than $190,000 then the rate is 33%. If you hold the stock for a year or more than the tax rate is 15%, unless your income is less than $33,000 in which case there is no tax on long-term gains. As a general rule, the way to make money is to stay out of debt, so I cannot advise you to assume a mortgage. Financially you are better off investing your money. Much like you I bought a house with a mortgage using about $30,000 in a down payment about 20 years ago and I paid it off a few years ago. If I had to do it over again, I would have bought a shack (a steel building) for $30,000 and lived in that and invested my income. If I had done that, I would be about $500,000 richer today than I am now."}
{"question":"How do I resolve Free Fillable Tax Form error F1040-524-01?","answer":"Buried on the IRS web site is the \"Fillable Forms Error Search Tool\". Rather than including an explanation of errors in the rejection email itself, you're expected to copy and paste the error email into this form, which gives more details about what's wrong. (Don't blame me; I didn't design it.) If I copy your error message in, here's the response I get: There is an error with the \"primary taxpayer\u2019s Date of Birth\" in Step 2 Section 4.  The date of birth that was entered does not match IRS records. Make sure you enter the correct birth date, in the correct format, in the correct space. Scroll down, and enter the current date (\"Today\u2019s date\").  Today\u2019s date is the day you intend to e-file the return again. Also, if you are making an electronic payment you must re-date that section. E-File your return. You say that you've already checked your birthday, so I don't know as this is particularly helpful. If you're confident that it's correct and in the right place, I think your next step needs to be contacting the IRS directly. They have a link at the bottom of the error lookup response on how to contact them specifically about their solution not working, or you could try contacting your local IRS office or giving them a call."}
{"question":"Why Are Credit Card Rates Increasing \/ Credit Limits Falling?","answer":"Because people are going deeper into debt and filing for bankruptcy more often, there is more risk on behalf of the credit company.  Therefore, they limit their risk by lower limits and increasing interest. For every person that goes bankrupt, there might be 10 that pay that new higher interest rate, thereby netting a profit even though they lost out completely on the one customer. The recent legislation limited how and under what circumstance rate are adjusted and raised, but not forbidden. As for the fact that these banks took tax money under the idea (we all thought) I see two points of view. We never should have had the credit we did, so they are correcting and you (like me and millions of others) are suffering for their prior mistakes.  It is an honest attempt to correct the system for long term stability even if we suffer in the short term. We gave them tax money, they need to not screw us over.  In response to the still frozen credit markets I would suggest penalty taxes to companies that do not lend. Penalties to companies that do not modify mortgages.  The second you take government money is the last second a you are entitled to a profit of anything.  Furthermore, we the people bought you and we the people get to decide your salary. The bottom line is there is truth in both statements.  Things are totally screwed up right now because we ALL made mistakes in the past trying to get a bigger profit or own a bigger house.  There are those among us who didn't make a mistake, and those among us who made nothing but mistakes.  As a society, we have to pay the piper either way. The best thing you can do now is pay down your debts, live simply and spend your money wisely."}
{"question":"Using multiple bank accounts","answer":"I live near historic Concord, Massachusetts, and frequently drive past Walden Pond. I'm reminded of Henry David Thoreau's words,  \"Simplify, simplify, simplify.\" In my opinion, fewer is better. 2 checkbooks? I don't see how that makes budgeting any easier. The normal set of expenses are easily kept as one bucket, one account.  The savings 2&3 accounts can also be combined and tracked if you really want to think of them as separate accounts.  Now, when you talk about 'Retirement' that can be in tax-wise retirement accounts, e.g. 401(k), IRA, etc. or post tax regular brokerage accounts. In our situation, the Schwab non-retirement account was able to handle emergency (as money market funds) along with vacation\/rainy day, etc, in CDs of different maturities. As an old person, I remember CDs at 10% or higher, so leaving money in lower interest accounts wasn't good. Cash would go to CDs at 1-5 year maturities to maximize interest, but keep money maturing every 6-9 months.  Even with the goal of simplifying, my wife and I each have a 401(k), an IRA, and a Roth IRA, I also have an inherited Roth, and I manage my teen's Roth and brokerage accounts. That's 9 accounts right there. No way to reduce it.  To wrap it up, I'd go back to the first 4 you listed, and use the #4 checking attached to the broker account to be the emergency fund. Now you're at 3. Any higher granularity can be done with a spreadsheet.  Think of it this way - the day you see the house you love, will you not be so willing to give up that year's vacation?"}
{"question":"Understanding the Nasdaq insider trading information","answer":"Their argument is mostly nonsense. Take someone like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. He has a not very large salary, and makes a lot more money through stock bonuses. You would never, ever expect him to buy Apple shares. And assuming that he doesn't want to end up one day as the richest man in the cemetery, you would expect him to sell significant numbers of shares, independent on whether he expects Apple to go up or down."}
{"question":"Why might a brokerage firm stop offering a particular ETF commission free?","answer":"Forbes has an article investigating this. Here are the key parts: On line at the bottom of the list of funds there is an entire screen   of grey-faded micro print which includes this telling disclosure: TD Ameritrade receives remuneration from certain ETFs (exchange-traded     funds) that participate in the commission-free ETF program for     shareholder, administrative and\/or other services. In other words, TD Ameritrade is now enforcing a pay-to-play for their   so-called commission-free exchange-traded funds. They are willing to   forego their $6.95 trading commission in favor of remuneration   directly from the ETF vendors. Because Vanguard refuses to pay such   money to custodians, they are no longer being allowed to play. and Joseph Giannone, a TD Ameritrade spokesman, was quoted as saying,   \"With any business decision, client needs are paramount, but the   underlying economics of programs can\u2019t be ignored. ... In line with   industry practices, certain providers pay servicing, administrative or   other fees. Vanguard elected not to be a part of the new program.\" So basically it sounds like Vanguard, and presumably iShares as well, were unwilling to pay TD Ameritrade to continue offering their ETFs commission-free."}
{"question":"Does owning BP ADR from US stock market required to pay custody fees","answer":"New SEC rules also now allow brokers to collect fees on non-dividend bearing accounts as an \"ADR Pass-Through Fee\". Since BP (and BP ADR) is not currently paying dividends, this is probably going to be the case here. According to the Schwab brokerage firm, the fee is usually 1-3 cents per share. I did an EDGAR search for BP's documents and came up with too many to read through (due to the oil spill and all of it's related SEC filings) but you can start here: http:\/\/www.schwab.com\/public\/schwab\/nn\/m\/q207\/adr.html"}
{"question":"Why bid and ask do not match the price at which the stock is being traded [duplicate]","answer":"Assuming that no one else has hit the ask, and the asks are still there, yes, you will fill $54.55 as long as you didn't exhaust that ask. Actually, there is no \"current price at which the stock is exchanging hands\"; in reality, it is \"the last price traded\". The somebody who negotiated prices between buyers & sellers is the exchange through their handling of bids & asks.  The real negotiation comes between bids & asks, and if they meet or cross, a trade occurs. It's not that both bid & ask should be $54.55, it's that they were. To answer the title, the reasons why the bid and ask (even their midpoint) move away from the last price are largely unknown, but at least for the market makers, if their sell inventory is going away (people are buying heavily and they're running out of inventory) they will start to hike up their asks a lot and their bids a little because market makers try to stay market neutral, having no opinion on whether an asset will rise or fall, so with stocks, that means having a balanced inventory of longs & shorts.  They want to (sometimes have to depending on the exchange) accommodate the buying pressure, but they don't want to lose money, so they simply raise the ask and then raise the bid as people hit their asks since their average cost basis has risen. In fact (yahoo finance is great about showing this), there's rarely 1 bid and 1 ask.  Take a look at BAC's limit book: http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/q\/ecn?s=BAC+Order+Book You can see that there are many bids and many asks.  If one ask is exhausted, the next in line is now the highest.  The market maker who just sold at X will certainly step over the highest bid to bid at X*0.9 to get an 11% return on investment."}
{"question":"$65000\/year or $2500 every two weeks: If I claim 3 exemptions instead of zero, how much would my take home pay be?","answer":"Take a look at IRS Publication 15. This is your employer's \"bible\" for withholding the correct amount of taxes from your paycheck. Most payroll systems use what this publication defines as the \"Percentage Method\", because it requires less data to be entered into the system in order to correctly compute the amount of withholding. The computation method is as follows: Taxes are computed \"piecewise\"; dollar amounts up to A are taxed at X%, and then dollar amounts between A and B are taxed at Y%, so total tax for B dollars is A*X + (B-A)*Y. Here is the table of rates for income earned in 2012 on a daily basis by a person filing as Single: To use this table, multiply all the dollar amounts by the number of business days in the pay period (so don't count more than 5 days per week even if you work 6 or 7). Find the range in which your pay subject to withholding falls, subtract the \"more than\" amount from the range, multiply the remainder by the \"W\/H Pct\" for that line, and add that amount to the \"W\/H Base\" amount (which is the cumulative amount of all lower tax brackets). This is the amount that will be withheld from your paycheck if you file Single or Married Filing Separately in the 2012 TY. If you file Married Filing Jointly, the amounts defining the tax brackets are slightly different (there's a pretty substantial \"marriage advantage\" right now; withholding for a married person in average wage-earning range is half or less than a person filing Single.). In your particular example of $2500 biweekly (10 business days\/pp), with no allowances and no pre-tax deductions: So, with zero allowances, your employer should be taking $451.70 out of your paycheck for federal withholding. Now, that doesn't include PA state taxes of 3.07% (on $2500 that's $76.75), plus other state and federal taxes like SS (4.2% on your gross income up to 106k), Medicare\/Medicaid (1.45% on your entire gross income), and SUTA (.8% on the first $8000). But, you also don't get a refund on those when you fill out the 1040 (except if you claim deductions against state income tax, and in an exceptional case which requires you to have two jobs in one year, thus doubling up on SS and SUTA taxes beyond their wage bases). If you claim 3 allowances on your federal taxes, all other things being equal, your taxable wages are reduced by $438.45, leaving you with taxable income of $2061.55. Still in the 25% bracket, but the wages subject to that level are only $619.55, for taxes in the 25% bracket of $154.89, plus the withholding base of $187.20 equals total federal w\/h of $342.09 per paycheck, a savings of about $110pp. Those allowances do not count towards other federal taxes, and I do not know if PA state taxes figure these in. It seems odd that you would owe that much in taxes with your withholding effectively maxed out, unless you have some other form of income that you're reporting such as investment gains, child support\/alimony, etc. With nobody claiming you as a dependent and no dependents of your own, filing Single, and zero allowances on your W-4 resulting in the tax withholding above, a quick run of the 1040EZ form shows that the feds should owe YOU $1738.20. The absolute worst-case scenario of you being claimed as a dependent by someone else should still get you a refund of $800 if you had your employer withhold the max. The numbers should only have gotten better if you're married or have kids or other dependents, or have significant itemized deductions such as a home mortgage (on which the interest and any property taxes are deductible). If you itemize, remember that state income tax, if any, is also deductible. I would consult a tax professional and have him double-check all your numbers. Unless there's something significant you haven't told us, you should not have owed the gov't at the end of the year."}
{"question":"Frustrated Landlord","answer":"You're worried about your tenant. That just means you're a nice guy, and it's ok to be nice. At the same time, you can't be expected to lose money on the property or charge well below market on the rent. My suggestions: You know what? She'll totally understand. You've been super nice in keeping the rent low for so many years, and she's been a great tenant, too. At a certain point, inflation kicks in and you have to raise the rent. She'll get that. If she can find a cheaper place, that's a win for both of you. Help her move if you want to be extra nice. Then decide if you want to sell the place or raise the rent. Either option is fine. Listen to your wife. That's just general advice."}
{"question":"VAT & Tax implications of selling software","answer":"Not sure where the confusion is coming from - software\/digital\/intangible goods are just like any other product, with regard to VAT. Turns out it's being made complicated by HMRC... Anyone would think they enjoy making everyone who collects tax for free on their behalf a crook! You charge customers everywhere in the EU VAT and pay it to HMRC, the only exception being customers outside the UK who can provide you with a VAT number. For these customers you are free to not charge VAT, as it's assumed they would be reclaiming it in their home country anyway. The above is true until 2015, when the rules become more relaxed - you will not need a VAT number from customers outside the UK in order to exempt yourself from collecting VAT. Turns out you need to be part of the MOSS scheme (more here) which was set up to prevent you having to register for VAT in every country you sell your software. Unless you only sell through app stores, and then it's easier because each sale is treated as you selling your software to the store for it to be sold on. You can reclaim all VAT on your eligible purchases in the UK, just as any other UK VAT registered business would (usual rules apply). And of course you don't collect VAT from anyone outside the EU, so you can either reduce the price of your software or pocket the additional 20%."}
{"question":"Loan math problem","answer":"The price inflation isn't a percentage, it's a fixed amount. If the dealer adds $R to the price of both the trade-in and the purchased car, then everyone ends up with the right amount of money in their pockets. So your formula should be: D + T + R = 0.1 * (P + R)"}
{"question":"Dividend Yield","answer":"Hart's answer regarding the difference between an index and a stock aside, remember that dividend yield is a passive measure.  It takes the announced dividend (which is a $\/share amount) and divides it by the current market price.   So you can't assume that if you buy a stock that had a dividend yield of 4% for $100 that you're guaranteed 4% of the stock price in dividends.  If the price of the stock doubles, you'd still get $4, but the yield would drop to 2%.  Or the company could reduce (or even suspend) its dividends, which would reduce the yield if the stock price stayed flat. For an index like the S&P, it's easier to measure dividends on % yield terms rather then $\/share terms since you'd have to own shares in every single company to get that amount, but on average the stocks in the S&P 500 pay X% in dividends (which are typically quarterly) - some pay more than that, some less, and some none at all."}
{"question":"How to calculate my real earnings from hourly temp-to-hire moving to salaried employee?","answer":"Get some professional accounting help. You're going to have to pay for everything out of the fee you charge: taxes, retirement, health care, etc. You'll be required to pay quarterly. I don't think you should base your fee on what \"this\" company will pay as a full-time employee, but what you can expect in your area. They're saving a lot of money not going through an established employment firm and essentially, making you create your own. There are costs to setting up and maintaining a company. They have less risk hiring you because there are no unemployment consequences for letting you go.  Once you're hired, they'll probably put you on salary, so you can forget about making more money if you work over 40 hrs. IMHO - there have to be better jobs in your area than this one."}
{"question":"How much power does a CEO have over a public company?","answer":"Also keep note - some companies have a combined CEO\/Chairman of the board role. While he\/she would not be allowed to negotiate contracts or stock plans, some corporate governance analysts advocate for the separation of the roles to remove any opportunity for the CEO to unduly influence the board.  This could be the case for dysfunctional boards. However, the alternate camps will say that the combined role has no negative effect on shareholder returns.   SEC regulations require companies to disclose negotiations between the board and CEO (as well as other named executives) for contracts, employee stock plans, and related information. Sometimes reading the proxy statement to find out, for example, how many times the board meets a year, how many other boards a director serves on, and if the CEO sits on any other board (usually discouraged to serve on more than 2) will provide some insight into a well-run (or not well-run) board."}
{"question":"Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster?","answer":"See many past answers: you will usually save the most money by paying off the highest-intetest-rate loan first. (Remember to allow for tax effects, if any, when comparing real interest rates.) Some folks are more motivated to simplify their finances than to save money; in that case you might pay off the smallest loan first."}
{"question":"Equation to determine if a stock is oversold and by how much?","answer":"To my knowledge, there's no universal equation, so this could vary by individual\/company.   The equation I use (outside of sentiment measurement) is the below - which carries its own risks: This equations assumes two key points: Anything over 1.2 is considered oversold if those two conditions apply.  The reason for the bear market is that that's the time stocks generally go on \"sale\" and if a company has a solid balance sheet, even in a downturn, while their profit may decrease some, a value over 1.2 could indicate the company is oversold. An example of this is Warren Buffett's investment in Wells Fargo in 2009 (around March) when WFC hit approximately 7-9 a share.  Although the banking world was experiencing a crisis, Buffett saw that WFC still had a solid balance sheet, even with a decrease in profit.  The missing logic with many investors was a decrease in profits - if you look at the per capita income figures, Americans lost some income, but not near enough to justify the stock falling 50%+ from its high when evaluating its business and balance sheet.  The market quickly caught this too - within two months, WFC was almost at $30 a share. As an interesting side note on this, WFC now pays $1.20 dividend a year.  A person who bought it at $7 a share is receiving a yield of 17%+ on their $7 a share investment. Still, this equation is not without its risks.  A company may have a solid balance sheet, but end up borrowing more money while losing a ton of profit, which the investor finds out about ad-hoc (seen this happen several times).  Suddenly, what \"appeared\" to be a good sale, turns into a person buying a penny with a dollar.  This is why, to my knowledge, no universal equation applies, as if one did exist, every hedge fund, mutual fund, etc would be using it. One final note: with robotraders becoming more common, I'm not sure we'll see this type of opportunity again.  2009 offered some great deals, but a robotrader could easily be built with the above equation (or a similar one), meaning that as soon as we had that type of environment, all stocks fitting that scenario would be bought, pushing up their PEs.  Some companies might be willing to take an \"all risk\" if they assess that this equation works for more than n% of companies (especially if that n% returns an m% that outweighs the loss).  The only advantage that a small investor might have is that these large companies with robotraders are over-leveraged in bad investments and with a decline, they can't make the good investments until its too late.  Remember, the equation ultimately assumes a person\/company has free cash to use it (this was also a problem for many large investment firms in 2009 - they were over-leveraged in bad debt)."}
{"question":"Is this investment opportunity problematic?","answer":"If they own the old house outright, they can mortgage it to you. In many jurisdictions this relieves you of the obligation to chase for payment, and of any worry that you won't get paid, because a transfer of ownership to the new owner cannot be registered until any charge against a property (ie. a mortgage) has been discharged. The cost of to your friends of setting up the mortgage will be less than the opulent interest they are offering you, and you will both have peace of mind. Even if the sale of the old house falls through, you will still be its mortgagee and still assured of repayment on any future sale (or even inheritance). Complications arise if the first property is mortgaged. Although second mortgages are possible (and rank behind first mortgages in priority of repayment) the first mortgagee generally has a veto on the creation of second mortgages."}
{"question":"I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent\/adult present?","answer":"Perhaps a technicality, but minors do not have the legal capacity to bind a contract. Making a purchase from a store is a contract. I'm not a lawyer and there may be case law to the contrary or that creates exceptions, but my understanding is that purchases made by a minor may be void if later challenged. JohnFx's answer is true from a practical sense. But if you get turned away at a store, understand that they're probably just being careful to avoid headaches later."}
{"question":"Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing","answer":"I am a firm believer in the idea of limiting debt as much as possible.  I would not recommend borrowing money for anything other than a reasonably sized mortgage.  As a result, my recommendations are going to be geared toward that goal. The top priorities for me, then, would be to make sure, first, that we don't have to go further into debt, and second, that we eliminate the debt that we already have as soon as possible. Here is how I would rate your list: A small emergency fund, perhaps $1000 USD, is going to ensure that, while you are funding other things, you don't end up so cash poor that, if something unexpected and urgent comes up, you are forced to add to your credit card debt.  Make this small fund your top priority, and it shouldn't take much more than a month or two to do it. Getting out of debt is important, but if your employer hands out free money, you have to take it.  It is just too good of a deal. Get rid of this debt as fast as possible.  When you are done, you'll have more income available to you than you've ever had before. Now that you have just gotten done eliminating your debt as fast as possible, don't stop there.  Take the income you had been throwing at your debt, and build up your emergency fund to a few months' worth of your expenses.  Finishing this fund up will enable you to withstand a small crisis without borrowing anything. You are now in a very strong position financially, and can confidently invest.  Deciding which type of retirement account is best for you depends on the details of your situation. Once you are contributing a healthy amount to your retirement funds, you may want to consider paying off your mortgage early. As I said before, I recommend getting down to the last step as quickly as possible.  Depending on how much debt you actually have, if you sacrifice for a year or two you could be debt free and in a position to keep all of your investment gains.  If you take your time paying off debt, like many people do, you could find yourself 10 years from now still making payments on your loans, still making car payments, and still needlessly sending interest to the banks, eating away at the gains you are making in your investments. If you aren't committed to eliminating your debt quickly, and plan on having payments for a long time, then skip this advice and put retirement savings at the top."}
{"question":"Pay off mortgage or invest in high value saving account","answer":"Basically, the easiest way to do this is to chart out the \"what-ifs\". Applying the amortization formula (see here) using the numbers you supplied and a little guesswork, I calculated an interest rate of 3.75% (which is good) and that you've already made 17 semi-monthly payments (8 and a half months' worth) of $680.04, out of a 30-year, 720-payment loan term. These are the numbers I will use. Let's now suppose that tomorrow, you found $100 extra every two weeks in your budget, and decided to put it toward your mortgage starting with the next payment. That makes the semi-monthly payments $780 each. You would pay off the mortgage in 23 years (making 557 more payments instead of 703 more). Your total payments will be $434,460, down from $478.040, so your interest costs on the loan were reduced by $43,580 (but, my mistake, we can't count this amount as money in the bank; it's included in the next amount of money to come in). Now, after the mortgage is paid off, you have $780 semi-monthly for the remaining 73 months of your original 30-year loan (a total of $113,880) which you can now do something else with. If you stuffed it in your mattress, you'd earn 0% and so that's the worst-case scenario. For anything else to be worth it, you must be getting a rate of return such that $100 payments, 24 times a year for a total of 703 payments must equal $113,880. We use the future value annuity formula (here): v = p*((i+1)n-1)\/i, plugging in v ($113880, our FV goal), $100 for P (the monthly payment) and 703 for n (total number of payments. We're looking for i, the interest rate. We're making 24 payments per year, so the value of i we find will be 1\/24 of the stated annual interest rate of any account you put it into. We find that in order to make the same amount of money on an annuity that you save by paying off the loan, the interest rate on the account must average 3.07%. However, you're probably not going to stuff the savings from the mortgage in your mattress and sleep on it for 6 years. What if you invest it, in the same security you're considering now? That would be 146 payments of $780 into an interest-bearing account, plus the interest savings. Now, the interest rate on the security must be greater, because you're not only saving money on the mortgage, you're making money on the savings. Assuming the annuity APR stays the same now vs later, we find that the APR on the annuity must equal, surprise, 3.75% in order to end up with the same amount of money. Why is that? Well, the interest growing on your $100 semi-monthly exactly offsets the interest you would save on the mortgage by reducing the principal by $100. Both the loan balance you would remove and the annuity balance you increase would accrue the same interest over the same time if they had the same rate. The main difference, to you, is that by paying into the annuity now, you have cash now; by paying into the mortgage now, you don't have money now, but you have WAY more money later. The actual real time-values of the money, however, are the same; the future value of $200\/mo for 30 years is equal to $0\/mo for 24 years and then $1560\/mo for 6 years, but the real money paid in over 30 years is $72,000 vs $112,320. That kind of math is why analysts encourage people to start retirement saving early. One more thing. If you live in the United States, the interest charges on your mortgage are tax-deductible. So, that $43,580 you saved by paying down the mortgage? Take 25% of it and throw it away as taxes (assuming you're in the most common wage-earner tax bracket). That's $10895 in potential tax savings that you don't get over the life of the loan. If you penalize the \"pay-off-early\" track by subtracting those extra taxes, you find that the break-even APR on the annuity account is about 3.095%."}
{"question":"Is the best ask price the ask at the \"top\" of the order book? What is the \"top\" of the book?","answer":"The best ask is the lowest ask, and the best bid is the highest bid.  If the ask was lower than the bid then they crossed, and that would be a crossed market and quickly resolved. So the bid will almost always be cheaper than the ask. A heuristic is that a bid is the revenue of the stock at any given time while the ask is the cost, so the market will only ever offer a profit to itself not to the liquidity seeker. If examining the book vertically, all orders are usually sorted descending. Since the best ask is the lowest ask, it is on the bottom of the asks, and vice versa for the best bid. The best bid & best ask will be those closest since that's the narrowest spread and price-time priority will promise that a bid that crosses the asks will hit the lowest ask, the best possible price for the bidder and vice versa for an ask that crosses the best bid."}
{"question":"How do I find an ideal single fund to invest all my money in?","answer":"Not sure what your needs are or what NIS is:  However here in the US a good choice for a single fund are \"Life Cycle Funds\". Here is a description from MS Money: http:\/\/www.msmoney.com\/mm\/investing\/articles\/life_cyclefunds.htm"}
{"question":"How to find out if I have a savings account already?","answer":"If you're in the UK, there's a free service here that lets you trace lost bank accounts. If you're in a different country, try Googling to see if that country has a similar service."}
{"question":"Investing in third world countries","answer":"Basically, unless you are an investment professional, you should not be investing in a venture in a developing country shown to you by someone else. The only time you should be investing in a developing country is if a \"lightbulb\" goes off in your head and you say to yourself, \"With my engineering background, I can develop this machine\/process\/concept that will work better in this country than anywhere else in the world.\" And then run it yourself. (That's what Michael Dell, a computer repairman, did for \"made to order\" computers in the United States, and \"the rest is history.\") E.g. if you want to invest in \"real estate\" in a developing country, you might design a \"modular home\" out of local materials, tailored to local tastes, and selling for less than local equivalents, based on a formula that you know better than anyone else in the world. And then team up with a local who can sell it for you. Whatever you do, don't \"invest\" and revisit it in 10-15 years. It will be gone."}
{"question":"What factors make someone buy or sell a stock?","answer":"First, note that a share represents a % of ownership of a company. In addition to the right to vote in the management of the company [by voting on the board of directors, who hires the CEO, who hires the VPs, etc...], this gives you the right to all future value of the company after paying off expenses and debts. You will receive this money in two forms: dividends approved by the board of directors, and the final liquidation value if the company closes shop. There are many ways to attempt to determine the value of a company, but the basic theory is that the company is worth a cashflow stream equal to all future dividends + the liquidation value. So, the market's \"goal\" is to attempt to determine what that future cash flow stream is, and what the risk related to it is. Depending on who you talk to, a typical stock market has some degree of 'market efficiency'. Market efficiency is basically a comment about how quickly the market reacts to news. In a regulated marketplace with a high degree of information available, market efficiency should be quite high. This basically means that stock markets in developed countries have enough traders and enough news reporting that as soon as something public is known about a company, there are many, many people who take that information and attempt to predict the impact on future earnings of the company. For example, if Starbucks announces earnings that were 10% less than estimated previously, the market will quickly respond with people buying Starbucks shares lowering their price on the assumption that the total value of the Starbucks company has decreased. Most of this trading analysis is done by institutional investors. It isn't simply office workers selling shares on their break in the coffee room, it's mostly people in the finance industry who specialize in various areas for their firms, and work to quickly react to news like this. Is the market perfectly efficient? No. The psychology of trading [ie: people panicking, or reacting based on emotion instead of logic], as well as any inadequacy of information, means that not all news is perfectly acted upon immediately. However, my personal opinion is that for large markets, the market is roughly efficient enough that you can assume that you won't be able to read the newspaper and analyze stock news in a way better than the institutional investors. If a market is generally efficient, then it would be very difficult for a group of people to manipulate it, because someone else would quickly take advantage of that. For example, you suggest that some people might collectively 'short AMZN' [a company worth half a trillion dollars, so your nefarious group would need to have $5 Billion of capital just to trade 1% of the company]. If someone did that, the rest of the market would happily buy up AMZN at reduced prices, and the people who shorted it would be left holding the bag. However, when you deal with smaller items, some more likely market manipulation can occur. For example, when trading penny stocks, there are people who attempt to manipulate the stock price and then make a profitable trade afterwards. This takes advantage of the low amount of information available for tiny companies, as well as the limited number of institutional investors who pay attention to them. Effectively it attempts to manipulate people who are not very sophisticated. So, some manipulation can occur in markets with limited information, but for the most part prices are determined by the 'market consensus' on what the future profits of a company will be.  Additional example of what a share really is: Imagine your neighbor has a treasure chest on his driveway: He gathers the neighborhood together, and asks if anyone wants to buy a % of the value he will get from opening the treasure chest. Perhaps it's a glass treasure chest, and you can mostly see inside it. You see that it is mostly gold and silver, and you weigh the chest and can see that it's about 100 lbs all together. So in your head, you take the price of gold and silver, and estimate how much gold is in the chest, and how much silver is there. You estimate that the chest has roughly $1,000,000 of value inside. So, you offer to buy 10% of the chest, for $90k [you don't want to pay exactly 10% of the value of the company, because you aren't completely sure of the value; you are taking on some risk, so you want to be compensated for that risk].  Now assume all your neighbors value the chest themselves, and they come up with the same approximate value as you. So your neighbor hands out little certificates to 10 of you, and they each say \"this person has a right to 10% of the value of the treasure chest\". He then calls for a vote from all the new 'shareholders', and asks if you want to get the money back as soon as he sells the chest, or if you want him to buy a ship and try and find more chests. It seems you're all impatient, because you all vote to fully pay out the money as soon as he has it. So your neighbor collects his $900k [$90k for each 10% share, * 10], and heads to the goldsmith to sell the chest. But before he gets there, a news report comes out that the price of gold has gone up. Because you own a share of something based on the price of gold, you know that your 10% treasure chest investment has increased in value. You now believe that your 10% is worth $105k. You put a flyer up around the neighborhood, saying you will sell your share for $105k. Because other flyers are going up to sell for about $103-$106k, it seems your valuation was mostly consistent with the market.  Eventually someone driving by sees your flyer, and offers you $104k for your shares. You agree, because you want the cash now and don't want to wait for the treasure chest to be sold. Now, when the treasure chest gets sold to the goldsmith, assume it sells for $1,060,000 [turns out you underestimated the value of the company]. The person who bought your 10% share will get $106k [he gained $2k]. Your neighbor who found the chest got $900k [because he sold the shares earlier, when the value of the chest was less clear], and you got $104k, which for you was a gain of $14k above what you paid for it. This is basically what happens with shares. Buy owning a portion of the company, you have a right to get a dividend of future earnings. But, it could take a long time for you to get those earnings, and they might not be exactly what you expect. So some people do buy and sell shares to try and earn money, but the reason they are able to do that is because the shares are inherently worth something - they are worth a small % of the company and its earnings."}
{"question":"I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?","answer":"I have an idea.  Keep saving what you are and think \"Early Retirement\".  Work for 20 years, then do whatever you want 40 hours a week.  If your satisfied with your current lifestyle, start thinking of your bigger long term financial goals and when you want to accomplish them by.  Maybe you can accomplish these sooner than you think.  Saving to buy a house\/property?  Investment portfolio?  Want to travel all over the world?  Family planning\/kids?  I am sure you will figure out how you would want to spend it."}
{"question":"Why do cash back credit cards give a higher rate for dining and gasoline purchases?","answer":"These two categories ensure you will carry the card in your wallet (since they only work for physical locations), but don't tend to have excessive spending (most people maxing out at $200 or so per month, so $2 for the bonus).  You then use the same card for other purchases, because you have it on you, where you only get the 1%. It worked for me, I started carrying the Amazon card when I found out it had a higher percentage for gas purchases.  I only use it for gas though."}
{"question":"JCI headache part 2: How to calculate cost basis \/ tax consequences of JCI -> ADNT spinoff?","answer":"OK, I found this filing by JCI on the SEC website: U.S. Federal Income Tax Consequences of the Distribution to U.S. Holders For U.S. federal income tax purposes, the distribution will not be eligible for treatment as a tax-free distribution by Johnson Controls with respect to its stock. Accordingly, the distribution will be treated as a taxable distribution by Johnson Controls to each Johnson Controls shareholder in an amount equal to the fair market value of the Adient ordinary shares received by such shareholder (including any fractional shares deemed received and any Adient ordinary shares withheld on account of any Irish withholding taxes), determined as of the distribution date (such amount, the \"Distribution Amount\"). The Distribution Amount received by a U.S. holder will be treated as a taxable dividend to the extent of such U.S. holder's ratable share of current or accumulated earnings and profits of Johnson Controls for the taxable year of the distribution (as determined under U.S. federal income tax principles). Any portion of the Distribution Amount that is treated as a dividend will not be eligible for the dividends-received deduction allowed to corporations under the Code. My broker's 1099-B form tells me that I received a Qualified Dividend from JCI on 10\/31\/2016 of $512.44, which would be equivalent to $45.349 valuation of ADNT as of the spinoff date for my 11.3 shares (before the 0.3 shares were sold as cash-in-lieu) ."}
{"question":"Can I buy only 4 shares of a company?","answer":"Yes you can. it's called Odd Lot"}
{"question":"Non-EU student, living in Germany, working for a Swiss company - taxes?","answer":"Finally, I got response from finance center:  \"It doesn't matter where do you study, what does matter is where you   live. So, once you live in Germany, you pay taxes in Germany. And   it doesn't matter who you work for.\" So, there are two options to pay taxes: it's paid by an employer or an employee: If I would work for Swiss company, I need to show how much money I make every month (or year) to Finance Center."}
{"question":"If a company's assets are worth more than its market cap, can one say the shares must be undervalued?","answer":"Imagine a poorly run store in the middle of downtown Manhattan. It has been in the family for a 100 years but the current generation is incompetent regarding running a business. The store is worthless because it is losing money, but the land it is sitting on is worth millions.  So yes an asset of the company can be worth more than the entire company.  What one would pay for the rights to the land, vs the entire company are not equal."}
{"question":"Why does Yahoo Finance's data for a Vanguard fund's dividend per share not match the info from Vanguard?","answer":"http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/q\/hp?s=EDV+Historical+Prices shows this which matches Vanguard: Mar 24, 2014  0.769 Dividend Your download link doesn't specify dates which makes me wonder if it is a cumulative distribution or something else as one can wonder how did you ensure that the URL is specifying to list only the most recent distribution and not something else. For example, try this URL which specifies date information in the a,b,c,d,e,f parameters: http:\/\/real-chart.finance.yahoo.com\/table.csv?s=EDV&a=00&b=29&c=2014&d=05&e=16&f=2014&g=v&ignore=.csv"}
{"question":"What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland?","answer":"Switzerland was once known for its high regard for private property rights.  Recently it is has started to violate those rights by forcing banks to turn over the names of account holders to the US government.  Not a great trend. Another aspect that makes Switzerland an attractive place for people and businesses is the Swiss governemnt's neutral policy.  The Swiss government is not deploying the Swiss military around the globe to fight terrorism, to spread democracy, to advance its own power, or other such murderous government programs.  The Swiss people do not have to worry about the payback that arrives because of such depraved government programs. The Swiss were traditionally extreme advocates of individual gun rights which allows the people to provide protection for themselves against others and against the government.  This too is changing (read section on The Enemy Within) in a not so favorable direction. I also belive the Swiss Franc was the last major currency to sever its tie to gold.  The currency use to be highly desired due to its tie to gold.  I think the currency is still highly regarded but the Swiss central bank is participating in the currency war and has attempted multiple times in the past couple of years to debase its currency so it does not appreciate against the euro or dollar."}
{"question":"Buying an ETF vs. The explicit Index","answer":"To add to Dheer's point, the vast majority of retail investors will have to pay fees and use up a large amount of valuable time on the entrance and exit of each stock, and each and every time you rebalance as the index weightings change. These also add up extremely fast vs the few basis points the large and liquid ETFs charge for this service."}
{"question":"Auto Insurance: Adding another car to the existing policy (GEICO)","answer":"They'll refund your money (though maybe with a small service charge).  I'm sure they regularly deal with new car sales gone wrong."}
{"question":"S&P reports: number of shareholders?","answer":"Yes these are the number of shareholders that are not held in \"street name\" plus the different brokerages that hold the shares in \"street name\".  So the stat is pointless since it really only lists the few people who own the stocks outside of a brokerage account and a bunch of wall street brokers."}
{"question":"Capital gains loss, can IRS waive the loss?","answer":"The cap loss can be used to offset future gains or $3000\/yr of ordinary income. (I just used up the last of mine from the dot com bubble.) I hope you have future gains that let you use this up quickly.  The IRS debt is separate, and I don't imagine they'll let you use any of the loss to offset it. As always, it can't hurt to ask. Their normal payment plans are for 5 years. $40k\/yr is a lot.  Edit - The IRS does negotiate. I recall, from the dot-com bubble, instances where someone exercised stock grants, but kept the shares. Now, they had a $1M gain, but after year end, the stock crashed. They owed tax on that gain, but the loss was in the next tax year, with nothing to offset. These people were 'regular' guys and gals, no background in finance. I understand the IRS looked at these people and made some exceptions."}
{"question":"Finance car with or with out a balloon payment","answer":"That interest rate (13%) is steep, and the balloon payment will have him paying more interest longer. Investing the difference is a risky proposition because past performance of an investment is no guarantee of future performance. Is taking that risk worth netting 2%? Not for me, but you must answer that last question for yourself. To your edit: How disruptive would losing the car and\/or getting negative marks on your credit be? If you can quantify that in dollars then you have your answer."}
{"question":"Pension or Property: Should I invest in more properties, or in a pension?","answer":"Diversification is one aspect to this question, and Dr Fred touches on its relationship to risk.  Another aspect is leverage: So it again comes down to your appetite for risk.  A further factor is that if you are successfully renting out your property, someone else is effectively buying that asset for you, or at least paying the interest on the mortgage. Just bear in mind that if you get into a situation where you have 10 properties and the rent on them all falls at the same time as the property market crashes (sound familiar?) then you can be left on the hook for a lot of interest payments and your assets may not cover your liabilities."}
{"question":"What is the best way to help my dad consolidate his credit card debt at a lower rate?","answer":"Are you doing the right thing? Yes, paying back some of the expense of college is a great way to show your gratitude. Could your sister also pitch in a little to help pay the debt down? Will you get approved for a $30,000 unsecured loan? You don't mention your credit rating but that will have an effect obviously. You might consider visiting a credit union with your father and co-signing a loan since it is his debt that you are assuming. You might still want to write a loan for your dad to sign even if he isn't co-signed on a loan. This could protect you in case of his death if there are other assets to divide. If you are not approved for a loan, you could also simply join your dad in paying down the highest-rate cards first and have a loan agreement for him to pay back that money if\/when it is possible. You've mentioned that you have no collateral. There aren't many options for loans with no collateral. Your dad's bank or a credit union might consider a debt consolidation loan with you as a co-signer. That's why I mentioned going to a credit union. Talking to a loan officer at a local financial institution will make it easier to get approved. If they see that you are taking responsible steps to pay off the debt, that reduces your credit risk. If you do get a debt consolidation loan, they will probably ask your dad to close some credit card accounts."}
{"question":"Why do some people say a house \"not an investment\"?","answer":"I think the claim is that you shouldn't buy a house expecting it to increase in value as you would a stock portfolio. OTOH if you are looking at it from the stand point of \"I need housing, mortgage payments and rent are comparable and I build equity if I buy a house rather then rent\" that's potentiality a very different situation (that I'm not qualified to judge)."}
{"question":"Does dollar cost averaging really work?","answer":"Here is a deliberately simple example of Dollar Cost averaging: Day 1: Buy 100 shares at $10. Total value = $1,000. Average cost per share = $10.00\/share (easy). Day 2: Buy 100 more shares at $9. Total value = $1,900. Average cost per share = $9.50\/share (1,900\/200). Notice how your average cost per share went from $10.00 to $9.50. Now instead of hoping the stock rises above $10.00 a share to make a profit, you only need it to go to $9.50 a share (assuming no commissions or transaction fees). It's easy to see how this could work to your advantage. The only catch is that you need buy more of a stock that is dropping (people might think you're crazy). This could easily backfire if the stock continues to drop."}
{"question":"Website for managing personal cash inflow and outflow, applicable to India? ","answer":"http:\/\/www.mint.com attaches to all your accounts and lists all your transactions.  I love it."}
{"question":"Strategies for paying off my Student loans","answer":"My advice is that if you've got the money now to pay off your student loans, do so.  You've saved up all of that money in one year's time.  If you pay it off now, you'll eliminate all of those monthly payments, you'll be done paying interest, and you should be able to save even more toward your business over the next year. Over the next year, you can get started on your business part time, while still working full time to pile up cash toward your business.  Neither you nor your business will be paying interest on anything, and you'll start out in a very strong position.   The interest on your student loans might be tax deductible, depending on your situation. However, this doesn't really matter a whole lot, in my opinion. You've got about $22k in debt, and the interest will cost you roughly $1k over the next year. Why pay $1k to the bank to gain maybe $250 in tax savings? Starting a business is stressful. There will be good times and bad. How long will it take you to pay off your debt at $250 a month? 5 or 6 years, probably. By eliminating the debt now, you'll be able to save up capital for your business even faster. And when you experience some slow times in your business, your monthly expenses will be less."}
{"question":"Paying Off Principal of Home vs. Investing In Mutual Fund","answer":"I'm probably going to get a bunch of downvotes for this, but here's my not-very-popular point of view: I think many times we tend to shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to get too clever with our money. In all our cleverness, we forget a few basic rules about how money works: It's better to have 0 debt and a small amount of savings than lots of debt and lots of savings. Debt will bite you. Many times even the \"good\" mortgage debt will bite you. I have several friends who have gotten mortgages only to find out they had to move long before they were able to pay it off. And they weren't able to sell their homes or they sold at a loss. When you have debt, you are restricted. Someone else is always holding something over your head. You're bound to it. Pay it off ASAP (within reason) while putting a decent amount into a high-yield savings account. Only after the debt is gone, go and be clever with your money."}
{"question":"I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?","answer":"This is a very trivial scam. Flow is like this: Send money to Mr. X (you, in this case). Call Mr. X and ask for the money back, because mistake. Usually they ask for a wire transfer\/cash\/gift cards\/prepaid cards or something else irreversible\/untraceable. Mr. X initiates transfer back to Scammer. Accept the transfer from Mr. X Dispute the original transfer or otherwise cancel it through the netbank Mr. X cannot dispute his transfer to the Scammer, since it was genuinely and intentionally initiated by Mr. X. End up with twice the money, at the expense of Mr. X In other countries this is usually done with forged checks, but transfers can work just as well. As long as the transfer can be retroactively canceled or reversed - the scam works. You mentioned money laundering - this is definitely a possibility as well. They transfer dirty money to you from unidentified sources, and you send a \"gift\" to them with a clear paper trail. When the audit comes - the only proof is that you actually sent them the gift, and no-one will believe your story. You'll have to explain why the Mr. Z who's now in jail sent you a $1K of his drug money. However, in this case I think it is more likely a scam, and the scammer didn't really know what he was doing..."}
{"question":"What does \"points\" mean in such contexts (stock exchange, I believe)?","answer":"Points are the units of measurement of the index. They're calculated based on the index formula, which in turn based on the prices of the underlying stocks. Movement in points is not really interesting, the movement as a percentage of the base price (daily opening, usually) is more interesting since it gives more context."}
{"question":"Why would a company sell debt in order to buy back shares and\/or pay dividends?","answer":"It's a tax shelter. Foreign affiliates hold most of Microsoft's cash and investments. The cost of borrowing is much cheaper than repatriating the money and paying taxes. Those bonds are selling at rates similar to US Treasury Debt. Also, many people and organizations with lots of assets still borrow money for day to day expenses. Why? You tend to make a better return on investments which are committed for a number of years, and the timing of income from those investments may not coincide with your expenses."}
{"question":"When I ask a broker to buy stock, what does the broker do?","answer":"My answer isn't a full one, but that's because I think the answer depends on, at minimum, the country your broker is in, the type of order you place (limit, market, algo, etc.,) and the size of your order. For example, I can tell from watching live rates on regular lot limit orders I place with my UK-based broker that they hold limit orders internally until they see a crossing rate on the exchange my requested stock is trading on, then they submit a limit order to that exchange.  I only get filled from that one exchange and this happens noticeably after I see my limit price print, and my fills are always better than my limit price. Whereas with my US-based broker, I can see my regular lotsize limit order in the order book (depth of book data) prior to any fills.  I will routinely be notified of a fill before I see the limit price print.  And my fills come from any number of US exchanges (NYSE, ARCA, BATS, etc.) even for the same stock. I should point out that the \"NBBO\" rule in the US, under SEC regulation NMS, probably causes more complications in handling of market and limit orders than you're likely to find in most countries."}
{"question":"Saving $1,000+ per month\u2026what should I do with it?","answer":"Excellent responses so far.  Because I am a math guy, I wanted to stress the power of compounding. It's great that you are thinking about saving and your future when you are so young.  Definitely be displined about your saving and investing.  You would be surprised how just a small amount can compound over the years. For example, if you were to start with $5000 and contribute $100 per month.  Assuming that you can get 5% ROR (hard in today's world but shouldn't be down the road), your final principal after 28 years (when you are 50 years old) will be over $90,000, which of only $38,000 is what you contributed yourself.  The rest is interest.  You can play with the numbers here: http:\/\/www.math.com\/students\/calculators\/source\/compound.htm"}
{"question":"How do I explain why debt on debt is bad to my brother?","answer":"The only thing that comes to mind is a recent HBO Real Sports segment (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WDjkbgrgcmo) on a couple of NFL players who blew all of their money.  Seeing how they've ended up might make the right impression, but given that your brother ran up $148K in debt, I'm not optimistic."}
{"question":"Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), NASDAQ 100, and S&P 500 index historical membership listing?","answer":"Dow Jones: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Historical_components_of_the_Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average  NASDAQ: http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NASDAQ-100 (scroll down) S&P Tricky. From what I can find, you need to be in Harvard Business School, a member of CRSP, or have access to Bloomberg's databases. S&P did have the info available years ago, but no longer that I can find."}
{"question":"Is it possible to create a self-managed superannuation fund to act as a mortage offset? (Australia)","answer":"You can set up a Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) and use it to buy residential investment property, and as Justin has mentioned even borrow to acquire the investment property through the SMSF.  However, you cannot hold your home in the SMSF, as this would be classed as an in-house asset, and you are only allowed to hold a maximum of 5% of the total market value of SMSF as in-house assets. Furthermore, as you already own your house, you are not allowed to transfer residential property into a SMSF from a related party, even if done at current market value (you are allowed to transfer business real property from a related party at current market value). Regarding loans, you are not allowed to lend money from your SMSF to a related party as well."}
{"question":"UK Limited Company paying third party medical costs","answer":"According to HMRC's manual BIM42105, you can't deduct expenses of this kind when calculating your profits for corporation tax: No deduction is allowed for expenditure not incurred wholly and exclusively for trade purposes So at the least, the company will have to pay corporation tax on this donation at some point, assuming it ever makes any profits. There's also the risk that HMRC would say that what is really happening is that you are making a personal donation to this person and the company is giving you income to allow you to do it. In that case, you'd be liable to income tax and employees national insurance, and the company liable to employers national insurance. It should then be deductible from corporation tax, though."}
{"question":"What's the process to buy an old house to tear it down and create a new one?","answer":"By process, I assume you mean the financial process. Financially, this doesn't look any different to me than buying an empty lot to build a rental unit, with the added expense (potentially significant) of doing the tear-down. Given your lack of experience and capital, I would be very hesitant to jump in like this. You are going to have to spend a lot of time managing the build process, or pay someone else to do it for you. And expect everything to take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect. If you really want to get into the landlord business, I would suggest starting with a structurally sound building that needs some renovation work and start there. One you have that up and running, you can use the cash flow and equity to finance something more aggressive. If you still think you want to do this, the first thing to do is figure out if the financials make sense. How much will it cost to do the tear-down and rebuild, plus the typical rental expenses:ongoing maintenance, taxes, insurance, vacancy rates and compare that to the expected rental rates in the area to see how long it will take to 1) achieve a positive cash flow, and 2) break even. There are a lot of good questions on this site related to rentals that go into much more detail about how to approach this."}
{"question":"Does an issue of bonus shares improve shareholder value?","answer":"The bonus share also improves the liquidity however there is some difference in treatment. Lets say a company has 100 shares, of $10 ea. The total capital of the compnay is 100*10 = 1000. Assuming the company is doing well, its share is now available in the market for $100 ea. Now lets say the company has made a profit of $1000 and this also gets factored into the price of $100. Lets say the company decides to keep this $1000 kept as Cash Reserve and is not distributed as dividends.   In a share split say (1:1), the book value of each share is now reduced to $5, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital stays at 200*5 = 1000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea.   In a Bonus share issue say (1:1), the funds $1000 are moved from Cash Reserve and transferred to share capital. The book value of each share will remain same as $10, the number of shares increase to 200. The share capital increases to 200*10 = 2000. The market value of shares come down to $50 ea.   So essentially from a liquidity point of view both give the same benefit. As to why some companies issue bonus and not a split, this is because of multiple reasons. A split beyond a point cannot be done, ie $10 can be split to $1 ea but it doesn't look good to make it $0.50. The other reason is there is adequate cash reserve and you want to convert this into share holders capital. Having a larger share holders capital improves some of the health ratios for the compnay. At times bouns is used to play upon that one is getting something free."}
{"question":"Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it?","answer":"Extended warranty or insurance is a tricky thing.  In general, the big screen TV, or other electronics are going to become obsolete before they fail. Laptops, even Macs, are at risk for higher failure rates than other electronics.  The question remaining is whether after the item has reached its 3rd or 4th birthday, if you would already be in the market for a newer model.  In the big picture, if you have the money to buy a new replacement, or pay for a repair, you are better off to avoid the insurance. The highest failures are in the first year (aka 'infant mortality') and after N years, closer to 7-10, enough for obsolescence, than in years 2-5."}
{"question":"Can I pay off my credit card balance to free up available credit?","answer":"Is it possible to pay off my balance more than once in a payment period in order to increase the amount I can spend in a payment period? Yes, but you should only do that if you expect an expense that is larger than your limit allows. Then, provide an extra payment before your expense occurs since it will take longer for the issuer to apply it to the outstanding balance. For instance, when going on holiday you could deposit additional money to increase your balance temporarily. That said if your goal is to improve your credit score I would recommend using the card, staying within your limit and pay it off every month. The 2 largest factors going into calculating your credit score are: By paying off the balance each month you  After 6-9 months you can probably get a bigger limit, to improve your score. I wouldn't change to a different card or get a second one, as some issuers will run a check on your creditscore that lowers it temporarily. Also: you're entitled to a free credit report each year. I'd recommend asking for one every year so you can keep track on how your credit score improves. It also gives you the opportunity to check for mistakes on your report. Check here for more information: http:\/\/www.myfico.com\/crediteducation\/whatsinyourscore.aspx"}
{"question":"When a publicly traded company splits into two how are common shares fairly valued, distributed?","answer":"How are shareholders sure to receive a fair percentage of each company?  At the time the split occurs, each investor owns the same proportion of each new company that they owned in the first.  What the investor does with it after that (selling one, for example) is irrelevant from a fairness perspective. Suppose company A splits into companies B and C.  You own enough stock to have 1% of A.  It splits.  Now you have a bunch of shares of B and C.  How much?  Well, you have 1% of B and 1% of C.  What if all the profitable projects are in B?  Then shares of B will be worth more than those of C.  But it should be the case that the value of your shares of B plus the value of your shares of C are equal to the original value of your shares of A.  Completely fair.  In fact, if the split was economically justified, then B + C > A.  And the gains are realized proportionally by all equityholders. Remember, when a stock splits, every share splits so that everyone owns both companies in the same proportion as everyone else.  Executives don't determine what the prices of the resulting companies are...that is determined by the market.  A fair market will value the child companies such that together they are worth what the original was."}
{"question":"Question about protecting yourself from company not beating earning eastimate","answer":"The best thing to do to avoid this is not to sell as you've described. What purpose does it solve? If you're speculating, set a price at which you want to cash out and put a limit order. If you're a long term investor, then unless something fundamental has changed - why would you sell?"}
{"question":"Are services provided to Google employees taxed as income or in any way?","answer":"(Regarding one aspect of the question) Here's a survey suggesting new programmers value \"free lunch\", old programmers do not care about it: https:\/\/stackoverflow.blog\/2017\/06\/12\/new-kids-block-understanding-developers-entering-workforce-today\/?cb=1"}
{"question":"What is the market rate of non-cash ISA fund administration fee in UK?","answer":"Is he affiliated with the company charging this fee? If so, 1% is great. For him. You are correct, this is way too high. Whatever tax benefit this account provides is negated over a sufficiently long period of time. you need a different plan, and perhaps, a different friend. I see the ISA is similar to the US Roth account. Post tax money deposited, but growth and withdrawals tax free. (Someone correct, if I mis-read this). Consider - You deposit \u00a310,000. 7.2% growth over 10 years and you'd have \u00a320,000. Not quite, since 1% is taken each year, you have \u00a318,250.  Here's what's crazy. When you realize you lost \u00a31750 to fees, it's really 17.5% of the \u00a310,000 your account would have grown absent those fees. In the US, our long term capital gain rate is 15%, so the fees after 10 years more than wipe out the benefit.  We are not supposed to recommend investments here, but it's safe to say there are ETFs (baskets of stocks reflecting an index, but trading like an individual stock) that have fees less than .1%.  The UK tag is appreciated, but your concern regarding fees is universal. Sorry for the long lecture, but \"1%, bad.\""}
{"question":"Can a company donate to a non-profit to pay for services arranged for before hand?","answer":"Donations need to be with no strings attached. In this case, you make the cash donation, a deduction, and then they pay you, in taxable income. It's a wash. Why not just give them the service for free? Otherwise this is just money going back and forth."}
{"question":"Can the beta of a stock be used as a lagging indicator for the stock w.r.t the market","answer":"Just to be clear to start, beta is a statistical property.  So if your beta is 0.8 over a period of time.  Stock X moved on average 0.8 for a point move in the index. We might hope this property is persistent and it seems to be fairly persistent (predictable) but it doesn't have to be. Also it is important to note this is not a lag in time.  Beta is a measure of the average size of a move in the stock at the same time as a move in the index.  In your example both the stock and index are measured at end of day.  You can say that the stock \"lags\" behind the index because it doesn't grow as quickly as the market when the market is growing, but this is not a lag in time just a lag in magnitude.   People do occasionally calculate betas between a stock and lagged in time market prices, but this is not the commonly used meaning of beta.  This might actually be a more useful measure as then you could bet on the future of the stock given what happened today in the market, but these \"betas\" tend to be much more unstable than the synchronized version and hard to trade on. When you calculated beta you choose a time scale, in this case daily.  So if your calculation is on a day-to-day basis then you have only tested the relationship on a day-to-day basis not, for instance, on a week-to-week basis.  Now day-to-day and week-to-week betas are often related and are generally reasonably close but they do not have to be.  There can be longer term effects only picked up on the longer scale.   Stock X could day-to-day with a (average) beta of 1 to the stock market, but could have even a negative beta year-to-year with the market if the stock is counter-cyclical to longer scale trends on the market.  So beta can change with the time scale used in the calculation."}
{"question":"New York State - NY Tax on Foreign Sourced Income for NY Non-Resident","answer":"For Non-Resident filers, New York taxes New York-sourced income. That includes: real or tangible personal property located in New York State   (including certain gains or losses from the sale or exchange of an   interest in an entity that owns real property in New York State); services performed in New York State; a business, trade, profession, or occupation carried on in New York State; and a New York S corporation in which you are a shareholder (including   installment income from an IRC 453 transaction). There are some exclusions as well. It is all covered in the instructions to form IT-203. However, keep in mind that \"filing\" as non-resident doesn't make you non-resident. If you spend 184 days or more in New York State, and you have a place to stay there - you are resident. See definitions here. Even if you don't actually live there and consider yourself a CT resident."}
{"question":"First time investor and online brokerage accounts","answer":"First, let me say that $1000 is not that much of amount to invest in stocks. You need to remember that each transaction (buy\/sell) has fees, which vary between $4-$40 (depending on the broker, you mentioned Scottrade - they charge $7 per transaction for stocks and about twice as much for some mutual funds). Consider this: you invest $1000, you gain $100. You'll pay $15 in fees just to buy\/sell, that's 1.5% expense ratio. If you invest in more than 1 stock - multiply your fees. To avoid that you can look into mutual funds. Different brokers offer different funds for free, and almost all of them carry many of the rest for a fee. When looking into funds, you can find their expense ratio and compare. Remember that a fund with 1% expense ratio diversifies and invests in many stocks, while for you 1.5% expense ratio is for investing in a single stock. Is it a good idea to invest only in US or diversify worldwide? You can invest in the US, but in funds that diversify worldwide or across industries. Generally it is a good idea to diversify. I am 28. Should I be a conservative investor or take some risks? Depends on how bad of a shape will you be if you lose all your principle. What online brokerage service is the best? I have heard a lot about   Scotttrade but want to be sure before I start. It seems to be the   least expensive and most user-friendly to me. \"Best\" is a problematic term. Scottrade is OK, E*Trade is OK, you can try Sharebuilder, Ameritrade, there are several \"discount\" online brokers and plenty of on-line reviews and comparisons amongst them. What is a margin account and how would it affect my investing? From   what I understand it comes into play when an investor borrows money   from the broker. Do I need to use it at all as I won't be investing on a big scale yet. You understand right. There are rules to use margin accounts, and with the amount you have I'd advise against them even if you get approved. Read through the brokers' FAQ's on their requirement. Should I keep adding money on a monthly basis to my brokerage account   to give me more money to invest or keep it at a certain amount for an   extended period of time? Sharebuilder has a mechanism to purchase monthly at discounted prices. But be careful, they give you discounted prices to buy, but not to sell. You may end up with a lot of positions, and the discounts you've gotten to buy will cause you spend much more on selling. Generally, averaging (investing monthly) is a good way to save and mitigate some risks, but the risks are still there. This is good only for long term savings. How should my breakdown my investments in terms of bonds vs stocks? Depends on your vulnerability and risk thresholds."}
{"question":"Why do credit card transactions take up to 3 days to appear, yet debit transactions are instant?","answer":"Take a look at http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Payment_gateway There is essentially a lead time between when the transaction is made and when it is settled, 2-3 business days is the lead time for settlement. The link explains the process step-by-step"}
{"question":"Can I donate short-stock to charity?","answer":"With a short position you make your money (profit) when you buy the stocks back to close the position at a lower price than what you bought them at. As short selling is classed as speculation and not investing and you at no time own any actual assets, you cannot donate any short possition to charity. If you did want to avoid paying tax on the profits you could donate the proceeds of the profits after closing the position and thus get a tax deduction equal to the profits you made. But that raises a new and more important question, why are you trading in the first place if you are afraid to make profits in case you have to pay tax on those profits?"}
{"question":"How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away?","answer":"First, when a debt collector says, \"It's to your advantage to give me money now\", I'd take that with a grain of salt. My ex-wife declared bankruptcy and when debt collectors couldn't find her, they somehow tracked me down and told me that I should tell her that it would be to her advantage to pay off this debt before the bankruptcy went through. That was total nonsense of course. The whole point of bankruptcy is to not have to pay the debt. Why would you pay it just before it was wiped off the books? (Now that I think of it, I'm surprised that they didn't tell me that I should pay her debts.) As others have noted, this would be controlled by state law. But in general, when someone dies any debts are payed from the assets of the estate, and then whatever is left goes to the heirs. If nothing is left or the debts exceed the assets, then the heirs get nothing, but they don't have to pay somebody else's debts. I don't see how you could \"put the house under your name\". If he left the house to you in his will, then after any debts are settled in accordance with state law, the house would transfer to you. But you can't just decide to put the house in your name outside of the legal inheritance process. If you could, then people could undermine a will at any time by just deciding to take an asset left to someone else and \"put it in their name\". Or as in this case, people could undermine the rights of creditors by transferring all assets to themselves before debts were paid. Even if there's some provision in your state for changing the name on a deed prior to probate to facilitate getting mortgages and taxes paid or whatever, I would be quite surprised if this allowed you to shelter assets from legitimate creditors. It would be a gaping loophole in inheritance law. Frankly, if your father's debts are more than the value of his assets, including the value of the house, I suspect you will not be able to keep the house. It will be sold to pay off the creditors. I would certainly talk to a lawyer about this as there might be some provision in the law that you can take advantage of. I'll gladly yield on this point to anyone with specific knowledge of New Jersey inheritance law."}
{"question":"Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills?","answer":"My answer might be out of date due to the Affordable Health Care law.  I will answer for the way things were prior to that law taking effect. In my experience, hospitals have a financial assistance program you can apply for.  If you can show a financial need, the hospital will only charge you a certain percentage of your bill.  A person with a very low income will likely only be charged 5 or 10% of the theoretical balance.  That would be assuming the person is at or near the poverty level (which has an official definition -- but to give you an idea, your cashier at McDonald's is probably at or near the poverty level). Also note that sometimes it takes a while for hospital charges to be submitted to insurance, and to be approved and paid.  Thus, many people have learned through experience to ignore the first bill that comes in from a hospital, and wait a month before paying. There can be a dramatic drop in the \"What you owe\" line after the insurance company responds, and the billing office adjusts the bill to the negotiated amount and subtracts off what the insurance company covered."}
{"question":"Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard\/Visa?","answer":"Credit cards are often more fool proof, against over-drawing. Consider Bill has solid cash flow, but most of their money is in his high interest savings account (earning interest) -- an account that doesn't have a card, but is accessible via online banking. Bill keeps enough in the debit (transactions) account for regular spending, much of which comes out automatically (E.g. rent, utilities), some of which he spends as needed eg shopping, lunch. On top of the day to day money Bill keeps an overhead amount, so if something happens he doesn't overdraw the account -- which would incur significant fees. Now oneday Bill sees that the giant flatscreen TV he has been saving for is on clearence sale -- half price!, and there is just one left. It costs more than he would normally spend in a week -- much more. But Bill knows that his pay should have just gone in, and his rent not yet come out. Plus the overhead he keep in the account . So there is money in his debit account. When he gets home he can open up online banking and transfer from his savings (After all the TV is what he was saving for) What Bill forgets is that there was a public holiday last week in the state where payroll is operated, and that his pay is going to go in a day late. So now he might have over drawn the account buying the TV, or maybe that was fine, but paying the rent over draws the account. Now he has a overdraft fee, probably on the order of $50. Most banks (at least where I am), will happily allow you to overdraw you account. Giving you a loan, at high interest and with an immediate overdraft fee. (They do this cos the fee is so high that they can tolerate the risk of the non-assessed loan.) Sometimes (if you ask) they don't let you do it with your own transcations (eg buying the TV), but they do let you do it on automated payements (eg the Rent). On the other hand banks will not let you over draw a credit card. They know exactly how much loan and risk they were going to take. If Bill had most of his transactions going on his credit card, then it would have just bounced at the cash register, and Bill would have remembered what was going on and then transferred the money. There are many ways you can accidentally overdraw your account. Particularly if it is a shared account."}
{"question":"When I calculate \"internal rate of return (IRR)\", should I include cash balance?","answer":"Both are correct depending on what you are really trying to evaluate. If you only want to understand how that particular investment you were taking money in and out of did by itself than you would ignore the cash.  You might use this if you were thinking of replacing that particular investment with another but keeping the in\/out strategy. If you want to understand how the whole investment strategy worked (both the in\/out motion and the choice of investment) than you would definitely want to include the cash component as that is necessary for the strategy and would be your final return if you implemented that strategy. As a side note, neither IRR or CAGR are not great ways to judge investment strategies as they have some odd timing issues and they don't take into account risk."}
{"question":"How can I improve my credit score if I am not paying bills or rent?","answer":"You can improve your credit score simply by being an authorized user on someone's credit card account.  They don't even physically have to give you a card to use, they can just add you to the account as an authorized user and your credit score will be affected.  Be forewarned though, it can be negatively impacted as well.  Only participate in such a scheme if it's with someone trustworthy and reliable."}
{"question":"Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?","answer":"As Yishani points out, you always have to do due diligence in buying a house. As I mentioned in this earlier post  I'd highly recommend reading this   book on buying a house associated   with the Wall Street Journal - it   clearly describes the benefits and   challenges of owning a house. One key   takeaway I had was - on average houses   have a \"rate of return\" on par with   treasury bills. Its best to buy a house if you want to live in a house, not as thinking about it as a \"great investment\". And its certainly worth the 4-6 hours it takes to read the book cover to cover."}
{"question":"Tracking my spending, and incoming and outgoing (i.e cashflow)","answer":"Honing in on your last question: Is there a better way?  I think there is, but it would require you to change the way you handle your spending, and that may not be of interest to you.  Right now you have a lot of manual work, keeping track of expenditures and then entering the, every day. The great thing about switching to a habit where you pay for everything using a debit or credit card is that you can skip the manual entry by importing your transactions from your bank. You mention that your bank doesn't allow for exporting. There's still a chance that your bank can connect with a solution like Wave Accounting (http:\/\/www.waveaccouting.com), which is free and made for small business accounting. (Full disclosure: I represent Wave.) If your current bank doesn't permit export or connections with Wave, it may be worth switching to a different bank. It's a bit of a pain to make the switch, I know, but you really will save a massive amount of time and effort over the course of the year, as well as minimize the risk of human error, compared to entering your receipts on a daily basis. In Wave, you can still enter all of your cash receipts manually if you want to continue with your current practice of cash payments. One important thing to mention, too: If you're looking for a better way of doing things, make sure it includes proper backup. There would be nothing worse than entering all that data onto a spreadsheet and then something happening to your computer and you lose it all.  Wave Accounting is backed up hourly and uses bank-level security to keep your information safe. One last thing: as I mention above, Wave Accounting is free.  So if it is a good match for your small business accounting needs, it will also be a nice fit for your wallet."}
{"question":"For a major expensive home renovation (e.g. addition, finished basement, or new kitchen) should one pay cash or finance with a loan? Would such a loan be \"good\" debt?","answer":"The crucial question not addressed by other answers is your ability to repay the debt.   Borrowing is always about leverage, and leverage is always about risk.  In the home improvement loan case, default comes with dire consequences-- to extinguish the debt you might have to sell your home. With a stable job, reliable income, and sufficient cash flow (and, of course, comfort that the project will yield benefits you're happy to pay for), then the clear answer is, go ahead and borrow. But if you work in a highly cyclical industry, have very little cash saved, or for whatever other reason are uncertain about your future ability to pay, then don't borrow.  Save until you are more comfortable you can handle the loan.  That doesn't necessarily mean save ALL the money; just save enough that you are highly confident in your ability to pay whatever you borrow."}
{"question":"Is there a significant danger to market orders as opposed to limit orders?","answer":"The Key aspect is the risk of market orders;   You should be worried about point 2 & 3 when you are doing market orders."}
{"question":"Is it safe to accept money in the mail?","answer":"The US Postal Service to my recollection recommends only mailing cash or items with cash-like characteristics using Registered Mail service. Registered mail is expensive and a pain in the butt for everyone, as it requires an audit trail for each individual who touches the mailing.  If you're doing a lot of business and word gets out that you're accepting cash payments via the mail, you'll probably attract unwanted attention from the tax authorities as well. It's fairly unusual."}
{"question":"What is a \"Junk Bond\"?","answer":"A junk bond is, broadly, a bond with a non-negligible risk of default.  (\"Bond\" ought to be defined elsewhere, but broadly it's a financial instrument you buy from a company or government, where they promise to pay you back the principal and some interest over time, on a particular schedule.) The name \"junk\" is a bit exaggerated: many of them are issued by respectable and reasonably stable businesses. junk bonds were required to do large leveraged buyouts.  This means: the company issued fairly risky, fairly high-yield debt, to buy out equity holders.  They have to pay a high rate on the debt because the company's now fairly highly geared (ie has a lot of debt relative to its value) and it may have to pay out a large fraction of its earnings as interest. What is a junk bond and how does it differ from a regular bond?  It's only a matter of degree and nomenclature.  A bond that has a credit rating below a particular level (eg S&P BBB-) is called junk, or more politely \"non-investment grade\" or \"speculative\".  It's possible for an existing bond to be reclassified from one side to another, or for a single issuer to have different series some of which are more risky than others.  The higher the perceived risk, the more interest the bond must pay offer in order to attract lenders. Why is there higher risk\/chance of default? Well, why would a company be considered at higher risk of failing to repay its debt?  Basically it comes down to doubt about the company's future earnings being sufficient to repay its debt, which could be for example:"}
{"question":"Do Options take Dividend into account?","answer":"The CBOE had a great article on this. I will search for it and edit. The normal dividends are not adjusted. Which is why you see early exercise of just out of the money options sometimes. To get that dividend. A special dividend, say a $50 stock with $1\/yr dividend but now has a $3 one time dividend would likely result in an option strike adjustment."}
{"question":"How does a lender compute equity requirement for PMI?","answer":"Do you have any legal options? Not really. Citi is under no obligation to refinance your loan on your terms. But that goes both ways, and you are under no obligation to refinance with Citi! Get more quotes from another lender. It'll feel really good when you find a lender that wants your business. You might get a better deal. And think how good it will feel to cut ties with Citi!"}
{"question":"Can this year's free extension-to-pay be filed electronically? IRS Form 1127","answer":"Form 1127 (updated link) should be filed in paper (with the supporting documents) to the IRS office that has jurisdiction in the area where you live. From the instructions (see the link above):  File Form 1127 with the Internal Revenue Service (Attn: Advisory Group   Manager), for the area where you maintain your legal residence or   principal place of business. See Pub. 4235, Collection Advisory Group   Addresses, to find the address for your local advisory group. However, if the tax due is a gift tax reportable on Form 709, send Form 1127   to: Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service Center Cincinnati, OH 45999"}
{"question":"Is it a good investment for a foreigner to purchase a flat\/apartment in China?","answer":"China is in the middle of a residential housing bubble, and now is probably a horrible time to invest in real estate in China.  Even if China wasn't near the peak of its bubble it would probably still be a bad idea because owning real estate in a foreign country is expensive and risky. There are real currency risks, think what would happen if the yuan declined significantly against the dollar. There is also the risk of the government seizing foreign held investments (not extremely likely but plausible). Another consideration is that it would be next to impossible for you to get a loan to purchase a property US banks wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft pole and I doubt Chinese banks would be very interested in lending to foreigners."}
{"question":"What happened when the dot com bubble burst?","answer":"What happened was that people would start an \"Internet\" company without any viable business plan, and investors would pour money. Any company with \".COM\" or \"eSomething\" or \"netXXX\" or whatever would get tons of money from investors, basically selling dreams of getting rich fast. The companies that flourished back than had often no sales and no income, yet they paid high salaries and provided very lucrative benefits to the employees. One of the examples is Mirabilis - company that invented the on-line messenger (ICQ), but provided free service and free products (there were no fees associated with using the ICQ messenger). They got bought for almost half a billion dollars when they had ZERO revenues, by AOL. AOL sold the company, ten years later, for less than 200 million dollars when at that time ICQ (or, as re-branded, AIM) was already providing revenue (from advertisements). Eventually, investors stopped pouring the money in (for various reasons, but amongst others the higher rates and the slower overall economy), and almost immediately companies started going out of business, and then it all blew up."}
{"question":"What does this mean? SELL -10 VERTICAL $IYR 100 AUG 09 32\/34 CALL @.80 LMT","answer":"SELL -10 VERTICAL $IYR 100 AUG 09 32\/34 CALL @.80 LMT 1) we are talking about options, these are a derivative product whose price is based on 6 variables. 2) options allow you to create risk out of thin air, and those risks come with shapes, and the only limit is your imagination (and how much your margin\/borrowing costs are). Whereas a simple asset like the shares for $IYR only has a linear risk profile. stock goes up, you make money, stock goes down, you lose money, and that risk graph looks linear. a \"vertical\" has a nonlinear risk profile 3) a vertical is a type of \"spread\" that requires holding options that expire at the same time, but at different strike prices. 3b) This particular KIND of vertical is called a bear call spread (BCS). Since you are bearish (this makes money if the stock goes down, or stays in a very specific range) but are using calls which are a bullish options product. 4) -10 means you are selling the vertical. +10 means you are buying the vertical. A \"long\" vertical is initiated by buying an option closer to the money, and selling an option at a higher strike price. This would be +X A \"short\" vertical is initiated by selling an option closer to the money and buying an option at a higher strike price. The quantity would be -X 5) 32\/34 stands for the strike prices. so you would be selling 10 call options at the 32 strike price, and buying 10 call options at the 34 strike price, both options expire in August 6) LMT stands for limit order, and $.80 is the limit order price that is desired. OPENING a vertical spread requires knowledge of options as well as how to send orders. MANAGING a vertical requires even more finesse, as you can \"leg-in\" and \"leg-out\" of spreads, without sending the entire order to the exchange floor at once. There is much to learn."}
{"question":"Covered Call Writing - What affects the price of the options?","answer":"Here are some things to consider if you want to employ a covered call strategy for consistent returns. The discussion also applies to written puts, as they're functionally equivalent. Write covered calls only on fairly valued stock. If the stock is distinctly undervalued, just buy it. By writing the call, you cap the gains that it will achieve as the stock price gravitates to intrinsic value. If the stock is overvalued, sell it, or just stay away. As the owner of a covered call position, you have full exposure to the downside of the stock. The premium received is normally way too small to protect against much of a drop in price. The ideal candidate doesn't change in price much over the life of the position. Yes, this is low volatility, which brings low option premiums. As a seller you want high premiums. But this can't be judged in a vacuum. No matter how high the volatility in absolute terms, as a seller you're betting the market has overpriced volatility. If volatility is high, so premiums are fat, but the market is correct, then the very real risk of the stock dropping over the life of the position offsets the premium received. One thing to look at is current implied volatility for the at-the-money (ATM), near-month call. Compare it to the two-year historical volatility (Morningstar has this conveniently displayed). Moving away from pure volatility, consider writing calls about three months out, just slightly out of the money. The premium is all time value, and the time value decay accelerates in the final few months. (In theory, a series of one-month options would be higher time value, but there are frictional costs, and no guarantee that today's \"good deal\" will be repeatable twelve time per year.) When comparing various strikes and expirations, compare time value per day. To compare the same statistic across multiple companies, use time value per day as a percent of capital at risk. CaR is the price of the stock less the premium received. If you already own the stock, track it as if you just bought it for this strategy, so use the price on the day you wrote the call. Along with time value per day, compare the simple annualized percent return, again, on capital at risk, measuring the return if a) the stock is called away, and b) the stock remains unchanged. I usually concentrate more on the second scenario, as we get the capital gain on the stock regardless, without the option strategy. Ideally, you can also calculate the probability (based on implied volatility) of the stock achieving these price points by expiration. Measuring returns at many possible stock prices, you can develop an overall expected return. I won't go into further detail, as it seems outside the scope here. Finally, I usually target a minimum of 25% annualized if the stock remains unchanged. You can, of course, adjust this up or down depending on your risk tolerance. I consider this to be conservative."}
{"question":"What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?","answer":"Also make a menu and make a shopping list from that.  It will help you control how much you buy, and help to enforce only buying what you need.  You don't need to limit your menu, but buying what you need in appropriate quantities will help.  Don't forget to add snacking and desserts to your menu."}
{"question":"Is it possible for all the owners of a stock to gain or lose money at the same time?","answer":"I'm not sure I understand your question. If the stock price is at an all-time high, everyone who owns the stock is 'in the money'. Of course, they won't actually realise a capital gain until they sell the stock. Similarly, if the stock becomes worthless (the company shuts down after declaring bankruptcy, etc.), everyone who owns the stock is out whatever they paid for the stock."}
{"question":"Capital gains on no-dividend stocks - a theoretical question","answer":"Berkshire Hathaway would be a good example of a company that has yet to pay dividends, yet is a highly valued stock. A couple of key points here to note is how on the first hand you have that the dividend policy will never change, yet couldn't one argue that there will always be new investors wanting more shares and thus the price keeps going up until someone gains control and decides to issue dividends?  I'm just pointing out how on the one hand you are claiming a never changing and yet on the other thinking there will be a termination when the reality is that unless there is a zombie apocalypse of some form, life will continue and there will be new people to want to buy the stock and some people be willing to sell at the new prices."}
{"question":"How could USA defaulting on its public debt influence the stock\/bond market?","answer":"This is a speculative question and there's no \"correct\" answer, but there are definitely some highly likely outcomes. Let's assume that the United States defaults on it's debt. It can be guaranteed that it will lose its AAA rating. Although we don't know what it will drop to, we know it WILL be AA or lower.  A triple-A rating implies that the issuer will never default, so it can offer lower rates since there is a guarantee of safety there.People will demand a higher yield for the lower perceived security, so treasury yield will go up.  The US dollar, or at least forex rates, will almost certainly fall. Since US treasuries will no longer be a safe haven, the dollar will no longer be the safe currency it once was, and so the dollar will fall. The US stock market (and international markets) will also have a strong fall because so many institutions, financial or otherwise, invest in treasuries so when treasuries tumble and the US loses triple-A, investments will be hurt and the tendency is for investors to overreact so it is almost guaranteed that the market will drop sharply. Financial stocks and companies that invest in treasuries will be hurt the most. A notable exception is nations themselves. For example, China holds over $1 trillion in treasuries and a US default will hurt their value, but the Yuan will also appreciate with respect to the dollar. Thus, other nations will benefit and be hurt from a US default. Now many people expect a double-dip recession - worse than the 08\/09 crisis - if the US defaults. I count myself a member of this crowd. Nonetheless, we cannot say with certainty whether or not there will be another recession or even a depression - we can only say that a recession is a strong possibility. So basically, let's pray that Washington gets its act together and raises the ceiling, or else we're in for bad times. And lastly, a funny quote :) I could end the deficit in 5 minutes.   You just pass a law that says that   anytime there is a deficit of more   than 3% of GDP all sitting members of   congress are ineligible for   reelection.   - Warren Buffett"}
{"question":"Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home?","answer":"First, I'm really sorry to hear about your mother. My wife was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, so I know that there is a possibility that your mind is in \"survival\" mode, trying to preserve as much as you can in the way of things that you can effect (that's how I've been feeling recently). Having a loved one with cancer is really tough because there is absolutely, positively nothing tangible that you can do to change the fact that they have cancer. You will have to ask yourself some questions: How important is it that your mom can stay in her house? Moving could add some unneeded stress. How may years have you been contributing to your 401k? If you have 30 years left, you could have enough time to recover some of your losses from reducing the amount of money you have given up for your mom. Will your mom be able to pay you back for paying the taxes over time, or would this be a 'gift'? Have her doctors told her that she \"... has N months left...\"? What is the next step after you are able to pay her taxes and save the house?  Someone close to me recently told me that \"There is no point in trying to save for someone for the future, if you can't sustain them until they get to that future. What will happen to your mom if she loses her house? Will it make it easier or harder for her to recover if she can stay? To paraphrase someone famous, \"you can't take a loan out for your retirement, but you could take a loan out for this event.\" At any rate, good luck. My thoughts are with you and your mother."}
{"question":"How can I determine if a debt consolidation offer is real or a scam?","answer":"I think in such situations a good rule of thumb may be - if you are asked to pay significant sums of money upfront before anything is done, stop and ask yourself, what would you do if they don't do what they promised? They know who you are, but usually most you know is a company name and phone number. Both can disappear in a minute and what are you left with?  If they said they'd pay off the debt and issue the new loan - fine, let them do it and then you pay them. If they insist on having money upfront without delivering anything - unless it's a very big and known and established company you probably better off not doing it. Either it's a scam or in the minuscule chance they are legit you still risking too much - you're giving money and not getting anything in return."}
{"question":"What are the financial advantages of living in Switzerland?","answer":"The cost of living is quite high in New York City.  It has the highest CPI (Consumer Price Index) of any city in the U.S.  Salaries also tend to be highest in NYC.  Just about any bicycle lock sold in the U.S. has an exception in its warranty for NYC.  It is the most populous American city. So, why do people deal with all the hassles of living here? Because, it is a hotbed of activity.   I venture that the advantages are basically the same in Zurich:"}
{"question":"Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?","answer":"There are a great number of financial obligations that should be considered more urgent than student loan debt.  I'll go ahead and assume that the ones that can land people in jail aren't an issue (unpaid fines, back taxes, etc.). I cannot stress this enough, so I'll say it again: setting money aside for emergencies is so much more important than paying off student loans.  I've seen people refer to saving as \"paying yourself\" if that helps justify it in your mind.  My wife and I chose to aggressively pay down debt we had stupidly accrued during college, and I got completely blindsided by a layoff during the downturn.  Guess what happened to all those credit cards we'd paid off and almost paid off?  Guess what happened to my 401k? If all we had left were student loans, then I still wouldn't prioritize paying those off.  There are income limits to Roth IRAs, so if you're in a field where you'll eventually make too much to contribute, then you'll lose that opportunity forever.  If you're young and you don't feel like learning too much about investing, plop 100% of your contributions into the low-fee S&P 500 index fund and forget it until you get closer to retirement.  Don't get suckered into their high-fee \"Retirement 20XX\" managed funds. Anyway, sure, if you have at least three months of income replacement in savings, have maximized your employer 401k match, have maximized your Roth IRA contributions for the year, and have no other higher interest debt, then go ahead and knock out those student loans."}
{"question":"Is technical analysis based on some underlying factors in the market or do they work simply because other people use them?","answer":"Both explanations are partly true. There are many investors who do not want to sell an asset at a loss.  This causes \"resistance\" at prices where large amounts of the asset were previously traded by such investors.  It also explains why a \"break-through\" of such a \"resistance\" is often associated with a substantial \"move\" in price. There are also many investors who have \"stop-loss\" or \"trailing stop-loss\" \"limit orders\" in effect.  These investors will automatically sell out of a long position (or buy out of a short position) if the price drops (or rises) by a certain percentage (typically 8% - 10%). There are periods of time when money is flowing into an asset or asset class.  This could be due to a large investor trying to quietly purchase the asset in a way that avoids raising the price earlier than necessary.  Or perhaps a large investor is dollar-cost-averaging.  Or perhaps a legal mandate for a category of investors has changed, and they need to rebalance their portfolios.  This rebalancing is likely to take place over time.  Or perhaps there is a fad where many small investors (at various times) decide to increase (or decrease) their stake in an asset class.  Or perhaps (for demographic reasons) the number of investors in a particular situation is increasing, so there are more investors who want to make particular investments.  All of these phenomena can be summarized by the word \"momentum\". Traders who use technical analysis (including most day traders and algorithmic speculators) are aware of these phenomena.  They are therefore more likely to purchase (or sell, or short) an asset shortly after one of their \"buy signals\" or \"sell signals\" is triggered.  This reinforces the phenomena. There are also poorly-understood long-term cycles that affect business fundamentals and\/or the politics that constrain business activity.  For example: Note that even if the markets really were a random walk, it would still be profitable (and risk-reducing) to perform dollar-cost-averaging when buying into a position, and also perform averaging when selling out of a position.  But this means that recent investor behavior can be used to predict the near-future behavior of investors, which justifies technical analysis."}
{"question":"Can I claim GST\/HST Input Tax Credits (ITCs) on Uber, taxi, or limousine fares?","answer":"The Canada Revenue Agency describes in detail here what information businesses must generally include on their invoices so that GST\/HST registrants can claim Input Tax Credits (ITCs) for the expenses. Quote: Sales invoices for GST\/HST registrants You have to give customers who are GST\/HST registrants specific   information on the invoices, receipts, contracts, or other business   papers that you use when you provide taxable goods and services. This   information lets them support their claims for input tax credits   (ITCs) or rebates for the GST\/HST you charged. [...] The page quoted continues with a table describing what, specifically, needs to be on a sales invoice based on the total amount of the invoice; the requirements differ for: total sale under $30, total sale between $30 to $149.99, and total sale $150 or more. For the total sale under $30 category, the only things a sales invoice must contain to support an ITC claim are (1) the provider's business name, (2) the invoice date, and (3) the total amount paid\/payable. i.e. When the total sale is under $30, there is no requirement for any GST\/HST amount to be indicated separately, nor for a business number to be present on the invoice. Hence, IMHO (and I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer), if your Uber rides are for $30 or less, then you shouldn't expect a GST\/HST number anyway, and a simple invoice as described should be enough for you to claim your ITCs. Whether or not the provider is registered in fact for GST\/HST is beside the point. For amounts over $30, you need a bit more. While the page above specifies that the provider's business number should be included beginning with the next level of total sales,  there are exceptions to those rules described at another page mentioned, Exceptions to invoice requirements, that specifically apply to the taxi\/limousine case. Quote: Exceptions to invoice requirements GST\/HST registrants are required to keep the necessary documentation   to support their claim for ITCs and rebates. In certain circumstances   the documentation requirements have been reduced. [...] For taxi or limousine fares your books and records must show: So at a minimum, for fare in excess of $30 total, you should ask the driver to note either (a) the amount of GST\/HST charged, or (b) a statement that the fare includes GST\/HST. The driver's business number need not be specified. Consequently, if your receipt for a ride in excess of $30 does not contain any such additional information with respect to GST\/HST, then I would expect the receipt does not satisfy the CRA's requirements for supporting your ITC claim. i.e. Keep your individual rides under $30 each, or else get a better receipt from the driver when it is above that amount. p.s. It should go without saying, but your rides, of course, must be considered reasonable business expenses in order to qualify for GST\/HST ITCs for your business. Receipts for rides of a personal nature are not eligible, so be sure to maintain proper records as to the business purpose and destination for each ride receipt so claimed."}
{"question":"Evidence for timing market in the short run?","answer":"Timing the market and by extension the efficient market hypothesis is one of the most hotly debated subjects in finance academia. If you are to believe the majority of finance professors and PHD's out there chances of timing a market like the NYSE, NASDAQ or LSE is not possible. If you are to take into account the huge amount of hedge funds and money managers who make it their job to prove the efficient market hypothesis wrong then you may have a chance. My opinion is that the EMH is true and that timing a highly efficient market like the NYSE is very difficult or impossible even for those who spend their whole lives trying to beat it. For someone whose primary job isn\u2019t in investments I would put the idea of timing the markets out of your head."}
{"question":"Understanding SEC Filings","answer":"The most important filings are: Form 10-K, which is the annual report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Form 10-Q, for the interim quarters."}
{"question":"How can I calculate interest portion of income when selling a stock?","answer":"When you sell the stock your income is from the difference of prices between when you bought the stock and when you sold it. There's no interest there. The interest is in two places: the underlying company assets (which you own, whether you want it or not), and in the distribution of the income to the owners (the dividends). You can calculate which portion of the interest income constitutes your dividend by allocating the portions of your dividend in the proportions of the company income. That would (very roughly and unreliably, of course) give you an estimate what portion of your dividend income derives from the interest. Underlying assets include all the profits of the company that haven't been distributed through dividends, but rather reinvested back into the business. These may or may not be reflected in the market price of the company. Bottom line is that there's no direct correlation between the income from the sale of the stake of ownership and the company income from interest, if any correlation at all exists. Why would you care about interest income of Salesforce? Its not a bank or a lender, they may have some interest income, but that's definitely not the main income source of the company. If you want to know how much interest income exactly the company had, you'll have to dig deep inside the quarterly and annual reports, and even then I'm not sure if you'll find it as a separate item for a company that's not in the lending business."}
{"question":"Non-owner car insurance and registration","answer":"this is a bit unusual, but not unheard of. i have known more than one car whose owner was not its driver.  besides the obvious risk that the legal owner of the car will repossess it, this seems fairly safe.  your insurance should cover any financial liability that you incur during an accident.  even if the car is repossessed by the owner, you are only out the registration fees. i would suggest you avoid looking this gift horse in the grill.  her father on the other hand might be in for some drama and financial mess if he has a falling-out with his \"friend\". this arrangement reminds me of divorces where one spouse owns the car, but the other drives it and pays the loan.  usually, when the relationship goes south, one spouse is forced to sell the car at a loss."}
{"question":"What is the equation for an inflation adjusted annuity held in perpetuity?","answer":"EDIT: After reading one of the comments on the original question, I realized that there is a much more intuitive way to think about this. If you look at it as a standard PV calculation and hold each of the cashflows constant. Really what's happening is that because of inflation the discount rate isn't the full value of the interest rate. Really the discount rate is only the portion of the interest rate above the inflation rate. Hence in the standard perpetuity PV equation PV = A \/ r r becomes the interest rate less the inflation rate which gives you PV = A \/ (i - g). That seems like a much better way to get to the answer than all the machinations I was originally trying. Original Answer: I think I finally figured this out. The general term for this type of system in which the payments increase over time is a gradient series annuity. In this specific example since the payment is increasing by a percentage each period (not a constant rate) this would be considered a geometric gradient series. According to this link the formula for the present value of a geometric gradient series of payments is: Where P is the present value of this series of cashflows.   A_1 is the initial payment for period 1 (i.e. the amount you want to withdraw adjusted for inflation).   g is the gradient or growth rate of the periodic payment (in this case this is the inflation rate)   i is the interest rate   n is the number of payments This is almost exactly what I was looking for in my original question. The only problem is this is for a fixed amount of time (i.e. n periods). In order to figure out the formula for a perpetuity we need to find the limit of the right side of this equation as the number of periods (n) approaches infinity. Luckily in this equation n is already well isolated to a single term: (1 + g)^n\/(1 + i)^-n}. And since we know that the interest rate, i, has to be greater than the inflation rate, g, the limit of that factor is 0. So after replacing that term with 0 our equation simplifies to the following: Note: I don't do this stuff for a living and honestly don't have a fantastic finance IQ. It's been a while since I've done any calculus or even this much algebra so I may have made an error in the math."}
{"question":"Should I pay off investment property mortgage","answer":"I would not recommend using your own money to pay off something that is not a strong asset. Use the savings where it will have the maximum return. Why not put (some of) the savings into another investment mortgage? Thanks to the leverage your return would be much higher than 5.5%, plus you would have more income."}
{"question":"If you buy something and sell it later on the same day, how do you calculate 'investment'?","answer":"You're confused because the source you cite leaves out one number that isn't relevant to the argument they're making: total costs. The number you're expecting, $9 x 365 or $3285 is the total cost of buying the jewelry which, when subtracted from the $3650 sales volume gives us the net profit of $365.  The investment is the amount of money original put into a system our company. In this case the merchant bought his first piece of jewelry for $9, sold it for $10, took one dollar in profit and used the other 9 to reinvest by buying a new piece of jewelry. We can extend the analogy further. After 9 days of selling, the merchant will posses $18, allowing him to now buy 2 pieces of jewelry each morning and sell them for $20. Every day his costs will be $18 and he'll turn a $2 profit, all with the original investment of $9."}
{"question":"Buying a building with two flats, can I rent one out and still get a residential mortgage?","answer":"It depends on the terms of the mortgage. Generally speaking, residential mortgages specifically prohibit letting out a property without the bank's express permission -- but as you say, that tends to assume that the whole property is being let, not just a part of it. Conversely, buy-to-let mortgages generally prohibit living in the property yourself! The final arbiter as to what is allowed under a mortgage is the mortgage provider; so the safest option is to speak to one or more banks, and see what they say. (Note that if you're changing the use of part of a property from business to residential, you may need to apply for permission; check with your local council.)"}
{"question":"Buying a house. I have the cash for the whole thing. Should I still get a mortgage to get the homeowner tax break?","answer":"Getting a mortgage for the interest write-off is like buying packs of baseball cards for the gum. That said, I'd refer you to The correct order of investing as much of that question really overlaps with this. This question boils down to priorities, the best use of the funds. There are those who suggest that a mortgage brings risk. Of course it does, just not for the borrower, the risk is borne by the lender. Risk comes from lack of liquidity. Say your girlfriend buys the house with cash, and leaves little reserve. She loses her job, and it's great that she has no mortgage. But she does have every other cost life brings, including a tax bill that can turn into a house getting foreclosed on. The details that you didn't disclose are those needed to look at the rest of the \"priorities\" list. A fully funded 401(k) with appropriate balance, and no other debt? And a 1 year emergency fund? I wouldn't argue against buying the house with cash. No real savings and passing on the 401(k) matched deposit? I'd think carefully about the longterm impact of the cash purchase."}
{"question":"Why are wire transfers and other financial services in Canada so much more expensive than in Europe?","answer":"Transaction fees are part of the income for banks, and as we know they are profit making corporations just like any other Company. The differene is that instead of buying and packing and Selling groceries, they buy and package and sell Money. Within the rules and the market they will try to maximize their profit, exactly like Apple or GM or Walmart and so on. Sweden and Holland are part of the European union and the leaders of the union has defined (by law) that certain types of transactions should be done without fees. In order to transfer Money from your Swedish account to the Dutch account you do what is called a SEPA transaction, which should be done in one day without cost to you as a customer. Reference: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Single_Euro_Payments_Area Gunnar"}
{"question":"Good\/Bad idea to have an ETF that encompasses another","answer":"You are overthinking it. Yes there is overlap between them, and you want to understand how much overlap there is so you don't end up with a concentration in one area when you were trying to avoid it. Pick two, put your money in those two; and then put your new money into those two until you want to expand into other funds. The advantage of having the money in an IRA held by a single fund family, is that moving some or all of the money from one Mutual fund\/ETF to another is painless. The fact it is a retirement account means that selling a fund to move the money doesn't trigger taxes. The fact that you have about $10,000 for the IRA means that hopefully you have decades left before you need the money and that this $10,00 is just the start. You are not committed to these investment choices. With periodic re-balancing the allocations you make now will be adjusted over the decades. One potential issue. You said: \"I'm saving right not but haven't actually opened the account.\" I take it to mean that you have money in a Roth TRA account but it isn't invested into a stock fund, or that you have the money ready to go in a regular bank account and will be making a 2015 contribution into the actual IRA before tax day this year, and the 2016 contribution either at the same time or soon after. If it is the second case make sure you get the money for 2015 into the IRA before the deadline."}
{"question":"What are the benefits of opening an IRA in an unstable\/uncertain economy?","answer":"As I stated in my comment on @JCotton's answer, the only way you benefit by putting your money in an IRA or other tax-deferred vehicle is if you expect to have a lower tax rate when you withdraw than when you put the money in.  If you look at @JCotton's numbers and remember to pay taxes when you withdraw the money in 30 years, you will see that both situations - paying taxes now or 30 years from now - give you the exact same dollar amount if the tax rates are the same at both points in time.  So if you put money in an IRA, you're betting on the fact that the government will not substantially raise interest rates by then, and\/or that you will be in a lower tax bracket. To me, the only valid reasons to invest in an IRA or 401K are the following: However, you should also consider the major downside that the money is locked away and, at best, inconvenient to access when you need it.  At worst, you have to pay taxes and penalties if you ever withdraw that money.  If you are a financially responsible person, I think you're generally better off keeping your money outside of an IRA or 401K, with the exception of making sure to get all of your employer's matching contributions."}
{"question":"What prevents interest rates from rising?","answer":"A lot of loans are taken out on a fixed rate basis, so the rate is part of the contract and is therefore covered by contract law. If the loan is taken out on a variable basis then in principle the rate can rise within the terms of the contract.  If a particular lender tries to raise its rates out of line with the market then its customers will seek alternative, cheaper, loans and pay off their expensive loan if they can. If rates rise sharply in general due to unusual politico-economic circumstances then those with variable rate loans can find themselves in severe trouble.  For example the base rate in the UK (and therefore variable mortgage rates closely tied to it) spiked sharply in the late 80s which caused severe stress to a lot of borrowers and undoubtedly pushed some into financial difficulties."}
{"question":"Why does Yahoo Finance and Google Finance not match historical prices?","answer":"I work on a buy-side firm, so I know how these small data issues can drive us crazy. Hope my answer below can help you:  Reason for price difference: 1. Vendor and data source Basically, data providers such as Google and Yahoo redistribute EOD data by aggregating data from their vendors. Although the raw data is taken from the same exchanges, different vendors tend to collect them through different trading platforms. For example, Yahoo, is getting stock data from Hemscott (which was acquired by Morningstar), which is not the most accurate source of EOD stocks. Google gets data from Deutsche B\u00f6rse.  To make the process more complicated, each vendor can choose to get EOD data from another EOD data provider or the exchange itself, or they can produce their own open, high, low, close and volume from the actual trade tick-data, and these data may come from any exchanges.  2. Price Adjustment  For equities data, the re-distributor usually adjusts the raw data by applying certain customized procedures. This includes adjustment for corporate actions, such as dividends and splits. For futures data, rolling is required, and back-ward and for-warding rolling can be chosen. Different adjustment methods can lead to different price display.  3. Extended trading hours  Along with the growth of electronic trading, many market tends to trade during extended hours, such as pre-open and post-close trading periods. Futures and FX markets even trade around the clock. This leads to another freedom in price reporting: whether to include the price movement during the extended trading hours.   Conclusion To cross-verify the true price, we should always check the price from the Exchange where the asset is actually traded. Given the convenience of getting EOD data nowadays, this task should be easy to achieve.  In fact, for professional traders and investors alike, they will never reply price on free providers such as Yahoo and Google, they will most likely choose Bloomberg, Reuters, etc. However, for personal use, Yahoo and Google should both be good choices, and the difference is small enough to ignore."}
{"question":"For net worth, should I value physical property at my cost to replace it, or the amount I could get for selling it?","answer":"You're asking for opinions here, because it's a matter of how you look at it. I'll give it a shot anyway. For insurance purposes - there's a clear answer: you insure based on how much it would cost you to replace it. For some reason, you're considering as a possibility negotiating with the insurance company about that, but I've never heard of insuring something at a \"possible sales value\" unless you're talking about a one of a kind thing, or a particularly valuable artifact: art, jewelry, etc. That it would be appraised and insured based on the appraised value. Besides, most of the stuff usually loses value once you bought it, not gains, so insuring per replacement costs makes more sense because it costs more. As to your estimations of your own net worth to yourself - its up to you. I would say that something only worth what people would pay for it. So if you have a car that you just bought brand new, replacing it would cost you $X, but you can only sell it for $X-10%, because it depreciated by at least 10% once you've driven it off the dealer's lot. So I would estimate your worth as $X-10% based on the car, not $X, because although you spent $X on it - you can never recover it if you sell it, so you can't claim to have it as your \"net worth\"."}
{"question":"Who sets the prices on government bonds?","answer":"Who sets the prices? Effectively the market does, like basically all openly traded things. The Greek government could well have said \"5% is as high as we will go\".  As a result, investors may not have chosen to buy the securities.  The global bond market is highly liquid, and investors who have a choice could well then choose to go elsewhere. The reasons could well be varied, but primary among them would be that investors view Greek investments as more than 5% risky.  If I can get 5% from a country that I deem less risky than from Greece, my choice is clear.  Therefore to be compensated for loaning them my money, I am expecting a return of 7% because there is the possibility that they will default. As for not selling them at all, if they could avoid issuing bonds, most governments would.  They may not have had much of a choice.  If they just print more money, that does other potentially bad things to the economy.  The government needs funds to operate, if they are not collecting enough in taxes, for example, and do not want to print money as I mentioned, then bonds are one other common way to raise cash. Notwithstanding that in your example you are referring to the interest rate, not the price, the principal is the same."}
{"question":"How to protect a Stock you still want to own from a downturn?","answer":"Of the two, an option is a more reliable but more expensive means to get rid of a stock. As sdg said, a put option is basically an insurance policy on the stock; you pay a certain price for the contract itself, which locks in a sale price up to a particular future date. If the stock depreciates significantly, you exercise the option and get the contract price; otherwise you let the contract expire and keep the stock. Long-term, these are bad bets as each expired contract will offset earnings, but if you foresee a near-term steep drop in the stock price but aren't quite sure, a put option is good peace of mind. A sell stop order is generally cheaper, but less reliable. You set a trigger price, say a loss of 10% of the stock's current value. If that threshold is reached, the stop order becomes a sell order and the broker will sell the stock on the market, take his commission (or a fixed price depending on your broker) and you get the rest. However, there has to be a buyer willing to buy at that price at the moment the trigger fires; if a stock has lost 10% rapidly, it's probably on the way down hard, and the order might not complete until you realize a 12% loss, or a 15%, or even 20%. A sell stop limit (a combination stop order and limit order) allows you to say that you want to sell if the stock drops to $X, but not sell if it drops below $X-Y. This allows you to limit realized losses by determining a band within which it should be sold, and not to sell above or below that price. These are cheaper because you only pay for the order if it is executed successfully; if you never need it, it's free (or very cheap; some brokers will charge a token service fee to maintain a stop or stop limit). However, if the price drops very quickly or you specify too narrow a band, the stock can drop through that band too quickly to execute the sell order and you end up with a severely depreciated stock and an unexercised order. This can happen if the company whose stock you own buys another company; VERY quickly, both stocks will adjust, the buying company will often plummet inside a few seconds after news of the merger is announced, based on the steep drop in working capital and\/or the infusion of a large amount of new stock in the buying company to cover the equity of the purchased company. You end up with devalued stock and a worthless option (but one company buying another is not usually reason to sell; if the purchase is a good idea, their stock will recover). Another option which may be useful to you is a swaption; this basically amounts to buying a put option on one financial instrument and a call on another, rolled into one option contract specifying a swap. This allows you to pick something you think would rise if your stock fell and exchange your stock for it at your option. For example, say the stock on which you buy this swaption is an airline stock, and you contract the option to swap for oil. If oil surges, the airline's stock will tank sharply, and you win both ways (avoiding loss and realizing a gain). You'd also win if either half of this option realized a gain over the option price; oil could surge or the airline could tank and you could win. You could even do this \"naked\" since its your option; if the airline's stock tanks, you buy it at the crashed price to exercise the option and then do so. The downside is a higher option cost; the seller will be no fool, so if your position appears to be likely, anyone who'd bet against you by selling you this option will want a pretty high return."}
{"question":"How to correctly track a covered call write (sell to open) in double-entry accounting?","answer":"I think the issue you are having is that the option value is not a \"flow\" but rather a liability that changes value over time. It is best to illustrate with a balance sheet. The $33 dollars would be the premium net of expense that you would receive from your brokerage for having shorted the options. This would be your asset. The liability is the right for the option owner (the person you sold it to) to exercise and purchase stock at a fixed price. At the moment you sold it, the \"Marked To Market\" (MTM) value of that option is $40. Hence you are at a net account value of $33-$40= $-7 which is the commission. Over time, as the price of that option changes the value of your account is simply $33 - 2*(option price)*(100) since each option contract is for 100 shares. In your example above, this implies that the option price is 20 cents. So if I were to redo the chart it would look like this If the next day the option value goes to 21 cents, your liability would now be 2*(0.21)*(100) = $42 dollars. In a sense, 2 dollars have been \"debited\" from your account to cover your potential liability. Since you also own the stock there will be a credit from that line item (not shown). At the expiry of your option, since you are selling covered calls, if you were to be exercised on, the loss on the option and the gain on the shares you own will net off. The final cost basis of the shares you sold will be adjusted by the premium you've received. You will simply be selling your shares at strike + premium per share (0.20 cents in this example)"}
{"question":"Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord?","answer":"With a healthy income its quite possible to contribute too much into 401Ks\/IRAs.  For example, if your retired today and had 3 million or so, how much more would you need?  Would an extra million materially change your life?  Would it make you happier if you invested that extra in some rental properties or perhaps a business like a sandwich or ice cream shop where you have more direct control? This kind of discussion is possible as you indicate that you have taken care of your life financially.  It seems at odds with the negative press describing the woefully condition of the standard person's finances.  These articles ignore a very simple fact:  its because of bad behavior.  You, on the contrary, have behaved well and are in the process of reaping rewards.  This is where I feel your \"mental gymnastics\" originates.   Looking to engage in the rental market is no different then buying a franchise.  You are opening a business of your own.  You'll have to educate yourself and are likely to make a few mistakes that will cause you to write checks to solve.  Your goal is to minimize those mistakes.  After all, what do you know about the rental home business?  I am guessing not much.  Educate yourself.  Read and spend some money on taking knowledgeable people out for coffee.   In the end you should understand that although a poor decision may cost you money you cannot really make a bad decision.  Lets say you do buy a rental property, things go south, you sell for a loss, etc....  In the end the \"butchers bill\" is 50K or so.  Will that materially change your life?  Probably not.  The worst case is perhaps you have to work a year or two beyond the anticipated retirement age to make up that money.  No big deal."}
{"question":"What should I do with the 50k I have sitting in a European bank?","answer":"As always with investments, it depends on your risk adversity. I don't want to repeat the content of hundreds of recommendations here, so just the nutshell: (For qualified investments,) the more risk you are willing to take, the more returns you'll get. The upper end is the mutual funds and share market, where you have long-term expectations of 8 - 10 % (and corresponding risks of maybe +\/- 50% per year), the lower end is a CD, where you can expect little to no interest, corresponding to little to no risk. Investing in shares\/funds is not 'better' than investing in CDs, it is different. Not everybody likes financial roller-coasters, and some people mainly consider the high risk, which gives them sleepless nights; while others just consider the expected high long-term gains as all that counts. Find out what your personal risk adversity is, and then pick accordingly."}
{"question":"Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards?","answer":"Psychology Today had an interesting article from July 11, 2016, in which they go through the psychological aspects of using cash vs. a credit card. This article cites a 2008 paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied that found: \"the more transparent the payment outflow, the greater the aversion to spending or higher the \u2018pain of paying\u2019 \u2026leading to less transparent payment modes such as credit cards and gift cards (vs. cash) being more easily spent or treated as play or \u2018monopoly money.\u2019\" The article cites a number of other studies that are of interest on this topic as well."}
{"question":"Ideal investments for a recent college grad with very high risk tolerance?","answer":"An ideal investment for a highly risk tolerant college grad with a background in software and programming, is a software company. That's because it's the kind of investment that you will be able to judge better than most other people, including yours truly. Hopefully, one day the software company for a highly risk tolerant investor will be your own.(Ask Bill Gates or even Michael Dell, although the latter was more involved in hardware.)"}
{"question":"CD interest rate US vs abroad, is there a catch?","answer":"Part 1 Quite a few [or rather most] countries allow USD account. So there is no conversion.   Just to illustrare; In India its allowed to have a USD account. The funds can be transfered as USD and withdrawn as USD, the interest is in USD. There no conversion at any point in time. Typically the rates for CD on USD account was Central Bank regulated rate of 5%, recently this was deregulated, and some banks offer around 7% interest.   Why is the rate high on USD in India? - There is a trade deficit which means India gets less USD and has to pay More USD to buy stuff [Oil and other essential items]. - The balance is typically borrowed say from IMF or other countries etc. - Allowing Banks to offer high interest rate is one way to attract more USD into the country in short term. [because somepoint in time they may take back the USD out of India] So why isn't everyone jumping and making USD investiments in India? - The Non-Residents who eventually plan to come back have invested in USD in India. - There is a risk of regulation changes, ie if the Central Bank \/ Country comes up pressure for Forex Reserves, they may make it difficut to take back the USD. IE they may impose charges \/ taxes or force conversion on such accounts. - The KYC norms make it difficult for Indian Bank to attract US citizens [except Non Resident Indians] - Certain countries would have explicit regulations to prevent Other Nationals from investing in such products as they may lead to volatility [ie all of them suddenly pull out the funds] - There would be no insurance to foreign nationals.   Part 2 The FDIC insurance is not the reason for lower rates. Most countires have similar insurance for Bank deposits for account holdes.   The reason for lower interst rate is all the Goverments [China etc] park the excess funds in US Treasuries because; 1. It is safe 2. It is required for any international purchase 3. It is very liquid.   Now if the US Fed started giving higher interest rates to tresaury bonds say 5%, it essentially paying more to other countries ... so its keeping the interest rates low even at 1% there are enough people [institutions \/ governemnts] who would keep the money with US Treasury.   So the US Treasury has to make some revenue from the funds kept at it ... it lends at lower interest rates to Bank ... who in turn lend it to borrowers [both corporate and retail].   Now if they can borrow cheaply from Fed, why would they pay more to Individual Retail on CD?, they will pay less; because the lending rates are low as well.   Part 3 Check out the regulations"}
{"question":"Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits?","answer":"You need to set your status as self-employed the day you started online work. If that date is a little ambiguous (as is usually the case with online business), you can start with the day you first made any money. Yes, you can deduct expenses from your revenue. But you have to be sure that the expenses were purely business related.  This is how it goes: You inform HMRC about the day you started work. HMRC will assign you a UTR (Unique Tax Reference) number. Depending on how much you make you might or might not need to pay Class 2 NI contributions. You'll need to tell HMRC how much you expect to earn in the current tax year. Finally, you'll need to complete a Self-Assessment at the end of the tax year. I highly recommend setting up a business banking account. Here is a link that discusses being part-time self-employed in the UK."}
{"question":"Are spot market ,regular market and ready market same in stock trading if not then what is the difference?","answer":"So, the term \"ready market\" simply means that a market exists in which there are legitimate buy\/sell offers, meaning there are investors willing to own or trade in the security. A \"spot market\" means that the security\/commodity is being delivered immediately, rather at some predetermined date in the future (hence the term \"futures market\").  So if you buy oil on the spot market, you'd better be prepared to take immediate delivery, where as when you buy a futures contract, the transaction doesn't happen until some later date.  The advantage for futures contract sellers is the ability to lock in the price of what they're selling as a hedge against the possibility of a price drop between now and when they can\/will deliver the commodity.  In other words, a farmer can pre-sell his grain at a set price for some future delivery date so he can know what he's going to get regardless of the price of grain at the time he delivers it.  The downside to the farmer is that if grain prices rise higher than what he sold them for as futures contracts then he loses that additional money.  That's the advantage to the buyer, who expects the price to rise so he can resell what he bought from the farmer at a profit. When you trade on margin, you're basically borrowing the money to make a trade, whether you're trading long (buying) or short (selling) on a security.  It isn't uncommon for traders to pledge securities they already own as collateral for a margin account, and if they are unable to cover a margin call then those securities can be liquidated or confiscated to satisfy the debt.  There still may even be a balance due after such a liquidation if the pledged securities don't cover the margin call. Most of the time you pay a fee (or interest rate) on whatever you borrow on margin, just like taking out a bank loan, so if you're going to trade on margin, you have to include those costs in your calculations as to what you need to earn from your investment to make a profit. When I short trade, I'm selling something I don't own in the expectation I can buy it back later at a lower price and keep the difference.  For instance, if I think Apple shares are going to take a steep drop at some point soon, I can short them.  So imagine I short-sell 1000 shares of AAPL at the current price of $112.  That means my brokerage account is credited with the proceeds of the sale ($112,000), and I now owe my broker 1000 shares of AAPL stock.  If the stock drops to $100 and I \"cover my short\" (buy the shares back to repay the 1000 I borrowed) then I pay $100,000 for them and give them to my broker.  I keep the difference ($12,000) between what I sold them for and what I paid to buy them back, minus any brokerage fees and fees the broker may charge me for short-selling. In conclusion, a margin trade is using someone else's money to make a trade, whether it's to buy more or to sell short.  A short trade is selling shares I don't even own because I think I can make money in the process. I hope this helps."}
{"question":"Why do banks encourage me to use online bill payment?","answer":"Another reason for banks to push this is sitckyness.  Once you have all of your bills setup, its more trouble to change banks.  This reduces the customer turnover rate, which lowers their costs."}
{"question":"Should you always max out contributions to your 401k?","answer":"To be clear, a 401K is a vehicle, you make investments WITHIN it, if you choose poorly such as say putting all your money into company stock when working for the next Enron, you can still get hurt badly.  So it is important to have diversity and an appropriate risk level based on your age, tolerance for risk, etc. That said, as vehicles go it is outstanding, and the 'always max your 401K' is very very common advice for a large number of investing professionals, CFA's, pundits, etc.  That said there are a few priorities to consider here. First priority, if there is some level of company matching, grab that, it's hard to beat that kind of 'return' in almost any other case. Second, since you never want to tap into a 401K (if you can at all avoid it) before you are ready to retire, you should first be sure you have a good 'emergency fund' set aside in the event you lose your job, or some other major catastrophy happens.  Many recommend setting aside at least 6 months of basic living expenses.   Third, if you have any high interest debt (like credit card debt) pay that stuff down as fast as you can.  You'll save a ton of interest (it's pretty much the same as investing the money you use to pay it down, and getting a return equal to the interest rate you are paying, with zero risk.. can't be beat.  You'll also end up with a lot better cash flow, and the ability to start saving first and spending out of savings, so you earn interest instead of paying it. Once you have those things out of the way, then it is time to think about fully funding the  401K.  and keep in mind, since you don't pay taxes on it, the 'felt effect' to you pocket is about 80% or even less, of what goes into the account, so it's not as painful as you might think, and the hit to your take home may be less than you'd expect.  Contributing as much as you can, as early as you can also lets you benefit from the effect of compounding, and has a far larger affect on the balance than money put into the account closer to retirement.  So if you can afford to max it out, I surely would advise you to do so."}
{"question":"Are TD e-Series Funds worthwhile, or am I better off with ETFs? Why or why not?","answer":"M Attia, the advantages of the TD e-series are that they are a low cost way to index your portfolio as well it gives you to opportunity to invest small amounts at a time.  With ETF's, purchasing small amounts at a time would simply get too expensive."}
{"question":"Legitimate unclaimed property that doesn't appear in any state directory?","answer":"You can't blame companies like 'Legal Claimant Services' for making a profit by providing this service. That is capitalism and it is the way of the world.  It is just like any other business you can do yourself - from making dinner to cutting your own grass. If you choose to do it yourself, you save money but you also do the work. When I got my letter telling me about a claim, I automatically went online to do some research. That's how I found this site and information that led me to validate the claim. I then chose to follow a few simple instructions and keep all of the claim instead of giving away 30%."}
{"question":"Is there any downside snapping a picture (or scanning a copy) of every check one writes vs. using a duplicate check?","answer":"For me, the main benefit of using duplicate checks is that the copy is created automatically.  If I had to take an extra step, whether taking a photo or writing on a stub, I would probably not always remember to do it.  There is also the issue that you might need to write a check when you don't have your smartphone with you, or it is broken or has a dead battery, etc. There are various pros and cons of having an electronic record versus a paper record.  A paper copy of a check is more vulnerable to physical loss or intrusion, but an electronic record is more vulnerable to hacking.  You also have to keep the images organized somehow, and take care of data security and backups for the images.  You'll have to evaluate which is the greater concern for you. A minor side point is that check duplicates often omit the account number and obscure your signature.  A photo of the original check would include both of these. As far as \"evidence\", it seems to me they're both equally good evidence that you wrote the check - but that's not really that useful.  In most sorts of disputes, what you would need to prove is that you actually delivered the check to the intended recipient, and neither the photo nor the paper copy is evidence of that.  You could have written the check, taken your photo \/ copy, and then torn it up."}
{"question":"Hiring freelancers and taxes","answer":"I am not a lawyer or a tax accountant, but from the description provided it sounds to me like you have created two partnerships: one in which you share 50% of Bob's revenue, and another in which you share 50% of the revenue from the first partnership. If this is the case, then each partnership would need to file form K-1 and issue a copy to the partners of that partnership. I think, but I'm not sure, that each partnership would need an Employer Identification Number (EIN; you can apply for and receive these online with the IRS). You would only pay tax on the portion of profits that are assigned to you on the K-1. (If you've accidentally created a partnership without thinking through all the ramifications, you probably want to straighten this out. You can be held liable for the actions of your partners.) On the other hand, if your contract with Bob explicitly makes you a contractor and not a partner, then Bob should probably be issuing a 1099 to you. Similarly for you and Joe -- if your contract with Joe makes him a subcontractor, then you may need to get an EIN and issue him a 1099 at the end of the year. The money you pay to Joe is a business expense, and would be deducted from the profits you show on your Schedule C. In my opinion, it would be worth the $200 fee paid to a good CPA to make sure you get this right."}
{"question":"What debts are both partners liable for in a 'community property' state?","answer":"(Yes, I know this is a seven year old question.) Does this only apply to debts that were taken on during marriage  Yes or to all debts of both partners? No. The important thing to remember is that it's both debts and assets acquired during the marriage which are shared. This comes from the reality that men in the olden times were the ones in business, accumulating wealth, etc while the woman \"made the home\".  The working assumption was that the woman who made the home was an equal partner with the man, since he benefited from a good home, and she benefited from his income. The fact that pre-marriage debts and assets were not community property also protected the woman, because she was able to then take back her dowry and use that to support herself. (N.B. - I live in a CP state.)"}
{"question":"Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate]","answer":"Its neither. Its a scam. there's no value underlying it, and it has proven to be the most speculative and untrustworthy investment there is. The scam works like a pyramid scam, so the more people come later on the more people who came in earlier on gain, so that is why you see so much hype around it encouraged and fueled by those early adopters who'll cash out at your expense. Imagine people who jumped on the bandwagon when each coin was worth a mere fraction of a dollar - they want you to \"invest\" at the current price of hundreds of dollars per unit so that they could cash out. You'd be better off with tulips, really. (And don't be discouraged by the downvotes on this answer, of course those scamers will try to shut me down. That will just prove the point.)"}
{"question":"Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?","answer":"One thing I like to do every once in a while is look at the day's market movers. It's a list of symbols that had huge movement. There tend to be a couple of 50+% movers every time I look. In fact today I see ATV moved up 414.48%:  So there it is\u2014doubling your investment in one day and then some is technically possible. The problem is that the market movers chart also has an equal number of symbols that had major movements in the other direction. Today's winner is:  SPCB  lost 40% in one day, and thats the problem. If you invest in anything that can double your investment in one year, it can also halve your investment in one year. Or do better. Or do worse. You really don't know because the volatility is so high."}
{"question":"What can I do when the trading price of a stock or ETF I want to buy is too high?","answer":"You have a couple of options: Auto-investing in an open-end mutual fund.  Some companies may waive a minimum if you sign up for an automatic investing, e.g. T. Rowe Price will waive its minimum if you agree to invest $100\/month.  There may be some lower ones out there as well. Some brokers like ShareBuilder have programs where someone could auto-invest getting fractional shares with each purchase.  However, something to consider is what percentage is it costing you to buy each time as it may be quite a bit of friction if you are paying $4 a purchase and only buying $40, this is 10% of your investment being eaten up in costs that I'd highly advise taking the first option."}
{"question":"What should a 21 year old do with \u00a360,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance?","answer":"Depending on where you live in the UK, buying a house sooner might be a better option. I would echo the advice about putting some money away into a \"rainy day\" fund etc. above but I know that in my area house prices are going up by around 7% per year. I bought a house two years ago and I'm paying 4% interest on my mortgage so I'm effectively making money by owning my house.  Given that you want to buy a house soonish, if your money sits in an account somewhere making no interest, you're effectively losing 7% of your cash each year by not keeping up with house prices, meaning you'll be able to afford a smaller house with the same money. Do bear in mind though that buying a house costs around \u00a34k in lawyers fees, surveys, mortgage setup fees etc. and selling a house can be more since estate agents will take a % of the sale cost. If you live somewhere where house prices are not increasing as quickly then this will not be as good an option than if you live in e.g. London where house prices are currently skyrocketing. If you don't want to live in the house, you may be able to do a buy-to-let as an investment. Generally the rent will cover the mortgage payments and probably a letting agent\/property management company's fees, so while you won't see any actual net income, the people renting will be paying the mortgage off and you'll be building equity on the home. It's not entirely without risk though as tenants can trash homes etc."}
{"question":"Conservative ways to save for retirement?","answer":"I didn't even have access to a 401(k) at age 24.  You're starting early and that's good.  You're frugal and that's good too.  Retirement savings is really intended to be a set it and forget it kind of arrangement.  You check in on it once a year, maybe adjust your contributions.   While I applaud your financial conservatism, you're really hamstringing your retirement if you're too conservative.  At age 24 you have a solid 30 years before retirement will even approach your radar and another 10 years after that before you have to plan your disbursements.  The daily, monthly, quarterly movements of your retirement account will have literally zero impact on your life.    There will be money market type savings accounts, bond funds, equity funds, and lifecycle funds.  The lifecycle fund rolls your contributions to favor bonds and other \"safer\" investments as you age. The funds available in retirement accounts will all carry something called an expense ratio.  This is the amount of money that the fund manager keeps for maintaining the fund.  Be mindful of the expense ratios even more than the published performance of the fund.  A low fee fund will typically have an expense ratio around 0.10%, or $1 per $1,000 per year in expense.  There will be more exotic funds targeting this or that segment, they can carry expense ratios nearing 1% and some even higher. It's smart to take advantage of your employer's match.  Personally, at age 24, at a minimum I would contribute the match to a low-fee S&P index fund."}
{"question":"Why would my job recruiter want me to form an LLC?","answer":"The \"independent contractor\" vs. \"employee\" distinction is a red herring to this discussion and not at all important just because someone suggested you use your LLC to do the job. Corp-2-Corp is a very common way to do contracting and having an LLC with business bank accounts provides you with more tax deductions (such as deducting interest on credit lines). Some accounting practices prefer to pay entities by their Tax ID numbers, instead of an individual's social security number. The actual reasoning behind this would be dubious, but the LLC only benefits you and gives you more advantages by having one than not. For example, it is easier for you to hire subcontractors through your LLC to assist with your job, due to the opaqueness of the private entity. Similarly, your LLC can sign Non Disclosure and Intellectual Property agreements, automatically extending the trade secrets to all of its members, as opposed to just you as an individual. By signing whatever agreement with the company that is paying you through your LLC, your LLC will be privy to all of this. Next, assuming you did have subcontractors or other liability inducing assets, the LLC limits the liability you personally have to deal with in a court system, to an extent. But even if you didn't, the facelessness of an LLC can deter potential creditors, for example, your client may just assume you are a cog in a wheel - a random employee of the LLC - as opposed to the sole owner. Having a business account for the LLC keeps all of your expenses in one account statement, making your tax deductions easier. If you had a business credit line, the interest is tax deductible (compared to just having a personal credit card for business purposes). Regarding the time\/costs of setting up and managing an LLC, this does vary by jurisdiction. It can negligible, or it can be complex. You also only have to do it once. Hire an attorney to give you a head start on that, if you feel that is necessary. Now back to the \"independent contractor\" vs. \"employee\" distinction: It is true that the client will not be paying your social security, but they expect you to charge more hourly than an equivalent actual employee would, solely because you don't get health insurance from them or paid leave or retirement plans or any other perk, and you will receive the entire paycheck without any withheld by the employer. You also get more tax deductions to utilize, although you will now have self employment tax (assuming you are a US citizen), this becomes less and less important the higher over $105,000 you make, as it stops being counted (slightly more complicated than that, but self employment tax is it's own discussion)."}
{"question":"What is a reasonable salary for the owner and sole member of a small S-Corp?","answer":"You can get audited for anything Business owners are more likely to get audited than people filing 1040-EZ's for their simplistic income tax obligation. According to HR Block I hope you enjoy the process where you explain the source of your earnings"}
{"question":"Are there any viable alternatives to Paypal for a small site?","answer":"I found out about Google checkout today, it looks like it may meet my needs, but I'd still be interested to find out about other options."}
{"question":"What does the term \"match the market\" mean?","answer":"There was a time when everyone felt their goal was to beat the respective index they followed. But of course, in aggregate, that's a mathematical impossibility. The result was that the average say large cap fund, whose benchmark index would be the S&P, would lag on average by 1-2%.  A trend toward ETFs that would match the market had begun, and the current ETFs that follow the S&P are sub .1% expense.  For the fact that studies (Google \"Dalbar\" for examples) show the typical investor lags not by 1% or 2%, but by far more for reasons of bad timing, my own statement that \"I've gotten a return these past years of .06% less than the S&P\" would have been seen many years ago as failure, now it's bragging. It handily beats the typical investor and yet, can be had by anyone wishing to stay the course, keep the ETF very long term."}
{"question":"Deposit a cheque in an alternative name into a personal bank account (Australia)","answer":"You actually don't have to open a business account with your bank, you can have a personal account with the bank and have your business funds go into it, whether it be from cheques or from Eftpos\\Credit Card Facilities. You just have to get your customers to make the cheque out under your name (the same name used for your bank account). If you are trading as a sole trader and you trade under a name other than your own name, then officially you are supposed to register that name with Fair Trading in your state. However, if you are trading using another name and it is not registered, Fair Trading will only become aware of it if someone (usually one of your customers) makes a compliant about you, and they will then ask you to either stop using that name as your trading name or have it registered (if not already registered by someone else)."}
{"question":"Does gold's value decrease over time due to the fact that it is being continuously mined?","answer":"The relative value of Gold (or any other commodity) as measured against any given currency (such as the USD), is not a constant function either. If you have inflationary pressure, the \"value\" of an ounce of gold (or barrel of oil, etc) may \"double\", but it's really because the underlying comparator has lost \"half\" its value."}
{"question":"Any Tips on How to Get the Highest Returns Within 4 Months by Investing in Stocks? ","answer":"Invest in an etf called SPXS and hope for a market correction in the next month. Or if you know a lot about markets and trends, select from this list of leveraged etfs available from Direxion."}
{"question":"How should one refuse to father in law (Chinese) when he wants to borrow money? ","answer":"In these situations, one solution is to use the \"I was just about to ask you the same thing...\" response. This is kind of a famous way to deal with people asking you for money, whether it's someone asking to borrow \"$10 at lunch time\" or \"$3000 for a car\" or the like. So: Person X asks you for money, say $2000. Your reply: Ah, that's bad luck, I was just about to ask you the same thing... Follow this immediately - just keep talking - by launching in to a really incredibly detailed discussion of why you need to borrow money (pick a slightly larger amount, slet's ay $3500).  Just \"keep talking\" and don't let the other person get a word in. Go in to great detail about just what you need the $3500 for and why. It's a good trick."}
{"question":"Buying a house, how much should my down payment be?","answer":"How much should my down payment be? Ideally 20% of the purchase price because with 20% of the purchase price, you don't have to pay a costly private mortgage insurance (PMI).  If you don't have 20% down and come across a good property to purchase, it is still a good idea to go forward with purchasing with what you are comfortable with, because renting long term is generally never a good idea if you want to build wealth and become financially independent. How much should I keep in my emergency fund? People say 3-12 months of living expenses.  Keep in mind though, in most cases, if you lose your job, you are entitled to unemployment benefits from the government. How long should my mortgage be? 30 year amortization is the best. You can always opt to pay more each month.  But having that leverage with a 30 year loan can allow you to invest your savings in other opportunities, which can yield more than mortgage interest. Best of luck!"}
{"question":"What happens to my position if I hold some stocks of a company that gets acquired?","answer":"The stockholders of company A vote to approve or disapprove the buy out. That is the only control you have on the price: Vote to approve or disapprove.  If the deal is approved then you get the money, or stock in B, or both, in accordance with the terms of the deal. It will arrive into your account automatically."}
{"question":"How to start buying shares with small amount of money?","answer":"Before anything else, read up on the basics of economics. After that, there a few things you need to ask yourself before you even think about investing in anything: If you have an answer to those questions: Once you answered those questions I could make a simple first suggestion: Confident in handling it yourself and low maintenance with uncertain horizon: look up an online bank that offers ETFs such as IWDA (accumulation (dividend is not payed but reinvested) or income(dividend is payed out)) and maybe a few more specific ones then buy and hold for at least 5 years. Confident and high maintenance with long horizon: maybe stock picking but you'll probably never be able to beat the market unless you invest 10's of hours in research per week. However this will also cost a bit and given your initial amount not advisable to do. Be sure that you also have a VERY close look at the prospectus of an investment (especially if you go with a (retail) bank and they \"recommend\" you certain actively traded funds). They tend to charge you quite a bit (yearly management fees of 2-3% (which is A LOT if you are eying maybe 7%-8% yearly) aren't unheard of). ETF's such IWDA only have for example a yearly cost of 0.20%. Personally I have one portfolio (of many) only consisting of that ETF (so IWDA) and one global small cap. It's one of the best and most consistant ones to date. In the end, the amount you start with doesn't really matter so much as long as it's enough to buy at least a few shares of what you have in mind. If you can then increase your portfolio over time and keep the expenses in check, compounding interest should do the rest."}
{"question":"How are dividends for shareholders of banks paid?","answer":"A typical manufacturer buys raw materials, produces a product using labor and energy at a specific cost with some waste, and then sells the product to produce income. A bank buys raw materials (deposits) by paying interest, then uses labor and energy to turn a portion of the raw materials into their product (loans), they then receive income (interest) on those loans. If the income exceeds the cost to buy and produce the loans taking into account losses due to delinquencies (waste) the bank company has made a profit. The growing profits can lead to an increase in stock prices or the paying of dividends. The search for more raw materials can lead to paying more for the raw materials, or by buying other factories (branches) or even other bank companies."}
{"question":"Is gold really an investment or just a hedge against inflation?","answer":"Gold is not an investment.  Gold is a form of money.  It and silver have been used as money much longer than paper.  Paper money is a relatively recent invention (less than 350 years old) with a horrible track record of preserving wealth.  When I exchange my paper US dollars for gold I'm exchanging one form of money for another.  US dollars, or US Federal Reserve Notes to be more precise, can be printed ad nauseam by one bank that is totally private and is never audited.  Keeping all of your savings in US dollars is ignoring history, it is believing the US Federal Reserve has your best interest in mind, it is hoping that somehow things will be different this time, it is believing that the US dollar will somehow magically be the first fiat currency to last a person's lifetime. TIPS may seem like a good hedge against inflation.  However, the government offering TIPS is also the same government that is calculating the inflation rate used to adjust TIPS.  What a great deal.  If you do some research you discover that the method for calculating the consumer price index is always \"modified\" since it is always found to over estimate inflation.  It is never found to under estimate inflation.  Imagine that.  Here is a chart showing the inflation rate as if it were calculated the same way as it was calculated in 1980. Buying any government debt is also a way to guarantee you or your children will be taxed in the future since the government will have to obtain the money from someone to pay back bonds.  It's like voting for future taxes."}
{"question":"What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?","answer":"I find these type of questions silly, but I'll bite:"}
{"question":"Why having large capital is advantageous to trading","answer":"Excess capital is the primary means of navigating around a trade which is moving against you. In a very basic case, consider a long position moving against you. With additional capital you could average in as the price drops or you could write options against your position. If you don't have the capital to handle when (not if) a trade move against you then you're at a significant disadvantage as your only option may be a liquidation."}
{"question":"Google Finance Cash Flow Statement","answer":"I'm a big believer in pulling the quarterly and or annual statements and deriving your own analysis.  The automated parsing systems at Google, Yahoo, and others are a good starting point and they'll let you generally compare various metrics of different companies or market segments.  With that in mind, there are any number of reasons Google's scripts could have broken out or combined a couple of cash flow line items.  If you're digging this deep in the weeds on this company you should pull the SEC filings and build out your own data."}
{"question":"What tax-free retirement accounts are available for self-employed individuals?","answer":"You can open a self-employed 401k, here's an example. You can deposit up to 50K (including the personal cap and the profit sharing\/matching portion)."}
{"question":"Confused about employee stock options: How do I afford these?","answer":"I've been offered a package that includes 100k stock options at 5 dollars a share. They vest over 4 years at 25% a year. Does this mean that at the end of the first year, I'm supposed to pay for 25,000 shares? Wouldn't this cost me 125,000 dollars? I don't have this kind of money. At the end of the first year, you will generally have the option to pay for the shares. Yes, this means you have to use your own money. You generally dont have to buy ANY until the whole option vests, after 4 years in your case, at which point you either buy, or you are considered 'vested' (you have equity in the company without buying) or the option expires worthless, with you losing your window to buy into the company. This gives you plenty of opportunity to evaluate the company's growth prospects and viability over this time. Regarding options expiration the contract can have an arbitrarily long expiration date, like 17 years. You not having the money or not isn't a consideration in this matter. Negotiate a higher salary instead. I've told several companies that I don't want their equity despite my interest in their business model and product. YMMV.   Also, options can come with tax consequences, or none at all. its not a raw deal but you need to be able to look at it objectively."}
{"question":"Is refinancing my auto loan just to avoid dealing with the lender that issued it a crazy idea?","answer":"What are the fees associated with changing the new loan? Are those fees worth the peace of mind? If so, than it is not \"crazy\".  The decision really boils down to that: is it worth the money that you will spend refinancing the loan to not have to deal with the original bank that financed your loan, assuming that you find an institution that will be more amenable to your financial expectations."}
{"question":"Stocks that only have 1 really high peak ","answer":"Investing is not the same as illegal drugs.  One does not start with pot and progress to things like heroin in order to get a better high.  Penny stocks are a fools game and not an entry into the world of investing. The charts you mentioned are fake and likely the result of pump and dump schemes as my colleagues have pointed out in the comments.  They have no bearing on investing.  Good investment grade companies have many peaks and valleys over time.  Look at any company you are familiar with Apple, Google, Tesla, GE, Microsoft, etc... One has a few choices in getting \"into investing\" to name a few: All of those are valid and worthy pursuits.  Read books by Jack Bogle."}
{"question":"Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?","answer":"Heres what you need to know: This can be prevented by what a previous renter did to us. This is a smart, kind of a jerky way to do it but its VERY SMART, as long as your property is worth it, raise the rent higher. You must have a very nice, clean, everything working, house. You must be willing to have anything fixed. this is all to make up the high rent. You don't want the rent way out of proportion but just a bit higher. This is because, more than likely, people who are going to pay for a higher rent don't usually leave a mess, (higher class families vs lower class people living alone..) What might also help from the risk of damage is create a fee (also what my renter did) of any painting needed done like finger prints on the wall, nails in the wall, carpet stains, etc when the tenant is ready to move out. I would suggest a required professional carpet cleaning as well when lease is up. My renter was very nice, but very strict and did all these things. He has a few properties that are very nice middle class houses. Your home sounds like it could easily pass for this kind of business depending on where you live. If the tenant leaves before his lease is up you could charge a 1-2 month's rent to be able to find a new tenant. Be proactive on finding a tenant before the lease is up.  This would be a bit of work to first set up and usually maintain, but its a good thing to think about."}
{"question":"Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?","answer":"Real estate is always an interesting dynamic.  In most cases prices have always gone up.   Price is mainly a function of demand.  Sometimes demand is artificially inflated over a short term period and can come down quickly due to corrections.  During recessions the housing market will usually slow down.  There are some rare instances where certain areas never recover (see Subprime Mortgage Crisis Savings & Loans Crisis where scores of unwanted properties exist).  Things to consider:"}
{"question":"Are there tax liabilities (in the US) for having a US bank account while I am abroad?","answer":"I don't think so in your case. Unless the account generates so much interest income that it became reportable (I don't know the exact limit, but I think it's in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars, you might get a 1099 form if it generates over $10 of interest income, but you don't have to file taxes if your overall income is too low anyways). The US does not typically tax assets, only income. There are some states (Florida is the only one I can think of) that has odd tax treatment of intangible assets, but I doubt that would apply in your case. If this were a large enough amount, usually over $10,000, it might trigger some reporting requirements (possibly by your home country)."}
{"question":"Effective Interest Rate from bifurcated interest rate","answer":"If the APR is an effective rate. If the APR is a nominal rate compounded monthly, first convert it to an effective rate."}
{"question":"How can I determine which stores are regarded as supermarkets for a rewards credit card?","answer":"Each company that has an account with the credit card network has to classify themselves as a particular type of business.  The credit card company uses that classification to catagorize the transaction on your statement. If you buy a T-shirt at a grocery, amusement park, gas station, or resturant; the transaction will be labeled by the vendor type.  Look at recent credit card statements, even if they are from different cards, to see how the stores you want to know about are classified."}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"You need to find a fiduciary advisor pronto. Yes, you are getting a large amount of money, but you'll probably have to deal with higher than average health expenses and lower earning potential for years to come. You need to make sure the $1.2 million lasts you, and for that you need professional advice, not something you read on the Internet. Finding a knowledgeable advisor who has your interests at heart at a reasonable rate is the key here.  These articles are a good start on what to look for: http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/financialcareers\/08\/fiduciary-planner.asp https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/janetnovack\/2013\/09\/20\/6-pointed-questions-to-ask-before-hiring-a-financial-advisor\/#2e2b91c489fe http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/professionaleducation\/11\/suitability-fiduciary-standards.asp You should also consider what your earning potential is. You rule out college but at 26, you can have a long productive career and earn way more money than the $1.2 million you are going to get."}
{"question":"Visiting vacation rental with immediate family","answer":"No, you cannot deduct it. There's no business substance in such a trip, it is your vacation, and as such cannot be claimed as an expense against the rental income. You may be able to deduct the coffee you buy for the meeting with the property manager while there, but there's no way you can justify a 7-10 days vacation with your whole family as an expense to maintain the rental property. Since you will only have less than 2 weeks personal use, you won't need to prorate expenses, so you have that at least."}
{"question":"Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis? ","answer":"I think Energy and Mike point out the some serious issues but the prospects for the futures also need to be considered. If the banks no longer have those loans then they need to rebuild their income base that is wiped out by the payoff of their loans.  They would be incentivised to make a large number of loans so that they could quickly reestablish their base so they can maintain profitability.  This is likely to lead to more poor lending practices that lead to this location in the first place.  The high earning heavily leveraged would benefit far more from this than the poor.  A function of income is that as it increases the ability to leverage increases in a non lineal fashion.  So single person making 250k a year(the benchmark set by the current administration) with a 2 million dollar mortgage(probably underwater currently) on a home would benefit much more than a family of 4 making 50k a year with a 100k mortgage.   Assuming that government does pay off all mortages now people can sell of their now fully paid homes for less than their value, as its basically free money, leverage that money to move into a better home, so home values actually crash, in some areas as people sell them off cheap, people try to gamble on cheap houses(like we just saw), etc.  It takes a market that is on the verge of recovery and stabilization and shakes it up.  How long before it stabilizes again would be a matter of debate but I would not expect to see it in less than a decade.  Business and the Economy thrives on stability and retreats from instability.  So while this would appear to be an injection to the economy the chaos it creates would likely actually severely retard future economic growth."}
{"question":"What to do if a state and federal refund is denied direct deposit?","answer":"It is not allowed to pay refunds to anyone other than the taxpayer. This is due to various tax return fraud schemes that were running around. Banks are required to enforce this. If the direct deposit is denied, a check will be issued. In her name, obviously. What she does with it when she gets it is her business - but I believe that tax refund checks may not be just \"endorsed\", the bank will likely want to see her when you deposit it to your account, even if it is endorsed. For the same reason."}
{"question":"What is \"financial literacy\" and how does one become \"financially literate\"?","answer":"Financial Literacy is about learning about finance and money and how to use and manage them to give you better outcomes in life. Just like the more books you read and the more writing you do will improve your literacy, the more financial books you read, the more questions you ask and the more you participate in this forum and others like it, the more you will improve your financial literacy.  The more financial literate you are the more you will be able to make informed decisions regarding your finances and the more you will be able to avoid financial scams."}
{"question":"Best Time to buy a stock in a day ","answer":"You want to buy when the stock market is at an all-time low for that day. Unfortunately, you don't know the lowest time until the end of the day, and then you, uh can't buy the stock... Now the stock market is not random, but for your case, we can say that effectively, it is. So, when should you buy the stock to hopefully get the lowest price for the day? You should wait for 37% of the day, and then buy when it is lower than it has been for all of that day. Here is a quick example (with fake data): We have 18 points, and 37% of 18 is close to 7. So we discard the first 7 points - and just remember the lowest of those 7. We bear in mind that the lowest for the first 37% was 5. Now we wait until we find a stock which is lower than 5, and we buy at that point: This system is optimal for buying the stock at the lowest price for the day. Why? We want to find the  best position to stop automatically ignoring. Why 37%? We know the answer to P(Being in position n) - it's 1\/N as there are N toilets, and we can select just 1. Now, what is the chance we select them, given we're in position n? The chance of selecting any of the toilets from 0 to K is 0 - remember we're never going to buy then. So let's move on to the toilets from K+1 and onwards. If K+1 is better than all before it, we have this: But, K+1 might not be the best price from all past and future prices. Maybe K+2 is better. Let's look at K+2 For K+2 we have K\/K+1, for K+3 we have K\/K+2... So we have: This is a close approximation of the area under 1\/x - especially as x \u2192 \u221e   So 0 + 0 + ... + (K\/N) x (1\/K + 1\/K+1 + 1\/K+2 ... + 1\/N-1) \u2248 (K\/N) x ln(N\/K) and so P(K) \u2248 (K\/N) x ln(N\/K) Now to simplify, say that x = K\/N We can graph this, and find the maximum point so we know the maximum P(K) - or we can use calculus. Here's the graph:  Here's the calculus: To apply this back to your situation with the stocks, if your stock updates every 30 seconds, and is open between 09:30 and 16:00, we have 6.5 hours = 390 minutes = 780 refreshes. You should keep track of the lowest price for the first 289 refreshes, and then buy your stock on the next best price. Because x = K\/N, the chance of you choosing the best price is 37%. However, the chance of you choosing better than the average stock is above 50% for the day. Remember, this method just tries to mean you don't loose money within the day - if you want to try to minimise losses within the whole trading period, you should scale this up, so you wait 37% of the trading period (e.g. 37% of 3 months) and then select. The maths is taken from Numberphile - Mathematical Way to Choose a Toilet. Finally, one way to lose money a little slower and do some good is with Kiva.org - giving loans to people is developing countries. It's like a bank account with a -1% interest - which is only 1% lower than a lot of banks, and you do some good. I have no affiliation with them."}
{"question":"Possible replacement for Quicken","answer":"Do you use any other online features of Quicken?  How many unique ticker symbols do you have?  How often do you really need to update the prices?  You can always continue to use Quicken, and enter the stock prices by hand. Maybe update them once a month to get an idea of how your investments are doing. That should work indefinitely."}
{"question":"Why is being \"upside down\" on a mortgage so bad?","answer":"Being underwater a little is not all that scary, but those who talk of being underwater are typically underwater by quite a lot.  The amount of money they owe is large compared to their yearly income. Consider a metaphor.  I put you in a hole.  Its only 1 foot deep.  You're not too concerned.  If you want to leave, you can step out of it.  Now we look at a deeper hole, 3 feet.  Now you're still not too concerned.  You can't just walk out, but if you need to get out you can wiggle your way up.  6 feet.  Now you start getting nervous.  Climbing out is getting trickier and trickier.  You may not be able to move in response to a changing enviornment around you, because you're stuck in a hole. Now make the hole 10 feet.  Now you can't reach the edges.  Now you're in trouble.  You have lost all mobility.  You can't get out under your own power.  Now if something bad happens (such as losing your job or a sudden health issue), you can't move around to solve the problem. This is the issue that arise from underwater mortgages.  Say you lose your job because the job market in your area dried up (think Detroit in the big auto manufacturer crash).  You need to move.  You are legally endebted to a lender for your existing underwater house by more than you can sell it for.  You need to pay for the privilege to sell it.  You still owe payments on it, so if you just buy a new house (or rent) in the new state, you're paying for twice as much property.  You can't just shuffle the underwaterness from your old house to your new house because the new lender has no interest in giving a loan for more than the value of the new home. The only options you have to play with is renting the old house, which many underwater families did, or bankrupcy.  If the area you were in is depressed, you may not be able to rent the house for enough to cover your mortgage.  This is the fear of being underwater.  You have a piece of paper which claims some lender can take money from you that you may or may not have, and that the US government will allow them to take your assets, if need be, to settle the score. If you're underwater by a few thousand, it's typically not a big deal.  If you're underwater by 80 or 90 thousand dollars, which some people were, that's a lot of money to be endebted for without the assets to recover them. If you subscribe to the realtor story that the market will recover, all you have to do is scrape by, holding on, until the market rises again.  However, those who are underwater recognize that the reason much of this occurred is that we entered a bubble because realtors kept saying the market could only go up.  Fool me once...."}
{"question":"Does buying and selling a stock OR holding onto it make a company look better?","answer":"Not sure I fully understand your question but my take on it is this: There a lot of people out there that admire companies and own the stock just because they like the company. For example, I know some kids who own Disney stock. They only have a share or two but they keep it because they want to say \"I own a part of Disney.\"  Realistically speaking, if they hold or sell the stock it is so minuscule to have any realizable affect on the overall value of the stock which does not really make the company look better from an investor perspective. However, if a company has people that just want to own the stock just like your uncle are indeed \"better\" because they must have provided a product or service that is valued intrinsically."}
{"question":"Is it better for a public company to increase its dividends, or institute a share buyback?","answer":"I would prefer a dividend paying company, rather than share appreciation. And I would prefer that the dividends increase over time."}
{"question":"What is the buy-hold-sell indication based on?","answer":"The indication is based on the average Buy-Hold-Sell rating of a group of fundamental analysts. The individual analysts provide a Buy, Hold or Sell recommendation based on where the current price of the stock is compared to the perceived value of the stock by the analyst.  Note that this perceived value is based on many assumptions by the analyst and their biased view of the stock. That is why different fundamental analysts provide different values and different recommendations on the same stock. So basically if the stock's price is below the analyst's perceived value it will be given a Buy recommendation, if the price is equal with the perceived value it will be given a Hold recommendation and if the price is more than the perceived value it will be given a Sell recommendation. As the others have said this information IMHO is useless."}
{"question":"Is selling put options an advisable strategy for a retiree to generate stable income?","answer":"No.  In good years, the income seems free. In a down year, particularly a bad one, the investor will be subject to large losses that will prove the strategy a bad one.  On the other hand, one often hears of the strategy of selling puts on stock you would like to own. If the stock rises, you keep the premium, if it drops, you own it at a bit of a discount from that starting point."}
{"question":"Stock dividends effect on dividend received by shareholder","answer":"Dividend rate is \"dividend per share\" over a specified time period, usually a year. So in the first example, if the company paid a $1\/share dividend over the year before the stock dividend the shareholder would receive $100, while if it paid the $1\/share the year after the stock dividend the shareholder would receive $105. The company could have achieved the same thing by paying total dividends of $1.05\/share, which is what the last phrase of the last quoted paragraph is saying. Here's an Investopedia page on dividend rate. Also, what you're calling \"payout ratio\" is really \"dividend yield\". \"Payout ratio\" is how much of the company's net earnings are paid out in dividends. That's all in the US, I could see the terms being used differently outside the US."}
{"question":"How does a online only bank protect itself against fraud? ","answer":"Much of what you're asking will not be disclosed for obvious security reasons, so don't be surprised when call center people say they \"don't know\".  They may actually not know, but even if they did, they'd be fired if they were to say anything.  Nothing could be a touchier subject than online security for the financial institutions. I don't know of reliable sources for the data you're asking about, and I don't know the banks or other firms would release it.  For a bank to talk about its incidence rates of fraud would be unusual, because none of these institutions wants to appear \"less safe\" than their competitors.  If there's any information out there then it's going to be pretty vague.  None of these institutions wants the \"bad guys\" to know what their degree of success is against one bank versus any other.  I hope that makes sense. The smaller banks usually piggyback their data on the networks of the larger financial institutions, so they are as secure (as a general rule) as the larger banks' networks they're running on.  Also, your transactions on your credit cards are not generally handled directly by your bank anyway, unless it's one of the big heavyweights like Chase or Bank of America.  All transactions run through merchant processors, who act as intermediaries between merchants and the banks, and those guys are pretty damned good at security.  I've met some of the programmers, and they're impressive to me (I've been a programmer for 35 years and can't put a finger on these guys!). Most banks require that you must provide proof of identity when opening an account, and that ID must me the standards of the \"USA Real ID Act\".  Here's an excerpt from the Department of Homeland Security website on what Real ID is: Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9\/11 Commission\u2019s recommendation that the Federal Government \"set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.\" The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver\u2019s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. States have made considerable progress in meeting this key recommendation of the 9\/11 Commission and every state has a more secure driver\u2019s license today than before the passage of the Act. In order for banks to qualify for FDIC protection, they must comply with the Real ID standards when opening accounts. As with any business (especially online), the most effective way to minimize fraud is vigilant monitoring of data.  Banks and other online financial entities have become very adept at pattern analysis and simply knowing where and what to look for when dealing with their customers.  There are certainly sophisticated measures which are kept carefully out of the public eye for doing this, and obviously they're good at it.  They have to be, right? There's no way to completely eliminate fraud -- too much incentive exists for the \"bad guys\" to not constantly search for new ways to run their schemes, and the good guys will always be at the disadvantage, because there's no way to anticipate everything anyone might come up with.  Just look at online viruses and malware.  Your antivirus software can only deal with what it knows about, and the bad guys are always coming up with some new variant that gets past the filters until the antivirus maker learns of it and comes up with a way to deal with it. Your question's a good one to ponder, and I wouldn't want to be the chief of internet security for a bank or online institution, because I'd lay awake at night pondering when the call's going to come that we finally ran out of luck! (grin) I hope this was helpful. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Saving for a down payment on a new house, a few years out. Where do we put our money next?","answer":"If you're absolutely certain that you won't buy a house within a year or so, I'd still be tempted to put some of the money into short-term CDs (ie, a max of 12 months). I think that at the moment CDs are a bit of a mug's game though because you'd hardly find one that offers better interest rates than some of the few savings accounts that still offer 1%+ interest. A savings account is probably where I'd put the money unless I could find a really good deal on a CD, but I think you might have to check if they've got withdrawal limits. There are a couple of savings accounts out there that pay at least 1% (yes, I know it's pitiful) so I'd seek out one or two of those. From memory, both Sallie Mae and Amex offer those and I'm sure there are a couple more. It's not great that your money is growing at less than inflation but if you're saving for something like a downpayment on a house I would think that (nominal) capital preservation is probably more important than the potential for a higher return with the associated higher risk."}
{"question":"What are the marks of poor investment advice?","answer":"I would also consider unnecessarily complex investment strategies a big warning sign as they can easily hide poor investment advice or a bad strategy. This is especially the case when it comes to retail investment as complex strategies can have so many moving parts that you, as someone with a day job, can't spend enough time on it to keep an eye on everything and you only spot issues when it's too late. Other bugbears:"}
{"question":"What are the risks with ETFs with relatively low market caps?","answer":"Market cap probably isn't as big of an issue as the bid\/ask spread and the liquidity, although they tend to be related. The spread is likely to be wider on lesser traded ETF funds we are talking about pennies, likely not an issue unless you are trading in and out frequently. The expense ratios will also tend to be slightly higher again not a huge issue but it might be a consideration. You are unlikely to make up the cost of paying the commission to buy into a larger ETF any time soon though."}
{"question":"Why does it look like my 401k loan default was not paid by my 401k account balance?","answer":"When you leave an employer, 401(k) loans are immediately due (or within 30 days or 60 days). So maybe they are waiting to see if you will pay off your loan. If you wanted to transfer the loan as well, you need to talk to your new 401(k) plan administrator to find out if this even possible. If they say No and you don't pay off the loan, it will count as a premature distribution from your old 401(k) plan and possibly be subject to excise tax in addition to income tax."}
{"question":"For how long is a draft check valid, and where do the funds sit?","answer":"To answer length validity and security implications of draft checks issued and negotiated within the United States, I am heavily addressing the common erroneous assumptions of where the funds sit while they're \"in\" a draft check and how to get them out. Tl;Dr The existing answers are incomplete and in some ways dangerously misleading. Jerry can still be potentially defrauded by Tom, and even if the check is legitimately drawn and negotiable, Jerry may still experience delayed access to the funds. The funds sit in an account held by the issuing bank. As long as the bank has sufficient funds, the check does. However, there are significantly more factors that go into whether a check will be returned unpaid (\"bounce\"). If I hand you $5000 in cash, will you give me $5000 in cash? Probably, and you'd probably be pretty safe. How about I give you a $5000 draft check, will you give me $5000 in cash without doing anything except looking at it to verify the check? I hope not (Cash America sure wouldn't) but people sell expensive goods with the \"same as cash\" attitude. Remember: The only non-cash form of payment which cannot somehow be held, reversed or returned unpaid in the U.S. without consent of the receiving party is a payment order (a.k.a wire transfer)! The draft check is \"as good as cash\" in the sense that the money for a draft check is withdrawn from your account before the check is negotiated (deposited). This does NOT mean that a draft check will not bounce, so Jerry is NOT as secure in handing the goods to Tom as if Tom had handed him cash, as it is still a check. Jerry's bank will not receive the funds for Tom's draft check for an average 3 to 5 business days, same as a personal check. Jerry will probably have access to the first $5000 within two business days... provided that he deposits the draft check in person at his bank's branch or in a bank-owned ATM. In the United States, Regulation CC governs funds availability. Regarding official, draft, or tellers checks: \"If the customer desires next-day availability of funds from these checks, [your bank] may require use of a special deposit slip.\"  Mobile deposit availability in the U.S. is NOT regulated in this way and will likely be subject to a longer hold on more, if not all, of the check! Draft checks, don't, as a habit, \"bounce\" in the colloquial sense of \"returned for insufficient funds.\" This is because they are prepaid and drawn upon a financial institution's account. Banks are insolvent far less frequently than other businesses or individuals. Draft checks, tellers checks, official checks, bank checks, etc CAN, however, be returned unpaid if one of the following is true: As an aside: an institution is not obligated to honor a stale dated check, but may do so at its discretion. If you have a personal check outstanding for over 6 months, it may still clear and potentially overdraw your account. In this case, contact your bank ASAP to process a reversal. The depositing bank mis-scans the check and the issuing bank refuses the resulting data. I have seen systems mis-read which data field is which, or its contents. Also, there is the possibility the image if the check will be illegible to the issuing bank. The draft check has been cancelled (stop paid). This can happen if:  a) The check was fraudulently bought from the issuing bank using Tom's account  b) Tom has completed an indemnification agreement that the check was lost or otherwise not used for its intended purpose, without fraud having occurred against Tom c) The draft check is escheated (paid to the state as unclaimed property). This case is a subset of case 1, but will lead to a different return reason stamped on the (image replacement document of) the check. The draft check was never any good in the first place. Because of the perception that draft checks are as good as cash (they're not but are a lot better than personal checks), forgery and attempted fraud is shockingly common. These aren't actually underwritten by a real bank, even if they appear to be. The only money \"in\" them is what the fraudster can get out of you. Jerry did not properly endorse the check before presenting it for deposit or otherwise negotiating it. In my time in banking, I most commonly saw cases 3 and 4. Unlike most counterfeit cash, case 3 will fool Jerry and Jerry's teller. Tom gets an immediate payout (a car, a wire transfer, a payday loan, etc) and Jerry's bank doesn't know the check isn't valid until they call the alleged issuing bank to verify its negotiability, or in the case of smaller checks into lower-risk accounts, it is simply returned unpaid as fraudulently drawn. To conclude: Call the alleged issuing bank's verification line before handing over the goods, always properly endorse your deposits, and address what happens if one does not receive or collect on prompt payment in your contracts."}
{"question":"How is not paying off mortgage better in normal circumstances?","answer":"The reason is that although the American economy is functioning normally, mortgage rates are stupid-low, and are below a prudent expectation of long-term (30 year) rates of return in the market.   I manage endowments, so I say \"prudent\" in the context of endowment investment, which is the picture of caution and subject to UPMIFA law (the P being prudent).    What's more, there are tax benefits.  Yes, you pay 15% long-term capital gains tax on investment income.  But your mortgage interest is tax deductible at your \"tax bracket\" rate of 25, 28 or 33% - this being the tax you would pay on your next dollar of earned income.  And in the early years of a mortgage, mortgage payments are nearly 100% interest.  So even if it's a wash: you gain $10k in the market but pay $10k in mortgage interest -- you pay $1500 tax on the gains, but the interest deduction redudes tax by $2800. So you are still $1300 ahead.   TLDR: the government pays us to do this."}
{"question":"RSU vested recently","answer":"ML is a brokerage firm. Tell them to sell. If you can't or don't know how to do it on-line - call them and do it over the phone. Your citizenship might come in effect when tax are withheld, you need to fill form W8-BEN if you haven't done so yet. If US taxes are withheld, you can file 1040NR to request refund, or get it credited against your local tax liabilities."}
{"question":"Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing","answer":"Great questions -- the fact that you're thinking about it is what's most important. I think a priority should be maximizing any employer match in your 401(k) because it's free money. Second would be paying off high interest debt because it's a big expense. Everything else is a matter of setting good financial habits so I think the order of importance will vary from person to person. (That's why I ordered the priorities the way I did: employer matching is the easiest way to get more income with no additional work, and paying down high-interest debt is the best way to lower your long-term expenses.) After that, continue to maximize your income and savings, and be frugal with your expenses. Avoid debt. Take a vacation once in a while, too!"}
{"question":"What are good games to play to teach young children about saving money?","answer":"I've found that good old fashioned \"Monopoly\" teaches children about cash flow, mortgaging properties, and paying income taxes."}
{"question":"In a reverse split, what happens to odd lots?","answer":"Usually five shares and some cash."}
{"question":"Does payment in goods count as \"income\" for tax purposes?","answer":"The IRS defines income quite specifically. On the topic What is Taxable and Nontaxable Income, they note: You can receive income in the form of money, property, or services. This section discusses many kinds of income that are taxable or nontaxable. It includes discussions on employee wages and fringe benefits, and income from bartering, partnerships, S corporations, and royalties.  Bartering, or giving someone wages (or similar) in something other than currency (or some other specifically defined things, like fringe benefits), is taxed at fair market value: Bartering Bartering is an exchange of property or services. You must include in your income, at the time received, the fair market value of property or services you receive in bartering. For additional information, Refer to Tax Topic 420 - Bartering Income and Barter Exchanges. Bartering is more specifically covered in Topic 420 - Bartering Income: You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods or services received from bartering. Generally, you report this income on Form 1040, Schedule C (PDF), Profit or Loss from Business (Sole Proprietorship), or Form 1040, Schedule C-EZ (PDF), Net Profit from Business (Sole Proprietorship). If you failed to report this income, correct your return by filing a Form 1040X (PDF), Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Refer to Topic 308 for information on filing an amended return. More details about income in general beyond the above articles is available in Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income.  It goes into great detail about different kinds of income. In your example, you'd have to calculate the fair market value of an avocado, and then determine how much cash-equivalent you were paid in.  The IRS wouldn't necessarily tell you what that value was; you'd calculate it based on something you feel you could justify to them afterwards.  The way I'd do it would be to write down the price of avocados at each pay period, and apply a dollar-cost-averaging type method to determine the total pay's fair value.   While the avocado example is of course largely absurd, the advent of bitcoins has made this much more relevant.  Publication 525 has this to say about virtual currency: Virtual Currency.   If your employer gives you virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) as payment for your services, you must include the fair market value of the currency in your income. The fair market value of virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) paid as wages is subject to federal income tax withholding, Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) tax, and Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax and must be reported on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. Gold would be fundamentally similar - although I am not sure it's legal to pay someone in gold; assuming it were, though, its fair market value would be again the definition of income.  Similarly, if you're paid in another country's currency, the US dollar equivalent of that is what you'll pay taxes on, at the fair market value of that currency in US dollars."}
{"question":"Definition of \"secular\" in the context of markets?","answer":"Secular means a long term.  A secular basis is something done on a long term basis while a secular trend is a long term trend. http:\/\/financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com\/Secular"}
{"question":"Is it possible for me to keep my credit card APR at 0% permanently?","answer":"If you pay your statement balance in full before the due date you will never pay a cent in interest no matter what your interest rate is.*  In fact, I don't even know what my interest rates are. Credit card companies offer this sort of thing in the hopes you will spend more than you can afford to pay completely in those first 15 months.  * Unless you use a cash advance, with those you will accrue interest immediately upon receiving the cash sometimes with an additional fee on top."}
{"question":"Dividends - Why the push to reinvest?","answer":"Three major advantages that I can think of (and some of these have been pointed out in comments):"}
{"question":"Does home equity grow with the investment put into the house?","answer":"In short, your scenario could work in theory, but is not realistic... Generally speaking, you can borrow up to some percentage of the value of the property, usually 80-90% though it can vary based on many factors.  So if your property currently has a value of $100k, you could theoretically borrow a total of $80-90k against it.  So how much you can get at any given time depends on the current value as compared to how much you owe.  A simple way to ballpark it would be to use this formula: (CurrentValue * PercentageAllowed) - CurrentMortgageBalance = EquityAvailable.     If your available equity allowed you to borrow what you wanted, and you then applied it to additions\/renovations, your base property value would (hopefully) increase.  However as other people mentioned, you very rarely get a value increase that is near what you put into the improvements, and it is not uncommon for improvements to have no significant impact on the overall value.  Just because you like something about your improvements doesn't mean the market will agree. Just for the sake of argument though, lets say you find the magic combination of improvements that increases the property value in line with their cost.  If such a feat were accomplished, your $40k improvement on a $100k property would mean it is now worth $140k.  Let us further stipulate that your $40k loan to fund the improvements put you at a 90% loan to value ratio.  So prior to starting the improvements you owed $90k on a $100k property.  After completing the work you would owe $90k on what is now a $140k property, putting you at a loan to value ratio of ~64%.  Meaning you theoretically have 26% equity available to borrow against to get back to the 90% level, or roughly $36k.  Note that this is 10% less than the increase in the property value.  Meaning that you are in the realm of diminishing returns and each iteration through this process would net you less working capital. The real picture is actually a fair amount worse than outlined in the above ideal scenario as we have yet to account for any of the costs involved in obtaining the financing or the decreases in your credit score which would likely accompany such a pattern.  Each time you go back to the bank asking for more money, they are going to charge you for new appraisals and all of the other fees that come out at closing.  Also each time you ask them for more money they are going to rerun your credit, and see the additional inquires and associated debt stacking up, which in turn drops your score, which prompts the banks to offer higher interest rates and\/or charge higher fees... Also, when a bank loans against a property that is already securing another debt, they are generally putting themselves at the back of the line in terms of their claim on the property in case of default.  In my experience it is very rare to find a lender that is willing to put themselves third in line, much less any farther back.  Generally if you were to ask for such a loan, the bank would insist that the prior commitments be paid off before they would lend to you.  Meaning the bank that you ask for the $36k noted above would likely respond by saying they will loan you $70k provided that $40k of it goes directly to paying off the previous equity line."}
{"question":"When can you use existing real estate as collateral to buy more?","answer":"You put 20% down and already owe the 80% or $80k, so you don't have the ability to borrow $100k or even $20k for that matter. As LittleAdv stated, the banks have really tightened their lending criteria. Borrowing out more than 80% carries a high premium if you can get it at all.  In your example, you want the property to increase in value by at least 10% to borrow $10K."}
{"question":"Dad paying for my new home in cash. How can I buy the house from him?","answer":"There are quite some options, but without additional information, I can only provide examples. Last year I had the option to buy a house, but I decided against it because in my area it is getting harder and harder every year to sell it at a reasonable price. But if I had bought a house, my mother would have lent me the money, with me paying it back to her over the years on 3% interest. So it would have been some kind of a private loan. But my mom would never have taken ownership of the house, since it was not her intention to own it in any way. (Does your dad intend to own the house and rent it to you? If yes, and if you are comfortable with renting instead of buying, then this is an option.) The second option, the one we discarded because of the additional cost, is that I could have taken a loan, paying 4.5% interest to the bank, which would then pay under 1% to my mom, and keep the rest. Banks always want to make profit, and this profit has to come from somewhere - from the difference between the interest rates. If your dad has 230k on the bank, and you owe 230k to the bank, you are better off if you keep the bank out - at least as long as your dad is comfortable with lending you money, and you are comfortable with owing him money. (my gf would never borough money from her mother, because her mother would always play the \"you are in my debt\" card - on each and every visit, and whenever she needed help in any way...) So the key is: What does your dad feel comfy with - and what do you feel comfy with. If possible, keep the banks out, but set up a written contract between you and your dad."}
{"question":"Found an old un-cashed paycheck. How long is it good for? What to do if it's expired?","answer":"The two banks involved may have different policies about honoring the check. It might not be written on the check.  Your bank may decide that the stale check has to be treated differently and will withhold funds for a longer period of time before giving you access to the money. They will give time for the first bank to refuse to honor the check. They may be concerned about insufficient funds, the age of the check, and the fact that the original account could have been closed. If you are concerned about the age of the check. You could go to your bank in person, instead of using deposit by ATM, scanner, or smart phone. This allows you to talk to a knowledgeable person. And if they are going to treat the check differently or reject the check, they can let you know right away. The audit may not have been concerned about the fact that the check hadn't been cashed because when they did the audit the check was still considered fresh. Some companies will contact you eventually to reissue the check so you they can get the liability off their books.  If the bank does refuse the check contact the company to see how you can get a replacement check issued. They may want proof the check can't be cashed so they don't have to worry about paying you twice."}
{"question":"Risks associated with investing in dividend paying stocks for short term income. Alternatives?","answer":"I wouldn't focus too much on dividends itself; at the end of the day what matters is total gain, because you can convert capital gain into income by selling your assets (they have different tax implications, but generally capital gains tend to be more tax efficient).    I think the more important question is how much volatility you can tolerate. Since your investment horizon is short & your risk tolerance is low (as in if you suddenly get much lower income than you planned from your investment you'll be in trouble), you probably want assets that have low volatility.   To achieve that, I'd consider the following if I were you: tl;dr If I were you I'd just hold a general investment portfolio with a lower risk profile rather than focusing on dividend generating assets."}
{"question":"What forms do I need to fill out for a super basic LLC closing?","answer":"If it is a sole proprietorship and  you didn't make another mistake by explicitly asking the IRS to treat it as a corporation - there are no IRS forms to fill. You'll need to dissolve the LLC with your State, though, check the State's department of State\/Corporations (depending on the State, the names of the departments dealing with business entities vary)."}
{"question":"I can't understand candlestick shadows","answer":"Each candlestick in a candlestick chart represents the open, close, high and low for a period of time. If you are looking at a daily chart it represents the open price, close price, high price and low price for that day. If you are looking at an hourly chart, then a single candlestick represents the open, close, high and low prices for an hour. If looking at a weekly chart, then a single candlestick will represent the opening price on Monday morning, the closing price on Friday afternoon, and the highest and lowest price for that week. The diagram below represents the two main types of candle sticks.  When the price closes higher than they open for the period of the candlestick it is called a bullish candle and the main body is usually represented in green. When the price closes lower than they open for the period of the candlestick it is called a bearish candle and the main body is usually represented in red. In a bullish candle with a large real body and small shadows or wicks, where prices open near the low of the period and close near the top of the period, it represents a very bullish period (especially if volume is high). An example of this situation could be when good news is released to the market and most market participants want to buy the shares driving prices higher during the period. An example of a bullish candle with a small real body and a large upper shadow or wick could be when market participants start buying early during the period, then some negative news comes out or prices reach a major resistance level, then prices drop from their highs but still close higher than the open. The large upper shadow represents some indecision in prices moving higher. In a bearish candle with a large real body and small shadows or wicks, where prices open near the high of the period and close near the low of the period, it represents a very bearish period (especially if volume is high). An example of this situation could be when bad news is released to the market and most market participants want to sell the shares driving prices lower during the period. An example of a bearish candle with a small real body and a large lower shadow or wick could be when market participants start selling early during the period, then some positive news comes out or prices reach a major support level, then prices move up from their lows but still close lower than the open. The large lower shadow represents some indecision in prices moving lower. These are just some examples of what can be derived from looking at candlestick charts. There are plenty more and too much to include in this answer.  Another type of candle is the Doji, represented in the diagram below.  The Doji Candle represents indecision in the market. Prices open then move up to the high of the period then start falling past the open before reversing again and closing either at the open or very close to the open. The market participants can't decide whether the price should move up or down, so prices end up closing very close to where they opened. A doji Candle close to a market high or low could represent a turning point in the short term trend and could mean that over the next period or two prices could reverse and go in the opposite direction. There are many more definitions for candlestick charts, and I would recommend an introductory book on candlestick charting, like one from the \"Dummies\" series. The main things to keep in mind as a beginner it that a strong bullish candle with small shadows and large real body could represent further price movement upwards, a strong bearish candle with small shadows and large real body could represent further movement downwards, and any candle with large shadows could represent indecision and a reversal from the direction of the large shadow."}
{"question":"When does it make sense for the money paid for equity to go to the corporation?","answer":"BigCo is selling new shares and receives the money from Venturo. If Venturo is offering $250k for 25% of the company, then the valuation that they are agreeing on is a value of $1m for the company after the new investment is made.  If Jack is the sole owner of one million shares before the new investment, then BigCo sells 333,333 shares to Venturo for $250k.  The new total number of shares of BigCo is 1,333,333; Venturo holds 25%, and Jack holds 75%. The amount that Jack originally invested in the company is irrelevant.  At the moment of the sale, the Venturo and Jack agree that Jack's stake is worth $750k.  The value of Jack's stake may have gone up, but he owes no capital gains tax, because he hasn't realized any of his gains yet.  Jack hasn't sold any of his stake.  You might think that he has, because he used to hold 100% and now he holds 75%.  However, the difference is that the company is worth more than was before the sale.  So the value of his stake was unchanged immediately before and after the sale. Jack agrees to this because the company needs this additional capital in order to meet its potential. (See \"Why is stock dilution legal?\") For further explanation and another example of this, see the question \"If a startup receives investment money, does the startup founder\/owner actually gain anything?\" Your other scenario, where Venturo purchases existing shares directly from Jack, is not practical in this situation.  If Jack sells his existing shares, you are correct that the company does not gain any additional capital.  An investor would not want to invest in the company this way, because the company is struggling and needs new capital."}
{"question":"Why do the 1 and 2 euro cent coins exist and why are they used?","answer":"I guess other than tradition and inflation, probably because the merchants want them.   In the US, what currently costs $2.00 used to cost $0.10.   So 75 years ago, those individual cents made a pretty bid difference.  Inflation causes prices to go up, but doesn't get us to just change our currencies patterns. In your example, you are assuming that in an average day, the rounding errors you are willing to accept happen a couple of times.  2 or 3 cents here and there mean nothing to you.  However to the merchant, doing hundreds or thousands of transactions per day, those few cents up and down mean quite a bit in terms of profit. To an individual, looking at a time frame more than a single day (because who only participates in economies for a single day) there are potentially millions of transactions in a lifetime, mean potentially giving away millions of dollars because they didn't want to wait. And as for the comment that people working each 3 cents every 10 seconds, I would assume at least some of the time when they are waiting for rounding errors, they are not at work getting paid.  That concept is assuming that somebody is always willing to pay them for their time regardless of where that person is in the world; I have no facts and wild assumptions, but surely that can't be true for even a majority of workers. Finally, you should be happy if you happy to have an income high enough that you don't care about individual cents.  But there are those business people who see opportunity in folks like you and profit greatly from it.  I personally worry very much about who has my money; gov't gets paid to the penny and I expect returns to the penny.  A super polite service employee who smiled a lot serving me a beer is getting all the rounding errors I have."}
{"question":"Should I sell my stocks when the stock hits a 52-week high in order to \"Buy Low, Sell High\"?","answer":"Buy low, sell high. I think a lot of people apply that advice wrongly. Instead of using this as advice about when to buy and when to sell, you should use it as advice about when not to buy and when not to sell. Don't buy when P\/Es cannot support the current stock price. Don't sell when stocks have already fallen due to a market panic. Don't follow the herd or you will get trampled when they reverse direction in a panic.  If you are smart enough to sell ahead of the panics, more power to you, but you should be using more than a 52-week high on a graph to make that decision."}
{"question":"Price Earnings Ratio","answer":"The P\/E ratio is a measure of historic (the previous financial year) earnings against the current share price. If the P\/E is high, this means that the market perceives a big increase in future earnings per share.  In other words, the perception is that this is a fast growing company.  Higher earnings may also equate to big increases in dividends and rapid expansion.  On the other hand, if the P\/E is low, then there is a perception that either earnings per share are decreasing or that future growth in earnings is negligible.  In other words, low P\/E equates to a perception of low future growth and therefore low prospects for future payout increases - possibly even decreases. The market is (rightly) usually willing to pay a premium for fast growing companies."}
{"question":"What is a \"fiat\" currency? Are there other types of currency?","answer":"In short. A fiat currency is money that has value only because (usually) a government says it does.  A counter example (non-fiat currency) is a gold coin that has intrinsic value usually because it is made of valuable materials that people would trade goods\/services. That is the value comes from what you are holding more than what it represents."}
{"question":"Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value?","answer":"To summarize, there are three basic ways: (3) is the truly dangerous one. If there is a lot of short interest in a stock, but for some reason the stock goes up, suddenly a lot of people will be scrambling to buy that stock to cover their short position -- which will drive the price up even further, making the problem worse.  Pretty soon, a bunch of smart rich guys will be poor guys who are suddenly very aware that they aren't as smart as they thought they were.  Eight years ago, such a \"short squeeze\", as it's called, made the price of VW quadruple in two days.  You could hear the Heinies howl from Hamburg to Haldenwanger. There are ways to protect yourself, of course.  You can go short but also buy a call at a much higher price, thereby limiting your exposure, a strategy called a \"straddle\", but you also reduce your profit if you guessed right. It comes down to, as it always does, do you want to eat well, or to sleep well?"}
{"question":"Is there any way to attach a statement of explanation while submitting a tax return electronically using Free Fillable Forms?","answer":"Depending on what you need to explain, you can submit your electronic return without the supplemental information and subsequently mail a Form 8453 with the additional information.  This is helpful for form 8489, for example, where you need to list every transaction reported by your stock broker on a 1099-B.  See https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/f8453.pdf for more details on this form. If the information you need to submit an attachment for doesn't follow one of the options on that form, you will likely need to file a paper return or use a paid tax preparation service\/application. Limitations of FreeFile are explained here, along with a list of forms that are available: https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/uac\/List-of-Available-Free-File-Fillable-Forms The \"Attaching Statements\" and \"Write-in information\" sections seem like they might apply to your situation. Attaching Statements - If you need to add statements and you can't use Form 8453, U.S. Individual Income Tax Transmittal for an IRS e-file Return, to mail that information, you will not be able to use this program to efile your return Identity Protection PIN's (IP PIN) - This program only supports the entry of a Primary taxpayer's IP PIN. If the spouse or dependents have an IP PIN, you cannot use this program to efile the return. Writing In Information - Your ability to \"write in\" additional information to explain an entry is generally limited to the 1040 forms and some of the more frequently submitted forms. If you need to write in additional information on a form, other than the 1040 series, you may not be able to use this program to efile your tax return. E-filing Forms - To efile forms, (except Form 4868) they must be attached to a 1040 series form (1040, 1040A or 1040EZ). Form Limitations - There may be Known Limitations of forms you plan to complete. Please review them. A form limitation may keep you from completing or e-filing your return."}
{"question":"Is it a good idea to get an unsecured loan to pay off a credit card that won't lower a high rate?","answer":"I think it depends on how you're approaching paying off the credit card. If you're doing some sort of debt snowball and\/or throw all available cash at the card, it's not likely to matter much. If you're paying a set amount close to the minimum each month then you're probably better off getting a loan, use it to pay off the card and cut up the card. Well, I'd do the latter in either case... Mathematically it would matter if the interest rate on the card is 10%-15% higher than the personal loan but if you're throwing every spare dime at the card and the some, it might not matter. Another option if you have the discipline to pay the debt off quickly is to see if you can find a card with a cheap balance transfer, move the balance over and close the inflexible card."}
{"question":"Why trade futures if you have options","answer":"That question makes assumptions that don't hold in general As to why to deal with futures:  Well, there's just one contract per maturity date, not a whole chain of contracts (options come at different strike prices).  That in turn means that all the liquidity is in that one contract and not scattered across the chain. Then, moreover, it depends what underlying contracts you're talking about.  Often, especially when dealing with commodities, there is no option chain on the spot product but only options on the futures contracts. In summary, the question is somewhat bogus.  Options and futures evolved historically and independently, and were not meant to be substitutable by one another.  So their rights and obligations are just a historical by-product and not their defining feature.  I suggest you refine it to a specific asset class."}
{"question":"Pros & cons of buying gold directly vs. investing in a gold ETF like GLD, IAU, SGOL?","answer":"If you want to speculate on gold price you should always buy an ETF\/ETC (Exchange Traded Commodity). The reasons are simple: Easy to buy and sell (one mouse click) Cheap to buy and sell (small bank commission), compared to buy real gold (always 6 to 12% comission to the local shop when you buy and when you sell), see this one it's one cheap gold buy\/sell shop I found on the internet But if you sometimes feel unsecure that you might one day loose everything due to a major economy collapse event (like an armageddon), or not to have enough money in bad periods or during retirment, and it makes you feel better to know you buried 999 Gold Sovereign in your house backyard (along with a rifle as suggested in comments), then just buy them and live an happy life (as long as you hide your gold in good ways and write a good treasury map)."}
{"question":"Should I pay more than 20% down on a home?","answer":"Leverage increase returns, but also risks, ie, the least you can pay, the greater the opportunity to profit, but also the greater the chance you will be underwater. Leverage is given by the value of your asset (the house) over the equity you put down. So, for example, if the house is worth 100k and you put down 20k, then the leverage is 5 (another way to look at it is to see that the leverage is the inverse of the margin - or percentage down payment - so 1\/0.20 = 5). The return on your investment will be magnified by the amount of your leverage. Suppose the value of your house goes up by 10%. Had you paid your house in full, your return would be 10%, or 10k\/100k. However, if you had borrowed 80 dollars and your leverage was 5, as above, a 10% increase in the value of your house means you made a profit of 10k on a 20k investment, a return of 50%, or 10k\/20k*100. As I said, your return was magnified by the amount of your leverage, that is, 10% return on the asset times your leverage of 5 = 50%. This is because all the profit of the house price appreciation goes to you, as the value of your debt does not depend on the value of the house. What you borrowed from the bank remains the same, regardless of whether the price of the house changed. The problem is that the amplification mechanism also works in reverse. If the price of the house falls by 10%, it means now you only have 10k equity. If the price falls enough your equity is wiped out and you are underwater, giving you an incentive to default on your loan. In summary, borrowing tends to be a really good deal: heads you win, tails the bank loses (or as happened in the US, the taxpayer loses)."}
{"question":"Tracking my spending, and incoming and outgoing (i.e cashflow)","answer":"Systems to research that may help you out: Less Accounting and Wave are great because they can import data from banks \/ credit cards. I know you said your bank doesn't export it but it seems like something as a small business you would want."}
{"question":"Buying a House and Taking Part of 20% to move initial payment date forward","answer":"In the prior PMI discussions here, it's been stated that the bank is not obligated to remove PMI until the mortgage's natural amortization puts the debt at 78% LTV. So, paying in advance like this will not automatically remove the PMI.  Nor will a lump sum payment be certain to move the next payment ahead a year. If it's entered as a principal prepayment, the next month's payment is still due. In the world of coupon books, if you sent in a year's payments, you'd not benefit from the interest saved, in one year you'd owe what the amortization table tells you.  There's no free lunch when it comes to mortgages or finance in general. This is why we usually caution that one should not be cash poor the day after buying a house. Best to save 30%, put down 20%, and have a cushion after the closing."}
{"question":"Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?","answer":"One of many things to consider is that in the United States student loan interest is tax deductible. That fact could change the math enough to make it worth putting A's money elsewhere depending on his interest rate and income bracket."}
{"question":"Potential pitfalls of this volume trading strategy","answer":"I wouldn't be turned off due to the difficult of parsing English, for a few reasons. Firstly, you don't have to perfectly parse to find meaning.  You can look for keywords and write some algorithms to approximate, and of course if you get enough of a statistical advantage (and can repeat it) you can make money. Second, it probably isn't long before third-party software is made available either to do something like this or to provide a framework for it.  In fact, it probably already is available somewhere.  (Note the influx of Silicon Valley types to New York as more machine intelligence is applied to trading and journalism.) Thirdly, as hinted by the mention above of journalism, there's already software using numerical data to write pretty human articles.  Some are pretty robotic and you can catch them (I noticed one and searched for a key phrase to discover several very much like it, each having a different fake author name).  This will mean not only a continued improvement of parsing but also more push for more data to be released in machine-readable formats, such that press releases will be increasingly parsible. Finally, to vindicate your idea, the keyword approach has been done with some success.  Try this link and note the additional links on the same topic. If you have the time and processing resources, you might like to try your idea by training a neural network to find correlations of keywords (and phrases -- that's important, too) with trends in the market."}
{"question":"Pros \/ cons of being more involved with IRA investments [duplicate]","answer":"diversifying; but isn't that what mutual funds already do? They diversify and reduce stock-specific risk by moving from individual stocks to many stocks, but you can diversify even further by selecting different fund types (e.g. large-cal, small-cap, fixed- income (bond) funds, international, etc.).  Your target-date fund probably includes a few different types already, and will automatically reallocate to less risky investments as you get close to the target date. I would look at the fees of different types of funds, and compare them to the historical returns of those funds.  You can also use things like morningstar and other ratings as guides, but they are generally very large buckets and may not be much help distinguishing between individual funds. So to answer the question, yes you can diversify further - and probably get better returns (and lower fees) that a target-date fund.  The question is - is it worth your time and effort to do so?  You're obviously comfortable investing for the long-term, so you might get some benefit by spending a little time looking for different funds to increase your diversification. Note that ETFs don't really diversify any differently than mutual funds, they are just a different mechanism to invest in funds, and allow different trading strategies (trading during the day, derivatives, selling short, etc.)."}
{"question":"Does dividend on 401K have any effect on gains","answer":"Adjusting for a market change from day to day, the dividend should have no impact on you. Your X shares time $Y should be nearly identical right after that dividend hits the account.  And within the 401(k) or IRA for that matter, the accounting doesn't matter most of the time. Outside a retirement account, you need to pay tax on the dividend, and add the newly purchased shares' cost to your cost basis."}
{"question":"What to do with a 50K inheritance [duplicate]","answer":"**I would encourage you to clear all your debts and remain debt free, then you can consult a financial manager-for investing purposes that fits your needs and goals.  There are so many investment vehicles out, but the best of all is in real estate which requires lots of money.   For your case I would prefer money market funds.  If don't have time for a specialist you just walk into any stock broker and invest in those shares from well established companies with strong fundamentals.  Buy them when undervalued but with long term goals.  Ask the stock broker about bonds and other ways that the government purposes for domestic borrowings.  Etc."}
{"question":"Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits?","answer":"Income is income... it depends how it's structured.. personal or corporate.. but still you need to pay taxes... if you get audited, the tax man could look at your bank statements and ask, \"where is this money coming from\""}
{"question":"What is the PEG ratio? How is the PEG ratio calculated? How is the PEG ratio useful for stock investing?","answer":"PEG is Price\/Earnings to Growth.  It is calculated as Price\/Earnings\/Annual EPS Growth.  It represents how good a stock is to buy, factoring in growth of earnings, which P\/E does not.  Obviously when PEG is lower, a stock is more undervalued, which means that it is a better buy, and more likely to go up. Additional References:"}
{"question":"operating income","answer":"Judgement, settlement, insurance proceeds, etc etc. These would probably be recorded as a negative expense in the same category where the original expense was recorded."}
{"question":"What are the advantages\/disadvantages of a self-directed IRA?","answer":"Our company does a lot of research on the self-directed IRA industry. We also provide financial advice in this area. In short, we have seen a lot in this industry. You mentioned custodian fees. This can be a sore spot for many investors. However, not all custodians are expensive, you should do your research before choosing the best one. Here is a list of custodians to help with your research Here are some of the more common pros and cons that we see. Pros:  1) You can invest in virtually anything that is considered an investment. This is great if your expertise is in an area that cannot be easily invested in with traditional securities, such as horses, private company stock, tax liens and more. 2) Control- you have greater control over your investments. If you invest in GE, it is likely that you will not have much say in the running of their business. However, if you invest in a rental property, you will have a lot of control over how the investment should operate. 3) Invest in what you know. Peter lynch was fond of saying this phrase. Not everyone wants to invest in the stock market. Many people won't touch it because they are not familiar with it. Self-directed IRAs allow you to invest in assets like real estate that you know well. Cons: 1) many alternative investments are illiquid. This can present a problem if you need to access your capital for withdrawals. 2) Prohibited transactions- This is a new area for many investors who are unfamiliar with how self-directed IRAs work 3) Higher fees- in many cases, the fees associated with self-directed IRA custodians and administrators can be higher. 4) questionable investment sponsors tend to target self-directed IRA owners for fraudulent investments. The SEC put out a good PDF about the risks of fraud with self-directed IRAs. Self Directed IRAs are not the right solution for everyone, but they can help certain investors focus on the areas they know well."}
{"question":"What do people mean when they talk about the central bank providing \"cheap money\"? What are the implications for the stock market?","answer":"Newspapers write a lot about the central bank stopping \"cheap money\" in the US. What is that exactly and what are the implications for the stock market? An interest rate is simply defined as the price of money.  So if money is cheap, it must mean there is a low interest rate compared to normal.  If milk is cheap, we're comparing it to past prices or prices at competitors' stores.  Same with money. I don't think its fair to say just because the supply of dollars rises that the value of dollars will go down.  Value or price is determined by supply and demand, not just supply.  Its possible for the demand for dollars to be stronger than the rising supply, which would drive the price higher.  A good example of this is to look at the value of the dollar recently.  The Fed has been printing $85 billion per month, yet the value of them is going up compared to foreign currencies, gold, and just about everything.  Why? Because the Fed has merely threatened to stop, but it hasn't stopped.  That alone was enough to increase demand above supply.  So if you want to know what will happen, take a look at what IS happening. When cheap money ends, the value of the dollar will go up, interest rates will go up.  This will be a drag on the economy.  It will be more difficult for companies to show profits and earnings should decline.  In addition, those who have grown accustom to the easy money and have over-leveraged themselves (ie REITs) could go bankrupt."}
{"question":"Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? ","answer":"What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor? The first priority is an emergency fund. One of the largest expenses of poor people are short-term loans for emergencies. Being able to avoid those will likely be more lucrative than an S&P investment. Remember, just like a loan, if you use your emergency fund, you'll need to refill it. Be smart, and pay yourself 10% interest when you do. It's still less than you'd pay for a payday loan, and yet it means that after every emergency you're better prepared for the next event. To get an idea for how much you'd need: you probably own a car. How much would you spend, if you suddenly had to replace it? That should be money you have available. If you think \"must\" buy a new car, better have that much available. If you can live with a clunker, you're still going to need a few K.  Having said that, the next goal after the emergency fund should be savings for the infrequent large purchases. The emergency fund if for the case where your car unexpectedly gets totaled; the saving is for the regular replacement. Again, the point here is to avoid an expensive loan.  Paying down a mortgage is not that important. Mortgage loans are cheaper than  car loans, and much cheaper than payday loans. Still, it would be nice if your house is paid when you retire. But here chances are that stocks are a better investment than real estate, even if it's the real estate you live in."}
{"question":"Do I need to pay Income Tax if i am running a escrow service in India","answer":"As JoeTaxpayer has mentioned, please consult a lawyer and CA.  In general you would have to pay tax on the profit you make, in the example on this 10% you make less of any expenses to run the business. depending on how you are incorporating the business, there would be an element of service tax apart from corporate tax or income tax."}
{"question":"What tax advantage should I keep an eye for if I am going to relocate?","answer":"Look for states that have no income tax. A lot of these states supplement their revenue with higher property taxes, but if you rent and do not own property in the state, then you will have no state tax liability. Similarly, many states treat capital gains no differently than income tax, so if you make your earnings due to a large nest egg, then way you will still incur no tax liability on the state level Look for \"unincorporated\" areas, as these are administrative divisions of states that do not have a municipal government, and as such do not collect local taxes. Look for economic development perks of the new jurisdiction. Many states have some kind of formal tax credit for people that start business or buy in certain areas, but MONEY TALKS and you can make an individual arrangement with any agency, municipality etc. If the secretary at city hall doesn't know about a prepackaged formal arrangement that is offered to citizens, then ask for the \"expedited development package\" which generally has a \"processing fee\" involved. This is something you make up ie. \"What is the processing fee for the expedited development package, quote on quote\" States like Maryland and Nevada have formalized this process, but you are generally paying off the Secretary of State for favorable treatment. You'll always be paying off someone."}
{"question":"Meaning of \"credit\"","answer":"You're looking at the \"wrong\" credit. Here's the Wikipedia article about the bookkeeping (vs the Finance, that you've quoted) term."}
{"question":"When should I walk away from my mortgage?","answer":"Dan - there are other choices. What rate do you have on this mortgage? And what is the value of the home? With a bit of patience and effort, you may be able to lower your rate and save some portion of that $100k you think you can grab.  There is no factual answer here. The negative will show for 7 years, and only you can determine whether that's worth it. If in that time the value comes back you may very well be in a worse position, looking to buy a new home that's now well above where it is today. It's possible the current prices are overshooting on the downside, if unemployment drops and consumer confidence returns, you may be back to break-even sooner than you think. As an aside, I find it curious that the Trumps of this world can manipulate the system, creating multiple entities, filing for bankruptcy, yet protecting his own assets, and his wealth is applauded. Yet, asking the question here so many attack you, verbally. The Donald has saved himself billions through his dealings, I don't judge you for asking this question when it comes to $100k. When Trump's net worth was negative, he should have had his property taken away, and been handed a broom."}
{"question":"What is the best cross-platform GPL personal finance tool available?","answer":"There isn't one. I haven't been very happy with anything I've tried, commercial or open source. I've used Quicken for a while and been fairly happy with the user experience, but I hate the idea of their sunset policy (forced upgrades) and using proprietary format for the data files. Note that I wouldn't mind using proprietary and\/or commercial software if it used a format that allowed me to easily migrate to another application. And no, QIF\/OFX\/CSV doesn't count. What I've found works well for me is to use Mint.com for pulling transactions from my accounts and categorizing them. I then export the transaction history as a CSV file and convert it to QIF\/OFX using csv2ofx, and then import the resulting file into GNUCash. The hardest part is using categories (Mint.com) and accounts (GnuCash) properly. Not perfect by any means, but certainly better than manually exporting transactions from each account."}
{"question":"Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of?","answer":"Pretty much any financial transaction where they start by calling you on the phone is a scam. They aren't doing it for your benefit and the caller is on commission."}
{"question":"How to pay bills for one month while waiting for new job?","answer":"What is my best course of action, trying to minimize future debt? Minimizing expenses is the best thing you can do. The first step to financial independence is making do with less. Assuming I receive this $3500, am I better off using the bulk to pay off my credit cards, or should I keep as much cash available as I can? This would depend on the interest rate that is associated with the credit cards and the $3500. If the $3500 has a higher interest rate than your credit cards, then do not use any of it to pay your credit cards. Paying back the money you borrow hurts but it's the interest rate that does you in. If the interest rate for the $3500 is lower than the credit card interest, then placing some of it on the credit cards may be a wise course of action. But this depends on how long you are out of work. If you could be out of work for an extended period of time, I would recommend holding on to all of the funds. Note on saving I know this goes against the grain, but I would actually not recommend saving several months worth of funds (maybe one month though). Most employers offer some type of retirement savings account (401(k), Thrift Savings Plan, etc.). I contribute 5% to this fund instead of putting the money in savings. This is an especially effective strategy if your employer offers matching contributions such as mine. Because the divedends for a savings account are so low, it is not a wise place to store your money in the long run. If I had placed my Thrift Savings Plan contributions in a standard savings account, I would now be $12,000 poorer. In addition to this, most long term investment accounts allow you to withdraw the money early in case of emergency, such as being without work. (I also find it too temping to have huge amounts of funds on hand)."}
{"question":"Is there a limit on the dollar amount of a personal check?","answer":"As long as someone is willing to take it, you can write it!  I personally wrote a check for a new car.   The dealership didn't bat an eye."}
{"question":"UK limited company and personal bank account ","answer":"I don't think there is a legal requirement that you need a separate bank account. Just remember that you can only take money from your LLC as salary (paying tax), as dividend (paying tax), or as a loan (which you need to repay, including and especially if the LLC goes bankrupt). So make very sure that your books are in order."}
{"question":"Hiring freelancers and taxes","answer":"You need to clarify with Bob what your agreement is. If you and Bob are working together on these jobs as partners, you should get a written partnership agreement done by a lawyer who works with software industry entity formation. You can legally be considered a partnership if you are operating a business together, even if there is nothing in writing. The partnership will have its own tax return, and you each will be allocated 50% of the profits\/losses (if that's what you agree to). This amount will be reported on your own individual 1040 as self-employment income. Since you have now lost all the expense deductions you would have taken on your Schedule C, and any home office deduction, it's a good idea to put language in the partnership agreement stating that the partnership will reimburse partners for their out-of-pocket expenses. If Bob is just hiring you as a contractor, you give him your SSN, and he issues you a 1099, like any other client. This should be a situation where you invoice him for the amount you are charging. Same thing with Joe - figure out if you're hiring him as an independent contractor, or if you have a partnership. Either way, you will owe income and self-employment tax on your profits. In the case of a partnership, the amount will be on the K-1 from the partnership return. For an independent contractor who's operating as a sole proprietor, you report the income you invoiced for and received, and deduct your expenses, including independent contractors that you hired, on your Schedule C. Talk to your tax guy about quarterly estimated payments. If you don't have a tax guy, go get one. Find somebody people in your city working in your industry recommend. A good tax person will save you more money than they cost. 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."}
{"question":"Investing in dividend-yielding stocks with money borrowed from margin account?","answer":"My gut is to say that any time there seems to be easy money to be made, the opportunity would fade as everyone jumped on it. Let me ask you - why do you think these stocks are priced to yield 7-9%? The DVY yields 3.41% as of Aug 30,'12.  The high yielding stocks you discovered may very well be hidden gems. Or they may need to reduce their dividends and subsequently drop in price.  No, it's not 'safe.' If the stocks you choose drop by 20%, you'd lose 40% of your money, if you made the purchase on 50% margin. There's risk with any stock purchase, one can claim no stock is safe. Either way, your proposal juices the effect to creating twice the risk.  Edit - After the conversation with Victor, let me add these thoughts. The \"Risk-Free\" rate is generally defined to be the 1yr tbill (and of course the risk of Gov default is not zero). There's the S&P 500 index which has a beta of 1 and is generally viewed as a decent index for comparison. You propose to use margin, so your risk, if done with an S&P index is twice that of the 1X S&P investor. However, you won't buy S&P but stocks with such a high yield I question their safety. You don't mention the stocks, so I can't quantify my answer, but it's tbill, S&P, 2X S&P, then you."}
{"question":"How to explain quick price changes early in the morning","answer":"The gap up\/down and rapid movement immediately following market open is due to overnight futures activity. In your example, SP500 on June 20, 2016 saw a 20-point gap up at market open. This was because the SP500 futures were trading 20 points higher at 9:30 AM than at its close on Friday. The index will always \"catch up\" with futures at market open. You can see that below. The top chart is the E-mini SP500 futures from Sunday night to Monday. Beneath it is the SP500 index."}
{"question":"Outstanding car bill, and I am primary but have not driven it for 2 years","answer":"Sounds like you need to contact your ex and sort it out. If you have co-signed the loan, changes are you are equally responsible even if on party chooses not to pay, then the bank will come after the other one. If you no longer wish to be part of the arrangement and your ex still wants the car, she will have to buy you out of the car and become fully responsible for the liability."}
{"question":"Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building?","answer":"Why should a bank get into construction specifically? Lots of business opportunities require capital. Conceivably banks could build factories, develop consumer electronics, complete with SpaceX, etc. It's all capital in, profits out, with varying levels of risk and returns. There's nothing special about constructing apartments. The reason banks don't run businesses is because there are plenty of private firms that compete with each other for business. What's the chance that a bank, with all its bureaucracy, can deliver cheaper apartments than an apartment developer? Pretty low in fact, and that's why they would rather lend to an apartment developer rather than building the apartments themselves. Banks are in the business of competing with other banks. The main work they do is to sort out good investments from poor ones. And if they can do that just a bit more efficiently than their competitors, they make big bucks. For example, it might only take a few additional hours to better vet a deal worth millions. Whereas with an apartment building, you wouldn't be able to make that amount of money per hour even if the materials and labor cost you nothing."}
{"question":"Personal finance app where I can mark transactions as \"reviewed\"? ","answer":"I had exactly the same need and I ended up using BillGuard and I like it.  At the end of the day, it sends an alert where I need to review all the transactions - takes hardly 5seconds and I am on top of all transactions.  From the last 1yr I have found 1 fraudulent and 2 duplicate charge using billguard. Didn't really save a ton of money but its useful to understand how you use your credit card. Don't work for or promoting the app, its just useful."}
{"question":"Can one be non-resident alien in the US without being a resident anywhere else?","answer":"You'll need to read carefully the German laws on tax residency, in many European (and other) tax laws the loss of residency due to absence is conditioned on acquiring residency elsewhere. But in general, it is possible to use treaties and statuses so that you end up not being resident anywhere, but it doesn't mean that the income is no longer taxed. Generally every country taxes income sourced to it unless an exclusion applies, so if you can no longer apply the treaty due to not being a resident - you'll need to look for general exclusions in the tax law. I don't know how Germany taxes scholarships under the general rules, you'll have to check it. It is possible that they're not taxed. Many people try to raise the argument of \"I'm not a resident\" to avoid income taxes altogether on earnings on their work - this would not work. But with a special kind of income like scholarship, which may be exempt under the law, it may. Keep in mind, that the treaty has \"who is or was immediately before visiting a Contracting State a resident of the other Contracting State\" language in some relevant cases, so you may still apply it in the US even if no longer resident in Germany."}
{"question":"What's wrong with this margin calculation?","answer":"As the referenced document says, there are 3 formulas, and you need to use the formula which results the greatest margin requirement. In your case, you need to use the 10% formula:"}
{"question":"Advice on preserving wealth in a volatile economic\/political country","answer":"You might find some of the answers here helpful; the question is different, but has some similar concerns, such as a changing economic environment. What approach should I take to best protect my wealth against currency   devaluation & poor growth prospects. I want to avoid selling off any   more of my local index funds in a panic as I want to hold long term.   Does my portfolio balance make sense? Good question; I can't even get US banks to answer questions like this, such as \"What happens if they try to nationalize all bank accounts like in the Soviet Union?\"  Response: it'll never happen. The question was what if! I think that your portfolio carries a lot of risk, but also offsets what you're worried about.  Outside of government confiscation of foreign accounts (if your foreign investments are held through a local brokerage), you should be good.  What to do about government confiscation?  Even the US government (in 1933) confiscated physical gold (and they made it illegal to own) - so even physical resources can be confiscated during hard times. Quite a large portion of my foreign investments have been bought at an   expensive time when our currency is already around historic lows,   which does concern me in the event that it strengthens in future. What   strategy should I take in the future if\/when my local currency starts   the strengthen...do I hold my foreign investments through it and just   trust in cost averaging long term, or try sell them off to avoid the   devaluation? Are these foreign investments a hedge?  If so, then you shouldn't worry if your currency does strengthen; they serve the purpose of hedging the local environment.  If these investments are not a hedge, then timing will matter and you'll want to sell and buy your currency before it does strengthen.  The risk on this latter point is that your timing will be wrong."}
{"question":"Buy tires and keep car for 12-36 months, or replace car now? ","answer":"There are a few factors I like to consider when I'm reasoning financially over my households cars. How many KMs will the car travel each year because I like to factor in how often tires will need to be changed, how much tires for my models cost as well as how gas efficient they are. Knowing how much the car is driven and in what environmental\/road conditions is also important factors to know because that will help guestimate possible repairs cost. Also possible taxes should be taken in to consideration. For example a few years ago I had a diesel Citroen C5 that had yearly taxes of roughly 500$. The replacement costs only 150$ a year in taxes. So switching cars 3 years early would have saved me 1050$ in taxes. So some information on possible taxes, how far you drive each year, what environmental conditions, type of driving (daily long rides or just short etc..) as well as the fuel efficiency of both cars would help to better calculate your costs for say three scenarios. Car change in 12, 24 and 32 months respectively."}
{"question":"What do these options trading terms mean?","answer":"The two dimensions are to open the trade (creating a position) and to buy or sell (becoming long or short the option). If you already own an option, you bought it to open and then you would sell it to close. If you don't own an option, you can either buy it to open, or sell it (short it) to open. If you are already short an option, you can buy it back to close. If you sell to open covered, the point is you're creating a \"covered call\" which means you own the stock, and then sell a call. Since you own the stock, the covered call has a lot of the risk of loss removed, though it also subtracts much of the reward possible from your stock."}
{"question":"I have an extra 1000\u20ac per month, what should I do with it?","answer":"As many before me said but will say again for the sake of completeness of an answer:  First off provision to have an emergency fund of 6 months living expenses to cover loss of employment, unforeseen medical issues etc.  When that is done you re free to start investing. Do remember that putting all your eggs in one basket enable risks, so diversify your portfolio and diversify even within each investment vehicle. Stocks: I would personally stay away from stocks as it's for the most part a bear market right now (and I assume you re not interested day-trading to make any short term return) and most importantly you dont mention any trading experience which means you can get shafted. Mutual Funds: Long story short most of these work; mainly for the benefit for their management and people selling them. Bonds  Instead, I would go for corporate bonds where you essentially buy the seller(aka the issuing company) and unlike gambling on stocks of the same company, you dont rely on speculation and stock gains to make a profit. As long as the company is standing when the bond matures you get your payment. This allows you to invest with less effort spent on a daily basis to monitor your investments and much better returns(especially if you find opportunities where you can buy bonds from structurally sound companies that have for reasons you deem irrelevant, purchase prices in the secondary market for cents in the dollar) than your other long term \"stable options\" like German issued bonds  or saving accounts that are low in general and more so like in the current situation for German banks. Cryptocurrency I would also look into cryptocurrency for the long term as that seems to be past its childhood diseases and its also a good period of time to invest in as even the blue chips of that market are down party due to correction from all time highs and partly due to speculation. As Im more knowledgeable on this than German-locale bonds, a few coins I suggest you look into and decide for yourself would be the obvious ETH & BTC, then a slew of newer ones including but not limited to OmiseGO, Tenx(Pay), Augur and IOTA. Beware though, make sure to understand the basics of security and good practices on this field, as there's no central bank in this sector and if you leave funds in an exchange or your wallet's private key is compromised the money are as good as gone."}
{"question":"Debit cards as bad as credit cards?","answer":"How about just stop buying stuff?"}
{"question":"Buying puts without owning underlying","answer":"In the money puts and calls are subject to automatic execution at expiration. Each broker has its own rules and process for this.  For example, I am long a put. The strike is $100. The stock trades at the close, that final friday for $90. I am out to lunch that day. Figuratively, of course. I wake up Saturday and am short 100 shares. I can only be short in a margin account. And similarly, if I own calls, I either need the full value of the stock (i.e. 100*strike price) or a margin account.  I am going to repeat the key point. Each broker has its own process for auto execution. But, yes, you really don't want a deep in the money option to expire with no transaction.  On the flip side, you don't want to wake up Monday to find they were bought out by Apple for $150."}
{"question":"What tax can I expect on US stocks in a UK ISA?","answer":"non-resident aliens to the US do not pay capital gains on US products. You pay tax in your home country if you have done a taxable event in your country. http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/ask\/answers\/06\/nonusresidenttax.asp#axzz1mQDut9Ru but if you hold dividends, you are subject to US dividend tax. The UK-US treaty should touch on that though."}
{"question":"Basic questions about investing in stocks","answer":"A stock represents your share of ownership in a corporation. All of these shares indicate towards your part of ownership in a corporation a shareholder, stockholder or a shareowner in a company. In order to get a stock, be sure to secure the assistance of a licensed stockbroker to buy securities on your behalf. Yes, anyone having substantial amount of money to invest can buy\/own\/use stocks. Holding a stock for less than a year makes it a subject to tax on your regular income for short-term gains. Most of the people find it higher than the capital gains. In addition, your annual income also comes into play."}
{"question":"Do stock prices drop due to dividends?","answer":"I would say that the answer is yes.  Investors may move on purchasing a stock as a result of news that a stock is set to pay out their dividend.   It would be interesting to analyze the trend based on a company's dividend payouts over 10 or so years to see what\/how this impacts the market value of a given company."}
{"question":"What are the common income tax deductions used by \"rich\" salaried households?","answer":"The $250K and up are not one homogeneous group. The lower end of this group benefits from normal Schedule A itemized deductions, e.g. mortgage interest, property tax, state income tax, and charitable donations. As you mention, 401(k) ($17k employee contribution limit this year), but also things like the dependent care account ($5k limit) and flexible spending account, limited usually up to $2500 in '14. The 529 deposits are limited to the gifting limit, $14K in 2014, but one can gift up to five years' deposits up front. This isn't a tax deduction, but does pull money out of one's estate and lets it grow tax free similar to a Roth IRA. The savings from such accounts is probably in the $15k - $20K range given the 20 or so year lifetime of the account and limited deposits. At the higher end, the folks making the news are those whose income is all considered capital gains. This applies both to hedge fund managers as well as CEOs whose compensation included large blocks of stock. This isn't a tax deduction, but it's how our system works, the taxation of capital gains vs. ordinary income."}
{"question":"What factors of a stock help determine its potential ","answer":"Knowing the answer to this question is generally not as useful as it may seem.  The stock's current price is the consensus of thousands of people who are looking at the many relevant factors (dividend rate, growth prospects, volatility, risk, industry, etc.) that determine its value.  A stock's price is the market's valuation of the cash flows it entitles you to in the future.  Researching a stock's value means trying to figure out if there is something relevant to these cash flows that the market doesn't know about or has misjudged.  Pretty much anything we can list for you here that will affect a stock's price is something the market knows about, so it's not likely to help you know if something is mispriced.  Therefore it's not useful to you. If you are not a true expert on how important the relevant factors are and how the market is reacting to them currently (and often even if you are), then you are essentially guessing.  How likely are you to catch something that the thousands of other investors have missed and how likely are you to miss something that other investors have understood?  I don't view gambling as inherently evil, but you should be clear and honest with yourself about what you are doing if you are trying to outperform the market. As people become knowledgeable about and experienced with finance, they try less and less to be the one to find an undervalued stock in their personal portfolio.  Instead they seek to hold a fully diversified portfolio with low transactions costs and build wealth in the long term without wasting time and money on the guessing game.  My suggestion for you is to transition as quickly as you can to behave like someone who knows a lot about finance."}
{"question":"How does on-demand insurance company Trov prevent insurance fraud or high prices?","answer":"For example, it is not allowed to buy flood insurance at peak flood season and then cancel it when it is over. They are not offering this right now. So it would be interesting to see if they offer this and how they offer this. For example, you can insure your camera for a week when you are going on vacation. They call it on-demand insurance. They segment Trov is targeting consumer electronics. More often people don't take insurance in this segment as the insurance cost is high and benefits low. However if going on vacation, most are afraid of loosing \/ damaging equipments. Generally although we are afraid, most often nothing happens. It is this segment; you make the insurance cheap and easy to buy and create a new segment.  Insurance fraud detection is an important part of insurance process such that insurance companies allocate a lot of resources to detect improper insurance claims. The website does not mention how they process claims. Although it looks easy, they may have a more stringent process. For example what is stopping me from buying an insurance after event; i.e. break my phone Monday, buy insurance on Monday and make a claim on Tuesday saying the phone broke on Tuesday."}
{"question":"What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt?","answer":"I like the answers others gave, if it's some substantial debt you definitely could go the bankruptcy route but it damages your future, also it's morally unethical to borrow all that money and not intend to pay. Second, if you can pay off the entire balance and clear out the 23% interest than I'd do that first. One less bill to concern yourself with. Now let's say you've been making $100 payments monthly on each card (my assumption for this examples sale) now instead of paying $100 to the remaining cards balance each month and saving the other $100, pay $200 against the remaining credit cards balance. By not taking home any money this way you are tackling the liability that is costing you money every month. Unless you have a great investment opportunity on that remaining $1000 or haven't created much of an emergency fund yet, I'd consider putting more of that money towards the debt. Gaining 0.01% on savings interest still means you're eating 25.99% in debt monthly. If you're able to I'd venture out to open a zero interest card and do a balance transfer over to that new card, there will be a minimal transfer fee but you may get some cash back out of it and also that zero interest for a year would help hold off more interest accruing while you're tackling the balance."}
{"question":"How to open a Mega Money Market account without an ssn?","answer":"According to the IRS:  Aliens who are not eligible to apply for a U.S. social security   number, or who do not meet the Social Security Administration's   evidence requirements for an SSN, may apply for an Individual Taxpayer   Identification Numbers (ITIN) from the Internal Revenue Service if   they have a valid tax reason for needing an ITIN, as explained in the   Form W-7 instructions. Seeing as you don't have a valid tax reason for an ITIN, your request will probably be denied by the IRS."}
{"question":"Should I cash out my Roth IRA to pay my mother's property tax debt, to avoid foreclosure on her home?","answer":"If it turns out that you do want to help pay the tax bill (after answering all the questions above), I say cash out those funds. You are apparently very young with a long work life ahead (lucky you). Step aside from the actual money part of it for a moment. What does your Mom want? What do you really want to do about this? Is it from love that you want to help but are afraid it's a bad financial decision? Or is it from a feeling of duty and you deep down don't really want to spend your savings on Mom's tax bill. - If you really do want to help and you have the wherewithall to do so, then do it. Otherwise don't. You can recover financially. - I myself have had my retirement savings go to nearly zero 3 times. The first time I recovered pretty easily. The second time, not so easily. I'm just starting on the recovery path for the 3rd time at age 58 and I highly doubt I ever will recover this time. I didn't cash out on purpose but the stock market was not friendly. - My main point is to figure out truly what you want."}
{"question":"Is it sensible to redirect retirement contributions from 401(k) towards becoming a landlord?","answer":"Here are the issues, as I see them - It's not that I don't trust banks, but I just feel like throwing all   of our money into intangible investments is unwise. Banks have virtually nothing to do with this. And intangible assets has a different meaning than you assume. You don't have to like the market, but try to understand it, and dislike it for a good reason. (Which I won't offer here). Do your 401(k) accounts offer company match? When people start with \"we'd like to reduce our deposits\" that's the first thing we need to know. Last - you plan to gain \"a few hundred dollars a month.\" I bet it's closer to zero or a loss. I'll return to edit, we have recent posts here that reviewed the expenses to consider, and I'd bet that if you review the numbers, you've ignored some of them. \"A few hundred\" - say it's $300. Or $4000\/yr. It would take far less work and risk to simply save $100K in your retirement accounts to produce this sum each year.  The investment may very well be excellent. I'm just offering the flip side, things you might have missed.   Edit - please read the discussion at How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent? The answers offer a good look at the list of expenses you need to consider. In my opinion, this is one of the most important things. I've seen too many new RE investors \"forget\" about so many expenses, a projected monthly income reverts to annual losses."}
{"question":"File bankruptcy, consolidate, or other options?","answer":"I think you're asking yourself the wrong question. The real question you should be asking yourself is this:  \"Do I want to a) give my parents a $45,000 gift, b) make them $45,000   loan, or c) neither?\" The way you are talking in your question is as if you have the responsibility and authority to manage their lives. Whether they choose bankruptcy, and the associated stigma and\/or negative self-image of financial or moral failure, or choose to muddle through and delay retirement to pay off their debt, is their question and their decision.   Look, you said that loaning it to them was out, because you'd rather see them retire than continue to work. But what if they want to continue to work? For all the stress they're dealing with now, entrepreneurial people like that are not happy  You're mucking about in their lives like you can run it. Stop it. You don't have the right; they're adults. There may come a time when they are too senile to be responsible for themselves, and then you can, and should, step up and take responsibility for them in their old age, just as they did for you when you were a child. But that time is not now. And by the way, from the information you've given, the answer should be C) neither. If giving or loaning them this kind of money taps you out, then you can't afford it."}
{"question":"Friend was brainwashed by MLM-\/ponzi investment scam. What can I do?","answer":"I will disagree with some of the other answers here.  In my view, the most important dimension of the situation is not your friend's potential loss but the potential losses of the people he may convince by using his position as youth group leader, etc., to draw more them into the scam. Exactly how to handle this depends on many factors that aren't mentioned in your question (and probably rightly so, as this aspect of the situation moves beyond personal finance).  For instance, if your friend is a \"pillar of the community\" who is widely trusted, and you are not, there may be little you can do, since people will believe him and not you.  If you have some influence over the groups he is trying to recruit, you can attempt to provide a counterweight to his recruitment activities. Again, how to do this depends on other factors, such as how he is recruiting them.  If he is just privately contacting individuals and inviting them to these meetings, you may have to just keep your eyes peeled for anyone who seems tempted and try to dissuade them before they suffer the \"brainwashing\".  If he actually tries to do some sort of public recruitment (e.g., holding a meeting himself), you could try to inject doubt by, e.g., attending and asking probing questions to expose the dangers.  If you think the danger is widespread, you could consider taking some more public action, like writing a column in a local paper about this organization. Of course, another major factor is how much you think people stand to lose by this.  However, in your question you indicated that your friend has invested \"multiple month or years of income\".  If he intends to pressure others to invest similar amounts, this sounds to me like enough danger to warrant some preventive action.  Few people can afford to lose months or years of income, and sadly those most vulnerable to a scammer's siren song are often those who can least afford it.  It doesn't sound like a situation where you'd have to devote your life to the cause of stopping it, but if I knew that dozens of people in my community stood to lose years of income, I'd want to make at least a small effort to stop them, rather than just keep my mouth shut. In doing this, you may lose your friendship.  However, you stated that your goal is to resolve the situation in a way that is \"best with lowest loss of money for everybody\".  If you really take this utilitarian view, it is likely that you may have to give up on the friendship to prevent other people from losing more money."}
{"question":"New to Stock Trading ","answer":"Investopedia got some good tutorials on stocks and a good simulator to play around without loosing hard earned money.  http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/university\/stocks\/  http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/simulator\/"}
{"question":"What are the alternatives to compound interest for a Muslim?","answer":"Invest in growth stocks which do not pay any dividends (Note that some part of the dividends issued by a corporation might be from interest received by the company and passed on to you as a dividend); Buy a house from a bank that practices Islamic Banking. See this question which you yourself answered a few weeks ago to understand how this works."}
{"question":"What should I be aware of as a young investor?","answer":"I'm 39 and have been investing since my very early 20's, and the advice I'd like to go back and give myself is the following: 1) Time is your friend. Compounding interest is a powerful force and is probably the most important factor to how much money you are going to wind up with in the end. Save as much as you possibly can as early as you can. You have to run twice as hard to catch up if you start late, and you will still probably wind up with less in the end for the extra effort. 2) Don't invest 100% of your investment money It always bugged me to let my cash sit idle in an investment account because the niggling  notion of inflation eating up my money and I felt I was wasting opportunity cost by not being fully invested in something. However, not having enough investable cash around to buy into the fire-sale dips in the market made me miss out on opportunities. 3) Diversify The dot.com bubble taught me this in a big, hairy painful way. I had this idea that as a technologist I really understood the tech bubble and fearlessly over-invested in Tech stocks. I just knew that I was on top of things as an \"industry insider\" and would know when to jump. Yeah. That didn't work out so well. I lost more than 6 figures, at least on paper. Diversification will attenuate the ups and downs somewhat and make the market a lot less scary in the long run. 4) Mind your expenses It took me years of paying huge full-service broker fees to realize that those clowns don't seem to do any better than anyone else at picking stocks. Even when they do, the transaction costs are a lead weight on your returns. The same holds true for mutual funds\/ETFs. Shop for low expense ratios aggressively. It is really hard for a fund manager to consistently beat the indexes especially when you burden the returns with expense ratios that skim an extra 1% or so off the top. The expense ratio\/broker fees are among the very few things that you can predict reliably when it comes to investments, take advantage of this knowledge. 5) Have an exit strategy for every investment People are emotional creatures. It is hard to be logical when you have skin in the game and most people aren't disciplined enough to just admit when they have a loser and bail out while they are in the red or conversely admit when they have a winner and take profits before the party is over. It helps to counteract this instinct to have an exit strategy for each investment you buy. That is, you will get out if it drops by x% or grows by y%. In fact, it is probably a good idea to just enter those sell limit orders right after you buy the investment so you don't have to convince yourself to press the eject button in the heat of a big move in the price of that investment. Don't try to predict tops or bottoms. They are extremely hard to guess and things often turn so fast that you can't act on them in time anyway. Get out of an investment when it has met your goal or is going to far in the wrong direction. If you find yourself saying \"It has to come back eventually\", slap yourself.  When you are trying to decide whether to stay in the investment or bail, the most important question is \"If I had the current cash value of the stock instead of shares, would I buy it today?\" because essentially that is what you are doing when you stick with an investment. 6) Don't invest in fads When you are investing you become acutely sensitive to everyone's opinions on what investment is hot and what is not. If everyone is talking about a particular investment, avoid it. The more enthusiastic people are about it (even experts) the MORE you should avoid it. When everyone starts forming investment clubs at work and the stock market seems to be the preferred topic of conversation at every party you go to. Get out!  I'm a big fan of contrarian investing. Take profits when it feels like all the momentum is going into the market, and buy in when everyone seems to be running for the doors."}
{"question":"Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity?","answer":"I would say a lot of the answers here aren't quite right. The main issue here is that banking is a highly oligopolous industry - there are few key players (the UK, for example, has only 5 major banks operating under a variety of brands: it's all the same companies underneath) and the market is very, very hard to enter owing to the immense regulatory burden. Because the landscape is so narrow and it's possible to keep close tabs on all  your competitors, there's no incentive to spend money on shiny new things to keep up with the competition - the industry is purely reactive.  If nobody else has an awesome, feature-filled online portal, there's no need for any one bank to make one.  If everybody is reactive, and nobody proactive, then it's a short logical deduction that improvements happen at a glacial pace. Also take into account that when you've got this toxic \"bare-minimum\" form of competition, the question for these people soon turns to \"what can we get away with?\" which results in things like subpar online portals with as much information as you like delivered on paper for a hefty charge, and extortionate, price fixed administrative fees.  Furthermore your transaction history is super valuable information.  There are one or two highly profitable companies who collate international transaction data and whose sole job in life is to restrict access to that information to the highest bidders.  Your transaction history is an asset in a multibillion dollar per year industry, and as such it is not surprising that banks don't want to give it out for free."}
{"question":"I have $10,000 sitting in an account making around $1 per month interest, what are some better options? ","answer":"Put the whole lot into a couple of low-cost broad index funds with dividends reinvested (also known as accumulation funds) and then don't look at them. Invest through a low-cost broker. There are a number to choose from and once you start googling around the theme of \"index fund investing\" you'll find them. The S&P 500 is a popular index to start with."}
{"question":"How can I remove the movement of the stock market as a whole from the movement in price of an individual share?","answer":"As others have pointed out, the value of Apple's stock and the NASDAQ are most likely highly correlated for a number of reasons, not least among them the fact that Apple is part of the NASDAQ. However, because numerous factors affect the entire market, or at least a significant subset of it, it makes sense to develop a strategy to remove all of these factors without resorting to use of an index. Using an index to remove the effect of these factors might be a good idea, but you run the risk of potentially introducing other factors that affect the index, but not Apple. I don't know what those would be, but it's a valid theoretical concern.  In your question, you said you wanted to subtract them from each other, and only see an Apple curve moving around a horizontal line. The basic strategy I plan to use is similar but even simpler. Instead of graphing Apple's stock price, we can plot the difference between its stock price on business day t and business day t-1, which gives us this graph, which is essentially what you're looking for:  While this is only the preliminaries, it should give you a basic idea of one procedure that's used extensively to do just what you're asking. I don't know of a website that will automatically give you such a metric, but you could download the price data and use Excel, Stata, etc. to analyze this.  The reasoning behind this methodology builds heavily on time series econometrics, which for the sake of simplicity I won't go into in great detail, but I'll provide a brief explanation to satisfy the curious. In simple econometrics, most time series are approximated by a mathematical process comprised of several components: In the simplest case, the equations for a time series containing one or more of the above components are of the form that taking the first difference (the procedure I used above) will leave only the random component. However, if you want to pursue this rigorously, you would first perform a set of tests to determine if these components exist and if differencing is the best procedure to remove those that are present. Once you've reduced the series to its random component, you can use that component to examine how the process underlying the stock price has changed over the years. In my example, I highlighted Steve Jobs' death on the chart because it's one factor that may have led to the increased standard deviation\/volatility of Apple's stock price. Although charts are somewhat subjective, it appears that the volatility was already increasing before his death, which could reflect other factors or the increasing expectation that he wouldn't be running the company in the near future, for whatever reason. My discussion of time series decomposition and the definitions of various components relies heavily on Walter Ender's text Applied Econometric Time Series. If you're interested, simple mathematical representations and a few relevant graphs are found on pages 1-3. Another related procedure would be to take the logarithm of the quotient of the current day's price and the previous day's price. In Apple's case, doing so yields this graph:  This reduces the overall magnitude of the values and allows you to see potential outliers more clearly. This produces a similar effect to the difference taken above because the log of a quotient is the same as the difference of the logs The significant drop depicted during the year 2000 occurred between September 28th and September 29th, where the stock price dropped from 26.36 to 12.69. Apart from the general environment of the dot-com bubble bursting, I'm not sure why this occurred. Another excellent resource for time series econometrics is James Hamilton's book, Time Series Analysis. It's considered a classic in the field of econometrics, although similar to Enders' book, it's fairly advanced for most investors.  I used Stata to generate the graphs above with data from Yahoo! Finance: There are a couple of nuances in this code related to how I defined the time series and the presence of weekends, but they don't affect the overall concept. For a robust analysis, I would make a few quick tweaks that would make the graphs less appealing without more work, but would allow for more accurate econometrics."}
{"question":"What effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock?","answer":"A common (and important) measure of a stock's value is the price\/earnings ratio, so an increase in earnings will normally cause the stock price to increase. However, the price of the stock is based on a guess of the value of the company some time (6 months?) in the future. So an increase in earnings today probably makes a higher earnings more likely in the future, and puts upward pressure on the price of the stock. There are a lot of other factors in stock prices, such as publicity, dividends, revenue, trends, company stability, and company history. Earnings is a very important factor, but not the only factor determine the value (and so stock price) of a company."}
{"question":"Which r in perpetuity formula to pricing a business?","answer":"In the equity markets, the P\/E is usually somewhere around 15.  The P\/E can be viewed as the inverse of the rate of a perpetuity. Since the average is 15, and the E\/P of that would be 6.7%, r should be 6.7% on average. If your business is growing, the growth rate can be incorporated like so: As you can see, a high g would make the price negative, in essence the seller should actually pay someone to take the business, but in reality, r is determined from the p and an estimated g. For a business of any growth rate, it's best to compare the multiple to the market, so for the average business in the market with your business's growth rate and industry, that P\/E would be best applied to your company's income."}
{"question":"Why does the Fed use PCE over CPI? ","answer":"Consumers aren't the only economic participants impacted by a change in the Fed rate.... Inflation has WIDE ranging implications from the future liabilities of pension funds to the ongoing cost of our national debt.  It doesn't make sense to consider only consumer inflationary experience.  PCE is considered because it relates to consumption, which includes things paid for by other entities, like employer healthcare spend."}
{"question":"Will a credit card issuer cancel an account if it never incurs interest?","answer":"No, they won't cancel it because you pay your card on time.  When a company offers a promotion like that they are banking on making money on average, not in every case.  On average including all the benefits including transaction fees, deals for partnering with best buy, etc.  Of course some people pay their credit card in full each month and never incur interest charges.  However, credit card companies more than cover that with other people who aren't responsible.  If it wasn't worth while they would end the card program or change it."}
{"question":"More money towards down payment versus long-term investments","answer":"Another vote for a bigger downpayment, for the reasons Benjamin mentions. Also, from experience, I would save up at least a small pile as a separate house emergency fund because you will find things that are wrong and\/or that got bodged by the previous owner and it's probably not going to last past the first few months of home ownership. In my case, the home inspector missed - amongst other things - that the shower on the 2nd floor was leaking both into the adjoining bedroom and the living room below. That added a little unexpected expenditure as you might guess."}
{"question":"Can a bank statement be submitted as a proof of investment?","answer":"Probably not. A debit of 50K in your Bank statement does not mean that its invested into tax saving instrument. This question is best answered by the finance department of your company. Practise vary from organization to organization."}
{"question":"How can I get the most value from my employer's ESPP?","answer":"A 15% discount does not necessarily mean it is a good investment.  The stock price can go down at any point. 15% discount might mean you are getting a little better deal than the average cat."}
{"question":"Stock market vs. baseball card trading analogy","answer":"Actually, this is a pretty good analogy to certain types of stocks, specifically tech and other \"fad\" stocks. Around the turn of the century, there were a lot of \"Bobs\" buying tech stocks (like they would baseball cards), for tech stocks' sakes. That's what drove the internet and tech stock bubbles of high valuations. At other times, the tech stocks are bought and sold mainly by \"Steve's\" for business reasons such as likely (not merely possible) future appreciation, and command a much lower valuation."}
{"question":"Are non-residents or foreigners permitted to buy or own shares of UK companies?","answer":"Yes, However if you live in the USA a lot of companies will refuse to sent you any report and will not let you take part in \"right issues\" as they don\u2019t wish to come under USA investment law."}
{"question":"Estimated Taxes after surge in income","answer":"You will not necessarily incur a penalty.  You can potentially use the Annualized Income Installment method, which allows you to compute the tax due for each quarter based on income actually earned up to that point in the year.  See Publication 505, in particular Worksheet 2-9.  Form 2210 is also relevant as that is the form you will use when actually calculating whether you owe a penalty after the year is over. On my reading of Form 2210, if you had literally zero income during the first quarter, you won't be expected to make an estimated tax payment for that quarter (as long as you properly follow the Annualized Income Installment method for future quarters).  However, you should go through the calculations yourself to see what the situation is with your actual numbers."}
{"question":"What could a malicious party potentially achieve by having *just* a name, account number, and sort code?","answer":"I think the answer to this must differ from country to country.  I have lived in several countries where the normal everyday way of making a payment is to instruct my bank to transfer the money to the recipient's account.  Of course this means I must know his name, SC and account number \u2013 but this is an accepted part of the system; businesses routinely display that information on invoices and correspondence.  It is simply not regarded as confidential. DumbCoder's comment suggests that if he has that information he can take money from my account without my permission \u2013 in other words, my bank will pay money out of my account on someone else's request, without my authority.  Is this correct?  In which country or countries can this happen?   (I must go there quickly and begin stealing people's money.)"}
{"question":"Investing: P\/E Ratio basic question","answer":"The idea here is to get an idea of how to value each business and thus normalize how highly prized is each dollar that a company makes.  While some companies may make millions and others make billions, how does one put these in proper context?  One way is to consider a dollar in earnings for the company.  How does a dollar in earnings for Google compare to a dollar for Coca-cola for example?  Some companies may be valued much higher than others and this is a way to see that as share price alone can be rather misleading since some companies can have millions of shares outstanding and split the shares to keep the share price in a certain range. Thus the idea isn't that an investor is paying for a dollar of earnings but rather how is that perceived as some companies may not have earnings and yet still be traded as start-ups and other companies may be running at a loss and thus the P\/E isn't even meaningful in this case. Assuming everything but the P\/E is the same, the lower P\/E would represent a greater value in a sense, yes.  However, earnings growth rate can account for higher P\/Es for some companies as if a company is expected to grow at 40% for a few years it may have a higher P\/E than a company growing earnings at 5% for example."}
{"question":"Is an RRSP always \"self-directed\"?  What makes a \"self-directed\" RRSP special?","answer":"The term self-directed generally refers to RRSP accounts where the account holder has not only the ability to determine a basic investment asset mix (such as can be accomplished even with a limited selection of mutual funds) but, more specifically, the self-directed account holder has a much wider choice of financial instruments beyond mutual funds, GICs, and\/or cash savings. A self-directed RRSP generally permits the account holder to also invest or trade directly in financial instruments such as: Those kinds of instruments are not typically available in a non-self-directed mutual fund or bank RRSP.  Typical mutual fund or bank RRSPs offer you only their choice of products  \u2013 often with higher fees attached. Related resources:"}
{"question":"How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros?","answer":"The right answer to this question really depends on the size of the transfer.  For larger transfers ($10k and up) the exchange rate is the dominant factor, and you will get the best rates from Interactive Brokers (IB) as noted by Paul above, or OANDA (listed by user6714). Under $10k, CurrencyFair is probably your best bet; while the rates are not quite as good as IB or OANDA, they are much better than the banks, and the transaction fees are less.  If you don't need to exchange the currency immediately, you can put in your own bids and potentially get better rates from other CurrencyFair users. Below $1000, XE Trade (also listed by user6714) has exchange rates that are almost as good, but also offers EFT transfers in and out, which will save you wire transfer fees from your bank to send or receive money to\/from your currency broker.  The bank wire transfer fees in the US can be $10-$30 (outgoing wires on the higher end) so for smaller transfers this is a significant consideration you need to look into; if you are receiving money in US, ING Direct and many brokerage accounts don't charge for incoming wires - but unless you have a commercial bank account with high balances, expect to spend $10-$20 minimum for outgoing.  European wire transfer fees are minimal or zero in most cases, making CurrencyFair more appealing if the money stays in Europe. Below $100, it's rarely worth the effort to use any of the above services; use PayPal or MoneyBookers, whatever is easiest. Update:  As of December 2013, CurrencyFair is temporarily suspending operations for US residents: Following our initial assessment of regulatory changes in the United States, including changes arising from the Dodd-Frank Act, CurrencyFair will temporarily withdraw services for US residents while we consider these requirements and how they impact our business model.  This was a difficult and very regretful decision but we are confident we will be able to resume services in the future. The exact date of re-activation has not yet been determined and may take some time. We appreciate your patience and will continue communicating our status and expected return."}
{"question":"Should Emergency Funds be Used for Infrequent, but Likely, Expenses?","answer":"I think it's wise to account for those inevitable but unpredictable expenses like car\/house repairs and abnormal medical bills when deciding on your emergency fund amount.  So if you average $100\/month for car repairs, and you have a 6-month emergency fund, then part of that fund is $600 for car repairs. If your total annual out of pocket for health insurance is $5,000\/year, then emergency fund gets $2,500 and so on. This way, you add cushion to your emergency fund to handle those unpredictable but inevitable expenses without setting up a bunch of separate accounts. It doesn't have to be inflexible either, I know my furnace and air conditioner are way past their expected life, so I'm keeping a larger than normal emergency fund. Ultimately it's personal preference, to me, cash is all the same no matter what account it's in, but other people do best by keeping some logical\/physical separation of funds intended for different purposes."}
{"question":"Difference between GOOGL and GOOG","answer":"Note that these used to be a single \"common\" share that has \"split\" (actually a \"special dividend\" but effectively a split). If you owned one share of Google before the split, you had one share giving you X worth of equity in the company and 1 vote. After the split you have two shares giving you the same X worth of equity and 1 vote. In other words, zero change. Buy or sell either depending on how much you value the vote and how much you think others will pay (or not) for that vote in the future.  As Google issues new shares, it'll likely issue more of the new non-voting shares meaning dilution of equity but not dilution of voting power. For most of us, our few votes count for nothing so evaluate this as you will.  Google's founders believe they can do a better job running the company long-term when there are fewer pressures from outside holders who may have only short-term interests in mind. If you disagree, or if you are only interested in the short-term, you probably shouldn't be an owner of Google. As always, evaluate the facts for yourself, your situation, and your beliefs."}
{"question":"Should I pay off my car loan within the year?","answer":"Generally, banks will report your loan to at least one (if not all three) credit bureaus - although that is not required by law. The interest you're paying, in addition to your insurance isn't justifiable for building credit. I would recommend paying the car off and then perhaps applying for a secure credit card if you are worried about being rejected. Of course, since you have very little credit, applying for an unsecured card and getting rejected won't hurt you in the long run. If you are rejected, you can always go for a secured credit card the second time.  As I mentioned in my comments, it's better to show 6 months of on-time payments than to have no payment history at all. So if your goal is to secure an apartment near campus, I'm sure you're already a step ahead of the other students."}
{"question":"Would it be considered appropriate to use a market order for my very first stock trade?","answer":"Difference between a limit and market order is largely a trade-off between price certainty and timing certainty. If you think the security is already well priced, the downside of a limit order is the price may never hit your limit and keep trading away from you. You'll either spend a lot of time amending your order or sitting around wishing you'd amended your order.  The downside of a market order is you don't know the execution price ahead of time. This is typically more of a issue with illiquid instruments where even smaller orders may have price impact. For small trades in more liquid securities your realized price will often resemble the last traded price. Hope that helps. Both have a purpose, and the best tool for the job will depend on your circumstances."}
{"question":"What do \"cake and underwear\" stocks refer to?","answer":"There are some euphemisms that are better known than others. A category of stocks that's suitable for \"widows and orphans\" would be stocks that are low beta, and perhaps high dividend. Safe (being relative) enough to put a window's money into.  The term \"cake and underwear\" appears to me to be a Buffetism. And I'd interpret it to mean,\"not tech, not stocks that are either high growth or cyclic, but stocks that make things that have steady demand and that most consumers use.\" Google the phrase, only Buffet comes up."}
{"question":"I'm 23 and was given $50k. What should I do?","answer":"The best option for maximizing your money long-term is to contribute to the 401(k) offered by your employer. If you park your inheritance in a savings account you can draw on it to augment your income while you max out your contributions to the 401(k). You will get whatever the employer matches right off the bat and your gains are tax deferred. In essence you will be putting your inheritance into the 401(k) and forcing your employer to match at whatever rate they do. So if your employer matches at 50 cents on the dollar you will turn your 50 thousand into 75 thousand."}
{"question":"What is the incentive for a bank to refinance a mortgage at a lower rate?","answer":"Banks make money on load origination fees. The \"points\" you pay or closing costs are the primary benefit to the banks. A vast majority of the time risks associated with the mortgage are sold to another party. FYI, the same is true with investment banks. In general, the transaction costs (which are ignored by modern finance theory) are the main thing running the incentives for the industry."}
{"question":"Offered a job: Should I go as consultant \/ independent contractor, or employee?","answer":"I think it really depends on what work\/lifestyle you are looking for. I'm sure your more than capable of going down either route, but you should weigh up the pros and cons of each A consultant would be great, you'd be your own boss and you have overall say on how your business\/career plans out, but be prepared to put in a hell of a lot of work to get it off the ground. Long hours, little time for social\/family etc. But in the long run it'll pay off Employee, no worries about running your company, just turn up and perform your duties. You'll get the whole benefit package: healthcare\/pension etc. You can probably go on expense paid training courses etc It depends, do you want to just be an employee working \"for the man\" or do you want to be \"the man\"? I wish you luck in whatever you do! :D"}
{"question":"Rejecting a second hand car from a dealer under UK Consumer Rights Act","answer":"Dumb Coder has already given you a link to a website that explains your rights. The only thing that remains is how to execute the return without getting more grief from the dealer. Though the legal aspects are different, I believe the principle is the same. I had a case where I had to rescind the sale of a vehicle in the US. I was within my legal rights to do so, but I knew that when I returned to the dealership they would not be pleased with my decision. I executed my plan by writing a letter announcing my intention to return the vehicle siting the relevant laws involved with a space at the bottom of the letter for the sales person to acknowledge receipt of the letter and indicate that there was no visible damage to the car when the vehicle was returned. I printed two copies of the letter, one for them to keep, and one for me to keep with the signed acknowledgement of receipt. As expected, they asked me to meet with the finance manager who told me that I wouldn't be able to return the car. I thanked him for meeting with me and told him that I would be happy to meet in court if I didn't receive a check within 7 days. (That was his obligation under the local laws that applied.)"}
{"question":"Selling a stock for gain to offset other stock loss","answer":"Long term gains are taxed at 15% maximum.  Losses, up to the $3K\/yr you cited, can offset ordinary income, so 25% or higher, depending on your income. Better to take the loss that way. With my usual disclaimer: Do not let the tax tail wag the investing dog."}
{"question":"How do I track investment performance in Quicken across rollovers?","answer":"Hmm, this site says If you use Quicken, you enter a new transaction of type \"Corporate Acquisition (stock for stock).\" You put investor shares as the \"Company acquired\", Admiral shares as the \"Acquiring company\", and the conversion ratio 0.7997754 as the \"New shares issued per held share\" number. Seems crazy, but maybe that's the way. Edit: This sucks. In the comments, you can see that people have to manually correct the share price for every transaction because of rounding problems."}
{"question":"Loan holder wants a check from the insurance company that I already cashed and used to repair my car","answer":"What would happen if you was to cash a check, didn\u2019t realize it was   to you and your finance company, take it to a local business that has   a money center, they cash the check without even having you sign let   alone having the finance companies endorsement on it . The money   cleared my account like a couple months ago and it was just brought up   now .. ? The reason why the check was made out the owner and the lender is to make sure the repairs were done on the car. The lender wants to make sure that their investment is protected.  For example: you get a six year loan on a new car. In the second year you get hit by another driver. The damage estimate is $1,000, and you decide it doesn't look that bad, so you decide to skip the repair and spend the money on paying off debts. What you don't know is that if they had done the repair they would have found hidden damage and the repair would have cost $3,000 and would have been covered by the other persons insurance.  Jump ahead 2 years, the rust from the skipped repair causes other issues. Now it will cost $5,000 to fix. The insurance won't cover it, and now a car with an outstanding loan balance of $4,000 and a value of $10,000 if the damage didn't exist needs $5,000 to fix.  The lender wants the repairs done. They would have not signed the check before seeing the proof the repairs were done to their satisfaction. But because the check was cashed without their involvement they will be looking for a detailed receipt showing that all the work was done. They may require that the repair be done at a certified repair shop with manufacturer parts.  If you don't have a detailed bill ask the repair shop for a copy of the original one."}
{"question":"Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank","answer":"New clothes isn't exactly an emergency expense :) so I would strongly suggest that you budget for it on a monthly basis. This doesn't mean you have to go spend the money every month, just put a reasonable amount of money into the clothes budget\/savings every month and when you need a new shirt or two, take the money out of the saved money and go shopping. If you buy a piece or two of good quality clothing at a time you'd also not run into the situation where all your clothes fall apart at the same time."}
{"question":"Is there a financial product that allows speculation on GDP?","answer":"The closest thing that you are looking for would be FOREX exchanges. Currency value is affected by the relative growth of economies among other things, and the arbritrage of currencies would enable you to speculate on the relative growth of an individual economy."}
{"question":"Do stock prices drop due to dividends?","answer":"Share prices fall when dividends are paid out because the paid dividend (cash out) actually reduces the value of the company. Usually the share price falls by the amount of the dividend payment."}
{"question":"How can I find stocks with very active options chains?","answer":"Just as a matter of research, apparently there is a way to find high option volumes such as a site here: https:\/\/www.barchart.com\/options\/volume-leaders\/stocks However, that information is going to be heavily skewed by \"underlying security that moved a lot more than expected and probably got a lot of positions filled incidentally today\", but I think it is a good place to start building up a list of securities with a lot of option interest. There is also a tab there for ETFs. This will not tell you exactly that a particular stock always has high option volume, but most of the ones that show up there repeatedly and across multiple strike prices will meet your criteria."}
{"question":"Why do banks finance shared construction as mortgages instead of financing it directly and selling the apartments in a building?","answer":"Grade 'Eh' Bacon answers it well, the issue is risk. To explain further, when a bank issues a loan, that loan comes with certain legal rights. If the bank decided to partner with a construction company, many of those rights to collect would be gone. Debt is treated differently than equity in the legal system. Banks are good at debt, investors are good at equity.  We also oversimplify it by asking why banks don't prefer equity to debt. Some investment banks also like to deal in equity, so it's probably an inaccurate assumption that you start with."}
{"question":"What's the catch with biweekly mortgage payments?","answer":"When you pay monthly, you're making 12 payments \/ year. Assuming you have a payment of $1000\/mo, that's $12,000\/year that you're paying for your mortgage. When you opt for bi-weekly, they're saying that you can pay half of your mortgage ($500) bi-weekly (can be configured to align with your paycheck). Since there are ~26 bi-weekly periods in a year, you're making 26 * $500 = $13,000 in mortgage payments each year. Some of these companies charge a fee for you to utilize this service. The main concept behind this is that people are horrible at budgeting on their own, so when $500 is immediately taken from your paycheck, you'll be able to budget around what's left and be able to make that extra payment each year without thinking about it or realizing it."}
{"question":"Resources to begin trading from home?","answer":"So you're 23 with no higher graduation, certificates etc which would allow you to study \/ training but with a high passion for logical thinking and math? Im 31 now, i was in a similar position back then when i was 23. The very best thoughts i want to throw you over: FORGET IT (AT LEAS THIS WAY) - You need cash equity (not borrowed) to even get a foot in the door (read on why) . The fact that you even consider to trade with a few hundred dollar shows how desperate you're, it would very likely result in loss, resignation and mental pain.  Let me get you a reality check: If you think you can quadruple your money within months with ease and no risk your wrong - this mindset is gambling - don't end up as gambler. To make 24K a year or 2K a month (taxes are not included) would mean 10% a month on a 20K account which would be almost impossible on a long run (show me a hedge-fund with that performance) - What do you do on draw down months - 3 months no profit would mean you're 8K behind - you wont make a living wit ha 20K account in a western civilization and normal lifestyle. Big question, how do you want to trade? Everything newsfeed \/ latency based is very hard to compete in. So called technical systems drawing lines, fancy indicators etc are bogus in my opinion (read taleb black swan). Trading\/speculation based on fundamentals is a different animal - It to be able to do that you would need to understand the market you trade and what influences it, takes lot time, brainpower , tools ready (ugh, hard to write the picture on my mind). Im 31 years into trading now, seen so many faces come and most of them go in that time , to me it sounds like you quietly hope for a lotto ticket. To speak about hardware, ie the tools you need depends on your trading style (again a hint that a lot more study is needed. If you're really hooked, readreadread and get in touch with people - always question yourself."}
{"question":"Why is the price of my investment only updated once per day?","answer":"Mutual funds are only traded once per day, while other securities can be traded any time during the day. Mutual funds are actually a collection of other things that have value, such as stocks. The price of a mutual fund is calculated at the end of the day after the market closes by looking at how much the collection of things changed in value during the day."}
{"question":"How do I determine how much rent I could charge for a property or location?","answer":"A good way to find the rates of rental prices is to look what other landlords are charging for similar properties in your area. The proper investigation of property rental market should be make by using property listing platforms.  The other method is online rent calculator. There are a bunch of them on the Web. Briefly speaking, the rent calculator uses industry data to look at the typical rent you might expect from a property in a post code. Remember that the rent you charge has to be at least equal to the cost of your monthly mortgage bill. When you\u2019re deciding what to charge, don\u2019t forget to factor in an estimate of repair costs, taxes, homeowners association fees and insurance."}
{"question":"Can the U.S. government retroactively tax gains made earlier in the fiscal year?","answer":"You're certainly referring to \"Ex Post Facto\" laws, and while the US is constitutionally prohibited from passing criminal laws that are retroactive, the US Supreme Court has upheld many tax laws that apply tax code changes retroactively. You might ask a similar question on Law.SE for a more thorough treatment of the legalities of congress passing those laws, but I will stick to the personal finance portion of the question. What this means is that you can't expect that the current tax laws will be in force in the future, and your investment\/retirement plans should be as flexible as possible. You may wish to have some money in both Roth and traditional 401(k) accounts. You might not want to have millions of dollars in Roth accounts, because if congress does act to limit the tax benefits of those accounts, it will probably be targeting the larger balances. If you are valuing tax deductions, you should put slightly more weight on deductions that you can take today than deductions that would apply in the future. If you do find yourself in trouble because of a retroactive change, be sure to consult a tax lawyer that specializes in dealing with the IRS to possibly negotiate a settlement for a lower amount than the full tax bill that results from the changes."}
{"question":"How to make money from a downward European market?","answer":"If you want to make money while European equities markets are crashing and the Euro itself is devaluing: None of these strategies are to be taken lightly. All involve risk. There are probably numerous ways that you can lose even though it seems like you should win. Transaction fees could eat your profits, especially if you have only a small amount of capital to invest with. The worst part is that they all involve timing. If you think the crash is coming next week, you could, say, buy a bunch of puts. But if the crash doesn't come for another 6 months, all of your puts are going to expire worthless and you've lost all of your capital. Even worse, if you sell short an index ETF this week in advance of next week's impending crash, and some rescue package arrives over the weekend, equity prices could spike at the beginning of the week and you'd be screwed."}
{"question":"Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in?","answer":"The answer depends on whether the company involved has 'limited liability'. Most, but not all public and listed companies and corporations have this, but not all so it is worth checking and understanding what you are getting involved with.   The expression 'limited liability' means that the owners (shareholders) of a company have a liability up to the amount of the face value of the shares they hold which they have not yet paid for. The difference is usually minor but basically it means that if you buy $10 of shares you have no liability, but if the company gives you $10 of shares, and you pay them (in cash or kind) $5, then you still have a liability of $5. If the company fails, the debtors can come after you for that liability.  An 'unlimited liability' company is a different animal altogether. Lloyds insurance is probably the most famous example. Lloyds worked by putting together consortiums to underwrite risk. If the risk doesn't happen, the consortium keeps the premiums, if it does, they cover the loss. Most of the time they are very profitable but not always. For example, the consortiums which covered asbestos caused the bankruptcies of a great many very wealthy people."}
{"question":"Can a shareholder be liable in case of bankruptcy of one of the companies he invested in?","answer":"I am a tax lawyer and ALL the RESPONSES ABOVE are 1\/2 Correct but also 1\/2 Wrong and in tax law this means 100% WRONG (BECAUSE ANY PART INCORRECT UNDER TAX LAW will get YOU A HUGE PENALY and\/or PRISON TIME by way of the IRS!  So in ESSENCE ALL the above answers are WRONG! Let me enlighten you to the correct answer in 5 parts, as people that do not practice tax law may understand (but you still probably will not understand, if you are NOT a Lawyer). 1) All public companies are corporations (shown by Ltd.), 2) only Shareholders of Public companies (ie, traded on the NYSE stock market) are never liable for debts of a bankrupt company, due to the concept of limited liability. 2) now Banks may ask a sole proprietorship (who wants to incorp. for example) to give collateral, such as owners stocks\/bonds or his\/her house, but then of course the loanee can tell the Bank No Thanks and find a lender that may charge higher interest rates but lend money to his company with little to NO collateral. 3) Of course not all companies are publicly traded and these are called private companies. 4)\"limited liability\" has nothing to do directly with subsequent shareholders (the above answer is inaccurate!), it RELATES rather to INITIAL OWNERS INVESTMENT in their company, limiting the amount of owner loss if the company goes bankrupt. 5) Share Face-value is usually never related to this as shares are sold at market value in real life instances (above or below face-value), or the most money Investments Banks or owners can fetch for the shares they sell (not what the stock's face-value is set at upon issuance). Never forget, stocks are sold in our Capitalistic System to whomever pays the most, as it is that Buyer who gets to purchase the stock!"}
{"question":"How to start investing for an immigrant?","answer":"I am in a similar situation (sw developer, immigrant waiting for green card, no debt, healthy, not sure if I will stay here forever, only son of aging parents). I am contributing to my 401k to max my employer contribution (which is 3.5%, you should find that out from your HR).  I don't have any specific financial goal in my mind, so beside an emergency fund (I was recommended to have at least 6 months worth of salary in cash) I am stashing away 10% of my income which I invest with a notorious robot-adviser. The rate is 80% stocks, 20% bonds, as I don't plan to use those funds anytime soon. Should I go back to my country, I will bring with me (or transfer) the cash, and leave my investments here. The 401K will keep growing and so the investments, and perhaps I will be able to retire earlier than expected. It's quite vague I know, but in the situation we are, it's hard to make definite plans."}
{"question":"How to buy stuff (stocks?) in IRA account? What else?","answer":"You can buy stocks in the IRA, similarly to your regular investment account. Generally, when you open an account with a retail provider like TDAmeritrade, all the options available for you on that account are allowable. Keep in mind that you cannot just deposit money to IRA. There's a limit on how much you can deposit a year ($5500 as of 2015, $6500 for those 50 or older), and there's also a limit on top of that - the amount you deposit into an IRA cannot be more than your total earned income (i.e. income from work). In addition, there are limits on how much of your contribution you can deduct (depending on your income and whether you\/your spouse have an employer-sponsored retirement plan)."}
{"question":"Physical Checks - Mailing","answer":"Lets say you owed me $123.00 an wanted to mail me a check. I would then take the check from my mailbox an either take it to my bank, or scan it and deposit it via their electronic interface. Prior to you mailing it you would have no idea which bank I would use, or what my account number is. In fact I could have multiple bank accounts, so I could decide which one to deposit it into depending on what I wanted to do with the money, or which bank paid the most interest, or by coin flip. Now once the check is deposited my bank would then \"stamp\" the check with their name, their routing number, the date, an my account number. Eventually an image of the canceled check would then end up back at your bank. Which they would either send to you, or make available to you via their banking website. You don't mail it to my bank. You mail it to my home, or my business, or wherever I tell you to mail it. Some business give you the address of another location, where either a 3rd party processes all their checks, or a central location  where all the money for multiple branches are processed. If you do owe a company they will generally ask that in the memo section in the lower left corner that you include your customer number. This is to make sure that if they have multiple Juans the money is accounted correctly. In all my dealings will paying bills and mailing checks I have never been asked to send a check directly to the bank. If they want you to do exactly as you describe, they should provide you with a form or other instructions."}
{"question":"Is person-person lending\/borrowing protected by law?","answer":"Yes, it is, under some circumstances (basically, a piece of paper saying \"John Doe borrowed Josh Shoe 100 USD\" is not enough). Usually, the paper should include: This is the case for Czech Republic, I believe it's similar for other countries as well. Remember that without the repair date, you have very complicated position forcing the person to give you the money back. As well, there's a withdrawal of rights, i.e. after X years after the \"repair date\", you cannot force the person to give you the money. You have to send the case to the court in some period after the \"repair date\", if you don't have the money yet."}
{"question":"What is the most effective saving money method? ","answer":"A technique that is working pretty well for me: Hide the money from myself: I have two bank accounts at different banks. Let's call them A and B. I asked my employer to send my salary into account A. Furthermore I have configured an automatic transfer of money from account A to account B on the first of each month.  I only use account B for all my expenses (rent, credit card, food, etc) and I check its statement quite often. Since the monthly transfer is only 80% of my salary I save money each month in account A. I don't have a credit card attached to the savings account and I almost never look at its statement. Since that money is out of sight, I do not think much about it and I do not think that I could spend it. I know it is a cheap trick, but it works pretty well for me."}
{"question":"How much is inflation?","answer":"Nobel laureate economist, Paul Krugman, wrote a piece many moons ago about economic expansion and money supply.  As an illustration of how money supply affects the economy, he used the example of a baby-sitting co-op.  While simplistic, it provides an easy to grasp notion of how printing money and restricting it (e.g. by pegging the currency to gold reserves) can affect the economy. Here is an excerpt from his webpage ( http:\/\/web.mit.edu\/krugman\/www\/howfast.html ): \"With the decline of the traditional extended family, in which relatives were available to take care of children at need, many parents in the United States have sought alternative arrangements. A popular scheme is the baby-sitting coop, in which a group of parents agree to help each other out on a reciprocal basis, with each parent serving both as baby-sitter and baby-sittee. Any such coop requires rules that ensure that all members do their fair share. One natural answer, at least to people accustomed to a market economy, is to use some kind of token or marker system: parents \"earn\" tokens by babysitting, then in turn hand over these tokens when their own children are minded by others. For example, a recently formed coop in Western Massachusetts uses Popsicle sticks, each representing one hour of babysitting. When a new parent enters the coop, he or she receives an initial allocation of ten sticks.  This system is self-regulating, in the sense that it automatically ensures that over any length of time a parent will put in more or less the same amount of time that he or she receives. It turns out, however, that establishing such a token system is not enough to make a coop work properly. It is also necessary to get the number of tokens per member more or less right. To see why, suppose that there were very few tokens in circulation. Parents will want on average to hold some reserve of tokens - enough to deal with the possibility that they may want to go out a few times before they have a chance to babysit themselves and earn more tokens. Any individual parent can, of course, try to accumulate more tokens by babysitting more and going out less. But what happens if almost everyone is trying to accumulate tokens - as they will be if there are very few in circulation? One parent's decision to go out is another's opportunity to babysit. So if everyone in the coop is trying to add to his or her reserve of tokens, there will be very few opportunities to babysit. This in turn will make people even more reluctant to go out, and use up their precious token reserves; and the level of activity in the coop may decline to a disappointingly low level.  The solution to this problem is, of course, simply to issue more Popsicle sticks. But not too many - because an excess of popsicle sticks can pose an equally severe problem. Suppose that almost everyone in the coop has more sticks than they need; then they will be eager to go out, but reluctant to babysit. It will therefore become hard to find babysitters - and since opportunities to use popsicle sticks will become rare, people will become even less willing to spend time and effort earning them. Too many tokens in circulation, then, can be just as destructive as too few.\" -- Paul Krugman, 1997 (accessed webpage 2010)."}
{"question":"Where should I park my rainy-day \/ emergency fund?","answer":"I would suggest your local credit union or local bank for security and liquidity.  Liquidity is probably the most important issue for a emergency fund."}
{"question":"What does it mean if a company pays a quarterly dividend? How much would I get quarterly?","answer":"Google is a poor example since it doesn't pay a dividend (and doesn't expect to), so let's use another example with easy numbers. Company X has a stock price of $100, and it pays a quarterly dividend (many companies do). Let's assume X pays a dividend of $4. Dividends are always quoted in annual terms, as is dividend yield. When a company says that they pay \"quarterly dividends,\" it means that the company pays dividends every quarter, or every 3 months.  BUT, if a company has a $4 dividend, you will not receive $4 every quarter per share. You will receive $4\/4 = $1 per share, every quarter. So over the course of a fiscal year, or 4 quarters, you'll get $1 + $1 + $1 + $1 = $4 per share, which is the annual dividend.  The dividend yield = annual dividend\/stock price. So in this case, company X's div. yield will be $4\/$100 * 100 = 4%. It's important to note that this is the annual yield. To get the quarterly yield, you must divide by 4. It's also important to note that the yield fluctuates based on stock price, but the dividend payment stays constant unless the company states an announcement. For a real world example, consider Intel Corp. (TICKER: INTC) http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/q?s=INTC The share price is currently $22.05, and the dividend is $0.84. This makes the annual yield = $0.84\/$22.05 * 100 = 3.80%. Intel pays a quarterly dividend, so you can expect to receive $0.21 every quarter for every share of Intel that you own. Hope that clears it up!"}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"That's what I would do; 1.2 million dollars is a lot of money, but it doesn't make you retired for the rest of your life: There is a big crisis coming soon (my personal prediction) in the next 10-15 years, and when this happens: government will hold your money if you leave them in the bank (allowing you to use just part of it; you will have to prove the reason you need it), government will pass bills to make it very hard to close your investment positions, and government will pass new laws to create new taxes for people with a lot of money (you). To have SOME level of security I would separate my investment in the following: 20% I would buy gold certificates and the real thing (I would put the gold in a safe(s)). 20% I would put in bitcoin (you would have to really study this if you are new to crypto currency in order to be safe). 40% I would invest in regular finance products (bonds, stocks and options, FX). 20% I would keep in the bank for life expenses, specially if you don't want work for money any more. 20% I would invest in startup companies exchanging high risk hoping for a great return. Those percentages might change a little depending how good\/confident you become after investing, knowing about business, etc..."}
{"question":"ESPP advantages and disadvantages","answer":"It would be difficult to answer without knowing specifics about a particular offer. In certain cases, it's definitely great and one could become a millionaire [Google for example]. In other cases one could lose money. In most cases one makes a decent return. As the specifics are not available, in general look out for: Most of these would determine if the plan is good for you to get into."}
{"question":"Extended family investment or pay debt and save","answer":"I would suggest, both as an investor and as someone who has some experience with a family-run trust (not my own), that this is probably not something you should get involved with, unless the money is money you're not worried about - money that otherwise would turn into trips to the movies or something like that.  If you're willing to treat it as such, then I'd say go for it. First off, this is not a short or medium term investment.  This sort of thing will not be profitable right away, and it will take quite a few years to become profitable to the point that you could take money out of it - if ever.  Your money will be effectively, if not actually, locked up for years, and be nearly entirely illiquid. Second, it's not necessarily a good investment even considering that.  Real estate is something people tend to feel like it should be an amazing investment that just makes you money, and is better than risky things like the stock market; except it's really not.  It's quite risky, vulnerable to things like the 2008 crash, but also to things like a local market being a bit down, or having several months with no renter.   The amount your fund will have in it (at most $100x15\/month) won't be enough to buy even one property for years ($1500\/month means you're looking at what, 100-150 months before you have enough?), and as such won't have enough to buy multiple properties for even longer, which is where you reach some stability.  Having a washing machine break down or a roof leak is a big deal when you only have one property to manage; having five or six properties spreads out the risk significantly. You won't get tax breaks from this, of course, and that's where the real issue is for you.  You would be far better off putting your money in a Roth IRA (or a regular IRA, but based on your career choice and current income, I'd strongly consider a Roth).  You'll get tax free growth, less risky than this fund AND probably faster growing - but regardless of both of those, tax free.  That 15-25% that Uncle Sam is giving you back is a huge, huge deal, greater than any return a fund is going to give you (and if they promise that high, run far and fast). Finally, as someone who's watched a family trust work at managing itself - it's a huge, huge headache, and not something I'd recommend at least (unless it comes with money, in which case it's of course a different story).  You won't agree on investments, inevitably, and you'll end up spending huge amounts of time trying to convince each other to go with your idea - and it will likely end up being fairly stagnant and conservative, because that's what everyone will be able to at least not object to. It might be something you all enjoy doing, in which case good luck - but definitely not my cup of tea."}
{"question":"Does bull\/bear market actually make a difference?","answer":"To short:  Of course, you may always buy some index correlated ETF that eliminates the above. They use stock futures on the index, and you simply buy the \"shorting ETF\" in your non-margin account. However, they are surprisingly high cost, and despite the intended correlation, have significant drag. It's a much safer way to short the market (you have great choice in which market ETF) and eliminates the single stock risk."}
{"question":"Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT","answer":"Other options would be to use paypal, your tenant would only need your e-mail address. Most banks have a similar system to do a person-to-person transfers. My bank uses an e-mail address and only the last 4 digits of the account number."}
{"question":"Buying from an aggressive salesperson","answer":"This is way too long for a comment, so I am posting this as an answer. My bet is that you're buying a new piano. It is the only instrument that makes sense. The rest of this answer are going to assume this, but this should apply well if you're going after a violin or marimba for example. For those readers that do not know, a piano is a very delicate and expensive music instrument. My piano is literally more expensive than my car. There are a lot of similarities in sales negotiation between buying a piano and buying a car. You may be surprised to know that the cost for the dealer to acquire a piano is only around half the listed price. Therefore, the salesperson has a lot of room to negotiate a sale price to you. This explains why he was able to make a good offer for the model you are not intending to buy. You are best by comparing the final sale price with other similar models in your region, or the exact model around your region, which you have already did. Those indicate the standard price in your negotiation. You described the dealer had the exact model you desire, only in different appearance. I assume you want a black color while they have a white or wood-pattern one in their showroom. Note, every piano is different. Even with the exact same model, there will be very slight differences in the tune and touch, since some processes are hand finished. (If you're buying a Steinway, treat each of them as an individual hand crafted art.) Play the exact instrument you will be buying before closing the deal. If they do not have your desired model in the showroom, ask for a visit to their inventory facility. Again, play the exact instrument, not a showroom model. Some dishonest dealers will have their showroom pianos regulated and tuned differently than the \"standard\" pianos from shipping. If you get an extremely good offer, proceed with caution. There may be defects in that particular instrument. Look for rust or oxidized layers on the strings. Look for groves in the hammers. Listen to clicking noises when playing the keys. These are signs that the instrument has been around for quite a while and they cannot sell it. You can also copy down the serial number and look up the manufacturing date online. Before you close the deal, ask for after-sale services. How many free tunings will they provide? Will they polish your piano after delivery? These are bargain chips you can use for final adjustment of the price."}
{"question":"Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?","answer":"The answers so far are excellent. I need to respond to your 8-9% withdrawal rate. Uh, wherever you heard that, I'd suggest you listen\/read elsewhere. 4% seems to be the \"safe\" withdrawal rate. I've seen people who were convinced that 7-10% were ok get absolutely trashed in the downturns, both 2000 and 2008. Proper asset allocation and low withdrawal rate will help avoid disaster. I wrote an article about the assumptions we make, looking at 1980-2000 and extrapolating from there. Not pretty. In 2000, I remarked that the near 20%\/yr couldn't continue. Understatement of my life. I expected a return to normalcy, maybe 8-10%\/yr, and got zero."}
{"question":"Deposit cash into US bank account","answer":"Sure; you can deposit cash. A few notes apply: Does the source of cash need to be declared ? If you deposit more than $10,000 in cash or other negotiable instruments, you'll be asked to complete a form called a Currency Transaction Report (here's the US Government's guidance for consumers about this form). There's some very important information in that guidance document about structuring, which is a fairly serious crime that you can commit if you break up your deposits to avoid reporting. Don't do this. The linked document gives examples. Also don't refuse to make your deposit and walk away when presented with a CTR form.  In addition, you are also required to report to Customs and Border Protection when you bring more than $10,000 in or out of the country. If you are caught not doing so, the money may be seized and you could be prosecuted criminally. Many countries have similar requirements, often with different dollar amounts, so it's important to make sure you comply with their laws as well. The information from this reporting goes to the government and is used to enforce finance and tax laws, but there's nothing wrong or illegal about depositing cash as long as you don't evade the reporting requirements. You will not need to declare precisely where the cash comes from, but they will want the information required on the forms.  Is it taxable ? Simply depositing cash into your bank account is not taxable. Receiving some forms of income, whether as cash or a bank deposit, is taxable. If you seem to have a large amount of unexplained cash income, it is possible an IRS audit will want an explanation from you as to where it comes from and why it isn't taxable.  In short, if the income was taxable, you should have paid taxes on it whether or not you deposit it in a bank account. What is the limit of the deposit ? There is no government limit. An individual bank may have their own limit and\/or may charge a fee for larger deposits. You could always call the bank and ask."}
{"question":"Credit card issued against my express refusal; What action can I take?","answer":"I believe it is so.  It doesn't sound like they did anything outright illegal, just a pushy upsell.  You can complain to the bank manager.  If you want you can mention the employee by name (if you know who they are).  Ultimately, you can change banks.  From what you say it sounds like you are dissatisfied with this bank, so I think you should at least begin evaluating other banks and consider switching.  You can also let your current bank know you are planning to take all your money away from them specifically because of their poor customer service. You could consider filing a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleging that the bank engaged in some kind of deceptive marketing of their financial products.  Of course you can also file a complaint with something like the Better Business Bureau, or even just write a negative Yelp review.  But these actions won't really result in any penalty for the bank as a result of what they did in your specific case; they just express your dissatisfaction in a way that will be recorded and possibly made public (e.g., in a list of complaints) to protect future consumers. If you're really gung-ho and have time and money to burn, you could hire a lawyer and get legal advice about whether it is possible to sue the bank for fraud or misuse of your personal information.  Needless to say, I think this would be overkill for this situation.  I would just cancel the credit card, tell the bank you're dissatisfied, switch banks, and move on."}
{"question":"I am an American citizen but have never lived in the US. Do I need to fill a W8-BEN or a W-9?","answer":"Yes, you do.  You also need to file a tax return every year, and if you have more than $50k of total savings you need to declare this every year."}
{"question":"Is there a dollar amount that, when adding Massachusetts Sales Tax, precisely equals $200?","answer":"Don't worry about it.  The State doesn't care about rounding error.  All you need to do is say \"We charge our prices with tax included\" - you know, like carnivals and movie theaters.   Then follow the procedures your state specifies for computing reportable tax.  Quite likely it wants your pre-tax sales total for the reporting period. To get that, total up your gross sales that you collected, and divide by (1 + tax rate).  Just like DJClayworth says, except do it on total sales instead of per-item.  If you need to do the split per-transaction for Quickbooks or something, that's annoying.  What Quickbooks says will be pennies off the method I describe above.  The state don't care as long as it's just pennies, or in their favor."}
{"question":"Does doing your \"research\"\/\"homework\" on stocks make any sense?","answer":"TL;DR: Sure, \"do your own homework\" is sometimes a cop out. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do our homework. I agree that in many cases this is a cop-out by commentators. However, even if you believe in perfect market efficiency, there is benefit in \"doing your homework\" for many reasons. One of which you already mention in the question: different stocks all with the same \"value\" might have widely ranging risk. Another factor that might vary between stocks is their tax consequences. High dividend stocks might be a better fit for some buyers than others. One stock might be priced at $40 because there is a small chance they might get regulatory approval for a new product. This might make this stock very risky with a 20% of being $150 in 12 months, and a 80% chance of being $20. Another stock might be priced at $40 because the company is a cash cow, declining in revenues but producing a large dividend of $0.40 per quarter. Low risk, but also with some potential tax disadvantages. Another stock might be priced at $40 because it's a high growth stock. This would be less risky than the first example, but more risky than the second example. And the risk would be more generalized, i.e. there wouldn't be one day or one event that would be make or break the stock. In short, even if we assume that the market is pricing everything perfectly, not all stocks are equal and not all stocks are equally appropriate to everyone. Sometimes when we hear an analyst say \"they should have done their homework\" they are really saying \"This was a high risk\/high reward stock. They should have known that this had a potential downside.\" And that all assumes that we believe in 100% pure market efficiency. Which many disagree with, at least to some extent. For example, if we instead subscribe to Peter Lynch's theories about \"local knowledge\", we might believe that everyone has some personal fields of expertise where they know more than the experts. A professional stock analyst is going to follow many stocks and many not have technical experience in the field of the company. (This is especially true of small and mid cap stocks.) If you happen to be an expert in LED lighting, it is entirely feasible (at least to me) that you could be able to do a better job of \"doing homework\" on CREE than the analysts. Or if you use a specialized piece of software from a small vendor at work, and you know that the latest version stinks, then you will likely know more than the analyst does. I think it is somewhat akin to going to a doctor. We could say to ourselves \"the doctor is more knowledgeable about me than medicine, I'm just going to do what they tell me to do.\" And 99% of the time, that is the right thing to do. But if we do our \"homework\" anyway, and research the symptoms, diagnoses, and drugs ourselves as well, we can do get benefits. Sometimes we just can express our preferences amongst equal solutions. Sometimes we can ask smarter questions. And sometimes we have some piece of knowledge that the doctor doesn't have and can actually make an important discovery they didn't know. (And, just like investing, sometimes we can also have just enough knowledge to be dangerous and do ourselves harm if we go against the advice of the professionals.)"}
{"question":"Recommended education path for a future individual investor?","answer":"It depends on whether you want a career as a fund manager\/ analyst or if you want to be an investor\/ trader. A fund manager will have many constraints that a private investor doesn\u2019t have, as they are managing other people\u2019s money.  If they do invest their own money as well they usually would invest it differently from how they invest the fund's money. Many would just get someone else to invest their money for them, just as a surgeon would get another surgeon to operate on a family member. My suggestion to you is to find a job you like doing and build up your savings. Whilst you are building up your savings read some books. You said you don\u2019t know much about the financial markets, then learn about them. Get yourself a working knowledge about both fundamental and technical analysis. Work out which method of analysis (if not both) suits you best and you would like to know more about. As you read you will get a better idea if you prefer to be a long term investor or a short term trader or somewhere in-between or a combination of various methods. Now you will start to get an idea of what type of books and areas of analysis you would like to concentrate on. Once you have a better idea of what you would like to do and have gained some knowledge, then you can develop your investment\/trading plan and start paper trading. Once you are happy with you plan and your paper trading you can start trading with a small account balance (not more than $10,000 and preferably under $5,000). No matter how well you did with paper trading you will always do worse with real money at first due to your emotions being in it now. So always start off small. If you want to become good at something it takes time and a lot of hard work. You can\u2019t go from knowing nothing to making a million dollars per year without putting in the hard yards first."}
{"question":"Do I still need to file taxes with the Canadian government if I am working in the U.S. on a TN visa for a few years?","answer":"You are considered a Canadian resident if you have \"significant residential ties to Canada\". Because your wife lives in Canada, you therefore are a resident. Even by working temporarily in the US, you are still considered a \"factual resident\" of Canada. Due to that, your second question is irrelevant."}
{"question":"How can a U.S. citizen open a bank account in Europe?","answer":"Be mindful of your reporting requirements. Besides checking the box on Schedule B of your 1040 that you have a foreign bank account, you also need to file a TD F 90-22.1 FBAR report for any year that the total of all foreign bank accounts reaches a value of $10,000 at any time during the year. This is filed separately from your 1040 by June 30 of the following year. Penalties for violating this reporting requirement are draconian, in some cases exceeding the amount of money in the foreign bank account. This penalty has been levied on people who have been reporting and paying tax on the interest on their foreign bank accounts, and merely neglected this separate report filing. Article on the \"shoot the jaywalker\" punitive enforcement policy. http:\/\/www.rothcpa.com\/archives\/006866.php 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. EDITED TO ADD"}
{"question":"Lost credit card replaced with new card and new numbers. Credit score affected?","answer":"This will have no effect on your credit score.  Even though your credit card account number is changing, it is still the same account, so your history of payments and age of accounts will remain unchanged."}
{"question":"Giving kids annual tax free gift of $28,000","answer":"Why limit yourself to $28K per year?  If you pay the tuition directly to the institution, it does not count against your annual or lifetime gift-giving totals.  You could pay the entire tuition each year with no tax consequences. The only thing you can't do if you want to go this route is give the money to your children; that's what causes the gift tax to kick in.  The money must be paid directly to the school."}
{"question":"Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? ","answer":"Think about moving the decimal point in a bunch of accounting software and price stickers. Think about getting confused, \"is that price in old yen or new yen?\" - not just immediately, but every time you hear a historical price figure. Think of the inconveniences. How many billions of yen would that cost the Japanese economy? It could be a lot. How many billions of yen would the Japanese economy save by enacting such a conversion? Because I doubt it's anywhere that much."}
{"question":"FSA when a retirement agreement has been put into place","answer":"There's no reason for the employer not to deduct the whole amount before you leave. The FSA salary deduction has to be periodical, but it doesn't have to be calculated over a year. It just means that an equal amount will be deducted from your every paycheck, and if the employer (and you) know that your last paycheck is on June 30th even before the year starts - there's nothing to stop the employer from calculating the periodic payments so that it will cover your full FSA amount before you leave. That is, of course, other than mere convenience (it may be easier\/cheaper to just give you the extra $1275 than to deal with the special case deduction calculation). This is different from unexpected termination\/resignation, where the employer couldn't have made such an assumption and thus the periodic payments were calculated over a year. See pub. 969. The selection is annual - the deductions are periodical."}
{"question":"Is Cash Value Life Insurance (\"whole life\" insurance) a good idea for my future?","answer":"I am of the strong opinion that life insurance should be purchased as a term product and nothing more. The internal expense is usually high, the returns, poor and the product disclosure is often incomprehensible. The only purpose Cash Value Life Insurance serves, in my opinion, is to fund the retirement and college educations of those selling it."}
{"question":"Separating money in bank account without opening another account","answer":"There are some banks that offer \"pot\" accounts like this (off the top of my head I think Intelligent Finance does, although they call them \"jars\").  The other option for charity specifically would be a CAF account:  https:\/\/www.cafonline.org\/my-personal-giving\/plan-your-giving\/individual-charity-account.aspx"}
{"question":"How can a person with really bad credit history rent decent housing?","answer":"I don't think you've mentioned which State you're in. Here in Ontario, a person who is financially incapable can have their financial responsibility and authority removed, and assigned to a trustee. The trustee might be a responsible next of kin (as her ex, you would appear unsuitable: that being a potential conflict of interest); otherwise, it can be the Public Guardian and Trustee. It that happens, then the trustee handles the money; and handles\/makes any contracts on behalf of (in the name of) the incapable person. The incapable person might have income (e.g. spousal support payments) and money (e.g. bank accounts), which the trustee can document in order to demonstrate credit-worthiness (or at least solvency). For the time being, the kids see it as an adventure, but I suspect, it will get old very fast. I hope you have a counsellor to talk with about your personal relationships (I've had or tried several and at least one has been extraordinarily helpful). You're not actually expressing a worry about the children being abused or neglected. :\/ Is your motive (for asking) that you want her to have a place, so that the children will like it (being there) better? As long as your kids see it as an adventure, perhaps you can be happy for them. Perhaps (I don't know: depending on the people) too it's a good (or at least a better) thing that they are visiting with friends and relatives; and, a better conversational topic with those people might be how they show your children a good time (instead of your ex's money). One possible way I thought of co-signing is if a portion of child\/spousal support goes directly to the landlord. I asked the Child Support Services (who deduct money from my paycheck monthly to pay support to my ex) and they told me that they are not authorized to do this. Perhaps (I don't know) there is some way to do that, if you have your ex's cooperation and a lawyer (and perhaps a judge). You haven't said what portions of your payments are for Child support, versus Spousal support (nor, who has custody, etc). If a large part of the support is for the children, then perhaps the children can rent the place. (\/wild idea) Note that, in Ontario, there are two trusteeship decisions to make: 1) financial; and 2) personal care, which includes housing and medical. Someone can retain their own 'self-care' authority even if they're judged financially incapable (or vice versa if there's a personal-care or medical decision which they cannot understand). The technical language is, \"Mentally Incapable of Managing Property\" This term applies to a person who is unable to understand information that is relevant to    making a decision or is unable to appreciate the reasonably foreseeable consequences of a    decision or lack of decision about his or her property. Processes for certifying an    individual as being mentally incapable of managing property are prescribed in the SDA (Substitute Decisions Act), and in the Mental Health Act.\" The Mental Heath Act is for medical emergencies (only); but Ontario has a Substitute Decisions Act as well. An intent of the law is to protect vulnerable people. People may also acquire and\/or name their own trustee and\/or guardian voluntarily: via a power of attorney, a living will, etc. I don't know: how about offering the landlord a year's rent in advance, or in trust? I guess that 1) a court order can determine\/override\/guarantee the way in which the child support payments are directed 2) it's easier to get that order\/agreement if you and your ex cooperate 3) there are housing specialists in your neighborhood: They can buy housing instead of renting it. Or be given (gifted) housing to live in."}
{"question":"Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? ","answer":"Yes, http:\/\/shares.telegraph.co.uk\/stockscreener\/ has what you're looking for."}
{"question":"How to take advantage of home appreciation","answer":"Assuming \"take advantage\" means continue to build wealth, as opposed to blow it all on a fancy holiday...  Downgrade As you already note, you could downgrade\/downsize. This could happen via moving to a smaller house in the same area, or moving to an area where the cost of buying is less.  HELOC Take out a Home Equity Line of Credit. You could use the line of credit to do home improvements further boosting the asset value (forced appreciation, assuming the appreciation to date is simply market based). Caution is required if the house has already appreciated \"considerably\" - you want to keep the home value within tolerance levels for the area. (Best not to have the only $300K house on a street of $190K-ers...) Home Equity Loan Assuming you have built up equity in the house, you could leverage that equity to purchase another property. For most people this would form part of the jigsaw for getting the financing to purchase again."}
{"question":"Prepaying a loan: Shouldn't the interest be recalculated like a shorter loan?","answer":"When you pay off a loan early, you pay the remaining principal, and you save all of the remaining interest. So you do save on interest, but it's the interest you would have paid in the future, not the interest you have paid in the past. (Your remaining balance when you pay off the loan only includes the principal, not the projected interest.) Interest is a factor of the amount borrowed, the interest rate and the amount of time you borrow the money. The sooner you repay the money, the less interest you pay. Imagine if you had taken a 30 year loan at 4% interest but were allowed to make no payments until the loan term ended. If you waited 15 years to make your first payment, you wouldn't owe the same money as if you'd made payments every month. No, instead of owing ~$64k, you'd owe ~$182k, because you had borrowed $100k for 15 years (plus the interest due) rather than borrowing a declining sum. So that's why you don't get a refund on interest for previous months. If you had started with a 16 year loan, then you would have been paying more principal every month, and your monthly amount due would have been higher to reflect that. As you paid the principal off faster, the interest each month would drop faster. Paying a huge portion of the principal at the end of the loan is not the same as steadily paying it down in the same time frame. You will pay a lot more interest in the former case, and rightfully so. It might help to consider a credit card payment in comparison. If you run up a balance and pay only the minimum each month, you pay a lot of interest over time, because your principal goes down slowly. If you suddenly pay off your credit card, you don't have to pay any more interest, but you also don't get any interest back for previous months. That's because the interest accrued each month is based on your current balance, just like your mortgage. The minimum payments are calculated differently, but the interest accrued each month uses essentially the same mechanism."}
{"question":"When to convert employee shares in an RRSP into cash, even if there is a penalty?","answer":"The cost to you for selling is 3\/8% of a years salary, this is what you won't get if you sell. Tough to calculate the what-if scenarios beyond this, since I can't quantify the risk of a price drop. Once the amount in he stock is say,10%, of a years salary, if you know a drop is coming, a sale is probably worth it, for a steep drop.  My stronger focus would be on how much of your wealth is concentrated in that one stock, Enron, and all."}
{"question":"Is a car loan bad debt?","answer":"The risk besides the extra interest is that you might be upside down on the loan. Because the car loses value the moment you drive off the lot, the slower you pay it off the longer it takes to get the loan balance below the resale value. Of course if you have a significant down payment, the risk of being upside down is not as great. Even buying a used car doesn't help because if you try to sell it back to the dealer the next week they wont give you the full price you paid. Some people try and split the difference, get the longer term loan, but then pay it off as quickly as the shorter term loan. Yes the interest rate is higher but if you need to drop the payment back to the required level you can do so."}
{"question":"Does a stay at home mom need term life insurance?","answer":"Absolutely!  Just because a spouse doesn't have a taxable income, doesn't mean they aren't providing real, tangible benefit to the family economy with an important job. As tragic as it is to consider losing your spouse, are you truly in a position to replace everything they do you for you?  Knowing what they do for you and appreciating the effort your spouse gives is important, but don't sell short the dollar amount of what they provide.  Your life insurance policy should be to keep you whole. Without your spouse, you will need childcare.  You might need domestic services to the home.  What about a nanny or similar service?  Would $50K cover that until your child is an adult?  There are a number of added expenses in the short and long term that would occur if a spouse died.  How much for a funeral? Obviously you know the amount and term depends on the age of your kid.  But I think you should really try to account for the number of daily hours you spouse puts in, and try to attach a cost to those hours.  Then buy insurance for them just as you would for a wage earning.   For example, buy a policy that is 10x the annual cost for services it would take to compensate for your spouse.  Your tolerance for risk and cost can adjust it up and down from there."}
{"question":"Am I \"cheating the system\" by opening up a tiny account with a credit union and then immediately applying for a huge loan?","answer":"Credit Unions turn a profit by lending money at a higher interest rate than their savings do, just like banks do. It is an amoral feat, completely parallel to any moral weights you have assigned to \"the system\". If the most favorable circumstance is you receiving access to capital, then you can easily achieve that with zero reservations about the system that granted it to you."}
{"question":"Filing a corporation tax return online?","answer":"When in doubt, you should always seek the advice of a professional tax preparer or your accountant. (Many agents\/accountants will gladly review your tax preparations to ensure you haven't missed something. That's quicker and cheaper than paying them to do it all.) Having said that... This Illinois resource has detailed information about S-corps:  Of relevance to your situation:"}
{"question":"Deceived by car salesman","answer":"At this point there is not much you can do.  The documentation probably points to you being the sole owner and signer on the loan.  Then, any civil suit will degenerate into a \"he said, she said\" scenario.  Luckily, no one was truly harmed in the scenario.   Obtaining financing through a car dealer is almost always not advisable.  So from here, you can do what should have been done in the first place.  Go to banks and credit unions so your daughter can refinance the car.  You will probably get a lower rate, and there is seldom a fee.   I would start with the bank\/CU where she does her checking or has some other kind of a relationship.  If that fails, anywhere you can actually sit and talk with a loan officer is preferable over the big corporate type banks.   Car dealers lying is nothing new, it happens to everyone.  Buying a car is like a battle."}
{"question":"I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?","answer":"Heck no, don't spend more! I saved a ton of money when I got my first real job. You won't always be able to do this.  Save a bundle while you can."}
{"question":"Is there a way to claim a car purchase in the tax return?","answer":"IRS Publication 463 is a great resource to help you understand what you can and can't deduct.  It's not a yes\/no question, it depends on the exact company use, other use, and contemporaneous record keeping."}
{"question":"How much of my home loan is coming from a bank, how much it goes back? ","answer":"Judging from your comments, you seem to be confused about the way banking works.  Banks can only lend out money that they actually have: whether from deposits or investors or loans taken from other banks\/government entities.  The rules on how this works varies from country to country, but the principle is always the same.  There is no magic money. Let's imagine a closed system.  There's only one town, and that town only has one bank.  There are 100 people total in town, and each has $10,000.  Everyone deposits all of their money in the bank. The bank now has $1,000,000 in total deposits.  You take a loan for $100,000 and buy a house.  The bank now has $900,000.  You make your payments of $965 per month: $833 of interest and $132 toward principal.  In this ideal world, the bank has no costs associated with doing business.  After one month, the bank has $1,000,000 in deposits, $900,965 in cash on hand, $99,868 in loans, and $833 in profit (from interest). Now here's the confusing part.  You bought a house from someone.  That person also lives in town.  He takes the $100,000 you gave him and... deposits it in the bank.  The bank now has $1,100,000 in deposits, $1,000,965 in cash, $99,868 in loans, and $833 in profit. Assume 10 more people buy houses at $100,000 each, taking loans for that whole amount (for the same terms you did).  Assume those sellers then deposit the money back in the bank.  The bank now has $2,100,000 in deposits, $1,000,965 in cash, $1,099,868 in loans, and $833 in profit.  The bank is taking in $10,615 per month ($965 x 11) in loan payments, making profit of $9,163 ($833 x 11) per month from interest. This process of loans and deposits and payments can go on forever without any outside influence.  This is the primary way money is created.  It's like printing money without the paper. Of course, we're not in a closed system.  Banks are limited in endlessly creating money, primarily by two things: Reserve Requirements are set by government agencies.  They might say banks can lend until their cash on hand (or liquid equivalent) is, at minimum, 35% of total deposits.  So a bank with $1,000,000 in deposits would have to keep $350,000 in cash at any given time. Capital Requirements work largely the same way.  It's more the bank saying, \"What happens if a bunch of people want their deposits back?\"  They plan a reasonable amount of cash to have on hand for that scenario."}
{"question":"Does owning BP ADR from US stock market required to pay custody fees","answer":"Rules appear to be changing (21NOV2014) Aviva Plc. AV on NYSE pass thru fee is 0.02 cents per ADR but that equals 11% deduction from ADR dividend. For utility or insurance stock that is significant ongoing fee. Registrar in US is Citibank, could be specific to them. This is the first for me except some modest fees on indonesian ADR. Information very difficult to find. Buy and hold OZ investor."}
{"question":"Shares; are they really only for the rich\/investors?","answer":"I think I have a better answer for this since I have been an investor in the stock markets since a decade and most of my money is either made through investing or trading the financial markets. Yes you can start investing with as low as 50 GBP or even less. If you are talking about stocks there is no restriction on the amount of shares you can purchase the price of which can be as low as a penny. I stared investing in stocks when I was 18. With the money saved from my pocket money which was not much. But I made investments on a regular period no matter how less I could but I would make regular investments on a long term. Remember one thing, never trade stock markets always invest in it on a long term. The stock markets will give you the best return on a long term as shown on the graph below and will also save you money on commission the broker charge on every transaction. The brokers to make money for themselves will ask you to trade stocks on short term but stock market were always made to invest on a long term as Warren Buffet rightly says. And if you want to trade try commodities or forex. Forex brokers will offer you accounts with as low as 25 USD with no commissions. The commission here are all inclusive in spreads.  Is this true? Can the average Joe become involved? Yes anyone who wants has an interest in the financial markets can get involved. Knowledge is the key not money. Is it worth investing \u00a350 here and there? Or is that a laughable idea? 50 GBP is a lot. I started with a few Indian Rupees. If people laugh let them laugh. Only morons who don't understand the true concept of financial markets laugh. There are fees\/rules involved, is it worth the effort if you just want to see? The problem with today's generation of people is that they fear a lot. Unless you crawl you dont walk. Unless you try something you dont learn. The only difference between a successful person and a not successful person is his ability to try, fail\/fall, get back on feet, again try untill he succeeds. I know its not instant money, but I'd like to get a few shares here and there, to follow the news and see how companies do. I hear that BRIC (brasil, russia, india and china) is a good share to invest in Brazil India the good thing is share prices are relatively low even the commissions. Mostly ROI (return on investment) on a long term would almost be the same. Can anyone share their experiences? (maybe best for community wiki?) Always up for sharing. Please ask questions no matter how stupid they are. I love people who ask for when I started I asked and people were generous enough to answer and so would I be."}
{"question":"More money towards down payment versus long-term investments","answer":"Every payment you make on your house will already be increasing your equity in it.  For that reason alone, I'd recommend moving additional savings into other long-term funds."}
{"question":"Where can publicly traded profits go but to shareholders via dividends?","answer":"If a company earns $1 Million in net profit (let's say all cash, which is not entirely realistic), it can do one of three things with it: On the balance sheet - profits that have not been distributed show up as \"retained earnings\".  When dividends are paid, Retained Earnings and cash are reduced. None of the other options change the fact that it is still \"profit\" - they all just affect the balance sheet, not the income statement: Note that when a company issues dividends, it reduces its per-share value since cash is leaving the door with nothing in return.   In Apple's case, since a significant amount of its profit was earned in other countries (where it was not taxed by the US), it would pay a significant amount in US corporate tax by bringing it back to the US by investing it or paying dividends. They are betting that at some point, the US will change the rules to make it more favorable to \"repatriate\" the money and reduce their tax significantly."}
{"question":"Why does gold have value?","answer":"Because people are willing to trade for it.  People are willing to trade for Gold because: The value of gold goes up because the demand for it goes up, while the supply has been basically static (or growing at a low static rate) for a long time.  The demand is going up because people see it as a safe place to put their money.   Another reason Gold's value in dollars goes up, is because the value of the item it's traded against (dollars, euros, yen, etc) goes down, while its own value stays roughly the same. You point out Gold is not as liquid as cash, but gold (both traded on an exchange, and held physically) is easily sold.  There is always someone willing to trade you cash for gold.  Compare this to some of the bank stocks during the first part of our current recession.  People were not willing to give much of anything for your shares.  As the (annoying, misleading) advertisements say, \"Gold has never been worth zero\"."}
{"question":"What happens when they run out of letters?","answer":"The 3-letter tickers are from a different era.... Nowadays the usage of tickers is more of a \"legacy\" tradition rather than a current necessity. As such they're no longer limited to 3 characters. And the characters don't have to be related to the actual name. For example a company named Alphabet is trading on NASDAQ under the ticker \"GOOGL\". It has 5 characters, not 3, and (almost) none of them appear in the name of the company (used to, but not anymore)."}
{"question":"What happens when the bid and ask are the same?","answer":"Rule 610 (Google for it) stands that if Bid and Ask are the same, the market is considered Locked, and the exchange must stop all trading. So the same person can't quote the same bid and ask price. However, HFTs have found ways to circumvent this limitation when exchanges created special order types for them, e.g. Spam-and-Cancel"}
{"question":"Is a stock's trade size history publicly available? ","answer":"You can buy the data and process it on your own.  http:\/\/www.nyxdata.com\/Data-Products\/Daily-TAQ"}
{"question":"Getting over that financial unease? Budgeting advice","answer":"Budgeting is a tool for planning, not for execution. It sounds like you don't have a problem BUDGETING (planning what to spend on what things) but rather with the execution of your plan. That is - living frugally. This is primarily an issue of self control and personal psychology - not an issue with the mechanics of budgeting and finance, which explains why the most popular personal finance \"gurus\" (Dave Ramsey, Suze Ormond) deal as much with your relationship to money and spending as they do with financial knowledge. There is no easy answer here, but you can learn to spend less. One helpful thought is to realize that whatever your current income is, someone in your community is currently making less than that and surviving. What would you do differently if your real, actual income was $100 or $200 less than it is currently. If your food budget is a concern, learn to cook cheaply. (Often, this is more healthy.) You mentioned schooling, so I assume you are on or near a college campus. Many colleges have all sorts of free-food opportunities. (I used to eat free vegetarian meals weekly at a Hare Krsna temple. Price of admission: listening to the monk read from the Bhagavad Gita.) Fast food is, of course, a complete no-no on low-budget living. It probably goes without saying, but just in case you haven't: cancel cable, get a cheap phone plan (Ting is excellent if available in your area), and otherwise see how you can squeeze a few dollars out of your bills. On the subject of frugality, I have found no book more enlightening than: Money Secrets of the Amish: Finding True Abundance in Simplicity, Sharing, and Saving"}
{"question":"ETF's for early retirement strategy","answer":"I think the dividend fund may not be what youre looking for. You mentioned you want growth, not income. But I think of dividend stocks as income stocks, not growth. They pay a dividend because these are established companies that do not need to invest so much in capex anymore, so they return it to shareholders. In other words, they are past their growth phase. These are what you want to hold when you have a large nest egg, you are ready to retire, and just want to make a couple percent a year without having to worry as much about market fluctuations. The Russel ETF you mentioned and other small caps are I think what you are after. I recently made a post here about the difference between index funds and active funds. The difference is very small. That is, in any given year, many active ETFs will beat them, many wont. It depends entirely on the market conditions at the time. Under certain conditions the small caps will outperform the S&P, definitely. However, under other conditioned, such as global growth slowdown, they are typically the first to fall. Based on your comments, like how you mentioned you dont want to sell, I think index funds should make up a decent size portion of your portfolio. They are the safest bet, long term, for someone who just wants to buy and hold. Thats not to say they need be all. Do a mixture. Diversification is good. As time goes on dont be afraid to add bond ETFs either. This will protect you during downturns as bond prices typically rise under slow growth conditions (and sometimes even under normal conditions, like last year when TLT beat the S&P...)"}
{"question":"Transfer money from a real estate sale in India to the US","answer":"How would I go about doing this? Assuming you had purchased the house by funding from your NRE account, you can easily move back the 30K into NRE Account and out of India from NRI Account. The 30K profit would be taxed in India as per capital gains and can only be moved into NRO account. A CA would need to certify that appropriate taxes have been withheld before the bank will release the funds for repatriation out of India. There is also a limit [large 1 million USD] on how much funds can be moved out of India. Consult a CA who would help you with the formalities. If you have not funded the purchase from NRE account, the entire proceeds should be into NRO account and then move funds from there."}
{"question":"What is the most effective saving money method? ","answer":"First pay yourself. When you get salary, send some parts of that (for example 10%) to your saving account.  Step by step you'll save nice money ;)"}
{"question":"I received $1000 and was asked to send it back. How was this scam meant to work?","answer":"Answers to your questions: (1) Do bank account numbers have a checksum. NO. (2) Is it plausible that they found out your number after sending you the money by \"accident\". NO. There is no way to find out who possesses a particular bank account just by the number. Also, how they even know they made a mistake? They targeted you and knew who you were and your bank account number before the \"money\" was sent. (3 and 4) Is this a scam? YES. They never paid you any money. They forged a check for a large amount and deposited it in an account. Then divided it up, wiring pieces to multiple people, all of whom they investigated beforehand. Since it is a bank to bank transfer it clears. Once the forgery is discovered, all the transfers will be unwound. If you had sent them money, you would have lost that money. Other things to note: There is zero chance of a wire transfer going to the wrong person because the sender has to list the name and address on the account as well as the number. You basically did the right thing which is to notify your bank that you received an unauthorized transfer into your account. Never accept money into your account from someone you don't know. If money \"appears\" in your account tell the bank it is an error and probably proceeds from a forgery and they will take care of it."}
{"question":"Can someone explain a stock's \"bid\" vs. \"ask\" price relative to \"current\" price?","answer":"The current stock price you're referring to is actually the price of the last trade.  It is a historical price \u2013 but during market hours, that's usually mere seconds ago for very liquid stocks. Whereas, the bid and ask are the best potential prices that buyers and sellers are willing to transact at: the bid for the buying side, and the ask for the selling side.  But, think of the bid and ask prices you see as \"tip of the iceberg\" prices.  That is: The \"Bid: 13.20 x200\" is an indication that there are potential buyers bidding $13.20 for up to 200 shares.  Their bids are the highest currently bid; and there are others in line behind with lower bid prices.  So the \"bid\" you're seeing is actually the best bid price at that moment.  If you entered a \"market\" order to sell more than 200 shares, part of your order would likely be filled at a lower price. The \"Ask: 13.27 x1,000\" is an indication that there are potential sellers asking $13.27 for up to 1000 shares.  Their ask prices are the lowest currently asked; and there are others in line behind with higher ask prices.  So the \"ask\" you're seeing is the best asking price at that moment.  If you entered a \"market\" order to buy more than 1000 shares, part of your order would likely be filled at a higher price. A transaction takes place when either a potential buyer is willing to pay the asking price, or a potential seller is willing to accept the bid price, or else they meet in the middle if both buyers and sellers change their orders. Note: There are primarily two kinds of stock exchanges.  The one I just described is a typical order-driven matched bargain market, and perhaps the kind you're referring to. The other kind is a quote-driven over-the-counter market where there is a market-maker, as JohnFx already mentioned.  In those cases, the spread between the bid & ask goes to the market maker as compensation for making a market in a stock.  For a liquid stock that is easy for the market maker to turn around and buy\/sell to somebody else, the spread is small (narrow).  For illiquid stocks that are harder to deal in, the spread is larger (wide) to compensate the market-maker having to potentially carry the stock in inventory for some period of time, during which there's a risk to him if it moves in the wrong direction.    Finally ... if you wanted to buy 1000 shares, you could enter a market order, in which case as described above you'll pay $13.27.  If you wanted to buy your shares at no more than $13.22 instead, i.e. the so-called \"current\" price, then you would enter a limit order for 1000 shares at $13.22.  And more to the point, your order would become the new highest-bid price (until somebody else accepts your bid for their shares.)  Of course, there's no guarantee that with a limit order that you will get filled; your order could expire at the end of the day if nobody accepts your bid."}
{"question":"How does a bank make money on an interest free secured loan?","answer":"The bank depends on the laws of large numbers.  They don't need to make money on every customer -- just on average. There are several ways that zero interest makes sense to them: You asked about banks, and I don't think you see this last scheme in use very much by a bank.  Here's why.   First, customers absolutely hate it - and when you drop the interest bomb, they will warn their friends away, blow you up on social media, call the TV news consumer protectors, and never, ever, ever do business with you again.  Which defeats your efforts in customer acquisition.  Second, it only works on that narrow range of people who default just a little bit, i.e. who have an auto-pay malfunction.  If someone really defaults, not only will they not pay the punishment interest, they won't pay the principal either!  This only makes sense for secured loans like furniture or cars, where you can repo that stuff - with unsecured loans, you don't really have any power to force them to pay, short of burning their credit.  You can sue them, but you can't get blood from a stone."}
{"question":"In a competitive market, why is movie theater popcorn expensive?","answer":"The cost of the popcorn is simply the hidden extension of the price the consumer pays for the movie ticket. Similar to the tips in the restaurant. And movie theaters do not compete by lowering the unit price. Instead to maintain the revenue per customer they try to offer more value - bigger screen, better sound, more comfortable seats, etc. That is why the price of the popcorn just like the price of the ticket itself does not go down in the competitive market."}
{"question":"Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?","answer":"No It's not a loan. It's an equity investment. Think of it as a business. The parents bought 75% of the equity with $115K, and are entitled to 75% of the sale proceeds, should you someday liquidate the business (i.e. selling the house). The $500 per month is just business revenue and is paid to your parents as a dividend. Imagine you rent it out to your self and charge a $666.66 rent - you take 25% of that back and give your parents the rest. Like any equity investment, the risk for them is that if the value of the house goes down, they will have to shoulder the loss.  And you are right, there is no way to build equity. You already sold that to your parents."}
{"question":"Am I still building a credit score if I use my credit card like a debit card?","answer":"AIUI credit cards report three main things. The potential problem with your strategy is that by pre loading you never actually get a bill and so your provider may not report your payments. Better to wait until the bill comes and then pay it in full. That ensures that your use of the card is properly reported."}
{"question":"Is a company allowed to give employees an option for a bonus to be paid out as a 401k match or cash? ","answer":"I have worked for companies that have done this. One did have a match and the other did not. When they figured their profit at the end of the year a portion was given to the employees as a 401K deposit.  retirement-topics-401k-and-profit-sharing-plan-contribution-limits Total annual contributions (annual additions) to all of your accounts   in plans maintained by one employer (and any related employer) are   limited. The limit applies to the total of: elective deferrals employer matching contributions employer nonelective contributions allocations of forfeitures The annual additions paid to a participant\u2019s account cannot exceed the   lesser of: 100% of the participant's compensation, or $54,000 ($60,000 including catch-up contributions) for 2017;  $53,000   ($59,000 including catch-up contributions) for 2016. So as long as everything stays below that $54,000 limit you are good. In one case the decision was made by the company for the employee, the other company gave us the option of bonus check or 401K. I heard that most of the employees wanted the money in the 401K."}
{"question":"Where can I invest my retirement savings money, where it is safer than stocks? ","answer":"This is a very open ended question with no concrete answer as it depends on your personal situation. However, for starters I would suggest picking up a copy of The Investment Answer. It's a very light read, less than 100 pages, but it has some amazingly simple yet very concrete advice on investing and answers a lot of common questions (like yours)."}
{"question":"Why do the 1 and 2 euro cent coins exist and why are they used?","answer":"While dealing with US pennies and not 1 and 2 cent euro pieces, you may find this Wikipedia article of interest and analogous: Penny debate in the United States This article briefly summarizes both the arguments for and against retaining the one cent piece.  The arguments against include: Arguments for preservation include: Already a number of countries have removed their equivalents of the one and two cent coins, including New Zealand, Sweden, Australia, Israel, and Brazil (to name a few)."}
{"question":"Can warrants to buy stock contain conditions or stipulations other than price?","answer":"All sorts of conditions, yes. Most commonly is a limitation on the exercise date.  The two more common would be American which is exercisable any time, and European which are only exercisable on their expiry date. Sometimes they may be linked to the original asset, and might only be convertible to stock if that original asset is given\/sold back to the company.  (Effectively perhaps making the bond convertible to stock). Lots more details on the Pedia, but in short, basically you need to read the warrant contract individually, as each will differ."}
{"question":"How can I invest in an index fund but screen out (remove) certain categories of socially irresponsible investments?","answer":"It sounds like you need an index fund that follows so called Sustainability index. A sustainability index does not simply select \"socially responsible\" industries. It attempts to replicate the target market, in terms of countries, industries, and company sizes, but it also aims to select most \"sustainable\" companies from each category. This document explains how Dow Jones Sustainability World index is constructed (emphasis mine): An example of a fund following such index is iShares Dow Jones Global Sustainability Screened UCITS ETF, which also excludes \"sin stocks\"."}
{"question":"No trading data other than close for a stock on a given date","answer":"The last column in the source data is volume (the number of stocks that was exchanged during the day), and it also has a value of zero for that day, meaning that nobody bought or sold the stocks on that day. And since the prices are prices of transactions (the first and the last one on a particular day, and the ones with the highest\/lowest price), the prices cannot be established, and are irrelevant as there was not a single transaction on that day. Only the close price is assumed equal to its previous day counterpart because this is the most important value serving as a basis to determine the daily price change (and we assume no change in this case). Continuous-line charts also use this single value. Bar and candle charts usually display a blank space for a day where no trade occurred."}
{"question":"Can dividends be exploited?","answer":"The moment the dividend is announced, especially from a company that doesn't normally pay dividends, the dividend is factored into everybody's analysis. In the absence of any other news the price of apple would be expected to drop once the dividend in locked in. Why would I buy shares from you at full price one day after the dividend is paid, if I will have to wait for the next dividend? Also keep in mind the dividend was announced on July 24th, and is given to shareholders of record on August 13th. You are way behind the curve."}
{"question":"Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?","answer":"No, a jump in market capitalization does not equal the amount that has been invested.  Market cap is simply the stock price times the total number of shares. This represents a theoretical value of the company. I say \"theoretical\" because the company might not be able to be sold for that at all.  The quoted stock price is simply what the last buyer and seller of stock agreed upon for the price of their trade. They really only represent themselves; other investors may decide that the stock is worth more or less than that.  The stock price can move on very little volume. In this case, Amazon had released a very good earnings report after the bell yesterday, and the price jumped in after hours trading. The stock price is up, but that simply means that the few shares traded overnight sold for much higher than the closing price yesterday.  After the market opens today and many more shares are traded, we'll get a better idea what large numbers of investors feel about the price. But no matter what the price does, the change in market cap does not equal the amount of new money being invested in the company. Market cap is the price of the most recent trades extrapolated out across all the shares."}
{"question":"What happens to the original funds when a certified bank check is not cashed?","answer":"The answer probably varies with local law, and you haven't said where you're located. In most or all US states, it appears that after some statutory length of time, the bank would transfer the money to the state government, where it would be held indefinitely as \"unclaimed property\" in the name of the recipient (technically, the payee, the person to whom the check is made payable).  This process is called escheatment.  Most states publish a list of all unclaimed property, so at some later date the payee could find their name on this list, and realize they were entitled to the funds.  There would then be a process by which the payee could claim the funds from the state.   Usually the state keeps any interest earned on the money. As far as I know, there typically wouldn't be any way for you, the person who originated the payment, to collect the money after escheatment.  (Before escheatment, if you have the uncashed check in your possession, you can usually return it to the bank and have it refunded to you.) I had trouble finding an authoritative source explaining this, but a number of informal sources (found by Googling \"cashier check escheatment\") seem to agree that this is generally how it works.  Here is the web site for a law firm, saying that in California an uncashed cashier's check escheats to the state after 3 years. Until escheatment occurs, the recipient can cash the check at any time.  I don't think that cashier's checks become \"stale\" like personal checks do, and there isn't any situation in which the funds would automatically revert to you."}
{"question":"Germany: Employee and Entrepreneur at same time (for getting AppStore payments)","answer":"In Germany you can register a Einzelunternehmen and receive payments into your personal bank account with a German bank. Apple will certainly be able to transfer to accounts in Germany as payments go via the European SEPA standard. Tax wise if you are living in Germany you will need to pay tax in Germany, so this is really the easiest way of doing it."}
{"question":"18 year old making $60k a year; how should I invest? Traditional or Roth IRA?","answer":"1) Usually, the choice between Traditional vs. Roth is whether you believe that your tax rate will be higher or lower in the future than it is now. Your income is probably in the 25% bracket now. It's hard to say whether that should be considered \"high\" or \"low\". Some people advocate Roth only for 15% bracket; but your income would probably go into higher brackets in the future, so Roth may be preferable from this point of view. Roth IRA also has another advantage that the principal of contributions can be taken out at any time without tax or penalty, so it can serve as an emergency fund just as well as money in taxable accounts. Given that you may not have a lot of money saved up right now, this is useful. 2) In a sense, it's nice to have a mix of Traditional and Roth when you withdraw to hedge against uncertainty in future tax rates and have the option of choosing whichever one is advantageous to withdraw when you need to withdraw. That said, you will likely have many years of access to a 401k and high income in your future working years, in which you can contribute to a Traditional 401k (or if no access to 401k, then Traditional IRA), so a mix will almost certainly happen even if you go all Roth IRA now. 3) I think that depends on you, whether you are a hands-on or hands-off kind of investor."}
{"question":"Buying an ETF vs. The explicit Index","answer":"what reason would I have in buying an ETF? Apart from the efforts, the real reason is the ticket size. One can't buy shares in fraction. To truly reflect the index in equal weight, the amount to invest will be in multiples of millions [depending on the Index and the stock composition]   This related question should help you understand why it is difficult even for large fund house to exactly mimic the index. Why do passive ETFs require so much trading (and incur costs)?"}
{"question":"Credit balance on new credit card","answer":"A Credit Balance means that you overpayed. That's nothing to worry about; it will just be used up by your next charges. Note that this can have two reasons - either you really paid too much; or you paid off a charge that is still 'pending' - meaning it has not yet posted and is not considered in the amount you owe: Most charges in restaurants for example are pending for a day or more, because the original charge is your bill without tip (they don't know the tip when the run the card!), and the merchant spends his weekends or evenings to type in the final amount (including tip) and post the pending charge. If this is the case, it will settle ('get posted') in a day or two, and then it will match up."}
{"question":"What should we consider when withdrawing a large amount of money from a bank account?","answer":"You state \"Any info will be appreciated\", so here's some background information on my answer (you can skip to my answer): When I worked for banks, I was required to submit suspicious activity to the people above me by filling out a form with a customer's name, SSN, account number(s) and ID.  You may hear in media that it is $10K or sometimes $5K.  The truth is that it could be lower than that, depending on what the institution defines as suspicious.  Every year we were required to take a \"course\" which implied that terrorists and criminals use cash regularly - whether we agree or disagree is irrelevant - this is what the course implied. It's important to understand that many people use cash-only budgets because it's easier than relying on the banking system which charges overdraft fees for going over, or in some cases, you pay more at merchants because of card usage (some merchants give discounts for cash).  If someone has a budget of $10K a month and they choose to use cash, that's perfectly fine.  Also, why is it anyone's business what someone does with their private property?  This created an interesting contrast among differently aged Americans - older Americans saw the banking system as tyrannical busybodies whereas young Americans didn't care.  This is part of why I eventually left the banking system; I felt sick that I had to report this information, but it's amazing how quick everyone is to accept the new rules.  Notice how one of the comments asks you what you intend to do with the money, as if it's any of their business.  Welcome to the New America\u00a9! My answer: If you withdraw $100,000, here is what will more than likely happen: Now, watch the anger at this answer because I'm telling you the truth.  This article will explain why.  Your very question had a negative 1, as if asking what you're asking is wrong (see the absurdity)!  If Joseph Stalin ran for president in the United States, the majority of Americans would welcome him.  You have good reason to be concerned; others at this site have noticed this as well."}
{"question":"End-of-season car sales?","answer":"It completely varies by manufacturer, dealer, and time of year, but in general yes, you can get a (sometimes significant) discount on brand new last year models.  In general though, it comes down to supply and demand. As an example, in April 2016 I was looking at a brand new 2016 in which the 2017 model had come out that week (I thought April was a little early for next year's model but sometimes that's a marketing tool). The sticker price of the 2017 was only $100 more than the 2016, but the 2016 was selling for $3K under MSRP, and the 2017 was selling at exactly MSRP since they only had 2 in stock."}
{"question":"As a total beginner, how do I begin to understand finance & stocks?","answer":"Let me first give you my definitions of the words 'investor' and 'speculator'. To me, anyone looking to 'buy low, sell high' is a speculator. Only 'buy and hold' people are investors.  The news agencies love to report on changes in the price of a stock. This gives them something to talk about. So speculation is encouraged by the news media. What investors care about is dividends. In my opinion whatwhat news agencies should report on are changes to the dividend provided by a security.  I used to be a speculator, but now that I am retired I am an investor."}
{"question":"Avoid Capital Gains on Rental","answer":"Don't let the tax tail wag the investment dog. There is risk in exchanging this (known) property for another (unknown) property. That risk may be more than $9000 worth of risk. Tax considerations are important, but most important is that your investments make money. If you intend to continue as a landlord, you had better be sure you are finding a better deal elsewhere if you are going to trade this property up. I should also mention that you have a 5 year window in which you need to have lived in the home for 2 years. You have time and might be able to sell for a higher price if you wait a little longer."}
{"question":"Getting financial advice: Accountant vs. Investment Adviser vs. Internet\/self-taught?","answer":"Do I need an Investment Adviser?  No, but you may want to explore the idea of having one. Is he going to tell me anything that my accountant can't?  Probably. How much expertise are you expecting from your accountant here? Do you think your accountant knows everything within the realms of money from taxes, insurance products, investments and all your choices and what would work or wouldn't? Seems like it could be a tall order to my mind. My accountant did say to come to him for advice on investment\/business   issues. So, he is willing, but is he able? Not asking about his   competence, but rather \"is there something that only an Investment   Adviser can provide, by law, that an accountant can't\"? Not that I know though don't forget how much expertise are you expecting here from one person. Is this person intended to answer all your money questions? But isn't that something that my accountant could\/should do? Perhaps though how well are you expecting one person to be aware of so much stuff? I want you to know all the tax law so I can minimize taxes, maximize my investment returns, cover me with adequate insurance, and protect my savings seems like a bit much to put on one entity. Do I need either of them? Won't the Internet and sites like this one   suffice? Need no. However, how much time are you prepared to spend learning the basics of strategies that work for you? How much money are you prepared to put into things to learn what works and doesn't? While it is your decision, consider how to what extent do you diagnose your medical issues through the internet versus going to see a doctor? Be careful of how much of a do it yourself approach you want to go here and recognize that there are multiple approaches that may work. The question is which trade-offs are OK for you."}
{"question":"Do I need to pay taxes in the US as an Alien Resident for my Canadian stock capital gains","answer":"I will answer my own question. After calling my broker, they explained me this:"}
{"question":"How can I calculate the volatility(standard deviation) of a stock price? and\/or ROI (return on investment) of a stock?","answer":"the \"how\" all depends on your level of computer savvy. Are you an Excel spreadsheet user or can you write in programming languages such as python? Either approach have math functions that make the calculation of ROI and Volatility trivial. If you're a python coder, then look up \"pandas\" (http:\/\/pandas.pydata.org\/) - it handles a lot of the book-keeping and downloading of end of day equities data. With a dozen lines of code, you can compute ROI and volatility."}
{"question":"How to make money from a downward European market?","answer":"Trying to make money on something going down is inherently more complicated, risky and speculative than making money on it going up.  Selling short allows for unlimited losses.  Put options expire and have to be rebought if you want to keep playing that game.  If you are that confident that the European market will completely crash (I'm not, but then again, I tend to be fairly contrarian) I'd recommend just sitting it out in cash (possibly something other than the Euro) and waiting until it gets so ridiculously cheap due to panic selling that it defies all common sense.  For example, when companies that aren't completely falling apart are selling for less than book value and\/or less than five times prior peak earnings that's a good sign.  Another indicator is when you hear absolutely nothing other than doom-and-gloom and people swearing they'll never buy another stock as long as they live.  Then buy at these depressed prices and when all the panic sellers realize that the world didn't end, it will go back up."}
{"question":"Can PayPal transfer money automatically from my bank account if I link it in PayPal?","answer":"Practically, as an ebay buyer I have never seen any way to keep a balance in paypal and top it off from my bank account under my own control.  It is all automated, and as I seem to recall linking with a bank account or credit card was necessary to get some kind of \"confirmed address\" status out of Paypal so that eBay sellers would be more willing to trust me as a buyer and know that my shipping address was legitimate.  As a seller, I can keep a balance at paypal from eBay sales and ask for it back in my checking account instead of keeping it in paypal to purchase items later. In terms of advice, in my opinion the paypal transfer limits or how to set them is not the answer needed to protect one's finances in this situation.   In an error or cyberattack scenario, you have to consider the possibility that any limits are exceeded.  When your online activity of any kind is linked to a bank account, any amount in that linked bank account is probably at risk.  It doesn't really matter if it is paypal, or a server rental account, or amazon.  If it can be abused, and it is linked to your bank account, then someone might abuse it and leave you with a bill. That you might be ultimately victorious is of little consequence if someone steals money you really needed right now and the devotion of time and energy to \"work the bureaucracy\" to get your money back will distract from performance at work or school. So the next step up in protection is to firewall the bank account you use for online purchases from your other bank accounts where your salary is received.  The best way to do it is with different banks instead of merely different accounts, but that is also the most inconvenient for filling the account back up.   Nowadays -- at least in the USA -- at several banks you can open a \"free\" checking account for a minimum deposit like $500 or $1000 that must stay in the account to be fee free at the end of each month.  Whatever balance you keep in the account you use for your \"risky\" online transactions will be the maximum that can disappear in an incident, downside being you have to feed the account from time to time to keep it above the minimum as you make purchases."}
{"question":"Are my parents ripping me off with this deal that doesn't allow me to build my equity in my home?","answer":"The time to have looked into this is before you bought the condo, not now. You are presumably an adult. Your parents have apparently made it possible for you to have a roof of your own over your head for what is probably below rental rates (but I don't know your area, so can't say). From their point of view, they may have been doing you a favor, while giving themselves an investment opportunity. What would they be doing with that money otherwise, and at a higher or lower rate of return, and with greater or lesser risk? Where and how would you be living otherwise? More Importantly, if you can't talk to them about this you have bigger problems than money."}
{"question":"Options profit calculation and cash settlement","answer":"Marketwatch reports that the 108 strike call option sells for 1.45,  down 1.53 from yesterday. If we split the bid and ask you get 1.415. That is what that contract will, likely, trade at.  The biggest problems with options are commissions and liquidity. I have seen a commission as high as $45 per trade. I have also seen open interest disappear overnight. Even if you obtain contracts that become worth more than you paid for them you may find that no one wants to pay you what they are worth.  Track your trade over a few weeks to see how you would have done. It is my experience that the only people who make money on options are the brokers."}
{"question":"Why is being \"upside down\" on a mortgage so bad?","answer":"tl;dr: when everything is going great, it's not really a problem. It's when things change that it's a problem. Finally, home loans are extended over extremely long periods (i.e. 15 or 30 years), making any fluctuations in their value short-lived - even less reason to be obsessed over their current value relative to the loan. Your post is based on the assumption that you never move. In that case, you are correct - being underwater on a mortgage is not a problem. The market value of your house matters little, except if you sell it or it gets reassessed. The primary problem arises if you want to sell. There are a variety of reasons you might be required to move: In all of these scenarios it is a major problem if you cannot sell. Your options generally are: In the first option, you will destroy your credit. This may or may not be a problem. The second is a major inconvenience. The third is ideal, but often people in this situation have money related problems. Student loans can deferred if needed. Mortgages cannot. A car is more likely to be a lower payment as well as a lower amount underwater. Generally, the problem comes when people buy a mortgage assuming certain things - whether that's appreciation, income stability\/growth, etc. When these change they run into these problems and that is exactly a moment where being underwater is a problem."}
{"question":"What headaches will I have switching from Quicken to GnuCash?","answer":"I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively.  It feels a bit rough with the UI: Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file.  This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.) My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us. LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading."}
{"question":"Is gold really an investment or just a hedge against inflation?","answer":"From Wikipedia: Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. In Finance   investment is putting money into something with the expectation of   gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for   the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an   expected period of time. In contrast putting money into something with   an expectation of gain without thorough analysis, without security of   principal, and without security of return is speculation or gambling. The second part of the question can be addressed by analyzing the change in gold price vs inflation year by year over the long term. As Chuck mentioned, there are periods in which it didn't exceed inflation. More important, over any sufficiently long length of time the US stock market will outperform. Those who bought at the '87 peak aren't doing too bad, yet those who bought in the last gold bubble haven't kept up with inflation. $850 put into gold at the '80 top would inflate today to $2220 per the inflation calculator. You can find with a bit of charting some periods where gold outpaced inflation, and some where it missed. Back to the definition of investment. I think gold fits speculation far better than it does investment. I've heard the word used in ways I'd disagree with, spend what you will on the shoes, but no, they aren't an investment, I tell my wife. The treadmill purchase may improve my health, and people may use the word colloquially, but it's not an investment."}
{"question":"Should we buy a house, or wait?","answer":"Advantages of buying: With every mortgage payment you build equity, while with rent, once you sign the check the money is gone. Eventually you will own the house and can live there for free. You can redecorate or remodel to your own liking, rather than being stuck with what the landlord decides is attractive, cost-effective, etc. Here in the U.S. there are tax breaks for homeowners. I'm not sure if that's true in U.K. Advantages of renting: If you decide to move, you may be stuck paying out a lease, but the financial penalty is small. With a house, you may find it difficult to sell. You may be stuck accepting a big loss or having to pay a mortgage on the empty house while you are also paying for your new place. When there are maintenance issues, you call the landlord and it's up to him to fix it. You don't have to come up with the money to pay for repairs. You usually have less maintenance work to do: with a house you have to mow the lawn, clear snow from the driveway, etc. With a rental, usually the landlord does that for you. (Not always, depends on type of rental, but.) You can often buy a house for less than it would cost to rent an equivalent property, but this can be misleading. When you buy, you have to pay property taxes and pay for maintenance; when you rent, these things are included in the rent. How expensive a house you can afford to buy is not a question that can be answered objectively. Banks have formulas that limit how much they will loan you, but in my experience that's always been a rather high upper bound, much more than I would actually be comfortable borrowing. The biggest issue really is, How important is it to you to have a nice house? If your life-long dream is to have a big, luxurious, expensive house, then maybe it's worth it to you to pour every spare penny you have into the mortgage. Other people might prefer to spend less on their house so that they have spare cash for a nice car, concert tickets, video games, cocaine, whatever. Bear in mind that if you get a mortgage that you can just barely afford, what do you do if something goes wrong and you can't afford it any more? What if you lose your job and have to take a lower-paying job? What if some disaster strikes and you have some other huge expense? Etc. On the flip side, the burden of a mortgage usually goes down over time. Most people find that their incomes go up over time, between inflation and growing experience. But the amount of a mortgage is fixed, or if it varies it varies with interest rates, probably bouncing up and down rather than going steadily up like inflation. So it's likely -- not at all certain, but likely -- that if you can just barely afford the payment now, that in 5 or 10 years it won't be as big a burden."}
{"question":"Taxes: Sold House this Year, Buying Next Year","answer":"To your first question: YES. Capital gains and losses on real-estate are treated differently than income. Note here for exact IRS standards.  The IRS will not care about percentage change but historical (recorded) amounts.   To your second question: NO  Are you taxed when buying a new stock? No. But be sure to record the price paid for the house. Note here for more questions. *Always consult a CPA for tax advice on federal tax returns."}
{"question":"What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?","answer":"Anyone who has any business looking at growth numbers will know thay are meaningless in the first year,  So all they need to know is that it's the first year.    It's no different than the Billboard music charts' treatment of the \"last week's chart ranking\" and \"movement up\/down\" columns.  It will help with visual layout if the figure used is about the same size as a percentage number.   \"New\" fits nicely."}
{"question":"Why do stock brokers charge fees","answer":"They are providing you a service and they charge you for it. The service includes giving you a trading platform(website and the infrastructure), doing all the background work for setting up services for you, relaying your orders to the market or as a broker fulfilling your orders, doing settlement when an order is matched, giving you access to the stock market(the costs are quite high to get a license to relay orders to the market and I believe it needs to be renewed every year). There are transaction fees which the stock exchanges charge the brokers to use the stock markets infrastructure and connect to it. And then interfacing with banks for monetary transactions and also doing according to the law in the jurisdiction they are located in. Most of it is an one time cost, but they are a private enterprise out to make profit so they will charge for their services."}
{"question":"The Benefits\/Disadvantages of using a credit card","answer":"If you can use and pay off your credit card in full every month, there are plenty of benefits including improved credit, reward points and more. Many fall into the trap of just making the minimum payments and facing high interest charges or missing payments and getting a hit on their credit reports.  To start off, put something small that you know you can pay off every month. It could be your Netflix or your gas. Make sure you pay it off before any interest is accrued. Over time, you can ask for higher limits to boost your utilization rate."}
{"question":"Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries","answer":"I'd suggest changing the subject when your friends talk about real estate to save your sanity and friendship.  There's a difference between \"belief\" and \"knowledge\". Arguing with a believer isn't a very productive course of action, and will ultimately poison the friendship. Reality is a harsh mistress."}
{"question":"I can make a budget, but how can I get myself to consistently follow my budget?","answer":"And remember, there's nobody but you that can do it - so the most important tool here is your determination and persistence."}
{"question":"Scam or Real: A woman from Facebook apparently needs my bank account to send money","answer":"Yes, it is a scam.  Think about it: Why would a stranger offer to give you money? Why would she need you to pay her own employees? She wouldn't. It is a scam.  You have more to lose than just the $25 that is in the account. Just as has happened to your dad before, you will be receiving money that is not real, but paying real money out somewhere else.  One more thing: If your dad has fallen for these scams so many times that he can't get a bank account anymore, why are you still taking financial advice from him?"}
{"question":"Why buy insurance?","answer":"Most people buy insurance because it is legally required to own a car or to have a mortgage. People want to own homes and to have personal transportation enough that they are willing to pay for required insurance costs. There are a lot of great explanations here as to why insurance is important and I don't want to detract from those at all. However, if we're being honest, most people are not sophisticated enough to measure and hedge their various financial risks. They just want to own an home and to drive a car."}
{"question":"Where can one download or subscribe to end of day price data for Tokyo stocks?","answer":"Google Finance certainly has data for Tokyo Stock Exchange (called TYO on Google) listings.  You could create a \"portfolio\" consisting of the stocks you care about and then visit it once per day (or write a script to do so)."}
{"question":"Emulating a 'long straddle' without buying or selling Options?","answer":"Up until your strategy's money losing leg is stopped out, you have zero PnL, while a straddle has lost time value but may gain from price movements - all the PnL at that time you cannot capture with your strategy. Also stop loss cannot guarantee your price."}
{"question":"Why do new car loans, used car loans, and refinanced loans have different rates and terms?","answer":"New car loans, used car loans, and refinances have different rates because they have different risks associated with them, different levels of ability to recoup losses if there is a default, and different customer profiles.  (I'm assuming third party lender for all of these questions, not financing the dealer arranges, as that has other considerations built into it.) A new car loan is both safer to some extent (as the car is a \"known\" risk, having no risk of damage\/etc. prior to purchase), but also harder to recoup losses (because new cars immediately devalue significantly, while used cars keep more of their value).  Thus the APRs are a little different; in general for the same amount a new car will be a bit lower APR, but of course used car loans are typically lower amounts. Refinance is also different; customer profile wise, the customer who is refinancing in these times is likely someone who is a higher risk (as why are they asking for a loan when they're mostly paid off their car?).  Otherwise it's fairly similar to a used car, though probably a bit newer than the average used car."}
{"question":"How do I use investments to lower my taxes [US]?","answer":"Not exactly. There are a few ways to manage your taxes with investments. 1) For most investments you get taxed on any gain in value in the investment or dividends paid by that investment. Most investments (with some exceptions for mutual funds) you don't take the tax hit until you sell the investment and realize the gain. For bonds, cds, and other cash type investments you have to pay taxes in the year they pay out the interest or dividend. 2) You can put money (up to a certain limit) in a traditional IRA and can subtract that amount from your income for tax calculation for the year you invest it. However, you are going to pay taxes on it when you take the money out at retirement. It really just delays the taxes. 3) If you put the money in a Roth IRA, you don't get a tax break now, but you don't have to pay any taxes on the money or the gains when you take it out at retirement. 4) The gains from some mutual funds can be tax exempt, but that just saves you from paying tax on the increase in value.  5) Don't fall for scams that try to use insurance policies as investments to avoid taxes. The fees are ginormous, which usually makes them a ripoff."}
{"question":"Money put down on home","answer":"To quote Judge Judy:  \"Our courts are not in the business of settling assets of couples who decide to play house\". This is one of the reasons we put off buying houses with a partner until we are married.  The courts have rules for couples who marry, then split,  but none for those who don't. In the scenerio you spelled out, you are at the mercy of your ex-boyfriend as far as getting your downpayment back.  Legally, you are entitled to 50% of the funds remaining after the sale and expenses."}
{"question":"Advice on what to do with my equity?","answer":"How will 45K-60K \"end up in your pocket\"?  Are you selling your home?  Where are you going to live?  You talk about moving to Arizona, what is so magical about that place? Congratulations on making a wise purchase.  Some people with new found money use it to correct past mistakes.  However, if they do not change their behavior they end up in the same situation just less them money they once had. While 50K income is respectable at your age, it is below the national average for households.  One factor in having a college education is those with them tend to experience shorter and fewer periods of unemployment especially for males.  Nothing will ever replace hustle, however.  I'd ask you to have a plan to raise your income.  Can you double it in 5 years?   You need to get rid of the revolving debt.  Do that out of current income.  No need to touch the house proceeds for something so small.  Shoot for 9 months. Then you need to get rid of the speeding fines and the vehicle loan.  That is a lot of vehicle for your income.  Again, I would do that out of current income or by selling the vehicle and moving to something more inline with your income.   As far as to moving or flipping foreclosures that is more of a question that has to do with your hopes and dreams.  Do you want to move your children every 3 years?  What if you move to Arizona and it turns out to be quite horrible?  You and your wife need to sit down and discuss what is best for your family."}
{"question":"What should I do with my stock options?","answer":"The main reason to exercise the shares sooner rather than later is that you have to hold the shares for 1 year to gain access to the long-term capital gains rate when you sell your shares. You do not want short-term capital gains rates to apply to these shares when you sell them. If the company is unable to go public and sells privately, you may not have any choice but to sell your shares immediately. If the company goes public you will simply have to hold your shares for a year after you buy them before selling to get the lower tax rate."}
{"question":"devastated with our retirement money that we have left","answer":"Get a job, if you don't have one right now. Take deductions from your paycheck for an IRA or 401K if the company has one."}
{"question":"Where to borrow money between college graduation and employment?","answer":"You have a few options, none of which are trade off free: Apply for a credit card, and live off of that.   Here, of course, you will go into debt, and there are minimums to pay.  But, it will tide you over.  In any case, you are getting unsecured credit, so your rates will probably be very, very high.  You don't want to build up a lot of 20% per annum debt. An alternative to this would be to go to any bank and ask for an unsecured loan.  Having no income, it will be difficult, though not necessarily impossible, to secure some funds.  When I was in between houses, once, for example, I was able to borrow $30,000 in unsecured debt (to help me construct my new house!), just based on my income.  Grant you, I paid it 2 months later, in order to avoid the 10% \/ year interest, but the point is that unsecured debt does exist.  Credit Cards are easier to get.  Arrange for personal financing through your parents or other relatives. If your parents can send you remittances, the terms will most likely be more generous.  They know your credit and your true ability to repay.  Just because they send you money doesn't mean you have to live with them.  As a parent, I have a stake in ensuring my children's success.  If I think that tiding them over briefly is in their best interest and mine, you better be sure I'll do it. A variation on this is Microfinance - something like Kiva.  Here, if you can write up a story compelling enough to get finance, there are people who might lend you money.  Kiva is normally directed towards poorer countries and entrepeneurs - but local variations exist. UPDATE: Google-backed 'LendingClub.com is far more appropriate to this situation than Kiva.  Same general idea, but that's the vendor. Find freelance, contract, or light employment. Your concern about employment is justified - you don't want to be in a position where you are unable to travel to an interview because Starbucks or McDonalds will fire you if you don't show up for a shift.  (Then again, do you really care if McDonald's lets you go?)  As such, you need to find income that is less bound by schedule.  Freelance work, in particular, will give you that freedom - assuming you have a skill you can trade.  Likewise, short term contract work is equally flexible - usually.  Finally, it may be easiest just to get temporary pickup work in a service capacity.  In any event, doing something will be better than doing nothing.  Who knows, you might want to be a manager \/ owner of a McDonalds some day.  Wouldn't hurt to say, \"I started at the bottom.\""}
{"question":"Are tax deductions voluntary?","answer":"What kind of \"deductions\" are you talking about? Many deductions, like the standard\/itemized deductions, come after the AGI, and do not affect the AGI, so I don't see how this would make any difference. Maybe you are talking about deductions that come before the AGI? If you want to increase your AGI legitimately, here's a way: Every year, itemize deductions on your federal return, and over-withhold your state income tax (assuming your state has income tax) by a lot, and\/or make voluntary extra payments to your state income tax. As a result, you will get a huge refund on your state taxes the following year. Then you will need to include this refund as income on line 10 of the federal return that year, which will be included in the AGI. (Of course, you will also be able to deduct a lot of state income tax paid every year in the federal itemized deductions, but those come after the AGI.)"}
{"question":"Obtaining Private Prospectuses","answer":"How can I get quarterly information about private companies? Ask the owner(s).  Unelss you have a relationship and they're interested in helping you, they will likely tell you no as there's no compelling reason for them to do so.  It's a huge benefit of not taking a company public."}
{"question":"Is there a Yahoo Finance ticker for NYMEX Crude Oil Front Month?","answer":"Yahoo Finance doesn't offer this functionality; I remember looking for this exact feature a couple of years ago for coffee futures. Your best option is to look at the futures chain. However, Yahoo Finance's future chains aren't always complete, since you'll notice that the futures chain for NYMEX crude oil omit the June contract. The contract still exists, but Yahoo doesn't list it in its own futures chain or in the future chain for May."}
{"question":"Should I start investing in property with $10,000 deposit and $35,000 annual wage","answer":"I want to caveat that I am not an active investor in Australia, you most likely should seek out other investors in your market and ask them for advice\/mentorship, but since you came here I can give you some generalized advice.  When investing in real estate there are a two main rules of thumb to quickly determine if the property will be a good investment. The 50% rule and the 2% (or 1%) rule.   The 50% rules says that in general 50% if the income from the property will go to expenses not including debt service.  If you are bringing in $1000 a month 500 of that will go to utilities, taxes, repair, capital expenditures, advertising, lawn care, etc. That leave you with 500 to pay the mortgage and if anything is left that can be cash flow.  As this is your first property and it is in \" a relatively bad neighbourhood\" you might consider bumping that up to 60% just to make sure you have padding. The 1 or 2% rules says that the monthly rent should be 1(or 2) percent of the purchase price in this case the home is bought at 150,000.  If the rent is 1,500 a month it might be a good investment but if it rents for 3,000 a month it probably is a good investment.  There are other factors to consider if a home meets the 2% rule it might be in a rough neighborhood which increases turnover which in general is the biggest expense in an investment property.  If a property meets one or both of these rules you should take a closer look at it and with proper due diligence determine that it is a deal.  These rules are just hard and fast guidelines to property analysis, they may need to be adapted to you market.  For example these rules will not hold in most (all?) big cities."}
{"question":"Is house swapping possible?","answer":"You would have to find someone in the other state who wanted to swap.  This is conceivable but difficult if you want the houses to be the same value.  How do you find the one person who lives in the right place now and wants to move to the right area?   The normal way this situation is handled is to simply put your house on the market.  At the same time, you find a new house in the new location.  You arrange for a new mortgage for the new house and make purchase contingent on selling the old house.  Your buyer pays off your mortgage and gives you a bit left over that you use as a downpayment on the new house.   Note that you take a loss on closing costs when you do this.  This is why if you are in the position where you move frequently, you may be better off renting.   Sometimes an employer will help with this, paying for a long term hotel or short term rental.  This can give you more room to sell and buy the houses.   If you have to move right now, immediately, not in a few months when your housing situation is fixed, consider double renting.  You rent out your mortgaged house to someone and pay rent on a new place.  You may put some of your stuff in storage until you get into your permanent place.   The downside is that it can be harder to sell a house with a tenant until you are close to the end of the lease.  And of course, you are probably not in the best position to get or pay good rent.  Your situation restricts your options.  You might get stuck in this situation for a year so as to get the time that you need to line up a buyer.   Of course, you may get lucky and find someone who wants your old house as an investment property.  Such a person won't be bothered by a tenant.  But they usually want a good price.  After all, they want to make money off it.   There are those operations that advertise that they buy ugly houses.  They want a good deal.  You'll probably take a bath.  But they can buy quickly, so you can move on quickly.  No waiting until they find a buyer.   And I'm not saying that you can't do a swap like you want.  I'm just saying that you may find it difficult to find a swapping partner.  Perhaps an investment person would be up for it.  They take your house in trade for their house, letting you stay in their house until they can fix up your old house and either rent it or sell it.  The problem is that it may be hard to find such an investor who can handle a house where you are and has a house where you need to be.   I don't have a good suggestion for finding a swapping partner other than calling a lot of realtors and asking for suggestions.  Maybe a bit of online checking for properties where the owner's business is managing the sale."}
{"question":"Some stock's prices don't fluctuate widely - Is it an advantages?","answer":"I don't think you are reading the stock chart right.  ORCL has a beta of 1.12 which means it has more volatility than the market as a whole.  See image below for a fairly wild stock chart for a year.   I would not truly consider ESPP participation investing, unless you intend to buy and hold the stock.  If you intend to sell the stock soon after you are able, it is more speculation.  ESPP's are okay based upon the terms.  If the stock was a constant price, and you could sell right away, then an ESPP plan would be easy money.  Often, employees are often given a 15% discount to purchase the stock.  If you can sell it before any price drop, then you are guaranteed to make 15% on the money invested minus any commissions.   Some employers make ESPP participants hold the stock for a year.  This makes such a plan less of a value.  The reasons are the stock can drop in price during that time, you could need the money, or (in the best case) your money is tied up longer making the ROI less. The reasons people invest in stock are varied and is far to much to discuss in a single post.  Some of your colleagues are using the ESPP solely to earn the discount in their money."}
{"question":"Is there any \"Personal\" Finance app that allows 2 administrators?","answer":"We use YNAB to handle our household budget - their latest version allows cloud sync between Android\/iOS devices and various desktop installs.  I have the budget folder shared with my wife's Dropbox account so we both an view the budget, enter spending, and make changes."}
{"question":"Including the region where you live in your investment portfolio?","answer":"The problem is aggregating information from so many sources, countries, and economies.  You are probably more aware of local laws, local tax changes, local economic performance, etc, so it makes sense that you'd be more in tune with your own country.  If your intent is to be fully diversified, then buy a total world fund. A lot of hedge funds do what you are suggesting, but I think it requires either some serious math or some serious research. Note: I'm invested in emerging markets (EEM) for exactly the reason you suggest... diversification."}
{"question":"How do you translate a per year salary into a part-time per hour job?","answer":"If you're really a part-time worker, then there are some simple considerations.... The remote working environment, choice of own hours, and non-guarantee of work availability point to your \"part-time\" situation being more like a consultancy, and that would normally double or triple the gross hourly rate. But if they're already offering or paying you a low hourly figure, they are unlikely to give you consultant rates."}
{"question":"Deferring claim of significant purchase of RRSPs","answer":"You can defer RRSP deductions like you've suggested. Here's an article from the CBC about it: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/business\/taxseason\/story\/2010\/03\/15\/f-taxseason-delay.html"}
{"question":"Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it?","answer":"I know that for me personally, if I buy that giant box of Goldfish instead of the bags, it doesn't mean I'm saving money... just eating a lot more Goldfish.  The trick, I think, to buying in bulk is to make sure that you're not consuming in bulk.  You're not likely to go through more dishwasher detergent just because you bought the big bottle, but you may find the kids are eating a lot more fruit snacks, or you're throwing away half of that huge bag of baby carrots that went bad, because you bought in bulk."}
{"question":"Debit card for minor (< 8 y.o.)","answer":"GreenLight offers a paid service for $5 per month that requires an adult primary account holder, and then unlimited accounts, including minors, as part of that service. I saw no minimum age requirement (see section \"Minors as Sub-Account Cardholders\"). https:\/\/www.greenlightcard.com\/index.html Disclaimer: I haven't tried this service"}
{"question":"I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out?","answer":"First, make sure you are contacting the bank directly - use an old invoice you have on hand with a phone number direct to the bank and call them.  Do not use the provided number, or you may wind up being pulled into a scam (It is entirely possible that the bank is also confused at this point - so you should not rely on the number provided at all). Second, once you can confirm that your account is being closed, find out when it is being closed so you know when you need to act on it - it's possible you still have access to your account, and do not need to launch into a panic just yet.   Third, get the bank to explain exactly why they are closing your account - make it clear that if they cannot explain, you will be forced to transfer to a new account and close business with them permanently - this is not a threat, this is a matter of fact because... Finally, if you cannot keep your account open, find a different bank and open up a new account.  Frankly, if your current bank is closing your account and only managed to get a letter out to you a month late, you should probably find a new bank.  If instead they simply cannot figure out if your bank account is closed or not, this is also a bad sign and you may want a new bank account anyway.   But please, go through these steps in order, because you need to verify with your bank what is going on.   Keep @Brick 's answer in mind as well, in case you need to get your money out of your account quickly."}
{"question":"Are there any catches with interest from banks?  Is this interest \"too good to be true\"?","answer":"The 1.09% is per year, not per month. Not too bad for a regular savings, but it's just interest rates in general that are bad right now. The inflation rate should be 3.8% currently so if you hide your money in a bank you'll end up with a loss of 2% in buying power in a year... If you open an CD (Certificate of Deposit), the best APY would be around 2.2% for a 5 years one and you will still get hit by the inflation. You might want to invest those money somewhere else and in some other ways. The stock market might give you excellent entry points soon (if not right now) but since you're very young and inexperienced I strongly recommend to do tons of research and ask for advice from experienced people before you jump into these kind of things by yourself."}
{"question":"First concrete steps for retirement planning when one partner is resistant","answer":"To answer your question: As far as what's available in addition to your 401(k) at work (most financial types will say to contribute up to the match first), you may qualify for a Roth IRA (qualification is based on income), if not, then you may have to go with a Traditional IRA.  You and your husband can each have one and contribute up to the limit each year.  After that, you could get just a straight up mutual fund, and\/or contribute up to limit on your 401(k). My two cents: This may sound counter-intuitive (and I'm sure some folks will disagree), but instead of contributing to your 401(k) now, take whatever that amount is, and use it to pay extra on the car loan.  Also take the extra being paid on the mortgage and pay it on the car loan too.  Once the car loan is paid off, then set aside 15% of your gross income and use that amount to start your retirement investing.   Any additional money beyond this can then go into the mortgage.  Once it's paid off, then you can take the extra you were paying, plus the mortgage and invest that amount into mutual funds. You may want to check out Chris Hogan's Retire Inspired book or podcast as well."}
{"question":"Are the \"debt reduction\" company useful?","answer":"Many of the services are scams, and those that are not are just doing something you can do yourself - as Jack points out."}
{"question":"Why do stock prices change? [duplicate]","answer":"None of that is filtered my way as a \"part owner\". Sure it is, it's just not always obvious. When a company makes money it either: Other then the fourth option, the first three all increase the total value of the company.  If you owned 1% of a company that was worth X, and is now worth X+1, the value of that 1% ownership should go up as well. One model of the value of a share of stock is the present value of all future cash flows that the company produces for its shareholders, which would be either through dividends, earnings (provided that they are invested back into the company) or through liquidation (sale).  So as earnings increase (or more accurately as projected future earnings increase), so does the value of a share of the company. Also note that the payment of dividends causes the price of a stock to go down when the dividend is paid, since that's equity (cash) that's leaving the company, reducing the value of the company by an equivalent amount. Of course, there's also something to be said for the behavioral aspect of investing, meaning that people sometimes invest in companies that they like, and sell stock of companies that they don't like or disagree with (e.g. Nordstrom's)."}
{"question":"Is there any special meaning when the market price for a stock exactly equals ask or bid?","answer":"When a stock is ask for 15.2 and bid for 14.5, and the last market price was 14.5, what does it mean? It means that the seller wants to sell for a higher price than the last sale while the buyer does not want to buy for more than the last sale price. Or what if the last price is 15.2? The seller is offering to sell for the last sale price, but the buyer wants to buy for less."}
{"question":"What is a good investment vehicle for introducing kids to investing?","answer":"There are mutual funds oriented toward kids or that are suitable in some way (e.g. they have low minimums). Here are two articles with mention of some of them: Of those only USAA First Start Growth is explicitly for kids: http:\/\/quote.morningstar.com\/fund\/f.aspx?t=UFSGX or https:\/\/www.usaa.com\/inet\/pages\/mutual_funds_reports Another fund aimed at kids is Monetta Young Investor http:\/\/quote.morningstar.com\/fund\/f.aspx?t=MYIFX or http:\/\/www.younginvestorfund.com\/ The diversified funds (with fixed income) like USAA First Start Growth, Vanguard STAR, Pax World Balanced, etc. have the nice property that they won't be as volatile and may spend less time \"underwater,\" so that might better convey the value of investing (vs. an all-stock fund where it could be kind of depressing for years on end, if you get bad luck). Though, I feel the same principle applies for adults. Kids may appreciate intangible aspects of the funds, e.g. Pax World Balanced invests in sustainable companies, Ariel Appreciation also has some social parameters and I think the guy running it does charity work with kids, that type of thing. There should be quarterly and annual reports on mutual funds (or stocks) that would give kids something to read and think about related to the investment. Disclaimer: none of these funds are recommendations, I have not researched them in any detail, just giving you some leads."}
{"question":"US Stock Market - volume based real-time alert ","answer":"This would be a nice Raspberry Pi project for Mathematica, which comes bundled free on the Raspbian OS. You can program it up and leave it running.  It's not expensive and doesn't use much power. A program to monitor stock prices or volume could be written as simply as :-  This checks the volume of trades of Oct 2014 US crude oil futures every 30 seconds and sends an email if the volume jumps by more than 100. The financial data in this example is curated from Yahoo.  If specific data is not available or not updated frequently enough, if you can find an alternative online data source it's usually possible read the data in.  For example, this is apparently real-time data :- {Crude Oil, 92.79, -0.67, -0.71%} After leaving the above program running while writing this the volume of trades has risen like so :-  Edit I just set this running on a Raspberry Pi.  I had to use gmail for the email setup as described in this post: Configuring Mathematica to send email from a notebook.  Anyway, it's working.  Hope I don't get inundated with emails. ;-)"}
{"question":"What should a 21 year old do with \u00a360,000 ($91,356 USD) inheritance?","answer":"What a lovely position to find yourself in! There's a lot of doors open to you now that may not have opened naturally for another decade. If I were in your shoes (benefiting from the hindsight of being 35 now) at 21 I'd look to do the following two things before doing anything else: 1- Put 6 months worth of living expenses in to a savings account - a rainy day fund. 2- If you have a pension, I'd be contributing enough of my salary to get the company match. Then I'd top up that figure to 15% of gross salary into Stocks & Shares ISAs - with a view to them also being retirement funds. Now for what to do with the rest... Some thoughts first... House: - If you don't want to live in it just yet, I'd think twice about buying. You wouldn't want a house to limit your career mobility. Or prove to not fit your lifestyle within 2 years, costing you money to move on. Travel: - Spending it all on travel would be excessive. Impromptu travel tends to be more interesting on a lower budget. That is, meeting people backpacking and riding trains and buses. Putting a resonable amount in an account to act as a natural budget for this might be wise. Wealth Managers: \"approx. 12% gain over 6 years so far\" equates to about 1.9% annual return. Not even beat inflation over that period - so guessing they had it in ultra-safe \"cash\" (a guaranteed way to lose money over the long term). Give them the money to 'look after' again? I'd sooner do it myself with a selection of low-cost vehicles and equal or beat their return with far lower costs. DECISIONS: A) If you decided not to use the money for big purchases for at least 4-5 years, then you could look to invest it in equities. As you mentioned, a broad basket of high-yielding shares would allow you to get an income and give opportunity for capital growth. -- The yield income could be used for your travel costs. -- Over a few years, you could fill your ISA allowance and realise any capital gains to stay under the annual exemption. Over 4 years or so, it'd all be tax-free. B) If you do want to get a property sooner, then the best bet would to seek out the best interest rates. Current accounts, fixed rate accounts, etc are offering the best interest rates at the moment. Usual places like MoneySavingExpert and SavingsChampion would help you identify them. -- There's nothing wrong with sitting on this money for a couple of years whilst you fid your way with it. It mightn't earn much but you'd likely keep pace with inflation. And you definitely wouldn't lose it or risk it unnecessarily. C) If you wanted to diversify your investment, you could look to buy-to-let (as the other post suggested). This would require a 25% deposit and likely would cost 10% of rental income to have it managed for you. There's room for the property to rise in value and the rent should cover a mortgage. But it may come with the headache of poor tenants or periods of emptiness - so it's not the buy-and-forget that many people assume. With some effort though, it may provide the best route to making the most of the money. D) Some mixture of all of the above at different stages... Your money, your choices. And a valid choice would be to sit on the cash until you learn more about your options and feel the direction your heart is pointing you. Hope that helps. I'm happy to elaborate if you wish. Chris."}
{"question":"Is accident insurance worth it for my kids who play sports","answer":"The general answer to any \"is it worth it\" insurance question is \"no,\" because the insurance company is making a profit on the insurance.* To decide if you want the insurance, you need to figure out how much you can afford to pay if something happens, how much they cover, and how badly you want to transfer your risk to them.  If you won't have trouble coming up with the $4000 deductible should you need to, then don't get this extra insurance.  * I did not mean to imply that insurance is always a bad idea or that insurance companies are cheating their customers. Please let me explain further.  When you buy any product from a business, that business is making a profit. And there is nothing wrong with that at all. They are providing a service and should be compensated for their efforts.  Insurance companies also provide a service, but unlike other types of businesses, their product is monetary. You pay them money now, and they might pay you money later. If they pay you more money then you spent, you came out ahead, and if you spend more money then they give you, it was a loss for you.  In order for the insurance company to make a profit, they need to bring in more money than they pay out. In fact, they need to bring in a lot more money then they pay out, because in addition to their profit, they have all the overhead of running a business.  As a result, on average, you will come out behind when you purchase insurance. This means that when you are on the fence about whether or not to purchase any insurance product, the default choice should be \"no.\"  On average, you are financially better off without insurance.  Now, that doesn't mean you should never buy insurance. As mentioned by commenter @xiaomy, insurance companies spread risk across all of their customers. If I am in a situation where I have a risk of financial ruin in a certain circumstance, I can eliminate that risk by purchasing insurance. For example, I have term life insurance, because if I were to pass away, it would be financially catastrophic for my family. (I'm hoping that the insurance company makes 100% profit on that deal!) I also continue to buy expensive health insurance because an unexpected medical event would be financially devastating. However, I always decline the extended warranty when I buy a $300 appliance, because I don't have any trouble coming up with another $300 in the unlikely event that it breaks, and I would rather keep the money than contribute to the profits of an insurance company unnecessarily.  In my original answer above, I pointed out how you would determine whether or not to purchase this particular insurance product. This product pays out a bunch of relatively small amounts for certain events, up to a limit of $4000. Would this $4000 be hard for you to come up with if you needed to? If so, get the insurance. But if you are like me and have an emergency fund in place to handle things like this, then you are financially better off declining this policy."}
{"question":"Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? ","answer":"I used XE trade once several years ago. I found them quite easy to use after the slightly fiddly account setup process (needed for security\/anti-money laundering I think). I trusted them because I'd been using their online FX rates for a long time. I can't really comment on the specific questions you ask though as this was a long time ago and I haven't needed one since."}
{"question":"Does longterm investment in index funds still make sense in a reality of massive algotrading?","answer":"What the automation mostly does is make short-term trading that much more difficult. Day trading is a zero-sum game, so if they win more, everyone else wins less.  Long term trading (years to decades) is a positive-sum game; the market as a whole tends to move upward for fairly obvious reasons (at its basis it's still investing, which in turn is based on lending, and as long as folks make fairly rational decisions about how much return they demand for their investment and the companies are mostly producing profits there will be a share of the profit coming back to the investors as dividends or increased share value or both. Day-to-day churn in individual stocks gets averaged out by diversification and time, and by the assumption that if you've waited that long you can wait a bit longer if necessary for jitters to settle out. Time periods between those will partake of some mix of the two."}
{"question":"Does high frequency trading provide economic value? ","answer":"You pointed out that HFT does not create ipods are mine minerals.  Neither does human trading. HFT is a proxy for human trading.  Although the computer is executing trades automatically based on an algorithm, it is still using money from a human being's account so the trading is still being done with someone's money. Fast execution of trades is desirable in exchanges.  Imagine two exchanges:  One only executes trades once a month, the other executes trades once a week.  Which exchange would be more desirable?  The exchange that trades once a week.  Why?  Because if I'm holding a stock that I would like to sell, I want to sell it now - not a month from now.  Same reason for buying.  This concept works all the way down to seconds and fractions of seconds. The issue with HFT, however, is there are cases where the market goes against the HFT algorithm and the algorithm continues to execute trades driving prices up or down by large amounts in the matter of minutes or even seconds. The exchange frequently cancels these trades which only encourages more aggressive HFT trading since HFT traders can have their losses cancelled.  This is a privilege that LFTs (low frequency traders) do not receive.  This is a valid criticism of HFTs. A short list of such cancelled trades: 8\/26\/2010: Nasdaq cancels trades of CORE stock 10\/4\/2010: Nasdaq cancels trades of CENX stock 10\/15\/2010: NYSE cancels trades of PAY stock 10\/18\/2010: NYSE cancels $500 million worth of SPY trades 5\/18\/2011: NYSE cancels 15,900 trades of BEE.PR.C 6\/21\/2011: Nasdaq cancels CNTY trades 12\/2\/2011: London Metals Exchange cancel trades of copper"}
{"question":"Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?","answer":"Why is the US still working with paper checks when Europe went digital about a decade ago? Tax filing is just another area in which the US is lagging. Modernizing it costs money, and the US is quite close to bankruptcy (as seen by the repeated government shutdowns).  Also, the US tax code is quite complicated. For instance, I doubt there's anyone who has a full and complete list of all allowed deductions.  Some comments wonder about multiple incomes. This doesn't require tax filing either. My local tax authority just sends me a combined statement with data from 2 employers and 2 banks, and asks me to confirm the resulting payment. This is possible because tax number usage is strictly regulated. SSN abuse in the US presumably makes this problematic."}
{"question":"Is it beneficial to convert non-investment real estate to rental if I need to make major repairs? (USA\/Missouri)","answer":"I don't have a direct answer for you, but here are some other things you might consider to help you decide on a course of action in addition to Joe's note about consulting a CPA...  Get a couple contractors out to look the place over and give you some quotes on the work needed, most will do so for free, or a nominal fee.  Everything about the extent and cost of repairs is complete guess work until you have some firm numbers. You might also consider getting an up-to-date appraisal, particularly if you can find someone willing to give you an \"after improvements\" estimate as well.  The housing market has fluctuated a bunch in the last couple years, your current value may have shifted significantly from where you think it is if you haven't done one recently.  You will definitely have to pay for this service, I would estimate around $500 based on one I got in St Louis a few months ago.   You might also consider reaching out to a local property management company to find out where they think you would fall in the scope of the current rental market and what improvements they would recommend.  You will probably want to be onsite to talk to any of the above people about the work they are proposing, and your intended goals, so figure some travel costs and time into your evaluation. As one of your noted concerns was the state of the roof, I can tell you that in St Louis County, and the spec sheet for most shingle manufacturers, you are limited to two layers of shingles, then the roof is supposed to be stripped and redone from the bare wood.  Personally, I won't even do the second layer, I always go to bare wood and start over, if for no other reason than it gives me an opportunity to inspect the deck and deal with any minor problem areas before they become big problems. I don't know Greene County to know what the local code may be like, but odds are high that the shingle manufacture would not honor any warranty with this installation. Another potential gotcha that may be lurking out there is your ex may still have a lingering claim to the home if you go to sell it.  I don't know the rules in Missouri off hand, but where I grew up (with family in the real estate and title insurance businesses) there was a law regarding homestead rights.  If a spouse spent even one night in a property, they had an interest in it and an explicit waiver had to be signed to release said interest.  Review your divorce settlement and\/or contact your attorney to confirm your status in this regard. Also consider the potential of refinancing your mortgage to either reduce the payment, or get funds for the improvements\/repairs.   Final note, I understand wanting to help out a friend (I have done similar things more times than I can count), but seriously look at the situation and see if you can't get the rent or other compensation up to the level of the mortgage at least.   You mentioned that you have belongings still on the property, what would a storage unit for said items cost? In terms of juggling the numbers you could potentially use that value as justification to adjust the friends rent as a caretaker fee without any issue.  (Verify with your CPA) Talk to the friend and see if there are other parts of the job they would be willing and able to take on as consideration for the reduced rent (make sure you have at least a simple contract on any such agreement).   Or if none of the above are sufficient to balance the numbers, see if they would be willing to take on an actual room mate to help make up the difference."}
{"question":"Accounting equation: does income really decrease equity?","answer":"Equity is the term to make things balance. In a simple transaction, you get $100 paid to you. Income goes up by $100 and the asset of whatever bank account or petty cash drawer you put it into also goes up by $100. Equity is unchanged. If for some reason you had to take some income into your books, but no asset increased, no debt decreased, and you had no way to take an offsetting expense into your books, then this would lower your equity. How else to explain having \"earned\" $100 but having nothing to show for it?"}
{"question":"Can you step up your cost basis indefinitely via the 0% capital gains rate?","answer":"As JoeTaxpayer illustrated, yes you can.  However, one thing to remember is that unless you live in a state with no state income tax, there may be state tax to pay on those gains.  Even so, it's likely a good idea if you expect either your income (or the federal capital gains tax rate) to rise in the future."}
{"question":"Can I trade more than 4 stocks per week equally split between two brokers without \"pattern day trading\" problems?","answer":"Yes, this is a way to avoid the pattern day trader regulation. The only downside being that your broker will have different commission rates and your capital will be split amongst several places."}
{"question":"How to protect your parents if they never paid Social Security?","answer":"I'm not unsympathetic, but insurance of what kind? I don't know how he'd have owned a restaurant but failed to pay into the social security system. Was he paying taxes at all?  As for the 'why,' there's not enough checks and balances to make sure that nothing is done under the table. I believe 40 quarters of work would have qualified her for a benefit of some kind, but you say she didn't pay in either. Both people didn't pay into the system, either on purpose or by not understanding the need to do so. This is a sad situation."}
{"question":"Why do some stocks have a higher margin requirement?","answer":"It is a question of how volatile the stock is perceived to be, its beta correlation to the S&P500 or other index. Margin requirements are derived from the Federal Reserve, Self Regulatory Organizations, the exchange itself, the broker you use, and which margining system you are using. So that makes this a loaded question. There are at least three margin systems, before you have your own risk officer in a glass room that doesn't care how leveraged up you get. Brokers primarily don't want to lose money."}
{"question":"Currently sole owner of a property. My girlfriend is looking to move in with me and is offering to pay 'rent'. Am I at risk here?","answer":"With regard to worries about ownership:  I'll point you towards this - The Cohabitants Rights Bill currently in First Reading at the House of Lords. Without a date for even the second reading yet. In short the Bill is attempting to redress is the lack of rights when a non-married relationship ends when compared to married relationships; that is that one of the \"cohabitants\" can end up with basically nothing that they don't have their name on. So currently you're in the clear and (Part 2) Section 6.2.a says the Bill cannot be used retroactively against you if your relationship is over before it becomes law (I expect with Brexit etc, this Bill isn't a high priority - it's been a year since the first reading). Section 6.2.a: This Part does not apply to former cohabitants        where the former cohabitants have ceased living together as a        couple before the commencement date;    However, if you're still together if\/when this Bill becomes Law then basically all of (Part 1) Section 2 may be relevant as it notes the conditions you will fall into this bill: Section 2.1.a: live together as a couple and Section 2.2.d: have lived together as a couple for a continuous        period of three years or more. and the \"have lived together\" at that point counts from the start of your cohabitation, not the start of the Bill being law:  Section 2.4.a: For the purposes of subsection (2)(d), in determining        the length of the continuous period during which two people have lived       together as a couple - any period of the relationship that fell before        the commencement date (of the Bill) is to be taken into account If you have kids at some point, you'd also fall under 2.2.a through 2.2.c too. After that, the financial parity decided upon by the court depends on a whole bunch of conditions as outlined in the Bill, but Section 8.1.b is pretty clear: Section 8.1.b: (b)the court is satisfied either\u2014       (i)that the respondent has retained a benefit; or       (ii)40that the applicant has an economic disadvantage,       as a result of qualifying contributions the applicant has made I'm not qualified to say whether your partner helping to pay off your mortgage in lieu of paying rent herself would count as just paying rent or giving you an economic benefit. Sections 12, 13, and 14 discuss opt-outs, also worth a read. The a major disclaimer here in that Bills at this early stage have the potential to be modified, scrapped and\/or replaced making this info incorrect. As an additional read, here's an FT article from Feb 2016 discussing this lack of rights of a cohabitant which should alleviate any current concerns."}
{"question":"Why so much noise about USA's credit rating being lowered?","answer":"The credit scale is deceptive, it goes: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BBB-, BB+, BB, B, CCC, CC, C, D. In reality it should be A,B,C,D,E, F, G,H, I, etc. The current scale does not reflect with clarity the ranking of risks and ratings. AA is much worse than AAA, but the uncertainty involved can be scary. Check out these corporate and sovereign debt credit ratings."}
{"question":"Lending to the bank ","answer":"The easiest way would be to set up a common savings account. Most of them pay some meager interest rate, and over one night it would be especially meager.  A Certificate of Deposit is another way, but you'd have to lock the funds in for an extended period of time."}
{"question":"How to buy out one person's share of a jointly owned vehicle with the lowest taxes and fees","answer":"You should be able to refinance the vehicle and have the financing in just your name (assuming you can secure the financing). Since you are already on the vehicle registration, this would not constitute a sale, and thus would not incur additional sales tax.  To remove the other person from the vehicle registration, leaving you as the sole registered owner, in the state of New York, you only need to file an MV-82. It will cost you $3. https:\/\/dmv.ny.gov\/registration\/register-vehicle-more-one-owner-or-registrant"}
{"question":"Contributing factors to historical increase in trading volume","answer":"Prior to 1975, commissions for trading stock on the NYSE were fixed at 1% of the amount of the trade.  In 1975, the SEC made fixed commission rates illegal, giving rise to discount brokers offering much reduced commission rates.  Simultaneously, Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) gained market share as alternative venues for executing trades.  The increased competition led to further declines in commissions.  Finally, as technology was widely adopted on Wall Street and human beings were largely taken out of the order execution process, commissions fell further.  This had the effect of both drawing in new participants and increasing the rate of transactions of the existing participants (see Day Trading, which was largely unheard of prior to the technology revolution of the 1990s).  Most recently, the exchanges themselves have shifted their business model to depend on high frequency traders, and the proportion of trades accounted for by HFT firms ballooned from under 10% in the early 2000s to over 50% today."}
{"question":"I received a share of Apple stock. Now what?","answer":"Congratulations!  You own a (very small) slice of Apple. As a stockholder, you have a vote on important decisions that the company makes.  Each year Apple has a stockholder meeting in Cupertino that you are invited to.  If you are unable to attend and vote, you can vote by proxy, which simply means that you register your vote before the meeting.  You just missed this year's meeting, which was held on February 26, 2016.  They elected people to the board of directors, chose an accounting firm, and voted on some other proposals.  Votes are based on the number of shares you own; since you only own one share, your vote is very small compared to some of the other stockholders. Besides voting, you are entitled to receive profit from the company, if the company chooses to pay this out in the form of dividends.  Apple's dividend for the last several quarters has been $0.52 per share, which means that you will likely receive 4 small checks from Apple each year. The value of the share of stock that you have changes daily.  Today, it is worth about $100.  You can sell this stock whenever you like; however, since you have a paper certificate, in order to sell this stock on the stock market, you would need to give your certificate to a stock broker before they can sell it for you. The broker will charge a fee to sell it for you.  Apple has a website for stockholders at investor.apple.com with some more information about owning Apple stock.  One of the things you'll find here is information on how to update your contact information, which you will want to do if you move, so that Apple can continue to send you your proxy materials and dividend checks."}
{"question":"Owner-Financed home sale or Land Contract \u2014 how to handle the transaction and the ongoing entity?","answer":"If you do the financing, get a large down payment and make a short loan.  Do not expose yourself to risk with a 30 year note, and get some major money up front so the buyer has some skin in the game and will continue to make payments."}
{"question":"Should I buy stocks of my current employer because of its high dividend yield?","answer":"Dividend yield is not the only criteria for stock selection. Companies past performance, management, past deals, future expansion plans, and debt equity ratio should be considered. I would also like to suggest you that one should avoid making any investment in the companies that are directly affected by frequent changes in regulations released by government. All the above mentioned criteria are important for your decision as they make an impact on your investment and can highly affect the profits."}
{"question":"what would you do with $100K saving? ","answer":"The real answer is \"Why do you want to waste a windfall chasing quick returns?\"  Instead, use this windfall to improve your financial situation, and maybe boost you toward financial independence, or at least a secure retirement.  In simplest terms, forget the short term, go for long term.  Whatever you do, avoid lifestyle creep."}
{"question":"How does the purchase of shares on the secondary market benefit the issuing company?","answer":"Stock trading (as opposed to IPO) doesn't directly benefit the company. But it affects their ability to raise additional funds; if they're valued higher, they don't need to sell as many shares to raise a given amount of money.  And the stockholders are part owners of the company; their votes in annual corporate meetings and the like can add up to a substantial influence on the company's policies, so the company has an interest in keeping them (reasonably) happy. Dividends (distributing part of the company's profits to the stockholders) are one way of doing so. You're still investing in the company. The fact that you're buying someone else's share just means you're doing so indirectly, and they're dis-investing at the same time."}
{"question":"What is a maximum amount that I can wire transfer out of US?","answer":"I can clear the Thailand side for you.  These are the sale tax in Thailand: Don't forget to ask your bank in Thailand to issue an (FTFs). This document shows the money originated from abroad (before in came to your Thai account) from outside of Thailand.  The land office will ask for the (FTFs)."}
{"question":"At what interest rate should debt be used as a tool?","answer":"This post has a great discussion on the topic. Basically, there is no single interest rate above which you should pay off and below which you should keep. You have to keep in mind factors such as"}
{"question":"How to check the paypal's current exchange rate?","answer":"There is a way I discovered of finding the current exchange rate before committing to buy, go to send payments, put in your own second email, pay 1gbp as the amount and it will give you the exchange rate and fees in your own currency, in my case euro, before you have to click on send payment"}
{"question":"When are stop market\/limit orders visible on the open market?","answer":"From the non-authoritative Investopedia page: A stop-limit order will be executed at a specified price, or better, after a given stop price has been reached. Once the stop price is reached, the stop-limit order becomes a limit order to buy or sell at the limit price or better. So once the stop price has been breached, your limit order is placed and will be on the order books as a $9 ask. For a vanilla stop order, a market order will be placed and will be filled using the highest active bid(s)."}
{"question":"Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? ","answer":"What could a small guy with $100 do to make himself not poor To answer the question directly, not much. Short of investing in something at the exact moment before it goes bananas, then reinvesting into a bigger stock and bigger etc, it's super high risk. A better way is to sacrifice some small things, less coffee, less smokes, less going out partying so that instead of having $100, you have $100 a week. This puts you into a situation where you can save enough to become a deposit on an appreciating asset (choose your own asset class, property in AU for me). Take out a loan for as much as you can for your $100 a week payment and make it interest only with an offset against it, distributions from shares can either be reinvested or put into the offset or in the case of property, rent can be put against the offset, pretty soon you end up with a scenario where you have cash offsetting a loan down to nothing but you still have access to the cash, invest into another place and revalue your asset, you can take out any equity that has grown and put that also into your offset. Keep pulling equity and using the money from the offset as deposits on other assets (it kind of works really well on property) and within 15 years you can build an empire with a passive income to retire on. The biggest thing the rich guys get that the poor guys don't is that debt is GOOD, use someone else's money to buy an appreciating asset then when you pay it back eventually, you own the growth. Use debt to buy more debt for exponential growth. Of course, you need to also invest your time to research what you are investing in, you need to know when you make the decision to buy that it will appreciate, it's no good just buying off a tip, you may as well drop your money on the horses if you want to play it like that. Fortunately, one thing we all have in common regardless of our money is time, we have time which we can invest."}
{"question":"Given a certain yearly savings, how much can I spend on a capital improvement? NPV of future cash flow","answer":"This investment does not have a payback period as the net present value of your investment is negative. Your investment requires an initial cash outlay of $40,000 followed by annual savings of $2060 for the next 20 years. Your discount rate is 5% at which the NPV is $-14327.85 as calculated below by using this JavaScript financial functions library tadJS that is based on a popular tadXL add-in for Excel 2007, 2010 and 2013."}
{"question":"Should I consolidate loans and cards, or just cards, leaving multiple loans?","answer":"My answer is similar to Ben Miller's, but let me make some slightly different points: There is one excellent reason to get a consolidation loan: You can often get a lower interest rate. If you are presently paying 19% on a credit card and you can roll that into a personal loan at 13.89%, you'll be saving over 5%, which can add up. I would definitely not consolidate a loan at 12.99% into a loan at 13.89%. Then you're just adding 1% to your interest rate. What's the benefit in this? Another good reasons for a consolidation loan is psychological. A consolidation loan with fixed payments forces you to pay that amount every month. You say you have trouble with credit cards. It's very easy to say to yourself, \"Oh, just this month I'm going to pay just the minimum so I can use my cash for this other Very Important Thing that I need to buy.\" And then next month you find something else that you just absolutely have to buy. And again the next month, and the next, and your determination to seriously pay down your debt keeps getting pushed off. If you have a fixed monthly payment, you can't. You're committed. Also, if you have many credit cards, juggling payments on all of them can get complex and confusing. It's easy to lose track of how much you owe and to budget for payments. At worst, when there are many bills to pay you may forget one. (Personally I now have 3 bank cards, an airline card, and 2 store cards, and managing them is getting out of hand. I have good reasons for having so many cards: the airline card and the store cards give me special discounts. But it's confusing to keep track of.) As to adding $3,000 to the consolidation loan: Very, very bad idea. You are basically saying, \"I have to start seriously paying down my debt ... tomorrow. Today I need a some extra cash so I'm going to borrow just a little bit more, but I'm going to get started paying it off next month.\" This is a trap, and the sort of trap that leads people into spiraling debt. Start paying off debt NOW, not at some vague time in the future that never seems to come."}
{"question":"Should I use a TSP loan?","answer":"Never borrow money to purchase a depreciating asset. Especially don't borrow money that has penalties attached."}
{"question":"What's an economic explanation for why greeting cards are so expensive? ","answer":"It'll all about the marketing. If you don't get a \"real\" greeting card for that important birthday or anniversary or whatever, the recipient may thing you're being cheap for using a card you printed out yourself. So you pay $6 for a card because you feel like you have to. Hallmark advertises with those sappy TV commercials for a very good reason. The margins on the product are sky-high, and they spend a good chunk of that money on marketing the product. Perfume is the same way: super cheap to make, low barrier to entry, and the popular ones command a high price."}
{"question":"The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable?","answer":"I work for a health billing company. It is completely the provider's responsibility to bill your health insurance in a timely manner if they have your health insurance information on file (it sounds like they did). If you can gather a copy of your EOB (Explanation of Benefits) from your health insurance, it will likely say something to the extent of: \"claim was submitted after the timely filing limit, therefore no payment was made. The patient is not liable for the remaining balance.\" Don't let the hospital\/physician bully you into paying for something they should have submitted to the insurance in the first place."}
{"question":"Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?","answer":"Firstly, playing the lottery is not investing it is gambling. The odds in gambling are always against you and with the house.  Secondly, no one would ever give you a payout of 3 to 1 when the odds are 50:50, unless they were looking to give away money. Even when you place your chips on either red or black on a roulette table your payout if you are correct is 100% (double your money), however the odds of winning are less than 50%, there are 18 reds, 18 blacks and 2 greens (0 and 00). Even if you place your chips on one single number, your payout will be 35:1 but your odds of winning are 1:38. The odds are always with the house. If you want to play the lotto, use some money you don't need and expect to lose, have some fun and enjoy yourself if you get any small winnings. Gambling should be looked at as a source of entertainment not a source of investing. If you take gambling more serious than this then you might have a problem."}
{"question":"Invest in ESPP Single Stock or General Market","answer":"Other than the guaranteed 5% bonus (assuming you sell it right away), no benefits. Keep in mind that the price from which the discount is calculated is not necessarily the market price at the date of the ESPP purchase, so the actual discount may be more than 5% (depending on the volatility of the stock - much more)."}
{"question":"How long should I keep my tax documents, and why?","answer":"How long you need to keep tax records will depend on jurisdiction. In general, if you discard records in a period of time less than your tax authority recommends, it may create audit problems down the road. ie: if you make a deduction supported by business expense receipts, and you discard those receipts next year, then you won't be able to defend the deduction if your tax authority audits you in 3 years. Generally, how long you keep records would depend on: (a) how much time your tax authority has to audit you; and (b) how long after you file your return you are allowed to make your own amendments. In your case (US-based), the IRS has straight-forward documentation about how long it expects you to keep records: https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/how-long-should-i-keep-records Period of Limitations that apply to income tax returns Keep records for 3 years if situations (4), (5), and (6) below do not apply to you. Keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later, if you file a claim for credit or refund after you file your return. Keep records for 7 years if you file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction. Keep records for 6 years if you do not report income that you should report, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return. Keep records indefinitely if you do not file a return. Keep records indefinitely if you file a fraudulent return. Keep employment tax records for at least 4 years after the date that the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later. Note that the above are the minimum periods to keep records; for your own purposes you may want to keep them for longer periods than that. For example, you may be in a position to discover that you would like to refile a prior tax return, because you forgot to claim a tax credit that was available to you. If you would have been eligible to refile in that period but no longer have documentation, you are out of luck."}
{"question":"Choose online stock trading companies","answer":"That all depends on you. The cheaper places are certainly going to cost less, but when it comes to comparing value that is a subjective decision that only you can make. Maybe the more expensive one has an easier to user website, friendlier customer service, or something else you value enough to pay more for trades."}
{"question":"What does investment bank risk during IPO?","answer":"There are two kinds of engagements in an IPO. The traditional kind where the Banks assume the risks of unsold shares. Money coming out of their pockets to hold shares no one wants. That is the main risk. No one buying the stock that the bank is holding.  Secondly, there is a \"best efforts\" engagement. This means that bank will put forth its best effort to sell the shares, but will not be on the hook if any don't sell. This is used for small cap \/ risky companies.  Source: Author\/investment banker"}
{"question":"Stocks taxed just for selling, or just when withdrawing?","answer":"Taxes are triggered when you sell the individual stock.      The IRS doesn't care which of your accounts the money is in.  They view all your bank and brokerage accounts as if they are one big account mashed together.   That kind of lumping is standard accounting practice for businesses. P\/L, balance sheets, cash flow statements etc. will clump cash accounts as \"cash\".  Taxes are also triggered when they pay you a dividend.  That's why ETFs are preferable to mutual funds; ETFs automatically fold the dividends back into the ETF's value, so it doesn't cause a taxable event.  Less paperwork.  None of the above applies to retirement accounts.  They are special.  You don't report activity inside retirement accounts, because it would be very hard for regular folk to do that reporting, so that would discourage them from taking IRAs.   Taxes are paid at withdrawal time (or in Roth's, never.)"}
{"question":"Should the poor consider investing as a means to becoming rich? ","answer":"A cautionary tale:  About 25 years ago I decided that I should try my hand at investing in some technology companies.   I was in the computer biz but decided that I might suffer from myopia there, so I researched some medical startups.  And I did some reasonably good research, given the available resources (the Internet was quite primitive).  I narrowed things down to 4-5 companies, studying their technology plans, then researched their business plans and their personnel. In the end I picked a drug company.  Not only did it have a promising business plan, but it had as it's CEO a hotshot from some other company, and the BOD was populated buy big names from tech companies and the like.  AND the company had like $2 of cash for every $1 of outstanding share value, following their recent IPO. So I sold a bit of stock I had in my employer and bought like $3000 worth of this company. Then, taking the advice I'd seen several places, I forgot about it for about 6 months. When I went back to look their stock value had dropped a little, and the cash reserves were down about 20%.  I wasn't too worried.  6 months later the cash was down 50%.  Worrying a little.  After I'd had the stock for about 2 years the stock price was about 10% of what I'd paid.  Hardly worth selling, so I hung on for awhile longer. The company was eventually sold to some other company and I got maybe $50 in stock in the new company."}
{"question":"United Kingdom: Where to save money for a property deposit","answer":"From April 2017 the plan is that there is now also going to be a \"Lifetime ISA\" (in addition to the Help to Buy ISA). Assuming those plans do not change, they government will give 25% after each year until you are 50, and the maximum you can put in per year will be \u00a34000. Catches:  You can only take the money out for certain \"life events\", currently: Buying a house below \u00a3450000 anywhere in the country (not just London).  Passing 60 years of age. If you take it out before or for another reason, you lose the government bonus plus 5%, ie. it currently looks like you will be left with 95% of the total of the money you paid in. You cannot use the bonus payments from this one together with bonus payments from a Help to Buy ISA to buy a home. However you can transfer an existing Help to Buy ISA into this one come 2017. While you are not asking about pensions, it is worth mentioning for other readers that while 25% interest per year sounds great, if you use it for pension purposes, consider that this is after tax, so if you pay mostly 20% tax on your income the difference is not that big (and if your employer matches your contributions up to a point, then it may not be worth it). If you pay a significant amount of tax at 40% or higher, then it may not make sense for pension purposes. Tax bands and the \"rates\" on this ISA may change, of course. On the other hand, if you intend to use the money for a house\/flat purchase in 2 or more years' time, then it would seem like a good option. For you specifically: This \"only\" covers \u00a34000 per year, ie. not the full amount you talked about, but it is likely a good idea for you to spread things out anyway. That way, if one thing turns out to be not as good as other alternatives it has less impact - it is less likely that all your schemes will turn out to be bad luck. Within the M25 the \u00a3450000 limit may restrict you to a small house or flat in 5-10 years time. Again, prices may stall as they seem barely sustainable now. But it is hard to predict (measures like this may help push them upwards :) ).  On the plus side, you could then still use the money for pension although I have a hard time seeing governments not adjusting this sort of account between now and your 60th birthday. Like pension funds, there is an element of luck\/gambling involved and I think a good strategy is to spread things if you can."}
{"question":"How much percent of my salary should I use to invest in company stock?","answer":"What most respondents are forgetting, is when a company allows its employees to purchase its shares at a discount with their salary, the employee is usually required to hold the stock for a number of years before they can sell them. The reason the company is allowing or promoting its employees to purchase its shares at a discount is to give the employees a sense of ownership of the company. Being a part owner in the company, the employee will want the company to succeed and will tend to be more productive. If employees were allowed to purchase the shares at a discount and sell them straight away, it would defeat this purpose. Your best option to decide whether or not to buy the shares is to work out if the investment is a good one as per any other investment you would undertake, i.e. determine how the company is currently performing and what its future prospects are likely to be. Regarding what percentage of pay to purchase the shares with, if you do decide to buy them, you need to work that out based on your current and future budgetary needs and your savings plan for the future."}
{"question":"Setting a trailing stop loss at $39.70 bid price, stock sold at $41","answer":"Is this due to the delay?  Yes, but the delay is caused by your broker and its affiliates.  Trailing Stop Order is not exchange native, meaning that the broker is responsible for keeping track of whether the stop price has been reached, and the broker is responsible for sending the subsequent Market Order to the exchange.  For certain exchange, even Stop Order or Stop Limit Order is not exchange native.  Is it common to be so different? No, only in times of extreme volatility."}
{"question":"What factors should I consider when evaluating index funds?","answer":"Your link is pointing to managed funds where the fees are higher, you should look at their exchange traded funds; you will note that the management fees are much lower and better reflect the index fund strategy."}
{"question":"What kinds of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) should specifically be avoided?","answer":"As with ANY investment the first answer is....do not invest in any that you do not fully understand.  ETF's are very versatile and can be used for many different people for many different parts of their portfolio, so I don't think there can be a blanket statement of \"this\" one is good or bad for all."}
{"question":"Is there a kind of financial advisor for stock investors? How to find a good one?","answer":"I'm a retired stockbroker\/Registered Investment Advisor. My initial discussions with prospects never had a fee.  Restricted stock is unsaleable without specific permission from the issuing company, and typically involves time specifc periods when stock can be sold and\/or amounts of stock that can be sold. Not for DIY. Financial planners may be able to assist you, if they are conversant in restricted stock, though that's not a common situation for most clients. Any stockbroker at a major firm (Merrill Lynch, UBS, Royal Bank of Canada, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, etc.) will be knowledgeable and advise you (w\/o charge) how to trade the stock. Always talk to more than one firm, and don't be in a hurry. If you feel comfortable with the discussion, you can pursue a deeper relationship. In my professional experience, clients valued service, accessibility, knowledge. Price was way down on the list; many of my clients were not wealthy people- they just needed help navigating a very confusing (and necessary) part of their lives. Good luck."}
{"question":"Why do consultants or contractors make more money than employees?","answer":"There are a couple of reasons, including:"}
{"question":"\"Infinite Banking\" or \"Be Your Own Bank\" via Whole Life Insurance\u2026where to start?","answer":"Keep in mind that the only advantage that using a tax favored account gives you is tax-free growth of the cash value of the policy. This \"Infinite Banking\" spin isn't some sort of new revolution in money management, its just a repackaging of techniques that people have been using for years to manage tax liability with some breathless marketing spiel. Before you jump in, compute the following: Now comes the hard part: Life insurance is sold, never bought. The guy pushing this does seminars at hotels sponsored by life insurance agents. The purpose of the program is to generate sales of insurance. Be wary. If you actually have the significant amounts of money required to capitalize this, there are much better ways to get an income stream from that money -- you need a good financial advisor. And if you have a huge tax liability and a scheme like this somehow makes sense, find someone who does it for a living in your state who isn't a crook."}
{"question":"Are stores that offer military discounts compensated by the government?","answer":"Company X located outside a military base offer discounts to military as a form of marketing. They want to encourage a group of potential customers to use their store\/service. In some cases they are competing with subsidized store on the base. In other cases their only competition is other stores outside the base. The smart ones also understand the pay structure of military pay to make it easier for enlisted to stretch their money for the entire month. The government doesn't offer compensation to the business near bases. The businesses see their offer and discount as advertising expenses, and are figured into the prices they have to charge all customers. You will also see these types of discounts offered by some businesses in college towns. They are competing with the services on the campus and with other off-campus businesses. Some also allow the use of campus dollars to make it easier for the student to spend money."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"I'm currently working as an expat, and my grandparents used to work overseas but retired to Canada so you could say my family has done things completely the opposite of what you suggest. However there are a number of very good reasons that my grandparents have done things the way we have, and I think it's worth sharing the rationale there. Low-cost moving to high-cost is a no-brainer: it's not easy to do, but many people are trying nonetheless. However, even they will be likely to stay in the high-cost countries, mostly because of health care, also safety is a factor, but social factors also matter. Firstly, I think two key factors that have been overlooked are language and health care-- most low-cost countries speak different languages than high-cost countries.  This isn't a problem if you're young, but it becomes prohibitive if you are older. Even if you can manage, it's inconvenient in most countries. You can't just walk down the street and do whatever you like. You either have to keep a translator handy, or restrict your activities to places where you can communicate in your native language. Your favorite sports channels (rugby, american football etc.) might not be available, because nobody there cares. Your favorite news channel, or food (even in grocery stores) might not be so readily available. All these reasons made living abroad undesirable for my grandparents, but the big deal for them was healthcare.  Outside of the US, every single developed economy has socialized healthcare to a large extent. When you're young it doesn't really matter, but when you are older, it's a constant concern! There are two aspects to healthcare-- firstly, if you are a citizen in a developed country there are significant financial benefits (In the US there is also medicare\/medicaid but I don't know how those work so I'm not going to talk about that) to staying in-country when you retire, even if the health care would be more expensive- it's the government that's paying! Secondly, health care in low-cost countries tends to either be cheap and poor quality (and by poor quality I mean really, really scary!) or expensive and almost as good as a developed country. Again, high-quality hospitals in low-cost countries may still save you money, but the nurses may not speak good English and the doctors may not have a great bed-side manner. In many low-cost countries, nobody calls the police because they know the cops don't care, or will never solve the problem (i.e. they will arrive hours or days after it's too late), or the cops may even be 'in on it'. So basically you try to protect yourself from the inevitable robbery,swindle,extortion,hold-up,you-name-it but sooner or later something bad will happen. With security guards and being younger, it's less of an issue, but when you're elderly, especially if you look foreign and rich, it's definitely more dangerous. Many of my friends from low-income countries try to emigrate for this reason (and\/or in combination with the political climate, which is largely corrupt and full of problems). So, if you're old, why risk it? Stay somewhere safe."}
{"question":"Is it worth it to reconcile my checking\/savings accounts every month?","answer":"I quit diligently reconciling monthly statements some years before everything was online, when I realized that for years before that, every time I thought I found a mistake, it was always my own error. I was spending a fair amount of time (over the years) doing something that wasn't helping me. So I quit. That said, I do look at the statements and\/or check the transactions on a regular basis (I now use email notifications of automatic deposits as the trigger, and then look over withdrawals, too) to make sure everything looks appropriate. I'm less concerned about a bank error than I am about identity or account theft."}
{"question":"Investment options in Australia","answer":"It depends on the exact level of risk that you want, but if you want to keep your risk close to zero you're pretty much stuck with the banks (and those rates don't look to be going up any time soon). If you're willing to accept a little more risk, you can invest in some index tracking ETFs instead, with the main providers in Australia being Vanguard, Street State and Betashares.  A useful tool for for an overview of the Australian ETF market is offered by StockSpot. The index funds reduce your level of risk by investing in an index of the market, e.g. the S&P 200 tracked by STW.  If the market as a whole rises, then your investment will too, even though within that index individual companies will rise and fall. This limits your potential rate of return as well, and is still significantly more risky than leaving your cash in an Aussie bank (after all, the whole market can fall), but it might strike the right balance for you. If you're getting started, HSBC, Nabtrade, Commsec and Westpac were all offering a couple of months of free trades up to a certain value.  Once the free trades are done, you'll do better to move to another broker (you can migrate your shares to the others to take advantage of their free trades too) or to a cheaper broker like CMC Markets."}
{"question":"How to account for money earned and spent prior to establishing business bank accounts?","answer":"Funds earned and spent before opening a dedicated business account should be classified according to their origination. For example, if your business received income, where did that money go?  If you took the money personally, it would be considered either a 'distribution' or a 'loan' to you.  It is up to you which of the two options you choose. On the flip side, if your business had an expense that you paid personally, that would be considered either a 'contribution of capital' or a 'loan' from you. If you choose to record these transactions as loans, you can offset them together, so you don't need two separate accounts, loan to you and loan from you. When the bank account was opened, the initial deposit came from where?  If it came from your personal funds, then it is either a 'contribution of capital' or a 'loan' from you. From the sound of your question, you deposited what remained after the preceding income\/expenses.  This would, in effect, return the 'loan' account back to zero, if choosing that route. The above would also be how to record any expenses you may pay personally for the business (if any) in the future. Because these transactions were not through a dedicated business bank account, you can't record them in Quickbooks as checks and deposits.  Instead, you can use Journal Entries.  For any income received, you would debit your capital\/loan account and credit your income account.  For any expenses, you would debit the appropriate expense account and credit your distribution\/loan account. Also, if setting up a loan account, you should choose either Current Asset or Current Liability type.  The capital contribution and distribution account should be Equity type. Hope this helps!"}
{"question":"Should I buy a house with a friend?","answer":"Sure, form an LLC with an attorney's advice. You need a buyout clause, operating agreement, etc. If you're not married, never buy a home for personal use with someone else."}
{"question":"Market Cap lower than Shares Outstanding x Share Price?","answer":"You are comparing \"market caps\" and \"enterprise value\".  If the company has four billion dollars cash in the bank, then the value would be four billion plus whatever the business itself is worth as a business. If the business itself is only worth 400 million, then you would have 4.4bn market caps and 400 million enterprise value. The \"enterprise value\" is basically how much the business would be worth if it had no cash or no debt.  These numbers would be a very unusual situation. It could happen for example if a big company has sold 90% of its business for cash. When you buy a share of the company, you get a tiny share of the business and you own a tiny share of the cash. This stock will very likely keep its value, but won't make much money.  On the other hand, more common would be a company where the business is worth 4bn, but the company has also 4bn debt. So it is worth exactly zero. Market caps close to zero, but enterprise value $4bn, because you ignore the debt in the enterprise value.  Edit: Sorry, got the \"enterprise value\" totally wrong, read millions instead of billions: Your numbers would mean that you have a huge, huge company with close to 440bn debt. Most likely someone made a mistake here. A \"normal\" situation would be say a company with a business that is worth $500 million, but they have $100 million debt, so market caps = $400 million but enterprise value = $500 million.  PS. Yahoo has the same nonsense numbers on their UK site, and for other companies (I just checked Marks and Spencer's which apparently has an enterprise value of 800 billion pound with a totally ridiculous P\/E ratio."}
{"question":"Dividends - Why the push to reinvest?","answer":"There is a basis for that if you consider the power of compounding. So, the sooner you re-invest the dividends the sooner the time will give you results (through compounding). There is also the case of the commissions, if they are paid with a percentage of the amount invested they automatically gain more from you. Just my 2cents, though the other answers are probably more complete."}
{"question":"Got charged ridiculous amount for doctor's walk in visit. What are my options?","answer":"You should start by calling the clinic and asking them to tell you how the visit was coded. Some clinics have different billing codes based on the complexity of the visit. If you have one thing you are seeing the doctor about, that could be coded differently than if you have 4 things you are seeing the doctor about. In fact, even if you are there just for one ailment, but while you are there you happen to ask a few quick questions about other possible ailments, the doctor could decide to use the billing code for the higher complexity. If when speaking to the billing department it is determined that the visit is using a higher complexity billing code (and a higher charge as a result), you could then request that it be re-coded with the lower complexity visit. Realize if you request that they will probably have to first get approval from the doctor that saw you. Note: I am basing this answer on first hand experience about 6 months ago in Illinois, where the situation I described happened to me because I asked some unrelated questions about other possible ailments at the end of a visit to an after hours clinic. The billing department explained that my visit was coded for 4 issues. (3 of them were quick questions I asked about at the end of the visit, one of which she referred me to another doctor. My additional questions probably extended the visit by 3-4 minutes.) In my case I never got the bill reduced, mainly due to my own laziness and my knowing that I would hit my deductible anyway this year. Of course I can't say for sure if this is what happened in your case, or even if this practice is widespread. This was the first and only time in my life that I encountered it. As a side note, your primary doctor would likely rarely ever bill you for a more complex visit, as it likely wouldn't lead to much repeat business. As for your last question regarding your credit: if the provider decides to lower the price, and you pay the lower price, this in no way can affect your credit. Surprising Update: When I called the billing office months ago, I had asked if they could confirm the code with the doctor, and I was told they would look into it. I never heard back, never followed up, and assumed that was the end of it. Well, today I got a call back (months later) and was informed that they had re-coded the visit which will result in a lower charge! It's still pending the insurance adjustment but at some point in the future I expect to receive either a credit on my next statement or a check in the mail. (The price difference pre-insurance in my case has gone from $359 to $235.) Update: I did receive a check for the difference. The check was dated July 20, 2016, which is just over 2 months after the phone call informing me I would receive it."}
{"question":"Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real?","answer":"The short answer is yes, it is possible to do what these classes claim, however, it is highly unlikely. For every person they can show you that got rich using whatever so called method they are teaching, there are hundreds of people that didn't that they aren't telling you about. What I would recommend is invest in a well diversified portfolio. If you have a higher tolerance for risk then you can make some of that portfolio out of higher risk\/reward investments. Maybe you pick the next Apple or Google or Netflix or whatever but that portion of your portfolio should be money that you can afford to lose in case you pick duds."}
{"question":"Who can truly afford luxury cars?","answer":"It comes down to individual priorities.  Some people prefer to spend their money on a luxury car or SUV, rather than on computer gear, a bigger house, having three extra kids, eating in restaurants, or whatever. Some people are quite happy to take out a loan to get more expensive products, and service that loan over several years. There is also \"status\" attached to some makes (e.g. german marques).   That comes with a status premium, which some people are prepared to pay for, or take out debt to get - and some are not.    Compare (say) a base model Audi or BMW with a similarly priced non-luxury model from a Japanese competitor.   The Japanese model will probably have more features (leather, large rims, safety aids, etc) than the European at the same price point - and it will be necessary to tick several options (and pay extra for them - which can amount to 30-40% extra cost) to get the luxury car with a comparable set of features.    For some people, the luxury brand is worth the difference.  For some it is not."}
{"question":"How can I generate $250\/month every month from $4000 that I have? ","answer":"How can I use $4000 to make $250 per month for the rest of my life? This means the investment should generate close to 6.25% return per month or around 75% per year. There is no investment that gives this kind of return. The long term return of stock market is around 15-22% depending on the year range and country."}
{"question":"What are Vanguard's Admiral Shares?","answer":"Vanguard's Admiral shares are like regular (\"investor\") shares in their funds, only they charge lower expense ratios. They have higher investment minimums, though. (For instance, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund has a minimum of $3,000 and an expense ratio of .18% for the Investor Shares class, but a minimum of $10,000 and an expense ratio of .07% for Admiral Shares). If you've bought a bunch of investor shares and now meet the (recently-reduced) minimum for Admiral shares, or if you have some and buy some more investor shares in the future and meet the minimums, you will qualify for a free, no-tax-impact conversion to the Admiral Shares and save yourself some money. For more information, see the Vanguard article on their recent changes to Admiral Shares minimums. Vanguard also offers institutional-class shares with even lower expense ratios than that (with a minimum of $5 million, .06% expense ratios on the same fund). A lot of the costs of operating a fund are per-individual, so they don't need to charge you extra fees for putting in more money after a certain point. They'd rather be competitive and offer it at cost. Vanguard's funds typically have very low expense ratios to begin with. (The investor shares I've been using as an example are advertised as \"84% lower than the average expense ratio of funds with similar holdings\".) In fact, Vanguard's whole reason for existing is the premise (stated in founder John C Bogle's undergraduate thesis at Princeton) that individuals can generally get better returns by investing in a cheap fund that tracks an index than by investing in mutual funds that try to pick stocks and beat the index and charge you a steep markup. The average real return of the stock market is supposedly something like 4%; even a small-looking percentage like 1% can eat a big portion of that. Over the course of 40 years waiting for retirement, saving 1% on expenses could leave you with something like 50% more money when you've retired. If you are interested in the lower expense ratios of the Admiral share classes but cannot meet the minimums, note that funds which are available as ETFs can be traded from Vanguard brokerage accounts commission-free and typically charge the same expense ratios as the Admiral shares without any minimums (but you need to trade them as individual shares, and this is less convenient than moving them around in specific dollar amounts)."}
{"question":"Should I trade in a car I own to lower my payments on a new lease?","answer":"Trade-in values are generally below what you can get in a private sale. To directly answer your question, you should sell the crossover yourself and use the balance to purchase your new vehicle. I would encourage you to use the $9k to finance directly without a lease, especially if you are planning on financing after the lease term. The lease will not save you money over the time you drive the vehicle in this case, and worse, will likely expose you to risk of having to pay additional fees if you break certain terms in the lease (mileage, wear and tear, etc) Best option mathematically is to use the $9k to purchase a vehicle for cash. This provides the lowest total cost of ownership.  Even if you are afraid of purchasing a lemon, leasing a vehicle is awfully expensive insurance against that possibility. You would have to rack up some significant repairs to justify the cost of the lease vs cash over the term of operating the vehicle."}
{"question":"Snowball debt or pay off a large amount?","answer":"I want to know if I cut the citi card in half for example, how much would the min payment go down? If you goal is to become debt-free, the minimum payment shouldn't matter. Even if the minimum payment goes down, continue your current payment amount (or more, if you can afford it) until the balance is paid off. Paying the minimum will just keep you in debt longer."}
{"question":"What traditionally happens to bonds when the stock market crashes?","answer":"It depends on why the stocks crashed. If this happened because interest rates shot up, bonds will suffer also. On the other hand, stocks could be crashing because economic growth (and hence earnings) are disappointing. This pulls down interest rates and lifts bonds."}
{"question":"What numbers to look for investment returns","answer":"(Value of shares+Dividends received)\/(Initial investment) would be the typical formula though this is more of a percentage where 1 would indicate that you broke even, assuming no inflation to be factored. No, you don't have to estimate the share price based on revenues as I would question how well did anyone estimate what kind of revenues Facebook, Apple, or Google have had and will have. To estimate the value of shares, I'd likely consider what does my investment strategy use as metrics: Is it discounted cash flow, is it based on earnings, is it something else? There are many ways to determine what a stock \"should be worth\" that depending on what you want to believe there are more than a few ways one could go."}
{"question":"How to split stock earnings?","answer":"If you have been a good steward of your friend's money this suggestion will not be too difficult. Pay your friend what his money would have earned in the S&P 500 if you had just invested it in an index fund. Subtract 15% for long-term capital gains. You can use the ticker SPY to see what the price was on the day he gave you the money, versus the price today. If you had helped your friend open an account for himself, you would have given him more than the returns on his money, you would have helped educate him on how to invest for himself."}
{"question":"Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?","answer":"I'm answering this from a slightly different angle, but there are people (individuals) who will do this for you. I know private Forex traders who are 'employed' to manage Forex trading accounts for wealthy individuals. The trader takes a percentage of the wins but is also responsible for a percentage of the loss (if there is a loss in a particular month). However the fact that the trader is able to prove that they have a consistent enough trading history to be trusted with the large accounts generally means that losses are rare (one would hope!). Obviously they have contracts in place (and the terms of the contract are crucial to the responsibility of losses) etc. but I don't know what the legalities are of offering or using this kind of service. I just wanted to mention it, while perhaps not being the best option for you personally, it does exist and matches your requirements.  You would just have to be extremely careful to choose someone respectable and responsible, as it would be much easier to get ripped off while looking for a respected individual to trade your account than it would be while looking for a respected firm (I would imagine)."}
{"question":"How do you declare revenues from YouTube earnings in the USA if you are a minor?","answer":"In the USA, you probably owe Self Employment Tax. The cutoff for tax on this is 400$. You will need to file a tax return and cover the medicaid expenses as if you were both the employer and employee.  In addition, if he earns income from self-employment, he may owe Self-Employment Tax, which means paying both the employee\u2019s and employer's share of Social Security and Medicaid taxes. The trigger for Self Employment Tax has been $400 since 1990, but the IRS may change that in the future. Also see the IRS website.  So yes, you need to file your taxes. How much you will pay is determined by exactly how much your income is.  If you don't file, you probably won't be audited, however you are breaking the law and should be aware of the consequences."}
{"question":"Bonds vs equities: crash theory","answer":"Diversify into leveraged short\/bear ETFs and then you can quit your job and yell at your boss \"F you I'm short your house!\" edit: this is a quote from Greg Lippmann and mentioned in the book \"The Big Short\""}
{"question":"What is the effect of a high dollar on the Canadian economy, investors, and consumers?","answer":"It depends primarily on how the Canadian economy is designed i.e export oriented or import oriented. If you look at this, it shows more or less equal amount of exports and imports. For the specific case of Canada, the exports would become costlier, because of a costlier dollar, but at the same time imports would become cheaper. This is only a generalization, not specific goodswise, which would require a more detailed ananlysis. But investors have a different dilemma. Canadian investors would find  it cheaper to invest abroad so may channel their investments abroad because they may find it costlier to invest in Canada. While foreign investors would find it costlier to invest in Canada and may wait for later or invest somehwre else.  Then government may try to boost up investment and start lowering the interest rates, if it sees the rising dollar as detrimental for the Canadian economy and investments flowing abroad instead of Canada. But what would be the final outcome of the whole rigmarole is little difficult to predict, because something is arriving and something is departing and above all goverment is doing something or is going to do. But the basic gist is Canadian exporters will be sad and Canadian importers will be happy, but vice versa for foreign investors intending to invest in Canada."}
{"question":"If a employers supposed to calulate drive time pay with your weekly gross pay","answer":"You're getting paid by the job, not by the hour, so I don't see why you think the employer is obligated to pay you for the drive time.  The only way that might be true, as far as I can see, is if he were avoiding paying you minimum wage by structuring your employment this way.  It looks like to me you're over the minimum wage based on what you wrote.  At maximum \"unpaid\" drive time (59 min each way) and maximum length of job (4 hours as you stated it), gives your minimum hourly rate of $8.83\/hr. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25\/hr, so you're over that.  A quick search online suggests that NV does have a higher minimum at $8.25\/hr under some conditions, but you're still over that too. The fact that you're required to pick-up the helpers and that you have a company car at home probably does mean that you're \"on the clock\" from the moment that you leave your house, but, again, you're not actually being paid by the clock.  As long as no other law is being broken (and it appears from your telling that there isn't), then the employer can set any policy for how to compute the compensation that he wants. Regarding taxes, the employer probably has no discretion there.  You're making what you're making, and the employer needs to tax it in total.  Since you're driving a company vehicle from home, I don't think that you're entitled to any reimbursement (vs. wages) that would not be taxed unless maybe you pay for gas yourself.  The gas money, if applicable, should be reimbursable as a business expense and that generally would not be taxed."}
{"question":"Am I responsible for an annual fee on a credit card I never picked up?","answer":"Have you signed anything? If not - then tell them  you don't know who they are and have not agreed to pay. If you did sign that piece of paper at the airport, then you have probably agreed to pay. Either way, it won't go away. As you've already discovered, ignoring things doesn't make them go away. You should make an effort, as hard as it may be, and call them. Notify them that you have never asked for this card, never activated it, and in fact never had it in your possession. You should stress out that it was issued without your authorization, which is probably illegal. And you wish the account to be closed and the charge reversed. Otherwise it will just grow and make your life miserable."}
{"question":"Capital Gains in an S Corp","answer":"A nondividend distribution is typically a return of capital; in other words, you're getting money back that you've contributed previously (and thus would have been taxed upon in previous years when those funds were first remunerated to you). Nondividend distributions are nontaxable, so they do not represent income from capital gains, but do effect your cost basis when determining the capital gain\/loss once that capital gain\/loss is realized. As an example, publicly-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) generally distribute a return of capital back to shareholders throughout the year as a nondividend distribution. This is a return of a portion of the shareholder's original capital investment, not a share of the REITs profits, so it is simply getting a portion of your original investment back, and thus, is not income being received (I like to refer to it as \"new income\" to differentiate). However, the return of capital does change the cost basis of the original investment, so if one were to then sell the shares of the REIT (in this example), the basis of the original investment has to be adjusted by the nondividend distributions received over the course of ownership (in other words, the cost basis will be reduced when the shares are sold). I'm wondering if the OP could give us some additional information about his\/her S-Corp. What type of business is it? In the course of its business and trade activity, does it buy and sell securities (stocks, etc.)? Does it sell assets or business property? Does it own interests in other corporations or partnerships (sales of those interests are one form of capital gain). Long-term capital gains are taxed at rates lower than ordinary income, but the IRS has very specific rules as to what constitutes a capital gain (loss). I hate to answer a question with a question, but we need a little more information before we can weigh-in on whether you have actual capital gains or losses in the course of your S-Corporation trade."}
{"question":"Impact of RMD on credit worthiness","answer":"I feel like this has nothing to do with income, and as such RMDs will not really help or harm you. After a person passes, credit card companies are unlikely to collect any outstanding balance.  Debts cannot be inherited, however, assets can be made to stand for debts.  Many assets pass to heirs without the probate process and in some cases all of them pass this way.  This leaves creditors with nothing and having to write off the balance. Even if assets do pass through probate heirs may dispute the creditors.  In that case credit card balances may not be high enough justify hiring a lawyer to fight for payment; or, if they do the judge may be unsympathetic and offer nothing or pennies on the dollar.    The bottom line is that they probably see you, or your demographic, as a poor credit risk and reduced their exposure by lowering your limit.  While that is not what they told you, they probably have to carefully structure what they say to avoid any discrimination claims."}
{"question":"When to hire an investment professional?","answer":"I don't know what you mean by 'major'. Do you mean the fund company is a Fidelity or Vanguard, or that the fund is broad, as in an s&P fund?  The problem starts with a question of what your goals are. If you already know the recommended mix for your age\/risk, as you stated, you should consider minimizing the expenses, and staying DIY. I am further along, and with 12 year's income saved, a 1% hit would be 12% of a year's pay, I'd be working 1-1\/2 months to pay the planner?  In effect, you are betting that a planner will beat whatever metric you consider valid by at least that 1% fee, else you can just do it yourself and be that far ahead of the game.  I've accepted the fact that I won't beat the average (as measured by the S&P) over time, but I'll beat the average investor. By staying in low cost funds (my 401(k) S&P fund charges .05% annual expense) I'll be ahead of the investors paying planner fees, and mutual fund fees on top of that. You don't need to be a CFP to manage your money, but it would help you understand the absurdity of the system."}
{"question":"Dry cleaners lost $160 pants, what should I do?","answer":"Do you have the claim ticket? I'll assume yes. Do a Google search for \"Dry Cleaner Regulations for [state you live in]\" and see if there is a regulatory agency because some states have them, although that might just be for environmental concerns. Worth a shot to call one and ask if they handle customer complaints. Otherwise, the goal is to have them either find your pants or compensate you for the loss. I'd try one last time on the phone or in person. If that fails: Send them a nastygram in the mail demanding $160 by x date or you will pursue \"further actions\". Keep the letter short and sweet. You can use Google to find example demand letters. After they ignore the letter, file in small claims court. It will cost you ~$50 in filing fees which will be included in the judgement if you win. Go to court, explain why you feel they owe you $160. Bring the claim ticket, the matching suit jacket, and proof that replacing it will cost $160. Step 4: win! Or if that sounds like too much work, you can just write a nasty review on Yelp. You won't get your pants back but it'll feel good. I'd avoid the complaining to the BBB because they have no teeth and the dry cleaner is not obligated to respond to a BBB complaint. Standing right outside their door handing out pamphlets might be a bad idea since it's likely private property and they'll make you leave. But you could always do the labor union thing and hold a \"shame on the drycleaners for losing my pants!\" sign out by the street or entrance to the parking lot. (That seems like a lot of effort, although it'll look great on your Facebook feed!)"}
{"question":"What are the best software tools for personal finance?","answer":"http:\/\/www.Mvelopes.com Mvelopes is envelope-style budgeting in an online application. I've tried all of the other applications and I choose to pay for this one for the following reasons:"}
{"question":"How much (paper) cash should I keep on hand for an emergency?","answer":"No cash is necessary for most people.  In the modern day in the US there is no need to keep paper currency around for emergencies; any sort of emergency that knocked out all of the ability to use plastic (ATMs, credit cards, etc.) for an extended period of time AND knocked your bank out of service would be of the level that cash  might not have any value either. Your $100 of cash for natural disasters is likely more than enough, and even that I wouldn't necessarily consider a vital thing in this day where even a major natural disaster probably isn't going to have too much impact on the financial sector outside of the immediate area (that you should be exiting quickly).  Keep however much cash around that you need for day to day cash expenses, and that should be enough. The level of emergency that would suggest cash being needed would probably need more than you'd actually want to keep around, anyway - i.e., a complete collapse of the American or World financial system would imply you need months' worth of cash.  That's just not feasible, nor is it practical financially.  You should have your emergency fund making at least a bit of interest - 1% or so isn't hard to get right now, and in the near future that may increase substantially if interest rates go up. It also would make you a substantial theft target if it were known you had months' worth of cash around the house (i.e., thousands of dollars).  Safes don't necessarily give you sufficient protection unless you've got a very good safe - commercial ones are only as safe as the ability to crack them and\/or transport them is. Now, if you find yourself regularly out at 2am and run out of cash, and you live somewhere that ATMs don't exist, and you find yourself needing to pay cab drivers from time to time after a drunk bender... then I'd keep at least one cab's worth of cash at home."}
{"question":"How can I withdraw money from my LLC?","answer":"What you're asking about is called a \"distribution\" when it comes to an LLC.  It's basically you paying yourself some or all of the proceeds of the business, depending on how you're set up.  You can pay yourself distributions on a regular schedule, say monthly, or you can do it at the end of the year. Whatever you do in this regard, what you take out as distributions is reported on your personal income tax as taxable income.  LLCs in the U.S. use pass-through taxation (unless you intentionally elect to have the LLC treated as a corporation for tax purposes, which some people do), so whatever the principals receive in distribution is personally taxable. Keep in mind that you'll have to pay ALL of the taxes normally covered by an employer, such as self-employment tax (usually about 15%), social security tax, and so on.  This is in addition to income tax, so remember that. I hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"question":"What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?","answer":"A value of zero or a negative value makes the percent change meaningless. Saying 100% when going from 0 to some other value is simply wrong. I have seen a similar situation several times when looking at a public company with a loss last quarter. On Google Finance or some other service, the PE ratio will be blank, N\/A, or something like that. If the company does not currently have earnings, then the PE ratio is meaningless. Likewise, if the company previously did not have earnings, then the percent change of the earnings is meaningless. Also consider the example where the previous value was negative. If the previous value was negative 1 and the current value is positive 99, then this happens: A negative change? But the value went up! Obviously that value does not make sense and should not be shown."}
{"question":"Accepting high volatility for high long-term returns","answer":"Modern portfolio theory has a strong theoretical background and its conclusions on the risk\/return trade-off have a lot of good supporting evidence.  However, the conclusions it draws need to be used very carefully when thinking about retirement investing.  If you were really just trying to just pick the one investment that you would guess would make you the most money in the future then yes, given no other information, the riskiest asset would be the best one.   However, for most people the goal retirement investing is to be as sure as possible to retire comfortably.  If you were to just invest in a single, very risky asset you may have the highest expected return, but the risk involved would mean there might be a good chance you money may not be there when you need it. Instead, a broad diversified basket of riskier and safer assets leaning more toward the riskier investments when younger and the safer assets when you get closer to retirement tends to be a better fit with most people's retirement goals.  This tends to give (on average) more return when you are young and can better deal with the risk, but dials back the risk later in life when your investment portfolio is a majority of your wealth and you can least afford any major swings.  This combines the lessons of MPT (diversity, risk\/return trade-off) in a clearer way with common goals of retirement. Caveat:  Your retirement goals and risk-tolerance may be very different from other peoples'.  It is often good to talk to (fee-only) financial planner."}
{"question":"Should I wait a few days to sell ESPP Stock?","answer":"Usually the amount of the ESPP stocks is very small compared to the overall volume of the trading, so it shouldn't matter. But check if for your company it not so (look at the stock history for the previous ESPP dates, and volumes)."}
{"question":"Are there any issues with registering an LLC in a foreign state?","answer":"No, there are no issues.  When you form the corp in DE, you pick a business there to serve as your \"agent\" (essentially someone who knows to get in contact with you).  The \"agent\" will notify you about taxes and any mail you get, but besides the fee they charge you for being the agent, you should file all the taxes directly with DE (franchise tax is easy to file on the web) instead of going through the agent and paying a surcharge. When your LLC files taxes, you'll do so in DE and then the LLC will issue you a federal and state K1.  You'll file taxes where you reside and use the federal K1, but I think you might have to file DE state taxes (unsure about this part, feel free to edit or comment and I'll correct)."}
{"question":"Stock options: what happens if I leave a company and then an acquisition is finalized?","answer":"Having stock options means that you have worked for and rightfully earned a part of the company's capital appreciation. Takeover of the company would indicate someone is interested in the company (something should be valuable). It would be unwise to not strike before the period lapses since the strike price is always lower than market price and takeovers generally increases stock values ... it is capital gains all the way my friend. Good luck. *observations not in professional capacity. pls consult a professional for investment related advice."}
{"question":"How to know more about my tax situation in the States","answer":"The LLC (not you) is probably in debt to the California FTB. Any LLC registered in California must pay at least $800 a year, until it is officially dissolved (i.e.: notice of cancellation\/dissolution properly filed with the California Secretary of State). The FTB may come after members (including you) personally, if it can prove that the failure to pay was due to your negligence. Talk to a CA-licensed EA\/CPA about how to resolve this. Otherwise, at least from what you've described, there were no other taxable events. LLC is a disregarded entity, so the IRS doesn't care about it much anyway (unless someone was stupid enough to elect it to be taxed as a corporation, that is). Keep in mind that when in doubt - you are always better off with a professional (a CPA\/EA licensed in your State) advice."}
{"question":"Is it better to buy put options or buy an inverse leveraged ETF?","answer":"Depends on how far down the market is heading, how certain you are that it is going that way, when you think it will fall, and how risk-averse you are.  By \"better\" I will assume you are trying to make the most money with this information that you can given your available capital. If you are very certain, the way that makes the most money for the least investment from the options you provided is a put.  If you can borrow some money to buy even more puts, you will make even more.  Use your knowledge of how far and when the market will fall to determine which put is optimal at today's prices.  But remember that if the market stays flat or goes up you lose everything you put in and may owe extra to your creditor.  A short position in a futures contract is also an easy way to get extreme leverage.  The extremity of the leverage will depend on how much margin is required.  Futures trade in large denominations, so think about how much you are able to put to risk. The inverse ETFs are less risky and offer less reward than the derivative contracts above.  The levered one has twice the risk and something like twice the reward.  You can buy those without a margin account in a regular cash brokerage, so they are easier in that respect and the transactions cost will likely be lower. Directly short selling an ETF or stock is another option that is reasonably accessible and only moderately risky.  On par with the inverse ETFs."}
{"question":"Most Efficient Way to Transfer Money from Israel to the USA?","answer":"Check with stock brokers. Some of them will offer ILS->USD conversion at a very beneficial rate (very close to the official), without any commission, and flat-priced wire transfers. For large amounts this is perfect. I know for a fact that Gaon Trade used to do that ($15 for a wire transfer of any amount), but they are now defunct... Check with Meitav (their successor) and others if they still do these things. If you're talking about relatively small amounts (up to several thousands $$$) - you may be better off withdrawing cash or using your credit card in the US. For mid range (up to $50K give or take, depending on your shopping and bargaining skills) banks may be cheaper. A quick note about what jamesqf has mentioned in his answer... You probably don't want to tell your banker that you're moving to the US. Some people reported banks freezing their accounts and demanding US tax info to unfreeze, something that you're not required to provide according to the Israeli law. So just don't tell them. In the US you'll need to report your Israeli bank\/trading\/pension\/educational\/savings\/insurance accounts on FBAR and FATCA forms when you're doing your taxes."}
{"question":"Started new job. Rollover previous employer 401k to new 401k, IRA or Roth IRA?","answer":"You should never roll a 401(k) to a Roth IRA. If the intention is to do so, you are better off rolling to a traditional IRA, and then converting. (Per the comment below, I should add - if the 401(k) contained post tax money, this portion rolls to a Roth, not a Tradition IRA. You then have the exercise of converting\/recharacterizing just the TIRA money, as the Roth stands aside) This preserves the ability to recharacterize back to a traditional IRA. You might wish to do this if: The answers so far are great, but I'll add what I see missing -"}
{"question":"How should I handle taxes for Minecraft server donations?","answer":"Its is considered a \"hobby\" income, and you should be reporting it on the 1040 as taxable income. The expenses (what you pay) are hobby expenses, and you report them on Schedule A (if you itemize). You can only deduct the hobby expenses to the extent of your hobby income, and they're subject to the 2% AGI threshold."}
{"question":"Can saving\/investing 15% of your income starting age 25, likely make you a millionaire?","answer":"I see a lot of answers calculcating with incomes that are much higher than yours, here is something for your situation: If you would keep your current income for the rest of your life, here is approximately how things would turn out after 40 years: All interest is calculated relative to the amount in your portfolio. Therefore, lets start with 1 dollar for 40 years: With your current income, 15% would be 82.5 dollar. At 12% this would over 40 years get you almost 1 million dollar. I would call a required return of more than 12% not 'likely'. The good news, is that your income will likely increase, and especially if this happens fast things will start to look up.  The bad news is, that your current salary is quite low. So, it basically means that you need to make some big jumps in the next few years in order to make this scenario likely. If you can quickly move your salary towards ranges that are more common in the US, then 15% of your income can build up to a million before you retire. However, if you just follow gradual growth, you would need to get quite lucky to reach a million.  Note that even if reaching a million appears unlikely, it is probably still a good idea to save!"}
{"question":"How much would it cost me to buy one gold futures contract on Comex?","answer":"When you buy a futures contract you are entering into an agreement to buy gold, in the future (usually a 3 month settlement date).  this is not an OPTION, but a contract, so each party is taking risk, the seller that the price will rise, the buyer that the price will fall.  Unlike an option which you can simply choose not to exercise if the price goes down, with futures you are obligated to follow through. (or sell the contract to someone else, or buy it back)  The price you pay depends on the margin, which is related to how far away the settlement date is, but you can expect around 5% , so the minimum you could get into is 100 troy ounces, at todays price, times 5%.  Since we're talking about 100 troy ounces, that means the margin required to buy the smallest sized future contract would be about the same as buying 5 ounces of gold.  roughly $9K at current prices. If you are working through a broker they will generally require you to sell or buy back the contract before the settlement date as they don't want to deal with actually following through on the purchase and having to take delivery of the gold.  How much do you make or lose? Lets deal with a smaller change in the price, to be a bit more realistic since we are talking typically about a settlement date that is 3 months out. And to make the math easy lets bump the price of gold to $2000\/ounce.  That means the price of a futures contract is going to be $10K   Lets say the price goes up 10%,  Well you have basically a 20:1 leverage since you only paid 5%, so you stand to gain $20,000. Sounds great right?  WRONG.. because as good as the upside is, the downside is just as bad.  If the price went down 10% you would be down $20000, which means you would not only have to cough up the 10K you committed but you would be expected to 'top up the margin' and throw in  ANOTHER $10,000 as well.  And if you can't pay that up your broker might close out your position for you. oh and if the price hasn't changed, you are mostly just out the fees and commissions you paid to buy and sell the contract.  With futures contracts you can lose MORE than your original investment.  NOT for the faint of heart or the casual investor.  NOT for folks without large reserves who can afford to take big losses if things go against them.  I'll close this answer with a quote from the site I'm linking below The large majority of people who trade futures lose their money.   That's a fact. They lose even when they are right in the medium term,   because futures are fatal to your wealth on an unpredicted and   temporary price blip. Now consider that, especially the bit about 'price blip' and then look at the current volatility of most markets right now, and I think you can see how futures trading can be as they say 'Fatal to your Wealth' (man, I love that phrase, what a great way of putting it)  This Site has a pretty decent primer on the whole thing. their view is perhaps a bit biased due to the nature of their business, but on the whole their description of how things work is pretty decent.  Investopedia has a more detailed (and perhaps more objective) tutorial on the futures thing.  Well worth your time if you think you want to do anything related to the futures market."}
{"question":"Algorithmic trading in linux using python ","answer":"In Japan, there's a competition well-lasting since 2004 or so where you can run your own software agent in a virtual market. Market data is updated from the real world everyday. And if your agent proves good, the organizer puts it into the real market. The language is unfortunately limited to Java only to my knowledge. OS is not limited since your agent is supposed to run on the organizer's environment. English might not be well supported on their web site..."}
{"question":"How do I build wealth?","answer":"Many CEOs I have heard of earn a lot more than 200k. In fact a lot earn more than 1M and then get bonuses as well. Many wealthy people increase there wealth by investing in property, the stock market, businesses and other assets that will produce them good capital growth. Oh yeh, and luck usually has very little to do with their success."}
{"question":"Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?","answer":"I am going to give advice that is slightly differently based on my own experiences. First, regarding the financing, I have found that the dealers do in fact have access to the best interest rates, but only after negotiating with a better financing offer from a bank. When I bought my current car, the dealer was offering somewhere around 3.3%, which I knew was way above the current industry standard and I knew I had good credit.  So, like I did with my previous car and my wife's car, I went to local and national banks, came back with deals around 2.5 or 2.6%.  When I told the dealer, they were able to offer 2.19%. So it's ok to go with the dealer's financing, just never take them at face value.  Whatever they offer you and no matter how much they insist it's the best deal, never believe it!  They can do better! With my first car, I had little credit history, similar to your situation, and interest rates were much higher then, like 6 - 8%.  The dealer offered me 10%.  I almost walked out the door laughing.  I went to my own bank and they offered me 8%, which was still high, but better than 10%.  Suddenly, the dealer could do 7.5% with a 0.25% discount if I auto-pay through my checking account. Down-payment wise, there is nothing wrong with a 35% down payment.  When I purchased my current car, I put 50% down.  All else being equal, the more cash down, the better off you'll be.  The only issue is to weigh that down payment and interest rate against the cost of other debts you may have.  If you have a 7% student loan and the car loan is only 3%, you're better off paying the minimum on the car and using your cash to pay down your student loan.  Unless your student loan balance is significantly more than the 8k you need to finance (like a 20k or 30k loan). Also remember that a car is a depreciating asset.  I pay off cars as fast as I can.  They are terrible debt to have.  A home can rise in value, offsetting a mortgage.  Your education keeps you employed and employable and will certainly not make you dumber, so that is a win.  But a car?  You pay $15k for a car that will be worth $14k the next day and $10k a year from now.  It's easy to get underwater with a car loan if the down payment is small, interest rate high, and the car loses value quickly. To make sure I answer your questions: Do you guys think it's a good idea to put that much down on the car? If you can afford it and it will not interfere with repayment of much higher interest debts, then yes.  A car loan is a major liability, so if you can minimize the debt, you'll be better off. What interest rate is reasonable based on my credit score? I am not a banker, loan officer, or dealer, so I cannot answer this with much credibility.  But given today's market, 2.5 - 4% seems reasonable. Do you think I'll get approved? Probably, but only one way to find out!"}
{"question":"First home buyer, financing questions","answer":"I think we would be good with paying around $1200 monthly mortgage fees (with all other property fees included like tax etc.) You probably can't get a $250k house for $1,200 a month including taxes and insurance.  Even at a 4% rate and 20% down, your mortgage payment alone will be $954, and with taxes and insurance on top of that you're going to be over $1,200.  You might get a lower rate but even a drop to 3% only lowers the payment $90\/month. Getting a cheaper house (which also reduces taxes and insurance) is the best option financially. What to do with the $15k that I have? If you didn't have a mortgage I'd say to keep 3-6 months of living expenses in an emergency fund, so I wouldn't deplete that just to get a mortgage. You're either going to be  Since 1) the mortgage payment would be tight and 2) you aren't able to save for a down payment, my recommendation is for you to rent until you can make a 20% down payment and have monthly payment that is 25% of your take-home pay or less.  Which means either your income goes up (which you indicate is a possibility) or you look for less house.  Ideally that would be on a 15-year note, since you build equity (and reduce interest) much more quickly than a 3-year note, but you can get the same effect by making extra principal payments. Also, very few people stay in their house for 30 years - 5 years is generally considered the cutoff point between renting and buying.  Since you're looking at a 10-year horizon it makes sense to buy a house once you can afford it."}
{"question":"Is there a good strategy to invest when two stock companies either merge or acquisition?","answer":"There is a strategy called merger-arbitrage where you buy the stock of the acquired company when it sells for less than the final acquisition price. Usually the price will rise to about the acquisition price fairly rapidly after the merge is announced, so you have to move fast. The danger is that the merger gets called off (regulatory reasons, the acquired company board votes no) and you get left holding shares bought at a price higher than the price after the merger collapses. This is kind of an advanced strategy and a tough one to back test since each M&A deal is unique."}
{"question":"Why do stock prices change? [duplicate]","answer":"As I understand it, a company raises money by sharing parts of it (\"ownership\") to people who buy stocks from it.  It's not \"ownership\" in quotes, it's ownership in a non-ironic way.  You own part of the company.  If the company has 100 million shares outstanding you own 1\/100,000,000th of it per share, it's small but you're an owner.  In most cases you also get to vote on company issues as a shareholder. (though non-voting shares are becoming a thing).  After the initial share offer, you're not buying your shares from the company, you're buying your shares from an owner of the company.  The company doesn't control the price of the shares or the shares themselves. I get that some stocks pay dividends, and that as these change the price of the stock may change accordingly. The company pays a dividend, not the stock.  The company is distributing earnings to it's owners your proportion of the earnings are equal to your proportion of ownership.  If you own a single share in the company referenced above you would get $1 in the case of a $100,000,000 dividend (1\/100,000,000th of the dividend for your 1\/100,000,000th ownership stake). I don't get why the price otherwise goes up or down (why demand changes) with earnings, and speculation on earnings.  Companies are generally valued based on what they will be worth in the future.   What do the prospects look like for this industry?  A company that only makes typewriters probably became less valuable as computers became more prolific.  Was a new law just passed that would hurt our ability to operate?  Did a new competitor enter the industry to force us to change prices in order to stay competitive?  If we have to charge less for our product, it stands to reason our earnings in the future will be similarly reduced.   So what if the company's making more money now than it did when I bought the share? Presumably the company would then be more valuable. None of that is filtered my way as a \"part owner\".  Yes it is, as a dividend; or in the case of a company not paying a dividend you're rewarded by an appreciating value. Why should the value of the shares change? A multitude of reasons generally revolving around the company's ability to profit in the future."}
{"question":"What exactly changes following a stock split? Why doesn't \"Shares\" (on the following SEC balance sheet) change?","answer":"In theory*, if a company has 1m shares at $10 and does a 10 for 1 split, then the day after it has 10m shares at $1 (assuming no market move). So both the price and the number of share change, keeping the total value of the company unchanged. Regarding your BIS, I suspect that the new number of shares has not been reported yet because it's an ETF (the number of shares in issue changes everyday due to in\/out flows). Your TWX example is not ideal either because there was a spin off on the same day as the stock split so you need to separate the two effects. * Some studies have documented a positive stock split effect - one of the suggested reasons is that the stock becomes more liquid after the split. But other studies have rejected that conclusion, so you can probably safely consider that on average it will not have a material effect."}
{"question":"I'm upside down on my car loan and need a different car, what can I do?","answer":"Before buying a new car, determine whether you really need one! If there's an automotive discussion, you should ask there FIRST to get opinions on how much all-wheel-drive helps. You may not want to change cars at all. Remember, most of us in the Northeast are NOT driving all-wheel-drive vehicles, and all cars have all-wheel brakes. All-wheel drive is better at getting you moving from a stop if one of the drive wheels would otherwise be slipping. It makes less difference during actual driving.  Traction control braking is much more important -- and much more common, hence much cheaper. And probably already present in your Camry. And good tires make a huge difference. (Top-of-the-line all-season tires are adequate, but many folks do switch to snow tires during the winter and switch back again in summer.)  Tires -- even if you get a second set of rims to put them on -- are a heck of a lot cheaper than changing cars. Beyond everything else, driving in winter conditions is a matter of careful practice. Most of the time, simply avoiding making sudden starts\/stops\/turns and not driving like you're in a video arcade (\"gotta pass three more or I lose my game!\") will do the job. You'll learn the feel of how the car responds. Some basic instruction in how to handle a skid will prepare you for the relatively rare times when that happens. (Some folks actively learn by practicing skids in a nice open parking lot if they can find one; I never have but it makes some sense.) If in doubt about the driving conditions, wait until the roads have been plowed and salted. Remember, teenagers learn to do this, and they're certifiably non compos mentis; if they can do it, you can do it. Before buying a new car, determine whether you really need one!"}
{"question":"Is there a good forum where I can discuss individual US stocks? ","answer":"I would recommend looking at The Motley Fool."}
{"question":"For the first time in my life, I'm going to be making real money\u2026what should I do with it?","answer":"Fund your retirement accounts first.  Even as an intern, it is still worthwhile to open a Roth IRA and start contributing to it. See my answer to a similar question: Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?"}
{"question":"How can the Samsung Upgrade Programme offer 0% APR?","answer":"Having just purchased an upcoming Samsung phone using their 0% interest I can tell you that the justification is to give you credit. I have the same with Best Buy which is 0% for a specific initial purchase. The bank (in the Samsung case is TD Bank) establishes a rotating credit line for you. The APR after is well established at the very high side of 29.99%. Nobody in their right mind should want to pay that much interest on any purchase. My last car purchase was below 3% APR. Additionally the introductory rate will still calculate their 29.99% interest as if it existed since the first day of credit and will be applied to your balance should you ever be late on any single payment. At that time the interest is factored in as if it were always there and payments are adjusted accordingly. You see, the bank wants you to pay their high interest rate. So they entice you with the 0% and hope you either finance more on that credit line (exempt from the promotional rate) or miss a payment and they can hit you with a whammy. Specifically the question asks how this offer benefits Samsung. To answer that portion; it ensures a sale at full retail price of the phone. Samsung is just an agent between you and the bank. The bank takes on the risk for a potential high reward."}
{"question":"Why could rental costs for apartments\/houses rise while buying prices can go up and down?","answer":"At 5%, this means you expect rents to double every 14 years. I bought a condo style apartment 28 years ago, (sold a while back, by the way) and recently saw the going rate for rents has moved up from $525 to $750, after all this time. The rent hasn't increased four fold.  If rents appear to be too low compared to the cost of buying the house, people tend to prefer to rent. On the flip side, if the rent can cover a mortgage and then some, there's strong motivation to buy, if not by the renters, then by investors who seek a high return from renting those houses, thereby pushing the price up.  The price to rent ratio isn't fixed, it depends in part on interest rates, consumer sentiment, and banks willingness to lend. Similar to stock's P\/E, there can be quite a range, but too far in either direction is a sign a correction is due."}
{"question":"Optimal way for withdrawing vested company match from my 401k?","answer":"Why would you want to withdraw only the company match, and presumably leave your personal contributions sitting in your ex-company's 401k plan? Generally, 401k plans have larger annual expenses and provide for poorer investment choices than are available to you if you roll over your 401k investments into an IRA. So, unless you have specific reasons for wanting to continue to leave your money in the 401k plan (e.g. you have access to investments that are not available to nonparticipants and you think those investments are where you want your money to be), roll over part (or all) of your 401k assets into an IRA, and withdraw the rest for personal expenses.  If your personal contributions are in a Roth 401k, roll them over to a Roth IRA, but, as I remember it, company contributions are not part of the Roth 401k and must be rolled over into a Traditional IRA. Perhaps this is why you want to take those in cash to pay for your personal purchase? Also, what is this 30% hit you are talking about? You will owe income tax on the money withdrawn from the 401k (and custodians traditionally withhold 20% and send it to the IRS on your behalf) plus penalty for early withdrawal (which the custodian may also withhold if you ask them), but the tax that you will pay on the money withdrawn will depend on your tax bracket, which may be lower if you are laid off and do not immediately take on a new job. That is, the 30% hit may be on the cash flow, but you may get some of it back as a refund when you file your income tax return."}
{"question":"Townhouse or stand-alone house for a first home?","answer":"I very much agree with what @Grade 'Eh' Bacon said about townhouses, but wanted to add a bit about HOA's, renting after moving on, and appreciation: HOA's HOA's can be restrictive, but they can also help protect property values, not all HOA's are created equal, some mean you have zero exterior maintenance, some don't. You'll be able to review the HOA financials to see where the money goes (and if they have healthy reserves). You'll see how much they spend on administration, I think ~10% is typical, and administration can be offset by the savings associated with doing everything in bulk. A well-run HOA should actually save you money over paying for all the things separately, but many people are happy to do some things themselves rather than pay for it, and would come out ahead if they didn't have an HOA. And of course, not all HOA's are well-run. Just do your best to get informed Transitioning to Rental If you are interested in trying your hand being a landlord after living there for a while, a townhouse typically exposes you to less rental risk than a single-family home, because the cost is typically lower and if the HOA maintains everything outside the house then you don't have to worry as much about tenants keeping a lawn in good shape, for example. Appreciation Appreciation varies wildly by market, some research by Trulia suggests in general condo's have outperformed single-family houses over the last 5 years by 10.5%. The same article notes that others disagree with Trulia's assessment and put condo's below single-family houses by 1.3% annually. My first townhouse has appreciated 41% over the last 3 years, while houses in the area are closer to 30% over the same period, but I believe that's a function of my local market more than a nationwide trend. I wouldn't plan around any appreciation forecasts. Source: Condos may be appreciating faster than single-family houses My adviceYou have to do your research on each potential property regardless of whether it's a condo\/townhouse\/single-family to find out what restrictions there are and what services are provided by the HOA (if any), your agent should be provided with most of the pertinent info, and you may not get to see HOA financials until you're under contract. Most importantly in my view, I wouldn't buy anywhere near the top of your budget. Being \"house-poor\" is no fun and will limit your options, don't count on appreciation or better income in the future to justify stretching yourself thin in the short-term."}
{"question":"Most common types of financial scams an individual investor should beware of?","answer":"If anyone offers you guaranteed better than average returns, run. They are either lying to you or to themselves. (Claiming that they will try to beat the market is more credible, but that becomes a matter of whether there is any reason to believe that they'll succeed.) If anyone sends you an unsolicited stock tip, run. They wouldn't be doing so if it wasn't an attempt to manipulate you or the market or both. Most likely its a pump-and-dump attempt."}
{"question":"How do day-traders or frequent traders handle their taxes?","answer":"You need to track every buy and sell to track your gains, or more likely, losses. Yes, you report each and every transactions. Pages of schedule D."}
{"question":"How do I determine ownership split on a franchise model?","answer":"There is no right and wrong answer to this question. What you and your business partner perceive as Fair is the best way to split the ownership of the new venture.  First, regarding the two issues you have raised: Capital Contributions: The fact that you are contributing 90% of initial capital does not necessarily translate to 90% of equity. In my opinion, what is fair is that you transform your contributions into a loan for the company. The securitization of your contribution into a loan will make it easier to calculate your fair contribution and also compensate you for your risk by choosing whatever combination of interest income and equity you see suitable. For example, you might decide to split the company in half and consider your contributions a loan with 20%, 50% or 200%  annual interest.  Salary: It is common that co-founders of start-ups forgo their wages at the start of the company. I do not recommend that this forgone salary be compensated through equity because it is impossible to determine the suitable amount of equity to be paid. I suggest the translation of forgone wages into loans or preferred stocks in similar fashion to capital contribution Also, consider the following in deciding the best way to allocate equity between both of you and your partner Whose idea was it? Talk with you business partner how both of you value the inventor of the concept. In general, execution is more important but talking about how you both feel about it is good. Full-time vs. part-time: A person who works full time at the new venture should have more equity than the partner who is only a part-time helper. Control: It is important to talk about control and decision making of the company. You can separate the control and decision making of important decisions from ownership. You can also check the following article about this topic at http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/dailymuse\/2012\/04\/05\/what-every-founder-needs-to-know-about-equity\/#726842f3668a"}
{"question":"Is a car loan bad debt?","answer":"Just to argue the other side, 1.49% is pretty low for a loan. Let's say you have the $15k cash but decide to get the car loan at 1.49%. Then you take the rest of the money and invest it in something that pays a ~4% dividend (a utility stock, etc.). You're making money on the difference. Of course, there's no guarantee that the underlying stock won't drop in value, but it might go up, too. And you'll likely pay income tax on the dividends. Still, you have a good chance of making money by taking the loan. So I will argue that there are scenarios where taking advantage of a low interest rate loan can be \"good\" as an investment opportunity when the risk\/reward is acceptable. Be careful, though. There's nothing wrong with paying cash for a car!"}
{"question":"Should I start investing in property with $10,000 deposit and $35,000 annual wage","answer":"I would strongly, strongly advise against it. Others here are answering the question of, having decided to invest in property, how one ought to ensure that one invests in the right property. What has not really been discussed here is the issue of diversification. There are a number of serious risks to property investment. In fact, it is one of the riskiest types of investment. You face more of almost every type of risk in property than maybe any other asset class. It is one thing to take on those risks as part of a diverse portfolio including other asset classes. It is quite another - extremely irresponsible - thing to take on those risks as your sole investment, when your portfolio is in its infancy. So no, do not invest in property when you lack any other investments. Absolutely not."}
{"question":"How do I estimate my taxes when I have only 1099 income?","answer":"So there are a lot of people that get into trouble in your type of self employment situation.  This is what I do, and I use google drive so there are no cost for tools.  However, having an accounting system is better. Getting in trouble with the IRS really sucks bad."}
{"question":"How to take advantage of home appreciation","answer":"Even selling isn't riskless. Sure, your house has gained value-- but unless that's due to improvements you made to it, every other house in the neighborhood you might buy has gained value too, so moving might not result in extracting any net value. This is one of the reasons I keep reminding folks that a house is not an investment. It can be a business, if you're renting it out. But if you're occupying it, it is simply housing. If you are lucky you'll make a profit if and when you sell it, but don't count on that.  It does store value, but except for taking loans against that it's had to access that value. And lower loan rates than you'd otherwise pay are not a huge value when you'd save more if you don't borrow at all. The only use I'm making of my house's value is that by taking a very-low-rate mortgage when I could have paid cash I was able to leave more money in my investments -- arguably the safest leveraged investment possible."}
{"question":"What should I consider when selecting a broker\/advisor to manage my IRA?","answer":"This is not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to consider whether you want to have a financial planner at all. Would a large mutual fund company or brokerage serve your needs better than a bank? You are still quite young and so have been contributing to IRAs for only a few years. Also, the wording in your question suggests that your IRA investments have not done spectacularly well, and so it is reasonable to infer that your IRA is not a large amount, or at least not as large as what it would be 30  years from now. At this level of investment, it would be difficult for you to find a financial planner who spends all that much time looking after your interests. That you should get away from your current planner, presumably a mid-level employee in what is typically called the trust division of the bank, is a given.  But, to go to another bank (or even to a different employee in the same bank), where  you will also likely be nudged towards investing your IRA in CDs, annuities, and a few mutual funds with substantial sales charges and  substantial annual expense fees, might just take you from the frying pan into the fire. You might want to consider transferring your IRA to a large mutual fund company and investing it in something simple  like one of their low-cost (meaning small annual expense ratio) index funds. The Couch Potato portfolio suggests equal amounts invested in a no-load S&P 500 Index fund and a no-load Bond Index fund, or a 75%-25% split favoring the stock index fund (in view of your age and the fact that the IRA should be a long-term investment).  But the point is,  you can open an IRA account, have the money transferred from your IRA account with the bank, and make the investments on-line all by yourself instead of having a financial advisor do it on your behalf and charge you a fee for doing so (not to mention possibly screwing it up.) You can set up Automated Investment too; the mutual fund company will gladly withdraw money from your checking account and invest it in whatever fund(s) you choose.  All this is not complicated at all.  If you would like to follow the Couch Potato strategy and rebalance your portfolio once a year, you can do it  by yourself too. If you want to invest in funds other than the S&P 500 Index fund, etc. most mutual fund  companies offer a \"portfolio analysis\" and advice for a fee (and the fee is usually waived when the assets increase above certain levels - varies from company to company).  You could thus have a portfolio analysis done each year, and hopefully it will be free after a few more years.  Indeed, at that level, you also typically get one person assigned as your advisor, just as you have with a bank. Once you get the recommendations, you can choose to follow them  or not, but you have control over how and where your IRA assets are invested.  Over the years, as your IRA assets grow, you can branch out into  investments other than \"staid\" index funds, but right now, having a financial planner for your IRA might not be worth it. Later, when you have more assets, by all means if you want to explore investing in specific stocks with a brokerage instead of sticking to mutual funds only but this might also mean phone calls urging you to sell Stock A right now, or buy hot Stock B today etc. So, one way of improving your interactions and have a better experience with your new financial planner is to not have a planner at all for a few years and do some of the work yourself."}
{"question":"Foolish to place orders before the market opens?","answer":"This would otherwise be a comment, but I wish to share an image. A stock I happened to own, gapped up on the open to $9.20 and slowly worked its way down to $8.19 where it closed up 6% but near its low for the day.  This is an addendum to my comment above, warning about buying a stock on the open when news is coming out. Or more important, to be mindful of that news and the impact it might have on the stock. In this case, when the news came out and the stock had closed at $7.73, one would need to decide if he wished to buy it at any cost, or place a limit order.  I've redacted the name of the company, as this discussion has nothing to do with any particular stock, I'm just offering an example of the effect I warned about, three weeks ago. (Full disclosure, I got out at $8.70 in the first minutes of trading.)"}
{"question":"Can my own corporation deduct my expenses even if I am a full time employee?","answer":"No, your business cannot deduct your non-business expenses.  You can only deduct from your business income those reasonable expenses you paid in order to earn income for the business. Moreover, for there to be a tax benefit, your business generally has to have income (but I expect there are exceptions; HST input tax credits come to mind.) The employment income from your full-time job wouldn't count as business income for your corporation. The corporation has nothing to do with that income \u2013 it's earned personally, by you. With respect to restaurant bills: These fall under a category known as \"meals & entertainment\".  Even if the expense can be considered reasonable and business-related (e.g. meeting customers or vendors) the Canada Revenue Agency decided that a business can only deduct half of those kinds of expenses for tax purposes. With respect to gasoline bills: You would need to keep a mileage and expense log. Only the portion of your automobile expenses that relate to the business can be deducted.  Driving to and from your full-time job doesn't count. Of course, I'm not a tax professional.  If you're going to have a corporation or side-business, you ought to consult with a tax professional. (A point on terminology: A business doesn't write off eligible business expenses \u2014 it deducts them from business income.  Write off is an accounting term meaning to reduce the value of an asset to zero. e.g. If you damaged your car beyond repair, one could say \"the car is a write-off.\")"}
{"question":"Trading with Settled \/ Unsettled Funds (T+3)","answer":"The issues of trading with unsettled funds are usually restricted to cash accounts.  With margin, I've never personally heard of a rule that will catch you in this scenario.  You won't be able to withdraw funds that are tied up in unsettled positions until the positions settle.  You should be able to trade those funds.  I've never heard of a broker charging margin interest on unsettled funds, but that doesn't mean there isn't a broker somewhere that does. Brokers are allowed to impose their own restrictions, however, since margin is basically offering you a line of credit.  You should check to see if your broker has more restrictive rules. I'd guess that you may have heard about restrictions that apply to cash accounts and think they may also apply to margin accounts.  If that's the case and you want to learn more about the rules generally, try searching for these terms: You should be able to find a lot of clear resources on those terms.  Here's one that's current and provides examples: https:\/\/www.fidelity.com\/learning-center\/trading-investing\/trading\/avoiding-cash-trading-violations On a margin account you avoid these issue because the margin (essentially a loan from your broker) provides a cushion \/ additional funds that avoid the issues.  It is possible that if you over-extend yourself that you'll get a \"margin call,\" but that seems to be different than what you're asking and maybe worth a new question if you want to know about that."}
{"question":"How do you access an OFX server?","answer":"This page, under the \"OFX\" section, has pointers to an OFX 2.0 spec (pdf). You're looking for the info starting at page 18, section 1.2.1: Clients use the HTTP POST command to send a request to the previously acquired Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the desired financial institution. The URL presumably identifies a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or other process on an FI server that can accept Open Financial Exchange requests and produce a response. and then shows some examples. The first page linked above also has some python scripts for downloading OFX data from your bank."}
{"question":"Is there a widely recognized bond index?","answer":"Multiple overlapping indices exist covering various investment universes.  Almost all of the widely followed indices were originally created by Lehman Brothers and are now maintained by Barclays.  The broadest U.S. dollar based bond index is known as the Universal.  The Aggregate (often abbreviated Agg), which is historically the most popular index, more or less includes all bonds in the Universal rated investment grade.  The direct analog to the S&P 500 would be the U.S. Corporate Investment Grade index, which is tracked by the ETF LQD, and contains exactly what it sounds like. Citigroup (formerly Salomon Brothers) also has a competitor index to the Aggregate known as Broad Investment Grade (BIG), and Merrill Lynch (now Bank of America) has the Domestic Master. Multiple other indices also exist covering other bond markets, such as international (non-USD) bonds, tax-exempts (municipal bonds), securitized products, floating rate, etc."}
{"question":"2008-2009 Stock Market Crash \u2014 what caused the second drop?","answer":"The second drop was part of the same event. The short-term resurgence is often called a \"dead cat bounce\". Mongus Pong's answer is a great answer, I'm going to approach from a more anecdotal POV. Think about the fear that was in the air in Fall 2008. From my recollection, that short-term stabilization came from the Fed, President, Congress, etc standing up and saying that the government would do everything in its power to maintain liquidity in the marketplace. So the fear of a broader collapse of investment banks (beyond Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, etc) due to the Fed behaving as it did in 1929 was abated. By the time you got to Q1 of 2009, it became clear that business vaporized -- nothing was happening. No cars were selling, Christmas was dismal, vacations were cancelled. (example: I went on vacation to a fancy resort in December 2008 and paid $60\/night for a $450\/night room! The place was half empty.)"}
{"question":"What caused this drop?","answer":"I do not fully understand the transactions involved, but it appears that there was a reverse stock split (20:1) and some legal status change as well on June 29th. This seems to be the cause for the change in valuation of the stock as the dates match the drop. https:\/\/www.otcmarkets.com\/stock\/RMSLD\/filings"}
{"question":"Taxable income on full-time job + business earnings","answer":"In Australia, any income you earn is taxable despite where it came from. Using your example your taxable income is $70,000. Keep in mind that with a business even as a sole trader any business expenses that contribute to the earning of your business income is deductible, reducing the final amount of tax you'll have to pay.  The ATO website has lots of good information and examples to look at including tax rates.  If your total income is pushing  into a higher tax bracket over 30c tax per $1 earned, it may be worth looking at shifting your business to operate under a company structure that just has a fixed tax rate around 30c per $1.  That said, for me, I don't want the paperwork overhead of a company yet so I'm running my side business as a sole trader too. I'd rather do that and keep it easy for now while my business gets profitable that waste time on admin structures for tax reasons even if in the shortterm it may mean slightly higher tax. In the end, you only pay tax on profit (income minus expenses) as opposed to raw\/gross income.  For more info there are good books in the bookshops or local library (to read free) on starting a business on the side while still working. They discuss these issues too."}
{"question":"Buying a house. I have the cash for the whole thing. Should I still get a mortgage to get the homeowner tax break?","answer":"Not for the tax break, no; as others have said that still costs you money. However, with rates being low right now and brought a bit lower by the tax break, this is an opportunity for the safest form of leveraged investing you will ever find. If you invest that money, the returns on investment will probably be better than the mortgage rate, and that leaves you with a net profit. There is some risk if the market collapses, but it's less risk than any other form of borrowing to invest. That also leave you with more flexibility if you need cash in a hurry; you can draw down the investments rather than taking another loan. If the risk bothers you, you can do what I did and split the difference. I put 50% down and financed the rest. I sometimes regret not having pushed it harder, since it has worked out well for me ... but that was the level of risk I was comfortable with."}
{"question":"Can a trade happen \"in between\" the bid and ask price?","answer":"All the time. For high volume stocks, it may be tough to see exactly what's going on, e.g. the bid\/ask may be moving faster than your connection to the broker can show you.  What I've observed is with options. The volume on some options is measured in the 10's or 100's of contracts in a day. I'll see a case where it's $1.80\/$2.00 bid\/ask, and by offering $1.90 will often see a fill at that price. Since I may be the only trade on that option in the 15 minute period and note that the stock wasn't moving more than a penny during that time, I know that it was my order that managed to fill between the bid\/ask."}
{"question":"Did an additional $32 billion necessarily get invested into Amazon.com stock on October 26th, 2017?","answer":"No. The market cap has no relation to actual money that flowed anywhere, it is simple the number of shares multiplied by the current price, and the current price is what potential buyers are (were) willing to pay for the share. So any news that increases or decreases interest in shares changes potentially the share price, and with that the market cap. No money needs to flow."}
{"question":"How FTB and IRS find mistakes in amended tax returns? Are their processes reliable?","answer":"The FTB, as any government agency, is understaffed and underpaid. Even if someone took a glance and it wasn't just an automated letter - consider the situation: you filed as a LLC and then amended to file as a partnership. Unless someone really pays attention - the obvious assumption would be that you had a limited partnership. Yes, you'll need to call them and work with them on fixing this. They do have all the statements you've attached. However, there's a lot of automation and very little attention to details when it comes to matching errors, so don't get surprised if no-one even looked at these statements. Next time your elected government officials talk about \"small government\" and \"cutting government expenses\" - you can remind yourself how it looks in action with this experience."}
{"question":"Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?","answer":"You become a teacher; generally K-12, but I have heard from the DOE   that teachers at state schools qualify as well. This is not 100% correct. Teaching in certain disciplines and areas (STEM, Special Education, Title 1 schools) can qualify for student loan debt forgiveness DEPENDING on the type of debt. For instance, I believe the Federal loan forgiveness program only covers debt remaining after 10 years of teaching in a qualified discipline.  Do verify this as it's been several years since I looked into the matter. The DOE has a student loan forgiveness program, but the scope of it is somewhat narrow.  I would encourage anyone considering this approach to investigate it in detail before committing to a career in teaching. Some states have similar programs, but they typically have limitations as well."}
{"question":"What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? ","answer":"If you would like to use linux I suggest you to use KMyMoney http:\/\/kmymoney2.sourceforge.net\/ It is based on gnucash but it is easier to use IMO"}
{"question":"Does reading financial statements (quarterly or annual reports) really help investing?","answer":"Wow,  I cannot believe this is a question.  Of course reading the 10Ks and 10Qs from the SEC are incredibly beneficial.  Especially if you are a follower of the investing gurus such as Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Shelby Davis.  Personally I only read the 10K's I copy the pertinent numbers over to my spreadsheets so I can compare multiple companies that I am invested in.  I'm sure there are easier ways to obtain the data.  I'm a particular user of the discounted free cash flow methodology and buying\/selling in thirds. I feel like management that says what they are going to do and does it (over a period of years) is something that cannot be underestimated in investing.  yes, there are slipups, but those tend to be well documented in the 10Qs.  I totally disagree in the efficient market stuff.  I tend to love using methodologies like Hewitt Heisermans \" It's Earnings that Count\" you cannot do his power-staircase without digging into the 10Qs.  by using his methodology I have several 5 baggers over the last 5 years and I'm confident that I'll have more.  I think it is an interesting factoid as well that the books most recommended for investing in stocks on Amazon all advocate reading and getting information from 10Ks.   The other book to read is Peter Lynch's one-up-wall-street.  The fact is money manager's hands are tied when it comes to investing, especially in small companies and learning over the last 6 years how to invest on my own has given me that much more of my investing money back rather than paying it to some money manager doing more trades than they should to get commision fees."}
{"question":"What does inflation mean to me?","answer":"Inflation as defined in the general, has many impacts at a personal level. For example, you say that the reduction in the price of oil has no impact on you.  That's absolutely not true, unless you're a hermit living off of the land.  Every box or can or jar of food you buy off the shelf of the grocery store has the price of oil baked into it, because it had to get there somehow.  High fuel costs for trucks mean increased costs to put food on shelves, which mean increased prices for that food. Even tobacco prices can affect you, because they affect what other people are spending.  Demand is always a significant factor in prices, particularly retail prices, and if people are spending more money on tobacco, they're probably spending less on other things - either buying less snacks, for example, or buying cheaper brands of those snacks.  So the price of Doritos may drop a bit (or not rise), for example. General inflation also tends to drive raises, particularly in industries with relatively small performance ties to raises.  If inflation is 3%, wages need to raise 3% or so in order to keep up, on average; even if your personal cost-of-living went up 0%, or 5%, or 10%, the default wage inflation will be closer to that of the national average.  Any raise less than national average is effectively a pay cut (which is one reason why inflation is needed in a healthy economy).  So your company probably has a cost-of-living raise everyone gets that's a bit less than inflation, and then good performers get a bump up to a bit more than inflation.  You can read more on this topic for a more in-depth explanation. Finally, inflation rates tend to be major factors in stock market movement.  Inflation that is too high, or too low, can lead to higher volatility; inflation that is \"right\" can lead to higher stability.  An economy that has consistently \"right\" inflation (around 2-3% typically) will tend to have more stable stock market in general, and thus more reliable returns from that market.  There are many other factors that lead to stock markets rising and falling, but inflation is one very relevant one, particularly if it's not in the \"right\" zone."}
{"question":"Can a company have a credit rating better than that of the country where it is located?","answer":"In one personal finance book I read that if a company is located in a country with credit rating X it can't have credit rating better (lower - i.e. further from AAA level) than X. This is simply wrong. Real world evidence proves it wrong. Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Exxon Mobile (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and Microsoft (MSFT) all have a triple-A rating today, even though the United States doesn't. Toyota (TM) remained triple-A for many years even after Japanese debt was downgraded. The explanation was the following: country has rating X because risk of doing business with it is X and so risk of doing business with any company located in that country automatically can't be better than X. When reading financial literature, you should always be critical. Let's evaluate this statement. First off, a credit rating is not the \"risk of doing business.\" That is way too generic. Specifically, a credit rating attempts to define an individual or company's ability to repay it's obligations. Buying treasuries constitutes as doing business with the gov't, but you can argue that buying stamps at USPS is also doing business with the gov't, and a credit rating won't affect the latter too much.  So a credit rating reflects the ability of an entity to repay it's obligations. What does the ability of a government to repay have to do with the ability of companies in that country to repay? Not much. Certainly, if a company keeps it's surplus cash all in treasuries, then downgrading the government will affect the company, but in general, the credit rating of a company determines the company's ability to pay."}
{"question":"How do I invest in the S&P 500?","answer":"The S&P 500 is a stock market index, which is a list of 500 stocks from the largest companies in America. You could open a brokerage account with a broker and buy shares in each of these companies, but the easiest, least expensive way to invest in all these stocks is to invest in an S&P 500 index mutual fund. Inside an index mutual fund, your money will be pooled together with everyone else in the fund to purchase all the stocks in the index.  These types of funds are very low expense compared to managed mutual funds.  Most mutual fund companies have an S&P 500 index fund; two examples are Vanguard and Fidelity.  The minimum investment in most of these mutual funds is low enough that you will be able to open an account with your $4000. Something you need to keep in mind, however: investing in any stock mutual fund is not non-risk.  It's not even low-risk, really.  It is very possible to lose money by investing in the stock market.  An S&P 500 index fund is diversified in the sense that you have money in lots of different stocks, but it is also not diversified, in a sense, because it is all in large cap American stocks.  Before investing in the stock market, you should have a goal for the money you are investing.  If you are investing for something several years away, an index fund can be a good place to invest, but if you will need this money within the next few years, the stock market might be too risky for you."}
{"question":"How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away?","answer":"First off, very sorry for your loss. I lost my father a few years ago and I know it can be tough.  My father also had a lot of credit card debt. They attempted to collect the debt from my mother, who was no longer on the account (for over a decade). It was just an attempt to recoup as much money as they could before dealing with a probate court.  As others have said, it depends on your state law. You will want to talk to a lawyer, figure out who is going to be the executor of the estate, and determine the next steps in starting to settle debts that your father had. If you want to take possession of the house, then you will likely need to work with the executor and perhaps purchase the house from the estate (which would then use the money to pay off debts)."}
{"question":"What happens if one brings more than 10,000 USD with them into the US?","answer":"Once you declare the amount, the CBP officials will ask you the source and purpose of funds. You must be able to demonstrate that the source of funds is legitimate and not the proceeds of crime and it is not for the purposes of financing terrorism. Once they have determined that the source and purpose is legitimate, they will take you to a private room where two officers will count and validate the amount (as it is a large amount); and then return the currency to you. For nominal amounts they count it at the CBP officer's inspection desk. Once they have done that, you are free to go on your way. The rule (for the US) is any currency or monetary instrument that is above the equivalent of 10,000 USD. So this will also apply if you are carrying a combination of GBP, EUR and USD that totals to more than $10,000."}
{"question":"How to transfer money to yourself internationally? ","answer":"Transferwise is a new peer-to-peer service that's setup to lower fees for international money transfers: https:\/\/transferwise.com"}
{"question":"How does one value Facebook stock as a potential investment?","answer":"The amount of hype and uneducated investors\/speculators driving its prices up. Just by that I would say its prices are inflated. Bear in mind that Facebook don't sell anything tangible. They can go down as fast as they went up. Most of their income is ad based and single-product oriented, and as such highly dependent on usage and trends (remember MySpace?). Having said that, all the other \"classic\" valuation techniques are still valid and you should utilize them."}
{"question":"Average Price of a Stock","answer":"Edit3: Regarding the usefulness of the bare number itself, it is not useful unless, for example, an employer uses that average in the computation of how many options the employer grants to the employee as part of the compensation paid. One of my employers used just such an average. What is far more common is to use two or more moving averages, of different periods, plotted on a chart.  My original response continues below... Assuming there are 252 trading days a year, the following chart does what you have done but with a moving average: AAPL on Stockcharts.com  Edit: BTW, I looked up the number of Federal holidays, there are 9. The average year has 365.2422 days. 365.2422 \u00d7 5\/7 = 260.8873. Subtract 9 and you get 251.8873 trading days in the average year. So 252 is a better number for the SMA than 250 if you want to average a year.  Edit2: Here is the same chart with more than one average included: AAPL chart w\/indicators"}
{"question":"Should I pay off my credit card online immediately or wait for the bill?","answer":"It is COMPLETELY no use to pay earlier (during a billing cycle) to better your credit score! Your credit score gets affected ONLY once a month from each creditor, and that happens when they post your monthly statement. Thus, no matter what you do or pay and how many times a month or how many days earlier than your due date, it has NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on your score. Anything you do will be reflected only after the statement. What you pay in between those two statements is irrelevant. So, as far as credit score goes IT DOESN'T MATTER. However, if you want to save on interest being charged, it is wise to pay as early as possible, so your balance is as low as possible for day-by-day calculation of your interest."}
{"question":"Is there a significant danger to market orders as opposed to limit orders?","answer":"If you want your order to go through no matter what then you should be using market orders rather than limit orders. With limit orders you may get the price you are after or better but you are not guaranteed to get your order transacted. With a market order you are guaranteed to get you order transacted but may get a price inferior to what you were after. Most times this should only be a few cents but can get much larger in a fast moving or less liquid market. You should incorporate this slippage into your trading plan. Maybe a better option for you, if you are looking at + or - 0.5% from the last price, would be to use conditional triggers (stop buy and sell orders) with your market orders. Once the market moves in your direction your conditional order will be triggered and the stock will be bought at current market price."}
{"question":"Is it possible to lower the price of a stock while buying? ","answer":"You can choose to place successively lower buy limit orders, but whether they get filled or not is not a given; it depends on whether sellers care to accept your bid. In your example of a 49.98 \/ 50.01 spread, if you place a buy with limit of 49.99, it won't get filled (if the order reaches the market while still at 49.98 \/ 50.01) immediately, but will be added to the order book.  By being added to the order book, the markets bid and ask become 49.99 \/ 50.01.  Your order won't get filled until some seller places a market order or a sell limit order of 49.99 or less.  No guarantee that that will happen, and even if it does, there's nothing to say that your follow-up buy at 49.98 will ever be filled.  In fact, your 49.98 buy order queues up at the \"end of the line\" behind all previously pending 49.98 bids, since your order arrived after those other bids.  Since the initial conditions you supposed had a 49.98 bid, such an order exists (or at least did exist; it might have been cancelled in the intervening moment. Basically, your first buy at 49.99, if it happens, has essentially no influence on whether your second buy at 49.98 will happen.  You can't expect to move the market lower by making a bid that is higher (49.99) than the existing best bid (49.98).  Whatever influence your 49.99 order has is to raise the market's price, not lower it."}
{"question":"How to increase my credit score","answer":"Get a credit card is NOT the answer. The reason people have a bad (or no) credit score is often because they're new to the country, have just turned 18, have previously fallen into arrears or are just bad with money. Getting a credit card is risky because, if you don't stay on top of your payments, it'll just damage your score even more.  Now, it sounds like I hate credit cards - but I don't, and they do have their benefits. But avoid them if possible because they can be more hassle than they're worth (ie, paying the credit back on-time, cancelling accounts when the interest comes in, moving money in and out of accounts). It's risky borrowing money from anywhere whether it's a payday lender, a bank, a credit card, etc., so use them as a last resort. If you've got your own income then that's amazing!, try not to live outside of your means and your credit score will look after (and increase) itself. It takes time to build a good credit score, but always make sure you pay the people you owe on time and the full amount. I'd stick with paying your phone provider (and any other direct debits you have setup) and avoid getting a credit card. I'd recommend Noddle to keep track of your credit score and read their FAQ on how to help build it. Unlike Experian, it's free forever so not quite as detailed... but Noddle are owned by CallCredit - one of the biggest Credit Reference Agencies in the UK so they should have the latest information on yourself. In conclusion, if you already have financial commitments like a mobile phone bill, gym membership, store cards, anything that gets paid monthly by direct debit... your credit score will increase (provided you pay the full-amount on time).   I hope this helps. PS. I don't work for any of the companies here, but I've been working in the finance sector (more specifically, short-term loans) for 3+ years now."}
{"question":"Purchase same stock twice","answer":"how does the trading company know which one I want to sell? It doesn't need to know. You just sell one. From taxation point of view depending on the country \/ tax jurisdiction, it can be only be FIFO or specific stock."}
{"question":"What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds?","answer":"So I don't have any problems with your analysis or the comments associated with it. I just wanted to mention that no one is talking about taxes. Your answer....Figure out new portfolio breakdown and sell to 1.) Get money I need and 2.) re-balance the portfolio to my new target allocations is completely correct.  (Unimpeachable in my opinion.) However, when you calculate what you need to sell to meet your current cash needs make sure to include in that analysis money to pay taxes on anything you sell for a gain, or keep some invested to account for the tax money you would save by selling things for a loss.  The actual mechanics of calculating what these amounts are are fairly involved but not difficult to understand. (IE every situation is different.) Best of luck to you, and I hope your cashflow gets back up to its previous level soon."}
{"question":"Early Exercise and 83(b) Election","answer":"You mention \"early exercise\" in your title, but you seem to misunderstand what early exercise really means. Some companies offer stock options that vest over a number of years, but which can be exercised before they are vested. That is early exercise. You have vested stock options, so early exercise is not relevant. (It may or may not be the case that your stock options could have been early exercised before they vested, but regardless, you didn't exercise them, so the point is moot.) As littleadv said, 83(b) election is for restricted stocks, often from exercising unvested stock options. Your options are already vested, so they won't be restricted stock. So 83(b) election is not relevant for you. A taxable event happen when you exercise. The point of the 83(b) election is that exercising unvested stock options is not a taxable event, so 83(b) election allows you to force it to be a taxable event. But for you, with vested stock options, there is no need to do this. You mention that you want it not to be taxable upon exercise. But that's what Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) are for. ISOs were designed for the purpose of not being taxable for regular income tax purposes when you exercise (although it is still taxable upon exercise for AMT purposes), and it is only taxed when you sell. However, you have Non-qualified Stock Options. Were you given the option to get ISOs at the beginning? Why did your company give you NQSOs? I don't know the specifics of your situation, but since you mentioned \"early exercise\" and 83(b) elections, I have a hypothesis as to what might have happened. For people who early-exercise (for plans that allow early-exercise), there is a slight advantage to having NQSOs compared to ISOs. This is because if you early exercise immediately upon grant and do 83(b) election, you pay no taxes upon exercise (because the difference between strike price and FMV is 0), and there are no taxes upon vesting (for regular or AMT), and if you hold it for at least 1 year, upon sale it will be long-term capital gains. On the other hand, for ISOs, it's the same except that for long-term capital gains, you have to hold it 2 years after grant and 1 year after exercise, so the period for long-term capital gains is longer. So companies that allow early exercise will often offer employees either NQSOs or ISOs, where you would choose NQSO if you intend to early-exercise, or ISO otherwise. If (hypothetically) that's what happened, then you chose wrong because you got NQSOs and didn't early exercise."}
{"question":"What would happen if the Euro currency went bust?","answer":"These rumors are here just to help dollar stay alive. Euro have problems, but they are rather solvable, unlike dollar situation. Even if something wrong would happen - countries would return to their national currencies, mainly Germany & France are important here. This does not means that EuroUnion would be destroyed - some countries live in EU without Euro and they are just fine."}
{"question":"Restricting a check from being deposited via cell phone","answer":"No, most check deposits are processed that way. Banks transmit the pictures of the checks between themselves, and allow business customers to deposit scans for quite some time now. I see no reason for you to be concerned of a check being in a dusty drawer, it's been deposited, cannot be deposited again. If you're concerned of forgery - well, nothing new there."}
{"question":"How To Record Income As An Affiliate ( UK )","answer":"Every bill you write counts as income (if the bill doesn't get paid, you would count that as an expense). In cases where you don't write bills, I think the payment you receive would count as income, but you might check that on the HMRC website. So to record your income, you can basically record the payments that you receive.  Anything you pay out for your business is an expense. You keep a receipt for every expense - if you don't have a receipt, you can't count it as an expense, so keeping all the receipts is very, very important. An exception are investments, for example buying a computer that should last multiple years; there you can count a percentage of the investment as expense every year.  All income, minus all expenses, is your profit. You pay tax and National Insurance contributions according to your profit. You can do whatever you like with the profit.  Notice that I didn't mention any salary. Self employed means you have no salary, you have profits and do with them whatever you like. On the other hand, you pay taxes on these profits almost exactly as if they were income.  If you have this blog but are also employed, you'll add the profits to your normal income statement."}
{"question":"Consolidate my debt? Higher APR, but what does that actually mean?","answer":"No, it means that each year (Annual Payment Rate) you are accruing interest at 29.8%. If your principal is $10,000, that means you are gaining $3,000 of debt per year in addition to this, excluding payments you make\/interest on interest."}
{"question":"Multiple accounts stagnant after quitting job.","answer":"What is my best bet with the 401K? I know very little about retirement   plans and don't plan to ever touch this money until I retire but could   this money be of better use somewhere else? If you don't know your options, I would suggest reading some material on it that might be a little more extensive than an answer here (for instance, http:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/blog\/ has some good and free information about a myriad of financial topics).  With retirement accounts you can roll it over or leave it in the current account.  Things to look at would be costs of the accounts, options you have in each account, and the flexibility of moving it if you need to.  Depending on what type of retirement account it is (Roth 401K, Traditional 401K, etc, you may have some advantages with moving it to another type). The student loans.... pay them off in one shot? I have the extra money   and it would not be a hardship to do so unless that money can be best   used somewhere else? Unless I was making more money in a savings\/investing\/business opportunity, I would pay off the student loans in a lump sum.  The reason is basic opportunity cost (economics) - if a better opportunity isn't on the horizon with your money, kill the interest you're paying because it's money you're losing every month. With the money just sitting in the bank I get a little sick feeling   thinking that I can be doing something better with that. Outside of general savings you could look at investing in stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, currencies, lending club loans (vary by state), or something similar.  Or you could try to start a business or invest in a start up directly (though, depending on the start up, they may not accept small investors).  Otherwise, if you don't have a specific idea at this time, it's best to have money in savings while you ponder where else it would serve you. Keep in mind, having cash on hand, even if it's not earning anything, can bail you out in emergencies or open the door if an opportunity arises.  So, you're really not \"losing\" anything by having it in cash if you're patiently waiting on opportunities."}
{"question":"How can you possibly lose on investments in stocks?","answer":"Once you buy stocks on X day of the month, the chances of stocks never actually going above and beyond your point of value on the chart are close to none. How about Enron?  GM? WorldCom? Lehman Brothers?  Those are just a few of the many stocks that went to 0.  Even stock in solvent companies have an \"all-time high\" that it will never reach again.   Please explain to my why my thought is [in]correct.  It is based on flawed assumptions, specifically that stock always regain any losses from any point in time.  This is not true.  Stocks go up and down - sometimes that have losses that are never made up, even if they don't go bankrupt.  If your argument is that you should cash out any gains regardless of size, and you will \"never lose\", I would argue that you might have very small gains in most cases, but there are still times where you are going to lose value and never regain it, and those losses can easily wipe out any gains you've made.   Never bought stocks and if I try something stupid I'll lose my money, so why not ask the professionals first..? If you really believe that you \"can't lose\" in the stock market then do NOT buy individual stocks.  You may as well buy a lottery ticket (not really, those are actually worthless).  Stick to index funds or other stable investments that don't rely on the performance of a single company and its management.  Yes, diversification reduces (not eliminates) risk of losses.  Yes, chasing unreasonable gains can cause you to lose.  But what is a \"reasonable gain\"?  Why is your \"guaranteed\" X% gain better than the \"unreasonable\" Y% gain? How do you know what a \"reasonable\" gain for an individual stock is?"}
{"question":"Why is OkPay not allowed in the United States?","answer":"The U.S. requires money transfer services to be licensed under 31 USC 5330 in addition to any applicable laws at the state level.  According to multiple sources online, including the thread referenced by MD-Tech's answer, OkPay either cannot or will not get a license, so they are out. I dug on this a bit more because I thought it was interesting, and OkPay has other issues with U.S. and other regulators related to its interaction with Bitcoins, which themselves are a hot potato for regulation right now and may explain the licensing problem.  It seems to also be facing regulatory pressure in other countries, by the way, so it's not strictly a problem they face in the U.S.  Just for whatever reason, the problem is greater here.  Some interesting summary points: With mounting pressure on online money exchanges from US regulators, payments processor OKPay has announced that it is suspending processing for all Bitcoin exchanges, including industry leader Mt. Gox. ... Earlier this month, the US Department of Homeland Security seized Mt. Gox's account with mobile payment processor Dwolla, on allegations that the account was in violation of US Code 18 USC \u00a7 1960 by operating an \"unlicensed money transmitting business.\" Just where the Bitcoin market falls under US law is unclear, because the legality of Bitcoin transactions has yet to be tried in court and law enforcement has refused to comment on ongoing investigations, such as the Dwolla case. http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2013\/05\/29\/okpay_suspends_bitcoin_processing\/ In March, the US Treasury said any firms dealing in the virtual currency would be considered \"money services businesses\" just like any other, which means they must hand over transaction information to the government and work to prevent money laundering. http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2013\/05\/15\/mt_gox_us_court\/ In the UK, it apparently has also had trouble with banking partners (quoting a OkPay official regarding changing bank providers): The UK bank that we used before did not make a final decision on whether to handle transactions in favour of crypto-currencies or not. Therefore the compliance department of the bank asked us to restrict such transfers. This apparently allowed them to reverse a policy in the UK: OKPAY's policy shift comes just months after it stipulated that GBP users check a box, verifying that their funds would not be spent on cryptocurrency, a feature that further incited users. http:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/okpay-gbp-bitcoin-transactions\/ I hadn't heard of this company prior to your question, but having done some research, I tend to think that at least the part of this quote about language, attributed to a user, is true: OKPAY are quite paranoid about AML and another problem is that their support people seem to be very bad at English, so their replies are often hard to understand. Their support are also slow [sic]. However in my experience they are an honest company. I found at least one case where rumors that the entire company were going to shut down were traced back to a poorly translated message issued by the company. Again, I know only what I read just now about this company, but it looked like there were a few red flags - the problems with the US probably not being the most important.  This type of service is probably part of the future, but I'm not sure that I'd send money through it now in its current state or organization and regulation."}
{"question":"S-Corp partnership startup. How to pay owners with minimal profit?","answer":"S-Corp income is passed through to owners and is taxed on their 1040 as ordinary income. If you take a wage (pay FICA) and then take additional distributions these are not subject to FICA.  A lot of business owners will buy up supplies\/ necessary expenses right before the end of the tax year to lower their tax liability."}
{"question":"What do brokers do with bad stock?","answer":"You have to consider a case where you just cannot sell it. Think of it as a bad piece of real estate in Detroit. If there are absolutely no buyers, you cannot sell it (until a buyer shows up)"}
{"question":"Are account holders with a bank better able to receive a loan from that bank? ","answer":"Banks are businesses, and as such should have the right to refuse service, so they should probably be able to choose one customer over another at will.   [I say \"should\" because business owners protecting themselves against litigation related to discrimination could restrict their freedom as business owners.] However, banks are businesses and if the customers are identical, both will be approved (or not) according to credit records.  Does not make sense to approve one person with a given credit record and refuse someone with a similar record.  Unless they barely qualify.  Since no two credit histories are identical, there are surely edge cases. Finally, if a customer is a long term customer with large deposits and\/or significant amounts of business with the bank, the bankers will likely be inclined to do more business."}
{"question":"How does the price of oil influence the value of currency?","answer":"From an investor's standpoint, if the value of crude oil increases, economies that are oil dependent become more favourable (oil companies will be more profitable).  Therefore, investors will find that country's currency more attractive in the foreign exchange market."}
{"question":"How does the value of an asset (valued in two different currencies) change when the exchange rate changes?","answer":"Gold is traded on the London stock exchange (LSE) and the New York stock exchange (NYSE) under various separate asset tickers, mainly denominated in sterling and US dollars respectively.  These stocks will reflect FX changes very quickly.  If you sold LSE gold and foreign exchanged your sterling to dollars to buy NYSE gold you would almost certainly lose on the spreads upon selling, FX'ing and re-buying. In short, the same asset doesn't exist in multiple currencies.  It may have the same International Securities Identification Number (ISIN), but it can trade with different Stock Exchange Daily Official List (SEDOL) identifiers, reflecting different currencies and\/or exchanges, each carrying a different price at any one time."}
{"question":"How do I protect myself from a scam if I want to help a relative?","answer":"Mostly ditto to @grade'eh'bacon, but let me add a couple of comments: Before I did anything, I'd find out more about what's going on. Anytime someone tells me that there's a problem with \"security codes or something\", I get cautious. Think about what the possibilities are here. Your relative is being scammed. In that case, helping him to transfer his money to the scammer is not the kind of help you really want to give. Despite your firm belief in your relative's integrity, he may have been seduced by the dark side. If he's doing something illegal, I'd be very careful about getting involved. My friends and relatives don't ask me to commit crimes for them, especially not in a way that leaves me holding the bag if things go wrong. Assuming that what is going on here is all legal and ethical, still there is the possibility that you could be making yourself liable for taxes, fees, whatever. At the very least I'd want to know what those are up front. As @Grade'eh'bacon, if he really has a problem with a lost password or expired account, by all means help him fix that problem. But become someone else's financial intermediary has many possible pitfalls."}
{"question":"How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k?","answer":"the short answer: yes. The long answer depends on what you mean by modest living. As others have noted, living off a $300k principle involves risks, but the entire future has risk. By \"getting out of the rat race\" I hope you don't mean become a slug on the couch. Peruse mr. Money Mustache at https:\/\/www.mrmoneymustache.com\/. One can live very frugally yet very well in some parts of the US."}
{"question":"What should I consider when I try to invest my money today for a larger immediate income stream that will secure my retirement?","answer":"I don't think you should mix the two notions.  Not starting out with at least.  It takes so much money, time and expertise to invest for income that, starting out at least, you should view it as a goal, not a starting point. Save your money in the lowest cost investments you can find.  If you are like me, you can't pick a stock from a bond, so put your money into a target retirement fund.  Let the experts manage the risk and portfolio.  Start early and save often!  At only 35 you have lots of time. Perhaps you are really into finance, in which case you might somebody manage your own portfolio.  Great, but for now, let an expert do the heavy lifting. You are an app developer.  Your best bet to increase your income stream with via your knowledge and expertise.  While you are still so young, you should use labor to make money, and then save that money for retirement.  I am going to make an assumption that where you are will software development means you can become a great developer long before you can become a great financier.  Play to your strengths. I am also afraid you are over estimating how comfortable you are with risk.  Any \"investment\" that has the kinds of returns you are looking for is going to be wildly risky.  I would say those types of opportunities are more \"speculation\" rather than \"investments.\"  There isn't necessarily anything wrong with speculations, but know the difference in risk.  Are you really willing to gamble your retirement?"}
{"question":"Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?","answer":"Well, let me take your question for baremetal, and aknowledge you did not asked about the difference between daytrading and investing which is obviously leverage. I would not consider daytrading more risky as long as you keep leverageout of the equation.  Daytrading can be turbolent and confusing, where things unfold in a very short amount of time, (let trade nfp payroll or some breaking event, yay), eventually the risk is more overseeable in long term trading, as soon as you put leverage into the equation things look vary different, indeed."}
{"question":"What is a good open source Windows finance software","answer":"Have you tried others on Wikipedia's list?"}
{"question":"Can two companies own stock in each other?","answer":"Absolutely. In fact, all stock purchases of more than 5% of a company's stock must be reported to the SEC, so assuming A and B are publicly traded companies in the US, the purchase would likely be a matter of public record.  There are probably special cases where this could cause problems, however; any case where A's purchase of B's stock (or vice versa) runs afoul of regulation would be one such case. For example, if company A wants to own a controlling interest in company B and appoint members of its board of directors and both companies were in the same heavily-concentrated market, regulators may frown on the potential for decreased competition. Such regulations may apply to any purchase of a controlling interest in a company, though."}
{"question":"Why would a public company not initiate secondary stock offerings more often?","answer":"Selling stock means selling a portion of ownership in your company.  Any time you issue stock, you give up some control, unless you're issuing non-voting stock, and even non-voting stock owns a portion of the company. Thus, issuing (voting) shares means either the current shareholders reduce their proportion of owernship, or the company reissues stock it held back from a previous offering (in which case it no longer has that stock available to issue and thus has less ability to raise funds in the future).  From Investopedia, for exmaple: Secondary offerings in which new shares are underwritten and sold dilute the ownership position of stockholders who own shares that were issued in the IPO. Of course, sometimes a secondary offering is more akin to Mark Zuckerberg selling some shares of Facebook to allow him to diversify his holdings - the original owner(s) sell a portion of their holdings off.  That does not dilute the ownership stake of others, but does reduce their share of course. You also give up some rights to dividends etc., even if you issue non-voting stock; of course that is factored into the price presumably (either the actual dividend or the prospect of eventually getting a dividend).  And hopefully more growth leads to more dividends, though that's only true if the company can actually make good use of the incoming funds. That last part is somewhat important.  A company that has a good use for new funds should raise more funds, because it will turn those $100 to $150 or $200 for everyone, including the current owners.  But a company that doesn't have a particular use for more money would be wasting those funds, and probably not earning back that full value for everyone. The impact on stock price of course is also a major factor and not one to discount; even a company issuing non-voting stock has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the interest of those non-voting shareholders, and so should not excessively dilute their value."}
{"question":"The doctor didn't charge the health insurance in time, am I liable?","answer":"The hospital likely has a contract with your insurance company which makes them obligated to bill the insurance before billing you! I had a similar occurrence that was thrown out when my insurance company provided a copy of a contract with the hospital to the judge. So if there is an agreement they must file with the insurance in timely manner."}
{"question":"Strategies for paying off my Student loans","answer":"Starting up a company is fun, stressful, and exciting. It's also often a lot harder than you expect. Income, revenue, and cash flow are big concerns, and you need to be able to eat while you're hunting down your first paying customers. Don't pay off all the debt if that will leave you without any money for living expenses. Perhaps a compromise is in order? Pay off the high-interest loans first, and continue to make payments on the lower-interest loans while you start up. It doesn't have to be all or nothing."}
{"question":"Are AAA private-sector corporate bonds safer than government bonds?","answer":"If you are afraid of your government defaulting, then you also have reason to fear that your country's so-called \"AAA\" corporate bonds might not be a safe investment.  When governments default, they often do things like: In these scenarios, it is not predictable whether government bonds will suffer more or less than any particular corporate bonds. You might want to diversify into precious metals, foreign currencies, and\/or foreign securities.  For the most security, you might want to choose investment vehicles that your government would have a hard time confiscating.  Of course, you will face currency fluctuation risks if you do so."}
{"question":"Working on a tax free island to make money?","answer":"From http:\/\/www.taxrates.cc\/html\/cayman-islands-tax-rates.html: There is no income tax, corporate tax, sales tax, capital gains tax,   wealth tax, inheritance tax, property tax, gift tax or any other kind   of direct taxation in Cayman Islands. Cayman Islands government receives the majority of its income from indirect taxation. There is no income tax or capital gains tax or   corporation tax in Cayman Islands imposed on Cayman individuals and   Cayman Islands companies. An import duty of 5% to 20% is levied   against goods imported into the islands. Some items are tax exempt   like baby formula, books and cameras. Tax on automobiles depends on   the class and make of the model. Tax can reach up to 40% for expensive   car models. Financial institutions that operate in the islands are   charged a flat licensing fee by the government. A 10% government tax   is placed on all tourist accommodations in addition to the small fee   each tourist pays upon getting on the Caymans. The Cayman Islands   government charges licensing fees to financial institutions that   operate in the islands as well as work permit fees for expatriate   employees ranging from around US$ 500 for a clerk to around US$ 20,000   for a CEO."}
{"question":"Explain: \"3% annual cost of renting is less than the 9% annual cost of owning\"","answer":"The 3% and 9% figures are based on the cost of borrowing money and all the other ownership costs associated with real estate.  From the same article: http:\/\/patrick.net\/housing\/crash1.html Because it's usually still much cheaper to rent than to own the same   size and quality house, in the same school district. In rich   neighborhoods, annual rents are typically only 3% of purchase price   while mortgage rates are 4% with fees, so it costs more to borrow the   money as it does to borrow the house. Renters win and owners lose!   Worse, total owner costs including taxes, maintenance, and insurance   come to about 8% of purchase price, which is more than twice the cost   of renting and wipes out any income tax benefit. Imagine you are renting a house. If the cost of your annual rent is lower than X then renting is obviously the best idea from a monetary calculation. If rent is greater than Y being a landlord makes more sense. In the middle it is debatable, and the non-monetary reasons need to be considered."}
{"question":"How Often Should I Chase a Credit Card Signup Bonus?","answer":"Your credit score is definitely affected by the age of your credit accounts, so if you frequently close one card and open another new one, you're adversely affecting the overall average age of accounts.  This is something to consider and whether it is worth what you're trying to achieve. Sometimes, if you're a good customer and are insistent enough, you can simply call your credit card company and use the threat of closing your account in favor of another card that offers something attractive to get your current bank to sweeten its incentives to keep your business.  I know many people who've done this with real success, and they spare themselves the hassle of obtaining a new card and suffering the short term consequences on their credit report.  This might be an avenue worth trying before you just close the account and move on. I hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Income tax on my online drop-shipping business (India)","answer":"Please consult a tax advisor.   You may be voilating the FEMA [Foreign Exchange Management Act] and can land into trouble.  Further what you are doing can land up into various other acts as illegal including AML.   Further if there is income generated by Indian citizen in India, he is still liable to pay tax, irrespective of whether you get the funds back into India. Edit: AML is Anti Money Laundering. Your transaction is sure to raise AML triggers as it looks like converting Black Money to White in round about way. Once the triggers are raised, RBI division will investigate further to verify what you are doing. If you are able to prove that this is a valid transaction, you would be OK on AML front. How will Income Tax Know? - If they don't know does not mean you are not liable for tax. - Any suspicious transactions would get investigated and sooner or later Income Tax would know about it and can cause a serious problem. - It is irrelevant where you have kept the money, if you have earned something, its taxable. For it not to be taxable you need to conduct this business differently.  Please consult a tax adviser who will advice you on the tax-ability of this type of transaction."}
{"question":"Basic Info On Construction Loans","answer":"Construction loans are typically short term that then get rolled into conventional mortgages at the end of the construction period. Since the actual construction loan is short term, you cannot combine it with a long-term land loan as well. You could do the two separate loans up front to buy the land and finance the construction, then at the end roll both into a conventional mortgage to close out the land and construction loans. This option will only work if you do all three through the same lender. Trying to engage various lenders will require a whole new refinance process, which I very much doubt you would want to go through. These are sometimes called combo loans, since they aggregate several different loan products in one \"transaction.\" Not a lot of places do land loans, so I would suggest first find a lender that will give you a land loan and set an appoint with a loan representative. Explain what you are trying to do and see what they can offer you. You might have better luck with credit unions as well instead of traditional banks."}
{"question":"What options do I have at 26 years old, with 1.2 million USD?","answer":"I'm surprised nobody else has suggested this yet: before you start investing in stocks or bonds, buy a house. Not just any house, but the house you want to live in 20 years from now, in a place where you want to live 20 years from now - but you also have to be savvy about which part of the country or world you buy in. I'm also assuming that you are in the USA, although my suggestion tends to apply equally anywhere in the world. Why? Simple: as long as you own a house, you won't ever have to pay rent (you do have to pay taxes and maintenance, of course). You have a guaranteed return on investment, and the best part is: because it's not money you earn but money you don't have to spend, it's tax free. Even if the house loses value over time, you still come out ahead. And if you live abroad temporarily, you can rent out the house and add the rent to your savings (although that does make various things more complicated). You only asked for options, so that is mine. I'll add some caveats. OK, now here are the caveats:"}
{"question":"I'm getting gouged on prices for medical services when using my HSA plan. How to be billed fairly?","answer":"The big difference for me under the High deductible plan has been that instead of paying the co-pay, now I am now responsible for the negotiated rate until I reach the deductible limit. The HSA is only a way to funnel medical payments through a tax free account the insurance company and the doctor don't care about the HSA. If we go out-of-network, then I am responsible for the full rate, but they only count the negotiated rate as a credit against the out of pocket\/deductible. This big difference makes it very important to pick a doctor in-network. For your example: I would have paid $50 under the PPO, but $200 under the high deducible plan. If I go out-of-network I would have to pay whatever the doctor want me to pay, but the insurance company would only credit me $200 against my deductible. I can pull the extra $350 from the HSA. It is hard to get good pricing information from some doctors, but the price difference for me has been so large that in-network is the only way to go. For prescriptions the high deductible plan has been worse, because we pay the full price with no discounts for the medicine, until we reach the plan deductible. That makes the cost of the prescriptions as much as 10x's more expensive. In fact the annual cost of our prescriptions all but guarantees that we hit the deductible each year."}
{"question":"Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real?","answer":"10k in taser stock at $1.00 per share made those who held into the hundreds per share made millions.  But think about the likelihood of you owning a $1 stock and holding it past $10.00. They (taser millionaires) were both crazy and lucky.  A direct answer, better off buying a lottery ticket. Stocks are for growing wealth not gaining wealth imho. Of course there are outliers though.  To the point in the other answer, if it was repeatable the people teaching the tricks (if they worked) would make much more if they followed their own advice if it worked.  Also, if everyone tells you how good gold is to buy that just means they are selling to get out. If it was that good they would be buying and not saying anything about it."}
{"question":"Paid cash for a car, but dealer wants to change price","answer":"I had a similar situation when I was in college. The difference was that the dealer agreed to finance and the bank they used wanted a higher interest rate from me because of my limited credit history. The dealer asked for a rate 5 percentage points higher than what they put on the paperwork. I told them that I would not pay that and I dropped the car off at the lot with a letter rescinding the sale. They weren't happy about that and eventually offered me financing at my original rate with a $1000 discount from the previously agreed-upon purchase price. What I learned through that experience is that I didn't do a good-enough job of negotiating the original price. I would suggest that your son stop answering phone calls from the dealership for at least 1 week and drive the car as much as possible in that time. If the dealer has cashed the check then that will be the end of it. He owes nothing further. If the dealer has not cashed the check, he should ask whether they prefer to keep the check or if they want the car with 1000 miles on the odometer. This only works if your son keeps his nerve and is willing to walk away from the car."}
{"question":"Freelance site with lowest commission fees? ","answer":"Your own site\/business. I\u2019m in freelancing and internet business for 15 years, 20 years IT experience. Currently i use freelance websites for cheap Asian employees, very seldom for EU\/USA employees, and if only if local competition is heavily out-pricing qualified staff. Till I went \"limited\" i.e., founded a limited corporation I was jobbing as freelancer and sole proprietor, both with limited success due to the strong Asian competition i myself currently hire. The point where freelancing got \"not sustainable\" as primary income was 2006 for me, don\u2019t want to get into detail but every freelancer who was active back then knows what I mean, it was like whole India got internet. If you have absolutely no references, do it for the references a limited time and see the fee you pay as service for you to get references, then start your own web identity, either as freelancer or as corporation. Make sure you take your very satisfied customers with you. Every \"very satisfied\" customer in your contact list means 10 new customers which mean 2 new customers which mean 0.2 new customers and so on. Honestly, this info is solely based on experience of this niche fro ma European citizen perspective, if you\u2019re based anywhere else the situation might be totally different."}
{"question":"From Facebook's perspective, was the fall in price after IPO actually an indication that it went well?","answer":"@Joe.E, I disagree with your logic. The IPO clearly didn't go well--not relative to other IPOs.  Were it not for the stocks underwriters stepping in late in the trading day, Facebook would likely have closed below their opening price. This story and others indicate that institution investors were given negative information by an analyst for the underwriters that other investors didn't have.  This inside knowledge is certainly contributing to the drop in the stock.  It's fair to argue that many individual investors were suckered into buying the stock at the IPO price because of this incomplete disclosure. It wouldn't surprise if what's happens has a negative impact on future trading volume, and creates reluctance to invest in the firm--which would certainly be an additional negative outcome beyond the dropping stock price. Edit: Dilip mentioned a lawsuit.  Here's a link to an article about it."}
{"question":"Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends?","answer":"Having a debt on a balance sheet does impact the capability and willingness of the company to pay dividend. But more than this it depends on the profitability of the company.  If the company is profitable, there is no reasons why it's share holders should not be rewarded. If the company does not have debt, lot of money and no profit, normally no or a symbolic dividend is paid. It is a good move by Fort. Dividend is the effective way of paying something back to the shareholders."}
{"question":"Buy home and leverage roommates, or split rent?","answer":"It's doable, but there's a fair amount of risk involved. The biggest issue is that your roommates could move out. It's possible that they could have a falling out, get a job in a different city, or just move on. How difficult would it be to find another roommate? How many roommates can you lose and still afford to pay the mortgage, insurance, taxes, and all the rest of your living expenses? Even if you you retain all of your roommates until the mortgage is paid off, there's still some risk involved. If you were to lose your job, could you continue to make mortgage payments? Worst case scenario is that you could become unemployed for a time while home values in your State\/City\/neighborhood are crashing. Last, the position on landlord has the potential to be lucrative, but also comes with a fair amount of responsibility. It will be a drain on your time to maintain the house and to make sure you always have tenants. I know you said that your roommates are good about paying on time, but are you willing to evict a friend because they won't\/can't pay rent? It's easier to ask the landlord for an extension on rent when you're friends. All that being said, I think that this idea is worth considering. My recommendation is that you consider every aspect of it, and proceed cautiously if you choose to do so."}
{"question":"Why are options created?","answer":"Do you need to buy car insurance?  If you do, you are buying to open a put option."}
{"question":"Is trading stocks easier than trading commodities?","answer":"One reason why you may have gotten this advice is that stocks have an expected real return over time, while commodities do not. Therefore, when gambling on individual stocks, odds are in your favor that they will ultimately go up over time. You may do better or worse than the market as a whole, but they will likely go up as the whole market, on average, rises over time. Commodities, on the other hand, have no expected real return. It is more zero-sum. In fact, after costs, a real loss should be expected on average, making gambling in here more risky."}
{"question":"Double-entry accounting: how to keep track of mortgage installments as expenses?","answer":"The best thing for you to do will be to start using the Cash Flow report instead of the Income and Expense report. Go to Reports -> Income and Expense -> Cash Flow Once the report is open, open the edit window and open the Accounts tab.  There, choose your various cash accounts (checking, saving, etc.).  In the General tab, choose the reporting period.  (And then save the report settings so you don't need to go hunting for your cash accounts each time.) GnuCash will display for you all the inflows and outflows of money, which appears to be what you really want. Though GnuCash doesn't present the Cash Flow in a way that matches United States accounting rules (with sections for operating, investing, and financial cash flows separated), it is certainly fine for your personal use. If you want the total payment to show up as one line on the Cash Flow report, you will need to book the accrual of interest and the payment to the mortgage bank as two separate entries. Normal entry for mortgage payments (which shows up as a line for mortgage and a line for interest on your Cash Flow): Pair of entries to make full mortgage payment show up as one line on Cash Flow: Entry #1:  Interest accrual Entry #2:  Full mortgage payment (Tested in GnuCash 2.6.1)"}
{"question":"How does a delta signify the probability of expiring in the money","answer":"Just for clarification, delta and probability of expiring in the money are not the same thing. What the guy meant was that delta is usually a close enough approximation to the probability. One way to think about it is to look at the probabilities and deltas of In the Money, Out of the Money, and At the Money options. In these cases, the delta and probabilities are about the same. In fact if you look at an options chain with delta and probabilities, you can see that they are all about the same. In other words, there is a linear relationship between delta and probability. Here are a couple links to other answers around the web: Hope this answer helps!"}
{"question":"Tax question about selling a car","answer":"I don't think there's much you can do. Losses from the sale of personal-use automobiles (used for pleasure, commuting, etc) are not deductible as capital losses.  See IRS Tax Topic 409, end of the first paragraph.  The expenses you incurred in owning and operating the car (insurance, fuel, maintenance, service plans, etc) are not deductible either. If you used it partly for business, then some of your expenses might be deductible; see IRS Tax Topic 510.  This includes depreciation (decline in value), but only according to a standard schedule; you don't generally just get to deduct the difference between your buying and selling price.  Also, you'd need to have records to verify your business use.  But anyway, these deductions would apply (or not) regardless of whether you sell the car. You don't get your sales tax refunded when you resell the vehicle.  That's why it's a sales tax, not a value-added tax.  Note, however, that if you do sell it, the sales tax on this new transaction will be the buyer's responsibility, not yours. You do have the option on your federal income tax return to deduct the state sales tax you paid when you bought the car; in fact, you can deduct all the sales taxes you paid in that year.  (If you have already filed your taxes for that year, you can go back and amend them.)  However, this takes the place of your state income tax deduction for the year; you can't deduct both.  See Tax Topic 503.  So this is only useful if your sales taxes for that year exceeded the state income tax you paid in that year.  Also, note that state taxes are not deductible on your state income tax return.  Again, this deduction applies whether you sell the car or not."}
{"question":"How might trading volume affect future share price?","answer":"Volumes are used to predict momentum of movement, not the direction of it. Large trading volumes generally tend to create a price breakout in either positive or negative direction. Especially in relatively illiquid stocks (like small caps), sudden volume surges can create sharp price fluctuations."}
{"question":"Is is possible to dispute IRS underpayment penalties?","answer":"didn't pay the extra underpayment penalty on the grounds that it was   an honest mistake. You seem to think a penalty applies only when the IRS thinks you were trying to cheat the system.  That's not the case. A mistake (honest or otherwise) still can imply a penalty. While you can appeal just about anything, on any grounds you like, it's unlikely you will prevail."}
{"question":"15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15","answer":"Consider the \"opportunity cost\" of the extra repayment on a 15 year loan.  If you owe money at 30% p.a. and money at 4% p.a. then it is a no brainer that the 30% loan gets paid down first. Consider too that if the mortgage is not tax deductable and you pay income tax, that you do not pay tax on money you \"save\". (i.e. in the extreme $1 saved is $2 earned). Forward thinking is key, if you are paying for someone's college now, then you would want to pay out of an education plan for which contributions are tax deductable, money in, money out. In my country most mortgages, be they 15,25,30 years tend to last 6-8 years for the lender. People move or flip or re-finance.  I would take the 15 for the interest rate but only if I could sustain the payments without hardship. Maybe a more modest home ?   If you cannot afford the higher repayments you are probably sailing a bit close to the wind anyway.   Another thing to consider is that tax benefits can be altered with the stroke of a pen, but you may still have to meet repayments."}
{"question":"How risky are penny stocks?","answer":"Penny stocks are for the real gambler.  Don't even think about holding them long.  Buy a lot of shares and profit from a penny uptick.  Rake a hundred dollars here and there a few times a week if you can.  Don't fall in love with it.  Trade for profit.  Don't bet the farm.  Only play what you can afford to lose at the Great Casino in the sky (the stock market).  Sure, you will pick some losers, but you are not married to it, you don't have to keep it.  A couple of good winners will erase some loses.  Having lost thousands on the Blue Chips, and feeling I have wasted time waiting for an annual $100 gain on an ETF or mutual if I get lucky, has made me more risk tolerant for these \"BAD\" investments.  The \"GOOD\" investments should do so well."}
{"question":"What is title insurance, and should I get title insurance for my home?","answer":"If or when you \"own\" your land outright you need to try and get the land patent on it. That is the supreme form of title to it. It goes back to when the land was acquired by the U.S. (from Britian, France, etc.) by treaty. Treaties trump even our Constitution. When you have a land patent.........IT'S YOURS! That link is to my site but this was so relevant that I had to include it. Hope y'all don't mind."}
{"question":"How do multi-currency bank accounts work? What is the advantage?","answer":"Today typically a Business needs to hold accounts in more than one currency. Banks in certain countries are offering what is called a dual currency account. It is essentially 2 accounts with same account number but different currency. So One can have an account number say 123456 and have it in say AUD and USD. So the balance will always show as X AUD and Y USD. If you deposit funds [electronic, check or cash] in USD; your USD balance goes up. Likewise at the time of withdrawal you have to specify what currency you are withdrawing. Interest rates are calculated at different percentage for different currencies.  So in a nutshell it would like operating 2 accounts, with the advantage of remembering only one account number. Designate a particular currency as default currency. So if you don't quote a currency along with the account number, it would be treated as default currency. Otherwise you always quote the account number and currency. Of-course bundled with other services like free Fx Advice etc it makes the entire proposition very attractive. Edit: If you have AUD 100 and USD 100, if you try and withdraw USD 110, it will not be allowed; Unless you also sign up for a auto sweep conversion.  If you deposit a GBP check into the account, by default it would get converted into AUD [assuming AUD is the default currency]"}
{"question":"Are PINs always needed for paying with card?","answer":"There generally isn't much in the way of real identity verification, at least in the US and online.  The protection you get is that with most credit cards you can report your card stolen (within some amount of time) and the fraudulent charges dropped. The merchant is the one that usually ends up paying for it if it gets charged back so it's usually in the merchant's best interest to do verification.  However the cost of doing so (inconvenience to the customer, or if it's an impulse buy, giving them more time to change their mind, etc) is often greater than the occasional fraudulent charge so they usually don't do too much about it unless they're in a business where it's a frequent problem."}
{"question":"Are warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's Club worth it?","answer":"We were members at costco, but decided not to renew.  Meat was a definite cost savings, and laundry detergent as well.  Diapers used to be a huge savings, but loblaws seems to be pricing things better now.  We did by a bunch of Kirkland brand diapers and wipes before the membership ended. The problem we had was that you just get too much stuff - you save a bunch on that laundry detergent that you buy once every two years, or the chicken you have in your freezer forever. In Canada, the basic membership is $55 and we could not be certain we made that back, nor that we weren't over consuming as we walked the aisles.  I have heard that the more expensive membership ($100) which gives you 2% back on purchases is a good way to gauge your usage and determine if it is worth it. It also costs nothing to give it a try - their policy is a full refund at any time, so in theory you could go in on your 364th day and get a refund."}
{"question":"How to get a grip on finance? ","answer":"I think this question is perfectly on topic, and probably has been asked and answered many times.  However, I cannot help myself. Here are some basics however: Personal Finance is not only about math.  As a guy who \"took vector calculus just for fun\", I have learned that superior math skills do not translate into superior net worth.  Personal finance is about 50% behavior.  Take a look at the housing crisis, car loans, or payday lenders and you will understand that the desire to be accepted by others often trumps the math surrounding a transaction. Outline your goals  What is it that you want in life?  A pile of money or to retire early?  What does your business look like?  How much cash will you need?  Do you want to own a ton of rental properties?  How does all this happen (set intermediate goals). Then get on a budget  A budget is a plan to spend your money in advance.  Stick to it.  From there you can see how much money you have to implement various goals.  Are your goals to aggressive?   This is really important as people have a tendency to spend more money then they have.  Often times when people receive a bonus at work, they spend that one bonus on two or three times over.  A budget will prevent this from happening. Get an Emergency Fund  Without an emergency fund, you be subject to the financial whims of people involved in your own life and that of the broader marketplace.  Once you have one, you are free to invest with impunity and have less stress in a world that deals out plenty.  Bad things will happen to you financially, protect against them. The best first investments are simple:  Invest in yourself.  Find a way to make a very healthy income with upward mobility.  Also get out and stay out of debt.  These things are not sexy, but they pay off in the long run. The next best investment is also simple:  Index funds.  These become the bench mark for all other investments.  If you do not stand a good chance of beating the S&P 500 index fund, why bother?  Just dump the money in the fund and sleep well at night."}
{"question":"Covered call and put options as separate trades","answer":"Yes, if the call expires worthless, leaving you with stock. Then you can exercise your put when the stock goes below put strike price."}
{"question":"Can a company block a specific person from buying its stock?","answer":"The company could use registered shares with restricted transferability, i.e. shares that require the consent of the issuing company for a change of ownership."}
{"question":"Is it ok to have multiple life time free credit cards?","answer":"Do you need it? It doesn't sound like it - you seem to be able to manage with just the cards you have.  Will it hurt anything? Probably not either, unless it entices you to spend more than you make.  Another downside might be that you would spend more than you normally would just to have activity on every card. So all in all, I don't see much upside."}
{"question":"First time investing advice (Canada)","answer":"Two to three years? That is one long gestation period!  :^) Welcome.  Congratulations on taking savings into your own hands, you are a winner for taking responsibility for your, and your family's life. If I was you my first priority would be to pay off your car and never buy one on time again.  Or you could sell it and buy something with cash if that would be easier. It is tremendous that you are thinking and planning.  You are already ahead of most people.  Are you working on your basement as you have time\/money like when work might be slow?  If so great idea."}
{"question":"Buying a house for a shorter term","answer":"To answer your question, you need to ask yourself  Common transaction costs can be really hard to compensate in a single year. It can include house inspections, closing costs, agents commissions, etc---all together, it can be up to 6-10% of the value of your house. This is a difficult goal to beat in a year, and your margin for miscalculations and market fluctuations is very low. In brief, you can be screwed big time. To make a profit in a year, you need to reduce transaction costs to the minimum: Avoid agents, inspectors, mortgage brokers, etc, which can pay you back with an interesting surprise. Bottom line, it can make sense to buy a house for a year, only if you can reduce all the related transaction costs by doing them yourself. If there are many houses in the market for sale, I would try to convince someone to lease the house for a year in the best terms possible (and maybe even try to sub-lease some of the rooms), or also rent-to-own the house. That way you avoid the transaction costs upfront, and would make more financial sense for a non real estate guru."}
{"question":"Are my purchases of stock, mutual funds, ETF's, and commodities investing, or speculation?","answer":"Every investment comes with a risk. There is also a bit of speculation involved. In there is an anticipation that one expects the value to go up in normal course of events. By your definition \"If I buy this equipment, I could produce more widgets, or sell more widgets,\" as an investment. Here again there is an anticipation that the widgets you sell will give you more return. If you are investing in stock\/share, you are essentially holding a small portion of value in company and to that extent you are owining some equipment that is producing some widget .... Hence when you are purchasing Stocks, it would be looked as investment if you have done your home work and have a good plan of how you want to invest along with weiging the risk involved. However if you are investing only for the purpose of making quick bucks following so called hot tips, then you are not investing but speculating."}
{"question":"How are RSU's factored into Income during loan qualification?","answer":"Long ago when I was applying for my first mortgage I had to list all my income and assets. At the time I had some US Savings Bonds from payroll deduction. I asked about them. The loan officer told me that unless I was willing\/planning on selling them to make the down payment, they were immaterial to the loan application. So unless you have a habit of turning RSUs into cash, or are willing to do so for the down payment, it is no different from having money in a 401K or IRA: the restrictions on selling them make them illiquid."}
{"question":"Where can I find a good online fundamental data provider for Hong Kong stocks?","answer":"If you check out China Stock Markets Web provides details on all things that trade on there. It covers the Hang Seng Index, SSE Index, and SSE Component Index. There is also tons of information for investors on the exchange website here."}
{"question":"I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?","answer":"Some financial planners would not advise one way or the other on a specific stock without knowing your investment strategy... if you didn't have one, their goal would be to help you develop one and introduce you to a portfolio management framework like Asset Allocation. Is a two of clubs a good card?  Well, that all depends on what is in your hand (diversification) and what game you are playing(investing strategy). One possibility to reduce your basis over time if you would like to hold the stock is to sell calls against it, known as a 'covered-call'.  It can be an intermediate-term (30-60+ months depending on option pricing) trading strategy that may require you to upgrade your brokerage account to allow option trades.  Personally I like this strategy because it makes me feel proactive about my portfolio rather than sitting on the side lines and watching stocks move."}
{"question":"What is the difference between Protected-equity loan vs Equity loan?","answer":"In simple terms : Equity Loan is money borrowed from the bank to buy assets which can be houses , shares etc Protected equity loan is commonly used in shares where you have a portfolio of shares and you set the minimum value the portfolio can fall to . Anything less than there may result in a sell off of the share to protect you from further capital losses.  This is a very brief explaination , which does not fully cover what Equity Loan && Protected Equity Loan really mean"}
{"question":"Why can't the government simply payoff everyone's mortgage to resolve the housing crisis? ","answer":"Could it be done? Yes, it could, subject to local law. A variant of such an approach has been suggested for those countries experiencing collapse of demand. One might consider whether whether it applied to secured loans (such as mortgages), unsecured loans, or both; whether it would be capped at a certain absolute (say \u00a3100k) or proportional (first 50%) of each mortgage; whether it would cover first homes only, or all homes; and so on.  These details would radically change the feasibility and consequences of any such intervention. See the related question: https:\/\/economics.stackexchange.com\/q\/146\/104 Such a policy of debt cancellation would have several consequences beyond initial stimulation of demand, that would need additional policies to deal with them. Inflation The resultant surge in demand would, in the absence of any other intervention, result in a massive surge in inflation. There are some interesting questions about whether this burst of inflation would be a one-off, or not. One could make an argument that as housing has become much more affordable (at least for home-owners), it would increase the downward pressure on wages, which would be in itself counter-inflationary in the medium-long term. Nevertheless, it would be injecting much more money into the economy than has been seen in QE to date, so the risks would be of extraordinarily high inflation, which might or might not get entrenched. In order to manage the short-term risk, and long-term inflation expectations, it might be necessary to incorporate a lot of tightening, either fiscal (higher taxes and\/or lower public spending), or monetary: (higher interest rates, unwinding QE, new requirements for higher core capital for banks) Moral hazard There are risks of moral hazard for individuals: however, as a society, we were prepared to accept the moral hazard for financial institutions and their staff, so that may or may not be an issue: it is likely to be a question of long-term expectations. If the expectation is that this is at most a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, then the consequential risk from moral hazard ought to be lower. Excess profits to lenders Lenders will typically work on the basis of a certain proportion of defaults, so paying off all loans effectively gives them an artificial boost to their profits. Worsening balance of payments There is to a degree a prisoners' dilemma facing nations here. Pressing the reset-button on personal debt across many of the countries experiencing demand-collapse would benefit all of them. However, if just one such country were to do it alone, they alone would increase domestic demand, resulting in a large increase in imports, but no significant increase in exports."}
{"question":"Can an ETF perform differently than its holdings?","answer":"The Creation\/Redemption mechanism is how shares of an ETF are created or redeemed as needed and thus is where there can be differences in what the value of the holdings can be versus the trading price. If the ETF is thinly traded, then the difference could be big as more volume would be where the mechanism could kick in as generally there are blocks required so the mechanism usually created or redeemed in lots of 50,000 shares I believe. From the link where AP=Authorized Participant: With ETFs, APs do most of the buying and selling. When APs sense   demand for additional shares of an ETF\u2014which manifests itself when the   ETF share price trades at a premium to its NAV\u2014they go into the market   and create new shares. When the APs sense demand from investors   looking to redeem\u2014which manifests itself when the ETF share price   trades at a discount\u2014they process redemptions. So, suppose the NAV of the ETF is $20\/share and the trading price is $30\/share. The AP can buy the underlying securities for $20\/share in a bulk order that equates to 50,000 shares of the ETF and exchange the underlying shares for new shares in the ETF. Then the AP can turn around and sell those new ETF shares for $30\/share and pocket the gain. If you switch the prices around, the AP would then take the ETF shares and exchange them for the underlying securities in the same way and make a profit on the difference. SEC also notes this same process."}
{"question":"First time consultant, doubts on Taxation","answer":"1.If the compensation that I receive is over 10 lakhs, how much would be deducted as tax No tax will be deducted by the company. You have to calculate the tax and pay in Advance by yourself. There are quite a few Banks that give you online facility to pay your tax. There is no service tax. Otherwise the tax slabs are right. The current budget has slightly revised the tax brackets. 2.So are these the right taxes and % that Need to be paid? If not do let me know the correct deductions. Yes. Revised brackets for financial year 2014-2015 are NIL for first 2.5 lakhs. Other brackets are unchanged. 4.What others legal options I have to decrease the tax liability? As an employee of my ex company I had once taken an FD (that reduced my tax) The options are same as salaried, i.e. you can claim exemption under 80C or on interest of housing loan, etc. As a consultant certain expenses can also be deducted.  You should also talk to a CA who can help you with this as there will be some paperwork involved."}
{"question":"Higher auto insurance costs: keep car or switch to public transit?","answer":"I've lived this decision, and from my \"anecdata\": do #3 I have been car-free since 2011 in a large United States city.  I was one month into a new job on a rail line out in the suburbs, and facing a $3000 bill to pass state inspection (the brakes plus the emissions system).  I live downtown.  I use a combination of transit, a carshare service, and 1-2 day rentals from full service car rental businesses (who have desks at several downtown hotels walking distance from my house).  I have not had a car insurance policy since 2011; the carshare includes this and I pay $15 per day for SLI from full service rentals.   I routinely ask insurance salesmen to run a quote for a \"named non-owner\" policy, and would pull the trigger if the premium cost was $300\/6 months, to replace the $15\/day SLI.  It's always quoted higher.   In general, our trips have a marginal cost of $40-100.  Sure, this can be somewhat discouraging.  But we do it for shopping at a warehouse club, visiting parents and friends in the suburbs.  Not every weekend, but pretty close.   But with use of the various services ~1\/weekend, it's come out to $2600 per year.  I was in at least $3200 per year operating the car and often more, so there is room for unexpected trips or the occasional taxi ride in cash flow, not to mention the capital cost: I ground the blue book value of the car from $19000 down to $3600 in 11 years.   Summary:  Pull the trigger, do it :D"}
{"question":"How and where can I deposit money to generate future payments \/ income?","answer":"Reversing your math, I am assuming you have $312K to work with.  In that case, I would simply shop around your local banks and\/or credit unions and have them compete for your money and you might be quite surprised how much they are willing to pay. A couple of months ago, you would be able to get about 4.25% from Israel Bonds in Canada on 5 years term (the Jubilee product, with minimum investment of $25K).  It's a bit lower now, but you should still be able to get very good rates if you shop around tier-2 banks or credit unions (who are more hungry for capital than the well-funded tier-1 banks). Or you could look at preferred shares of a large corporation.  They are different from common shares in the sense they are priced according to the payout rate (i.e. people buy it for the dividend). A quick screen from your favorite stock exchange ought to find you a few options. Another option is commercial bonds.  You should be able to get that kind of return from investment grade (BBB- and higher) bonds on large corporations these days.  I just did a quick glance at MarketWatch's Bond section (http:\/\/cxa.marketwatch.com\/finra\/BondCenter\/Default.aspx) and found AAA grade bonds that will yield > 5%.  You will need to investigate their underlying fundamentals, coupon rate and etc before investing (second thought, grab a introduction to bonds book from Chapters first). Hope these helps."}
{"question":"How accurate is Implied Volatility in predicting future moves?","answer":"A change in implied volatility tells us something about what investors are thinking (or fearing) about the volatility going forward for the life of the associated option contracts (which may be short or long-lived).  IV does a good job of summarizing the information available to investors, which includes information about the past and the present. However, whether these investor views actually translate into what happens in the future is a topic of debate in the finance literature--investors do not generally know the future--there are conflicting results available.  There have been papers that show that implied volatility has predictive power in some situations, time periods, and horizons (though it is also biased) and other papers that show that it does not have statistically significant predictive power at all. The consensus last time I checked was that implied volatility is no worse than historical volatility (including methods that use trends in historical volatility to forecast where it is going) at predicting future volatility.  Whether it is significantly better and whether either reliably predicts the future is something that is not agreed on.  I take this lack of consensus as evidence that if it does predict future volatility, it does so poorly. Somewhat dated FAJ survey on the subject"}
{"question":"Be a partner, CTO or just a freelancer?","answer":"Being a CTO is different than freelancing, obviously.  You have to ask yourself what you would more prefer to do! My initial recommendation would be to receive your normal freelance compensation for the freelance work you do AND separately deal with the issue of being a CTO.  At some point you will cease to be this project's freelancer should you become its CTO. Then again, by becoming the CTO immediately you should be able to negotiate a larger share of the company. Granted, my opinions should not be considered legal or financial advice and you should consult a professional before making any decisions.  Ja ja ja  ;)"}
{"question":"Why pay estimated taxes?","answer":"Your logic is not wrong.  But the risk is more significant than you seem to assume.  Essentially you are proposing taking a 2.6% loan to buy stocks. Is that a good strategy?  On average, probably.  But if your stocks crash you might have significant liabilities. In 1929, the Dow Jones dropped 89%.  In 1989, >30%.  In 2008-9, 54%.  This is a huge risk if this is money that you owe in taxes.  If you operate the same system year after year the chance of it going horribly wrong increases."}
{"question":"Optimal way to use a credit card to build better credit?","answer":"Great question.  First, my recommendation would be for you to get a card that does not have a yearly fee. There are many credit cards out there that provide cash back on your purchases or points to redeem for gift cards or other items. Be sure to cancel the credit card that you have now so you don't forget about that yearly fee. Canceling will have a temporary impact on your credit score if the credit card is your longest held line of credit.  Second, it is recommended not to use more than 20% of all the available credit, staying above that line can affect your credit score. I think that is what you are hearing about running up large balances on your credit card. If you are worried about staying below the 20% line, you can always request a larger line of credit. Just keep paying it off each month though and you will be fine.  You already have a history of credit if you have begun paying off your student loans."}
{"question":"Buying insurance (extended warranty or guarantee) on everyday goods \/ appliances?","answer":"One important issue that has yet to be covered is the cost (to you) in terms of paperwork, lost time, and phone calls that you have to make to claim the insurance.  Such insurance claims often are very low priority on their customer service queues (for obvious reasons, since they have already made the sale). Therefore, you might have to spend up to a few hours of your time calling or writing emails to claim the warranty, which may often not be much (  Therefore, many people end up not claiming the warranty during the hassle. Much like non-scam mail-in rebates, more often than not you would either forget to or decide it is not worth your time to claim the warranty. Before buying such policies, other than the obvious cost-benefit calculations, you should also take this additional factor into account.   Therefore, many people end up not claiming the warranty during the hassle. Much like non-scam mail-in rebates, more often than not you would either forget to or decide it is not worth your time to claim the warranty. Before buying such policies, other than the obvious cost-benefit calculations, you should also take this additional factor into account."}
{"question":"Is Bitcoin a commodity or a currency [duplicate]","answer":"I would classify Bitcoin as a hybrid.  Currency : It is accepted by e-businesses as a form of payment  Commodity : Chart illustrating the volatility and speculative nature of Bitcoin"}
{"question":"How will Hello Wallet benefit me? Is it worth the cost?","answer":"CreditKarma review I don't personally use HelloWallet, but I have also heard very good things about it. Independence from financial products is a HUGE thing in the field because so many investment advisers place the firm before the customer (c.f. Too Big To Fail), so having an independent resource is a huge benefit."}
{"question":"Is it okay to be married, 30 years old and have no retirement?","answer":"Yes, you should be saving for retirement. There are a million ideas out there on how much is a reasonable amount, but I think most advisor would say at least 6 to 10% of your income, which in your case is around $15,000 per year. You give amounts in dollars. Are you in the U.S.? If so, there are at least two very good reasons to put money into a 401k or IRA rather than ordinary savings or investments: (a) Often your employer will make matching contributions. 50% up to 6% of your salary is pretty common, i.e. if you put in 6% they put in 3%. If either of your employers has such a plan, that's an instant 50% profit on your investment. (b) Any profits on money invested in an IRA or 401k are tax free. (Effectively, the mechanics differ depending on the type of account.) So if you put $100,000 into an IRA today and left it there until you retire 30 years later, it would likely earn something like  $600,000 over that time (assuming 7% per year growth). So you'd pay takes on your initial $100,000 but none on the $600,000. With your income you are likely in a high tax bracket, that would make a huge difference. If you're saying that you just can't find a way to put money away for retirement, may I suggest that you cut back on your spending. I understand that the average American family makes about $45,000 per year and somehow manages to live on that. If you were to put 10% of your income toward retirement, then you would be living on the remaining $171,000, which is still almost 4 times what the average family has. Yeah, I make more than $45,000 a year too and there are times when I think, How could anyone possibly live on that? But then I think about what I spend my money on. Did I really need to buy two new computer printers the last couple of months? I certainly could do my own cleaning rather than hiring a cleaning lady to come in twice a month. Etc. A tough decision to make can be paying off debt versus putting money into an investment account. If the likely return on investment is less than the interest rate on the loan, you should certainly concentrate on paying off the loan. But if the reverse is true, then you need to decide between likely returns and risk."}
{"question":"At what point do index funds become unreliable?","answer":"The argument you are making here is similar to the problem I have with the stronger forms of the efficient market hypothesis.  That is if the market already has incorporated all of the information about the correct prices, then there's no reason to question any prices and then the prices never change.  However, the mechanism through which the market incorporates this information is via the actors buying an selling based on what they see as the market being incorrect. The most basic concept of this problem (I think) starts with the idea that every investor is passive and they simply buy the market as one basket.  So every paycheck, the index fund buys some more stock in the market in a completely static way.  This means the demand for each stock is the same.  No one is paying attention to the actual companies' performance so a poor performer's stock price never moves.  The same for the high performer.  The only thing moving prices is demand but that's always up at a more or less constant rate. This is a topic that has a lot of discussion lately in financial circles.  Here are two articles about this topic but I'm not convinced the author is completely serious hence the \"worst-case scenario\" title. These are interesting reads but again, take this with a grain of salt.  You should follow the links in the articles because they give a more nuanced understanding of each potential issue.  One thing that's important is that the reality is nothing like what I outline above. One of the links in these articles that is interesting is the one that talks about how we now have more indexes than stocks on the US markets.  The writer points to this as a problem in the first article, but think for a moment why that is.  There are many different types of strategies that active managers follow in how they determine what goes in a fund based on different stock metrics.  If a stocks P\/E ratio drops below a critical level, for example, a number of indexes are going to sell it.  Some might buy it.  It's up to the investors (you and me) to pick which of these strategies we believe in. Another thing to consider is that active managers are losing their clients to the passive funds.  They have a vested interest in attacking passive management."}
{"question":"Evidence for timing market in the short run?","answer":"The time horizon for your IRA is years or decades, therefore there is little evidence that there is a benefit to waiting for the \"perfect time\" to invest.  Unless you plan on making only one or 2 years of investments now and then waiting till retirement; the other deposits you will make over the decades will have a greater influence on returns.  If you are going to search for the perfect time to invest in your index fund, pick a deadline. \"I will take the first sign better than X but will not wait beyond Y\"."}
{"question":"Placing limit order and stop loss on same stock at same time","answer":"From your question, I am guessing that you are intending to have stoploss buy order. is the stoploss order is also a buy order ?  As you also said, you seems to limit your losses, I am again guessing that you have short position of the stock, to which you are intending to place a buy limit order and buy stoploss order (stoploss helps when when the price tanks). And also I sense that you intend to place buy limit order at the price below the market price. is that the situation?  If you place two independent orders (one limit buy and one stoploss buy). Please remember that there will be situation where two orders also get executed due to market movements. Add more details to the questions. it helps to understand the situation and others can provide a strategic solution."}
{"question":"How can people have such high credit card debts?","answer":"I'm not sure if the rules in Canada and the US are the same. I'm as amazed as you are by the amounts of debts people have, but I can see how this credit can be extended. Generally, with good credit history and above average pay - it is not unheard of to get about $100K credit limit with a bunch of credit cards. What you do with that after that depends on your own ability to manage your finances and discipline. Good credit history is defined by paying your credit cards on time with at least minimum payment amount (which is way lower than the actual statement amount). Above average pay is $60K+. So you can easily have tons of debt, yet be considered \"low risk\" with good credit history. And that's the most lucrative market for the credit card issuers - people who do not default, but also have debt and pay interest."}
{"question":"Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? ","answer":"The fundamental underlying difference between a bank and a Ponzi scheme: When a bank lends money and charges interest, people can do things with that borrowed money which are worth it. (Building factories, starting businesses, or just enjoying the comfort and warmth of a single-family home instead of paying rent). This is why fractional-reserve banking is able to work. People may also do things which do not necessarily turn a financial profit (financing large purchases on a credit card) but are worth it in terms of an expenditure. They may also do stupid things (financing useless purchases on a credit card and wasting their money) or otherwise dispose of the money poorly (the new business fails, the home's value plummets, etc). A Ponzi scheme never really bothered to do useful things with the money. Social Security has been mentioned. Part of social security's setup involves the current population of workers paying the current population of retirees; their own retirements will have to be financed by the next generation. This design is not intrinsically a Ponzi scheme: both the population and the economy ought to remain growing for the intermediate future, so there will be at least as much money (and probably much more) for them to pay those bills. Unlike a Ponzi scheme, the idea that it will continue to attract new money to pay out existing claims is a realistic one. The real questions of its sustainability are a matter of specifics: is it collecting enough money to remain functional in the future, or is it outpacing the growth of the economy and the population?"}
{"question":"Protecting Gains: Buying a Put vs. Leveraged Bear Market vs. Liquidating Long Positions?","answer":"Buying a put is hedging.  You won't lose as much if the market goes down, but you'll still lose capital: lower value of your long positions. Buying an ultrashort like QID is safer than shorting a stock because you don't have the unlimited losses you could have when you short a stock.  It is volatile.  It's not a whole lot different than buying a put; it uses futures and swaps to give the opposing behavior to the underlying index.  Some places indicate that the tax consequences could be severe.  It is also a hedge if you don't sell your long positions.  QID opposes the NASDAQ 100 which is tech-heavy so bear (!) that in mind. Selling your long positions gets you out of equities completely.  You'll be responsible for taxes on capital gains.  It gets your money off of the table, as opposed to playing side bets or buying insurance.  (Sorry for the gambling analogy but that's a bit how I feel with stock indices now :) )."}
{"question":"Market Hours and Valuations","answer":"Company values (and thus stock prices) rely on a much larger time frame than \"a weekend\".  First, markets are not efficient enough to know what a companies sales were over the past 2-3 days (many companies do not even know that for several weeks).  They look at performance over quarters and years to determine the \"value\" of a company.  They also look forward, not backwards to determine value.  Prior performance only gives a hint of what future performance may be.  If a company shut its doors over a weekend and did no sales, it still would have value based on its future ability to earn profits."}
{"question":"Can I write off (deduct) expenses in a period where my corporation makes no money?","answer":"Your corporation would file a corporate income tax return on an annual basis. One single month of no revenue doesn't mean much in that annual scheme of things. Total annual revenue and total annual expenses are what impact the results. In other words, yes, your corporation can book revenues in (say) 11 of 12 months of the year but still incur expenses in all months. Many seasonal businesses operate this way and it is perfectly normal. You could even just have, say, one super-awesome month and spend money the rest of the year. Heck, you could even have zero revenue but still incur expenses\u2014startups often work like that at first. (You'd need investment funding, personal credit, a loan, or retained earnings from earlier profitable periods to do that, of course.) As long as your corporation has a reasonable expectation of a profit and the expenses your corporation incurs are valid business expenses, then yes, you ought to be able to deduct those expenses from your revenue when figuring taxes owed, regardless of whether the expenses were incurred at the same approximate time as revenue was booked\u2014as long as the expense wasn't the acquisition of a depreciable asset. Some things your company would buy\u2014such as the computer in your example\u2014would not be fully deductible in the year the expense is incurred. Depreciable property expenses are deducted over time according to a schedule for the kind of property. The amount of depreciation expense you can claim for such property each year is known as Capital Cost Allowance. A qualified professional accountant can help you understand this. One last thing: You wrote \"write off\". That is not the same as \"deduct\". However, you are forgiven, because many people say \"write off\" when they actually mean \"deduct\" (for tax purposes). \"Write off\", rather, is a different accounting term, meaning where you mark down the value of an asset (e.g. a bad loan that will never be repaid) to zero; in effect, you are recognizing it is now a worthless asset. There can be a tax benefit to a write-off, but what you are asking about are clearly expense deductions and not write-offs. They are not the same thing, and the next time you hear somebody using \"write off\" when they mean \"deduction\", please correct them."}
{"question":"Are Forex traders forced to use leverage?","answer":"Actually, most of the forex traders do not prefer the practice of leveraging. In forex trading, a contract signed by a common trader is way more than any common man can afford to risk. It is not a compulsion for the traders to use leveraging yet most of the traders practice it. The other side of it is completely different. Trading companies or brokers specifically like it because you turn into a kind of cash cow when your account gets exhausted. As for trader, most of them don\u2019t practice leveraging."}
{"question":"Is there an online cost-basis calculator that automatically accounts for dividend re-investments and splits? ","answer":"Reinvestment creates a nightmare when it comes time to do taxes, sadly. Tons of annoying little transactions that happened automatically... Here's one article trying to answer your question: http:\/\/www.smartmoney.com\/personal-finance\/taxes\/figuring-out-your-cost-basis-when-youve-lost-the-statements-9529\/ You could also try this thing: http:\/\/www.gainskeeper.com\/us\/BasisProIndividual.aspx But I couldn't tell you if it would help. If it makes you feel better, brokerages are now required by the IRS to track your basis for you, so for new transactions and assets you shouldn't end up in this situation. Doesn't help with the old stuff ;-)"}
{"question":"Building financial independence","answer":"Another bit of advice specific to your scenario. Consider buying an ALMOST new car. Buying last year's model can knock a huge amount off the price and the car is going to still feel very new to you, especially if you buy from a dealer who has had it detailed."}
{"question":"How do I hedge properly against inflation and other currency risks? ","answer":"I apply what you term 'money' to the word 'commodity'. And I agree with littleadv, you are just selling us your perspective on (such things as) precious metals.  What I want you to think about is these truths: When used as currency gold just has two values: utility value and currency value. I hold it is better to separate the two.  There is not enough gold in the earth to represent the value in aggregate economies of the world. Trying to go back to the gold standard would only induce an unimaginable hyperinflation in gold.  Recent years shows that gold does not retain value. See the linked chart."}
{"question":"What is down -34% in stock terms?","answer":"The sentence is mathematically wrong and verbally unclear. Mathematically, you calculate the downwards percentage by So, it should be Verbally, the reporter should have written \"The stock is down by 25%\", not \"down by -25%\"."}
{"question":"Any Ubiquitous Finance App That is on Mac, iOS and Windows?","answer":"Mint.com is a web app with an iPhone (and Android) app. Also, You Need A Budget appears to support all three."}
{"question":"What is the best strategy for after hours trading?","answer":"I would never trade after hours and I have 30 years of trading experience.  It is a very volatile emotion driven market without a lot of the big players that arbitrage wrong pricing.   If I were you I would simply use limit orders you input while the market is closed.   If you want to get kute you can put in low-ball offers (and vice versa) to see if they get filled in the volatility at market open.  Then check in (when?) when you wake up (or before you go to bed, etc) and revise the limit if not filled.   In other words don't 'trade'.  Know what your company is worth and put in orders that reflect that."}
{"question":"Is short selling a good hedging strategy during overzealous market conditions?","answer":"The problem with short would be that even if the stock eventually falls, it might raise a lot in the meantime, and unless you have enough collateral, you may not survive till it happens.  To sell shares short, you first need to borrow them (as naked short is currently prohibited in US, as far as I know). Now, to borrow you need some collateral, which is supposed to be worth more that the asset you are borrowing, and usually substantially more, otherwise the risk for the creditor is too high. Suppose you borrowed 10K worth of shares, and gave 15K collateral (numbers are totally imaginary of course). Suppose the shares rose so that total cost is now 14K. At this moment, you will probably be demanded to either raise more collateral or close the position if you can not, thus generating you a 4K loss. Little use it would be to you if next day it fell to 1K - you already lost your money!  As Keynes once said, Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. See also another answer which enumerates other issues with short selling. As noted by @MichaelPryor, options may be a safer way to do it. Or a short ETF like PSQ - lists of those are easy to find online."}
{"question":"Making higher payments on primary residence mortgage or rental?","answer":"You're in the same situation I'm in (bought new house, didn't sell old house, now renting out old house). Assuming that everything is stable, right now I'd do something besides pay down your new mortgage. If you pay down the mortgage at your old house, that mortgage payment will go away faster than if you paid down the one on the new house.  Then, things start to get fun.  You then have a lot more free cash flow available to do whatever you like. I'd tend to do that before searching for other investments.  Then, once you have the free cash flow, you can look for other investments (probably a wise risk) or retire the mortgage on your residence earlier."}
{"question":"Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT","answer":"The mode of payment mentioned by your bank is called the ACH(Automatic Clearing House) which means that anyone(Trusted payment gateway owners like banks themselves) can process payments. There can be a fraud declared against any payment that you have made and you can get every single penny back. This amount can not be withdrawn in cash at all. However for your situation I would suggest that you ask your bank to block any transactions above the amount of a specific sum, this way they will require your authorization to finalize the payment. You should feel safe after this. Also no one can access any other account apart from the one whose details you are giving out so do not worry about this guy(or anyone else for that matter) to be able to access your other accounts.  Hope this helps. (I have experience in payment gateways so I do understand these procedures.) Cheers!!"}
{"question":"First home buyer, financing questions","answer":"When you say \"apartment\" I take it you mean \"condo\", as you're talking about buying. Right or no? A condo is generally cheaper to buy than a house of equal size and coondition, but they you have to pay condo fees forever. So you're paying less up front but you have an ongoing expense. With a condo, the condo association normally does exterior maintenance, so it's not your problem. Find out exactly what's your responsibility and what's theirs, but you typically don't have to worry about maintaining the parking areas, you have less if any grass to mow, you don't have to deal with roof or outside walls, etc. Of course you're paying for all this through your condo fees. There are two advantages to getting a shorter term loan: Because you owe the money for less time, each percentage point of interest is less total cash. 1% time 15 years versus 1% times 30 years or whatever. Also, you can usually get a lower rate on a shorter term loan because there's less risk to the bank: they only have to worry about where interest rates might go for 15 years instead of 30 years. So even if you know that you will sell the house and pay off the loan in 10 years, you'll usually pay less with a 15 year loan than a 30 year loan because of the lower rate. The catch to a shorter-term loan is that the monthly payments are higher. If you can't afford the monthly payment, then any advantages are just hypothetical. Typically if you have less than a 20% down payment, you have to pay mortgage insurance. So if you can manage 20% down, do it, it saves you a bundle. Every extra dollar of down payment is that much less that you're paying in interest. You want to keep an emergency fund so I wouldn't put every spare dime I had into a down payment if I could avoid it, but you want the biggest down payment you can manage. (Well, one can debate whether its better to use spare cash to invest in the stock market or some other investment rather than paying down the mortgage. Whole different question.) \"I dont think its a good idea to make any principal payments as I would probably loose them when I would want to sell the house and pay off the mortgage\" I'm not sure what you're thinking there. Any extra principle payments that you make, you'll get back when you sell the house. I mean, suppose you buy a house for $100,000, over the time you own it you pay $30,000 in principle (between regular payments and any extra payments), and then you sell it for $120,000. So out of that $120,000 you'll have to pay off the $70,000 balance remaining on the loan, leaving $50,000 to pay other expenses and whatever is left goes in your pocket. Scenario 2, you buy the house for $100,000, pay $40,000 in principle, and sell for $120,000. So now you subtract $60,000 from the $120,000 leaving $60,000. You put in an extra $10,000, but you get it back when you sell. Whether you make or lose money on the house, whatever extra principle you put in, you'll get back at sale time in terms of less money that will have to go to pay the remaining principle on the mortgage."}
{"question":"Are Forex traders forced to use leverage?","answer":"I recommended Currency Trading For Dummies, in my answer to Layman's guide to getting started with Forex (foreign exchange trading)? The nature of the contract size points toward only putting up a fraction of the value.  The Euro FX contract size is 125,000 Euro. If you wish to send the broker US$125K+ to trade this contract, go ahead. Most people trade it with a few thousand dollars."}
{"question":"Is Investments by Bodie just an expanded version of Essentials of Investments?","answer":"They are actually both undergraduate texts; however, Investments is FAR more complex.   Essentials of Investments really waters down the statistical and mathematical notation while Investments does not.  Investments also has an entire section (4-5 chapters) called options, futures, and other derivatives while Essentials of Investments does not.   [Of course, if you want to learn about options, futures, and other derivatives, there is a seminal book by John Hull with that exact title.] That notwithstanding, neither book is sophisticated enough to be considered a true graduate school textbook in quantitative investment theory.  No grad schools worth their salt are going to rely too heavily on Investments in a specialized finance curriculum.   It's a great book to start out, though."}
{"question":"Filing Form 7004 if an LLC's only members are husband and wife","answer":"Since you both are members of the LLC - it is not a single-member LLC, thus you have to file the tax return on behalf of the LLC (I'm guessing you didn't elect corporate treatment, so you would be filing 1065, which is the default). You need to file form 4868 on behalf of yourselves as individuals, and form 7004 on behalf of the LLC as the partnership. Since the LLC is disregarded (unless you explicitly chose it not to be, which seems not to be the case) the taxes will in fact flow to your individual return(s), but the LLC will have to file the informational return on form 1065 and distribute K-1 forms to each of you. So you wouldn't pay additional estimated taxes with the extension, as you don't pay any taxes with the form 1065 itself. If you need a help understanding all that and filling the forms - do talk to a professional (EA or CPA licensed in your state). Also, reconsider not sending any payment. I suggest sending $1 with the extension form even if you expect a refund."}
{"question":"Do Fundamentals Matter Anymore in Stock Markets? ","answer":"It sounds to me like you may not be defining fundamental investing very well, which is why it may seem like it doesn't matter.  Fundamental investing means valuing a stock based on your estimate of its future profitability (and thus cash flows and dividends).  One way to do this is to look at the multiples you have described.  But multiples are inherently backward-looking so for firms with good growth prospects, they can be very poor estimates of future profitability. When you see a firm with ratios way out of whack with other firms, you can conclude that the market thinks that firm has a lot of future growth possibilities.  That's all. It could be that the market is overestimating that growth, but you would need more information in order to conclude that.  We call Warren Buffet a fundamental investor because he tends to think the market has made a mistake and overvalued many firms with crazy ratios.  That may be in many cases, but it doesn't necessarily mean those investors are not using fundamental analysis to come up with their valuations. Fundamental investing is still very much relevant and is probably the primary determinant of stock prices.  It's just that fundamental investing encompasses estimating things like future growth and innovation, which is a lot more than just looking at the ratios you have described."}
{"question":"Company asking for card details to refund over email","answer":"Definitely push for a check, they may not do anything nefarious with your credit card number however someone else may be able to read the email before it gets to its final destination. It's never safe to give out credit card number in a less than secure interface. Also, if this is a well known company, then the person interacting with you should know better than to ask for your information through email."}
{"question":"Why would a passive investor buy anything other than the market portfolio + risk free assets?","answer":"Investing is always a matter of balancing risk vs reward, with the two being fairly strongly linked.  Risk-free assets generally keep up with inflation, if that; these days advice is that even in retirement you're going to want something with better eturns for at least part of your portfolio. A \"whole market\" strategy is a reasonable idea, but not well defined. You need to decide wheher\/how to weight stocks vs bonds, for example, and short\/long term. And you may want international or REIT in the mix; again the question is how much. Again, the tradeoff is trying to decide how much volatility and risk you are comfortable with and picking a mix which comes in somewhere around that point -- and noting which assets tend to move out of synch with each other (stock\/bond is the classic example) to help tune that. The recommendation for higher risk\/return when you have a longer horizon before you need the money comes from being able to tolerate more volatility early on when you have less at risk and more time to let the market recover. That lets you take a more aggressive position and, on average, ger higher returns. Over time, you generally want to dial that back (in the direction of lower-risk if not risk free) so a late blip doesn't cause you to lose too much of what you've already gained... but see above re \"risk free\". That's the theoretical answer. The practical answer is that running various strategies against both historical data and statistical simulations of what the market might do in the future suggests some specific distributions among the categories I've mentioned do seem to work better than others. (The mix I use -- which is basically a whole-market with weighting factors for the categories mentioned above -- was the result of starting with a general mix appropriate to my risk tolerance based on historical data, then checking it by running about 100 monte-carlo simulations of the market for the next 50 years.)"}
{"question":"How to distinguish gift from payment for the service?","answer":"Generally, a one time thing is considered a gift. For the donor this is obviously not a deductible expense, except for some specific cases (for example promotional gifts under $25 to vendors can be deducted, if you're a business, or charitable contributions to a recognized charity). However, if this is a regular practice - that would not be considered as a gift, but rather as a tax fraud, a criminal offense. Being attentive I would like to make a little gift or give some little   (<100$) amount of money (cash\/wire\/online) for that Why? Generally, gift is exempt from income if no services were provided and the gift was made in good faith. In the situation you describe this doesn't hold. When the gift is exempt from income to the receiver - the donor pays the tax (in this case, below exemption the tax is zero). If the gift is not exempt from income to the receiver - it is no longer a gift and the receiver is paying income taxes, not the donor. The situation you describe is a classic tax evasion scheme. If someone does it consistently and regularly (as a receiver, donor, or both) - he would likely end up in jail."}
{"question":"institutional ownership \u2014 why is it so convoluted","answer":"The reason for such differences is that there's no source to get this information. The companies do not (and cannot) report who are their shareholders except for large shareholders and stakes of interest. These, in the case of GoPro, were identified during the IPO (you can look the filings up on EDGAR). You can get information from this or that publicly traded mutual fund about their larger holdings from their reports, but private investors don't provide even that. Institutional (public) investors buy and sell shares all the time and only report large investments. So there's no reliable way to get a snapshot picture you're looking for."}
{"question":"I'm thinking about selling some original artwork: when does the government start caring about sales tax and income tax and such?","answer":"If you sell through an intermediate who sets up the shop for you, odds are they collect and pay the sales tax for you. My experience is with publishing books through Amazon, where they definitely handle this for you. If you can find a retailer that will handle the tax implications, that might be a good reason to use them.  It looks like Etsy uses a different model where you yourself are responsible for the sales tax, which requires you to register with your state (looks like this is the information for New York) and pay the taxes yourself on a regular basis; see this link for a simple guide. If you're doing this, you'll need to keep track of how much tax you owe from your sales each month, quarter, or year (depending on the state laws).  You can usually be a sole proprietor, which is the easiest business structure to set up; if you want to limit your legal liability, or work with a partner, you may want to look into other forms of business structure, but for most craftspeople a sole proprietorship is fine to start out with.  If you do a sole proprietorship, you can probably file the income on a 1040 Schedule C when you do your personal taxes each year."}
{"question":"What are \"upstream investments\" and \"downstream investments\" in this context?","answer":"Upstream is into businesses that supply the original business; downstream is into businesses that make use of the original product.  So in that description, what they are saying is that the original business received products from plantations and sent products to manufacturing. This is also called vertical integration.  Meaning that they are diversifying along their supply chain so that they control more of it.  This is in contrast with horizontal integration, where they move into new products that either compete with the existing products or which are entirely separate.   In general, the upside of vertical integration is that a company is less reliant on suppliers (and intermediate consumers) and has more control over its supply chain.  The downside is that they have less opportunity to partner with other companies in the same supply chain, as they compete with them.  Some companies are better at managing to do both.  For example, Amazon.com has integrated fulfillment and sales.  But partners can still do their own fulfillment and\/or sales, choosing how much to send out to Amazon.   If you are investing in individual stocks, integrated companies can be problematic in that they cut across diversification areas.  So they can be harder to balance with other stocks.  You can either buy plantations, transport, and manufacturing together or not buy at all.  If your investment strategy says to increase plantations and reduce manufacturing, this can be difficult to implement with an integrated company.  Of course, everyone else has the same problem, which can lead to integrated companies being undervalued.  So they may be an opportunity as a value stock."}
{"question":"What are the risks of Dividend-yielding stocks?","answer":"Yep, there just is no free lunch.  So called high dividend stocks are usually from companies that have stable cash flows but relatively little or moderate growth potential. Utility companies come to mind, let's take telecommunications as an example.  Such stocks, usually, indeed are considered more conservative. In a bull market, they won't make high jumps, and in a bear market they shouldn't experience deep falls. I mean, just because the stock market fell by 10%, you're not going to stop using your phone. The stock might suffer a bit but the divided is still yielding you the same. However, fundamental data can have a significant impact. Let's say a recession hits the country of the telco. People might not get the newest iPhone and lock in to an expensive contract anymore, they might use cheaper forms of communication, they might stop paying bills, go bankrupt etc. This will have a severe impact on the company's cash flow and thus hit the stock in a double whammy: One, the dividend is gone. Two, the price will fall even further.  There are basically two scenarios after that. Either the recession is temporary and your stock became a regular growth stock that at some point might bounce back and re-establish at the previous levels. Or the economy has contracted permanently but regained stability in which case you will again have a stock with a high dividend yield but based on a lower price. In conclusion: High dividend stocks make sense in a portfolio. But never consider their income to be safe. Reduce your risk by diversifying."}
{"question":"What to do with an expensive, upside-down car loan?","answer":"The answer depends on your wife's overall situation, whether you are in a community property state, and other factors. I'm assuming that since your wife paid $5,000 more for a car than it was worth, has a six-year, 25% auto loan and you talk about repossession as a routine event, that her credit history is extremely poor. If that is the case, you're unlikely to be able to refinance, particularly for more than the car is worth. You're in a bad situation, I'd look for a legal clinic at a nearby law school and find out what the law says about your situation in your state. If she has other debt, your best bet is to put the car in a garage somewhere, stop paying and demand better terms with the lender -- threaten bankruptcy. If they don't go for it, and your wife has other debt, she should look into bankruptcy. Given the usurious terms of the loan, you have a fighting chance of keeping the car in a Chapter 13. Find out and the legal implications for this before proceeding. If she doesn't have other debt, you need to figure out to get the thing repossessed on the best possible terms for you. If it's her mother's car, you're in a moral dilemma.  Bottom line, get rid of this thing asap. And make sure that going forward you are both controlling the finances."}
{"question":"Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?","answer":"Buy a car. Unless you definitely know you are living in the area for a good long time, avoid buying a house and get a car instead."}
{"question":"How to deal with intraday prices conflicting with EOD highs and lows","answer":"In the US, stocks are listed on one exchange but can be traded on multiple venues.  You need to confirm exactly what your data is showing: a) trades on the primary-listed exchange; or b) trades made at any venue. Also, the trade condition codes are important.  Only certain trade condition codes contribute towards the day's open\/high\/low\/close and some others only contribute towards the volume data.  The Consolidated Tape Association is very clear on which trades should contribute towards each value - but some vendors have their own interpretation (or just simply an erroneous interpretation of the specifications). It may surprise you to find that the majority of trading volume for many stocks is not on their primary-listed exchange.  For example, on 2 Mar 2015, NASDAQ:AAPL traded a total volume across all venues was 48096663 shares but trading on NASDAQ itself was 12050277 shares. Trades can be cancelled.  Some data vendors do not modify their data to reflect these busted trades.   Some data vendors also \"snapshot\" their feed at a particular point in time of the data.  Some exchanges can provide data (mainly corrections) 4-5 hours after the closing bell.  By snapshotting the data too early and throwing away any subsequent data is a typical cause of data discrepancies.   Some data vendors also round prices\/volumes - but stocks don't just trade to two decimal places. So you may well be comparing two different sets of trades (with their own specific inclusion rules) against the same stock.  You need to confirm with your data sources exactly how they do things. Disclosure: Premium Data is an end-of-day daily data vendor."}
{"question":"How is Los Angeles property tax calculated if a 50% owner later buys out the other 50%?","answer":"Can't vouch for LA, but property typically is taxed at either the appraised value, the most recent purchase price (\"if it wasn't worth that much, you wouldn't have paid that much\"), or some combination of the two (usually highest of the two, to prevent \"$1 and other goods and services\" from lowering the tax to zero). You have now explicitly paid a total of $125k for the property; the fact that you bought it in two stages shouldn't be relevant. But \"should\" and law are only tangentially connected. I'd recommend asking a tax accountant who know your local practices, unless someone here can give you an authoritative answer."}
{"question":"How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want","answer":"To me, your question emphasizes something I've heard many times before: personal finance is as much or more about behavior than it is about mathematics or \"head knowledge\".  Sure, you know you shouldn't be wasting a lot of money on something you will use very infrequently, but how do you make this behavior stick?  Here are a few tricks that might help: The other aspects of your question really touch more on psychology than finance.  But getting yourself into a discipline habit with money will help.  And realizing the full cash price of items in relation to how much your disposable income is will help you get control of your impulses, as you review your budget monthly, and keep limit yourself using the envelope system.  But honestly, everybody wants stuff they don't have, it's human nature.  The key is finding ways to put physical limits and guards on yourself to keep you from obeying the self-destructive impulses."}
{"question":"How effective are hotel condos for investment properties?","answer":"I agree with Joe Taxpayer that a lot of details are missing to really evaluate it as an investment... for context, I own a few investment properties including a 'small'  10+ unit apartment complex. My answer might be more than you really want\/need, (it kind of turned into Real Estate Investing 101), but to be fair you're really asking 3 different questions here: your headline asks \"how effective are Condo\/Hotel developments as investments?\" An answer to that is... sometimes, very. These are a way for you-the investor-to get higher rents per sq. ft. as an owner, and for the hotel to limit its risks and access additional development funding. By your description, it sounds like this particular company is taking a substantial cut of rents. I don't know this property segment specifically, but I can give you my insight for longer-term apartment rentals... the numbers are the same at heart. The other two questions you're implying are \"How effective is THIS condo\/hotel development?\" and \"Should you buy into it?\" If you have the funds and the financial wherewithal to honestly consider this, then I am sure that you don't need your hand held for the investment pros\/cons warnings of the last question.  But let me give you some of my insight as far as the way to evaluate an investment property, and a few other questions you might ask yourself before you make the decision to buy or perhaps to invest somewhere else.  The finance side of real estate can be simple, or complicated. It sounds like you have a good start evaluating it, but here's what I would do: Start with figuring out how much revenue you will actually 'see': Gross Potential Income: 365 days x Average Rent for the Room = GPI (minus) Vacancy... you'll have to figure this out... you'll actually do the math as (Vacancy Rate %) x GPI (equals) Effective Potential Income = EPI Then find out how much you will actually pocket at the end of the day as operating income: Take EPI (minus) Operating expenses ... Utilities ... Maintenace ... HOA ... Marketing if you do this yourself (minus) Management Expenses ... 40% of EPI ... any other 'fees' they may charge if you manage it yourself. ... Extra tax help? (minus) Debt Service ... Mortgage payment ... include Insurances (property, PMI, etc) == Net Operating Income (NOI) Now NOI (minus) Taxes == Net Income Net Income (add back) Depreciation (add back) sometimes Mortgage Interest == After-tax Cash Flows There are two \"quickie\" numbers real estate investors can spout off. One is the NOI, the other is the Cap Rate.  In order to answer \"How effective is THIS development?\" you'll have to run the numbers yourself and decide. The NOI will be based on any assumptions you choose to make for vacancy rates, actual revenue from hotel room bookings, etc. But it will show you how much you should bring in before taxes each year. If you divide the NOI by the asking price of your unit (and then multiply by 100), you'll get the \"Cap Rate\". This is a rough estimate of the rate of return you can expect for your unit... if you buy in.  If you come back and say \"well I found out it has a XX% cap rate\", we won't really be qualified to help you out. Well established mega investment properties (think shopping centers, office buildings, etc.) can be as low as 3-5 cap rates, and as high as 10-12. The more risky the property, the higher your return should be. But if it's something you like, and the chance to make a 6% return feels right, then that's your choice. Or if you have something like a 15% cap rate... that's not necessarily outstanding given the level of risk (uncertain vacancies) involved in a hotel.  Some other questions you should ask yourself include:  How much competition is there in the area for short-term lodging? This could drive vacancies up or down... and rents up or down as well How 'liquid' will the property (room) be as an asset? If you can just break even on operating expense, then it might still make sense as an investment if you think that it might appreciate in value AND you would be able to sell the unit to someone else.  How much experience does this property management company have... (a) in general, (b) running hotels, and (c) running these kinds of condo-hotel combination projects? I would be especially interested in what exactly you're getting in return for paying them 40% of every booking. Seasonality? This will play into Joe Taxpayer's question about Vacancy Rates. Your profile says you're from TX... which hints that you probably aren't looking at a condo on ski slopes or anything, but if you're looking at something that's a spring break-esque destination, then you might still have a great run of high o during March\/April\/May\/June, but be nearly empty during October\/November\/December.  I hope that helps. There is plenty of room to make a more \"exact\" model of what your cash flows might look like, but that will be based on assumptions and research you're probably not making at this time."}
{"question":"Schedule C: where to deduct service fees on income?","answer":"Putting them on line 10 is best suited for your situation. According to Quickbooks:  Commissions and Fees (Line 10) Commissions\/fees paid to nonemployees to generate revenue (e.g. agent   fees). It seems like this website you are using falls under the term \"nonemployees\"."}
{"question":"How bad is it to have a lot of credit available but not used?","answer":"Ironically, the worst financial advice I read comes from \"bankers.\" The top dozen members here can be trusted to give better advice than the average banker.  Your score is not improved by maintaining a balance, only by using the card(s) regularly. No need to carry charges month to month and pay interest, rather, have the bill reflect a 1-9% utilization.  I'd recommend Credit Karma to see how the factors affect your score. FICO scoring prefers to see a large number of accounts, low utilization, high average account age, low number of inquiries, no late payments. CK will let you see a simulated score and how it changes based on these variables."}
{"question":"Opening a bank account with cash: How should bills be presented?","answer":"I currently have the twenties in 6 rolls of 5 I don't know what \"roll\" means to you (perhaps it's another word for grouping).  I think of it as money rolled into a circular shape.  Do not do that.  Place all the money flat and together.  Possibly hand them the hundred and twenties separately if you want to emphasize that.   An envelope with the amount on it is a good idea.  Flat, not folded, not rolled, not separated by paperclips or rubber bands.  A simple pile of money is best.  Folding the money once to put in your pocket is fine but unfold it to hand it to the teller.   The reason for flat money is that it will most easily go through the money counters.  Rolling makes the money curved and increases the chance of a jam.   And I apologize if that was just a turn of phrase.  But I can easily envision some poor teller sighing with exasperation on being handed rolled money that then needs to be flattened to go through the machine.  Particularly if the person handing it over grouped it that way in an attempt to be helpful."}
{"question":"Can a bank hold my deposit on a closed account? ","answer":"What I'm reading is that they subtracted the $85 you owe them and they're cutting you a cashier's check for the rest. Ethically speaking, you owed them the money, they subtracted it and made you a check for the rest.  Once you cash that check, nobody owes anyone anything in this equation.  Sounds like they're in the clear. Legally speaking, I have no idea, since I'm not a lawyer, but even if it was not legal, good luck getting the $85 back without spending far more in retaining a lawyer and fighting it in court.  Even fighting it in small claims court will take more of your time than $85 is worth. If it's your time that is the problem, 12 days is not horrible in banking terms.  Yes, we're spoiled now by ACH transfers and same day deposit availability, but since you're retired, I'm sure if you think back you'll remember when it used to take two business weeks to clear a check... TLDR; cancel future deposits to that bank, find a new bank, then forget this fiasco and get your revenge by enjoying your life."}
{"question":"Which is the better strategy for buying stocks monthly?","answer":"Powers makes a good point: trading costs may eat up a significant portion of your ROI. A fee as little as 2% can consume more than 50% of your long-term ROI! A rule of thumb is keep your fees to less than 1%. One way to do that is to buy stock in companies that have a DRIP with a Share Purchase Plan (SPP). Often the SPP allows investors to purchase shares for low fees or free. Once you have the ability to purchase shares for (virtually) free, you can  use InvestMete. Roughly, you send more money to the companies whose share prices are near their 52-week low, and less money to those who are near their 52-week high. Getting back to your original question..."}
{"question":"Which U.S. online discount broker is the best value for money?","answer":"I agree, Schwab representatives are easy to reach and very helpful. I also like Vanguard for their low mutual fund fees, so I do my retirement stuff with them, but it took forever to get in touch with a representative just to ask a simple question. Now that they are lowering their rates to 8.95 per trade (effective January 19th), the value for your money is even better."}
{"question":"Is it worth having a pension?","answer":"It all depends on whether you can manage your money or not. Many people are incapable of doing so in a responsible way. Like any service, you get what you pay for -- active management costs money!"}
{"question":"Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term?","answer":"I have read in many personal finance books that stocks are a great investment for the long term, because on average they go up 5-7% every year. This has been true for the last 100 years for the S&P500 index, but is there reason to believe this trend will continue indefinitely into the future? It has also been wrong for 20+ year time periods during those last 100 years. It's an average, and you can live your whole career at a loss. There are many things to support the retention of the average, over the next 100 years. I think the quip is out of scope of your actual investment philosophy. But basically there are many ways to lower your cost basis, by reinvesting dividends, selling options, or contributing to your position at any price from a portion of your income, and by inflation, and by the growth of the world economy. With a low enough cost basis then a smaller percentage gain in the index gives you a magnified profit."}
{"question":"Is there a benefit, long term, to life insurance for a youngish, debt, and dependent free person?","answer":"As Mhoran stated, no dependents, no need.  Even with dependants, insurance is to cover  those who would otherwise have a hardship. Once the kids are off to college and house paid for, the need drops dramatically.  There are some rather complex uses for insurance when estates are large but potentially illiquid. Clearly this doesn't apply to you."}
{"question":"What should I do about proxy statements?","answer":"On most proxy statements (all I have ever received) you have the ability to abstain from voting.  Just go down the list and check Abstain then return the form.  You will effectively be forfeiting your right to vote. EDIT: According to this, after January 1, 2010 abstaining and trashing the voting materials are the same thing.  Prior to January 1, 2010 your broker could vote however they wanted on your behalf if you chose not to vote yourself.  The one caveat is this seems to only apply to the NYSE (unless I am reading it wrong).  So not sure about stocks listed on the NASDAQ."}
{"question":"Should I consider my investment in a total stock market fund \"diverse\"?","answer":"Typically investing in only two securities is not a good idea when trying to spread risk. Even though you are in the VTI which is spread out over a large amount of securites it should in theory reduce portfolio beta to zero, or in this case as close to it as possible. The VTI however has a beta of 1.03 as of close today in New York. This means that the VTI moves roughly in exact tandem as \"the market\" usually benched against the S&P 500, so this means that the VTI is slightly more volatile than that index. In theory beta can be 0, this would be akin to investing in T-bills which are 'assumed' to be the risk free rate. So in theory it is possible to reduce the risk in your portfolio and apply a more capital protective model. I hope this helps you a bit."}
{"question":"Should I pay off investment property mortgage","answer":"I don't think it's all or none. First, 15 year mortgages are sub-3% right now, even for an investment property you'd get under 4%. shop around, do the math, a 1% drop is $1000 a year to start, nothing to sneeze at.  Don't let the tax tail wag the decision dog. If you could invest the $100K at a taxable 5.5% in this economy, you would. In this case, that's your return on prepayments on this mortgage. Personally, I'd like to see a refinance and pay down of principal so the cash flow is at least positive.  Beyond that, you need to decide how much cash you're comfortable having or not having in savings. I'd also consider when to start investing long term, in equities. (low cost ETFs is what I prefer)."}
{"question":"For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?","answer":"It depends.  \"High net worth individuals\" is very subjective.   Lets say a person is worth 1.5 million.  High, but not super high.  For one, they should have an umbrella policy.  Until your net worth is above 300K, you really don't need an umbrella policy.  They should insure their home and cars, but should probably have high deductibles.  Health insurance is a must as a bad illness can wipe them out.  They should have long term care insurance when they reach age 60.   Now lets say a person is worth about 10 million.  They might be able to self insure basic transportation and probably don't need long term care insurance.  However, they may choose to carry the full coverage car insurance, or other lines, because it is a value.   In conclusion insurance needs change based on a person's net worth and income.  It is very hard to make a blanket statement without details of the makeup of one's net worth and how they earn their income. Having said all of that, a high net worth (HNW) individual may never be able to drop certain coverage.  Lets say that a HNW owns a 50K condo, 1K square foot condo.  Given that the outside structure is covered by the HOA the insurance on such a unit only covers the contents and liability.  The contents could easily be floated by the HNW individual, but not the liability.  It is probably a requirement, on their umbrella policy, that they carry the maximum liability protection on their vehicles and properties.  In the case above they would carry a policy for the purposes of liability protection. This could also be true of their dependents.  Say for example, their adult child receives some financial assistance from their parents (like college being paid for).  The HNW individuals should have their child cover the maximum liability on the auto policy. According to this site:  A person with a net worth of 1.5 million would be in the 90-95 percentile, a person with 10 million in the 99th. This article does a decent job of describing what constitutes a HNW person or household.  Namely 1 million in investable assets, which is of course a bit different then net worth."}
{"question":"How can I invest my $100?","answer":"You could also start a business.  I ran a project called the Thousand Rand Challenge a few years ago in South Africa where we supported people in starting a business for about $100 each.  Some of them were surprisingly profitable. You can find a few ideas at the wiki site."}
{"question":"Pay team mates out of revenues on my name","answer":"Note:  This is not professional tax advice.  If you think you need professional tax advice, find a licensed professional in your local area. What are the expected earnings\/year? US$100? US$1,000?  US$100,000?  I would say if this is for US$1,000 or less that registering an EIN, and consulting a CPA to file a Partnership Tax return is not going to be a profitable exercise.... all the earnings, perhaps more, will go to paying someone to do (or help do) the tax filings. The simplest taxes are for a business that you completely own.  Corporations and Partnerships involve additional forms and get more and more and complex, and even more so when it involves foreign participation.  Partnerships are often not formal partnerships but can be more easily thought of as independent businesses that each participants owns, that are simply doing some business with each other. Schedule C is the IRS form you fill out for any businesses that you own. On schedule C you would list the income from advertising.  Also on schedule C there is a place for all of the business expenses, such as ads that you buy, a server that you rent, supplies, employees, and independent contractors.  Amounts paid to an independent contractor certainly need not be based on hours, but could be a fixed fee, or based on profit earned.   Finally, if you pay anyone in the USA over a certain amount, you have to tell the IRS about that with a Form 1099 at the beginning of the next year, so they can fill out their taxes.  BUT.... according to an article in International Tax Blog you might not have to file Form 1099 with the IRS for foreign contractors if they are not US persons (not a US citizen or a resident visa holder)."}
{"question":"Where should I park my money if I'm pessimistic about the economy and I think there will be high inflation?","answer":"Taking into account your POV I would recommend mostly goods that will be harder to obtain, precious metals (not only gold) and forex (although the forex aproach depends on some other country not having troubles with it's own economy which in a world as interconnected as ours by internet and all the new technologies doesn't seem likely)  i highly recommend silver which is cheaper than gold and is stable enough in the long term"}
{"question":"Taxes on selling stock","answer":"@BlackJack does a good answer of addressing the gains and when you are taxed on them and at what kind of rate. Money held in a brokerage account will usually be in a money-market fund, so you would own taxes on the interest it earned.   There is one important consideration that must be understood for capitol Losses.  This is called the Wash Sale Rule.  This rule comes into affect if you sell a stock at a LOSS, and buy shares of the same stock within 30 days (before or after) the sale.  A common tactic used to minimize taxes paid is to 'capture losses' when they occur, since these can be used to offset gains and lower your taxes.  This is normally done by selling a stock in which you have a LOSS, and then either buying another similar stock, or waiting and buying back the stock you sold.   However, if you are intending to buy back the same stock, you must not 'trigger' the Wash Sale Rule or you are forbidden to take the loss. Examples.  Lets presume you own 1000 shares of a stock and it's trading 25% below where you bought it, and you want to capture the loss to use on your taxes. This can be a very important consideration if trading index ETF's  if you have a loss in something like a S&P500 ETF, you would likely incur a wash sale if you sold it and bought a different S&P500 ETF from another company since they are effectively the same thing.  OTOH, if you sold an S&P500 ETF and bought something like a 'viper''total stock market' ETF it should be different enough to not trigger the wash sale rule.  If you are trying to minimize the taxes you pay on stocks, there are basically two rules to follow.  1) When a gain is involved, hold things at least a year before selling, if at all possible.  2) Capture losses when they occur and use to offset gains, but be sure not to trigger the wash sale rule when doing so."}
{"question":"Buying an option in the money, at the money, or out of the money","answer":"You can do some very crafty hedging with the variety of options.  For instance, deep out of the money options are affected more by changes of market volatility, knowing this you can get long or short vega very easily, as opposed to necessarily betting on changes in the underlying asset."}
{"question":"How to deal with the credit card debt from family member that has passed away?","answer":"Don't pay it, see a lawyer.  Given your comment, it will depend on the jurisdiction on the passing of the house and the presence of a will or lack thereof.  In some states all the assets will be inherited by your mom.  Debts cannot be inherited; however, assets can be made to stand for debts.  This is a tricky situation that is state dependent.   In the end, with few assets and large credit card debt, the credit card companies are often left without payment.  I would not pay the debt unless your lawyer specifically told you to do so.   Sorry for your loss."}
{"question":"Is forward P\/E calculated using current price(if yes, how useful is it)?","answer":"generally Forward P\/E is computed as current price \/ forward earnings.  The rationale behind this is that buying the stock costs you the current price, and it gives you a claim on the future earnings."}
{"question":"Why is there so much interest on home loans?","answer":"APR stands for \"annual percentage rate.\" This means when you see a loan with a 6% rate, it is 6% per year.  On a $100,000 mortgage, where you aren't paying much of the principal down at first, a 6% rate would have you paying nearly $6,000 in interest in the first year alone."}
{"question":"Put on a put option","answer":"If you look at it from the hedging perspective, if you're unsure you're going to need to hedge but want to lock in an option premium price if you do need to do so, I could see this making sense."}
{"question":"For what dates are the NYSE and U.S. stock exchanges typically closed?","answer":"All public US equity exchanges are closed on the 9 US trading holidays (see below) and open on all other days.  Exchanges also close early (13:00 ET) on the Friday after Thanksgiving and on the day before Independence Day if Independence Day is being observed on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.  (Some venues have extended trading hours as a matter of course; for them an \"early close\" might be later than 13:00 ET.) To answer the second question, yes, if you know NASDAQ's or AMEX's holiday schedule, then you know NYSE's (modulo the timing of their early close).  I'm not sure about the options exchanges; they're not regulated the same way and are a good example of exchanges with extended trading hours in the first place. The US trading holidays are as follows.  Note that trading holidays are not the same as federal or bank holidays, which include Columbus Day and Veterans Day but do not include Good Friday."}
{"question":"How do I log a Canadian NR4 form to my income taxes","answer":"Income code 09 is dividends, so yes - it is the same as line 1 of the US form 1099-DIV. 1a or 1b however depends on whether the requirements for qualified dividends are met. If they're met - its 1b, if not - 1a. These are treated and taxed differently. See here on what are the qualification requirements. Note that Canada has a tax treaty with the US making Canadian corporations \"qualified foreign corporations\"."}
{"question":"Where can I borrow money for investing?","answer":"Borrowing to invest is almost always a bad idea.  You'd have to take out an unsecured loan, which has a higher interest rate, or a secured loan and put at risk whatever you are securing the loan with. You need some means to make payments on the loan, or if interest is being added to the balance then take the compounding effect into account with regards to the cost of the money and how much you will really end up owning. In order to come out ahead you need to 'invest' in something that will yield a return that is higher than the cost of borrowing the money, such high yields always come with higher risk, meaning that you will actually GET that return is less and less of a sure thing.. so now you are talking about the 'chance' to make money, Or a chance your 'investment' could fail, perhaps badly.  Meaning you could well do nothing but end up in debt with little to nothing to show for it. If someone claims to have a 'sure thing' and is encouraging you to borrow money to invest in it, I'd be checking their back for a fin and remembering the lyrics \"when the shark bites ... scarlet billows start to spread\""}
{"question":"When trading put options, is your total risk decreased if you are in a position to exercise the option?","answer":"You should also consider what the cost of the Put is, especially if the strike price is set at the current price, vs the average price delta of the security during the period between when you buy the put, and the expiration date.  Also note the prices for puts on stocks with a lot of price volatility. There are a good number of situations where you may come out behind. If the stock stays the same price, you are out the premium you paid for the put. If the stock price rises less than the premium, you are out the difference between the two. If the stock price falls less than the premium, you are out the difference between the two. In order to be 'in the money' when writing a protective put, the stock has to either rise more than the premium you paid for the put (and you MUST sell, or hold and write off the expense of the put) or the stock price has to fall below the strike price to a level lower  than the premium you paid, and you must SELL via the exercising the option. and you've protected yourself from a loss (presuming you were going to sell and not hold and see if the stock recovers.  And since selling is required in both cases, if you've held the stock less than a year, then pay on any profits at short term rates (taxed as regular income) and if the price went down, you can't claim any loss (unless strike price was below your buy price), and would still need to pay if you had a net gain, and you likely can't deduct the price you paid for the put."}
{"question":"Can one use Google Finance to backtest (i.e. simulate trades in the past)?","answer":"Yes, add the stocks\/mutual funds that you want and then you would just need to add all the transactions that you theoretically would have made. Performing the look up on the price at each date that you would have sold or bought is quite tedious as well as adding each transaction."}
{"question":"Do people tend to spend less when using cash than credit cards?","answer":"Others have commented on the various studies. If, as JoeTaxpayer says, this one particular study he mentions does not really exist, there are plenty of others. (And in that case: Did someone blatantly lie to prove a bogus point? Or did someone just get the name of the organization that did the study wrong, like it was really somebody called \"B&D\", they read it as \"D&B\" because they'd heard of Dun & Bradstreet but not of whoever B&D is. Of course if they got the organization wrong maybe they got important details of the study wrong. Whatever.)  But let me add one logical point that I think is irrefutable: If you always buy with cash, there is no way that you can spend more than you have. When you run out of cash, you have no choice but to stop spending. But when you buy with a credit card, you can easily spend more than you have money in the bank to pay. Even if it is true that most credit card users are responsible, there will always be some who are not, and credit cards make it easy to get in trouble.  I speak from experience. I once learned that my wife had run up $20,000 in credit card debt without my knowledge. When she divorced me, I got stuck with the credit card debt. To this day I have no idea what she spent the money on. And I've known several people over the years who have gone bankrupt with credit card debt. Even if you're responsible, it's easy to lose track with credit cards. If you use cash, when you take out your wallet to buy something you can quickly see whether there's a lot of money left or not so much. With credit, you can forget that you made the big purchase. More likely, you can fail to add up the modest purchases. It's easy to say, \"Oh, that's just $100, I can cover that.\" But then there's $100 here and $100 there and it can add up. (Or depending on your income level, maybe it's $10 here and $10 there and it's out of hand, or maybe it's $10,000.) It's easier today when you can go on-line and check the balance on your credit card. But even at that, well just this past month when I got one bill I was surprised at how big it was. I went through the items and they were all legitimate, they just ... added up. Don't cry for me, I could afford it. But I had failed to pay attention to what I was spending and I let things get a little out of hand. I'm a pretty responsible person and I don't do that often. I can easily imagine someone paying less attention and getting into serious trouble."}
{"question":"What is the best way to learn investing techniques?","answer":"All the things you suggest are good, but I think like everything else the key is practice.  Study some topics, then try them out.  There are many many sites out there that have free or cheap virtual trading."}
{"question":"Can you buy out a pink sheet listed company by purchasing all of the oustanding shares?","answer":"Depends on the structure of the company and what shares are outstanding.  If the pink sheet stock has no voting power then buying all that stock doesn't get you any control at all.  On the other hand, if the outstanding shares only represent 20% of the company's overall shares, then buying all the shares isn't likely enough to have a controlling interest. Thus, you'll have to dig into the details.  If you want an example of where I'd have my doubts, look at Nestle's stock which has the ticker of NSRGY.  There can be companies that are structured with stock on multiple exchanges that can also be a challenge at times.  There is also something to be said if you own enough stock in a company that this has to be disclosed to the SEC when you buy more."}
{"question":"What are the alternatives to compound interest for a Muslim?","answer":"It depends whether you want to be technically compliant with the letter of the law or compliant with the underlying meaning. For instance, in some countries you can find shell companies that do nothing but deal in fixed income instruments (those that you want to avoid) and dividend stocks (those that you might or might not be allowed to use). You can buy stock of that shell company, which does not hand out dividends itself. Thereby, you transform interest and dividends into capital gains. These shell companies exist for fiscal reasons, the more risky capital gains are often less taxed than interest or dividends. This might technically solve your problem, but not really change anything in the underlying reality. P.S. Don't worry too much about missing compounding interest. The rates are incredibly low right now."}
{"question":"Is this investment opportunity problematic?","answer":"Adding to what others have said, if the mortgage for the new house is backed by the federal government (e.g., through FHA or is to be sold to Fannie Mae\/Freddie Mac) you would be violating 18 USC \u00a7 1001, which makes making intentionally false statements to any agent or branch of the federal government a crime punishable by up to 5 years' imprisonment. The gift letter you are required to sign will warn you of as much. Don't do it, it's not worth the risk of prison time."}
{"question":"Where should I park my rainy-day \/ emergency fund?","answer":"Something with an FDIC guarentee, so a bank. With an emergency fund, I think the 'return of capital' is more important than the 'return on the capital', so I'm fine with putting it in a standard savings account in a local bank(not an internet account) even if it pays next to nothing. The beauty is that since the bank is local, you can walk in and withdraw it all during any weekday."}
{"question":"Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?","answer":"There could be a number of reasons for a rent increase. The only information I can offer is how I calculate what rent I will charge. The minimum I would ever charge per unit (Mortgage payment + Water) \/ Number of units This number is the minimum because it's what I need to keep afloat.  Keep in mind these are ballpark numbers The target rent ((Mortgage payment + Water) \/ Number of units)*1.60 I mark up the price 60% for a few reasons. First, the building needs a repair budget. That money has to come from somewhere. Second, I want to put away for my next acquisition and third I want to make a profit. These get me close to my rental price but ultimately it depends on your location and the comparables in the area. If my target rent is 600 a month but the neighbors are getting 700-800 for the same exact unit I might ask more. It also depends on the types of units. Some of my buildings, all of the units are identical. Other buildings half of the units are bigger than the other half so clearly I wouldn't charge a equal amount for them. Ultimately you have to remember we're not in the game to lose money. I know what my renters are going to pay before I even put an offer in on a building because that's how I stay in business. It might go up over the years but it will always outpace my expenses for that property."}
{"question":"What is an \"International Equity\"?","answer":"International means from all over the world. In the U.S. A Foreign Equity fund would be non-US stocks.  There's an odd third choice I'm aware of, a fund of US companies that derive their sales from overseas, primarily."}
{"question":"Deriving the put-call parity","answer":"Think of it this way: C + (-P) = forward contract. Work it out from there. Anyways, this stack is meant for professionals, not students, I think."}
{"question":"Online transaction - Money taken out late","answer":"When processing credit\/debit cards there is a choice made by the company on how they want to go about doing it.  The options are Authorization\/Capture and Sale. For online transactions that require the delivery of goods, companies are supposed to start by initially Authorizing the transaction.  This signals your bank to mark the funds but it does not actually transfer them.  Once the company is actually shipping the goods, they will send a Capture command that tells the bank to go ahead and transfer the funds.  There can be a time delay between the two actions.  3 days is fairly common, but longer can certainly be seen.  It normally takes a week for a gas station local to me to clear their transactions. The second one, a Sale is normally used for online transactions in which a service is immediately delivered or a Point of Sale transaction (buying something in person at a store).  This action wraps up both an Authorization and Capture into a single step. Now, not all systems have the same requirements.  It is actually fairly common for people who play online games to \"accidentally\" authorize funds to be transferred from their bank.  Processing those refunds can be fairly expensive.  However, if the company simply performs an Authorization and never issues a capture then it's as if the transaction never occurred and the costs involved to the company are much smaller (close to zero) I'd suspect they have a high degree of parents claiming their kids were never authorized to perform transactions or that fraud was involved.  If this is the case then it would be in the company's interest to authorize the transaction, apply the credits to your account then wait a few days before actually capturing the funds from the bank.   Depending upon the amount of time for the wait your bank might have silently rolled back the authorization.  When it came time for the company to capture, then they'd just reissue it as a sale. I hope that makes sense.  The point is, this is actually fairly common.  Not just for games but for a whole host of areas in which fraud might exist (like getting gas)."}
{"question":"Why don't banks allow more control over credit\/debit card charges?","answer":"The other answers touch on why having two-factor auth or some other additional system is not worth it compared to simple reactive systems (cancelling lost cards, reversing fraudulent charges etc), but it should also be noted that this goal can be achieved with a method similar to what you describe.  My bank (TD Canada Trust) has an app (I'm on android) that gives you a notification immediately after your card is charged (even test charges like at the gas station).  It's really simple, does not slow down authorization, and makes fraud detection super easy.  (I'm sure some other banks have similar apps)."}
{"question":"Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? ","answer":"To me, the lower tax rate for capital gains is largely due to governments encouraging economic activity. Note that investments usually come from your normal income, which is already taxed. Capital gains tax is essentially punishing people who take the extra effort to put their money into work. If the tax rate is high, it would definitely cause people to rethink about investing, thus slowing the general economy down."}
{"question":"How long should I keep my bills?","answer":"In general, you don't need to keep bills around for more than a few months.  The exceptions are: anything that was itemized on your federal or state income taxes. You want to keep these around for seven years in case of an audit by the IRS brokerage statements buying\/selling stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.  You need to know how much you bought a stock for when you sell it, to calculate capital gains. information relating to major renovations to your house.  This can be used to reduce the gain when you sell. anything relating to a business, again for tax and valuation purposes. When selling a house, the last years worth of utility bills might be useful, to show potential buyers. However, I get almost all of my recurring bills electronically now.  They get saved and backed up.  In that case, its easier to just keep everything than to selectively delete stuff.  It takes very little space, is easier to find things than in paper files, and is much less hassle when moving than boxes full of paper."}
{"question":"A debt collector will not allow me to pay a debt, what steps should I take?","answer":"Send a well-documented payment to the original creditor.  Do it in such a way that you would have the ability to prove that you sent a payment if they reject it.  Should they reject it, demonstrate that to the credit reporting bureaus."}
{"question":"In today's low interest environment, is it generally more economical to buy or lease a new car in the US?","answer":"It's my understand that leasing is never the better overall deal, with the possible exception of a person who would otherwise buy a brand new car every 2 or 3 years, and does not drive a lot of miles. Note: in the case of a company car, Canadian taxes let you deduct the entire lease payment (which clearly has some principal in it) if you lease, while if you buy you can only deduct the interest, and must depreciate the car according to their schedule. This can make leasing more attractive to those buying a car through a corporation. I don't know if this applies in the US. The numbers you ran through in class presumably involved calculating the interest paid over the term of the loan. Can you not just redo the calculation using actual interest and lease numbers from a randomly chosen current car ad? I suspect if you do, you will discover leasing is still not the right choice."}
{"question":"Paying over the minimum mortgage payment","answer":"take a look at this graph here: http:\/\/mortgagevista.com\/#m=1&a=40000&b=4&c=30y&B&oa&ob&oc&od It shows how much it costs to borrow $40k for 30 years. You did not post your mortgage rate or loan term, so I used 4% over 30 years (you can easily update this with your actual details). While this does not show the costs of your total mortgage, it does help you get an idea of just how much the 40k$ in question is costing you in interest. If you hover over the month one year from now you will see that you will have paid around $1587 in interest over the course of the year. If you were to put the full 40k$ toward your mortgage right now, you would avoid having to pay this interest over the next year.  The next question I think you would have to ask yourself is if there is anything else you could do with that money that is worth more than the $1587 to you.  Is it worth $1587 to keep those funds liquid\/available in case you need to use them for something else? Could you find other investments you feel comfortable with that could earn you more than $1587?  Is it worth the hassle\/risk of investing the funds somewhere else with a better return? If you can't come up with anything better to do with the money then yes, you should probably use the funds (or at least part of them) towards the mortgage."}
{"question":"Should I have more than one brokerage account?","answer":"I believe the answer here is no: SIPC protection of customers with multiple accounts is determined by \"separate capacity.\" Each separate capacity is protected up to $500,000 for securities and cash (including a $250,000 limit for cash only). Accounts held in the same capacity are combined for purposes of the SIPC protection limits. So even having 2 individual accounts - you would only be covered for $500,000\/$250,000. You can see more about the type of accounts that would give your more coverage here. Also note: If you own a stock - the record probably exist.  Therefore you would not lose your ownership or shares.  The SIPC is there to protect the times this does not happen."}
{"question":"Does financing a portfolio on margin affect the variance of a portfolio?","answer":"Variance of a single asset is defined as follows: \u03c32 = \u03a3i(Xi - \u03bc)2 where Xi's represent all the possible final market values of your asset and \u03bc represents the mean of all such market values.  The portfolio's variance is defined as \u03c3p2 = \u03a3iwi2\u03c3i2 where, \u03c3p is the portfolio's variance, and wi stands for the weight of the ith asset.  Now, if you include the borrowing in your portfolio, that would classify as technically shorting at the borrowing rate. Thus, this weight would (by the virtue of being negative) increase all other weights. Moreover, the variance of this is likely to be zero (assuming fixed borrowing rates). Thus, weights of risky assets rise and the investor's portfolio's variance will go up. Also see, CML at wikipedia."}
{"question":"How do I deal with a mistaken attempt to collect a debt from me that is owed by someone else?","answer":"It may be a scam. But it also may be a company trying to find a person with the same or similar name. They may have followed a trail to her old address, and still not have the correct person. They bought number of old debts at a large discount, and are trying to track down any money they can find. It is best to ignore it, especially if they know it isn't their debt. If they start providing more proof then get interested. If they keep contacting them tell them there is no business relationship and they should stop."}
{"question":"What are my chances at getting a mortgage with Terrible credit but High income","answer":"I also am paying roughly twice as much in rent as a mortgage payment would be on the type of house I have been looking at, so I'd really like to purchase a house if possible. Sounds like I need to rain on your parade a bit: there's a lot more to owning a house than the mortgage. Property tax, insurance, PMI, and maintenance are things that throw this off. You'll also be paying more interest than normal given your recent credit history. It's still possible that buying is better than renting, but one really should run the detailed math on this. For example, looking at houses around where I live, insurance, property tax and special assessments over the course of a year roughly equal the mortgage payments annually.  You probably won't be able to get a loan just yet. If you've just started your new job it will take a while to build a documentable income history sufficient for lenders. But take heart! As you take the next year to save up a down payment \/ build up an emergency fund you'll discover that credit score improves with time. However, it's crucial that you don't do anything to mess with the score. Pay all your bills on time. Don't take out a car loan. Don't close your old revolving accounts. But most of all, don't worry. Rent hurts (I rent too) but in many parts of the US owning hurts more, as your property values fall. A house down the street from my dear old mother has been on the market for several months at a price 33 percent lower than her most recent appraisals. I'm comfortable waiting until markets stabilize \/ start rising before jumping on real estate."}
{"question":"How does the process of \"assignment\" work for in-the-money Options?","answer":"When the strike price ($25 in this case) is in-the-money, even by $0.01, your shares will be sold the day after expiration if you take no action. If you want to let your shares go,. allow assignment rather than close the short position and sell the long position...it will be cheaper that way. If you want to keep your shares you must buy back the option prior to 4Pm EST on expiration Friday. First ask yourself why you want to keep the shares. Is it to write another option? Is it to hold for a longer term strategy? Assuming this is a covered call writing account, you should consider \"rolling\" the option. This involves buying back the near-term option and selling the later date option of a similar or higher strike. Make sure to check to see if there is an upcoming earnings report in the latter month because you may want to avoid writing a call in that situation. I never write a call when there's an upcoming ER prior to expiration. Good luck. Alan"}
{"question":"What should I do with $4,000 cash and High Interest Debt?","answer":"Patti - I realize, of course, that you pose an either\/or question. It seems the question closes the door on other potential solutions."}
{"question":"What is a good way to save money on car expenses?","answer":"Do your own oil change! If you are a hands-on person, you could also avoid the cost of the semi-annual oil change, by doing it yourself.  Edmunds.com has a great how-to to help you accomplish this.  Be prepared for dirty fingernails!  But savings, you will realize, as an oil change will run you anywhere from $20 - $200 (if you drive a European car and require a specialized filtre)."}
{"question":"Can I exercise my put if a company goes bankrupt?","answer":"according to the Options Industry council ( http:\/\/www.optionseducation.org\/tools\/faq\/splits_mergers_spinoffs_bankruptcies.html ) put options  the shares (and therefore the options) may continue trading OTC but if the shares completely stop trading then: if the courts cancel the shares, whereby common shareholders receive nothing, calls will become worthless and an investor who exercises a put would receive 100 times the strike price and deliver nothing. The reason for this is that it is not the company whose shares you have the option on that you have a contract with but the counterparty who wrote the option. If the counterparty goes bankrupt then you may not get paid out (depending on assets available at liquidation - this is counterparty risk) but, unless the two are the same, if the company whose shares you have a put option on declares bankruptcy then you will get paid"}
{"question":"Why do banks require small businesses to open a business bank account instead of a cheaper personal one?","answer":"You could, but the bank won't let you... If you're a sole proprietor - then you could probably open a personal account and just use it, and never tell them that is actually a business. However, depending on your volume of operations, they may switch you on their own to business account by the pattern of your transactions. For corporations, you cannot use a personal account since the corporation is a separate legal entity that owns the funds. Also, you're generally required to separate corporate and personal funds to keep the limited liability protection (which is why you have the corporation to begin with). Generally, business accounts have much higher volumes and much more transactions than personal accounts, and it costs more for the banks to run them. In the US, some banks offer free, or very low-cost, business accounts for small businesses that don't need too many transactions. I'm sure if you shop around, you'll find those in Canada as well."}
{"question":"Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?","answer":"@RonJohn's answer for pallet of $20's is right for the specific case. For the general case of all income, it depends on whether or not the the source of the income was potentially criminal. https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/timtodd\/2015\/11\/16\/a-win-for-the-5th-amendment-at-the-tax-court\/ I am not a lawyer, but reading that article, one needs to provide the total amount, but not the source if there's a risk of self-incrimination."}
{"question":"Meaning of capital market","answer":"1) Are the definitions for capital market from the two sources the same? Yes.  They are from two different perspectives.  Investopedia is looking at it primarily from the perspective of a trader and they lead-off with the secondary market. This refers to the secondary market: A market in which individuals and institutions trade financial securities. This refers to the primary market: Organizations\/institutions in the public and private sectors also often sell securities on the capital markets in order to raise funds. Also, the Investopedia definition leaves much to be desired, but it is supposed to be pithy.  So, you are comparing apples and oranges, to some extent.  One is an article, as short as it may be, this other one is an entry in a dictionary. 2) What is the opposite of capital market, according to the definition in investopedia?  It's not quite about opposites, this is not physics.  However, that is not the issue here.  The Investopedia definition simply does not mention any other possibilities.  The Wikipedia article defines the term more thoroughly.  It talks about primary\/secondary markets in separate paragraph. 3) According to the Wikipedia's definition, why does stock market belong to capital market, given that stocks can be held less than one year too? If you follow the link in the Wikipedia article to money market: As money became a commodity, the money market is nowadays a component of the financial markets for assets involved in short-term borrowing, lending, buying and selling with original maturities of one year or less. The key here is original maturities of one year or less. Here's my attempt at explaining this: Financial markets are comprised of money markets and capital markets.   Money is traded as if it were a commodity on the money markets.  Hence, the short-term nature in its definition.  They are more focused on the money itself.     Capital markets are focused on the money as a means to an end. Companies seek money in these markets for longer terms in order to improve their business in some way. A business may go to the money markets to access money quickly in order to deal with a short-term cash crunch.  Meanwhile, a business may go to the capital markets to seek money in order to expand its business. Note that capital markets came first and money markets are a relatively recent development.   Also, we are typically speaking about the secondary (capital) market when we are talking about the stock or bond market.  In this market, participants are merely trading among themselves.  The company that sought money by issuing that stock\/bond certificate is out of the picture at that point and has its money.   So, Facebook got its money from participants in the primary market: the underwriters.  The underwriters then turned around and sold that stock in an IPO to the secondary market.  After the IPO, their stock trades on the secondary market where you or I have access to trade it.  That money flows between traders.  Facebook got its money at the \"beginning\" of the process."}
{"question":"How to rescue my money from negative interest?","answer":"You could buy Bitcoins. They are even more deflationary than Swiss Francs.  But the exchange rate is currently high, and so is the risk in case of volatility.  So maybe buy an AltCoin instead. See altcoin market capitalization for more information. Basically, all you'd be doing is changing SwissFrancs into Bitcoin\/AltCoin.  You don't need a bank to store it. You don't need to stockpile cash at home.  Stays liquid, there's no stock portfolio (albeit a coin portfolio), unlike in stocks there are no noteworthy buy and sell commissions, and the central bank can't just change the bills as in classic-cash-currency.  The only risk is volatility in the coin market, which is not necessarely a small risk.  Should coins have been going down, then for as long as you don't need that money and keep some for everyday&emergency use on a bank account, you can just wait until said coins re-climb - volatility goes both ways after all."}
{"question":"Is housing provided by a university as employer reported on 1040?","answer":"Since you worked as an RA, the university should send you a W2 form. The taxable wages line in that form would be the sum of both the direct salary and employer paid benefits that are taxable. As such you should not need to do anything than enter the numbers that they provide you."}
{"question":"Missing opportunity cost of mortgage prepayment","answer":"One other consideration is that by paying off your mortgage early versus, for example, investing that capital in a mutual fund is that you are reducing your net liquidity to some degree. That is, if you find yourself needing an emergency infusion of cash it is easier to sell a stock\/fund than to sell your house or get a equity loan.  I suppose if you were planning to need a lot of cash to start a business or invest in real estate, then maybe it would make sense to keep your cash more liquid. However, in your situation I agree with Joe. Pay it off. It feels REALLY good to write that last check!"}
{"question":"Do I need to report to FInCEN if I had greater than $10,000 worth of bitcoin in a foreign bitcoin exchange?","answer":"Yes, I'd say you do. This is similar to reporting a brokerage account. Also, don't forget the requirements for form 8938."}
{"question":"For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?","answer":"Indeed, there is conservation of money.  If the insurance companies have those big buildings and television commercials and CEOs, then that money comes from only one place: the insurance premiums of customers.  To say insurance is a good deal is either The benefit and cost of insurance for most: Indeed, of all the answers here, James Turner's is best.  If you can't afford to lose something, it is vital to insure it.  Ideally insurance would be a non-profit operation to best cover this.  Such that people would as a whole lose nothing.  Theoretically it could even be slightly for profit by making wise investment decisions, and benefiting from the future value of money by beating inflation.  But they don't (see this writeup for slightly dated information on health, and this Wikipedia article for more direction). But even if you are taking an average loss (by using a profit-making insurance company), by taking insurance you avoid the situation where you're crippled by a catastrophe.  You are paying a fee to hedge your losses.  Like James said, insure what you cannot afford to lose.  But realize you're going into a situation where the overall net is an average loss of between 10-50% of your money, on average.  Basically you're playing the lottery, except your net losses mostly go to fund the company and the CEOs rather than nominally support education. But you sounded like you understood those ideas well, so...   Can you self insure? As others noted, yes, there is the option of self insurance in most places.  Even even often when insurance is considered as required.  For example, in the US, basically car insurance coverage is required.  But generally you are legally able to self insure to cover this requirement:   The cost of self insuring: There is one cost to self-insure: time.  It takes time to research the laws, time to to satisfy those requirements, and then time to find\/setup all the care providers (doctors, mechanics, lawyers, etc). When is it worth it?  First, again, you must satisfy the prerequisite: you are able to financially handle the loss of the topic under consideration. At a commenter's request, here is an attempt to better spell out this requirement (though it doesn't appear pertinent to the question asked, it is indeed very important not to mistakenly assume you satisfy this requirement). Can you comfortably cover the level of insurance you would otherwise be taking out.  $50,000\/$100,000\/$50,000 is a common reasonable insurance level, so that would be $200,000.  Basically, have enough money to cover the loss of your car, your possible injury expenses, and most importantly the damage and medical of anyone else you hit.  You would need to have that value available, optimally in your accounts.  Alternatively, you could weigh it against your assets, such that if you had low accounts but a paid off $200,000 house, you could conceivably sell your property and still be able to survive financially afterwards.  However, it is indeed dangerous to make this assumption, as there may be additional costs and troubles in selling assets, and you may fail to recognize how precious the property is to you.  Having at least double or triple in property you'd be willing to part with might be a more comfortable number.  Again, the main idea is: can you afford to lose the insured value tomorrow?  Though you hope it wouldn't happen, if someone came and took $200,000+ of yours tomorrow, would you be able to adjust to it relatively easily?  If the answer is yes, you've satisfied this requirement.  In many states it's easier to understand whether you can meet this requirement: it instead becomes can you take out the liability bond required. If you've met that requirement, then it comes down to the time you'd lose versus the savings you'd gain.  To get a fair idea, you'll need: The premium you would pay to purchase the insurance: Since you are likely losing 10-50% of your premiums, it should be fair to make a rough estimate of value lost by using 25% for most purposes (especially given that this still ignores the future value\/opportunity cost of your money, which could often be 5-10% if invested well) The value of your time:  You must properly identify either:   A rough estimate of how much time it will take you to research the legal requirements and meet them, and then to research\/handle the subsequent needs that come up which the insurance would take care of in an average year.  So try to balance those typical years where you wouldn't have a lot of work to do with a year where you'd need to call repair mechanics or find health practitioners.  Perhaps aim high, research\/calling usually takes more time than we think.   Is this calculation positive? Your estimated net annual benefit (or cost) from self insuring is: 0.25 * (Insurance Premium Per Year) - (Estimated Value of Your Time)*(Estimated Hours Of Work\\Research to Self-Insure Per Year)  This is a rough estimate.  But if the result is quite positive (and you can afford to cover the hit the insurance would otherwise cover), you're likely better off self-insuring. If the result is quite negative (or you can't cover the possible costs insurance would cover), you're probably better off buying insurance. Finally, indeed there are still a few other factors on each side to consider... Most often those additional pluses and minuses probably are smaller than the primary cost\/benefits spelt out earlier.  But if you're rich enough to have the money, you're in a situation where you can likely sacrifice a little income to have your peace of mind.  So there's certainly a lot to consider in it.  But if you're a self starter, I believe you're right that you'll find it's more worthwhile to self-insure if you indeed have the resources."}
{"question":"What does an x% inflation rate actually mean?","answer":"Inflation is an attempt to measure how much less money is worth. It is a weighted average of some bundle of goods and services price's increase.  Money's value is in what you can exchange it for, so higher prices means money is worth less. Monthly inflation is quoted either as \"a year, ending on that month\" or \"since the previous month\".  As the values differ by more than a factor of 10, you can usually tell which one is being referred to when they say \"inflation in August was 0.4%, a record high\" or \"inflation in August was 3.6%\".  You do need some context of the state of the economy, and how surprised the people talking about the numbers are.  Sometimes they refer to inflation since the last month, and then annualize it, which adds to the confusion. \"Consumer Inflation\"'s value depends on what the basket of goods is, and what you define as the same \"good\".  Is a computer this year the same as the last?  If the computer is 10x faster, do you ignore that, or factor it in? What basket do you use?  The typical monthly consumables purchased by a middle class citizen?  By a poor citizen?  By a rich citizen?  A mixture, and if so which mixture? More detailed inflation figures can focus on inflation facing each quntile of the population by household income, split durable goods from non-durable goods from services, split wage from non-wage inflation, ignore volatile things like food and energy, etc. Inflation doesn't directly cause prices to raise; instead it is a measure of how much raise in prices happened.  It can easily be a self-fullfilling prophesy, as inflation expectations can lead to everyone automatically increasing the price they charge for everything (wages, goods, etc). Inflation can be viewed as a measurement of the \"cost of holding cash\".  At 10% inflation per year, holding a million dollars in cash for a year costs you 100,000$ in buying power.  At 1% inflation it costs 10,000$.  At 0.1% inflation, 1000$. Inflation of 10% in one year, followed by 10% the next, adds up to 1.1*1.1-1 = 21% inflation over the two years.  For low inflation numbers this acts a lot like adding; the further from 0% you get the more the lower-order terms make the result larger.  1% inflation for two years adds up to 2.01%, 10% over two years 21%, 100% over two years 300%, 1000% over two years 12000%, etc.  (and yes, some places suffer 1000% inflation)"}
{"question":"Why are some long term investors so concerned about their entry price?","answer":"This is not hypothetical, this is an accurate story. I am a long-term investor. I have a bunch of money that I'd like to invest and I plan on spreading it out over five or six mutual funds and ETFs, roughly according to the Canadian Couch Potato model portfolio (that is, passive mutual funds and ETFs rather than specific stocks). I am concerned that if I invest the full amount and the stock market crashes 30% next month, I will have paid more than I had to. As I am investing for the long term, I expect to more than regain my investment, but I still wouldn't be thrilled with paying 30% more than I had to. Instead, I am investing my money in three stages. I invested the first third earlier this month. I'll invest the next third in a few months, and the final third a few months after that. If the stock market climbs, as I expect is more likely the case, I will have lost out on some potential upside. However, if the stock market crashes next month, I will end up paying a lower average cost as two of my three purchases will occur after the crash. On average, as a long-term investor, I expect the stock market to go up. In the short term, I expect much more fluctuation. Statistically speaking, I'd do better to invest all the money at once as most of the time, the trend is upward. However, I am willing to trade some potential upside for a somewhat reduced risk of downside over the course of the next few months. If we were talking a price difference of 1% as mentioned in the question, I wouldn't care. I expect to see average annual returns far above this. But stock market crashes can cause the loss of 20 to 30% or more, and those are numbers I care about. I'd much rather buy in at 30% less than the current price, after all."}
{"question":"What is a financial security?","answer":"First, realize that Wikipedia is written by individuals, just like this board has thousands of members. The two definition were written and edited by different people, most likely.  Think Venn diagram.  The definition for financial instruments claims that it's the larger set, and securities is contained in a subset.  Comparing the two, it seems pretty consistent.  Yes, Securities include derivatives.  Transferable is close to tradable, although to me tradable implies a market as compared to private transfers.  I don't believe there's an opposite, per se, but there's 'other stuff.' My house has value, but is not a security. My coffee cup has no value. Back to the concept of Venn. There aren't really opposites, just items falling outside the set we're discussing.  I'd caution, this is a semantic exercise. If you know what you're buying, a stock, a bond, a gold bar, etc, whether it's a financial instrument or security doesn't matter to you."}
{"question":"When a stock price rises, does the company get more money?","answer":"When a stock price rises, the company's assets are worth more. This doesn't mean it gets more cash directly, but it can liquidate (= sell) some of its stocks for a higher return than before."}
{"question":"Advice for opening an IRA as a newbie","answer":"First, a Roth is funded with post tax money. The Roth IRA deposit will not offset any tax obligation you might have.  The IRA is not an investment, it's an account with a specific set of tax rules that apply to it. If you don't have a brokerage account, I'd suggest you consider a broker that has an office nearby. Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard are 3 that I happen to have relationships with.  Once the funds are deposited, you need to choose how to invest for the long term. The fact that I'd choose the lowest cost S&P ETF or mutual fund doesn't mean that's the ideal investment for you.  You need to continue to do research to find the exact investment that matches your risk profile. By way of example, up until a few years ago, my wife and I were nearly 100% invested in stocks,  mostly the S&P 500. When we retired, four years ago, I shifted a bit to be more conservative, closer to 80% stock 20% cash."}
{"question":"Why trade futures if you have options","answer":"Yes, from the point-of-view to the end speculator\/investor in stocks, it is ludicrous to take on liabilities when you don't have to.  That's why single-stock options are far more liquid than single-stock futures. However, if you are a farmer with a huge mortgage depending upon the chaos of agricultural markets which are extremely volatile, a different structure might appeal to you.  You could long your inputs while shorting your outputs, locking in a profit.  That profit is probably lower than what one could expect over the long run without hedging, but it will surely be less volatile. Here's where the advantage of futures come in for that kind of structure: the margin on the longs and shorts can offset each other, forcing the farmer to have to put up much less of one's own money to hedge.  With options, this is not the case. Also, the gross margin between the inputs rarely fluctuate to an unmanageable degree, so if your shorts rise faster than your longs, you'll only have to post margin in the amount of the change in the net of the longs and shorts. This is why while options on commodities exist to satisfy speculators, futures are the most liquid."}
{"question":"What are pros and cons of UK Building Societies compared to banks?","answer":"they may be willing to issue mortgages with smaller deposits, but may take longer to make a decision That cannot be farther from the truth. If you are getting a mortgage on a smaller deposit, you will be paying a higher interest rate. Time to take a decision depends very much on your credit situation, earnings, spending and the amount of loan you want to avail of. advantages and disadvantages compared to banks today Nothing specifically that is obvious. You deposits are guaranteed by FSCS, which is primarily everybody's biggest concern. One thing I did observe was they generally have saving accounts which pay better than the big banks, but that is for one to compare and find out.  In ownership structure you own a part of the building society because you are a member by having an account(bank\/mortgage) with them. Not the case with a big bank though unless you own any shares. You can make a case for the difference of the big bank's multiple business as compared to a building society."}
{"question":"Does the expense ratio of a fund-of-funds include the expense ratios of its holdings?","answer":"I just looked at a fund for my client, the fund is T Rowe Price Retirement 2015 (TRRGX).  As stated in the prospectus, it has an annual expense ratio of 0.63%.  In the fine print below the funds expenses, it says  \"While the fund itself charges no management fee, it will indirectly bear its pro-rata share of the expenses of the underlying T. Rowe Price funds in which it invests (acquired funds). The acquired funds are expected to bear the operating expenses of the fund.\"  One of it's acquired funds is TROSX which has an expense ratio of 0.86%.  So the total cost of the fund is the weighted average of the \"acquired funds\" expense ratio's plus the listed expense ratio of the fund.  You can see this at http:\/\/doc.morningstar.com\/docdetail.aspx?clientid=schwab&key=84b36f1bf3830e07&cusip=74149P796 and its all listed in \"Fees and Expenses of the Fund\""}
{"question":"What are the differences between an investment mortgage and a personal mortgage?","answer":"Banks consider investment mortgages (and any mortgage where you don't live in the property), as a riskier investment than an owner occupied, home collateral mortgage. The sources of increased risk range from concerns that you will screw up as a landlord, your tenants will destroy the place, you won't have tenants and can't afford to pay the bank, and\/or you'll take out several other investment mortgages and over extend yourself. All of these risks are compounded by the fact that it is harder for the bank to convince you to pay when they can't put you out on the street if you default. Banks lend and invest in money, not real estate, so they would much rather have a paying loan than a foreclosed house, especially with the modern foreclosure glut. The increased risk means the bank will charge higher interest for the loan, may require a higher downpayment, and will require higher lending standards before issuing the loan. A new housing investor can get around these higher prices by living in the home for a few years before renting it out (though your lender could possibly require you to renegotiate the loan if you move out too soon)."}
{"question":"Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans?","answer":"I struggle to see the value to this risk from the standpoint of your mother-in-law.  This is not a small amount of money for a single person to lend to a single person ignoring your personal relationship.   Right now, using a blended rate of about 8% and a 5 year payment period, your cost on that $50,000 is somewhere in the neighborhood of $11,000 with a monthly payment around $1,014. Using the same monthly payment but paying your MIL at 5% you'll complete the loan about 3.5 months sooner and save about $5,000, she will make about $6,000 in interest over 5 years against a $50,000 outlay. Alternatively, you can just prioritize payments to the more expensive loans.  It's difficult to work out a total cost comparison without your expected payoff timelines and amount(s) you're currently paying toward all the loans.  I'm sure a couple hours with a couple of spreadsheets could yield a plan that would net you a savings substantially close to the $5,000 you'd save by risking your mother in law's money. A lot of people think personal lending risk is about the relationship between the people involved, but there's more to it than that. It's not about you and your wife separating, it's not about the awkward dinner and conversations if you lose your job.  Something might physically happen to you, you could become disabled or die.  Right now, that's an extremely diversified and calculated risk taken by a gigantic lender. Unless your mother in law is very wealthy, this is not nearly enough reward to assume this sort of risk (in my opinion).  Her risk FAR outpaces your potential five year savings. IF you wanted to pursue this as a means of paying interest to a family member rather than the bank, I'd only borrow an amount I budgeted and intended to pay within this single year.  Say $10,000 against the highest interest loan."}
{"question":"How to evaluate an annuity","answer":"You can get no load annuities through some no-load financial companies like Vanguard so to start with I'd see how what she is being offered compares with something that comes free of a sales load. I'd also question that fixed rate, seems pretty impossible to me, which makes me think there is some catch or 'gotcha' that we are not seeing that either brings down that rate, or makes it delusional (they are kidding themselves) or deceptive in some way.  In any case it's setting off my 'too good to be true' alarm at full volume, along with the 'shark attack' alarm as well. (I would strongly suspect the 'advisor' is advising the product that makes the most money for him, NOT what is in your mother's best interest)  A fixed annuity is an insurance product, not a security, because the insurance company must credit the annuity holder\u2019s account with the specified interest rate for the contractually-stipulated time period, regardless of market fluctuations in actual interest rates. It is the insurance company that bears the investment risk, which it does by investing the annuity holder\u2019s purchase proceeds in fixed-income instruments that the company hopes will provide sufficient return to fulfill its contractual representations to the holder.  THIS is why there is no prospectus (it's not a 'security' they are not required to provide one by SEC) because the risk is entirely with the company. Obviously as pointed out in the comments, the company could easily go out of business (especially of they sell a lot of these and can't find a way to get that kind of return on the invested money).  Now, ask yourself, if I was the insurance company, would I be comfortable guaranteeing that level of return over that much time if I intend to make a profit from it, pay sales comissions, and stay in business?   In terms of 'will they stay in business' I'd have a hard look at their ratings, and go compare where that is on the total range for AM Best (they are lowest 'secure' rating, next thing down is in the 'vulnerable' category) and Standard and Poors (4 places down from their best rating, next thing down is 'marginal' followed by 'poor')   You might also want to see if you can get any idea of historical ratings, is this company's ratings falling, or rising?   Personally, for the amount of money involved, I'd want a company with MUCH higher ratings than these guys..  THEN maybe someone could say 'no risk', but with those ratings?  an no, I don't think so! BTW I'd check over what this bozo (um sorry, that's not fair to clowns) is recommending she do with her own funds as well.  For example is he recommending she take something that is already tax sheltered such as an IRA and investing the stuff inside that in an annuity (kind of pointless to 'double shelter' the money, or lock it up for a period of time when she may be required to make withdrawals) make sure you don't see something there that is actually against what is in her best interest and is only done to make him a comission."}
{"question":"Looking to buy a house in 1-2 years. Does starting a Roth IRA now make sense?","answer":"With a Roth IRA, you can withdraw the contributions at any time without penalty as long as you don't withdraw the earnings\/interest. There are some circumstances where you can withdraw the earnings such as disability (and maybe first home). Also, the Roth IRA doesn't need to go through your employer and I wouldn't do it through your employer. I have mine setup through Fidelity though I'm not sure if they have any guaranteed 3% return unless it was a CD. All of mine is in stocks. Your wife could also setup a Roth IRA so over 2 years, you could contribute $20,000. If I was you, I would just max out any 403-b matches (which you surely are at 25% of gross income) and then save my down payment money in a normal money market\/savings account. You are doing good contributing almost 25% to the 403-b. There are also some income limitations on Roth IRAs. I believe for a married couple, it is $160k."}
{"question":"Why deep in the money options have very low liquidity","answer":"There is less liquidity because they are less volatile. Option traders aren't exactly risk averse (read: are degenerate gamblers) and the other market participants that use options don't have much use for deep in the money options. Also, just trade more liquid assets and equities if you want liquid options. At-the-money options, and at-the-money options strategies have hundreds and thousand percent payoffs on relatively mundane price changes in the underlying asset."}
{"question":"How does an index rearrange its major holdings","answer":"S & P Index Announcements would have notes on when there are changes to the index.  For example in the S & P Small-cap 600 there is a change that takes affect on Feb. 19, 2013. As for how index funds handle changes to the fund, this depends a bit on the nature of the fund as open-end mutual funds would be different than exchange-traded funds.  The open-end fund would have to sell and purchase to keep tracking the index which can be interesting to see how well this is handled to keep the transaction costs down while the ETFs will just unload the shares in the redemption units of the stock leaving the index while taking in new shares with creation units of the newly added stock to the index."}
{"question":"Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity?","answer":"If you need access to your data beyond the online availability, you download the transactions and manage the archive yourself. Six months to eighteen months is generally enough time for most people to manage their own archived data. Big banks have the power to store and retrieve all the data online. Unfortunately, the older records are not frequently accessed. Why have these records online when they will be rarely accessed? Backing up data will take longer. Queries to retrieve data will take longer. Everything will take longer just so you can have records that 99% of customers will never access."}
{"question":"England: Alternative to Student Finance","answer":"Since you're also looking for alternative means of funding, have you considered doing part-time work -- during the holidays or on some of the weekends? With this kind of financing you have to watch out that the work does not interfere with your study. On the other hand it can be valuable work experience that can come in handy later in your life, such as when applying for your first \"real\" job. The kind of work you can do will depend a lot on the subject you are studying and what qualifications you have. For example, if you are studying computer science, there are a lot of freelance opportunities in programming. One of these could lead right to your first job after university. The two broad types of work you can do are: For freelance: Try searching for \"[subject] student freelance\" and look at sites like oDesk. Read up on tax concerns, research how to price your time, and start doing! For employment: Browse the job boards at your university. Contact businesses to ask for part-time opportunities. Hope this helps to open one of the alternative paths here. If you go down this road, remember to keep your priorities in mind. Especially the freelance work can easily interfere with your study and delay you unnecessarily. Good luck!"}
{"question":"How to reconcile performance with dividends?","answer":"The same as you would for an individual stock. A stock starts the year at $100, and has $4 in dividends over the year, why would the fact the the stock ends the year at say $90, confuse you?  You pay tax on the dividend at the favored rate, if held in a taxable account, obviously, and that's about it."}
{"question":"Could capital gains from a stock sale impact my IRA eligibility?","answer":"Yes. Look at form 1040 AGI is line 37, and it comes well after you report your schedule D cap gains.  I read this question as meaning you wish to contribute to a traditional IRA pretax. There is no income limit to contribute to an IRA and not take the deduction."}
{"question":"When looking at a mutual fund, how can you tell if it is a traditional fund or an ETF?","answer":"An Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is a special type of mutual fund that is traded on the stock exchange like a stock.  To invest, you buy it through a stock broker, just as you would if you were buying an individual stock. When looking at a mutual fund based in the U.S., the easiest way to tell whether or not it is an ETF is by looking at the ticker symbol.  Traditional mutual funds have ticker symbols that end in \"X\", and ETFs have ticker symbols that do not end in \"X\".   The JPMorgan Emerging Markets Equity Fund, with ticker symbol JFAMX, is a traditional mutual fund, not an ETF.  JPMorgan does have ETFs; the JPMorgan Diversified Return Emerging Markets Equity ETF, with ticker symbol JPEM, is an example.  This ETF invests in similar stocks as JFAMX; however, because it is an index-based fund instead of an actively managed fund, it has lower fees. If you aren't sure about the ticker symbol, the advertising\/prospectus of any ETF should clearly state that it is an ETF.  (In the example of JPEM above, they put \"ETF\" right in the fund name.)  If you don't see ETF mentioned, it is most likely a traditional mutual fund. Another way to tell is by looking at the \"investment minimums\" of the fund.  JFAMX has a minimum initial investment of $1000.  ETFs, however, do not have an investment minimum listed; because it is traded like a stock, you simply buy whole shares at whatever the current share price is.  So if you look at the \"Fees and Investment Minimums\" section of the JPEM page, you'll see the fees listed, but not any investment minimums."}
{"question":"Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT","answer":"Yes, it is safe, we have been doing it for years. We prefer our tenants to make their rent payments in this manner. In fact, we prefer that they set up an automatic payment for the rent, either through their online banking or through their bank directly. Apart from getting your rent on time, this method also has the added benefit of both parties having their own records of rent payments through their bank statements, in case there is a dispute about the rent sometime down the track. Having a separate bank account just for the rent does make sense as well, it makes it easier for you to check if rent has come in, it makes it easier if you need to compare your statement without having to highlight all the rent payments amongst all other payments (you might not want to show your other incomes and spending habits to others), and you can withdraw the rents to your other account (which might offer higher interest) after it has come in, leaving a small balance most of the time in your rent account."}
{"question":"How long should I keep my bills?","answer":"Shred it all.  You might want to keep a record going back at most a year, just in case.  But just in case of what?  What is a good idea is to have an electronic record.  It's a good practice to know how your spending changes over time.  Beyond that, it's just a fire hazard. The thing is, I know I'm right in the above paragraph, but I'm a hypocrite:  I have years' worth of paper records of all kinds.  I need to get rid of it.  But I have grown attached.  I have trucked this stuff around in move after move.  I have a skill at taking good care of useless things.  I've even thought of hiring somebody to scan it all in for me, so that I can feel safe shredding all this paper without losing any of the data.  But that's insane!"}
{"question":"mortgage vs car loan vs invest extra cash?","answer":"It depends on your tax rate. Multiply your marginal rate (including state, if applicable) by your 3.1% to figure out how much you are saving through the deduction, then subtract that from the 3.1% to get the effective rate on the mortgage. For example, if you are in the 28% bracket with no state tax impact from the mortgage, your effective rate on the mortgage is 2.232%. This also assumes you'd still itemize deductions without the mortgage, otherwise, the effective deduction is less. Others have pointed out more behavioral reasons for wanting to pay off the car first, but from a purely financial impact, this is the way to analyze it. This is also your risk-free rate to compare additional investing to (after taking into account taxes on investments)."}
{"question":"Are tax deductions voluntary?","answer":"Legally: gods know. I would strongly recommend asking the Law asre of Stack Exchange to advise on that. Practically: What's the worst that happens? They audit, you say \"Yeah, I could probably have claimed these deductions but I didn't want to; is that a problem?\", they decide and either nothing happens or they issue you the unwanted refunnd. They aren't going to fine you for overpaying. Unless this would expose something criminal -- or you're a public figure and it would be embarassing -- this strikes me as falling firmly within the bounds of \"no harm, no foul\"."}
{"question":"How much taxes do corporations have to pay on dividends they receive from other companies?","answer":"Summary: The corporation pays 33.3% tax on dividends it receives and gets a tax refund at the same rate when it pays dividends out. According to http:\/\/www.kpmg.com\/Ca\/en\/IssuesAndInsights\/ArticlesPublications\/TaxRates\/Federal-and-Provincial-Territorial-Tax-Rates-for-Income-Earned-CCPC-2015-Dec-31.pdf the corporate tax rates for 2015 are: According to page 3: The federal and provincial tax rates shown in the tables apply to investment income   earned by a CCPC, other than capital gains and dividends received from Canadian   corporations. The rates that apply to capital gains are one-half of the rates shown in   the tables. Dividends received from Canadian corporations are deductible in computing   regular Part I tax, but may be subject to Part IV tax, calculated at a rate of 33 1\/3%. If I understand that correctly, this means that a Corporation in Quebec pays 46.6% on investment income other than capital gains and dividends, 23.3% on capital gains and 33.33% on dividends. I'm marking this answer as community wiki so anyone can correct these numbers if they are incorrect. UPDATE: According to http:\/\/www.pwc.com\/ca\/en\/tax\/publications\/pwc-facts-figures-2014-07-en.pdf page 22 the tax rate on taxable dividends received from certain Canadian corporations is 33 1\/3%. Further, this is refunded to the corporation through the \"refundable dividend tax on hand\" (RDTOH) mechanism at a rate of $1 for every $3 of taxable dividends paid. My interpretation is as follows: if the corporation receives $100 of dividends from another company, it pays $33.33 tax. If that corporation then pays out $100 of dividends at a later time, it receives a tax refund of $33.33. Meaning, the original tax gets refunded. Note the first line is for the 2015 tax year while the second link is for the 2014 tax year. The numbers might be a little different but the tax\/refund process remains the same."}
{"question":"Are there cons to paying monthly bills with a rewards card and then paying it off monthly?","answer":"There are a few potential downsides but they are minor: If you forget to make the payment the interest hit the following month could be significant. With many cards the new charges will be charged interest from the start if the previous payment was late\/missed. Just make sure you don't forget to pay the entire bill. If the $5K in monthly bills is a large portion of the credit limit for that credit card you could run into a problem with the grace period. During the three weeks between when the monthly bill closes and the payment is due, new charges will keep rolling in. Plan on needing a credit limit for the card of 2x the monthly bills. Of course you don't have to wait for the due date. Just go online and pay the bill early. If the monthly bills are a significant portion of the total credit limit for all credit cards, it can decrease your credit score because of the high utilization rate.  The good news is that over time the credit card company will increase your credit limit thus reducing the downsides of the last two items. Also keep in mind you generally can't pay a credit card bill or loan with a credit card, but many of the other bills each month can be handled this way."}
{"question":"Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS","answer":"A lot of stores, especially smaller ones, won't accept card payments under $10.00. They pay a fee for taking cards and for small transactions it is not worth it."}
{"question":"Where can I find announcements of official GDP figures for the US and other countries?","answer":"For immediate availability, by far the fastest (and cheapest) way to get macroeconomic figures as they are released, is by following (verified) Twitter accounts of the respective Central bank and institutions alike. Indeed, Twitter is the new trader tape."}
{"question":"How do I enter Canadian tax info from US form 1042-S and record captial gains from cashing in stock options?","answer":"There are two parts in this 1042-S form. The income\/dividends go into the Canada T5 form. There will be credit if 1042-S has held money already, so use T2209 to report too."}
{"question":"Equation to determine if a stock is oversold and by how much?","answer":"What you are seeking is termed \"Alpha\", the mispricing in the market. Specifically, Alpha is the price error when compared to the market return and beta of the stock. Modern portfolio theory suggests that a portfolio with good Alpha will maximize profits for a given risk tolerance. The efficient market hypotheses suggests that Alpha is always zero. The EMH also suggests that taxes, human effort and information propagation delays don't exist (i.e. it is wrong). For someone who is right, the best specific answer to your question is presented Ben Graham's book \"The Intelligent Investor\" (starting on page 280). And even still, that book is better summarized by Warren Buffet (see Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders). In a great disservice to the geniuses above it can be summarized much further: closely follow the company to estimate its true earnings potential... and ignore the prices the market is quoting. ADDENDUM: And when you have earnings potential, calculate value with: NPV = sum(each income piece\/(1+cost of capital)^time) Update: See http:\/\/finance.fortune.cnn.com\/2014\/02\/24\/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter\/ \"When Charlie Munger and I buy stocks...\" for these same ideas right from the horse's mouth"}
{"question":"How do I invest in the S&P 500?","answer":"Buy the ETF with ticker \"SPY\".  This will give you exposure to exactly the S&P 500 stocks,  This is similar to the mutual fund suggestion by Ben Miller, except that the ETF has several advantages over mutual funds, especially as regards taxes.  You can find information on the difference between ETF and mutual fund in other questions on this site or by searching the web."}
{"question":"Name first on car loan can you also be the cosigner ","answer":"I want to first state that I'm not an attorney and this is not a response that would be considered legal advice.  I'm going to assume this was a loan was made in the USA.  The OP didnt specify.   A typical auto loan has a borrower and a co-borrower or \"cosigner\".  The first signer on the contract is considered the \"primary\".  As to your question about a primary being a co-borrower my answer would be no.  Primary simply means first signer and you can't be a first signer and a co-borrower.  Both borrower and co-borrower, unless the contract specifies different, are equally responsible for the auto loan regardless if you're a borrower or a co-borrower (primary or not primary).     I'm not sure if there was a situation not specified that prompted the question.  Just remember that when you add a co-borrower their positive and negative financials are handled equally as the borrower.  So in some cases a co-borrower can make the loan not qualify.   (I worked for an auto finance company for 16 years)"}
{"question":"Online Foreign Exchange Brokerages: Which ones are good & reputable for smaller trades? ","answer":"I used Oanda.com for Forex trading a couple years ago. I am in the US but I think it's available in the UK as well. At the time, they had no commissions and their spreads were comparable or better than other brokers. The spreads would just quite considerably when a big event like a Fed meeting or the unemployment figures come out, but I suspect that that is the same everywhere (or they have constant spreads and reject trades).  They did not push the high leverages like other brokers were at the time. I considered this to be very reputable, because though the profits to be gotten through 100:1 leverage are great advertising, the reality is that one unexpected spike and a newbie would lose a bunch of money in a margin call."}
{"question":"Can a US bank prevent you from making early payments to the principal on a home mortgage?","answer":"Are there any known laws explicitly allowing or preventing this   behavior? It's not the laws, it's what's in the note - the mortgage contract. I read my mortgage contracts very carefully to ensure that there's no prepayment penalty and that extra funds are applied to the principal. However, it doesn't have to be like that, and in older mortgages - many times it's not like that. Banks don't have to allow things that are not explicitly agreed upon in the contract. To the best of my knowledge there's no law requiring banks to allow what your friend wants."}
{"question":"What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?","answer":"You're trading a fixed liability for an unknown liability. When I graduated from college, I bought a nice used car. Two days later, a deer came out of nowhere, and I hit it going 70 mph on a highway. The damage? $4,500. If I didn't have comprehensive insurance, that would have been a real hit to me financially. For me, I'd rather just pay the modest cost for the comprehensive."}
{"question":"Would every FX currency pair or public stock that is under the 30 level using Relative Strength Index (RSI) be an undervalued pair?","answer":"No, and using a 37 year old formula in finance that is as simple as: should make it obvious technical analysis is more of a game for retail traders than investment advice. When it comes to currencies, there are a myriad of macroeconomic occurrences that do not follow a predictable timescale. Using indicators like RSI on any time frame will not magically illuminate broad human psychology and give you an edge. It is theoretically possible for a single public stock's price to be driven by a range of technical traders who all buy at RSI 30 and sell at RSI 70, after becoming a favorite stock on social media, but it is infinitely more likely for all market participants to have completely different goals."}
{"question":"How it actually works? Selling a call on a stock I hold, but has done poor, might the market thinks may rise","answer":"What you are proposing is called a \"covered call\" strategy.  It is a perfectly reasonable speculative play on how far the stock will move within a certain amount of time.  If your belief that the stock's volatility is such that it is unlikely to reach the strike price before the maturity is greater than the markets (which it seems it is), then go ahead and sell the call."}
{"question":"How do dividends of the underlying security in a security futures contract affect the security futures price?","answer":"The price of a future with an underlying that pays dividends is  As you can see, since the value of dividends is subtracted from the value of the underlying equity, the future's price is lowered if dividends rise. Compounding that effect with the dividend effect on equity prices, reducing their prices, the future should suffer more."}
{"question":"I'm about to be offered equity by my employer. What should I expect?","answer":"In my experience, any kind of equity you may be offered by the company is just a carrot. Your offer may be written in such a way that your potential ownership represents, say, 1% of the company today. But if the company goes for a round of financing your ownership percentage can get diluted. If this happens a couple of times and the terms of financing aren't very favorable then your percentage can go from that 1% down to 0.001%, making the equity worthless. I've known people who heard their company was being bought and thought they might get some kind of payoff. Come to find out the company hadn't done all that well and there wasn't anything to pay out after the main investors got some money back. (The main investors took a loss.) For obvious reasons, management wasn't keeping the staff up to date about the fact that they were operating in the red and their options were worthless. Some people grumbled about lawyers and filing lawsuits, but at the end of the day, there wasn't any money to be won. Keep this in mind. As to your question regarding what to look out for:"}
{"question":"What is the difference between speculating and investing?","answer":"Classic investing guru Benjamin Graham defines \"An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return.\" He contrasts this with speculation which is anything else (no thorough analysis, no safety of principal, or no adequate return). The word \"adequate\" is important, since it contrasts adequate returns with those that are either lower than needed or higher than necessary to reach your goals."}
{"question":"The best credit card for people who pay their balance off every month","answer":"PenFed Platinum Cashback Rewards Visa Card is another good choice. Pros: Cons:"}
{"question":"Postbank (Germany) - transferring money to the US - what are the best options?","answer":"After doing this many times, my preferred method is: The reason being that the US banks will use every chance possible to take your money in fees. Usually the German bank website will tell you what the current exchange rate. You were correct in selecting Transfer in $ and got the exchange rate. In my experience if you transfer in Euros, the US bank at the other end, will take about 3-5%, because they can. Selecting OUR means that you only have the fee taken out by the Source bank. By doing shared, it looks like both banks took their full fee. If you chose OUR, I'm fairly certain you just would have paid the 1.50 and the 20. Chase would not have taken the 15."}
{"question":"Retirement Savings vs. Student Loan payments","answer":"Your plan sounds quite sound to me.  I think that between the choices of [$800 for Loans, $300 for Retirement] and [$1100 for loans], both are good choices and you aren't going to go wrong either way.   Some of the factors you might want to consider: I like your retirement savings choices - I myself use the admiral version of VOO, plus a slightly specialized but still large ETF that allows me to do a bit of shifting.  Having something that's at least a bit counter-market can be helpful for balancing (so something that will be going up some when the market overall is down some); I wouldn't necessarily do bonds at your age, but international markets are good for that, or a stock ETF that's more stable than the overall market.  If you're using Vanguard, look at the minimums for buying Admiral shares (usually a few grand) and aim to get those if possible, as they have significantly lower fees - though VOO seems to pretty much tie the admiral version (VFIAX) so in that case it may not matter so much. As far as the target retirement funds, you can certainly do those, but I prefer not to; they have somewhat higher (though for Vanguard not crazy high) expense ratios.  Realistically you can do the same yourself quite easily."}
{"question":"Why do credit cards require a minimum annual household income?","answer":"While you're asking about a particular bank, I'll give my opinion of this in general.  I think a $12,000 household income is pretty low to be given credit. The risk to the bank is certainly higher than if the income were at that $35,000 level. They can use this to differentiate what they offer for perks, and if they ever collateralize the debt of these cards, it's a clearly defined demographic."}
{"question":"What is the difference between speculating and investing?","answer":"Investing is balancing the desire for return against the various risks that your money is faced with. There's also a recognition that an investment will be in place for some extended period of time. Speculation is seeking short-term maximum return, without protecting yourself against risk.  \"Speculation\" or \"Speculators\" is often thrown out as a pejorative, but you need speculation to have a healthy market."}
{"question":"Should I talk about my stocks?","answer":"No, there is no significant harm to discussing this. Outside of possibly getting bad advice, excessive advice, or complaints that others just aren't interested..."}
{"question":"How to check the paypal's current exchange rate?","answer":"Whenever you pay or withdraw some fund from your account, paypal takes approx 3% of the current currency value along with the fees. i.e. If you are paying\/withdraw 100 unit of US Dollars to British pounds and if the current convertion rate is 1$=0.82GBP, then consider reducing 3% of the actual currency rate. So, the approximate magnitude will be 0.82*97% (100-3=97) = 0.7954. So, 1$=0.7954GBP. This formula will not give you 100% accurate value but will help of course. Captain"}
{"question":"Why should we expect stocks to go up in the long term?","answer":"Does it make sense for stocks to earn a premium indefinitely? Yes. There is good reason to think that the stock market will make money indefinitely: the stock market is the primary mechanism through which investors bear market risk, which requires compensation.  If you think of all the owners of firms (stockholders and bondholders, generally) the risk premium that stocks earn stocks is the way bondholders pay equityholders to bear the risk that they do not wish to. Will stock prices always go up in the long run? As long as companies pay out less in dividends than their profit, prices will go up.  That could change if we were to change our corporate culture and\/or tax practices so that firms paid out more in dividends.  However, for the purposes of your question, I think it doesn't matter much whether the investor makes money as dividends or capital gains. Does the 5-7% guess apply only to the US market? I didn't write (nor read) the books in question, but most likely that is a global number.  The US dominates the global equity market, so it's often a good proxy.  However, international returns taken together have no less risk and earn no less over long horizons in general.  The particular examples you have pointed out are special cases that only apply to a part of the global economy and a particular time period.  There are plenty of examples of stock markets and time periods that did much better than the US market to offset your examples. Is 5-7% a reasonable long-term estimate of equity returns? Equity will always earn more in expectation than risk-free securities will.  How much more depends on major economic factors.  5-7% has been a good estimate for the market risk premium for many, many decades (stocks should earn this plus whatever the risk-free rate is).  However, that is just an empirical observation, not a rule.  It can change.  Some day technological progress could slow down or stop, we could run out of important resources in a way that we can't compensate for, our population permanently could stop growing, aliens could invade, etc.  Down the road it is certainly possible for expected equity returns to go down and never go back up again.  This would result from a permanent, global, economic shift that I think would be pretty obvious.  That is, you wouldn't have to look at stock prices to know it was happening."}
{"question":"Unmarried Couple Splitting up with Joint Ownership of Home ","answer":"Despite the unmarried status, you need to see a lawyer.  Essentially you have a business with this person owning a home as the asset, and a mortgage for which you are responsible for.  A lawyer needs to examine any paperwork you have and with knowledge of your particular jurisdiction's laws can advise you on the proper course of action. You paint a really ugly picture of this guy.  I bet you are correct that he is kind of a horrible person.  \"Tough love\" time:  You willingly entered into a long term contract with this person.  Why would you do such a thing?  Perhaps some self reflection and counseling is in order.  This is probably more important than worrying about your credit. All that being said, it is good of you to want to break ties with this person.  You can rebuild.  All will be good if you concentrate on the right things."}
{"question":"Pay index fund expense ratios with cash instead of fund balance","answer":"The mutual fund is legally its own company that you're investing in, with its own expenses. Mutual fund expense ratios are a calculated value, not a promise that you'll pay a certain percentage on a particular day. That is to say, at the end of their fiscal year, a fund will total up how much it spent on administration and divide it by the total assets under management to calculate what the expense ratio is for that year, and publish it in the annual report. But you can't just \"pay the fee\" for any given year. In a \"regular\" account, you certainly could look at what expenses were paid for each fund by multiplying the expense ratio by your investment, and use it in some way to figure out how much additional you want to contribute to \"make it whole\" again. But it makes about as much sense as trying to pay the commission for buying a single stock out of one checking account while paying for the share price out of another. It may help you in some sort of mental accounting of expenses, but since it's all your money, and the expenses are all part of what you're paying to be able to invest, it's not really doing much good since money is fungible. In a retirement account with contribution limits, it still doesn't really make sense, since any contribution from outside funds to try to pay for expense ratios would be counted as contributions like any other. Again, I guess it could somehow help you account for how much money you wanted to contribute in a year, but I'm not really sure it would help you much. Some funds or brokerages do have non-expense-ratio-based fees, and in some cases you can pay for those from outside the account. And there are a couple cases where for a retirement account this lets you keep your contributions invested while paying for fees from outside funds. This may be the kind of thing that your coworker was referring to, though it's hard to tell exactly from your description. Usually it's best just to have investments with as low fees as possible regardless, since they're one of the biggest drags on returns, and I'd be very wary of any brokerage-based fees when there are very cheap and free mutual fund brokerages out there."}
{"question":"What happens when there are no Limit Orders?","answer":"The obvious thing would happen. 10 shares change owner at the price of $100. A partially still open selling order would remain. Market orders without limits means to buy or sell at the best possible or current price. However, this is not very realistic. Usually there is a spread between the bid and the ask price and the reason is that market makers are acting in between. They would immediately exploit this situation, for example, by placing appropriately limited orders. Orders without limits are not advisable for stocks with low trading activity. Would you buy or sell stuff without caring for the price?"}
{"question":"Is it a bet on price fluctuations and against the house?","answer":"The answer depends on the specific instrument to which you are referring. It is possible to make straight bets that are cash-settled and in which the underlying commodity or instrument will never be bought or sold.  It is also possible to have such a contract be settled in the underlying (if the cash value is appropriate, then the cash settlement can be used to purchase the underlying directly, if necessary).  Physical delivery was predominant until the last few decades.  Most traders, as opposed to hedgers or strategics, are going to prefer cash-settled contracts as opposed to physical delivery. It is possible to make trades with a brokerage firm such that the firm pays if the trader wins the bet.  The firm will typically find parties on the other side to even out this bet and leave itself neutral as to the outcome (plus a small premium it charges each side for the cost of making the market).  The cost charged to one contracting party should be set by the dealer in relation to prices being charged to parties making the opposite, matching bet (in this way, brokers are following market price, while traders are setting it). Financially, options and contracts can be settled for cash or for the underlying, and they can be made directly with the opposite bettor or with a neutral dealer."}
{"question":"Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it?","answer":"I believe there are two ways new money is created: My favorite description of this (money creation) comes from Chris Martenson: the video is here on Youtube. And yes, I believe both can create inflation. In fact this is what happened in the US between 2004 and 2007: increasing loans to households to buy houses created an inflation of home prices."}
{"question":"Hourly rate negotiation tips for paid internship","answer":"Interns are not hired to do work, they are hired so that people at the company can get a look at their abilities in a real situation (not an interview) before hiring them for real. This way instead of 30% of your new hires being a dud, it's more like 5%, because the bad ones were filtered out in the intern process. If you are self-motivated and good enough, then it's quite possible that you will start getting real work while you're at the company, as opposed to throwaway assignments that nobody cares about. Once you're in that position, it means they trust you to actually accomplish something, and you will be viewed as a hopeful hire. Assuming you like the company, getting into that position is half the value of the internship. So I'd take it as-is with one caveat - ask them about schedule flexibility ahead of time, explicitly for the purpose of making sure your class schedule works. If they're a decent place to work for they will probably grant you that point outright. EDIT: One more note. If you've got a favor to burn, save it. Use it if you like the place and need to ask them for an H1B sponsorship, or any other kind of immigration assistance."}
{"question":"What part of buying a house would make my net worth go down?","answer":"You can look at buying a house as being a long term investment in not paying rent.   In the short time there are costs to buying (legal, taxes, etc).   This depends on only buying house of the size\/location you need e.g. no better then what you would have rented. House buying tent to work out best when there is high inflation, as the rent you would otherwise be paying goes up with  inflation \u2013 provided you can live with the short term pain of high interest rates."}
{"question":"I co-signed a car but i am listed as the primary account holder for the loan","answer":"The buyer can get another cosigner or you can sell the car to pay off the loan. These are your only options if financing cannot be obtained independently."}
{"question":"Can you depreciate assets differently between Federal, State, and Local?","answer":"In general, you most definitely can. In some cases you must. However for each State you'll have to check whether you can choose how to depreciate. Many States require you to take the same depreciation as on the Federal schedule, including Sec. 179, others won't allow Sec. 179 at all. Specifically to PA, I haven't found any current guidance, but the rules from 2012 put PA in the bucket that requires you to take the same Sec. 179 on the State return as appears on your Federal return. If you elect to expense Section 179 Property for FIT purposes, you are   required to expense the property for PIT purposes. However PA limit for Sec. 179 is $25K, so if your Federal deduction is larger - you can depreciate the rest. Check with a PA-licensed CPA or EA for a more reliable opinion, since I'm not a tax adviser. Just googled it."}
{"question":"Should I exchange my Scottish pounds for English ones? ","answer":"Scottish banknotes are promissary notes of the banks issuing them. Their value will be paid in UK legal tender any time as long as the issuing bank is in business. So they are not going to lose value unless the issuing bank goes bakrupt. Scottish notes may be refused, outside of Scotland, at least, by merchants at their discretion. So if the vote goes the wrong way, merchants in England may refuse accepting these notes even if just to make a point. English notes (those issued by the Bank of England) are the actual UK legal tender. Wether you should change or not is up to you, I believe there's no immenent danger of them becoming worthless any time soon."}
{"question":"How do currency markets work? What factors are behind why currencies go up or down?","answer":"From my limited experience with foreign exchange... Money is a commodity.. people buy it and sell it like other products.. if \"money\" is in demand the price goes up.. this is the case when a countries stocks are hot, and you need to purchase that countries currency to buy that stock... I've also seen the currency rise on news and speculation.  Many years ago, I administered foreign receivables... My job was to settle letters of credit from Britain... I remember on one ocassion Margaret Thatcher said something to upset the markets.. her remark caused the price of the UK pound to fluctuate."}
{"question":"What is a maximum amount that I can wire transfer out of US?","answer":"The limit, if any, would be established by your financial institutions. You would need to contact both your sending and receiving bank to ascertain any limitation they impose on wire transfers. Generally, taxes aren't imposed on transference of funds between accounts you own, but I'm not familiar with tax in Thailand and I could be wrong on that half of the question."}
{"question":"What kind of trade is this?","answer":"A limit order is simply an order to buy at a maximum price or sell at a minimum price. For example, if the price is $100 and you want to sell if the price rises to $110, then you can simply put a limit order to sell at $110. The order will be placed in the market and when the price reaches $110 your order will be executed. If the price gaps at the open to $111, then you would end up selling for $111. In other words you will get a minimum of $110 per share. A stop limit order is where you put a stop loss order, which when it gets triggered, will place a limit order in the market for you. For example, you want to limit your losses by placing a stop loss order if the price drops to $90. If you chose a market order with your stop loss as soon as the price hits $90 your stop loss would be triggered and the shares would sell at the next available price, usually at $90, but could be less if the market gaps down past $90. If on the other hand you placed a limit order at $89.50 with your stop loss, when the stop loss order gets triggered at $90 your limit order will be placed into the market to sell at $89.50. So you would get a minimum of $89.50 per share, however, if the market gaps down below $89.50 your order will be placed onto the market but it won't sell, unless the price goes back to or above $89.50. Hope this helps."}
{"question":"Expensive agenda book\/organizer. Office expense or fixed asset?","answer":"I cannot imagine an organizer being worth enough to consider depreciating the expense over a period of time greater than one year. Also, once you write in an organizer, it's pretty much worthless to anyone else. Talk to your accountant if you'd like, but I cannot see how you would classify a fancy organizer as a fixed asset."}
{"question":"How do brokers make money from margin accounts?","answer":"Your broker will charge you commissions and debit interest on your \"overdraft\" of $30,000. However it is very likely that your contract with the broker also contains a rehypothecation clause which allows your broker to use your assets. Typically, with a debt of $30,000, they would probably be entitled to use $45-60,000 of your stocks. In short, that means that they would be allowed to \"borrow\" the stocks you just bought from your account and either lend them to other clients or pledge them as collateral with a bank and receive interest. In both cases they will make money with your stocks. See for example clause #14 of this typical broker's client agreement. Applied to your example: In other words they will make $60 + $450 + $1,800 = $2,310 the first year. If the stock is expensive to borrow and they manage to lend it, they will make a lot more. There are by the way a few important consequences:"}
{"question":"Should I Have Received a 1099-G?","answer":"When you itemize your deductions, you get to deduct all the state income tax that was taken out of your paycheck last year (not how much was owed, but how much was withheld). If you deducted this last year, then you need to add in any amount that you received in state income tax refunds last year to your taxes this year, to make up for the fact that you ended up deducting more state income tax than was really due to the state.  If you took the standard deduction last year instead of itemizing, then you didn't deduct your state income tax withholding last year and you don't need to claim your refund as income this year. Also, if you itemized, but chose to take the state sales tax deduction instead of the state income tax deduction, you also don't need to add in the refund as income.  For whatever reason, Illinois decided that you don't get a 1099-G. It might be that the amount of the refund was too small to warrant the paperwork. It might be that they screwed up. But if you deducted your state income tax withholding on last year's tax return, then you need to add the state tax refund you got last year on line 10 of this year's 1040, whether or not the state issued you a form or not.  Take a look at the Line 10 instructions  starting on page 22 of the 1040 instructions to see if you have any unusual situations covered there that you didn't mention here. (For example, if you received a refund check for multiple years last year.) Then check your tax return from last year to verify that you deducted your state income tax withholding on Schedule A. If you did, then this year add the refund you got from the state to line 10 of this year's 1040."}
{"question":"Combined annual contribution limits for individuals [duplicate]","answer":"Your contribution limit to a 401(k) is $18,000.  Your employer is allowed to contribute to your 401(k), usually a \"matching contribution\".  That matching contribution comes from your employer, so is not subject to your personal contribution limit. A contribution to a regular 401(k) is typically made with pre-tax money (i.e. you don't pay payroll taxes on the money you contribute) so you pay less taxes for the current tax year.  However when you retire and you take money out, you pay taxes on the money you take out.  On one hand, your tax rate may be lower when you have retired, but on the other hand, if your investments have appreciated over time, the total amount of tax you pay would be higher. If your company offers a Roth 401(k) plan, you can contribute $18,000 of after tax money.  This way you pay the tax on the $18,000 today, as you would if you did not put the money in the 401(k), but when you take the money out at retirement, you would not have to pay tax.  In my opinion, that serves as a way to pay effectively more money into your 401(k). Some firms put vesting provisions on the amount that they match in your 401(k), e.g. 4 years at 25% per year.  So you have to work 1 full year to be entitled to 25% of their matching contribution, 2 years for 50%, and 4 years to receive all of it.  Check your company's Summary Plan Description of the 401(k) to be sure. You are not allowed to invest pre-tax money into a Traditional IRA if you are already contributing to a 401(k) plan and have reached the income limits ($62,000 AGI for single head of household). You are allowed to contribute post-tax money to a Traditional IRA plan if you have already contributed to a 401(k), which you can then Roll-over into a Roth IRA (look up 'backdoor IRA'). The IRA contribution limit applies to all IRA accounts over that calendar year.  You could put some money in a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, another traditional IRA, etc. so long as the total amount is not more than the contribution limit. This gives you an upper limit of 5.5k + 18k = 23.5 investments in retirement accounts. Note however, once you reach age 50, these limits increase to 6.5k (IRA) + 24k (401(k)).  They also are adjusted periodically with the rate of inflation. The following approach may be more efficient for building wealth: This ordering is the subject of debate and people have different opinions. There is a separate discussion of these priorities here:  Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career? Note however, a 401(k) loan becomes payable if you leave your company, and if not repaid, is an unauthorised distribution from your 401k (and therefore subject to an additional 10% tax penalty). You should also be careful putting money into an IRA, as you will be subject to an additional 10% tax penalty if you take out the money (distribution) before retirement, unless one of the exceptions defined by the IRA applies (e.g. $10,000 for first time home purchase), which could wipe out more than any gains you made by putting it in there in the first place. Your specific circumstances may vary, so this approach may not be best for you.  A registered financial advisor may be able to help - ensure they are legitimate: https:\/\/adviserinfo.sec.gov"}
{"question":"What things are important to consider when investing in one's company stock?","answer":"You really have asked two different questions here: I'm interested in putting away some money for my family Then I urge you to read up on investing. Improving your knowledge in investing is an investment that will very likely pay off in the long-term - this can't be answered here in full length, pointers to where to start are asset allocation and low-cost index funds. Read serious books, read stackexchange posts, and try avoid the Wall Street marketing machine. Also, before considering any long term investments, build an emergency fund (e.g. 6 months worth of your expenses) in case you need some liquid money (loss of job etc.), and also helps you sleep better at night. What things are important to consider before making this kind of investment? Mainly the risk (other answers already elaborate on the details).  Investing in a single stock is quite risky, even more so when your income also depends on that company. Framed another way: which percentage of your portfolio should you put into a single stock? (which has been answered in this post). If after considering all things you think it's a good deal, take the offer, but don't put a too great percentage of you overall savings into it, limit it to say 10% (maybe even less)."}
{"question":"Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]","answer":"Supply and Demand, pure and simple! There are two basic forms of this - a change in the quantity demanded\/supplied at any given price, and a true change in the amount of demand\/supply itself. Please note that this can be distinct from the underlying change in the value of the company and\/or its expected future cash flows, which are a function of both financial performance and future expectations. If more people want the stock that are willing to sell it at a given price at a given point in time, sellers will begin to offer the stocks at higher prices until the market is no longer willing to bear the new price, and vice versa. This will reduce the quantity of stocks demanded by buyers until the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied once again reach an equilibrium, at which point a transaction occurs. Because people are motivated to buy and sell for different reasons at different times, and because people have different opinions on a constant flow of new information, prices change frequently. This is one of the reasons why executives of a recent IPO don't typically sell all of their stock at once. In addition to legal restrictions and the message this would send to the market, if they flooded the market with additional quantities of stock supplied, all else being equal, since there is no corresponding increase in the quantity demanded, the price would drop significantly. Sometimes, the demand itself for a company's stock shifts. Unlike a simple change in price driven by quantity supplied versus quantity demanded, this is a more fundamental shift. For example, let's suppose that the current demand for rare earth metals is driven by their commercial applications in consumer electronics. Now if new devices are developed that no longer require these metals, the demand for them will fall, regardless of the actions of individual buyers and sellers in the market. Another example is when the \"rules of the game\" for an industry change dramatically. Markets are behavioral. In this sense prices are most directly driven by human behavior, which hopefully is based on well-informed opinions and facts. This is why sometimes the price keeps going up when financial performance decreases, and why sometimes it does not rise even while performance is improving. This is also why some companies' stock continues to rise even when they lose huge sums of money year after year. The key to understanding these scenarios is the opinions and expectations that buyers and sellers have of that information, which is expressed in their market behavior."}
{"question":"Is the MBA an overrated degree\/qualification? ","answer":"For some situations, an MBA can be overrated in the sense that given the cost of time and money, it isn't going to be a great return in some cases. There can be tens of thousands of dollars and a couple of years to get an MBA that some people believes should automatically make them worth $x more in their salary and life should be simple. I'd likely inquire as to what expectations do you have for what an MBA will do for you. Are you expecting to make connections in getting the degree? Are you expecting to learn about how to run a business from the coursework? Are you expecting something else? Depending on what you are expecting, I could see MBA as being anything from a great choice to a lousy choice for people. As noted by Pete Belford's comment, an MBA from a \"degree mill\" would be all but worthless. Where you go can reflect the value of the education as some universities are known for their program about this such as Ivy League schools."}
{"question":"Why would preferred shares have less potential for capital gain compared to common stock?","answer":"I once bought both preferred and common shares in a bankrupt company.  It is true that those preferred shares had less potential for appreciation than the common shares.  The reason is because the preferred shares were trading around $50 and had a face value of $1000.  This means that if the bankruptcy proceedings ended up finding enough assets to make the preferred shares whole, then the preferred shareholders would be paid $1000 per share and no more than that.  So if you bought the preferred shares at $50 and received $1000 per share for them, then you made a 1900% gain. But if the bankruptcy proceedings found enough assets to pay not just the preferred shareholders but also the common shareholders, then the common shareholders had the potential for a greater gain than the preferred shareholders.  The common stock was trading around 20 cents at the time, and if enough assets were found to pay $10 per share to the common shareholders, then that would have been a 4900% gain.  The preferred shares were capped by their face value, but the common shares had no limit on how high they could go."}
{"question":"Tax implications of having some self-employment income?","answer":"You would put your earnings (and expenses, don't forget) on Schedule C, and then do a Schedule SE for self-employment tax. http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small\/article\/0,,id=98846,00.html 1040ES isn't used to compute taxes, it's used to pay taxes. Generally you are supposed to pay taxes as you go, rather than when you file. There are exceptions where you won't be penalized for paying when you file, \"most taxpayers will avoid this penalty if they owe less than $1,000 in tax after subtracting their withholdings and credits, or if they paid at least 90% of the tax for the current year, or 100% of the tax shown on the return for the prior year, whichever is smaller\" from http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/taxtopics\/tc306.html  i.e. there's a safe harbor as long as you pay as much as you owed the year before. If you owe a lot at the end of the year a second time in a row, then you get penalized."}
{"question":"When is it better to rent and when is better buy in a certain property market?","answer":"Besides the long-term concern about which is cheaper, which has already been addressed by other answers, consider your risk exposure. Owning property has financial risks associated with it, just like owning stocks or bonds. The risk-related downsides of owning a home as an asset include: The risk-related upsides of owning a home as an asset include: Taking on some risk can save you (or earn you) money in the long run (that's why people buy risky stocks, after all) but consider how well you're equipped to handle that risk before you rush out to buy on a naive analysis of what's cheaper."}
{"question":"Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?","answer":"Lotteries are like the inverse of insurance policies. Instead of paying money to mitigate the impact of an unlikely event which is extremely negative, you are paying money to obtain a chance of experiencing an unlikely event which is extremely positive. One thing to keep in mind regarding lotteries is the diminishing marginal utility of money. If you know you'll never use more than say $100 million in your entire life, no matter how much money you might acquire, then buying tickets for lotteries where the grand prize is over $100 million stops being increasingly \"worth the price of entry\". Personally, I'd rather play a lottery where the grand prize is sub-100 million, and where there are no prizes which are sub-1 million, because I do not believe that any other amounts of winnings are going to be life-changing for me in a way that I am likely to fully appreciate."}
{"question":"Is it a good practice to keep salary account and savings account separate?","answer":"Well the idea of 'good practice' is subjective so obviously there won't be an objectively correct answer. I suspect that whatever article you read was making this recommendation as a budgeting tool to physically isolate your reserve of cash from your spending account(s) as a means to keep spending in check. This is a common idea that I've heard often enough, though I don't think I am alone in believing that it's unnecessary except in the case of a habitual spender who cannot be trusted to stay within a budget.  I suppose there is a very small argument to be made about security where if you use a bank account for daily spending and that account is somehow compromised, the short-term damage is limited. In the end, I would argue that if you're in control of spending and budgeting, have a single source of income that is from regular employment, and you use a credit card for most of your daily spending, there's no compelling reason to have more than one bank account.  Some people have a checking and savings account simply for the psychological effect of separating their money, some couples have 3-4 accounts for income, personal spending, and savings, other people have separate accounts for business\/self-employment funds, and a few people like having many accounts that act as hard limits for spending in different categories. Of course, the other submitted answer is correct in noting that the more accounts that you have, the more you are opening yourself up to accounting issues if funds don't transfer the way you expect them to (assuming you're emptying the accounts often). Some banks are more lenient with this, however, and may offer you the option to freely 'overdraft' by pulling funding from another pre-designated account that you also hold at the same bank."}
{"question":"What IT form to use in India?","answer":"As you have income from Business \/ Profession, you would need to use form ITR4S"}
{"question":"How should we organize our finances to effectively plan and prepare for an retirement in next 10 years?","answer":"The biggest issue is your lack of diversification.  Your real estate investments have performed quite well so far, but you have also likely enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth that is not sustainable. In the long term, stocks have always outperformed real estate investments, which tend to track more closely to the inflation rate. You need more balance for when when the real estate market cools off. You don't mention tax-deferred retirement savings accounts. You should prioritize your attention to these to keep your income tax low. Consider selling one of your investment properties if you can't adequately fund the 401k."}
{"question":"Is real (physical) money traded during online trading?","answer":"When you buy a currency via FX market, really you are just exchanging one country's currency for another. So if it is permitted to hold one currency electronically, surely it must be permitted to hold a different country's currency electronically."}
{"question":"Buy or sell futures contracts","answer":"We struck a deal. I sold an asset to some body on june 1 . However he says, he would pay me any time on or before august 1st . This puts me in a dilemma.  What if price goes down by august 1st and i would have to accept lower payment from him.? If price goes up till august 1st, then obviously i make money since ,even though item is sold,price is yet to be fixed between parties. However i know anytime on or before august 1st, i would get paid the price quoted on that particular day. This price could be high in my favor, or low against me. And, this uncertainty is causing me sleepless nights. i went to futures market exchange. My item (sugar,gold,wheat,shares etc..anything). i short sell a futures which just happens to be equivalent to the quantity of my amount i sold to the acquirer of my item. I shorted at $ 100 , with expiry on august 1st. Now fast orward and august 1st comes. price is $ 120 quoted . lets Get paid from the guy who was supposed to pay on or before august 1st. He  pays 120 $. his bad luck, he should have paid us 100 $ on june 1st instead of waiting for august 1st . His judgement of price movement faulted. WE earned 20 $ extra than we expected to earn on june 1st (100$) . However the futures short of 100$ is now 120$ and you must exit your position by purchasing it at back. sell at 100$ and buy at 120$ = loss of 20$ . Thus 20 $ gained from selling item is forwarded to exchange . Thus we had hedged our position on june 1st and exit the hedge by august 1st. i hope this helps"}
{"question":"why do I need an emergency fund if I already have investments?","answer":"There are a few major risks to doing something like that. First, you should never invest money you can't afford to lose. An emergency fund is money you can't afford to lose - by definition, you may need to have quick access to that money. If you determine that you need, for example, $3000 in emergency savings, that means that you need to have at least $3000 at all times - if you lose $500, then you now only have $2500 in emergency savings. Imagine what could've happened if you had invested your emergency savings during the 2008 crash, for example; you could easily have been in a position where you lost both your job and a good portion of your emergency savings at the same time, which is a terrible position to be in. If the car breaks down, you can't really say \"now's a bad time, wait until the stock market bounces back.\" Second, with brokerage accounts, there may be a delay before you can actually access the money or transfer it to an account that you can actually withdraw cash from or write checks against (but some of this depends on the exact arrangement you have with your bank). This can be a problem if you're in a situation where you need immediate access to the money - if your furnace breaks in the middle of winter, you probably don't want to wait a few days for the sale and transfer to go through before you can have it fixed. Third, you can be forced to sell the investments at an unfavorable price because you're not sure when you're going to need it. You'd also likely incur trading fees and\/or early withdrawal penalties when you tried to withdraw the money. Think about it this way: if you buy a bond that matures in 5 years, you're effectively betting that you won't have an emergency for the next 5 years. If you do, you'll have to either sell the bond or, if you're allowed to get the money back early, you'll likely forfeit a good amount of the interest you earned in the process (which kind of kills the point of buying the bond in the first place). Edit: As @Barmar pointed out in the comments, you may also have to pay taxes on the profits if you sell at a favorable price. In the U.S. at least, capital gains on stuff held for less than a year is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate and stuff held longer than a year is taxed at the long-term capital gains tax rate. So, if you hold the investment for less than a year, you're opening yourself up to the risks of short-term stock fluctuations as well as potential tax penalties, so if you put your emergency fund in stocks you're essentially betting that you won't have an emergency that year (which by definition you can't know). The purpose of an emergency fund is just that - to be an emergency fund. Its purpose isn't really to make money."}
{"question":"How can I find a lost 401K from a past employer?","answer":"The Employee Benefits Security Administration within the US Department of Labor is tasked with keeping track of pension and 401K programs. The even have a website to search for abandoned plans: it helps participants and others find out whether a particular plan is in the process of being, or has been, terminated and the name of the Qualified Termination Administrator (QTA) responsible for the termination.  The Employee Benefits Security Administration discuss all types of details regarding retirement programs. This document What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan has a lot of details including this: If your former employer has gone out of business, arrangements should   have been made so a plan official remains responsible for the payment   of benefits and other plan business. If you are entitled to benefits   and are unable to contact the plan administrator, contact EBSA   electronically at askebsa.dol.gov or by calling toll free at   1-866-444-3272. There are also EBSA offices spread thought the United States"}
{"question":"In the stock market, why is the \"open\" price value never the same as previous day's \"close\"?","answer":"The two answers so far are right, but there's a third factor - for many stocks, there's after hours trading. So the official 4PM close is not what the stock's last trade was when they open again. Regardless, even that after hour price is not the starting point as Muro points out."}
{"question":"I may earn a lot of cash soon through self-employment on a lucrative project.  How to handle the tax?","answer":"Seek professional advice as duffbeer703 has suggested already.  Very important! Consider incorporating.  If your income will fluctuate year to year, you can keep profit in the corporation, taxed in its hands at the Canadian small business rate, since such corporate income below $500,000 would likely qualify for the small business deduction. You could pay  retained earnings to yourself as dividends over more than one year in order to lessen the personal tax burden. If you don't incorporate, all your profits in the year they are earned are taxed at personal income tax rates, and with our progressive income tax system, taking the tax hit all in one year can be expensive.  However, if this project is a one-off and you're not likely to continue working like this, you might not want the overhead of a corporation.  Taxes aside, there are also legal issues to consider vis-a-vis incorporating, or not. A professional can help you make this decision.   Yes, you can claim deductions for reasonable business expenses, whether or not you are incorporated. No, you can't do free work on the side and claim it as donations.  It's nice to volunteer, but you wouldn't get a charitable tax credit for your time, only for money or goods donated. Consider opening an RRSP so you can start saving for retirement and get a tax deduction for any contributions you make.  This is but one strategy to reduce your tax.  There are others.  For instance, if you are a student, you perhaps have some unused tuition credits that you could claim in your first year with higher income. Oh, and seek professional advice! \u00a0 ;-)"}
{"question":"Saving for a down payment on a new house, a few years out. Where do we put our money next?","answer":"In October 2011 in the United States, you just don't have any options.  Save your money in a savings account and that is the best you can do.  Your desire to buy a house means you are a saver not an investor, and you risk tolerance on this pile of money is 0. Save it in a bank account; I highly doubt chasing an interest rate will pay off with any significance. (being highly dependent on your opinion of significant)"}
{"question":"What should I do with my money?","answer":"My advice would be to invest that 50k in 25% batches across 4 different money markets. Batch 1: Lend using a peer-to-peer account - 12.5k The interest rates offered by banks aren't that appealing to investors anymore, at least in the UK. Peer to peer lending brokers such as ZOPA provide 5% to 6%  annual returns if you're willing to hold on to your investment for a couple of years. Despite your pre-conceptions, these investments are relatively safe (although not guaranteed - I must stress this). Zopa state on their website that they haven't lost any money provided from their investors since the company's inception 10 years ago, and have a Safeguard trust that will be used to pay out investors if a large number of borrowers defaulted. I'm not sure if this service is available in Australia but aim for an interest rate of 5-6% with a trusted peer-to-peer lender that has a strong track record. Batch 2: The stock market - 12.5k An obvious choice. This is by far the most exciting way to grow your money. The next question arising from this will likely be \"how do I pick stocks?\". This 12.5k needs to be further divided into 5 or so different stocks. My strategy for picking stock at the current time will be to have 20% of your holdings in blue-chip companies with a strong track record of performance, and ideally, a dividend that is paid bi-anually\/quarterly. Another type of stock that you should invest in should be companies that are relatively newly listed on the stock market, but have monopolistic qualities - that is - that they are the biggest, best, and only provider of their new and unique service. Examples of this would be Tesla, Worldpay, and Just-eat. Moreover, I'd advise another type of stock you should purchase be a 'sin stock' to hedge against bad economic times (if they arise). A sin stock is one associated with sin, i.e. cigarette manufacturers, alcohol suppliers, providers of gambling products. These often perform good while the economy is doing well, but even better when the economy experiences a 2007-2008, and 2001-dotcom type of meltdown. Finally, another category I'd advise would be large-cap energy provider companies such as Exxon Mobil, BP, Duke Energy - primarily because these are currently cheaper than they were a few months ago - and the demand for energy is likely to grow with the population (which is definitely growing rapidly). Batch 3: Funds - 12.5k Having some of your money in Funds is really a no-brainer. A managed fund is traditionally a collection of stocks that have been selected within a particular market. At this time, I'd advise at least 20% of the 12.5k in Emerging market funds (as the prices are ridiculously low having fallen about 60% - unless China\/Brazil\/India just self destruct or get nuked they will slowly grow again within the next 5 years - I imagine quite high returns can be had in this type of funds). The rest of your funds should be high dividend payers - but I'll let you do your own research. Batch 4: Property - 12.5k The property market is too good to not get into, but let's be honest you're not going to be able to buy a flat\/house\/apartment for 12.5k. The idea therefore would be to find a crowd-funding platform that allows you to own a part of a property (alongside other owners). The UK has platforms such as Property Partner that are great for this and I'm sure Australia also has some such platforms. Invest in the capital city in areas as close to the city's center as possible, as that's unlikely to change - barring some kind of economic collapse or an asteroid strike. I think the above methods of investing provide the following: 1) Diversified portfolio of investments 2) Hedging against difficult economic times should they occur And the only way you'll lose out with diversification such as this is if the whole economic system collapses or all-out nuclear war (although I think your investments will be the least of your worries in a nuclear war). Anyway, this is the method of investing I've chosen for myself and you can see my reasoning above. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions."}
{"question":"Taxes and withholding on unpaid salary","answer":"As others have said, make sure you can and do file your taxes on a cash basis (not accrual). It sounds like it's very unlikely the company is going to issue you a 1099 for invoices they never paid you. So you just file last year's taxes based on your income, which is the money you actually received. If they do pay you later, in the new year, you'll include that income on next year's tax return, and you would expect a 1099 at that time. Side note: not getting paid is unfortunately common for consultants and contractors. Take the first unpaid invoice and sue them in small claims court. After you win (and collect!), tell them you'll sue them for each unpaid invoice in turn until they pay you in full. (You might need to break up the lawsuits like that to remain under the small claims limit.)"}
{"question":"Why do US retirement funds typically have way more US assets than international assets?","answer":"To expand a bit on @MSalters's answer ... When I read your question title I assumed that by \"retirement funds\" you meant target-date funds that are close to their target dates (say, the 2015 target fund).  When I saw that you were referring to all target-date funds, it occurred to me that examining how such funds modify their portfolios over time would actually help answer your question. If you look at a near-term target fund you can see that a smaller percent is invested internationally, the same way a smaller percent is invested in stocks.  It's because of risk.  Since it's more likely that you will need some of the money soon, and since you'll be cashing out said money in US Dollars, it's risky to have too much invested in foreign currencies.  If you need money that's currently invested in a foreign currency and that currency happens to be doing poorly against USD at the moment, then you'll lose money simply because you need it now. This is the same rationale that goes into target-date funds' moving from stocks to bonds over time.  Since the value of a stock portfolio has a lot more natural volatility than the value of a bond portfolio, if you're heavily invested in stocks when you need to withdraw money, there's a higher probability that you'll need to cash out just when stocks happen to be doing relatively poorly.  Being invested more in bonds around when you'll need your money is less risky. Similarly, being more invested in US dollars than in foreign currencies around when you'll need your money is also less risky."}
{"question":"$200k in an IRA, unallocated. What's the safest investment?","answer":"if you don't intent to touch the money for 10 years or longer, then dumping 100% into a low-expense-ratio index fund seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. it is simple, low maintenance and fairly mindless. just remember to reinvest the dividends occasionally (e.g. every 6 months).  however, if you are the kind of person who is going to lose their nerve when the market goes down 30%, then putting some of your money into a bond index fund or even a treasury note fund would be better than selling stock in a down market. just figure out how much of your portfolio you are comfortable losing, and put that in stocks.  then put the rest in some stable value fund and watch it's value get slowly washed away by inflation while your stock investments rise through violent swings."}
{"question":"Which U.S. online discount broker is the best value for money?","answer":"If you have at least $25,000, Wells Fargo is the place to be, as you get 100 free trades per account. I have three investment accounts with them and get 100 free trades in each a year, though I only ever actually use 10-20. i can't vouch for their phone service as I've never needed it, but free is very hard to beat in the \"value for money\" department. Update: Apparently in some states the requirement is $50,000. However, they count 10% of your mortgage as well as all deposit and investment accounts toward that balance."}
{"question":"How exactly does dealing in stock make me money?","answer":"This is a very good question! The biggest difference is that when you put money in a savings bank you are a lender that is protected by the government, and when you buy stocks you become an owner. As a lender, whether the bank makes or loses money on the loans it makes, they still maintain your balance and pay you interest, and your principal balance is guaranteed by the government (in the USA). The bank is the party that is primarily at risk if their business does not perform well. As an owner, you participate fully in the company's gains and losses, but you also put your money at risk, since if the company loses money, you do too. Because of this, many people prefer to buy funds made up of many stocks, so they are not at risk of one company performing very poorly or going bankrupt. When you buy stock you become a part owner and share in the profitability of the company, often through a dividend. You should also be aware that stocks often have years where they do very poorly as well as years when they do very well. However, over a long period of time (10 years or more), they have historically done better in outpacing inflation than any other type of investment. For this reason, I would recommend that you only invest in the stock market if you expect to be able to leave the money there for 10 years or more, ideally, and for 5 years at the very least. Otherwise, you may need to take the money out at a bad time. I would also recommend that you only invest in stocks if you already have an emergency fund, and don't have consumer debt. There isn't much point in putting your money at risk to get a return if you can get a risk-free return by paying off debt, or if you would have to pull your money back out if your car broke down or you lost your job."}
{"question":"Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?","answer":"Nah. Fill it in on the line that says \"Other Income\" with type of \"5th Amendment\". There's lots of reasons why you might want to do this, and it's the government's job to find out which one, and they're not allowed to use the bare fact that you put 5th Amendment there to open an investigation."}
{"question":"Can I lose more on Forex than I deposit?","answer":"If you don't use leverage you can't lose more than you invested because you \"play\" with your own money. But even with leverage when you reach a certain limit (maintenance margin) you will receive a margin call from your broker to add more funds to your account. If you don't comply with this (meaning you don't add funds) the broker will liquidate some of the assets (in this case the currency) and it will restore the balance of the account to meet with his\/her maintenance margin. At least, this is valid for assets like stocks and derivatives. Hope it helps! Edit: I should mention that"}
{"question":"I want to invest in Gold. Where do I go and buy it?","answer":"I do not know anything about retail investing in India, since I am in the US. However, there are a couple of general things to keep in mind about gold that should be largely independent of country. First, gold is not an investment. Aside from a few industrial uses, it has no productive value. It is, at best, a hedge against inflation, since many people feel more comfortable with what they consider \"real\" money that is not subject to what seems to be arbitrary creation by central banks. Second, buying tiny amounts of gold as coin or bullion from a retail dealer will always involve a fairly significant spread from the commodity spot price. The spot price only applies to large transactions. Retail dealers have costs of doing business that necessitate these fees in order for them to make a profit. You must also consider the costs of storing your gold in a way that mitigates the risk of theft. (The comment by NL7 is on this point. It appeared while I was typing this answer.) You might find this Planet Money piece instructive on the process, costs, and risks of buying gold bullion (in the US). If you feel that you must own gold as an inflation hedge, and it is possible for residents of India, you would be best off with some kind of gold fund that tracks the price of bullion."}
{"question":"Priced out of London property market. What are my accommodation investment options?","answer":"Be radical! (I assume you are not working for a city bank getting paid \"city wages\" \u2013 e.g. you are one of the 99% of people in London or more \"normal\" income.) House prices and rents in London and anywhere within reasonable commuting distances are now so high that couples in reasonable jobs often have to rent rooms in shared houses (HMOs).   This is due to so many people wishing to live\/work in London and there not being enough new homes built.  If you are looking at buying a property to rent out, you need the rent to be about double the interest payments on the mortgage \u2013 otherwise you will not be able to afford repairs, or cope when interest rates increase \u2013 (you could also get a tax bill that is more the your profit).   Finding such a property is very hard in London, as the prices of homes have gone up a lot more in London then rents have.     There are still some flats where the rent will cover the landlord\u2019s costs, but not many.   (Any landlord that brought more than a few years ago, is making a very nice profit in London, as the rents have gone up a lot since they brought \u2013 but are you willing to bet your life on the rents going up even more?) Moving a short distance out of London, does not help much. So look at somewhere like Manchester or Birmingham"}
{"question":"Tax implications of diversification","answer":"(All for US.) Yes you (will) have a realized long-term capital gain, which is taxable. Long-term gains (including those distributed by a mutual fund or other RIC, and also 'qualified' dividends, both not relevant here) are taxed at lower rates than 'ordinary' income but are still bracketed almost (not quite) like ordinary income, not always 15%. Specifically if your ordinary taxable income (after deductions and exemptions, equivalent to line 43 minus LTCG\/QD) 'ends' in the 25% to 33% brackets, your LTCG\/QD income is taxed at 15% unless the total of ordinary+preferred reaches the top of those brackets, then any remainder at 20%. These brackets depend on your filing status and are adjusted yearly for inflation, for 2016 they are: * single 37,650 to 413,350 * married-joint or widow(er) 75,300 to 413,350 * head-of-household 50,400 to 441,000 (special) * married-separate 37,650 to 206,675 which I'd guess covers at least the middle three quintiles of the earning\/taxpaying population.  OTOH if your ordinary income ends below the 25% bracket, your LTCG\/QD income that 'fits' in the lower bracket(s) is taxed at 0% (not at all) and only the portion that would be in the ordinary 25%-and-up brackets is taxed at 15%. IF your ordinary taxable income this year was below those brackets, or you expect next year it will be (possibly due to status\/exemption\/deduction changes as well as income change), then if all else is equal you are better off realizing the stock gain in the year(s) where some (or more) of it fits in the 0% bracket. If you're over about $400k a similar calculation applies, but you can afford more reliable advice than potential dogs on the Internet. (update) Near dupe found: see also How are long-term capital gains taxed if the gain pushes income into a new tax bracket?  Also, a warning on estimated payments: in general you are required to pay most of your income tax liability during the year (not wait until April 15); if you underpay by more than 10% or $1000 (whichever is larger) you usually owe a penalty, computed on Form 2210 whose name(?) is frequently and roundly cursed. For most people, whose income is (mostly) from a job, this is handled by payroll withholding which normally comes out close enough to your liability. If you have other income, like investments (as here) or self-employment or pension\/retirement\/disability\/etc, you are supposed to either make estimated payments each 'quarter' (the IRS' quarters are shifted slightly from everyone else's), or increase your withholding, or a combination. For a large income 'lump' in December that wasn't planned in advance, it won't be practical to adjust withholding. However, if this is the only year increased, there is a safe harbor: if your withholding this year (2016) is enough to pay last year's tax (2015) -- which for most people it is, unless you got a pay cut this year, or a (filed) status change like marrying or having a child -- you get until next April 15 (or next business day -- in 2017 it is actually April 18) to pay the additional amount of this year's tax (2016) without underpayment penalty. However, if you split the gain so that both 2016 and 2017 have income and (thus) taxes higher than normal for you, you will need to make estimated payment(s) and\/or increase withholding for 2017. PS: congratulations on your gain -- and on the patience to hold anything for 10 years!"}
{"question":"Does it make sense to take out student loans to start an IRA?","answer":"IRA contributions are limited; you cannot \"dump the excess into a retirement account like an IRA\" if the excess is more than $5500. Furthermore, as @firefly points out, you need to have earned income (technical term is compensation and it includes self-employment income, not just wages) to contribute to an IRA, and the limit mentioned above is actually the lesser of your earned income and $5500. (There are other limitations for people with high gross income, but these likely will not affect you) On the positive side, if your earned income is small, you can contribute your entire taxable earned income including the money withheld by your employer for Social Security and Medicare tax and Federal, State and local income taxes to an IRA, not just your take-home pay. For example, if your earned income is $5500 and take-home pay after tax withholding is $5000, you are still entitled to contribute $5500. So, where do you get that withheld money from so that it can be put into your IRA? Well, it can come from the student loan or interest earned from a bank or from the dividends and capital gains on your investments, etc. Money is fungible; it is not the case that only the cash received (or deposited into your bank account) as your take-home pay can be contributed. Subject to other limitations mentioned, your earned income can be contributed, not just your take-home pay."}
{"question":"How should I handle student loans when leaving University and trying to buy a house?","answer":"One way to reduce the monthly payment due each month is to do everything to eliminate one of the loans. Make the minimum payment to the others, but put everything into eliminating one of the loans. Of course this assumes that you have separate loans for each year of school.  Make sure that in trying to get aggressive on the loan repayment that you don't neglect the saving for a down payment. Each dollar you can put down will save you money on the mortgage. It might also allow you to reduce the mortgage insurance payments. If you pay one student loan back aggressively but can't eliminate it you might be worse off because you spent your savings but it didn't help you qualify for the mortgage. One way to maximize the impact is to not make the extra payments until you are ready to apply for the mortgage. Ask the lender if you qualify with all the student loans, or if you need to eliminate one. If you don't need to eliminate a loan, then apply the extra funds to a larger down payment or pay points to reduce the interest rate."}
{"question":"MasterCard won't disclose who leaked my credit card details","answer":"File a John Doe lawsuit, \"plaintiff to be determined\", and then subpoena the relevant information from Mastercard.  John Doe doesn't countersue, so you're pretty safe doing this.  But it probably won't work.  Mastercard would quash your subpoena.  They will claim that you lack standing to sue anyone because you did not take a loss (which is a fair point).    They are after the people doing the hacking, and the security gaps which make the hacking possible.  And how those gaps arise among businesses just trying to do their best.  It's a hard problem.  And I've done the abuse wars professionally.  OpSec is a big deal.  You simply cannot reveal your methods or even much of your findings, because that will expose too much of your detection method.  The ugly fact is, the bad guys are not that far from winning, and catching them depends on them unwisely using the same known techniques over and over.  When you get a truly novel technique, it costs a fortune in engineering time to unravel what they did and build defenses against it.  If maybe 1% of attacks are this, it is manageable, but if it were 10%, you simply cannot staff an enforcement arm big enough - the trained staff don't exist to hire (unless you steal them from Visa, Amex, etc.)  So as much as you'd like to tell the public, believe me, I'd like to get some credit for what I've done -- they just can't say much or they educate the bad guys, and then have a much tougher problem later.  Sorry!  I know how frustrating it is! The credit card companies hammered out PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards).  This is a basic set of security rules and practices which should make hacking unlikely.  Compliance is achievable (not easy), and if you do it, you're off the hook.  That is one way Amy can be entirely not at fault.  Example deleted for length, but as a small business, you just can't be a PCI security expert.  You rely on the commitments of others to do a good job, like your bank and merchant account salesman.  There are so many ways this can go wrong that just aren't your fault.   As to the notion of saying \"it affected Amy's customers but it was Doofus the contractor's fault\", that doesn't work, the Internet lynch mob won't hear the details and will kill Amy's business. Then she's suing Mastercard for false light, a type of defamtion there the facts are true but are framed falsely.   And defamation has much more serious consequences in Europe.  Anyway, even a business not at fault has to pay for a PCI-DSS audit.  A business at fault has lots more problems, at the very least paying $50-90 per customer to replace their cards.  The simple fact is 80% of businesses in this situation go bankrupt at this point.   Usually fraudsters make automated attacks using scripts they got from others.  Only a few dozen attacks (on sites) succeed, and then they use other scripts to intercept payment data, which is all they want. They are cookie cutter scripts, and aren't customized for each site, and can't go after whatever personal data is particular to that site. So in most cases all they get is payment data. It's also likely that primary data, like a cloud drive, photo collection or medical records, are kept in completely separate systems with separate security, unlikely to hack both at once even if the hacker is willing to put lots and lots of engineering effort into it.  Most hackers are script kiddies, able to run scripts others provided but unable to hack on their own.   So it's likely that \"none was leaked\" is the reason they didn't give notification of private information leakage.  Lastly, they can't get what you didn't upload.  Site hacking is a well known phenomenon.  A person who is concerned with privacy is cautious to not put things online that are too risky.  It's also possible that this is blind guesswork on the part of Visa\/MC, and they haven't positively identified any particular merchant, but are replacing your cards out of an abundance of caution."}
{"question":"How can a 'saver' maintain or increase wealth in low interest rate economy?","answer":"Personally, I invest in mutual funds.  Quite a bit in index funds, some in capital growth & international."}
{"question":"Washington State tax filing extension?","answer":"Washington State doesn't have a state income tax for individuals, so unless you've got a business there's nothing to file. Find out more on their website."}
{"question":"S&P is consistently beating inflation?","answer":"TL;DR: Because stocks represent added value from corporate profits, and not the price the goods themselves are sold at. This is actually a very complicated subject.  But here's the simplest answer I can come up with.  Stocks are a commodity, just like milk, eggs, and bread.  The government only tracks certain commodities (consumables) as part of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).  These are generally commodities that the typical person will consume on a daily or weekly basis, or need to survive (food, rent, etc.).  These are present values. Stock prices, on the other hand, represent an educated guess (or bet) on a company's future performance.  If Apple has historically performed well, and analysts expect it to continue to perform, then investors will pay more for a stock that they feel will continue pay good dividends in the future.  Compound this with the fact that there is usually limited a supply of stock for a particular company (unless they issue more stock). If we go back to Apple as an example, they can raise their price they charge on an iPhone from $400 to $450 over the course of say a couple years.  Some of this may be due to higher wage costs, but efficiencies in the marketplace actually tend to drive down costs to produce goods, so they will probably actually turn a higher profit by raising their price, even if they have to pay higher wages (or possibly even if they don't raise their price!).  This, in economics, is termed value added. Finally, @Hart is absolutely correct in his comment about the stocks in the S&P 500 not being static.  Additionally, the S&P 500 is a hand picked set of \"winners\", if you will.  These are not run-of-the-mill penny stocks for companies that will be out of business in a week.  These are companies that Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC thinks will perform well."}
{"question":"Why do people use mortgages, when they could just pay for the house in full?","answer":"I believe the reason is because society and the economy is set up a certain way, and re-enforced by the government. Your options are: So, people usually go with the most attractive of their limited options, getting a mortgage. If you want to dig deeper, do some research as to why housing is expensive. Some things to consider: you need the government's permission to build houses, thus limiting the competition in the home building market, the housing bubble, artificially setting house prices, etc.) To summarize: people need mortgages because houses are expensive, and houses are expensive for many reasons, big ones having to do with the government."}
{"question":"How can I improve my auto insurance score?","answer":"As a recent college grad who switched to his own car insurance, many of the things I did myself are reflected here. The #1 thing I did was find out what coverages I had, what coverages some friends of mine had (car enthusiasts mostly - they're the most informed on this stuff), and then figured out what kind of coverages I wanted. From there, I went around getting quotes from anyone and everyone and eventually built out a sizeable spreadsheet that made it obvious which company was going to offer me the best rate at a given coverage level. Something else to remember - not all insurance companies look at past accidents and violations (speeding, etc) the same. In my search, I found some have a 3-year scope on accidents and violations, while others were as much as 5 years. So, if your driving record isn't a shining example (mine isn't perfect), you could potentially save money by considering insurance through a company that will see fewer violations\/incidents than another because of the size of their scope. I ended up saving $25\/mo by choosing a company that had a 3-year scope, which was on the cusp of when my last violation\/incident occurred. Insurance companies will also give out discounts for younger drivers based on GPA average. If you have kids and they maintain a high GPA, you might be able to get a discount there. Not all companies offer it, so if they do it's worth finding out how much it is"}
{"question":"Some U.S. Tax Questions (CPA Concerns)","answer":"He has included this on Schedule D line 1a, but I don't see any   details on the actual transaction. It is reported on form 8949. However, if it is fully reported in 1099-B (with cost basis), then you don't have to actually detail every position. Turbotax asked me to fill in individual stock sales with proceeds and cost basis information. ... Again, it seems to be documented on Schedule D in boxes 1a and 8a. See above. I received a 1099-Q for a 529 distribution for a family member. It was   used for qualified expenses, so should not be taxable. Then there's nothing to report. I believe I paid the correct amounts based on my (possibly flawed) understanding of estimated taxes. His initial draft had me paying a penalty. I explained my situation for the year, and his next draft had the   penalties removed, with no documentation or explanation. IRS assesses the penalty. If you volunteer to pay the penalty, you can calculate it yourself and pay with the taxes due. Otherwise - leave it to the IRS to calculate and assess the penalty they deem right and send you a bill. You can then argue with the IRS about that assessment. Many times they don't even bother, if the amounts are small, so I'd suggest going with what the CPA did."}
{"question":"Can you buy gift cards at grocery store to receive a higher reward rate?","answer":"Understand that buying a Starbucks gift card at the grocery store to receive 6% back on your coffee rather than 6% back on your groceries is an exploit of a flaw in the benefits program, not a feature.  It's definitely not a blanket yes or no answer, the only way to find out is to try. Separately, I don't know why you would find this \"concerning.\"  This will vary greatly between merchants and cards.  There will always be new points churning exploits, they don't last forever and you can't expect every customer service rep to be well versed in methods employed to juice cardmember programs. Hell, a number of years ago one person figured out that he could buy rolls of $1 coins from the US treasury with free shipping and no additional fees.  This guy was literally buying thousands of dollars of cash each month to deposit and pay his credit card bill; completely against the terms of the treasury program for distributing the $1 coins.  A number of people had their cards and points\/cash back revoked for that one."}
{"question":"Construction loan for new house replacing existing mortgaged house?","answer":"So let's assume some values to better explain this.  For simplicity, all of these are in thousands: So in this example, you're going to destroy $250 in value, pay off the existing $150 loan and have to invest $300 in to build the new house and this example doesn't have enough equity to cover it.  You typically can't get a loan for much more than the (anticipated) property value. Basically, you need to get a construction loan to cover paying off the existing loan plus whatever you want to spend to pay for the new house minus whatever you're planning to contribute from savings.  This new loan will need to be for less than the new total market value.  The only way this will work out this way is if you bring significant cash to closing, or you owe less than the lot value on the current property. Note, that this is in effect a simplification.  You can spend less building a house than it's worth when you're done with it, etc., but this is the basic way it would work - or NOT work in most cases."}
{"question":"How should I begin investing real money as a student?","answer":"I like your enthusiasm and initiative. However, there are a few things you need to consider that you haven't yet thought about. First, it is important to remember that trading with fake money is not the same as trading with real money.  In the fake world, you have $100k.  With this fake money, you can do reckless things with it, such as put it all on one stock.  If you lose, it costs you nothing, so you don't have an emotional attachment to it.  With real money, it will feel different, and that is something you haven't experienced yet. Second, you mentioned that you are good at making picks.  With all due respect, I suggest that you aren't old enough to make that determination.  You haven't been trading for long enough to determine if you are doing well at it.  :)  That having been said, I don't want to completely discourage you from trying something new. Third, you mentioned long-term investing, but you also said that you need to make your money back quick and mentioned trading daily.  Those things aren't really compatible.  I wouldn't consider what you are doing as long-term investing.  With the type of investing you are doing, picking individual stocks and hoping for the value to go up in a relatively short time-frame, it is similar to gambling.  The risk of losing is very much there, and you shouldn't be investing money this way that you aren't prepared to lose.  If you need the money for something soon, don't put it in the stock market. Never forget this.  What can happen is that you start with small amounts of money, do well, and then, thinking that you are good at this, put in larger amounts of money.  You will eventually lose.  If you put in money that you need for something else, you have a problem. If you are trying this out for education and entertainment purposes, that is great.  But when it starts to get serious, make sure that you are aware of the risks.  Educate yourself and be smart. Here is what I would suggest: If you want to try this short-term day-trading type investing, and you understand that the money can easily be lost, I would balance that with investing in a more traditional way: Set aside an amount each month to put in a low-expense index mutual fund.  Doing this will have several benefits for you:  As for your specific questions about stock trading with small amounts: Yes, you can trade with small amounts; however, every time you trade, you will be paying a commission.  Even with a discount broker, if you are trading frequently, the commissions you will be paying will be very significant at the dollar amounts you are talking about.  The only way I can see around this would be to try the Robinhood app, which allows you to trade without paying sales commission.  I have no experience with that app."}
{"question":"Archive Financial Records by Account or by Year","answer":"The short answer is \"it depends\", mainly on the type of record and how old it is. Most retained records should be organized by year first, then by type. Have a look at this: http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/personal-finance\/how-long-to-keep-financial-records.aspx Typically, you should do the following:"}
{"question":"Shorting stocks: Indicators that a stock will drop?","answer":"The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn Stanley providers for many case studies about what kind of opportunities to look for from a fundamental analysis perspective. Typically things you can look for are financing terms that are not very favorable (expensive interest payments) as well as other constrictions on cash flow, arbitrary decisions by management (poor management), and dilution that doesn't make sense (usually another product of poor management). From a quantitative analysis perspective, you can gain insight by looking at the credit default swap rate history, if the company is listed in that market. The things that affect a CDS spread are different than what immediately affects share prices. Some market participants trade DOOMs over Credit Default Swaps, when they are betting on a company's insolvency. But looking at large trades in the options market isn't indicative of anything on its own, but you can use that information to help confirm your opinion. You can certainly jump on a trend using bad headlines, but typically by the time it is headline news, the majority of the downward move in the share price has already happened, or the stock opened lower because the news came outside of market hours. You have to factor in the short interest of the company, if the short interest is high then it will be very easy to squeeze the shorts resulting in a rally of share prices, the opposite of what you want. A short squeeze doesn't change the fundamental or quantitative reasons you wanted to short. The technical analysis should only be used to help you decide your entry and exit price ranges amongst an otherwise random walk. The technical rules you created sound like something a very basic program or stock screener might be able to follow, but it doesn't tell you anything, you will have to do research in the company's public filings yourself."}
{"question":"What's an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)?","answer":"Wikipedia has a fairly detailed explanation of ETFs.  http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Exchange-traded_fund"}
{"question":"Can a Roth IRA be used as a savings account?","answer":"Sounds like a bad idea. The IRA is built on the power of compounding. Removing contributions will hurt your retirement savings, and you will never be able to make that up. Instead, consider tax-free investments. State bonds, Federal bonds, municipal bonds, etc. For example, I invest in California muni bonds fund which gives me ~3-4% annual dividend income - completely tax free. In addition - there's capital appreciation of your fund holdings. There are risks, of course, for example rate changes will affect yields and capital appreciation, so consult with someone knowledgeable in this area (or ask another question here, for the basics). This will give you the same result as you're expecting from your Roth IRA trick, without damaging your retirement savings potential."}
{"question":"Do I have to pay tax on money I earn as a tutor?","answer":"You would be required to report it as self-employment income and pay tax accordingly.  It's up to you to keep proper records (like a receipt book, for example), especially when it comes to cash.  If you can't prove exactly how much you earned and the government decides to guess the amount for you then you won't like the outcome!"}
{"question":"Where to start with personal finance?","answer":"I've recommended this book a few times on this site, and I'm going to do it again. Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties by Beth Kobliner  Most of the personal finance advice books and blogs I have found focus too much on investing, or are more about \"lifestyle\" than finances, and left me unimpressed.  I like this book because it covers most of the major personal finance topics (budgets, rainy-day fund, insurance, retirement, and non-retirement investment).  I have not found another book that covers the topics as concisely as this one. It is no-nonsense, very light reading.  Even if you are not a book person, you can finish it in a weekend.  It is really geared for the young person starting their career. Not the most current book (pre real-estate boom), but the advice is still sound. Keep in mind that is is starting point, not the ultimate answer to all financial questions."}
{"question":"How quickly will the funds be available when depositing credit card checks?","answer":"For those who don't know, credit card checks are blank checks that your credit card company sends you.  When you fill them out and spend them, you are taking a cash advance on your credit card account.  You should be aware that taking a cash advance on your credit card normally has extra fees and finance charges above what you have with regular credit card transactions. That having been said, when you take one of these to your bank and try to deposit them, it is entirely up to bank policy how long they will make you wait to use these funds.  They want to be sure that it is a legitimate check and that it will be honored.  If your teller doesn't know the answer to that question, you'll need to find someone at the bank who does.  If you don't like the answer they give you, you'll need to find another bank. I would think that if the credit card is from Chase, and you are trying to deposit a credit card check into a Chase checking account, they should be able to do that instantly.  However, bank policy doesn't always make sense."}
{"question":"~$75k in savings - Pay off house before new home?","answer":"Congratulations on saving up $75,000.  That requires discipline and tenacity.  There are a lot of factors that would go into making your decision.   First and foremost is the security of the income stream you have now.  Being leveraged during times of hardship is not a pleasant experience.  Unexpected job losses can and do happen.  Only you can determine how secure your and your spouse's situation is.   Second, I would consider the job market in the location that you live.  If you live in a small town it will be hard to find income levels like you have now.  Rental properties are additional ties to an area.  Are you happy in the area in which you live?  If you were laid off are there opportunities in the same area.  Being a long distance landlord is again not a pleasant experience.  I can throw being forced to sell to relocate at a reduced price into this same bucket. Third, you need to have 3 to 6 months of expenses saved for emergencies.  This is in addition to having no consumer debt (credit cards, car loans, student loans).  $75,000 feels like a lot.  Life can throw you curve balls.  You need to be prepared for them because of the fundamental nature of Murphy's Law.  If you were to be a landlord you should err closer to the six month end of the scale.  I own two rentals and can speak to people being late a given month, heating and air problems, plumbing issues, washers and dryers breaking, weather related issues, and even a tenant leaving behind for truckloads of trash.  Over 20 years I guess I have seen it all.  A rental agency will only act as a minor buffer.   Fourth, your family situation is important.  I personally save 10% of my income for my child's education.  If you haven't started doing so or have different feelings on what you might contribute think about it before any financial move. Fifth, any mortgage payment you are making should be 25% or less than your take home pay for a 15 year fixed rate mortgage.  Anything less than 20% down and you start burning up money on PMI insurance.  'House Poor' is a term for people that make high incomes but have too much being spent for housing.  It is the cause of a lot of financial stress. Sixth, you need to save for retirement.  The absolute minimum I recommend is 15% of your income.  Even if the match is 6% you should invest the full 15% making it 21%.  Social Security is a scary thing and depending on it is not wise.  I think your income still qualifies you for contributions to a Roth IRA.  If you aren't personally contributing 15% do so before making a move. There is an old joke that homeless people who have a 0 net worth often are richer than people driving fancy cars and living in fancy houses.  Ultimately no one can tell you the right answer.  Every situation is unique.  You have a complex tapestry to your financial life that no else one knows."}
{"question":"Analyst estimates for an insurance company","answer":"Something to consider is how broad is Yahoo! Finance taking in their data for making some comparisons.  For example, did you look at the other companies in the same industry?  On the Industry page, the Top Life Insurance Companies by Market Cap are mostly British companies which could make things a bit different than you'd think. Another point is how this is just for one quarter which may be an anomaly as the data could get a bit awkward if some companies are just coming back to being profitable and could have what appears to be great growth but this is because their earnings grow from $.01\/share to $1\/share which is a growth of $10,000 percent as this is an increase of 100 times but really this may just be from various accounting charges the company had that hit its reserves and caused its earnings to dip temporarily."}
{"question":"Is it legal to sell my stock at any specified price to a specified person in US Market?","answer":"So I want to sell my 100 shares of AAPL to him at a price of 10 or   even 1 US Dollar. Is that legal\/allowed? Of course. It's your stocks - do with it what you want. if the two persons are not served by a same broker. You'll have to talk to your broker about the technicalities of the transaction. if the person who sell are US citizen and the person who buy are not, and and vice-versa Since you asked specifically about US citizenship, I'll assume you're in the US or the transaction is taking place in the US. Citizenship has nothing to do with it (except may be for economic sanctions against Russians or Iranians that may come into play). What is important is the tax residency status. Such a transfer is essentially a gift, and if you're a US tax resident (which doesn't correlate to your immigration status necessarily) - you'll have to deal with the gift tax consequences on the discount value. For example - you have 100 shares of AAPL which you sold to your friend for $1 each when the fair market value (FMV) was $501. So essentially, the friend got $50,100 value for $100. I.e.: $50K gift. Since this amount is above the annual $14K exemption - you'll have to deal with the gift tax and file gift tax return. There are also consequences for the capital gains tax for both you and your friend. I suggest you talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) about the specifics given your circumstances. If you (or the recipient) are also a foreign citizen\/tax resident - then that country's laws also may affect your situation."}
{"question":"Where to find detailed information about stock?","answer":"1. Most of the information you want can be found in the annual report of the company. Go to their official website, look for shareholders information and then download the annual report. This will answer: \"number of issued stock, voting rights, if there is more than one kind of stock, etc. In summary all the legal and formal details of a given stock. 2. After reading the annual report, check on investors websites to see if you can find analyst reports written on this company. You can sometimes find them in some free newsletters. These reports will complete the information you have found in the annual report like \"if the dividends are always paid, etc.\""}
{"question":"Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate]","answer":"This is ideal placement for your allocation to income investments or those with nonqualified dividends: bonds, REITS, MLPS, other partnerships, and so forth.  These are all taxed at income rate, generally throw off more income than capital gains, so you get the deferment without losing the cap gains rate."}
{"question":"Expecting to move in five years; how to lock mortgage rates?","answer":"First consider the basic case of what you are asking: you expect to have a future obligation to pay interest, and you are concerned that the rate when you pay it, will be higher than the rate today. In the simplest case, you could theoretically hedge that risk by buying an asset which pays the market interest rate. As the interest rate rises, increasing your costs, your return on this asset would also increase. This would minimize your exposure to interest rate fluctuations. There are of course two problems with this simplified solution:  (1) The reason you expect to pay interest, is because you need\/want to take on debt to purchase your house. To fully offset this risk by putting all your money in an asset which bears the market interest rate, would effectively be the same as just buying your house in cash. (2) The timing of the future outflow is a bit unique: you will be locking in a rate, in 5 years, which will determine the payments for the 5 years after that. So unless you own this interest-paying asset for that whole future duration, you won't immediately benefit. You also won't need \/ want to buy that asset today, because the rates from today to 2022 are largely irrelevant to you - you want something that directly goes against the prevailing mortgage interest rate in 2022 precisely. So in your specific case, you could in theory consider the following solution: You could short a coupon bond, likely one with a 10 year maturity date from today. As interest rates rise, the value of the coupon bond [for it's remaining life of 5 years], which has an implied interest rate set today, will drop. Because you will have shorted an asset dropping in value, you will have a gain. You could then close your short position when you buy your house in 5 years. In theory, your gain at that moment in time, would equal the present value of the rate differential between today's low mortgage rates and tomorrow's high interest rates. There are different ways mechanically to achieve what I mention above (such as buying forward derivative contracts based on interest rates, etc.), but all methods will have a few important caveats: (1) These will not be perfect hedges against your mortgage rates, unless the product directly relates to mortgage rates. General interest rates will only be a proxy for mortgage rates. (2) There is additional risk in taking this type of position. Taking a short position \/ trading on a margin requires you to make ongoing payments to the broker in the event that your position loses money. Theoretically those losses would be offset by inherent gains in the future, if mortgage rates stay low \/ go lower, but that offset isn't in your plan for 5 years. (3) 5 years may be too long of a timeline for you to accurately time the maturity of your 'hedge' position. If you end up moving in 7 years, then changes in rates between 2022-2024 might mean you lose on both your 'hedge' position and your mortgage rates. (4) Taking on a position like this will tie up your capital - either because you are directly buying an asset you believe will offset growing interest rates, or because you are taking on a margin account for a short position (preventing you from using a margin account for other investments, to the extent you 'max out' your margin limit). I doubt any of these solutions will be desirable to an individual looking to mitigate interest rate risk, because of the additional risks it creates, but it may help you see this idea in another light."}
{"question":"Double-entry bookkeeping: When selling an asset, does the money come from, Equity or Income?","answer":"It's better to use the accounting equation concept: Asset + Expenses = Capital + Liabilities + Income If you purchase an asset: Suppose you purchased a laptop of $ 500, then its journal will be: If you sell the same Laptop for $ 500, then its entry will be:"}
{"question":"When are equal-weighted index funds \/ ETFs preferable to market-cap-weighted funds?","answer":"Equal-weight ETFs remove the large cap bias found in most popular indexes. What results behaves very much like a small-cap or mid-cap index. Observe RSP vs IJR over a 5 year period: IJR (iShares S&P SmallCap 600 ETF) vs RSP (Rydex S&P Equal Weight ETF)  I'm not sure if equal-weighting is worth the reduced efficiency. Mid-cap and small-cap funds have lower expenses (%0.20 for IJR vs %0.40 for RSP) and appear to do better over the long run. We don't know if that pattern will continue, but expense is one of the strongest long-term predictors of performance."}
{"question":"Starting an investment portfolio","answer":"Is this amount an adequate starting amount to begin investing with? Yes. You can open an account at a brokerage with this amount. I'm not sure I would invest in individual stocks at this point. Which services should I use to start buying shares? (Currently my bank offers this service but I'm willing to use other sources) I can't make UK-specific recommendations, but I'd compare your bank's fees to those of a discount broker -- as well as the variety and level of service available. I would like to regularly increase the amount invested in shares. Is it worth doing this in say \u00a3200 increments? Take a look at the fees associated with each investment. Divide the fee by the increment to see what percent you'll lose to fees\/commissions. Keep in mind that you have to gain more than that percentage to start earning a positive return on your investment. If you have access to fee-free automatic mutual fund investments, and you can commit to the \u00a3200 amount on a regular basis going forward, then this can be a completely free way of making these incremental investments. See also this answer on dollar cost averaging, and my comment on the other answer on that question for how fees impact returns. When buying shares should I focus on say two or three companies, or diversify more? I would diversify into two or three different index funds. Read up on asset allocation. For example, you might invest 1\/3 of your balance into S&P 500 index fund, bond index fund, and MSCI EAFE index fund (but that's just a rough example, and not necessarily good for you). I highly recommend \"The Intelligent Asset Allocator\" by William Bernstein for excellent info on diversification and asset allocation."}
{"question":"Exercising an option without paying for the underlying","answer":"As other answers state, selling the options contracts to the market is a definite way out, and probably the best in most cases.  If you're determined to exercise your options (or there's not enough liquidity to reasonably sell your contracts to the market), then you could plan ahead and exercise smaller number of contracts at a time and sell the resulting position in the underlying, which will give you funds to exercise some more contracts and sell the underlying.    If you think you're going down this path, however, make sure that you take into account your broker's rules for settlement.  You may need to start the exercise \/ sell cycle before the option's expiration date."}
{"question":"Pay down on second mortage when underwater?","answer":"I'd split whatever cash flow you have between saving money and paying down the 20% loan. The fact that you are carrying an unrealized loss isn't really too relevant -- unless you have plans to walk away from the loan or go bankrupt, it doesn't really matter until you sell. You're either going to repay now or later."}
{"question":"What should I do with my money?","answer":"If you are in an economy which has a decent liquid debt market (corporate bonds, etc.), then you may look into investing in AA or AA+ rated bonds. They can provide higher returns than bank deposits and are virtually risk-free. (Though in severe economic downturns, you can see defaults in even very high-rated bonds, leading to partial or complete loss of value however, this is statistically quite rare). You can make this investment through a debt mutual fund but please make sure that you read through the offer document carefully to understand the investment style of the mutual fund and their expense ratio (which directly affect your returns). In any case, it is always recommended to reach out to an investment adviser who is good with local tax laws to minimize taxes and maximize returns."}
{"question":"Married, 55, grown kids: Should I buy life insurance, or invest in stocks? The ultimate decision","answer":"The following is from Wikipedia - Term life insurance (with very minor editing) Because term life insurance is a pure   death benefit, its primary use is to   provide coverage of financial   responsibilities, for the insured.   Such responsibilities may include, but   are not limited to, consumer debt,   dependent care, college education for   dependents, funeral costs, and   mortgages. Term life insurance is   generally chosen in favor of permanent   life insurance because it is usually   much less expensive (depending on the   length of the term). Many financial   advisors or other experts commonly   recommend term life insurance as a   means to cover potential expenses   until such time that there are   sufficient funds available from   savings to protect those whom the   insurance coverage was intended to   protect. For example, an individual   might choose to obtain a policy whose   term expires near his or her   retirement age based on the premise   that, by the time the individual   retires, he or she would have amassed   sufficient funds in retirement savings   to provide financial security for   their dependents. This suggests the questions \"why do you have this policy?\" also \"how many term life policies do you need?\" or \"how much insurance do you need?\" Clearly you will be better off investing the premiums in the market.  Your beneficiaries may be better off either way (depends when you die and to a lesser extent on market performance). If you are not able to retire now but expect to be able to later, you should strongly consider having sufficient insurance to provide income replacement for your spouse.  This is a fairly common why."}
{"question":"Personal finance software for Mac that can track stocks and mutual funds? (Even manual updating of share prices will do.) ","answer":"I currently use Moneydance on my Mac.  Before that I had used Quicken on a PC until version 2007. It is pretty good, does most simple investment stuff just fine. It can automatically download prices for regular stocks.  Mutual funds I have to input by hand."}
{"question":"Does U.S. tax code call for small business owners to count business purchases as personal income?","answer":"It sounds like something is getting lost in translation here. A business owner should not have to pay personal income tax on business expenses, with the caveat that they are truly business expenses. Here's an example where what you described could happen: Suppose a business has $200K in revenue, and $150K in legitimate business expenses (wages and owner salaries, taxes, services, products\/goods, etc.) The profit for this example business is $50K. Depending on how the business is structured (sole proprietor, llc, s-corp, etc), the business owner(s) may have to pay personal income tax on the $50K in profit. If the owner then decided to have the business purchase a new vehicle solely for personal use with, say, $25K of that profit, then the owner may think he could avoid paying income tax on $25K of the $50K. However, this would not be considered a legitimate business expense, and therefore would have to be reclassified as personal income and would be taxed as if the $25K was paid to the owner. If the vehicle truly was used for legitimate business purposes then the business expenses would end up being $175K, with $25K left as profit which is taxable to the owners. Note: this is an oversimplification as it's oftentimes the case that vehicles are partially used for business instead of all or nothing. In fact, large items such as vehicles are typically depreciated so the full purchase price could not be deducted in a single year. If many of the purchases are depreciated items instead of deductions, then this could explain why it appears that the business expenses are being taxed. It's not a tax on the expense, but on the income that hasn't been reduced by expenses, since only a portion of the big ticket item can be treated as an expense in a single year."}
{"question":"Stock Certificate In two names","answer":"The DOW is just an index, which is simply a group of stocks meeting the criteria for inclusion. In the case of the DOW, it's the 30 US stocks with the largest market capitalization, but other indices include many lesser stocks (such as the S&P500 or the Russell 2000). The fact that Holobeam is no longer a constituent of the DOW30 probably shouldn't be taken in and of itself as a signal to sell the stock. As far as I can tell, HOOB stock is still trading on the Nasdaq exchange. However, it is extremely ill-liquid, which means that there are very few people willing to buy or sell it. Whether or not this would work to your advantage is almost entirely down to luck - it depends whether there is a keen buyer out there at the time you try to sell."}
{"question":"What's the minimum revenue an LLC must make in Florida or NY states?","answer":"Depends on the State. In California, for example, you pay a franchise tax of $800 every year just for having LLC, and in addition to that - income tax on gross revenue. But in other States (like Wyoming, for example) there's no taxes at all, only registration fees (which may still amount to ~$100-300 a year). IRS doesn't care about LLC's at all (unless you chose to treat is as a corporation). You need to understand that in the US we have the \"Federal Government\" (IRS is part of that) and the \"State Government\" that deals with business entities, in each of the 50 States. Since you're talking about Italy, and not EU, you should similarly be talking about the relevant State, and not US."}
{"question":"Settling house with husband during divorce. Which of these two options makes the most sense?","answer":"Both seem to be reasonable. To decide you need to guess if the value of the house will go up or down between now and when you sell. If you think the value will go up - reach a calculation agreement now. If you think the value will go down - wait until the house is actually sold. So ya pays yer money, and ya takes yer chances... I think I understand the two scenarios Unless you are absolutely confident that you understand both scenarios - make sure your lawyer gets involved and explains them to you until you do understand."}
{"question":"Can one use dollar cost averaging to make money with something highly volatile?","answer":"if you know when and by how much something will fluctuate, you can always make money. Buy it when it's cheaper and sell it when it's more expensive. If you just know that it fluctuated a lot recently, then you don't know what it will do next. Most securities that go to zero or go much higher bounce all over the place for a while first.  But you don't know when they'll move decisively lower or higher.  So how could you figure out if you'll make money - you can't know. DCA will on average make you better off, unless the extra commissions are too high relative to your purchase sizes. But it will in retrospect make you worse off in many particular cases. This is true of many investment disciplines, such as rebalancing. They are all based on averages.  If the volatility is random then on average you can buy more shares when the price is lower using DCA. But when the lowest price turns out to have been on a certain day, you'd have been better off with a single lump sum put in on that day. No way to know in advance.  Degree of volatility shouldn't matter; any fluctuation is enough for DCA or rebalancing to get you ahead, though it's true they get you ahead farther if the fluctuations are larger, since there's then more difference between DCA and a lump purchase.  I think the real reason to do DCA and rebalancing is risk control. They reduce the risk of putting a whole lump sum in on exactly the wrong day. And they can help keep a portfolio growing even if the market is stagnant."}
{"question":"Is it wise to sell company stock to pay down a mortgage?","answer":"Simply if your stock is still rising in price keep it. If it is falling in price sell it and pay off your mortgage. To know when to do this is very easy. If it is currently rising you can put a trailing stop loss on it and sell it when it drops and hits your stop loss. A second easy method is to draw an uptrend line under the increasing price and then sell when the price drops down below the uptrend line, as per the chart below.  This will enable you to capture the bulk of the price movement upward and sell before the price drops too far down. You can then use the profits (after tax) to pay down your mortgage. Of course if the price is currently in a downtrend sell it ASAP."}
{"question":"Last trade is bought? or sold?","answer":"When there is a trade the shares were both bought and sold. In any trade on the secondary market there has to be both a buyer and a seller for the trade to take place. So in \"lasttradesize\" a buyer has bought the shares from a seller."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"Market value and assessments are two different things. No matter how amical the agreement seems on buying and selling, the future could result in damaged relationships without an absolute sale. I would strongly recommend getting into an agreement to split the purchase of a house as a means to save money. If it's too late, sell immediately."}
{"question":"What is today's price of 15 000 Euro given 15 years ago?","answer":"With no written agreement in place, the \"right\" rate is whatever both parties can agree to. I could argue that I could have invested the money in S&P 500 index funds and made about 9% annually over the last 15 years and the 15,000 would have been over 40,000.  The \"fair\" rate would be whatever rate of return could have been expected from whatever your father would have done with the money otherwise - keep it in a bank account, pay off debt, invest in the market, start a business, whatever.  Your father has the benefit of hindsight to know what would have been a good use of the funds over 15 years. Using the rate of inflation results in effectively a zero-percent loan in real interest terms (meaning no profit was made, just accounting for the time value of money). Both parties need to either decide on an amount or equivalent rate, or decide if squeezing the other for a few thousand Euros is worth the strife."}
{"question":"Borrowing 100k and paying it to someone then declaring bankruptcy","answer":"Note that in the UK at least this scam - not so dissimilar from what you propose - seems be perfectly legal behaviour: Evidence to date is that both of you can expect to walk away without much consequence."}
{"question":"Why doesn't change in accounts receivable on balance sheet match cash flow statement?","answer":"It is difficult to reconcile historical balance sheets with historical cash flow statements because there are adjustments that are not always clearly disclosed. Practitioners consider activity on historical cash flow statements but generally don't invest time reconciling historical accounts, instead focusing on balancing projected balance sheets \/ cash flow statements. If you had non-public internal books, you could reconcile the figures (presuming they are accurate). In regards to Mike Haskel's comment, there's also a section pertaining to operating capital, not just effects on net income."}
{"question":"How to invest with a low net worth","answer":"I'm of the opinion that speculating is for young people like you, because they can afford to lose it all. Avoiding losses becomes necessary once you have to sustain a family, and manage a somewhat large retirement funds. Even if you lose all your money when speculating, you'll probably be better off later, because you make less costly mistakes once you have larger amounts of money."}
{"question":"Should my retirement portfolio imitate my saving portfolio?","answer":"One big pie chart.  Traditional (pretax) 401(k) and IRA, Roth 401(k) and IRA, and non-tax favored accounts. All of these need to be viewed holistically, the non-favored money is where I'd keep cash\/low return safe instruments, Roth IRA for highest growth."}
{"question":"Bi-weekly payment option","answer":"Your question is unclear about whether you are moving from bi-weekly payments or to bi-weekly payments. Let's calculate each case. Bi-weekly pay means you will be paid every two weeks. The amount for each payment will be your annual salary divided by 26, possibly with a small decrease (around 0.3%) to account for the fact that years are slightly longer than 52 weeks (i.e. there are slightly more than 26 two-week periods in a year), and possibly an even smaller adjustment to take account of the fact that some years are a day longer than that. You will be paid literally every 14 days (with some adjustments if a payday falls on a holiday) If you are going to be paid twice a month, then each payment will be your annual salary divided by 24. Typically you are paid on the same days of each month - for example the 1st and the fifteenth, or the last business day before those."}
{"question":"If I short-sell a dividend-paying stock, do I have to pay the dividend?","answer":"You could hold a long position in some company XXXX and then short your own shares (assuming your broker will let you do that).  The dividend that would have gone to you would then go to whoever is holding the shares you short sold.  You just don't get a dividend.  If you're going to short in a smart way...  do it on a stock you otherwise believe in, but use it to minimize the pull-backs on the way up."}
{"question":"In Canada, can a limited corporation be used as an income tax shelter?","answer":"This scheme doesn't work, because the combination of corporation tax, even the lower CCPC tax, plus the personal income tax doesn't give you a tax advantage, not on any realistic income I've ever worked it out on anyway.  Prior to the 2014 tax year on lower incomes you could scrape a bit of an advantage but the 2013 budget changed the calculation for the tax credit on non-eligible dividends so there shouldn't be an advantage anymore. Moreover if you were to do it this way, by paying corporation tax instead of CPP you aren't eligible for CPP. If you sit with a calculator for long enough you may figure out a way of saving $200 or something small but it's a lot of paperwork for little if any benefit and you wouldn't get CPP. I understand the money multiplier effect described above, but the tax system is designed in a way that it makes more sense to take it as salary and put it in a tax deferred saving account, i.e. an RRSP - so there's no limit on the multiplier effect. Like I said, sit with a calculator - if you're earning a really large amount and are still under the small business limit it may make more sense to use a CCPC, but that is the case regardless of using it as a tax shelter because if you're earning a lot you're probably running a business of some size. The main benefit I think is that if you use a CCPC you can carry forward your losses, but you have to be aware of the definition of an \"allowable business investment loss\"."}
{"question":"Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?","answer":"What you are looking for is a pretty terrible deal for you, so I'd say it doesn't exist because there isn't a market for it, or nobody has noticed there is a market for it. In principle I would happily take the deal you offer from as many people as would let me, put the money into treasury bills, and take half the profits while doing pretty much nothing.    If I had more risk tolerance I would be pretty happy to have half the value of my \"fund\" as zero cost investment capital for more aggressive investments.  My business would then be a lot like an insurance company without the hassle of selling insurance to get hold of float to invest.  Also, most insurance companies actually lose money on policies, but come out ahead by investing the float, so an insurance company with zero cost float is quite a good business. Another answer mentions Berkshire Hathaway.  If you read one of the famous Berkshire Hathaway annual letters to shareholders and read the section about insurance you'll see that very low cost float has a large role in that company's success. So, back to your end of the deal: if the deal is that good for me, how good is it for you?  I'd have to double market returns just for you to break even.  If you're smart enough to pick a financial adviser that can beat the market by that much, how come you aren't able to pick an investment strategy that ties the market?"}
{"question":"For a single company listed in multiple exchanges in different countries, are the shares being offered the same?","answer":"Yes and no.  There are two primary ways to do this.  The first is known as \"cross listing\". Basically, this means that shares are listed in the home country are the primary shares, but are also traded on secondary markets using mechanisms like ADRs or Globally Registered Shares. Examples of this method include Vodafone and Research in Motion. The second is \"dual listing\". This is when two corporations that function as a single business are listed in multiple places. Examples of this include Royal Dutch Shell and Unilever. Usually companies choose this method for tax purposes when they merge or acquire an international company. Generally speaking, you can safely buy shares in whichever market makes sense to you."}
{"question":"How do I screen for stocks that are near to their 52 weeks low ","answer":"There is a great 3rd party application out there that I use (I am a broker) along with my internal analysts and other 3rd party sources.  VectorVest has a LOT of technical information, but is very easy to use.  It will run any kind of screen you like, including low 52 week numbers.  (No, I don't get anything for recommending them.)"}
{"question":"Discussing stock and stock index movement: clarifying percentage vs. points?","answer":"Points are index based.  Simple take the total value of the stocks that compose the index, and set it equal to an arbitrary number. (Say 100 or 1000)  This becomes your base.  Each day, you recalculate the value of the index basket, and relate it to the base.  So if our index on day 0 was 100, and the value of the basket went up 1%, the new index would be 101 points. For the example given, the percentage change would be (133.32 -133.68  ) \/ 133.68 * 100% = -0.27%  Keep in mind that an index basket will change in composition over time.  Assets are added and removed as the composition of the market changes.  For example, the TSX index no longer includes Nortel, a stock that at one time made up a significant portion of the index.  I'm not sure if a percentage drop in an index is really a meaningful statistic because of that.   It is however, a good way of looking at an individual instrument."}
{"question":"Can I buy stocks directly from a public company?","answer":"If the company has a direct reinvestment plan or DRIP that they operate in house or contract out to a financial company to administer, yes. There can still be transaction fees, and none of these I know of offer real time trading.  Your trade price will typically be defined in the plan as the opening or closing price on the trade date.  Sometimes these plans offer odd lot sales at a recent running average price which could provide a hundred dollar or so arbitrage opportunity."}
{"question":"Interest payments for leveraged positions","answer":"I think to some extent you may be confusing the terms margin and leverage. From Investopedia Two concepts that are important to traders are margin and leverage. Margin is a loan extended by your broker that allows you to leverage the funds and securities in your account to enter larger trades. In order to use margin, you must open and be approved for a margin account. The loan is collateralized by the securities and cash in your margin account. The borrowed money doesn't come free, however; it has to be paid back with interest. If you are a day trader or scalper this may not be a concern; but if you are a swing trader, you can expect to pay between 5 and 10% interest on the borrowed money, or margin. Going hand-in-hand with margin is leverage; you use margin to create leverage. Leverage is the increased buying power that is available to margin account holders.  Essentially, leverage allows you to pay less than full price for a trade, giving you the ability to enter larger positions than would be possible with your account funds alone. Leverage is expressed as a ratio. A 2:1 leverage, for example, means that you would be able to hold a position that is twice the value of your trading account. If you had $25,000 in your trading account with 2:1 leverage, you would be able to purchase $50,000 worth of stock. Margin refers to essentially buying with borrowed money.  This must be paid back, with interest.  You also may have a \"margin call\" forcing you to liquidate assets if you go beyond your margin limits. Leverage can be achieved in a number of ways when investing, one of which is investing with a margin account."}
{"question":"Should you always max out contributions to your 401k?","answer":"First, the limit this year is $16,500, $22,000 for age 50 or older. Next, does the company give you any match? If so, how much? Some will match your deposits dollar for dollar up to a certain percent of your pay. If you make $50k and deposit say 6%, that's $3k matched by company, for example. This deposit\/match is the first priority.  Next, you should understand the expenses in the account. A bad 401(k) with high cost quickly negates any tax deferral benefit. The 401(k) options also may be limited, what are the choices of investments?  Is your income high enough that you can save $21,500? One thought is to save enough to drop back out of the 25% bracket, and go Roth after that. This is a good balance for most. By the way, Fairmark is a great site to see what bracket you are in. If your return is simple, you can just find your standard deduction and exemption numbers and get to your taxable income very simply. The debate of of Roth vs Pretax (for both IRA and 401(k) accounts) can get pretty complex, but I found the majority of earners falling into the \"live in the 15% bracket, tops\" range."}
{"question":"Payroll reimbursments","answer":"After reading OP Mark's question and the various answers carefully and also looking over some old pay stubs of mine, I am beginning to wonder if he is mis-reading his pay stub or slip of paper attached to the reimbursement check for the item(s) he purchases.  Pay stubs (whether paper documents attached to checks or things received in one's company mailbox or available for downloading from a company web site while the money is deposited electronically into the employee's checking account) vary from company to company, but a reasonably well-designed stub would likely have categories such as Taxable gross income for the pay period: This is the amount from which payroll taxes (Federal and State income tax, Social Security and Medicare tax) are deducted as well as other post-tax deductions such as money going to purchase of US Savings Bonds, contributions to United Way via payroll  deduction, contribution to Roth 401k etc. Employer-paid group life  insurance premiums are taxable income too for any portion of the policy  that exceeds $50K. In some cases, these appear as a lump sum on the last pay stub for the year. Nontaxable gross income for the pay period: This would be sum total of the amounts contributed to nonRoth 401k plans, employee's share of group health-care insurance premiums for employee  and\/or employee's family, money deposited into FSA accounts, etc. Net pay: This is the amount of the attached check or money sent via ACH to the employee's bank account. Year-to-date amounts: These just tell the employee what has been earned\/paid\/withheld to date in the various categories. Now, OP Mark said My company does not tax the reimbursement but they do add it to my running gross earnings total for the year. So, the question is whether the amount of the reimbursement is included in the Year-to-date amount of Taxable Income. If YTD Taxable Income does not include the reimbursement amount,  then the the OP's question and the answers and comments are moot; unless the company has really-messed-up (Pat. Pending) payroll software that does weird things, the amount  on the W2 form will be whatever is shown as YTD Taxable Income  on the last pay stub of the year, and, as @DJClayworth noted cogently, it is what will appear on the W2 form that really matters. In summary, it is good that OP Mark is taking the time to investigate the matter of the reimbursements appearing in Total Gross Income, but if the amounts are not appearing in the YTD Taxable Income, his Payroll Office may just reassure him that they have good software and that what the YTD Taxable Income says on the last pay stub is what will be appearing on his W2 form.  I am fairly confident that this is what will be the resolution of the matter because if the amount of the reimbursement was included in Taxable Income during that pay period and no tax was withheld, then the employer has a problem with  Social Security and Medicare tax underwithholding, and nonpayment of this tax plus the employer's share to the US Treasury in timely fashion. The IRS takes an extremely dim view of such shenanigans and most employers are unlikely to take the risk."}
{"question":"What does \"balance sheet banks\" mean in this context?","answer":"The balance sheet for a bank is the list of assets and liabilities that the bank directly is responsible for.  This would be things like loans the bank issues and accounts with the bank. Banks can make both \"balance sheet\" loans, meaning a loan that says on the balance sheet - one the bank gains the profits from but holds the risks for also.  They can also make \"off balance sheet\" loans, meaning they securitize the loan (sell it off, such as the mortgage backed securities). Most major banks, i.e. Chase, Citibank, etc., could be called \"balance sheet\" banks because at least some portion of their lending comes from their balance sheet.  Not 100% by any means, they participate in the security swaps extensively just like everyone does, but they do at least some normal, boring lending just as you would explain a bank to a five year old.  Bank takes in deposits from account holders, loans that money out to people who want to buy homes or start businesses. However, some (particularly smaller) firms don't work this way - they don't take responsibility for the money or the loans.  They instead \"manage assets\" or some similar term. I think of it like the difference between Wal-Mart and a consignment store.  Wal-Mart buys things from its distributors, and sells them, taking the risk (of the item not selling) and the reward (of the profit from selling) to itself.  On the other hand, a consignment store takes on neither: it takes a flat fee to host your items in its store, but takes no risk (you own the items) nor the majority of the profit. In this case, Mischler Financial Group is not a bank per se - they don't have accounts; they manage funds, instead.  Note the following statement on their Services page for example: Mischler Financial Group holds no risk positions and no unwanted inventory of securities, which preserves the integrity of our capital and assures our clients that we will be able to obtain bids and offers for them regardless of adverse market conditions. They're not taking your money and then making their own investments; they're advising you how to invest your money, or they're helping do it for you, but it's your money going out and your risk (and reward)."}
{"question":"Peer to peer lending business model (i.e. Lending Club)","answer":"The best description of P2P lending process I saw comes from the SEC proceedings. They are very careful about naming things that are happening in the process. Prosper got back to business after this order, but the paper describes succinctly how Prosper worked when its notes haven't yet been registered by the SEC. These materials contain a lot of responsible comments on how crowdfunding, including P2P lending, works."}
{"question":"Typical discount for cash purchase on $1+ million homes?","answer":"I don't have a solid data-backed answer, but this is too lengthy for a comment. I've read that on average, about 1-2% is what you can get as a cash discount on a home purchase, all else being equal, but no hard data to back that.  In certain situations it makes sense for a cash discount to be much greater than that, for instance, if the seller is in a hurry to close and your cash offer has no inspection clause. Similarly, if a house has been re-listed after a sale fell through you might get a greater cash-discount, or if an owner just over-values the advantages of a cash-offer. Anecdotally, I had a neighbor take a cash offer 5% below asking and they had multiple offers at asking, they took the cash offer so they could close faster (15 days). Also, I've lost out to a cash offer, also at 5% below asking, and they also had a short-closing period and no-inspection, my offer was over asking on that one, so total cash discount > 5%. There can be more volatility in the luxury home market, but I wouldn't guess that changes the cash vs financed evaluation much.  Would love to see if anyone finds a good source, but even if they do, an average is only so helpful."}
{"question":"What's the best online tool that can track my entire portfolio including gains\/losses? ","answer":"Google Portfolio does the job: https:\/\/www.google.com\/finance\/portfolio You can add transaction data, view fundamentals and much more."}
{"question":"Company A is buying company B, what happens to the stock?","answer":"I think the correct statement is that Expedia wants to buy Orbitz for $12\/share. The market price is $11, which means there is somebody willing to sell for that price. But you can't say that a stock price of $11 means that everybody is willing to sell for that price. And Expedia is unlikely to bid $12\/share for just 40% of Orbitz shares; they'll want at least a controlling majority."}
{"question":"Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?","answer":"Why do people talk about stock that pay high dividends?  Traditionally people who buy dividend stocks are looking for income from their investments. Most dividend stock companies pay out dividends every quarter ( every 90 days). If set up properly an investor can receive a dividend check every month, every week or as often as they have enough money to stagger the ex-dates. There is a difference in high $$ amount of the dividend and the yield.  A $1\/share dividend payout may sound good up front, but... how much is that stock costing you? If the stock cost you $100\/share, then you are getting 1% yield. If the stock cost you $10\/share, you are getting 10% yield.  There are a lot of factors that come into play when investing in dividend stocks for cash flow. Keep in mind why are you investing in the first place. Growth or cash flow. Arrange your investing around your major investment goals. Don't chase big dollar dividend checks, do your research and follow a proven investment plan to reach your goals safely."}
{"question":"Moving Coin Collection to Stapled Coin Pockets","answer":"I would be wary of having coins in containers with cardboard. Ideally you want the coins to be in an airtight envelope made of plastic to minimize any chance of oxidation or reaction with chemicals in the air. Cheap, retail coins like you would find in a Whitman collection are not generally going to hold value well. Sometimes you can sell a collection and break even if you have a nice complete set, but in general  VF coins with common dates will not appreciate at all. Investment coins usually are high-priced items that sell for thousands each, not the sort thing you find in Whitman folders. In general, collectibles are bad investments in the US because IRS rules tax gains as ordinary income. So, unless you sell them under the table or have really low income, you lose a lot of your profit. If you enjoy collecting, focus on the fun of it, worrying about investment in coin collections is a joy killer. A Parting Anecdote... When I was a kid I painstakingly assembled a lot of BU rolls, because that was the hot thing back then. I wrote on them \"DO NOT OPEN FOR 10 YEARS\". You know how much a 1980 BU roll of Lincoln cents is worth now, 40 years later? $2.00 on eBay. Some days I spend more on lunch than the worth of my entire Lincoln cent collection."}
{"question":"Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit?","answer":"By definition, there are no guaranteed profits. There are sometimes arbitrage opportunities, which are more accessible to some investors than others. In this case, I'm not referring to HFT as that is covered elsewhere on this site already.  At certain times, in certain equity markets, candlestick charts were used for profitable trading, though more for trades set up for weeks or months, not day trading. I am referring specifically to Nikkei 225 equities, in the 1980's and 1990's. I don't know why it was effective, and it hasn't worked for me since then. I recommend reading and heeding this answer. Some people DO use technical analysis (see \"TA is not...\" section) as a primary trading strategy, but they are not going to divulge their methods, not here nor anywhere else."}
{"question":"Why do some people go through contortions to avoid paying taxes, yet spend money on expensive financial advice, high-interest loans, etc?","answer":"I think sometimes this is simply ignorance. If my marginal tax rate is 25%, then I can either pay tax deductible interest of $10K or pay income tax of $2.5K.    I think most americans don't realize that paying $10K of tax deductible interest (think mortgage) only saves them $2.5K in taxes.  In other words, I'd be $7.5K ahead if I didn't have the debt, but did pay higher taxes."}
{"question":"Foolish to place orders before the market opens?","answer":"Depending on your strategy, it could be though there is also something to be said for what kind of order are you placing: Market, limit or otherwise? Something else to consider is whether or not there is some major news that could cause the stock\/ETF to gap at the open.  For example, if a company announces strong earnings then it is possible for the stock to open higher than it did the previous day and so a market order may not to take into account that the stock may jump a bit compared to the previous close.  Limit orders can be useful to put a cap on how much you'll pay for a stock though the key would be to factor this into your strategy of when do you buy."}
{"question":"How can I find out which ETFs has holdings in a particular stock?","answer":"An ETF does not track any one individual stock. It \"is a marketable security that tracks an index, a commodity, bonds, or a basket of assets like an index fund.\" Check out this link to learn more about ETFs. The easiest way see what ETF tracks a stock is to determine what sector and industry that company is in and find some ETF that trade it. The ETF will likely trade that stock, assuming that its market cap and exchange it trades on fits within the parameters of the ETF."}
{"question":"Understanding the Nasdaq insider trading information","answer":"Usually insiders are in a better position than you to understand their business, but that doesn't mean they will know the future with perfect accuracy. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes life events force them to liquidate an otherwise promising investment, sometimes their minds change. So while it is indeed valuable information, as everything in fundamental analysis it must be taken with a grain of salt. Automatic Sell I think these refer to how the sell occurred. Often the employees don't get actual shares but options or warrants that can be converted to shares. Or there may be special predetermined arrangements regarding when and how the shares may be traded. Since the decision to sell here has nothing to do with the prospects of the business, but has to do with the personal situation of the employee, it's not quite the same as outright selling due to market concerns. Some people, for instance, are not interested in holding stock. Part of their compensation is given in stock, so they immediately sell the stock to avoid the headache of watching an investment. This obviously doesn't indicate that they expect the company will go south. I think automatic sell refers to these sorts of situations, but your broker should provide a more detailed definition. Disposition (Non Open Market) These days people trade through a broker, but there's nothing stopping you from taking the physical shares and giving them to someone in exchange for say a stack of cash. With a broker, you only \"sell\" without considering who is buying. The broker then finds buyers for you according to their own system. If selling without a broker you can also be choosy with who is buying, and it's not like anybody can just call up the CEO and ask to buy some stock, so it's a non-open market. Ultimately though it's still the insider selling. Just on a different exchange. So I would treat this as any insider sell - if they are selling, they may be expecting the stock to become less valuable. indirect ownership I think this refers to owning an entity that in turn owns the asset. For instance CEO of XYZ owns stock in ACME, but ACME holds shares of XYZ. This is a somewhat complicated situation, it comes down to whether you think they sold ACME because of the exposure to XYZ or because of some other risk that applies only to ACME and not XYZ. Generally speaking, I don't think you would find a rule like \"if insider transactions of so and so kinds > X then buy\" that provides guaranteed success. If such a rule was possible it would have been exploited already by the professionals. The more sensible option is to consider all data available to you and try to make a holistic evaluation. All of these insider activities can be bullish or bearish depending on many other factors."}
{"question":"Understanding the Nasdaq insider trading information","answer":"Insiders are prevented from buying or selling shares except at certain periods right after information is disclosed publicly. But. People have bills to pay and kids to put through college and whatnot. So an insider can set up a plan where shares are sold on a specific schedule and they have no control over number of shares or timing. These plans (covered under rule 10b5-1) allow insiders to generate cash flow without immoderately benefiting from their inside information. Sales under these plans can mostly be ignored when trying to figure out the fortunes of a company from insider trades."}
{"question":"Risk and reward of a synthetic option position","answer":"You sold a call, and have a risk if the stock rises.  You bought a put and gain when the stock drops. You, sir, have a synthetic short position.  It's Case 3 from your linked example: Suppose you own Long Stock and the company is going to report earnings   but you\u2019re going on vacation. How can you hedge your position without   selling your stock? You can short the stock synthetically with   options! Short Stock = Short Call + Long Put They conclude with the net zero remark, because the premise was an existing long position. A long plus this synthetic short results in a neutral set of positions (and the author's ability to go on vacation not concerned about any movement in the stock.)"}
{"question":"Do I need multiple credit monitoring services?","answer":"Monitoring your credit doesn't do much. There are some vendors that actually have staff to repair your credit\/identity. Substantially all of the credit monitoring services do what they say and monitor.  If you have a problem they notify you then point you to the place(s) that you can work with to repair the issue.  This is not terribly valuable, definitely not worth having multiples, but the repair aspect of some IS very valuable.   You sign a limited power of attorney and set loose someone else to fix the problem."}
{"question":"My bank refused to do a charge back","answer":"You can't make your bank do a charge back. This function is to assist with straight up fraud, not a customer service mistake. (Think spoofed or stolen card or if a vendor intentionally acted fraudulently.) While you may believe what they did is fraud, your bank will require that you provide the vendor with the opportunity to rectify the situation themselves. Trying to call back and giving up after a long hold time won't meet their standards. If banks started letting anyone unhappy with a vendor start doing charge backs, they would be doing nothing else all day. The issues you're describing has not reached the threshold for the bank to authorize a charge back.  Comcast has local and regional offices, and you could go in person to speak with someone. Maybe there isn't one near you. There are non-peak hours which wait times will be less. You'll just have to grin and bear it if you truly want the money back. Then, take your business elsewhere and post bad reviews online. Always keep in mind that when you eventually speak with someone, they will not be the person that messed up, and you should be overly nice and polite to them. I promise it will yield far better results than being surly and demanding. Another way to get Comcast's attention would be to file a complaint with the BBB. It might take longer, but I've had this work with big companies, usually with good results. Again, be nice to whomever contacts you. In reference to your recent duplicate question: Mastercard won't be able to help at all. They play no part in the transaction at all."}
{"question":"Is it legal to receive\/send \"gifts\" of Non-Trivial Amounts to a \"friend\"?","answer":"In almost all cases, gifts from employers are considered taxable compensation, based on the employer-employee nature of the relationship. Furthermore, cash gifts are always considered to be intended as wages, regardless of how you receive the money. Furthermore, regardless of whether you expect to receive anything in return (such as contractual consideration) or whether the amounts are large enough to be declared as taxable personal gifts, it is likely that the IRS would consider these payments to be \"disguised wages\", as these payments would fail several tests that the IRS uses to determine whether benefits provided by the employer are non-taxable, including: I'd recommend reviewing IRS publication 535 here, as well as publication 15-B here for more on what constitutes taxable wages & benefits. It seems very unlikely to me that you could make a persuasive legal defense in which you claimed to be working full-time for $60.00 per year and just happened to be receiving large personal gifts of $130,000.00. In my opinion it seems much more likely that these payments would be found to be taxable wages for services rendered."}
{"question":"How to find trailing 5-year stock returns for 1980s?","answer":"I dont know if this data is available for the 1980s, but this response to an old question of mine discusses how you can pull stock related information from google or yahoo finance over a certain period of time. You could do this in excel or google spreadsheet and see if you could get the data you're looking for.  Quote from old post: Google Docs spreadsheets have a   function for filling in stock and fund   prices. You can use that data to graph (fund1   \/ fund2) over some time period."}
{"question":"From ACH direct debit to Prepaid card?","answer":"This would be exactly the sort of product that a thief would want, if they had got ahold of some account numbers and wanted to steal the money from those accounts, in a way that would let them spend it as conveniently as possible. That should explain why I think it's unlikely that any such product exists."}
{"question":"Everyone got a raise to them same amount, lost my higher pay than the newer employees ","answer":"You didn't get laid off or have your hours cut back when the minimum wage was raised? I guess you have much to be grateful for, including a higher hourly rate. An excellent record is its own reward. When you finish your degree you will be grateful for the good habits you have established. You won't ever lose a nights sleep looking back and thinking \"I wish I didn't do the right thing.\" It's sad that there isn't a more immediate reward for doing more than average, but that's life, doing the right thing over a long period of time does eventually lead to the reward you're looking for. Sometimes those rewards aren't tangible."}
{"question":"Why is there so much variability on interest rate accounts","answer":"Pay attention to nickel-and-dime charges (atm fees, low balance fees, limit on atm transactions per month, charge for human teller transaction, charge for paper statements or tax records).  Consider that a financial company will spend on the order of $100-500 to sign up a good customer.  Are you getting this in a cash bonus, competitive high interest rate, reasonable other gift, or advertising directed at your eyeballs?  A variation in rates less than 1% easily fits into a marketing cost and there doesn't have to be any other magic to it."}
{"question":"Frustrated Landlord","answer":"If you're losing money or breaking even, you own a bad investment.  The problem you have is that you are emotionally invested in your tenant. That isn't a bad thing in general but it's costing you money and, unless interest rates fall enough to justify a refi or property taxes go down in your area, that's kind of unlikely to change.  Option #1 - Tell your wife that you are willing to accept a loss up to a certain level because of your long term relationship with your tenant. In a perfect world, the two of you would then discuss what the \"magic number\" would be where you got out and come to a compromise. For example, if you are comfortable losing up to $3,000 per year and she is unhappy with any loss, you may agree on selling the house when your losses climb to $1,500. In a less perfect world, it would cause an argument as she has already told you what she wants you to do.  Option #2 - Raise the rent to the break even point. From what you've said, this will likely result in the loss of your tenant but you could then rent to someone else for significantly more.  Option #3 - Sell the house. It's an investment property which means it's supposed to make money for you. It can do that very quickly by way of a sale and then it's no longer your problem. Option #4 - Sell the house to your tenant. You bought it for $50,000 and it's currently worth $150,000 (roughly). The problem you face is that property taxes have gone up and caused your mortgage to increase past your tenants ability to pay. My guess is, after 15 years, your payoff is somewhere in the high $20's to mid 30's assuming you got a 30 year loan and haven't refinanced. If you sell to her for say $75,000 (or even up to $90,000) you will still make a profit (wife is happy), she will get a mortgage she can afford and be able to stay in the house (you and the tenant are happy). Added bonus is that her property taxes would be lower (assuming a different rate for investment property in your area). I would discuss this at length with your wife as well before making such an offer.  Option #5 - Get a property management company. As mentioned above, they will keep a percentage but will remove your emotions from the equation altogether and turn the situation into a winner.  I don't know if your wife is right in saying you don't have the stomach for this, but I do think your heart is getting in the way in this particular situation. I get the feeling that if your tenant was 25 years old and had only been renting from you since last October, you would have no problem raising the rent to market levels at every renewal."}
{"question":"Who buys variable annuities?","answer":"There is always some fine print, read it. I doubt there is any product out there that can guarantee an 8% return.  As a counter example - a 70 yr old can get 6% in a fixed immediate annuity. On death, the original premium is retained by the insurance company.  Whenever I read the prospectus of a VA, I find the actual math betrays a salesman who misrepresented the product. I'd be really curious to read the details for this one."}
{"question":"Why is Insider Trading Illegal?","answer":"Secret formulas are legal, \"privileged information\" is not. And that may be the whole point. People are allowed to trade stocks profitably if doing so results only from their skill. A \"secret formula\" (for evaluating information) is part of that skill. But having \"privileged information\" is not considered skill. It is considered an unfair, illegal advantage. Because company officials (and others) with privileged information are 1) not permitted to trade stocks while that information is privileged and 2) are not allowed to share that information with others. Inevitably, some do one or the other, which is why they are prosecuted. \"Raj\" took the process to new highs (or lows). He not only \"dealt\" in privileged information, he PAID for it. Anything from a new car or house to $500,000 a year in cash. In essence, he had a bunch of strategically placed \"spies\" inside or close to corporations including one on the board of Goldman Sachs, \"selling out\" their companies, and thereby practicing a form of corporate \"treason.\""}
{"question":"Is there any way to buy a new car directly from Toyota without going through a dealership?","answer":"If there's one reasonably close to you, you could go to a no-haggle dealership.  Instead of making you haggle the price downward, they just give a theoretically fixed price that's roughly what the average customer could negotiate down to at a conventional dealer.  Then just do your best broken record impression if they still try to sell you dubious addons:  \"No.  No.  No.  No.  No...\" The last time I bought a new car (06), a no haggle dealer offered the second best deal I got out of 4 dealerships visited.  The one I ended up buying with made an exceptional offer on my trade (comparable to 3rd party sale bluebook value). - My guess is they had a potential customer looking for something like my old car and were hoping to resell it directly instead of flipping it via auction."}
{"question":"Should I pay off my car loan within the year?","answer":"Typically the power of capitalized interest would work in your favor and you could carry the loan paying it down while investing the original sum which would earn interest. BUT you aren't going to get any sort of return to compare with 15% so pay off that loan immediately. Also contrary to popular belief (and reiterated here) paying off incurred balance on your credit card every month is responsible use of credit but it will not do much for your credit score. The score ultimately means your ability to pay your bills and most importantly your willingness to pay interest, i.e. revolving the borrowed money. At least in the consumer market where the product they want you to buy is paying monthly interest charges."}
{"question":"Why is the highest quintile the only quintile whose wealth exceeds its income? ","answer":"There are a lot of forces at play here, one of which is addressed in your second bullet point. Housing, transportation, food, and healthcare are pretty much the staple expenses of a modern day human.  While these expenses all have a range from minimum required to function and luxurious all humans incur these costs.  The lower rung wage earners earn an amount closer to their actual costs than higher earners.  As income scales up these expenses typically also scale up with different lifestyle choices.   There reaches a breaking point though where is so much excess to your income that you begin meaningfully spending on investments; you may also begin to take a meaningful portion of your compensation in securities rather than currency.  In times where the economy is booming, folks who hold assets in securities rather than currency really win.  In 2008 people in that highest rung really took a wealth hit (and probably an income hit)."}
{"question":"What percent of your portfolio should be in a money market account?","answer":"I would disagree with your analysis.  To me there are two purposes for a money market (MM): Your emergency fund should be from 3 to 6 months of expenses.  Think of it of an insurance policy against Murphy.  You may want to have some money designated for big expenses, or even sinking funds.  For example, I keep some money in a MM for a car as both the wife, daughter, and I driver older vehicles.  I may need to replace them. If you were planning on making a larger purchase car, house, boat, engagement ring I would put the money in a MM fund so you are not subject to the whims of the market.   After that you are free to invest all your money.  Its likely that you should have some money outside of tax advantaged funds so if you want to start a business you will not have to do high cost withdrawals."}
{"question":"Condo Purchase - Tax Strategies [US]","answer":"If it's a rental, you will write off the losses via Schedule E. You should read this document and its instructions to understand this fully. You will also take depreciation on the value of the building, not the land, over 27.5 years. If you don't understand this, search here, there are discussions that cover this.  If it's not a rental, but your home or second home, you take the interest and real estate tax off you tax via Schedule A, if you itemize. (I see the tag 'rental' but leave this line for sake of a complete answer.)"}
{"question":"If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?","answer":"Not sure how this has got this far with no obvious discussion about the huge tax advantages of share buy backs vs dividend paying.  Companies face a very simple choice with excess capital - pay to shareholders in the form of a taxable dividend, invest in future growth where they expect to make more than $1 for every $1 invested, or buy back the equivalent amount of stock on the market, thus concentrating the value of each share the equivalent amount with no tax issues. Of these, dividends are often by far the worst choice. Virtually all sane shareholders would just rather the company put the capital to work or concentrate the value of their shares by taking many off the market rather than paying a taxable dividend."}
{"question":"How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?","answer":"You might miss an opportunity or three by strictly avoiding debt, but I can't think of a problem you will create by being debt free. So maybe it isn't the absolutely smartest thing to avoid debt on principle*, but it certainly is pretty smart at the very least."}
{"question":"What are the pros and cons of buying a house just to rent it out?","answer":"There are actually a few questions you are asking here. I will try and address each individually. Down Payment What you put down can't really be quantified in a dollar amount here. $5k-$10k means nothing. If the house costs $20k then you're putting 50% down. What is relevant is the percent of the purchase price you're putting down.  That being said, if you go to purchase a property as an investment property (something you wont be moving into) then you are much more likely to be putting a down payment much closer to 20-25% of the purchase price. However, if you are capable of living in the property for a year (usually the limitation on federal loans) then you can pay much less. Around 3.5% has been my experience. The Process Your plan is sound but I would HIGHLY suggest looking into what it means to be a landlord. This is not a decision to be taken lightly. You need to know the tenant landlord laws in your city AND state. You need to call a tax consultant and speak to them about what you will be charging for rent, and how much you should withhold for taxes. You also should talk to them about what write offs are available for rental properties. \"Breaking Even\" with rent and a mortgage can also mean loss when tax time comes if you don't account for repairs made. Financing  Your first rental property is the hardest to get going (if you don't have experience as a landlord). Most lenders will allow you to use the potential income of a property to qualify for a loan once you have established yourself as a landlord. Prior to that though you need to have enough income to afford the mortgage on your own.  So, what that means is that qualifying for a loan is highly related to your debt to income ratio. If your properties are self sustaining and you still work 40 hours a week then your ability to qualify in the future shouldn't be all that impacted. If anything it shows that you are a responsible credit manager.  Conclusion I can't stress enough to do YOUR OWN research. Don't go off of what your friends are telling you. People exaggerate to make them seem like they are higher on the socioeconomic ladder then they really are. They also might have chicken little syndrome and try to discourage you from making a really great choice. I run into this all the time. People feel like they can't do something or they're to afraid so you shouldn't be able to either. If you need advice go to a professional or read a book. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Is it normal to think of money in different \"contexts\"?","answer":"Here's how I think about money. There are only 3 categories \/ contexts (buckets) that my earned money falls into. Savings is my emergency fund. I keep 6 months of total expenses (expenses are anything in the consumption bucket). You can be as detailed as you want with this area but I tend to leave a fudge factor. In other words, if I estimate that I spend approximately $3,000 a month in consumption dollars then I'll save $3,500 times 6 in the bank. This money needs to be liquid. Some people use a HELOC, other people use their ROTH contributions. In any case, you need to put this money some place you can get access to it in case you go from accumulation (income exceed expenses) to decumulation mode (expenses exceed income). This money is distinct from consumption which I will cover in paragraph three. Investments are stocks, bonds, income producing real estate, small businesses, etc. These dollars require a strategy. The strategy can include some form of asset allocation but more importantly a timeline. These are the dollars that are working for you. Each dollar placed here will multiply over time. Once you put a dollar here it shouldn't be taken out unless there is some sort of catastrophe that your savings can't handle or your timeline has been achieved. Notice that rental real estate is included so liquidating stocks to purchase rental real estate is NOT considered removing investment dollars. Just reallocating based on your asset allocation. This bucket includes 401k's, IRAs, all tax-sheltered accounts, non-sheltered brokerage accounts, and rental real estate. In general your primary residence is not included in this bucket. Some people include the equity of their primary residence in the investment column but it can complicate the equation and I prefer to leave it out. The consumption bucket is the most important bucket and the one you spend the most time with. It requires a budget. This includes your $5 magazine and your $200 bottle of wine. Anything in this bucket is gone. You can recover a portion of it by selling it on ebay for $3 (these are earned dollars) but the original $5 is still considered spent. The reason your thought process in this area is distinct from the other two, the decisions made in this area will have the biggest impact on your personal finances. Warren Buffett was famous for skimping on haircuts because they are worth thousands of dollars down the road if they are invested instead. Remember this is a zero-sum game so every $1 not consumed is placed in one of the other buckets. Once your savings bucket is full every dollar not consumed is sent to investments. Remember to include everything that does not fit in the other two buckets. Most people forget their car insurance, life insurance, tax bill at the end of the year, accountant bill, etc. In conclusion, there are three buckets. Savings, which serve as your emergency bucket. This money should not be touched unless you switch from accumulation to decumulation. Investments, which are your dollars that are working for you over time. They require a strategy and a timeline. Consumption, which are your monthly expenses. These dollars keep you alive and contribute to your enjoyment. This is a short explanation of my use of money. It can get as complicated and detailed as you want it to be but as long as you tag your dollars correctly you'll be okay IMHO. HTH."}
{"question":"How to calculate interest payments without EBIT","answer":"The actual financial statements should always be referenced first before opening or closing a position. For US companies, they are freely available on EDGAR.  Annual reports are called 10-Ks, and quarterly reports are called 10-Qs. YHOO and GOOG do a great job of posting financials that are quickly available, but money.msn has the best.  These should be starting point, quick references.  As you can see, they may all have the same strange accounting. Sometimes, it's difficult to find the information one seeks in the consolidated financial statements as in this case, so searching through the filing is necessary. The notes can be helpful, but Ctrl-F seems to do everything I need when I want something in a report. In AAPL's case, the Interest expense can be found in Note 3."}
{"question":"What is the correct way to report a tender offer fee on my taxes?","answer":"Using a different cost basis than your broker's reporting is NOT a problem. You need to keep your own records to account for this difference. Among the other many legitimate reasons to adjust your cost basis, the most popular is when you have two brokerage accounts and sell an asset in one then buy in another. This is called a Wash Sale and is not a taxable event for you. However from the perspective of each broker with their limited information you are making a transaction with tax implications and their reported 1099 will show as such. Links:  https:\/\/www.firstinvestors.com\/docs\/pdf\/news\/tax-qa-2012.pdf"}
{"question":"Any specific examples of company valuations according to Value Investing philosophy?","answer":"Buffet is in a different league from other value investors. He looks for stable companies with no debt and good management. Then he looks to deeply understand the industries of candidate companies, and looks for companies that are not in commodity businesses or sell commodities that can be bought for 25% of the valuation that he believes reflects the true value of the company. Deeply understanding the market is really the key.  Consider the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, which Buffet purchased last year. Railroads benefit from higher oil prices, as they can transport cargo much cheaper than trucks. They also tend to have natural monopolies in the regions they operate in. Buffet bought the railroad just as production of oil and natural gas in North Dakota started picking up. Since pipeline capacity between North Dakota and refineries in Texas\/Oklahoma is very limited, the railroad is making alot of money transporting crude."}
{"question":"Where to start with personal finance in Canada?","answer":"There are some great answers on this site similar to what you asked, with either a non-jurisdictional or a US-centric focus. I would read those answers as well to give yourself more points of view on early investing. There are a few differences between Canada and the US from an investing perspective that you should also then consider, namely tax rules, healthcare, and education. I'll get Healthcare and Education out of the way quickly. Just note the difference in perspective in Canada of having government healthcare; putting money into health-savings plans or focusing on insurance as a workplace benefit is not a key motivating factor, but more a 'nice-to-have'. For education, it is more common in Canada for a student to either pay for school while working summer \/ part-time jobs, or at least taking on manageable levels of debt [because it is typically not quite as expensive as private colleges in the US]. There is still somewhat of a culture of saving for your child's education here, but it is not as much of a necessity as it may be in the US. From an investing perspective, I will quickly note some common [though not universal] general advice, before getting Canadian specific. I have blatantly stolen the meat of this section from Ben Miller's great answer here: Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing Once you have a solid financial footing, some peculiarities of Canadian investing are below. For all the tax-specific plans I'm about to mention, note that the banks do a very good job here of tricking you into believing they are complex, and that you need your hand to be held. I have gotten some criminally bad tax advice from banking reps, so at the risk of sounding prejudiced, I recommend that you learn everything you can beforehand, and only go into your bank when you already know the right answer. The 'account types' themselves just involve a few pages of paperwork to open, and the banks will often do that for free. They make up their fees in offering investment types that earn them management fees once the accounts are created. Be sure to separate the investments (stocks vs bonds etc.) vs the investment vehicles. Canada has 'Tax Free Savings Accounts', where you can contribute a certain amount of money every year, and invest in just about anything you want, from bonds to stocks to mutual funds. Any Income you earn in this account is completely tax free. You can withdraw these investments any time you want, but you can't re-contribute until January 1st of next year. ie: you invest $5k today in stocks held in a TFSA, and they grow to $6k. You withdraw $6k in July. No tax is involved. On January 1st next year, you can re-contribute a new $6K, and also any additional amounts added to your total limit annually. TFSA's are good for short-term liquid investments. If you don't know for sure when you'll need the money, putting it in a TFSA saves you some tax, but doesn't commit you to any specific plan of action. Registered Retirement Savings Plans allow you to contribute money based on your employment income accrued over your lifetime in Canada. The contributions are deducted from your taxable income in the year you make them. When you withdraw money from your RRSP, the amount you withdraw gets added as additional income in that year. ie: you invest $5k today in stocks held in an RRSP, and get a $5k deduction from your taxable income this year. The investments grow to $6k. You withdraw $6k next year. Your taxable income increases by $6k [note that if the investments were held 'normally' {outside of an RRSP}, you would have a taxable gain of only 50% of the total gain; but withdrawing the amount from your RRSP makes the gain 100% taxable]. On January 1st next year, you CANNOT recontribute this amount. Once withdrawn, it cannot be recontributed [except for below items]. RRSP's are good for long-term investing for retirement. There are a few factors at play here: (1) you get an immediate tax deduction, thus increasing the original size of investment by deferring tax to the withdrawal date; (2) your investments compound tax-free [you only pay tax at the end when you withdraw, not annually on earnings]; and (3) many people expect that they will have a lower tax-rate when they retire, than they do today. Some warnings about RRSP's: (1) They are less liquid than TFSA's; you can't put money in, take it out, and put it in again. In general, when you take it out, it's out, and therefore useless unless you leave it in for a long time; (2) Income gets re-characterized to be fully taxable [no dividend tax credits, no reduced capital gains tax rate]; and (3) There is no guarantee that your tax rate on retirement will be less than today. If you contribute only when your tax rate is in the top bracket, then this is a good bet, but even still, in 30 years, tax rates might rise by 20% [who knows?], meaning you could end up paying more tax on the back-end, than you saved in the short term. Home Buyer Plan RRSP withdrawals My single favourite piece of advice for young Canadians is this: if you contribute to an RRSP at least 3 months before you make a down payment on your first house, you can withdraw up to $25k from your RRSP without paying tax! to use for the down payment. Then over the next ~10 years, you need to recontribute money back to your RRSP, and you will ultimately be taxed when you finally take the money out at retirement. This means that contributing up to 25k to an RRSP can multiply your savings available for a down payment, by the amount of your tax rate. So if you make ~60k, you'll save ~35% on your 25k deposited, turning your down payment into $33,750. Getting immediate access to the tax savings while also having access to the cash for a downpayment, makes the Home Buyer Plan a solid way to make the most out of your RRSP, as long as one of your near-term goals is to own your own home. Registered Pension Plans are even less liquid than RRSPs. Tax-wise, they basically work the same: you get a deduction in the year you contribute, and are taxed when you withdraw. The big difference is that there are rules on when you are allowed to withdraw: only in retirement [barring specific circumstances]. Typically your employer's matching program (if you have one) will be inside of an RPP. Note that RPP's and RRSP's reduce your taxes on your employment paycheques immediately, if you contribute through a work program. That means you get the tax savings during the year, instead of all at once a year later on April 30th. *Note that I have attempted at all times to keep my advice current with applicable tax legislation, but I do not guarantee accuracy. Research these things yourself because I may have missed something relevant to your situation, I may be just plain wrong, and tax law may have changed since I wrote this to when you read it."}
{"question":"Why does it matter if a Central Bank has a negative rather than 0% interest rate? ","answer":"That is kind of the point, one of the hopes is that it incentivizes banks to stop storing money and start injecting it into the economy themselves. Compared to the European Central Bank investing directly into the economy the way the US central bank has been doing. (The Federal Reserve buying mortgage backed securities) On a country level, individual European countries have tried this before in recent times with no noticeable effect."}
{"question":"23 and on my own, what should I be doing?","answer":"Okay, since you work hourly there are two substantial changes you can make: 1) Move out of Astoria and closer to Jersey City, such as, to Jersey City. Move out of NYC into Jersey!? Heresy! But that ship sailed when you started working there. 2) Work more hours now that you aren't spending 2 hours and 30 minutes of your life commuting. You can make an extra $125 per day, in theory. Since this is $625 more a week, and $2500 a month, it is a substantial change you can make. Presupposing that your current contract has more hours to work."}
{"question":"Can you buy gift cards at grocery store to receive a higher reward rate?","answer":"I actually just did that with my Chase Freedom card. They rotate categories every 3 months, and from April-June it was 5% back at grocery stores.  So I bought a ton of gas cards and got my 5% back.  Next I figured out I would be clever and buy a ton of store gift cards (grocery gift cards) right at the end of the quarter, then use those in the future to purchase gas cards.  Well, I just tried that a couple days ago and discovered the store refuses to sell a gift card if you're paying with a gift card!  So now I'm stuck with $1,000 in grocery cards until I use them in actual grocery purchases haha One of the things about this grocery store is they partner with a gas station on their rewards program.  They offer 10 cents off a gallon with every $100 spent in store, and they double it to 20 cents off a gallon if you buy $100 in gift cards.  Then on the back of the receipt is a coupon for 10 cents off per gallon -- which they double on Tuesdays.  Unfortunately I think I'm one of the only people that takes this much advantage of the program  :-\/ Side note: I actually just changed the billing cycle of my Chase Freedom card to end on the 24th of the month.  That way I can charge a bunch of rewards in the final 6-7 days of the quarter.  And if I have a $0 balance on the 24th, my bill isn't due for 7 weeks -- interest free!  And Chase Freedom has never cared if you purchase gift cards with their quarterly rewards program.  I also gave them a courtesy email giving the specific store and $$$ amount that was going to be charged, and of course they still called me with a 'fraud alert'..."}
{"question":"What's the difference between Term and Whole Life insurance?","answer":"Whole life insurance accumulates a cash value on a pre-tax basis. With a paid-up policy, you make payments until a particular age (usually 65 or 70), at which point you are insured for the rest of your life or a very old age like 120. You can also access this pool of money via loans while you are still alive, but you reduce your benefit until you repay the loans. This may be advantageous if you have a high net worth. Also, if you own a business or farm, a permanent policy may be desirable if the transfer of your property to heirs is likely to generate alot of transactional costs like taxes. Nowadays there are probably better ways to do that too. Whole life\/universal life is a waste of money 95%+ of the time. An example, my wife and I were recently offered open-enrollment (no medical exam) insurance policies our employers in New York. We're in our early 30's. I bought a term policy paying about $400k which costs $19\/mo. My wife was offered a permanent policy that pays $100k which costs $83\/mo, and would have a cash value of $35k at age 65. If you invested the $60\/mo difference between those policies and earned 5%\/year with 30% taxes on the gains, you'd have over $40k with 4x more coverage."}
{"question":"Is there a bank account that allows ACH deposits but not ACH withdrawals?","answer":"Nowadays, all checks you write will not be send to your bank anymore, but instead the bank where they get deposited does an ACH from your bank. That implies that not allowing this to happen, your bank would not be able to honor any checks you wrote (without enforcing paper check delivery in the mail, but the Check21 bill does not allow such enforcing anymore). Basically, your bank would not be able to do business with anyone. The obvious conclusion is that no such bank exists."}
{"question":"Tax deductions on car and\/or home?","answer":"If you itemize your deductions then the interest that you pay on your primary residence is tax deductible. Also realestate tax is also deductible. Both go on Schedule A. The car payment is not tax deductible.  You will want to be careful about claiming business deduction for home  or car. The IRS has very strict rules and if you have any personal use you can disqualify the deduction. For the car you often need to use the mileage reimbursement rates. If you use the car exclusively for work, then a lease may make more sense as you can expense the lease payment whereas with the car you need to follow the depreciation schedule.  If you are looking to claim business expense of car or home, it would be a very good idea to get professional tax advice to ensure that you do not run afoul of the IRS."}
{"question":"What is the best way to make a bet that a certain stock will go up in the medium term?","answer":"I think that those options might well be your best bet, given the potential 700% return in one year if you're right. You could look and see if any Synthetic Zeros (a Synthetic Zero is a derivative that will pay out a set amount if the underlying security is over a certain price point) exist for the share but chances are if they do they wouldn't offer the 700% return. Also might be worth asking the question at the quant stack exchange to see if they have any other ideas."}
{"question":"Using Loan to Invest - Paying Monthly Installments by Selling Originally Bought Shares","answer":"I will add one point missing from the answers by CQM and THEAO. When you take a loan and invest the proceeds, the interest that you pay on the loan is deductible on Schedule A, Line 14 of your Federal income tax return under the category of Investment Interest Expense.  If the  interest expense is larger than all your investment earnings (not just those from the loan proceeds), then you can deduct at most the amount of the earnings, and carry over the excess investment interest paid this year for deduction  against investment earnings in future years. Also, if some of the earnings are long-term capital gains and you choose to deduct the corresponding investment interest expense, then those capital gains are taxed as ordinary income instead of at the favored LTCG rate. You also have the option of choosing to deduct only that amount of interest that offsets dividend (and short-term capital gain) income that is taxed at ordinary rates, pay tax at the LTCG rate on the capital gains, and carry over rest of the interest for deduction in future years. In previous years when the tax laws called for  reduction in the Schedule A deductions for high-income earners, this investment interest expense was exempt from the reduction. Whether future tax laws will allow this exemption depends on Congress. So, this should be taken into account when dealing with the taxes issue in deciding whether to take a loan to invest in the stock market."}
{"question":"Why isn't money spent on necessities deductible from your taxes?","answer":"You could debate the \"why\"s of tax policy endlessly. There are lots of things in tax law that I think are bad ideas, and probably a few here and there that I think are good ideas. I am well aware that there are things that I think are good ideas that others think are bad ideas and vice versa.  To your specific point: I suppose you could say that having a place to live is a necessity. But most people do not live in the absolute minimum necessary to give them a place to sleep and protection from the weather. You could survive with a one-room apartment with a bed on one side and a toilet and some minimal cooking facilities on the other. Most people have considerably more than that. At some point that's luxury and not necessity. And if you want to push it, you COULD live in a cardboard box under a bridge, you don't NEED a house or apartment to survive. Personally I think it's absurd that as a home-owner I get a deduction for my mortgage interest, while if someone were to rent an identical house with a monthly rental equal to exactly the same amount that I am paying on my mortgage, he would receive no deduction. The stated goal of that one was to encourage home ownership. But people who own homes are generally richer than those who rent, so the net result is that the poor are paying higher taxes to help subsidize the homes of the rich. And then the rich congratulate themselves on how they are giving these tax breaks to help make housing more affordable for poor people. To reiterate @keshlam, tax laws only makes sense when understood politically. Yes, some people have fine ideas about what is fair and just. Others simply want tax breaks that benefit their business or people with tough financial situations that just happen by chance to resemble their own. Many of the people with noble ideas have little concept of what the implications of the policies they push are. Many of the ideas that some people view as worthy and noble, others view as frivolous, counter-productive, or even evil. Then you mash all these competing groups and interest together and see what comes out."}
{"question":"Which first time Stocks and Shares ISA for UK, frequent trader UK markets? ","answer":"I wouldn't only consider the entry\/exit cost per trade. That's a good comparison page by the way. I would also consider the following. This depends if you are planning on using your online broker to provide all the information for you to trade. I have lower expectations of my online broker, not meant to be harsh on the online brokers, but I expect brokers to assist me in buying\/selling, not in selecting. Edit: to add to the answer following a comment. Here are three pieces of software to assist in stock selection"}
{"question":"Need something more basic than a financial advisor or planner","answer":"What you are looking for is a Money Coach or a Personal Finance Coach. From mymoneycoach.com: \"Money Coach: Everyone uses money, but few people fully understand how to use it wisely. To be debt free and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle takes special skills. Money coaches provide solutions for household budgeting, investing, using credit wisely, and saving for retirement. With the principles offered by a money coach, you can live the life you want to live.\" Usually money coaches or personal finance coaches will not tell you \"you should put your money here or there\" but instead they will work with you to identify and correct bad money behaviours that affect more than just your investments, and they will not sell you anything. Maybe you could take a look at some coaches in your area, but a lot of them work via the internet too. Good luck!"}
{"question":"What happens to the insider trade profits?","answer":"Is my understanding correct? It's actually higher than that - he exercised options for 94,564 shares at $204.16 and sold them for $252.17 for a gain of about $4.5 Million.  There's another transaction that's not in your screenshot where he sold the other 7,954 shares for another $2 Million. What do executive directors usually do with such profit?  It's part of his compensation - it's anyone's guess what he decided to do with it. Is it understood that such trade profits should be re-invested back to the company? No - that is purely compensation for his position (I'm assuming the stock options were compensation rather then him buying options in the open market).  There generally is no expectation that trading profits need to go back into the company.  If the company wanted the profits reinvested they wouldn't have distributed the compensation in the first place."}
{"question":"Whole life insurance - capped earnings","answer":"Pretty simple: When is Cash Value Life Insurance a good or bad idea? It is never a good idea. How can life insurance possibly work as investment? It can't.  Just as car, home, or health insurance is not an investment.  Note for counter example providers:  intent to commit insurance fraud is not an investment. Why not live your life so in 15 or 20 years you are debt free, have a nice emergency fund built and have a few 100 thousand in investments?  Then you can self-insure.  If you die with a paid off home, no debt, 20K in a money market, and 550,000 in retirement accounts would your spouse and children be taken care of?"}
{"question":"Should I pay half a large balance this month before I get my CC statement?","answer":"Utilization is near real-time. What that means is that what is reported is what is taken in terms of debt-to-income (DTI) ratios. When a mortgage broker pulls your credit, they will pull the latest balances with the minimum payments. This is what is taken to determine DTI along with your gross monthly income. If you do not pay your account in full before the statement date, then you more than likely will have to wait an additional statement cycle before it reports to the credit bureaus. Therefore, your utilization is dynamic and the history of your utilization month-to-month is not recorded forever. Only the current balance. What is maintained and reported is your payment history. So you want to never be late if you want to be approved anytime soon for a mortgage. A lower DTI will not help your interest rate. As long as you stay away from the maximum DTI for the mortgage vehicle you are attempting to be approved for (VA, FHA, Conventional, etc), then your DTI should not be a concern. If you are borderline at the time of underwriting, you can take the opportunity and pay off the balances. The mortgage company can then do what is called a credit supplement which entails contacting those lenders where you have proven you have a zero balance and manually input the zero balance cards, that have not yet reported to the bureaus, in your final application to the mortgage company for underwriting approval."}
{"question":"How much of a down payment for a car should I save before purchasing it?","answer":"I've run into two lines of thinking on cars when the 0% option is offered.  One is that you should buy the car with cash - always.  Car debt is not usually considered \"good debt,\" as there is no doubt but that your car will depreciate.  Unless something very odd happens or you keep the car to antique status (and it's a good one), you won't make money off of it. On the other hand, with 0% interest - if you qualify, and remember that dealer promotions aren't for everyone, just those who qualify - you can invest that money in a savings account, bonds, a mutual fund, or the stock market and theoretically make a lot more over the 5 years while paying down the car.  In that case, you really only need to make sure you save enough to make the payment low enough for your comfort zone. Personally I prefer to not be making a car payment.  Your personal comfort level may vary. Also, in terms of getting your money's worth a gently used car in good condition is miles better than a new car.  Someone else took the hit on the \"drive it off the lot\" decline in price for you."}
{"question":"Is there any instance where less leverage will get you a better return on a rental property?","answer":"Leverage means you can make more investments with the same amount of money.  In the case of rental properties, it means you can own more properties and generate more rents.  You exchange a higher cost of doing business (higher interest fees) and a higher risk of total failure, for a larger number of rents and thus higher potential earnings. As with any investment advice, whenever someone tells you \"Do X and you are guaranteed to make more money\", unless you are a printer of money that is not entirely true. In this case, taking more leverage exposes you to more risk, while giving you more potential gain.  That risk is not only on the selling front; in fact, for most small property owners, the risk is primarily that you will have periods of time of higher expense or lower income.  These can come in several ways: If you weather these and similar problems, then you will stand to make more money using higher leverage, assuming you make more money from each property than your additional interest costs.  As long as you're making any money on your properties this is likely (as interest rates are very low right now), but making any money at all (above and beyond the sale value) may be challenging early on.   These sorts of risks are magnified for your first few years, until you've built up a significant reserve to keep your business afloat in downturns.  And of course, any money in a reserve is money you're not leveraging for new property acquisition - the very same trade-off.  And while you may be able to sell one or more properties if you did end up in a temporarily bad situation, you also may run into 2008 again and be unable to do so."}
{"question":"Selling stocks as LIFO or FIFO","answer":"According to the IRS, you must have written confirmation from your broker \"or other agent\" whenever you sell shares using a method other than FIFO: Specific share identification.   If you adequately identify the shares   you sold, you can use the adjusted basis of those particular shares to   figure your gain or loss. You will adequately identify your mutual fund shares, even if you   bought the shares in different lots at various prices and times, if   you: Specify to your broker or other agent the particular shares to be sold or transferred at the time of the sale or transfer, and Receive confirmation in writing from your broker or other agent within a reasonable time of your specification of the particular   shares sold or transferred. If you don't have a stockbroker, I'm not sure how you even got the shares. If you have an actual stock certificate, then you are selling very specific shares and the purchase date corresponds to the purchase date of those shares represented on the certificate."}
{"question":"How can I raise finance to build a home for my family","answer":"As I see it, there are 2 potential solutions - Joining with another person or 2, and buying a house with multiple bedrooms. I am in the US, and I've seen immigrants living in tight accommodations that would seem unacceptable to most of us. But, with the combined incomes, they were able to buy the house and quickly pay for it, and then buy another.  $800\/mo is about $5\/hr. Below US minimum wage. Use your skills to take on additional work on line. A virtual assistant position can increase your income quite a bit.  Keep in mind, as someone on the other side of the world, my advice may not be practical for you, these are just my thoughts."}
{"question":"Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard\/Visa?","answer":"If you are solvent enough, and organised enough to pay your credit card bill in full each month, then use the credit card.  There are no disadvantages and several plus points, already mentioned. Use the debit card when you would be surcharged for using the credit card, or where you can negotiate a discount for not subjecting the vendor to credit card commission."}
{"question":"How do I go about finding an honest & ethical financial advisor?","answer":"Large and well-known companies are typically a good starting point. That doesn't mean that they are the best or even above average good, but at least they don't cheat you and run with your money. A core point is someone you pay, not the company whose investment he sell you. Although the latter seems cheaper on first glance, it isn't - if you pay him, his interest is to do good work for you; if they pay him, his interest is to sell you the product with the highest payment for him. That does not imply that they are all that way; it's just a risk. There are many good advisers that live from commissions, and still don't recommend you bad investments. Depending on the amounts, you could also read up a bit and open an account with a online investment company. It is discussable, but I think the cost for an adviser only starts to become worth it if you are deep into 5 digits of money."}
{"question":"Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?","answer":"Two different questions: Is it better to be in debt or to pay off the debt? And: Is it better to have student debt than other debt?  Any debt needs to be paid off eventually, and any debt makes you less flexible. So if you have the choice between spending\/wasting your money and paying off debt, I would recommend paying off the debt.  The other question is whether having student debt is better than having other debt. You need to look at the terms of your student debt. Pay off the debt with the worst conditions first. Loan sharks (in Britain: pay-day loans) must be paid first. Credit cards debt must go next. Then general loans. Depending on your situation, you may want some savings as well. In case you lose your job, for example. So if you have $8,000 saved and an $8,000 student loan, you might consider waiting a bit before you pay back the loan. No job + $8,000 student loan + $8,000 in the bank is better than no job + no debt + no money in the bank."}
{"question":"Capital Gains Tax with Multiple 'buy' Transactions per Stock (U.S.)","answer":"According to the following article the answer is \"first-in, first-out\": http:\/\/smallbusiness.chron.com\/calculate-cost-basis-stock-multiple-purchases-21588.html According to the following article the last answer was just one option an investor can choose: https:\/\/www.usaa.com\/inet\/pages\/advice-investing-costbasis?akredirect=true"}
{"question":"What to do with a 50K inheritance [duplicate]","answer":"The basic optimization rule on distributing windfalls toward debt is to pay off the highest interest rate debt first putting any extra money into that debt while making minimum payments to the other creditors. If the 5k in \"other debt\" is credit card debt it is virtually certain to be the highest interest rate debt. Pay it off immediately. Don't wait for the next statement. Once you are paying on credit cards there is no grace period and the sooner you pay it the less interest you will accrue. Second, keep 10k for emergencies but pretend you don't have it. Keep your spending as close as possible to what it is now. Check the interest rate on the auto loan v student loans. If the auto loan is materially higher pay it off, then pay the remaining 20k toward the student loans. Added this comment about credit with a view towards the OP's future: Something to consider for the longer term is getting your credit situation set up so that should you want to buy a new car or a home a few years down the road you will be paying the lowest possible interest. You can jump start your credit by taking out one or two secured credit cards from one of the banks that will, in a few years, unsecure your account, return your deposit, and leave no trace you ever opened a secured account. That's the route I took with Citi and Wells Fargo. While over spending on credit cards can be tempting, they are, with a solid payment history, the single most important positive attribute on a credit report and impact FICO scores more than other type of credit or debt. So make an absolute practice of only using them for things you would buy anyway and always, always, pay each monthly bill in full. This one thing will make it far easier to find a good rental, buy a car on the best terms, or get a mortgage at good rates. And remember: Credit is not equal to debt. Maximize the former and minimize the latter."}
{"question":"Does borrowing from my 401(k) make sense in my specific circumstance?","answer":"You're getting great wisdom and options. Establishing your actionable path will require the details that only you know, such as how much is actually in each paycheck (and how much tax is withheld), how much do you spend each month (and yearly expenses too), how much spending can you actually cut or replace, how comfortable are you with considering (or not considering) unexpected\/emergency spending. You mentioned you were cash-poor, but only you know what your current account balances are, which will affect your actions and priorities. Btw, interestingly, your \"increase 401k contributions by 2% each year\" will need to end before hitting the $18K contribution limit. I took some time and added the details you posted into a cash-flow program to see your scenario over the next few years. There isn't a \"401k loan\" activity in this program yet, so I build the scenario from other simple activities. You seem financially minded enough to continue modeling on your own. I'm posting the more difficult one for you (borrow from 401k), but you'll have to input your actual balances, paycheck and spending. My spending assumptions must be low, and I entered $70K as \"take-home,\" so the model looks like you've got lots of cash. If you choose to play with it, then consider modeling some other scenarios from the advice in the other posts. Here's the \"Borrow $6500 from 401k\" scenario model at Whatll.Be: https:\/\/whatll.be\/d1x1ndp26i\/2 To me, it's all about trying the scenarios and see which one seems to work with all of the details. The trick is knowing what scenarios to try, and how to model them. Full disclosure: I needed to do similar planning, so I wrote Whatll.Be and I now share it with other people. It's in beta, so I'm testing it with scenarios like yours. (Notice most of the extra activity occurs on 2018-Jan-01)"}
{"question":"Can you sell stocks\/commodities for any price you wish (either direct or market)?","answer":"In other words, does the market have control over sale numbers or do I? You both do, just like for the bike.  You have control over the price you ask, and the buyer has control over the price they pay.  If the two do not align, no sale takes place. Your question uses the words \"sell\" and \"sale\" ambiguously.  You can decide to ask for any price you want.  You cannot actually sell anything until someone agrees to buy what you are offering."}
{"question":"Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]","answer":"The value of a stock ultimately is related to the valuation of a corporation.  As part of the valuation, you can estimate the cash flows (discounted to present time) of the expected cash flows from owning a share.  This stock value is the so-called \"fundamental\" value of a stock.  What you are really asking is, how is the stock's market price and the fundamental value related?  And by asking this, you have implicitly assumed they are not the same.   The reason that the fundamental value and market price can diverge is that simply, most shareholders will not continue holding the stock for the lifespan of a company (indeed some companies have been around for centuries).  This means that without dividends or buybacks or liquidations or mergers\/acquisitions, a typical shareholder cannot reasonably expect to recoup their share of the company's equity. In this case, the chief price driver is the aggregate expectation of buyers and sellers in the marketplace, not fundamental evaluation of the company's balance sheet.   Now obviously some expectations are based on fundamentals and expert opinions can differ, but even when all the experts agree roughly on the numbers, it may be that the market price is quite a ways away from their estimates.  An interesting example is given in this survey of behavioral finance.  It concerns Palm, a wholly-owned subsidiary of 3Com.  When Palm went public, its shares went for such a high price, they were significantly higher than 3Com's shares.  This mispricing persisted for several weeks. Note that this facet of pricing is often given short shrift in standard explanations of the stock market.  It seems despite decades of academic research (and Nobel prizes being handed out to behavioral economists), the knowledge has been slow to trickle down to laymen, although any observant person will realize something is amiss with the standard explanations.   For example, before 2012, the last time Apple paid out dividends was 1995.  Are we really to believe that people were pumping up Apple's stock price from 1995 to 2012 because they were waiting for dividends, or hoping for a merger or liquidation?  It doesn't seem plausible to me, especially since after Apple announced dividends that year, Apple stock ended up taking a deep dive, despite Wall Street analysts stating the company was doing better than ever.  That the stock price reflects expectations of the future cash flows from the stock is a thinly-disguised form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), and there's a lot of evidence contrary to the EMH (see references in the previously-linked survey).  If you believe what happened in Apple's case was just a rational re-evaluation of Apple stock, then I think you must be a hard-core EMH advocate. Basically (and this is elaborated at length in the survey above), fundamentals and market pricing can become decoupled.  This is because there are frictions in the marketplace making it difficult for people to take advantage of the mispricing.  In some cases, this can go on for extended periods of time, possibly even years.  Part of the friction is caused by strong beliefs by market participants which can often shift pressure to supply or demand.  Two  popular sayings on Wall Street are, \"It doesn't matter if you're right.  You have to be right at the right time.\"  and \"It doesn't matter if you're right, if the market disagrees with you.\"  They suggest that you can make the right decision with where to put your money, but being \"right\" isn't what drives prices.  The market does what it does, and it's subject to the whims of its participants."}
{"question":"Shares; are they really only for the rich\/investors?","answer":"I think small sums invested regularly over long-term can do good for you, things to consider:  I would go with an index fund and contribute there there regularly."}
{"question":"Is paying off your mortage a #1 personal finance priority?","answer":"The answer depends entirely on your mortgage terms - is the interest rate low, how many years left? Questions like this are about Cost of Capital. If your mortgage has a low interest for a lot of years, you have a low cost of capital.  By paying it off early, you are dumping that low cost of capital. Use the extra money to start a business, invest in something or even buy another property (rental).  Whenever you have a low cost of capital, don't rush to get rid of it. Of course, if there are no other investment\/business opportunities available and the extra money is going into a low return savings account, you might as well pay down your debt.  Or if you lack the self discipline to use the extra money properly - buying flat screens and meals out - then yeah just pay down your debt. But if you're disciplined with the extra money, use it to get access to more capital and make that new capital work for you."}
{"question":"How much should a new graduate with new job put towards a car?","answer":"You are currently $30k in debt.  I realize it is tempting to purchase a new car with your new job, but increasing your debt right now is heading in the wrong direction.  Adding a new monthly payment into your budget would be a mistake, in my opinion. Here is what I would suggest.  Since you have $7k in the bank, spend up to $6k on a nice used car.  This will keep $1k in the bank for emergencies, and give you transportation without adding debt and a monthly payment.  Then you can focus on knocking out the student loans.   Won't it be nice when those student loans are gone?  By not going further into debt, you will be much closer to that day.  New cars are a luxury that you aren't in a position to splurge on yet."}
{"question":"How to pay for Alzheimer's care?","answer":"The cost of Alzheimer's care depends on the facility that provides this care. Specialized facilities usually have higher costs than general geriatric care ones. Though there are several ways to cover the cost: I think you'd better read the article http:\/\/www.autumngrove.com\/blog\/how-to-pay-for-alzheimers-care\/ or learn their brochure http:\/\/www.autumngrove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cost-of-assisted-living.pdf"}
{"question":"Home Renovations are expensive.. Should I only pay cash for them?","answer":"Is it a safety thing?  If the heat pump goes out you replace it immediately, if your floor looks bad but you aren't tripping, I would suggest saving.  Use the extra time to find a great deal and educate yourself on your options.  Maybe even take a class and learn to do it yourself. In these rough times, anything I can save for and pay cash I would.  The exception is if you can finance with 0% interest for a period of time and you have enough money to pay that off. The last consideration I can think of is if you plan to sell the home soon?  For that you might be getting more value than the loan and a real estate agent would be probably know best."}
{"question":"Thrift Saving Plan (TSP) Share Price Charts","answer":"The recommended way to track TSP funds in online portfolio tools is to track the underlying index and know that the results are pretty close.   Not a perfect solution: :( Source including suggested ETFs: http:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/breaking-down-tsp-investment-funds-194600393.html Related, but not exactly what you are looking for, Personal Capital will track your TSP holdings: http:\/\/themilitarywallet.com\/manage-thrift-savings-plan\/"}
{"question":"Oil Price forcasting","answer":"If past is prologue, I'd say $20, give or take, inflation adjusted of course. http:\/\/www.antagoniste.net\/WP-Uploads\/2007\/01\/oil_prices_1861_2006.jpg If supplies are at nightmare oversupply, say, as an absurd unlikely scenario, 82 year high in US oil supplies or an all time record in EIA weekly inventories, it looks like the oil price could be capped at the cost of oil sands:  This one's just plain scary.  Unless if there were some changes refinery laws or technology that I'm not aware of, refineries cutting 50% of the retail gasoline volumes looks bad:"}
{"question":"How to transfer personal auto lease to business auto lease?","answer":"I'd approach the lender that you're getting the lease from, but be prepared for them either saying 'no' to putting the lease into the name of an LLC without any proven track record (because it hasn't been around for a while) or require you to sign a personal guarantee, which partially defeats the purpose of putting the car lease into the LLC. I'd also talk to an accountant to see if you can't just charge the business the mileage on your vehicle as that might be the simplest solution, especially if the lender gets stroppy. Of course the mileage rate might not cover the expense for the lease as that one is designed to cover the steepest part of the depreciation curve. Does your LLC generate the revenue needed so it can take on the lease in the first place? If it's a new business you might not need or want the drain on your finances that a lease can be."}
{"question":"Why can't I withdraw the $57 in my account?","answer":"Given you mention a check clearing, in addition to debit card holds as JoeTaxpayer notes, you may also have funds that are on hold for that reason.  While the bank may have stated it would be a one day hold, some banks may mean business days (Monday-Friday), and so it will become available on Monday. This is because checks are not always instantly withdrawn from the other account (although this is becoming much more common post-electronic check reform), so the bank wants to make sure it actually is getting the money from the check; after all, if the check you deposited bounces, the bank doesn't want to end up footing the bill. The bank allows you some portion up front, largely as a customer service; the amount varies from bank to bank, but it's generally a small amount they don't mind risking.  $200 is a pretty good amount, actually; back when I was just out of college and frequently spending the last $50 in my account, the pre-clearance amount was usually $50. If the bank does this to you regularly and you feel that it is unfair in how long it holds checks, you might consider shopping around; different banks have different hold policies, or might allow you a larger amount up front.  In particular, online banks tend to have more favorable terms this way."}
{"question":"Should I charge my children interest when they borrow money? ","answer":"Parents are eminently capable of gifting to their children.  If it's a gift call it a gift. If it's not a gift, it's either a loan or a landmine for some future interpersonal familial interaction (parent-child or sibling-sibling).  I an concerned by some phrasing in the OP that it is partially down this path here.  If it's a loan, it should have the full ceremony of a loan: written terms and a payment plan (which could fairly be a 0% interest, single balloon payment in 10 years or conditional on sale of a house or such; it's still not a gift)."}
{"question":"Is a \"total stock market\" index fund diverse enough alone?","answer":"and seems to do better than the S&P 500 too. No, that's not true. In fact, this fund is somewhere between S&P500 and the NASDAQ Composite indexes wrt to performance. From my experience (I have it too), it seems to fall almost in the middle between SPY and QQQ in daily moves. So it does provide diversification, but you're basically diversifying between various indexes. The cost is the higher expense ratios (compare VTI to VOO)."}
{"question":"HELOC vs. Parental Student Loans vs. Second Mortgage?","answer":"First of all, I'm happy that the medical treatments were successful. I can't even imagine what you were going through.  However, you are now faced with a not-so-uncommon reality that many households face. Here's some other options you might not have thought of:   I would avoid adding more debt if at all possible.  I would first focus on the the cost side.  With a good income you can also squeeze every last dollar out of your budget to send them to school.   I agree with your dislike of parent loans for the same reasons, plus they don't encourage cost savings and there's no asset to \"give back\" if school doesn't work out (roughly half of all students that start college don't graduate) I would also avoid borrowing more than 80% of your home's value to avoid PMI or higher loan rates.  You also say that you can pay off the HELOC in 5 years - why can you do that but not cash flow the college?   Also note that a second mortgage may be worse that a HELOC - the fees will be higher, and you still won't be able to borrow more that what the house is worth."}
{"question":"Why do more floating shares mean less volatility for the stock?","answer":"More shares mean less volatility because it takes a larger number of trades, a larger number of shares per trade, or a combination of both to raise or lower the stock price. Institutional investors (mutual funds, pensions, hedge funds, other investment firms, etc) are the sorts of organizations with the large amounts of money needed to move a stock price one way or the other.  But the more floating shares there are in a company, the harder it is for one or two firms to move a stock price.  A company with fewer floating shares wouldn't require as many trades (or as many shares per trade) to see wider swings in price. When it comes to stock price, insider trading isn't the same as manipulation.  In the (surprisingly few) cases of insider trading that are prosecuted, it tends to be an individual (or small group) with early access to information that the broader market doesn't have being able to buy or sell ahead of the broader market.  Their individual sales are seldom if ever enough to noticeably move a stock price.  They're locking in profit or limiting a loss.  Manipulation might (but doesn't always) precede insider trading, if misinformation (or truth) is released for the purpose of creating a situation that can be profited from via a trade or trades."}
{"question":"How can people have such high credit card debts?","answer":"I would say you are typical.  The way people are able to build their available credit, then subsequently build their average balances is buy building their credit score.  According to FICO your credit score is made up as follows: Given that you had no history, and only new credit you are pretty much lacking in all areas.  What the typical person does, is get a card, pay on it for 6 months and assuming good history will either get an automatic bump; or, they can request a credit limit increase. Credit score has nothing to do with wealth or income.  So even if you had 100K in the bank you would likely still be facing the same issue.  The bank that holds the money might make an exception. It is very easy to see how a college student can build to 2000 or more.  They start out with a $200 balance to a department store and in about 6 months they get a real CC with a 500 balance and one to a second department store.  Given at least a decent payment history, that limit could easily increase above 2500 and there could be more then one card open.   Along the lines of what littleadv says, the companies even welcome some late payments.  The fees are more lucrative and they can bump the interest rate.  All is good as long as the payments are made. Getting students and children involved with credit cards is a goal of the industry.  They can obtain an emotional attachment that goes beyond good business reasoning."}
{"question":"Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?","answer":"Do you guys think it's a good idea to put that much down on the car ? In my opinion, it depends on a lot of factors.  If you have nothing to pay, and are not planning to invest in something that cost a lot soon (I.E an house, etc). Then I see no problem in put \"that much down on the car\". Remember that the more you pay at first, the less you will pay interest on. However, if you are planning on buying something big soon, then you might want to pay less and keep moneys for your future investment. I would honestly not finance a car with the garage as I find their interest rate to high. Possibilities depends a lot of your bank accounts, but what I would personally do is pay it cash using my credit margin with the bank which is only 2.8% interest rate. Garage where I live rarely finance under 7% interest rate. You may not have a credit margin, but maybe you could get a loan with the bank instead ? Many bank keep an history of your loan which will get you a better credit name when trying to buy an home later. On the other side, having a good credit name is not really useful in a garage. What interest rate is reasonable based on my credit score? I don't think it is possible to give a real answer to this as it change a lot around the world. However, I would recommend to simply compare with the interest rate asked when being loan by the bank."}
{"question":"Are 'per trade' fees charged on every order or just once per stock?","answer":"In my experience they charge you coming and going. For example, if a brokerage firm is advertising that their commissions are only $7\/trade, then that means you pay money to buy the stock, plus $7 to them, and later on if you want to sell that stock you must pay $7 to get out of the deal.  So, if you want to make any money on a stock (say, priced at $10) you would have to sell it at a price above $10+$7+$7=$24. That kind of sale could take a few years to turn a profit. However, with flat-rate fees like that it is advantageous to buy in bulk."}
{"question":"What's the difference between Term and Whole Life insurance?","answer":"For most people Term is the way to go. I consider life insurance a necessity not an investment. See this article on SmartMoney."}
{"question":"Is my wash sale being calculated incorrectly?","answer":"According to Wikipedia this is still a wash sale: In the USA wash sale rules are codified in \"26 USC \u00a7 1091 - Loss from   wash sales of stock or securities.\" Under Section 1091, a wash sale occurs when a taxpayer sells or trades   stock or securities at a loss, and within 30 days before or after the   sale:"}
{"question":"What is a straddle?","answer":"A straddle is an options strategy in which one \"buys\" or \"sells\" options of the same maturity (expiry date) that allow the \"buyer\" or \"seller\" to profit based on how much the price of the underlying security moves, regardless of the direction of price movement. IE: A long straddle would be: You buy a call and a put at the same strike price and the same expiration date. Your profit would be if the underlying asset(the stock) moves far enough down or up(higher then the premiums you paid for the put + call options) (In case, one waits till expiry) Profit = Expiry Level - Strike Price - (Premium Paid for Bought Options) Straddle"}
{"question":"Do I need to invest to become millionaire?","answer":"If your take-home salary after taxes etc is 35K \/ year, and you say you will be able to save at most 40% of that, you will need to find something that pays 2.75% to reach one million in 40 years*. However, these numbers can chance dramatically depending on your specific circumstances. If you're just starting your career, 40 years of saving is not impossible. If you're in the middle or nearing the end, you will have dramatically less time to achieve your goals. *40% of 35000 is 14000 saved per year, at an interest of 2.75% compounded annually, you will reach 1000000 after roughly 40 years."}
{"question":"Transfer $50k to another person's account (in California, USA)","answer":"A non-cash transaction will not be a problem. The bank will have to fill out federal paperwork if there are large amounts of cash involved.  This is to stop the underground economy.  This can even extend to non-banks. If you were to walk into a car dealer or some other stores and hand them a bag  of cash they will also report it. You can do what you propose without having to transfer any money between accounts. Your girlfriend can put the furniture and landscaping on her credit card, or write checks to the stores or companies. Based on the number of questions on this site regarding how to transfer funds between banks and accounts, the mechanics of the transfer is the hard part. Resist the urge to use cash to make the transfer. That will require paperwork. Many people find that the old standard of using checks to transfer funds is easy, safe and quick."}
{"question":"Purchasing options between the bid and ask prices, or even at the bid price or below?","answer":"I understand the question, I think. The tough thing is that trades over the next brief time are random, or appear so. So, just as when a stock is $10.00 bid \/ $10.05 ask, if you place an order below the ask, a tick down in price may get you a fill, or if the next trades are flat to higher, you might see the close at $10.50, and no fill as it never went down to your limit.  This process is no different for options than for stocks.  When I want to trade options, I make sure the strike has decent volume, and enter a market order. Edit - I reworded a bit to clarify. The Black\u2013Scholes is a model, not a rigid equation. Say I discover an option that's underpriced, but it trades under right until it expires. It's not like there's a reversion to the mean that will occur. There are some very sophisticated traders who use these tools to trade in some very high volumes, for them, it may produce results. For the small trader you need to know why you want to buy a stock or its option and not worry about the last $0.25 of its price."}
{"question":"Can an ETF, open at a price other than what the pre-market was at?","answer":"If I understand you correctly, you are noticing that a stock's price can change drastically when the time changes from pre-market trading hours to open market hours. This could occur because a much smaller pool of investors make trades during pre-market and after-market hours. When the regular market opens there is a large influx of trades, causing the prices to jump."}
{"question":"Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans","answer":"Pros: Cons: Before the housing bubble the conventional wisdom was to buy as much home as you could afford, thereby borrowing as much you can afford.  Because variable rates lead to lower mortgages, they were preferred by many as you could buy more house.   This of course lead to many people losing their home and many thousands of dollars. A bubble is not necessary to trigger a chain of events that can lead to loss of a home.  If an interest only borrower is late on a payment, this often triggers a rate increase.  Couple that with some other things that can happen negatively, and you are up $hit's creek. IMO it is not wise."}
{"question":"Why do people buy stocks at higher price in merger?","answer":"Without any highly credible anticipation of a company being a target of a pending takeover, its common stock will normally trade at what can be considered non-control or \"passive market\" prices, i.e. prices that passive securities investors pay or receive for each share of stock. When there is talk or suggestion of a publicly traded company's being an acquisition target, it begins to trade at \"control market\" prices, i.e. prices that an investor or group of them is expected to pay in order to control the company.  In most cases control requires a would-be control shareholder to own half a company's total votes (not necessarily stock) plus one additional vote and to pay a greater price than passive market prices to non-control investors (and sometimes to other control investors). The difference between these two market prices is termed a \"control premium.\"  The appropriateness and value of this premium has been upheld in case law, with some conflicting opinions, in Delaware Chancery Court (see the reference below; LinkedIn Corp. is incorporated in the state), most other US states' courts and those of many countries with active stock markets. The amount of premium is largely determined by investment bankers who, in addition to applying other valuation approaches, review most recently available similar transactions for premiums paid and advise (formally in an \"opinion letter\") their clients what range of prices to pay or accept. In addition to increasing the likelihood of being outbid by a third-party, failure to pay an adequate premium is often grounds for class action lawsuits that may take years to resolve with great uncertainty for most parties involved. For a recent example and more details see this media opinion and overview about Dell Inc. being taken private in 2013, the lawsuits that transaction prompted and the court's ruling in 2016 in favor of passive shareholder plaintiffs.  Though it has more to do with determining fair valuation than specifically premiums, the case illustrates instruments and means used by some courts to protect non-control, passive shareholders. ========== REFERENCE As a reference, in a 2005 note written by a major US-based international corporate law firm, it noted with respect to Delaware courts, which adjudicate most major shareholder conflicts as the state has a disproportionate share of large companies in its domicile, that control premiums may not necessarily be paid to minority shareholders if the acquirer gains control of a company that continues to have minority shareholders, i.e. not a full acquisition: Delaware case law is clear that the value of a dissenting [target company's]   stockholder\u2019s shares is not to be reduced to impose a minority   discount reflecting the lack of the stockholders\u2019 control over the   corporation. Indeed, this appears to be the rationale for valuing the   target corporation as a whole and allocating a proportionate share of   that value to the shares of [a] dissenting stockholder [exercising his appraisal rights in seeking to challenge the value the target company's board of directors placed on his shares]. At the same   time, Delaware courts have suggested, without explanation, that the   value of the corporation as a whole, and as a going concern, should   not include a control premium of the type that might be realized in a   sale of the corporation."}
{"question":"Evaluating an endowment policy for its fairness against other tax saving options in India such as PPF, EPF and even FDs","answer":"Or am missing something?  Yes. The rate of 8.53 is illustration. There is no guarantee that the rate will be applicable. My yearly premium is Rs. 26289. On this amount I will save tax of Rs. 7887. So net premium is Rs. 18402. The other way to look at this is invest Rs 26289 [or actually less of Eq Term Deposit premium]. If you invest into Eq Term Deposit [lock-in for 6 years] with tax benefits, your numbers are going to be very different and definitely better than LIC returns. Edits:"}
{"question":"Estate taxes and the top 1 percent by net worth","answer":"There are two key reasons: Consider a family of four, two kids and two adults, that has a net worth of $20 million. Each of these four people live in a top 1% household. But any of those four people can die, and their estate will not pay any estate tax. Both kids and one spouse can die, and still no estate tax will be paid. Only when the last spouse dies would there be any estate tax. Also, consider a person who dies but whose assets do not flow into their estate. For example, their assets could be held in an inter-vivos trust. People with higher net worths are much more likely to use trusts to avoid or minimize estate taxes."}
{"question":"Why can it be a bad idea to buy stocks after hours?","answer":"During market hours, there are a lot of dealers offering to buy and sell all exchange traded stocks. Dealers don't actually care about the company's fundamentals and they set their prices purely based on order flow. If more people start to buy than sell, the dealer notices his inventory going down and starts upping the price (both his bid and ask). There are also traders who may not be \"dealers\", but are willing to sell if the price goes high enough or buy if the price goes low enough. This keeps the prices humming along smoothly. During normal trading hours, if you buy something and turn around and sell it two minutes later, you'll probably be losing a couple cents per share. Outside normal market hours, the dealers who continue to have a bid and ask listed know that they don't have access to good price information --  there isn't a liquid market of continuous buying and selling for the dealer to set prices he considers safe. So what does he do? He widens the spread. He doesn't know what the market will open tomorrow at and doesn't know if he'll be able to react quickly to news. So instead of bidding $34.48 and offering at $34.52, he'll move that out to $33 and $36. The dealer still makes money sometimes off this because maybe some trader realized that he has options expiring tomorrow, or a short position that he's going to get a margin call on, or some kind of event that pretty much forces him to trade. Or maybe he's just panicking and overreacting to some news. So why not trade after hours? Because there's no liquidity, and trading when there's no liquidity costs you a lot."}
{"question":"Using a self-directed IRA to buy vacation condo, rent it out to an LLC for $1","answer":"I don't quite understand your thought process here.  First, in a tax-advantaged retirement account you are NOT allowed to engage in a transaction with yourself.   If you just want to run a business and be able to write off expenses, how is using the self-directed IRA relevant? You can either buy the condo using your tax-advantaged account and rent it out to regular tenants.  Or you buy the condo yourself using your own money and then operate your business so you can deduct business expenses from doing so.  401k's allow you to take a loan out of it, so you can look into that as well."}
{"question":"What are the usual terms of a \"rent with an option to buy\" situation?","answer":"In most cases an rent with option to buy is structured as follows: The renter\/buyer will place a deposit\/premium (not the same as a security deposit) that purchases the option( the right ) to buy the home at a future date at a specific price. The renter \/ buyer will often pay extra rent in addition to market rent.  Many times this additional rent is contracted to be applied to the purchase price of the home. The risks to the renter\/buyer are as follows: Also, something to note: Many people will recommend that you use the additional rents to be applied specifically towards the downpayment.  Be wary of this.  There are no institutional lenders available today that will allow the additional rent money to be applied towards your downpayment.  That means you must come up with the downpayment in cash before closing.  The additional rent payments can  be used towards the price.   Hope that helps.  Good luck!"}
{"question":"Do I need to write the date on the back of a received check when depositing it?","answer":"Let me just add that while you don't need to write the date received on the back of the check, you could. Why? Let's say someone was late in paying you and you wanted to document the fact that they were late. I've had late-paying customers send me a check dated on the due date but really they just pre-dated the check and sent it 60 days past-due. So let's say I want to establish and document the pattern in case it becomes a future legal issue. When you deposit or cash a check, an image of the front and back is made and the person or company who issued the check will have those images stored as part of their transaction history. (It used to be that the original, physical, cancelled check was returned to the payer, but that was another era.) So write the date received on the back next to the endorsement, endorse the check, and take a photo of the front and back (along with the postmark on the envelope) to document that they are a late payer. This way, if it ever becomes a \"he said she said\" issue you can easily show they have a history of paying late. If the payer looks at their check images they'll see your received date note next to the endorsement. Granted, this is a lot of trouble for a unique situation. In 20+ years of running a business I've actually had the foresight to do this a handful of times with habitual offenders, and in (only) one case did it come in handy later on. But boy was I glad to have those photos when I needed them."}
{"question":"What to ask Warren Buffet at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting? ","answer":"For whatever it's worth, when I went to the meeting a couple of years ago, the question and answer segment is mostly students asking how to pick a stock or what book they should read.  I'm sure someone else will ask but it would be interesting to hear their take on the Syrian refugee situation in Europe and how it may impact the EU in general.  Or how he\/they think the drought in the south western region of the US will impact the national economy, if at all.  Like Keshlam says, if YOU don't care about the answer there's really no point to asking the question. The most important thing you can do is listen to what he and Munger have to say.  The way they think is interesting and they have great rapport with eachother.  It's a great experience and unfortunately I wasn't able to make my schedule work to attend this year.  It's almost comical how many cans of Coke Warren will knock out through the day.   Another fun thing to do is take the shuttle to the airstrip to check out the NetJets.  I wish I had the interest and wherewithal to go when I was 16..."}
{"question":"Is it a bad idea to buy a motorcycle with a lien on it?","answer":"In the case of a vehicle with a lien, there is a specific place on the title to have a lien holder listed, and the holder of the lien will also hold the title until the lien is cleared. Usually this means you have to pay off the loan when you purchase the vehicle. If that loan is held by a bank, meet the seller at the bank and pay the loan directly with them and have them send the title directly to you when the loan is paid. This usually involves writing up a bill of sale to give to the bank when paying the loan. The only thing you're trying to avoid here is paying cash to the seller--who then keeps the cash without paying the lien holder--who then keeps the title and repossesses the motorcycle. Don't pay the seller if they don't have the title ready to sign over to you."}
{"question":"Does girlfriend have too much savings, time to invest?","answer":"It's time she look into what employer provided retirement plan she can use. She's at the point where she should think about investing for the long term, with retirement in mind."}
{"question":"Using stock markets in Europe, how can I buy commodities \/ resources, to diversify my portfolio?","answer":"I recommend avoiding trading directly in commodities futures and options.  If you're not prepared to learn a lot about how futures markets and trading works, it will be an experience fraught with pitfalls and lost money \u2013 and I am speaking from experience. Looking at stock-exchange listed products is a reasonable approach for an individual investor desiring added diversification for their portfolio.  Still, exercise caution and know what you're buying. It's easy to access many commodity-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on North American stock exchanges.  If you already have low-cost access to U.S. markets, consider this option \u2013 but be mindful of currency conversion costs, etc. Yet, there is also a European-based company, ETF Securities, headquartered in Jersey, Channel Islands, which offers many exchange-traded funds on European exchanges such as London and Frankfurt.  ETF Securities started in 2003 by first offering a gold commodity exchange-traded fund. I also found the following: London Stock Exchange: Frequently Asked Questions about ETCs.  The LSE ETC FAQ specifically mentions \"ETF Securities\" by name, and addresses questions such as how\/where they are regulated, what happens to investments if \"ETF Securities\" were to go bankrupt, etc. I hope this helps, but please, do your own due diligence."}
{"question":"Why the volume disparity between NUGT and DUST?","answer":"NUGT and DUST are opposites - DUST is a 'bear' (tracks 3x the inverse) and NUGT is a 'bull' (tracks 3x the actual).  So if NUGT is much higher, sounds like people are betting on Gold (or specifically, on the NYSEARCA Gold Miners Index).   When this Investopedia article was written in July 2016, the volumes were reversed: DUST traded ~18m and NUGT traded ~7m.  Just differences in stock market activity."}
{"question":"Allocation between 401K\/retirement accounts and taxable investments, as a young adult?","answer":"First off, great job on your finances so far. You are off on the right foot and have some sense of planning for the future.  Also, it is a great question.   First, I agree with @littleadv. Take advantage of your employer match. Do not drop your 401(k) contributions below that. Also, good job on putting your contributions into the Roth account. Second, I would ask: Are you out of debt?  If not, put all your extra income towards paying off debt, and then you can work your plan. Third, time to do some math.  What will your business look like?  How much capital would you need to get started?  Are there things you can do now on a part-time basis to start this business or prepare you to start the business? Come up with a figure, find some mutual funds that have a low beta, and back out how much money you need to save per month, so you have around that total.  Then you have a figure. e.g. Assume you need $20,000, and you find a fund that has done 8% over the past 20 years.  Then, you would need to save about $110\/month to be ready to go in 10 years, or $273\/month to go in about 5 years.  (It's a time value of money calculation.) The house is really a long way off, but you could do the same kind of calculation.  I feel that you think your income, and possibly locale, will change dramatically over the next few years.  It might not be bad to double what you are saving for the business, and designate one half for the house."}
{"question":"Additional credit card with different limit on same account?","answer":"Generally not.  Since authorized user cards are the same account and the difference between the two (the original and the AU card) are minimal. Note, there's nothing technically stopping banks from offering this as a feature, two cards do have identifiers that indicate they're separate cards, but the banks concern for your needs stops at how much they can bleed from you, and \"helping you control your spending\" is not part of that."}
{"question":"Can you use external money to pay trading commissions in tax-free and tax-deferred accounts?","answer":"Nice idea. When I started my IRAs, I considered this as well, and the answer from the broker was that this was not permitted. And, aside from transfers from other IRAs or retirement accounts, you can't 'deposit' shares to the IRA, only cash."}
{"question":"Definitions of leverage and of leverage factor","answer":"Levarge in simple terms is how of your own money to how much of borrowed money.   So in 2008 Typical leverage ratios were Investment Banks 30:1 means that for every 1 Unit of Banks money [shareholders capital\/ long term debts] there was 30 Units of borrowed money [from deposits\/for other institutions\/etc]. This is a very unstable situation as typically say you lent out 31 to someone else, half way through repayments, the depositors and other lends are asking you 30 back. You are sunk. Now lets say if you lent 31 to some one, but 30 was your moeny and 1 was from deposits\/etc. Then you can anytime more easily pay back the 1 to the depositor. In day trading, usually one squares away the position the same day or within a short period. Hence say you want to buy something worth 1000 in the morning and are selling it say the same day. You are expecting the price to by 1005 and a gain 5. Now when you buy via your broker\/trader, you may not be required to pay 1000. Normally one just needs to pay a margin money, typically 10% [varies from market to market, country to country]. So in the first case if you put 1000 and get by 5, you made a profit of 0.5%. However if you were to pay only 10 as margin money [rest 990 is assumed loan from your broker]. You sell at 1005, the broker deducts his 990, and you get 15. So technically on 10 you have made 5 more, ie 50% returns. So this is leveraging of 10:1. If say your broker allowed only 5% margin money, then you just need to pay 5 for the 1000 trade, get back 5. You have made a 100% profit, but the leveraging is 20:1.  Now lets say at this high leveraging when you are selling you get only 990. So you still owe the broker 5, if you can't pay-up and if lot of other such people can't pay-up, then the broker will also go bankrupt and there is a huge risk.  Hence although leveraging helps in quite a few cases, there is always an associated risk when things go wrong badly."}
{"question":"What is most time-efficient way to track portfolio asset allocation?","answer":"If you have enough assets at T Rowe Price, you get what I think is a scaled back version of the portfolio tracker for free."}
{"question":"How do 'payday money' stores fund their 'buy now, pay later' loans? ","answer":"Payday loan companies basically are banks (although they are incredibly terrible ones). Banks make money in two ways:  (1) They charge fees for services they provide (bank account fees, etc.); and (2) The interest rate differential: They borrow money from individuals and corporations (your savings account is essentially money you are loaning to the bank) for a small % paid to individuals, and then lend that money back to other people for a higher %. ie: You might earn 0.5% on your savings account, but then the bank takes that money and lends it to your neighbor for 2.5% as part of their mortgage. Payday loan companies make money in one way: They charge an enormous markup on money lent out to other people. The rates in some cases are so high (annualized interest rates of >1000% are not uncommon in countries without full regulation of this industry), that it barely matters where they get money from. They might get money from investors [who bought shares in the company, giving the company initial cash in the hope that they give dividends down the road], they might get money from other 'real' banks [who lend money just like they would lend money to any other business, with a regular interest rate], or they might have many from many other sources. They might even issue their debt publically, so that individuals could buy bonds from the company and receive a small amount of interest every year. The point is that the rates of return on the money leant by payday loan companies are so high, that the cost of where the money comes from is not terribly relevant."}
{"question":"How to spend more? (AKA, how to avoid being a miser)","answer":"@pyb is right - you should put an hourly dollar value on your time.  Calculate a realistic number and keep it in the back of your mind. Then when you're looking for a discount or a saving, estimate the maximum amount that you'd be able to save.  This should be a realistic proportion of the value of the item.  From those figures you can get the maximum amount of time that you should spend on looking for that discount. Spend any more than that amount of time and you lose money even if you get the discount.  So then you can end up with a few rules-of-thumb like \"don't spend more than x minutes of time per dollar of possible savings\".  Then you can spend the spare time you've created on looking for savings on big-ticket items where the time is more efficiently used... or on studying to upgrade your earning potential... or on taking some time out to enjoy the world and sniff the flowers. :)"}
{"question":"Are variable rate loans ever a good idea?","answer":"The earlier you are in your career, the more willing you should be to take a better opportunity even if it has a short-term financial cost.  You go to college even if McDonald's has an opening.  After college you may take an entry level job with better long-term prospects even if a higher paying job is available.  You may train for some professional qualification. Having expenses you have to pay limits your flexibility to do this.  A variable rate loan that goes up later may give you the freedom to make better decisions early on.  Thus in this case it may be worthwhile. That said - be very wary of variable rate loans.  Unless you have iron discipline, they give the opportunity to bury yourself."}
{"question":"Rules for Broker Behavior with Covered Calls","answer":"I think the question, as worded, has some incorrect assumptions built into it, but let me try to hit the key answers that I think might help: Your broker can't really do anything here.   Your broker doesn't own the calls you sold, and can't elect to exercise someone else's calls. Your broker can take action to liquidate positions when you are in margin calls, but the scenario you describe wouldn't generate them:  If you are long stock, and short calls, the calls are covered, and have no margin requirement.  The stock is the only collateral you need, and you can have the position on in a cash (non-margin) account.   So, assuming you haven't bought other things on margin that have gone south and are generating calls, your broker has no right to do anything to you. If you're wondering about the \"other guy\", meaning the person who is long the calls that you are short, they are the one who can impact you, by exercising their right to buy the stock from you.  In that scenario, you make $21, your maximum possible return (since you bought the stock at $100, collected $1 premium, and sold it for $120.  But they usually won't do that before expiration, and they pretty definitely won't here.  The reason they usually won't is that most options trade above their intrinsic value (the amount that they're in the money).    In your example, the options aren't in the money at all.   The stock is trading at 120, and the option gives the owner the right to buy at 120.* Put another way, exercising the option lets the owner buy the stock for the exact same price anyone with no options can in the market.  So, if the call has any value whatsoever, exercising it is irrational; the owner would be better off selling the call and buying the stock in the market."}
{"question":"How can I determine if my rate of return is \"good\" for the market I am in?","answer":"First add the inflation, then minus your expenses for the year. If you are better than that, you have done \"good\".  For example: -  1.)You have $10,000 in 2014. 2.) You need $1,000 for your expenses in 2014, so you are left with $9000. 3.) Assuming the inflation rate is at 3 percent, the $10,000 that you initially had is worth $10,300 in 2015. 4.) Now, if you can get anything over 10,300 with the $9,000 that you have you are in a better position than you were last year i.e(10300-9000)\/9000 - i.e 14.44%. So anything over 14.44 percent is good. Depending on where you live, living costs and inflation may vary, so please do the calculation accordingly since this is just an example. Cheers"}
{"question":"What's the benefit of buying shares in a wholly owned subsidiary if you own parent company stock?","answer":"The parent company is likely to own other assets, which can be badly performing. Spinoffs are typically the better performers. There are also other factors, for example certain big funds cannot invest in sectors like tobacco or defense and for conglomerates it makes sense to spin those assets off to attract a wider investor audience."}
{"question":"What's the best online tool that can track my entire portfolio including gains\/losses? ","answer":"Mint.com does this quite well. The graph views of your budgets, investments, debts, and other aspects of your financial life can be shown in gestalt, or on a per-account basis (at least, it does for me). See the investment \"how it works\" page for more information.  \"Find out whether you're beating the market\u2013or it's beating you. Compare your portfolio to market benchmarks, and instantly see your asset allocation across all your investment accounts: 401k, mutual funds, brokerage accounts, even IRAs.\""}
{"question":"Ways to establish credit history for international student","answer":"There's an excellent new service called SelfScore that offers US credit cards to international students. They work with students without a credit history and even without an SSN by using other qualifying factors such as major, financial resources in their home country, and employability upon graduation. Worth clarifying: it's neither a secured credit card nor a prepaid card. It's a proper US credit card with no annual fees and a relatively low APR designed to help students build US credit. The spending limit is relatively small but that probably doesn't matter for just building a credit history."}
{"question":"What to do when a job offer is made but with a salary less than what was asked for?","answer":"In my experience of doing software development for a little longer than I care to remember, salaries are always assumed to be negotiable. I know you said you don't like haggling (a lot of people don't) but you'll have to get used to that and you might have to be a little more flexible. Being able to negotiate something as important as your salary is a very important skill. That said, there might be several reasons why they're not willing to offer more: Here's what I would do:"}
{"question":"How can I invest my $100?","answer":"Yes, it is.  Got to start somewhere.  Typically directly through a company itself. Check out this site that lists a bunch of them and their minimum requirements.  Not many only accept $100 but there are a few. ie. ACTIVEnergy Income Fund, CIBC, COMPASS Income Fund, Suncor Energy Inc. and a few others."}
{"question":"Should I try to negotiate a signing bonus?","answer":"I was able to request a modest advance on my salary when I started my first job out of college, for essentially the same reason. Alternatively, you might consider requesting a small personal loan from friends or family. If you have a credit card that can cover things like grocery expenses for that period, this may also be the appropriate time to use it. Buy cheap food, like lentils and beans. :P In the future, once you earn some money, you should keep around a few months' worth of essential expenses in a saving account to avoid this situation. :)"}
{"question":"What's the appeal of dividends in investing? [duplicate]","answer":"As mentioned, dividends are a way of returning value to shareholders. It is a conduit of profit as companies don't legitimately control upward appreciation in their share prices. If you can't wrap your head around the risk to the reward, then this simply means you partially fit the description for a greater investment risk profile, so you need to put down Warren Buffett's books and Rich Dad Poor Dad and get an investment book that fits your risk profile."}
{"question":"Should I purchase a whole life insurance policy? (I am close to retirement)","answer":"There's nothing new about Whole Life Insurance. The agent stands to earn a pretty hefty commission if he can sell it to you. I don't think your assets warrant using it for avoiding the taxes that would be due on a larger estate. I don't see a compelling reason to buy it."}
{"question":"What causes discontinuities with stock prices","answer":"During the 12 plus hours the market was closed news can change investors opinion of the stock. When the market reopens that first trade could be much different than the last trade the day before."}
{"question":"The Benefits\/Disadvantages of using a credit card","answer":"never carry a balance on a credit card. there is almost always a cheaper way to borrow money. the exception to that rule is when you are offered a 0% promotion on a credit card, but even then watch out for cash advance fees and how payments are applied (typically to promotional balances first). paying interest on daily spending is a bad idea. generally, the only time you should pay interest is on a home loan, car loan or education loan.  basically that's because those loans can either allow you to reduce an expense (e.g. apartment rent, taxi fair), or increase your income (by getting a better job). you can try to make an argument about the utility of a dollar, but all sophistry aside you are better off investing than borrowing under normal circumstances. that said, using a credit card (with no annual fee) can build credit for a future car or home loan. the biggest advantage of a credit card is cash back. if you have good credit you can get a credit card that offers at least 1% cash back on every purchase.  if you don't have good credit, using a credit card with no annual fee can be a good way to build credit until you can get approved for a 2% card (e.g. citi double cash). additionally, technically, you can get close to 10% cash back by chasing sign up bonuses. however, that requires applying for new cards frequently and keeping track of minimum spend etc. credit cards also protect you from fraud. if someone uses your debit card number, you can be short on cash until your bank fixes it.  but if someone uses your credit card number, you can simply dispute the charge when you get the bill. you don't have to worry about how to make rent after an unexpected 2k$ charge. side note: it is a common mis-conception that credit card issuers only make money from cardholder interest and fees. card issuers make a lot of revenue from \"interchange fees\" paid by merchants every time you use your card. some issuers (e.g. amex) make a majority of their revenue from merchants."}
{"question":"How to evaluate growth stocks","answer":"A classic text on growth stock picking is Common Stock and Uncommon Profits By Philip Fisher, with a 15 point checklist.  Here is a summary of the list that you can check out."}
{"question":"Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?","answer":"Imagine a married couple without a mortgage, but live in a house fully paid for. They pay state income taxes, and property tax, and make charitable deductions  that together total $12,599. That is $1 below the standard deduction for 2015, therefore they don't itemize.  Now they decide to get a mortgage: $100,000 for 30 years at 4%. That first year they pay about $4,000 in interest. Now it makes sense to itemize. That $4,000 in interest plus their other deductions means that if they are in the 25% bracket they cut their tax bill by $1,000. These numbers will decrease each year.  If they have a use for that pile of cash: such as a new roof, or a 100% sure investment that is guaranteed make more money for them then they are losing in interest it makes sense. But spending $4,000 to save $1,000 doesn't. Using the pile of cash to pay off the new mortgage means that the bank is collecting $4,000 a year so you can send $1,000 less to Uncle Sam."}
{"question":"I have savings and excess income. Is it time for me to find a financial advisor?","answer":"Others have mentioned the term fiduciary but haven't really gone in to what that is. Despite the name \"financial advisor\" there is no legal (In the US) mandate as to what that means.  Often times a financial advisor is little more than a sales rep whose job it is to sell particular financial instruments.  These people will give you good generic advice such as \"make sure you have a nest egg\" and \"don't spend more than you make\".  However when the rubber hits the road in terms of how to save they will often recommend\/insist\/pressure a particular asset\/security which doesn't necessarily meet your risk\/reward preference\/tolerance.  Often times the assets they pitch have high fees.  These people won't charge you for their time because their time is a loss leader for the commissions they make on selling their products. In contrast a fiduciary's job responsibility is to look out for your interests.  They shouldn't receive any kind of payment based on what assets you buy.  This means that you have to pay them for their time. The NAPFA website seems to have good ideas on choosing an advisor. http:\/\/www.napfa.org\/HowtoFindAnAdvisor.asp"}
{"question":"Can we buy and sell stocks without worrying about settlement period","answer":"In the United States, regulation of broker dealer credit is dictated by Regulation T, that for a non-margin account, 100% of a trade must be funded. FINRA has supplemented that regulation with an anti-\"free rider\" rule, Rule 4210(f)(9), which reads No member shall permit a customer (other than a broker-dealer or a \"designated     account\") to make a practice, directly or indirectly, of effecting transactions in a cash     account where the cost of securities purchased is met by the sale of the same securities.     No member shall permit a customer to make a practice of selling securities with them in a     cash account which are to be received against payment from another broker-dealer where     such securities were purchased and are not yet paid for. A member transferring an     account which is subject to a Regulation T 90-day freeze to another member firm shall     inform the receiving member of such 90-day freeze. It is only funds from uncleared sold equities that are prohibited from being used to purchase securities. This means that an equity in one's account that is settled can be sold and can be purchased only with settled funds.  Once the amount required to purchase is in excess of the amount of settled funds, no more purchases can be made, so an equity sold by an account with settled funds can be repurchased immediately with the settled funds so long as the settled funds can fund the purchase. Margin A closed position is not considered a \"long\" or \"short\" since it is an account with one loan of security and one asset of security and one cash loan and one cash liability with the excess or deficit equity equal to any profit or loss, respectively, thus unexposed to the market, only to the creditworthiness of the clearing & settling chain. Only open positions are considered \"longs\" or \"shorts\", a \"long\" being a possession of a security, and a \"short\" being a liability, because they are exposed to the market. Since unsettled funds are not considered \"longs\" or \"shorts\", they are not encumbered by previous trades, thus only the Reg T rules apply to new and current positions. Cash vs Margin A cash account cannot purchase with unsettled funds.  A margin account can.  This means that a margin account could theoretically do an infinite amount of trades using unsettled funds.  A cash account's daily purchases are restricted to the amount of settled funds, so once those are exhausted, no more purchases can be made. The opposite is true for cash accounts as well.  Unsettled securities cannot be sold either. In summation, unsettled assets can not be traded in a cash account."}
{"question":"Is insurance worth it if you can afford to replace the item? If not, when is it?","answer":"Generically, like farnsy noted in the other answer, you will only come ahead in dollar terms when you are significantly riskier than the average insuree. Otherwise the insurance company would have higher rates to make a profit. In the case of Apple Care there can arguably be other factors involved. If you did not insure your $2000 laptop and it broke (unfixably) just after the warranty period, would you replace it with a new Apple product? Maybe not, so Apple could lose a customer. That means they have an incentive to keep you happy. If your product breaks but insurance replaces it, you are a happier customer and more likely to buy other Apple products. This is not an incentive for traditional insurance companies that only do business in insurance. Now, with the profit margins Apple likes in general, I don't know if they've underpriced their insurance. I sort of doubt it even. But their margins on it are probably not high, meaning it's a closer call even if you are only averagely risky."}
{"question":"How can I find out the credit rating of a company","answer":"Dunn & Bradstreet offers detailed credit reports on businesses.  They are not cheap, but they appear to have information on RIOCAN."}
{"question":"How to trade \"exotic\" currencies?","answer":"Keep in mind that not every currency is \"tradeable\", i.e.: convertible.  In fact, neither the Brazilian nor the Thai currencies are fully convertible, and the trading with them may be limited. There are 17 fully convertible currencies currently in the word, you can find the list here."}
{"question":"Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster?","answer":"At the moment, you are paying about $1,300 interest each month (\u00a3431k @ 3.625% \/ 12) on your mortgage and repaying capital at about $1,500 per month. Paying $11,000 off your mortgage would save you about $9,000 as it is reduces your balance by about seven monthly capital repayments: but you will only see this benefit at the end of the mortgage because you will pay it off seven months earlier. There is only about $1,000 interest remaining on your car loans. Paying the $11,000 off your interest free loan then paying extra agianst the interest bearing loan brings that down to $500 and paying it off your interest bearing loan brings it down to $200. Either way, both car loans would be finished by early 2018. In summary, if you use the $11,000 against your car loans, you will save $8,500-$8,800 less than paying it off the mortage, but you will have no car loans in one year rather than three. Google spreadsheet for calculations here."}
{"question":"Why are daily rebalanced inverse\/leveraged ETFs bad for long term investing?","answer":"Fund rebalancing typically refers to changing the investment mix to stay within the guidelines of the mutual fund objective.  For example, lets say a fund is supposed to have at least 20% in bonds.  Because of a dramatic increase in stock price and decrease in bond values it finds itself with only 19.9% in bonds at the end of the trading day.  The fund manager would sell sufficient equities to reduce its equity holdings and buy more bonds.   Rebalancing is not always preferential because it could cause capital gain distribution, typically once per year, without selling the fund.  And really any trading within the fun could do the same. In the case you cite the verbiage is confusing.  Often times I wonder if the author knows less then the reader.  It might also be a bit of a rush to get the article out, and the author did not write correctly. I agree that the ETFs cited are suitable for short term traders.  However, that is because, traditionaly, the market has increased in value over the long term.  If you bet it will go down over the long term, you are almost certain to lose money. Like you, I cannot figure out how rebalancing makes this suitable only for short term traders.  If the ETFs distribute capital gains events much more frequently then once per year, that is worth mentioning, but does not provide a case for short versus long term traders.   Secondly, I don't think these funds are doing true rebalancing.  They might change investments daily for the most likely profitable outcome, but that really isn't rebalancing.   It seems the author is confused."}
{"question":"What does \"Settling your Debt\" entail, and how does it compare to other options?","answer":"These agencies consolidate your debt and make it an easy monthly instalment for you. They also try to negotiate with credit cards. They do so for a fee. Other option is to not pay the debt. During this time , expect credit cards to keep sending you bills and reminders and ways to contact you. Once it is not paid for a significant amount of time ( 18 months ) , the lender will \"sell\" your debt to a collection agency. You will start getting bills from collection agencies. Collection agencies can settle for up to 40 % of the actual debt. So if you had 5 credit cards , you would have 5 different collection agencies trying to get in touch with you. You can call them and tell them that you cannot pay the full amount. They will offer you settlements which you can accept or decline. The longer the unpaid debt , the more the discount they will offer. One very important thing to remember is that the unpaid amount will be sent to you on a 1099-c form . This means you have to recognize this as income. It is applicable to the year when the debt is settled. In a nut shell , you owe 120,000. You don't pay. Credit cards keeps calling you. You don't pay. After 12-18 months , they handover your debt to collection agencies. Collection agencies will try to get in touch with you. Send you lawsuit letters. You call and settle for say 50,000. You pay off 50,000 in 2016. Your debt is settled. But wait you will get 1099-C forms from different agencies totaling 70,000 ( unpaid debt ). You will have to declare that as income and you will owe tax on that. Assuming say 30 % tax you will have to pay up 21,000 as tax to IRS assuming no other income for simplicity. SO what you did was pay up 50 + 21 = 71,000 and settled the debt of 120,000. Your credit score will be much better than if you never paid at all."}
{"question":"Why do most banks in Canada charge monthly fee?","answer":"Lending isn't profitable when interest rates are this low.  Consider what's involved to offer a savings or checking account.  The bank must maintain branches with tellers.  The bank has to pay rent (or buy and pay property taxes and utilities).  The bank has to pay salaries.  The bank has to maintain cash so as to make change.  And pay for insurance against robbery.  All of that costs money.   At 6% interest, a bank can sort of make money.  Not great money, but it takes in more than it has to pay out.  At 4% interest, which is about where ten year mortgage rates are in Canada, the bank doesn't make enough margin.  They are better off selling the loan and closing their branches than offering free checking accounts.   An additional problem is that banks tend to make money from overdraft fees.  But there's been a move to limit overdraft fees, as they target the most economically vulnerable.  So Canadian banks tend to charge monthly fees instead.  UK banks may also start charging monthly fees if interest rates stay low and other fees get curtailed."}
{"question":"Dividends - Why the push to reinvest?","answer":"There can be a good reason if you own shares issued in a different country: For example, if you are in the UK and own US shares and take the dividend payments, you get some check in US dollars that you will have to exchange to UK\u00a3, which means you pay fees - mostly these fees are fixed, so you lose a significant percentage of your dividends. By reinvesting and selling shares accumlated over some years, you got one much bigger check and pay only one fee."}
{"question":"I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?","answer":"Stocks go down and go back up, that's their nature... Why would you sell on a low point? Stocks are a long term investment. If the company is still healthy, it's very likely you'll be able to sell them with a profit if you wait long enough."}
{"question":"Is a property that comes with tenants a risk?","answer":"The perceived risk depends on the entire situation, but often it is considered more risk, especially if you want to occupy yourself. Things you need to consider: It can be very difficult to show a property with tenants occupying it. There are many reasons for this and most homes show \/ sell better empty. I have found many tenants make it difficult on the seller. Leaving their areas a mess, being unaccommodating and especially in markets that are flooded with options, a lot of buyers just won't bother with the difficulty of scheduling a showing in occupied properties. I've tried to purchase many properties where the renter insists on being there during a showing, but won't open the door and there's no recourse for the landlord because his lease or laws in the area don't allow you to enter without permission. Also, it can be difficult to look past a lot of clutter and other people's decorating and aroma \"preferences\" to be kind. :) Is the property currently under lease and what is the period of that lease? It could be that the lease is month to month, or it could be years remaining on the lease period. It is likely a legal requirement in most areas that you honor the existing lease. I would never buy a property that has multiple years remaining. While some amateur landlords will allow 2 or even 5 year leases, this is a very bad idea for many reasons! What are laws like in your area for evicting tenants? You should know this regardless of whether or not you intend to occupy or keep it a rental. It can be a very difficult process evicting tenants and this process is vastly different from country to country and state to state here in the USA. Look into the security deposit - assuming there is one. How much is the deposit? Will it cover damage that may not exist yet? Don't think that just because you plan on evicting them soon, it isn't important. People can trash a place on the way out and an expensive lawsuit could be your only recourse. It is far easier to take a deposit than sue. I would absolutely demand that the deposit transfer to you upon sale. View the current renters with a fresh eye. Especially if you are considering leave it a rental, look into all of the typical requirements: Their monthly income, their credit history, their criminal record, their payment history, their references. Are they likely to be good or terrible renters? If you're interested in the property, consider an offer which requires the current landlord to evict within the time-frame of the buy\/sell agreement. This isn't an uncommon requirement. I think the first thing to do is go look at the property and see if you can determine for yourself why it hasn't sold yet. Properties all have different reasons for not selling in a reasonable time to the local market. Having renters alone in most markets shouldn't be that big of a factor. I would suspect bad smells, nasty renters, or an unfavorable lease agreement exists."}
{"question":"Credit card issued against my express refusal; What action can I take?","answer":"I would go speak to the bank manager. With Wells, you have to make sure it is the bank manager and not a service manager or something you are talking to (I learned that a few months ago).  Tell her\/him exactly what happened in detail and that you want the credit card closed and the credit inquiry removed from your credit report. Further, say that once all of that is done, you will decide whether to continue banking with them and whether any legal action is appropriate.  If they give you any kind of push back, I'd get advice from a lawyer. The truth is they did open an account against your expressed wishes and it required them to check your credit so it does constitute fraud unless they can produce a signed document saying you agreed to the card.  Edit: I just saw that this happened about a year ago. It may have been easier if you had done something at the time and may be more difficult if you've used the card in the meantime."}
{"question":"How can I trade in U.S stock exchange living in India by choosing the broker in U.S? ","answer":"OptionsXpress includes India in the list of countries where is possible to open an international account to invest in the US Stock Market. They just merged with Charles Schwab and they have a nice online trading platform. Stocks and ETFs are little bit pricey.. Get in touch with them to get more information."}
{"question":"Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?","answer":"You can report it as illegal income and you don't have to elaborate any further.  For instance, spirit the cash off to a state where pot is legal and set up a dispensary.  That is not legal at the Federal level, so it is in fact \"illegal income\" vis-a-vis your Form 1040 and that's all you say. Make sure you look, walk, and quack like a fairly successful pot distributor. That will most likely be the end of their inquiry, since they're not terribly driven to investigate the income you do report.  Having to give 33% of it to the IRS is generally strong motivation for folks to not report fake income.  You're not claiming the money is from pot, you're allowing them to infer it."}
{"question":"First concrete steps for retirement planning when one partner is resistant","answer":"I would suggest you do three things: If you do all three of these, the time will come when \"2 months off to go to Italy this winter and ride bikes through wine country\" is something you both want to do, can afford to do, and have arranged your lives to make it feasible. Or whatever wow-cool thing you might dream of. Buying a vacation property. Renovating an old house. The time may also come when you can take a chance on no income for 6 months to start a business that will give you more flexibility about when and where you work. Or when you can switch from working for a pay cheque to volunteering somewhere all day every day. You (as a couple) will have the freedom to make those kinds of decisions if you have that safety net of long term savings, as long as you also have a strong and happy relationship because you didn't spend 40 years arguing about money and whether or not you can afford things."}
{"question":"What is the principle of forming an arbitrage strategy?","answer":"Well, arbitrage is a simple mean reversion strategy which states that any two similar commodity with some price difference (usually not much)  will converge. So either you can bet on difference in prices in different exchanges or also you can bet on difference in futures value.  For example if current price of stock is 14$ and if futures price is 10$.  Then you can buy one futures contract and short one stock at the market price. This would lock in a profit of 4$ per share."}
{"question":"If the U.S. defaults on its debt, what will happen to my bank money? ","answer":"There are many different things that can happen, all or some. Taking Russia and Argentina as precedence - you may not be able to withdraw funds from your bank for some period of time. Not because your accounts will be drained, but because the cash supply will be restricted. Similar thing has also happened recently in Cyprus. However, the fact that the governments of Russia and Argentina limited the use of cash for a period of time doesn't mean that the US government will have to do the same, it my choose some other means of restraint. What's for sure is that nothing good will happen. Nothing will probably happen to your balance in the bank (Although Cyprus has shown that that is not a given either). But I'm not so sure about FDIC maintaining it's insurance if the bank fails (meaning if the bank defaults as a result of the chain effect - you may lose your money). If the government is defaulting, it might not have enough cash to take over the bank deposits. After the default the currency value will probably drop sharply (devaluation) which will lead to inflation. Meaning your same balance will be worth much less than it is now. So there's something to worry about for everyone."}
{"question":"What are the pitfalls of loaning money to friends or family? Is there a right way to do it?","answer":"There are two levels to consider here: That said, before loaning\/giving anyone money ask yourself if it is good for them.  If they have problems managing their money, or holding down a job, and you give them money, they are just going to come back for more later.  In this type of situation, you shouldn't give\/loan them money.  But on the other hand, if a friend or family member has hit a rough patch and you know they are the kind of person that will be on their feet again soon, and you have nothing to lose, give them the money."}
{"question":"What are my investment options in real estate?","answer":"Real estate investment is a proven creator of wealth.  Check into the history of the rich and you will find real estate investment. Starting your investment in multi-family is a great idea.  It is a good way to gain experience in real estate while exponentially increasing cash flow. If you turn the properties over to a reputable property management company, your cash flow will be a little less but so will your headaches. (Expect to pay 8 - 10% of gross income.) You could start investing now by looking into discounted real estate such as foreclosures, tax sales, short sales etc while the market is still depressed.  This way your return on investment should be higher. From there you could expand into land development (i.e. subdivision) or commercial investments. Commercial properties with triple net leases can be a great low-stress investment opportunity (but they take more cash upfront). Attending some local real estate investment classes would be a great idea for starters."}
{"question":"Official site to follow Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway change in investment holdings?","answer":"The official source is the most recent Form 13F that Berkshire Hathaway, which is  filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission on a quarterly basis .  You can find it through the SEC filing search engine, using BRKA as the ticker symbol. and then looking for the filings marked 13-FR or 13-FR\/A (the \"\/A\" indicates an amended filing).   As you can see by looking at the 13-F filed for the quarter ending September 30  , the document isn't pretty or necessarily easy to read, hence the popularity of sites such as those that Chad linked to. It is, though, the truly official source from which websites tracking the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio derive their information."}
{"question":"Are the \"debt reduction\" company useful?","answer":"They don't do anything you can't do yourself and they charge you money for it. And of course the only way they manage to negotiate the debt down is by not paying it for a while in the first place, have it referred to collections and then negotiating with the collectors. At that time, your credit rating (if you care about that at all) will have suffered a lot more damaged than it is from a few late payments. I would address the issue as to why you end up paying late first - it sounds to me like you're cutting the time left to pay to the bone and this turned around and bit you in the you-know-where. In case you are able to pay but not organised enough to do it on time, find a way to remind yourself to pay the bill a few days early for peace of mind. That won't do anything about the 28% interest but those might serve as an additional motivation to pay the debt off faster. Once you're back to showing regular on-time payments on your credit record, you might want to investigate transferring the balance to a cheaper card or negotiate the interest down (or both). If you genuinely can't pay after you've taken care of the essentials (food, shelter, transportation) then you don't need a third party to stop paying the credit card bill, you can do that yourself."}
{"question":"How do I receive payment from the USA to my current account in India","answer":"There is nothing called best; Depending on the amounts there are several options and each will cost some money.  If your business is still small customers are individuals try PayPal it will be easy for everyone. The other options are accepting Credit Card, you would need to set-up card gateway on your website etc Simple wire transfer, it will cost more both for your customers and to you."}
{"question":"Finding a good small business CPA?","answer":"Look for an accountant who brings not only expertise in number crunching, but consulting and business planning - a full package."}
{"question":"Options price vs implied volatility - who drives who?","answer":"Currently, when \"implied volatility\" is spoken, the Black-Scholes-Merton model is implied.  This model has been shown to be deficient, thus the Variance Gamma Model should be used. However, as nearly no one uses VG, it can be assumed that BS is still being implied. The BS formula has multiple variables.  Some are external to the underlying in question.  The rest are internal. When all but one variable is known or assumed, the last variable can be calculated, so if one has the price of the underlying and all else except the volatility, the volatility can be calculated thus implied. If one selects an implied volatility, and all variables except the underlying price is known, the underlying price can be calculated. For the present, one uses the current price of the underlying to calculate the implied volatility.  For future option prices, one assumes an implied volatility at a later date to calculate a possible price. For prices not at the money, the BS model is extremely imprecise.  The VG model can better determine a potential future price."}
{"question":"What is the difference between a 'trader' and a 'stockbroker'?","answer":"The traditional role of a stockbroker is to arrange for the buying and selling of stock by finding buyers and sellers at an agreed upon price.  The broker does not purchase the stock for himself but merely arranges for the stock to be traded. A trader is one who purchases stock with the hope of selling it for a gain.  The trader will use a broker to help with the purchase and sale of a stock."}
{"question":"Should I give to charity by check or credit card?","answer":"This kind of questions keeps repeating itself on this site and the answer is generally it doesn't matter. As you said yourself, there are costs either way, and these costs are comparable. Generally, merchant fees differ tremendously between the different kinds of merchants, and while gas stations and video rentals may pay up to 5% and even more, charitable organizations and community services are usually not considered as high fraud risk operation and are charged much lower fees. Either way, paying employees, managing cash\/check deposits or paying merchant fees is part of the charity operational expenses. Together with maintaining offices, postal office boxes, office supplies, postage expenses and formal stationary and envelopes needed for physical donations handling. I would guess that if the charity's majority of donations come on-line as credit card\/paypal payments - check handling will be more expensive. So I suggest you take the route you consider majority of donors pay - that would be the cheapest for them to handle. I would guess, credit cards being the most convenient - would be the way to go."}
{"question":"Can I invest in gold through Vanguard (Or another instrument that should perform well in financial crisis)?","answer":"In 2008, 10 year treasuries were up 20.1%, to gold's 4.96%. Respectfully, if I were certain if a market drop, I'd just short the market, easily done by shorting SPY or other index ETFs.  If you wish to buy gold, the easiest and least expensive way is to buy an ETF, GLD to be specific. It trades like a stock, for what that's worth. There are those who would suggest this is not like buying gold, it's just 'paper'. I believe otherwise. It's a non leveraged, fully backed ETF. I try not to question other's political or religious beliefs or as it pertains to this ETF, their conspiracy theories."}
{"question":"How can I verify that a broker I found online is legitimate?","answer":"(I answered a similar question before.) Essentially, you shouldn't trust a site you find on the Internet merely because it looks professional and real.  Before signing up with any new service provider you found online, you should verify the authenticity of both the organization itself and their web site address. Even if the name displayed by a web site represents a legitimate brokerage firm, any site you happen to come across on the Internet could be an elaborate spoof of a real company, intended to capture your personal details (or worse). First, to check if a brokerage firm is in fact registered to trade securities \u2013 in the United States \u2013 you can consult FINRA's BrokerCheck online service.  This might be the first of many checks you should undertake ... after you convince yourself that FINRA is legitimate.  A meta-problem ;-) Then, if you want to know if the web site address is authentic, one way is to contact that broker offline using the contact information found from a trusted source, such as the FINRA BrokerCheck details.  Unfortunately, those details do not currently appear to contain the broker's web site URL.  (Else, that could be useful.) Another thing to look at is the site's login or sign-up page, for a valid SSL certificate that is both issued to the correct legal name of the brokerage firm as well as has been signed by a well-known certificate authority (e.g. VeriSign). For a financial services firm of any kind, you should look for and expect to see an Extended Validation Certificate.  Any other kind of certificate might only assert that the certificate was issued to the domain-name owner, and not necessarily to an organization with the registered legal name.  (Yes, anybody can register a domain with a similar name and then acquire a basic SSL certificate for that domain.) FWIW, Scottrade and ShareBuilder are both legitimate brokers (I was aware already of each, but I also just checked in the FINRA tool), and the URLs currently linked to by the question are legitimate web site addresses for each.  Also, you can see their EV certificates in action on secured pages here and here. As to whether your investments with those brokers would be \"safe\" in the event of the broker failing (e.g. goes bankrupt), you'll want to know that they are members of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (Wikipedia).  (Of course, this kind of protection doesn't protect you if your investments simply go down in value.) But do your own due diligence \u2013 always."}
{"question":"Money Structuring","answer":"There's a difference between your street level drug dealer sending you sales proceeds of $20,000 in $5,000 increments to avoid sending you $10,000 or $20,000 at once to avoid the scrutiny of a government agency that might not be thrilled with your business venture, and a tire shop paying a wholesaler $5,000 each time funds are available up to the amount owed of $20,000. The former is illegal for a few reasons, and the latter is business as usual."}
{"question":"Buying real estate with cash","answer":"I've been prompted to turn my comments into an answer -  Disclosure - I am a Realtor. I work for an investor for whom an offer on a house he will buy describes him as a \"cash buyer.\" This phrase most often means one of two things -  The buyer has funds that are liquid enough to either wire the cash or produce a cashier's check in some number of days, a week or two would be common. (And not wait for another house to sell) The other point of this is that the seller is not willing to finance the property. The flip side being that the seller will take a down payment and let the buyer pay over time.  I am nearly 54, and I'm open to the fact that language changes. Definition follows usage. In personal finance, we refer to a stock\/bond\/cash mix. Here, the word \"cash\" simply means money such as money market or short term T-bills. A 60\/30\/10 mix doesn't mean I have a briefcase of cash under my bed for that 10%.  To answer the OP, I'd ask the seller does \"cash\" mean - Keep in mind, when a seller has a buyer who needs to sell their home first, there can be a chain going a few levels. When it's \"turtles all the way down\" it becomes too risky to the seller.  No, you are not out of luck. I'd open a dialog with the seller or their agent if any. Sales is all about understanding what each person's goal is."}
{"question":"How long do credit cards keep working after you disappear?","answer":"how can I keep my website running for posterity after I die?   If this is the real problem, incorporate a non-profit corporation or have a lawyer set up a foundation.  Those will survive after your death and their bank accounts with them.   You might even find someone willing to do this for you.  It sounds like a neat business.  Collect the ad revenue, charge a fee, pay the web hosting.  Heck, this is a decent deal for a web host.  Provide the web hosting; collect the ad revenue."}
{"question":"Can a Covered Call be called away before the expiration date?","answer":"They can sell a lower price call if they expect the stock to plummet in the near term but they are bullish on the longer term. What they are looking to do is collect the call premium and hope it expires worthless.  And then again 'hope' that the stock will ultimately turn around. So yes, a lot of hoping.  But can you explain what you mean by 'my brokerage gives premiums for prices lower than the current price'? Do you mean you pay less in commissions for ITM calls?"}
{"question":"Can anybody explain \"cut their exposure to equities\" and \"fat and flat range\" for me, please?","answer":"Someone's (or, a bank's) \"exposure to equities\" refers to the amount of value which has a risk that fluctuates with the equities market (ie: the stock market). In very broad terms, I think it might make sense to say that exposure to equities could mean, for example, owning many rental properties, if the rental market was \"highly correlated\" with the equities market. That is - if house prices go down when the equities market goes down, and if that relationship is very strong, then owning a house means you are exposed to the equities market.  However, in the sense it is used there, it seems to mean direct exposure to equities - ie: owning stocks and stock-based funds."}
{"question":"Are Index Funds really as good as \"experts\" claim?","answer":"Simply put, you cannot deterministically beat the market. If by being informed and following all relevant news, you can arrive at the conclusion that company A will likely outperform company B in the future, then having A stocks should be better than having B stocks or any (e.g., index based) mix of them. But as the whole market has access to the very same information and will arrive at the same conclusion (provided it is logically sound), \"everybody\" will want A stocks, which thus become expensive to the point where the expected return is average again.  Your only options of winning this race are to be the very first to have the important information (insider trade), or to arrive at different logical conclusions than the rest of the world (which boils down do making decisions that are not logically sound - good luck with that - or assuming that almost everybody else is not logically sound - go figure)."}
{"question":"Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? ","answer":"A Yen is like a penny.  Buy a chocolate bar 100\u00a5 or \u00a31.00.  Should the UK get rid of pennies and only price things to the pound?"}
{"question":"Escrow Removal Fee?","answer":"Assume they do not overwithhold. You pay in $500\/mo, and every time it hits $3000, they pay the tax. Engineers call this a sawtooth function, it looks like this.  The average balance is not $3000, but close to $1500. The very simple math is $1500 * rate * years.  It looks like your equation except it's not 58, it's just the years. And the question is whether you can make more than $850 on $1500 average before you sell. I wouldn't be so quick to plug in 29 years, as the average home ownership is 7 years, and depending, who knows if a refinance is in your future?  The bottom line - How long would it take you to get a 57% return (2350\/1500)? Ironically, the most responsible (and risk averse) person would say \"decades. Banks offer less than 1%.\" even an 8% market return, while not guaranteed, is close to 7 years. But, if you carry 18% credit card debt, you can pay it down a bit each month and let it float back up every 6 months. Less than 4 years to break even."}
{"question":"Trading when you work for a market participant","answer":"There is normally a policy at the organisation that would restrict trades or allow trades under certain conditions. This would be in accordance with the current regulations as well as Institutions own ethical standards.  Typical I have seen is that Technology roles are to extent not considered sensitive, ie the employees in this job function normally do not access sensitive data [unless your role is analyst or production support]. An employee in exempt roles are allowed to trade in securities directly with other broker or invest in broad based Mutual Funds or engage a portfolio management services from a reputed organisation. It is irrelevant that your company only deals with amounts > 1 Million, infact if you were to know what stock the one million is going into, you may buy it slightly earlier and when the company places the large order, the stock  typically moves upwards slightly, enough for you to make some good money. That is Not allowed. But its best you get hold of a document that would layout the do' and don't in your organisation. All such organisation are mandated to have a written policy in this regard."}
{"question":"Can I profit from anticipating a drop in value?","answer":"Purchasing an option to sell the stock is probably the safest bet. This gives you reasonable leverage, and your risk is limited to the cost of the option. Say the stock currently sells for $100 per share. You think it will drop to $80 per share in the next two weeks and the market thinks the price will be stable. Now, consider an option to sell one share of that stock for $95 any time within the next two weeks. The market would consider that option nearly worthless, since in all likelihood, you would lose out by exercising it (since you could just sell the share on the market for a price expected to be higher than that). You might be able to acquire that option for $5. Now, say you're right and within two weeks, the price drops to $80. Now you can purchase a share for $80, exercise the option to sell it for $95, and pocket $15. That would make you a $10 profit on a $5 investment. If you're wrong, you just let the option lapse and are out $5. No problem. In reality, you would buy a number of such options. And you wouldn't actually buy a share and exercise the option, you would just sell the option back to its issuer for $15."}
{"question":"Data source for historical intra-day bid\/ask price data for stocks? ","answer":"This amazing site will answer all your data questions. You will need some patience and willingness to spend to get the data that you want. A lot of data is available for free too` https:\/\/www.quandl.com\/"}
{"question":"Most important skills needed to select profitable stocks ","answer":"You would appear to be a swing trader, like myself. I have been trading futures and futures options for 29 years, and have both made and lost a lot of money in that time. My trades last hours, to days, to at most a few weeks. From my experience, the most important skills are: 1) Money management - keeping trade size small in relation to total capital. I typically risk 2-3% of my capital on a trade, so a loss is fairly immaterial. 2) Risk management - limit your loss on every trade, either by using stop orders, options, or a combination of these 2. 3) Emotional discipline - be prepared to exit a position, or reverse from long to short, or short to long,  on a moment's notice. The market doesn't care where you entered, or whether you make or lose money. Don't let your hunches or the news influence your decisions, but follow the market. 4) Methodology discipline - test your analysis \/ trade entry method to ensure that it is objective, and has a reasonably good probability of success, then stick with it. Variation will inevitably lead to indecision or emotional reactions. 5) Flexibility - consider trading anything which can make you a profit, but ensure that there is a lot of liquidity. I trade 30 different futures markets, as well as various option writing strategies in these markets.  Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss further. I have about 500 (yes, 500) trading e-books as well, on every trading subject you can think of."}
{"question":"Why are U.S. credit unions not open to everyone?","answer":"Credit unions are mutually-owned (i.e. customer owned) financial institutions that provide banking services.  They take deposits from their members (customers) and loan them to other members.  Members vote on a board of directors who manage operations.   They are considered not-for-profit, but they pay interest on deposits.  They get some preferential tax treatment and regulation and their deposits are insured by a separate organization if federally accredited.  State-chartered credit unions don't have to maintain deposit insurance at all.   Their charters specify who can join.  They can be regionally based, employer based, or based on some other group with common interests.  Regulators restrict them so that they don't interfere too much with banks.  Otherwise their preferential tax and regulatory treatment would leave banks uncompetitive.   Other organizations with similar limits have gone on to be competitive when the limits were released.  For example, there used to be an insurance company just for government employees, the Government Employees Insurance Company.  You may know it better as GEICO (yes, the one with the gecko advertisements).  Now they offer life and auto insurance all over.   Credit unions would like looser limitations (or no limitations at all), but not enough to give up their preferential tax treatment.  Banks oppose looser limitations and have as much political clout as credit unions."}
{"question":"What Happens to Cofounders' Shares when they IPO?","answer":"A company typically goes public in order to bring in additional capital. In an IPO, the company (through its officials) will typically do so by issuing additional shares, and offering to sell those to investors. If they did not do that, then there would be no net capital gain for the company; if person A sells share in company C to person B, then company C does not benefit directly from the exchange. By issuing and selling additional shares, the total value of all stock in the company can increase. Being publicly traded also greatly increases the confidence in the valuation of the company, as a consequence of the perfect market theory. There is nothing in this that says that initial investors (cofounders, employees, etc.) need to sell their shares in the process. They might choose to do so, or they might not; or they might be prevented from doing so by terms of any agreements that they have signed or by insider trading laws. Compare What happens to internal stock when a company goes public? Depending on specifics, it might be reasonable for the company to perform a share split prior to the initial public offering. That, however, doesn't affect the total value of the shares, only the price per share."}
{"question":"Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?","answer":"Pay cash.  You have the cash to pay for it now, but God forbid something happen to you or your wife that requires you to dip into that cash in the future. In such an event, you could end up paying a lot more for your home theater than you planned. The best way to keep your consumer credit card debt at zero (and protect your already-excellent credit) is to not add to the number of credit cards you already have.   At least in the U.S., interest rates on saving accounts of any sort are so low, I don't think it's worthwhile to include as a deciding factor in whether not you \"borrow\" at 0% instead of buying in cash."}
{"question":"How meaningful is the \"stock price\" of a stock?","answer":"The information on GOOG or other sites is the average price of the stock and is indicative of the price at with the stock would be available. The actual trades happen at different values throught the day ...  So the prices are good for most purposes and if you need the exact prices, you can thne decided to log into you trading terminal and get the actual quotes   This is similar to FX quotes or any other such quotes and give you a general sense"}
{"question":"What is the correct answer for percent change when the start amount is zero dollars $0?","answer":"There are some assumptions which can be made in terms of the flexibility you have - I will start with the least flexible assumption and then move to more flexible assumptions. If you must put down a number 1, your go-to for this(\"Change the start period to 1\"), is pretty good, and it's used frequently for other divide-by-zero calculations like kda in a video game. The problem I have with '1' is that it doesn't allow you to handle various scales.  Some problems are dealt with in thousands, some in fractions, and some in hundreds of millions. Therefore, you should change the start period to the smallest significantly measurable number you could reasonably have. Here, that would take your example 0 and 896 and give you an increase of 89,500%. It's not a great result, but it's the best you can hope for if you have to put down a number,  and it allows you to keep some of the \"meaning in the change.\" If you absolutely must put something This is the assumption that most answers have taken - you can put down a symbol, a number with a notation, empty space, etc, but there is going to be a label somewhere called 'Growth' that will exist. I generally agree with what I've seen, particularly the answers from Benjamin Cuninghma and Nath. For the sake of preservation - those answers can be summarized as putting 'N\/A' or '-', possibly with a footnote and asterisk. If you can avoid the measurement entirely The root of your question is \"What do my manager and investors expect to see?\" I think it's valuable to dig even further to \"What do my manager and investors really want to know?\". They want to know the state of their investment. Growth is often a good measurement of that state, but in cases where you are starting from zero or negative, it just doesn't tell you the right information. In these situations, you should avoid % growth, and instead talk in absolute terms which mention the time frame or starting state. For example:"}
{"question":"Does a larger down payment make an offer stronger?","answer":"There is a lot of your financial information that the selling agent handles in the course of a real estate transaction, including but not limited to your pre-approval letter which states what maximum purchase price might be. Closing costs and interest rate are not details they would know unless you shared that with them, given that that is done after you go binding.  I agree with xiaomy in that, while in absolute monetary terms the higher amount should always be more attractive, the selling agent wants to ensure the transaction goes as smoothly as possible. With contracts falling through due to first-time buyers not making it through mortgage underwriting, it is in the seller's interest - and thus the seller's agent's concern - that the buyer not present such hurdles. Insofar as a higher down payment is a signal for that, then I can understand why it would be more attractive."}
{"question":"Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?","answer":"At this point the cost of borrowing money is very low.  For the sake of argument, say it is 1% per year for a large institution. I can either go out and find a client to invest 100,000$ and split profit and loss with them. Or, I could borrow 50,000$, pay 500$\/year in interest, and get the same return and loss, while moving the market half as much (which would let me double my position!) In both cases the company is responsible for covering all fixed costs, like paying for traders, trades, office space, branding, management, regulatory compliance, etc. For your system to work, the cost to gather clients and interact with them has to be significantly less than 1% of the capital they provide you per year. At the 50% level, that might actually be worth it for the company in question.  Except at the 50% level you'd have really horrible returns even when the market went up.  So suppose a more reasonable level is the client keeps 75% of the returns (which compares to existing companies which offer larger investors an 80% cut on profits, but no coverage on losses). Now the cost to gather and interact with clients has to be lower than 2500$ per million dollars provided to beat out a simple loan arrangement.  A single sales employee with 100% overhead (office, all marketing, support, benefits) earning 40,000$\/year has to bring in 32 million dollar-years worth of investment every year to break even. Cash is cheap.  Investment houses sell cash management, and charge for it.  They don't sell shared investment risk (at least not to retail investors), because it would take a lot of cash for it to be worth their bother. More explicitly, for this to be viable, they'd basically have to constantly arrange large hedges against the market going down to cover any losses.  That is the kind of thing that some margin loans may require.  That would all by itself lower their profits significantly, and they would be exposed to counter-party risk on top of that. It is much harder to come up with a pile of cash when the markets go down significantly.  If you are large enough to be worthwhile, finding a safe counterparty may be nearly impossible."}
{"question":"Why is it not a requirement for companies to pay dividends?","answer":"Cash flow is needed for expansion, either to increase manufacturing capacity or to expand the workforce. Other times companies use it to purchase other companies. Microsoft and Google have both used their cash or stocks to purchase companies. Examples by Google include YouTube, Keyhole (Google Earth), and now part of Motorola to expand into Phones. If you are investing for the future, you don't want a lot of dividends. They do bring tax issues. That is not a big problem if you are investing in an IRA or 401K. It is an issue if the non-tax-defered mutual fund distributes those dividends via the 1099, forcing you to address it on your taxes each year. Some investors do like dividends, but they are looking for their investments to generate cash. Who would require it? Would it be an SEC requirement? Even more government paperwork for companies."}
{"question":"Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt?","answer":"As a merchant I can tell you that the only thing the bank gets from me.  Is the total amount and a category for my business.  No detail, not ever."}
{"question":"Why buy bonds in a no-arbitrage market?","answer":"Rates are a complex field. I will assume that context wise you are talking about rates for a individual saver quantities. The two rates you are asking about are personal bank saving account and exchange traded bonds. The points you want to compare between them are. In general, a bond is what we called a fixed rate instrument. This means that for the life of the product, it will yield a fixed percentage of its face value at a regular period. Baring any extreme circumstances (such as bankruptcy), no external factors will change the payment schedule on a bond. Conversely, by placing your money into a bank, you will accrue interest rate at some value related to some published interest rate. For example, if tomorrow, the Treasury decided to try to stimulate the economy, they could slash the interest rate, this would directly affect the rate at which your savings account would accrue interest. In general, a bond has a maturity date, where the capital is finally released from the bond. Until such date, you cannot access the money directly (you can however sell the bond, but it would likely be at a discounted value). Therefore, in general, you cannot get access to the money whenever you want it. As for a saving account, normally one can access the funds instantly, if not within a few days. This seems to the reason people seem to be focusing on. For each bond, the issuer of the bond is obligated to pay you the holder of the bond fixed payments at an interval, plus the capital at the maturity. However, obligation does not mean guarantee. If the issuer, is unable to make the payments, they may go into bankruptcy to avoid paying you. There are companies setup to advise people on the likelihood of each bond issuer on their ability to honour their debts. For example Standard and Poor issues a rating which goes all the way up to AAA for bonds. Recently, many sovereign countries have lost their AAA rating from S&P. Meaning that S&P feel that the possibility of these countries going bankrupt is non-zero. Conversely, banks may also be unable to give you your money when requested. In the US, the reserve requirements means that at any one time it only holds 10% of the money it owes to its customers. This can mean that if every customer turns up to the bank to demand their money, that bank would be unable to pay. This situation is called a Bank Run. During such a situation, the bank would likely collapse and default. In many modern countries, the government put into place guarantees on the first xxx amount in saving accounts, but otherwise, your savings could be lost. There are many complex reasons to choose one instrument over another (including some I have avoided), even if at the outset, they could appear to have the same rates."}
{"question":"What gives non-dividend stocks value to purchasers? [duplicate]","answer":"One way to value companies is to use a Dividend discount model. In substance, it consists in estimating future dividends and calculating their present value. So it is a methodology which considers that an equity is similar to a bond and estimates its current value based on future cash flows. A company may not be paying dividends now, but because its future earnings prospects are good may pay some in the future. In that case the DDM model will give a non-zero value to that stock. If on the other hand you think a company won't ever make any profits and therefore never pay any dividends, then it's probably worth 0! Take Microsoft as an example - it currently pays ~3% dividend per annum. The stock has been listed since 1986 and yet it did not pay any dividends until 2003. But the stock has been rising regularly since the beginning because people had \"priced in\" the fact that there was a high chance that the company would become very profitable - which proved true in the long term (+60,000% including dividends since the IPO!)."}
{"question":"Possible replacement for Quicken","answer":"I would investigate mint.com further.  Plenty of people have written off using them because Intuit purchased them, but that seems like cutting of your nose to spite your face. I think mint.com is worth it for its Trends functionality alone, not to mention its automatic categorization of your purchases, reminders when bills are due, notifications of increased credit card interest rates, and overdraft notices. I don't think mint.com schedules bills & deposits, but it tracks stocks & mutual fund investments and compares your portfolio returns against Dow Jones, S&P 500, or NASDAQ if you wish.  I'm not sure I see the advantage of manual transaction entry, but you can add cash or check transactions manually.  As I mentioned earlier, automated categorization is a great feature.  In addition, you can tag certain transactions as reimbursable or tax-related. If the primary feature you're interested in is stock quotes, maybe something like Yahoo Finance or Google Finance will be enough."}
{"question":"How can a person with really bad credit history rent decent housing?","answer":"I saw where you said \"I thought of co-signing is if a portion of child\/spousal support goes directly to the landlord. I asked the Child Support Services (who deduct money from my paycheck monthly to pay support to my ex) and they told me that they are not authorized to do this.\"  I know going back to court isn't a pleasant thought, but from the looks of things, your suggestion is the only way to accomplish this. It's ridiculous for anyone to suggest you keep up your payments and cosign, yet the ex has no obligation to use that income to actually pay her rent. From what you've said, she sounds irresponsible and self-destructive.  As someone who has had bad tenants, I'd not go near her, even with a cosigner. It's just not worth the risk."}
{"question":"What are \"trailing 12-month total returns\"?","answer":"Total Return is the percent change in value (including andy dividends) of an instrument.  The \"trailing 12-month\" means that your starting point is the value 12 months ago.  So the formula is: where V is the value of the instrument on the reference date, V0 is the value of the instrument 12 months prior to the reference date, and D is the amount of dividends paid between the two dates."}
{"question":"Do I have to pay tax on money I earn as a tutor?","answer":"There is a moral and legal obligation to file the earnings. Not doing so is tax fraud. You should keep a ledger or some record of your earnings, helpful guidelines here. Records are required by the CRA: According to the law, your responsibilities include: (source) You could get in trouble if one of your pupils report the expense at their tax filing, and the CRA finds no matching statement on your filing report. Tutoring are eligible for tax credit in case of disability: Tutoring services that are supplementary to the primary education of a person with a learning disability or an impairment in mental functions, and paid to a person in the business of providing these services to individuals who are not related to the person. A medical practitioner must certify in writing that these services are necessary. So if one of your pupils fall under that provision, you will get tax trouble sooner or later. Bottom line: start making records now, and report your earnings. Collect your tax as any lawful citizen is required to."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"Can you reduce your interest rate? Talk to the lender. Maybe. Probably not. The rate reflects their perception of how much of a risk they're taking with the loan. But if all you're borrowing is $2000, the savings that you might get out of any adjustment to the rate is not going to be all that significant. Sure, it would be nice, but it's not going to be enough to make or break your decision to buy this car. The big savings will be that you're paying interest on a much smaller loan, which means you can reduce your payments and\/or pay it off more quickly. REMINDER: NEVER TALK TO AN AUTO DEALER ABOUT FINANCING UNTIL AFTER THE PRICE OF THE CAR HAS BEEN NAILED DOWN -- otherwise they will raise the purchase price to cover the cost of offering you an apparently cheap loan."}
{"question":"Wash sale rules in India (NSE\/BSE)","answer":"Looks like there are no specific rule in India to prevent Wash sales. See the link below.  http:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/wealth\/personal-finance-news\/investors-can-rejig-portfolio-book-short-term-loss-to-save-tax\/articleshow\/7812788.cms?intenttarget=no"}
{"question":"Should I use a TSP loan?","answer":"I don't have experience with TSP in particular, but they look to be roughly the same as 401(k) loans. If the \"G Fund rate\" is equal to the yield of government bonds, then your main risk is the risk that yields increase, which means the interest you're paying is less than what you would have earned on the investments. Here are some other things to consider: For any car loan, I would borrow as little as possible with as short a term as possible.  To me, the interest savings and additional risks from borrowing from your retirement isn't worth it."}
{"question":"Can I sell a stock immediately?","answer":"Yes you can, provided if buyers are available.  Normally high liquidty stocks can be sold at market prices a little higher or lower."}
{"question":"Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?","answer":"Yes, I have done this and did not feel a change in cash flow - but I didn't do it a the age of 23.  I did it at a time when it was comfortable to do so.  I should have done it sooner and I strongly encourage you to do so.   Another consideration:  Is your companies program a good one?  if it is not among the best at providing good funds with low fees then you should consider only putting 6% into your employer account to get the match.  Above that dollar amount start your own ROTH IRA at the brokerage of your choice and invest the rest there.  The fee difference can be considerable amounting to theoretically much higher returns over a long time period. If you choose to do the max , You would not want to max out before the end of the year.  Calculate your deferral very carefully to make sure you at least put in 6% deferral on every paycheck to the end of the year.  Otherwise you may miss out on your company match.  It is wise to consider a ROTH but it is extremely tough to know if it will be good for you or not.  It all depends on what kind of taxes (payroll, VAT, etc) you pay now and what you will pay in the future.  On the other hand the potential for tax-free capital accumulation is very nice so it seems you should trend toward Roth."}
{"question":"why is the money withdrawn from traditional IRA taxed at the ordinary income tax rate?","answer":"In a Traditional IRA contributions are often tax-deductible. For instance, if a taxpayer contributes $4,000 to a traditional IRA and is in the twenty-five percent marginal tax bracket, then a $1,000 benefit ($1,000 reduced tax liability) will be realized for the year. So that's why they tax you as income, because they didn't tax that income before. If a taxpayer expects to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement than during the working years, then this is one advantage for using a Traditional IRA vs a Roth. Distributions are taxed as ordinary income. So it depends on your tax bracket  UPDATE FOR COMMENT: Currently you may have heard on the news about \"the fiscal cliff\" - CNBC at the end of the year. This is due to the fact that the Bush tax-cuts are set to expire and if they expire. Many tax rates will change. But here is the info as of right now: Dividends: From 2003 to 2007, qualified dividends were taxed at 15% or 5% depending on the individual's ordinary income tax bracket, and from 2008 to 2012, the tax rate on qualified dividends was reduced to 0% for taxpayers in the 10% and 15% ordinary income tax brackets. After 2012, dividends will be taxed at the taxpayer's ordinary income tax rate, regardless of his or her tax bracket. - If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire. - Reference - Wikipedia Capital Gains tax rates can be seen here - the Capital Gains tax rate is relative to your Ordinary Income tax rate For Example: this year long term gains will be 0% if you fall in the 15% ordinary tax bracket. NOTE: These rates can change every year so any future rates might be different from the current year."}
{"question":"Do retail traders get any advantage from learning methods of mathematical of finance?","answer":"If it could, it seems yet to be proven.  Long Term Capital Management was founded by a bunch of math whizzes and they seem to have missed something.  I'd never suggest that something has no value, but similar to the concept that \"if time travel were possible, why hasn't anyone come back from the future to tell us\" I'd suggest that if there were a real advantage to what you suggest, someone would be making money from it already.  In my opinion, the math is simple, little more than a four function calculator is needed."}
{"question":"Found an old un-cashed paycheck. How long is it good for? What to do if it's expired?","answer":"In the UK the official rule is that a cheque is valid for 3 years from the date it was wrote. However after 3 months some banks can choose to turn them down. I had a cheque once that was a year old which is when I looked it up to see whether it was stil valid, and I found the laws regarding it then.  I was actually quite surprised it was 3 years! Btw if it does bounce your quite entitled to ask your employer for a replacement cheque.  They owe it you and it's just sat in their account assigned to you anyway."}
{"question":"How can I verify that a broker I found online is legitimate?","answer":"How you check if a broker is legitimate: 1) Are they a registered broker dealer? Broker dealers have to be registered with FINRA and the SEC , which have their own databases for you to look up individuals and companies. here is FINRA's http:\/\/www.finra.org\/Investors\/ToolsCalculators\/BrokerCheck\/ FINRA is a self-regulatory agency, the SEC is a federal government agency. All things considered, they pretty much have similar legislative authority over the industry. But thats a different story. If the broker isn't able to produce information that would confirm their registration status, or if you can't readily find it in the regulators database, then that is a major red flag. The biggest red flag of them all. 2) If brokers are also acting as a consumer bank, such as how Merrill Lynch is now part of Bank of America and the accounts can be linked pretty easily, then they should will also be regulated by the FDIC. This means that you will be able to find the capital ratio that the company has, letting you know how stable it is as an institution. Physical locations, the name, and duration of existence, or their rating on BBB have nothing to do with it."}
{"question":"How will my stock purchase affect my taxes?","answer":"Purchasing stock doesn't affect your immediate taxes any more than purchasing anything else, unless you purchase it through a traditional 401k or some other pre-tax vehicle. Selling stock has tax effects; that's when you have a gain or loss to report."}
{"question":"What is the best approach to save money for College for three kids?","answer":"In your situation you will be using your normal savings to offset additional funding from student loans or similar financing. Also, sending your children to or moving to a jurisdiction that has lower education costs but ample opportunity should also be in your cards. That can be another state, or another country."}
{"question":"The spread goes to the market maker, is the market maker the exchange?","answer":"A \"market maker\" is someone that is contractually bound, by the exchange, to provide both bid and ask prices for a given volume (e.g. 5000 shares). A single market maker usually covers many stocks, and a single stock is usually covered by many market makers. The NYSE has \"specialists\" that are market makers that also performed a few other roles in the management of trading for a stock, and usually a single issue on the NYSE is covered by only one market maker.  Market makers are often middlemen between brokers (ignoring stuff like dark pools, and the fact that brokers will often trade stocks internally among their own clients before going to the exchange).  Historically, the market makers gave up buy\/sell discretion in exchange for being the \"go-to guys\" for anyone wanting to trade in that stock. When you told your broker to buy a stock for you, he didn't hook you up with another retail investor; he went to the market maker. Market makers would also sometimes find investors willing to step in when more liquidity was needed for a security. They were like other floor traders; they hung out on the exchange floors and interacted with traders to buy and sell stocks. Traders came to them when they wanted to buy one of the specialist's issues. There was no public order book; just ticker tape and a quote. It was up to the market maker to maintain that order book.  Since they are effectively forbidden from being one-sided traders in a security, their profit comes from the bid-ask spread. Being the counter-party to almost every trade, they'd make profit from always selling above where they were buying. (Except when the price moved quickly -- the downside to this arrangement.) \"The spread goes to the market maker\" is just stating that the profit implicit in the spread gets consumed by the market maker. With the switch to ECNs, the role of the market maker has changed. For example, ForEx trading firms tend to act as market makers to their customers. On ECNs, the invisible, anonymous guy at the other end of most trades is often a market maker, still performing his traditional role. Yet brokers can interact directly with each other now, rather than relying on the market maker's book. With modern online investing and public order books, retail investors might even be trading directly with each other. Market makers are still out there; in part, they perform a service sold by an Exchange to the companies that choose to be listed on that exchange. That service has changed to helping tamp volatility during normal high-volatility periods (such as at open and close)."}
{"question":"If a bank has a transfer limit, what happens if another bank pushes\/pulls more than that?","answer":"If bank B has a transfer limit set, you bet that there is a nice reason for that. Either risk of fraud, liability, client preferences, profiling, credit scoring, etc, etc. For a bank, the cost of denying something [1] is way lower than the potential damages and liabilities of allowing something to go through.  Regarding your concerns for the ACH, here is the summarized transaction walkthrough source: An Originator\u2013 whether that\u2019s an individual, a corporation or another entity\u2013 initiates either a Direct Deposit or Direct Payment transaction using the ACH Network. ACH transactions can be either debit or credit payments and commonly include Direct Deposit of payroll, government and Social Security benefits, mortgage and bill payments, online banking payments, person-to-person (P2P) and business-to-business (B2B) payments, to name a few. Instead of using paper checks, ACH entries are entered and transmitted electronically, making transactions quicker, safer and easier.  The Originating Depository Financial institution (ODFI) enters the ACH entry at the request of the Originator.  The ODFI aggregates payments from customers and transmits them in batches at regular, predetermined intervals to an ACH Operator.  ACH Operators (two central clearing facilities: The Federal Reserve or The Clearing House) receive batches of ACH entries from the ODFI.  The ACH transactions are sorted and made available by the ACH Operator to the Receiving Depository Financial Institution (RDFI).  The Receiver\u2019s account is debited or credited by the RDFI, according to the type of ACH entry. Individuals, businesses and other entities can all be Receivers.  Each ACH credit transaction settles in one to two business days, and each debit transaction settles in just one business day, as per the Rules.  Take heed of this like:  The Originator initiates a direct deposit\/payment transaction. In your scenario, the originator would be B. But since the transaction amount is higher than the limit, B would not even initiate the ACH transaction. The request would be denied. So the transaction would look like this: [1] Usually this cost comes down to just the processing costs of the denied transaction (and it is rather fail-fast like). For the other parties involved it may have additional costs (missed deadlines, penalties for not fulfilling an obligation, fines, etc), but for the bank that is irrelevant."}
{"question":"Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?","answer":"Differences in liquidity explain why American-style options are generally worth more than their European-style counterparts. As far as I can tell, no one mentioned liquidity in their answer to this question, they just introduced needlessly complex math and logic while ignoring basic economic principles. That's not to say the previous answers are all wrong - they just deal with periphery factors instead of the central cause.  Liquidity is a key determinant of pricing\/valuation in financial markets. Liquidity simply describes the ease with which an asset can be bought and sold (converted to cash). Without going into the reasons why, treasury bills are one of the most liquid securities - they can be bought or sold almost instantly at any time for an exact price. The near-perfect liquidity of treasuries is one of the major reasons why the price (yield) of a t-bill will always be higher (lower yield) than that of an otherwise identical corporate or municipal bond. Stated in general terms, a relatively liquid asset is always worth more than an relatively illiquid asset, all else being equal.  The value of liquidity is easy to understand - we experience it everyday in real life. If you're buying a house or car, the ability to resell it if needed is an important component of the decision. It's the same for investors - most people would prefer an asset that they can quickly and easily liquidate if the need for cash arises.  It's no different with options. American-style options allow the holder to exercise (liquidate) at any time, whereas the buyer of a European option has his cash tied up until a specific date. Obviously, it rarely makes sense to exercise an option early in terms of net returns, but sometimes an investor has a desperate need for cash and this need outweighs the reduction in net profits from early exercise.  It could be argued that this liquidity advantage is eliminated by the fact that you can trade (sell) either type of option without restriction before expiration, thus closing the long position. This is a valid point, but it ignores the fact that there's always a buyer on the other side of an option trade, meaning the long position, and the right\/restriction of early exercise, is never eliminated, it simply changes hands. It follows that the American-style liquidity advantage increases an options market value regardless of one's position (call\/put or short\/long). Without putting an exact number on it, the general interest rate (time value of money) could be used to approximate the additional cost of an American-style option over a similar European-style contract."}
{"question":"Why does a stock's price fluctuate so often, even when fresh news isn't available?","answer":"according to me it's the news about a particular stock which makes people to buy or sell it mostly thus creates a fluctuation in price . It also dependents on the major stock holder."}
{"question":"Economics Books ","answer":"i'm absolutely a newcomer in economics and i wish to understand how things work around finance. This is a pretty loaded question. To understand finance, you need the basics of economics. In almost every economics school in the country, you first study microeconomics and then economics. So, we'll start with micro. One of, if not the, most popular books is \"Principles of Microeconomics\" by Mankiw. This book covers the fundamentals of micro econ (opportunity, supply, demand, consumer choice, production, costs, basic game theory, and allocation of resources) in a clear and effective manner. It's designed for the novice and very easy to read.   Like Mankiw's other book, \"Principles of Macroeconomics\" is also top notch. There is some overlap in key areas (i.e. opportunity cost, supply, demand, indifference curves, elasticity, taxation) because they are fundamental to economics and the overlap will always be there, but from there the book goes into key macro concepts like GDP, CPI, Employment, Monetary and Fiscal policy, and Inflation. An excellent intro primer indeed.   Now that you have the fundamentals down, it's time to learn about finance. The best resource, in my opinion, is \"Financial Markets\" by Robert Shiller on Open Yale Courses. I've personally taken Prof. Shiller's class last semester, and the man is brilliant. The lectures cover every single aspect of finance and can turn the complete novice into a fairly experienced finance student. The first lecture also covers all the math required so you don't get lost at any point. Be warned, however, that the course is very deep. We used Fabozzi's textbook \"Foundations of Financial Markets and Institutions,\" which is over 600 pages deep and we were required to know essentially all of it. Watch the videos and follow the readings and you'll be a finance whiz soon! Financial Markets on Open Yale  And that's your roadmap to what you want. There are other economics books and it's true that the first few chapters of both Mankiw books are largely the same, but that's because any economics course always covers the basics first. If you want to look at other books, Krugman has written some good books as well. Be sure to read reviews because some books are meant for 2nd\/3rd year econ students, so you don't want to get a too advanced book. At the novice level, we're interested in understanding the basic concepts so we can master Fabozzi. As for finance books - Fabozzi teaches you all the fundamentals of financial markets so you've got a powerful foundation. From there you can expand to more niche books such as books on investing or on monetary policy or whatever you want. Best of luck!"}
{"question":"What are the pros and cons of investing in a closed-end fund?","answer":"Pro:  - Faces less redemption pressure and hence the Fund Manager can focus more on long term gains rather than immediate gains.  - Works well in emerging markets.  - Less churn out in case the market falls sharply, there by making more money in long run. Cons:  - No additional money to invest\/take advantage of market situation.  - Less liquid for investor as he is locked in for a period."}
{"question":"Buy securities at another stock exchange","answer":"Different exchanges sometimes offer different order types, and of course have different trading fees.  But once a trade is finished, it should not matter where it was executed."}
{"question":"Recommended education path for a future individual investor?","answer":"My plan is that one day I can become free of the modern day monetary burdens that most adults carry with them and I can enjoy a short life without these troubles on my mind. If your objective is to achieve financial independence, and to be able to retire early from the workforce, that's a path that has been explored before. So there's plenty of sources that you might want to check.  The good news is that you don't need to be an expert on security analysis or go through dozens of text books to invest wisely and enjoy the market returns. This is the Bogleheads philosophy. It's widely accepted by people in academia, and thoroughly tested. Look into it further if you want to see the rationale behind, but, to sum it up: It doesn't matter how expert you are. The idea of beating the market, that an index fund tracks, is about 'outsmarting' the rest of investors. That would be difficult, even if it was a matter of skill, but when it comes to predicting random events we're all equally clueless.  *Total Expense Ratio: It gives an idea of how expensive is a given fund in terms of fees. Actively managed funds have higher TER than indexed ones. This doesn't mean there aren't index funds with, unexplainable, high TER out there."}
{"question":"What things are important to consider when investing in one's company stock?","answer":"Check how long you have to hold the stock after buying it. If you can sell reasonably soon and your company is reasonably stable, you're unlikely to lose and\/or be taxed and\/or pay enough in fees to lose more than the 30% \"free money\" they're giving you.  Whether you hold it longer than the minimum time depends partly on whether you think you can better invest the money elsewhere, and partly on how you feel about having both your salary and (part of) your investments tied to the company's success? The company would like you to \"double down\" that way, in the theory that it may make you mors motivated... but some investment councelors would advise keeping that a relatively small part of your total investments, basically for the same reasons you are always advised to diversify."}
{"question":"Why will the bank only loan us 80% of the value of our fully paid for home?","answer":"Imagine the bank loaning 100% of the sum of money you needed to buy a house, if the valuation of the house decreases to 90% of the original price after 3 months, would it be unfair for them to ask them for 10% of the original price from you immediately? I suppose the rationale for loaning 80% is so that you will fork our 20% first, and so your property is protected from fluctuations in the market, that they do not need to collect additional money from you as your housing valuation rarely drops below 80% of the original price. Banks do need to make money too, as they run as a business."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"The only way to \"roll\" debt into a home purchase is to have sufficient down payment.  Under the \"new\" lending rules that took effect in Canada earlier this year, you must have at least 5% of the purchase price as a down payment.  If you have $60,000 in additional debt, the total amount of mortgage still cannot be greater than 95% of the purchase price.  Below is an example. Purchase price of home $200,000. Maximum mortgage $190,000 (95% of purchase price) Total outside debt $60,000 That means the mortgage (other than the current debt of $60k) can only be $130,000 This means you would need a down payment of $70,000. Also keep in mind that I have not included any other legal fees, real estate commissions, etc in this example. Since it is safe to assume that you do not have $70k available for a down payment, renting and paying down the debt is likely the better route.  Pay off the credit card(s) first as they have the higher interest amount. Best of luck!"}
{"question":"Definition of \"U.S. source\" for US non-resident alien capital gains tax","answer":"The examples you provide in the question are completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter where the brokerage is or where is the company you own stocks in. For a fairly standard case of an non-resident alien international student living full time in the US - your capital gains are US sourced. Let me quote the following text a couple of paragraphs down the line you quoted on the same page: Gain or loss from the sale or exchange of personal property generally   has its source in the United States if the alien has a tax home in the   United States. The key factor in determining if an individual is a   U.S. resident for purposes of the sourcing of capital gains is whether   the alien's \"tax home\" has shifted to the United States. If an alien   does not have a tax home in the United States, then the alien\u2019s U.S.   source capital gains would be treated as foreign-source and thus   nontaxable. In general, under the \"tax home\" rules, a person who is away (or who   intends to be away) from his tax home for longer than 1 year has   shifted tax homes to his new location upon his arrival in that new   location. See Chapter 1 of Publication 463, Travel, Entertainment,   Gift, and Car Expenses I'll assume you've read this and just want an explanation on what it means. What it means is that if you move to the US for a significant period of time (expected length of 1 year or more), your tax home is assumed to have shifted to the US and the capital gains are sourced to the US from the start of your move. For example: you are a foreign diplomat, and your 4-year assignment started in May. Year-end - you're not US tax resident (diplomats exempt), but you've stayed in the US for more than 183 days, and since your assignment is longer than 1 year - your tax home is now in the US. You'll pay the 30% flat tax. Another example: You're a foreign airline pilot, coming to the US every other day flying the airline aircraft. You end up staying in the US 184 days, but your tax home hasn't shifted, nor you're a US tax resident - you don't pay the flat tax. Keep in mind, that tax treaties may alter the situation since in many cases they also cover the capital gains situation for non-residents."}
{"question":"Options for Cash only Buyout due to Company Merger","answer":"What are my options, if any, in how to deal with a buyout that forced me to sell, and accept cash only for my Florida USA company shares? Options are limited;"}
{"question":"Why do moving average acts as support and resistance?","answer":"It's not stopped. Crossing a moving average is considered a signal to buy or sell. Yahoo stock charts offer the ability to add moving averages to the charts, and you can observe all stocks cross the line regularly.   As a contrast to Victor's charts, you can see that Apple, over the last two years, has traded above and below the 50 day MA. A believer in technical analysis using MA will observe a buy signal in Dec '11 just under $400, with a sell in mid-$500s in May. Moving averages are a form of following the trend, and work well when either trend is strong. It's when the stock is too close to the line that's it's tough to call whether it's time to be in or out."}
{"question":"Why are Bank of America and Citi trading so far below book value?","answer":"Its not just Citi and BoFA, even Barclays, HSBC and other large Banks are trading below book value in markets they are listed. Are there particular assets that are causing these two banks to be valued lower relative to their book values than the other banks? There no particular assets. Given the current economic situation most Banks are not making good returns, i.e. expected returns of markets are around 10-12% and the returns getting generated are around 4-6%. The overall slow down in various segments as well as regulations in most countries mean that banks have to relook at the business model in short term and generate more revenue. The market believes that Banks may loose money faster and hence the negative outlook and the trading below the book value. Note Book Value is derived in ideal conditions, i.e. when the company is healthy. If any company were to sell the assets in distress, the actual funds raised would be quite a bit less than Book Value. Its also to be noted that typically Banks would not close out and hence Book Value to an extent is just an indicator. Or is it a residual loathing based on their being the biggest losers of 2008 that are still around today? The 2008 has gone past. This is more recent. If you look most of these banks were doing quite well till last year and had recovered substantially after 2008."}
{"question":"What rules govern when a new option series is issued?","answer":"Without researching the securities in question I couldn't tell you which cycle each is in, but your answer is that they have different expiration cycles. The following definition is from the CBOE website; \"Expiration cycle An expiration cycle relates to the dates on which options on a particular underlying security expire. A given option, other than LEAPS\u00ae, will be assigned to one of three cycles, the January cycle, the February cycle or the March cycle.\""}
{"question":"How can I determine if my portfolio's rate of return has been \"good\", or not?","answer":"It's important to realize that any portfolio, if sufficiently diversified should track overall GDP growth, and anything growing via a percentage per annum is going to double eventually. (A good corner-of-napkin estimate is 70\/the percentage = years to double). Just looking at your numbers, if you initially put in the full $7000, an increase to $17000 after 10 years represents a return of ~9.3% per annum (to check my math $7000*1.09279^10 \u2248 $17000). Since you've been putting in the $7000 over 10 years the return is going to be a bit more than that, but it's not possible to calculate based on the information given.  A return of 9.3% is not bad (some rules of thumb: inflation is about 2-4% so if you are making less than that you're losing money, and 6-10% per annum is generally what you should expect if your portfolio is tracking the market)... I wouldn't consider that rate of return to be particularly amazing, but it's not bad either, as you've done better than you would have if you had invested in an ETF tracking the market. The stock market being what it is, you can't rule out the possibility that you got lucky with your stock picks. If your portfolio was low-risk, a return of 9%ish could be considered amazing, but given that it's about 5-6 different stocks what I'd consider amazing would be a return of 15%+ (to give you something to shoot for!) Either way, for your amount of savings you're probably better off going with a mutual fund or an ETF. The return might be slightly lower, but the risk profile is also lower than you picking your stocks, since the fund\/ETF will be more diversified. (and it's less work!)"}
{"question":"Why would analysts recommend buying companies with negative net income?","answer":"The biotechnology sector as a whole is a popular buy recommendation among some analysts these days for a few reasons.  Some analysts feel that the high costs in R&D, even without much profit, are a positive sign for growth because it means a company is working towards finding the next \"blockbuster drug\" or the next class of such drugs. There haven't been many new classes of blockbuster drugs since the development of SSRI's and statins, and many of the new drugs that have been developed have been tweaks to existing classes of drugs. Some analysts feel that \"it's about time\" for a new class of blockbuster drugs to hit the market. A new blockbuster drug means significant profits for the company that develops it; a new class of blockbuster drugs means significant profits for the whole industry.  Since about 2009, the Food and Drug Administration has been more lenient in its approval of new drugs. This wave of new approvals has reduced R&D costs for companies because they don't need to go back to the lab or earlier phases of clinical trials and continually tweak their drugs in order to gain approval. This has also made some analysts optimistic. Genetic engineering is considered an up-and-coming field with potentially significant applications to the pharmaceutical industry. Advances in this field may increase profits for the pharm industry, but since biotech companies are often the ones producing the engineering equipment, research, etc. such advances could be a major source of revenue for the entire biotech industry.  In the US and in the developed world as a whole, the elderly population is growing, and since people consume more medicine as they grow older, this could lead to higher profits for companies involved in the production of pharmaceuticals (which includes biotech companies, of course) in the long run.  In the US, the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expanded insurance coverage, which gives more people the means to afford pharmaceuticals. Also, in general, people consume more healthcare services when they have insurance (this is called moral hazard), so some analysts expect that the expansion of insurance coverage will only lead to more profits for the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology firms in general. The global food crisis. As the climate changes, companies like Monsanto, which use various forms of genetic engineering to produce crop strains that can survive in increasingly hostile environments, look more and more appealing to places that need crops designed to grow in such environments. Any methods that could increase yields look increasingly popular, and biotechnology companies often market such methods. (As a side note, I know Monsanto is a contentious example, and there are a lot of misconceptions about \"genetically modified food\" and the genetic engineering methods they do, so I won't get into a debate about that).  In general, technology is a popular subject right now. I've read analyst reports (from analysts that clearly don't follow the biotech sector) that base their forecasts for the biotech sector on the activities of companies like Dell, Zynga, HP, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Clearly, it's problematic when an analyst sees the word \"technology\" and automatically assumes that the biotech sector is responsive to the same factors as social media firms, hardware manufacturers, etc. This isn't to say that the biotech sector is completely isolated from this, but when I read a report that talks about Facebook's IPO being bad news for companies like Gilead Sciences without mentioning upcoming FDA decisions about Gilead's products or any biotech-specific factors, I'm not convinced the analyst has performed due diligence.  I keep using the phrase \"some analysts\" because I want to stress that the opinions stated above aren't universal. Although they're popular, not everyone is so optimistic. Also, I don't want you to see these reasons and think that I'm making a buy recommendation, because I'm not. I'm not making a recommendation one way or another.  I'm happy to clarify my answer too; I follow the biotechnology sector extensively. If you want to get a rough feel for the daily movements of the sector as a whole, a good place to start is IBB, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index Fund. The four largest holdings are Regeneron, Gilead Sciences, Amgen, and Celgene, which are all big players in the industry (obviously). These are a little different from the big name pharma companies like Pfizer, Merck, Novartis, etc. but they're still considered pharma companies. It's also worthwhile to follow the FDA press announcements. By the time the news is published there, it's probably already leaked or known to people in the industry (the biotech\/pharm sectors are rife with accusations of insider trading), so you might not find trading opportunities, but it's important to get familiar with the information the releases contain if you want to know more about the industry. Volatility trades are always popular trades around FDA drug approvals."}
{"question":"Is a currency \"hedged\" ETF actually a more speculative instrument than an unhedged version?","answer":"The risk of any investment is measured by its incremental effect on the volatility of your overall personal wealth, including your other investments.  The usual example is that adding a volatile stock to your portfolio may actually reduce the risk of your portfolio if it is negatively correlated with the other stuff in your portfolio. Common measures of risk, such as beta, assume that you have whole-market diversified portfolio. In the case of an investment that may or may not be hedged against currency movements, we can't say whether the hedge adds or removes risk for you without knowing what else is in your portfolio.  If you are an EU citizen with nominally delimited savings or otherwise stand to lose buying power if the Euro depreciates relative to the dollar, than the \"hedged\" ETF is less risky than the \"unhedged\" version.  On the other hand, if your background risk is such that you benefit from that depreciation, then the reverse is true. \"Hedging\" means reducing the risk already present in your portfolio.  In this case it does not refer to reducing the individual volatility of the ETF.  It may or may not do that but individual asset volatility and risk are two very different things."}
{"question":"Personal taxes for Shopify \/ Paypal shop?","answer":"(do I need to get a W9 from our suppliers)? Will PayPal or Shopify send me a 1099k or something? Do not assume that you'll get paperwork from anyone.  Do assume that you have to generate your own paperwork.  Ideally you should print out some kind of record of each transaction.  Note that it can be hard to view older transactions in PayPal, so start now.  If you can't document something, write up a piece of paper showing the state of the world to the best of your knowledge.   Do assume that you need separate receipts for each expenditure.  The PayPal receipt might be enough (but print it in case the IRS wants to see it).  A receipt from the vendor would be better (again, print it if it is online now).   A CPA is not strictly necessary.  A CPA is certified (the C in CPA) to formally audit the books of a corporation.  In your case, any accountant would be legally sufficient.  You still may want to use a CPA, as the certification, while technically unnecessary, still demonstrates knowledge.  You may otherwise not be in a position to evaluate an accountant.  A compromise option is to go to a firm that includes a CPA and then let them assign you to someone else to process the actual taxes.   You are going to have to fill out some business tax forms.  In particular, I would expect a schedule C.  That's where you would show revenues and expenses.  You may well have to file other forms as well."}
{"question":"Credit card grace period for pay, wait 1 day, charge?","answer":"You shouldn't be charged interest, unless possibly because your purchases involve a currency conversion. I've made normal purchases that happened to involve changes in currency.  The prices were quoted in US$ to me.  On the tail end, though, the currency change was treated as a cash advance, which accrues interest immediately."}
{"question":"why is the money withdrawn from traditional IRA taxed at the ordinary income tax rate?","answer":"You are missing something very significant. The money in a traditional IRA (specifically, a deductible traditional IRA; there is not really any reason to keep a nondeductible traditional IRA anymore) is pre-tax. That means when you pay tax on it when you take it out, you are paying tax on it for the first time. If you take ordinary money to invest it in stocks, and then pay capital gains tax on it when you take it out, that is post-tax money to begin with -- meaning that you have already paid (income) tax on it once. Then you have to pay tax again on the time-value growth of that money (i.e. that growth is earned from money that is already taxed). That means you are effectively paying tax twice on part of that money. If that doesn't make sense to you, and you think that interest, capital gains, etc. is the first time you're paying tax on the money because it's growth, then you have a very simplistic view of money. There's something called time value of money, which means that a certain amount of money is equivalent to a greater amount of money in the future. If you invest $100 now and end up with $150 in the future, that $150 in the future is effectively the same money as the $100 now. Let's consider a few examples. Let's say you have $1000 of pre-tax income you want to invest and withdraw a certain period of time later in retirement. Let's say you have an investment that grows 100% over this period of time. And let's say that your tax rate now and in the future is 25% (and for simplicity, assume that all income is taxed at that rate instead of the tax bracket system). And capital gains tax is 15%. You see a few things: Traditional IRA and Roth IRA are equivalent if the tax rates are the same. This is because, in both cases, you pay tax one time on the money (the only difference between paying tax now and later is the tax rate). It doesn't matter that you're paying tax only on the principal for the Roth and on the principal plus earnings for Traditional, because the principal now is equivalent to the principal plus earnings in the future. And you also see that investing money outside fares worse than both of them. That is because you are paying tax on the money once plus some more. When you compare it against the Roth IRA, the disadvantage is obvious -- in both cases you pay income tax on the principal, but for Roth IRA you pay nothing on the earnings, whereas for the outside stock, you pay some tax on the earnings. What may be less obvious is it is equally disadvantageous compared to a Traditional IRA; Traditional and Roth IRA are equivalent in this comparison. 401(k)s and IRAs have a fundamental tax benefit compared to normal money investment, because they allow money to be taxed only one time. No matter how low the capital gains tax rate it, it is still worse because it is a tax on time-value growth from money that is already taxed."}
{"question":"Double-entry accounting: how to keep track of mortgage installments as expenses?","answer":"If your mortgage is an interest only one then the full amount of the payment you make should be to an expense account perhaps called mortgage interest. If the mortgage is a repayment mortgage you need to split the amount of the payment between such an expense account called mortgage interest and between a liability account which is the amount of the loan. In practice I have not found it very easy to do all this as the actual amounts vary depending on number of days in the month and then there are occasional charges etc made by the mortgage company so some approximations seem to be needed unless one is to spend hours trying to get it exactly correct...... Steve"}
{"question":"Other ETFs of world bonds and stocks (Alternatives to VT and BND)?","answer":"Here is another choice I like, iShares JPMorgan USD Emerging Markets Bond (EMB) Here is the world ETFs"}
{"question":"How should I record invoices in foreign currency in GNUCash?","answer":"The solution I've come up with is to keep income in CAD, and Accounts Receivable in USD.  Every time I post an invoice it prompts for the exchange rate. I don't know if this is \"correct\" but it seems to be preserving all of the information about the transactions and it makes sense to me.  I'm a programmer, not an accountant though so I'd still appreciate an answer from someone more familiar with this topic."}
{"question":"What data does a seller receive when I pay by credit card?","answer":"It depends on the seller.  If the seller wants, they can collect the information from you and send it to the payment gateway.  In that case, they of course have everything that you provide at some point.  They are not supposed to keep the security code, and there are rules about keeping the credit card number safe.   The first four digits of the credit card number often indicate the bank, although smaller banks may share.  But for example a Capital One card would indicate the bank.   Other sellers work through a payment gateway that collects the information.  Even there, the seller may collect most of the information first and send it to the gateway.  In particular, the seller may collect name, email, phone, and address information.  And in general the gateway will reveal that kind of information.  They will not give the seller credit card info other than the name on the card, expiration date, and possible last four digits.  They may report if the address matches the card's billing address (mismatched addresses may mean fraud).   Buying through someone like PayPal can provide the least information.  For a digital good, PayPal can only expose the buyer's name (which may be a business name) and email (associated with the payment account).  However PayPal still has the other information and may expose it under legal action (e.g. if the credit card transaction is reversed or the good sold is illegal).  And even PayPal will expose the shipping address for physical goods that require shipping."}
{"question":"Wardrobe: To Update or Not? How-to without breaking the bank","answer":"The best way to save on clothes is up to you.  I have friends who save all year for two yearly shopping trips to update anything that may need updating at the time.  By allowing themselves only two trips, they control the money spent.  Bring it in cash and stop buying when you run out. On the other hand in my family we shop sales.  When we determine that we need something we wait until we find a sale.  When we see an exceptionally good sale on something we know we will need (basic work dress shoes, for example), we'll purchase it and save it until the existing item it is replacing has worn out.  Our strategy is to know what we need and buy it when the price is right.  We tend to wait on anything that isn't on sale until we can find the right item at a price we like, which sometimes means stretching the existing piece of clothing it is replacing until well after its prime. If you've got a list you're shopping from, you know what you need.  The question becomes: how will you control your spending best?  Carefully shopping sales and using coupons, or budgeting for a spree within limits?"}
{"question":"Covered call when stock position is at a loss","answer":"It's unclear what you're asking. When I originally read your question, it seemed that you had closed out one options position and opened another. When I read your question the second time, it seemed that you were writing a second option while the first was still open. In the second case, you have one covered and one naked position. The covered call will expire worthless, the naked call will expire in the money. How your broker will resolve that is a question best left for them, but my expectation is that they will assign the non-worthless calls. Whereas, if both options expired in the money, you would be assigned and you would have to come up with the additional shares (and again, that depends on how your broker works). In general, for both cases, your net is the premiums you received, plus the difference between strike price and the price that you paid for the stock, minus any cost to close out the position. So whether you make a profit is very much dependent on how much you received for your premiums. Scenario #1: close first call, write second: Scenario #2: write covered + naked, one expires worthless Scenario #3: write covered + naked, both expire in the money Disclaimer: the SEC does not consider me a financial\/investment advisor, so this is not financial\/investment advice"}
{"question":"Need something more basic than a financial advisor or planner","answer":"In addition to a fee-only advisor, brought up by dg99, you could consider asking your questions on message boards such as Bogleheads.org. I have found the advice amazing, obviously conflict-free, and free."}
{"question":"Should I get cash from credit card at 0% for 8 months and put it on loans?","answer":"There are two issues here: arithmetic and psychology. Scenario 1: You are presently paying an extra $500 per month on your student loan, above the minimum payments. Your credit card company offers a $4000 cash advance at 0% for 8 months. So you take the cash advance, pay it toward the student loan, and then instead of paying the extra $500 per month toward the student loan you use that $500 for 8 months to repay the cash advance. Net result: You pay 0% interest on the loan, and save roughly 8 months times $4000 times the interest on the student loan divided by two. (I say \"divided by two\" because it's not the difference between $4000 and zero, but between $4000 and the $500 you would have been paying off each month.) Clearly you are better off. If you are NOT presently paying an extra $500 on the student loan -- or even if you are but it is a struggle to come up with the money -- then the question becomes, can you reasonably expect to be able to pay off the credit card before the grace period runs out? Interest rates on credit cards are normally much higher than interest rates on student loans. If you get the cash advance and then can't repay it, after 8 months you are paying a very steep interest rate, and anything you saved on the student loan will quickly be lost. What I mean by \"psychological\" is that you have to have the discipline to really repay the credit card within the grace period. If you're not very confidant that you can do that, this plan could go bad very quickly. Personally, I've thought about doing things like this many times -- cash advances against credit cards, home equity loans, etc, all give low-interest money that could be used to pay off a higher-interest debt. But it's easy to get into trouble doing things like this. It's easy to say to yourself, Well, I don't need to put ALL the money toward that other debt, I could keep a thousand or so to buy that big screen TV I really need. Or to fail to pay back the low-interest loan on schedule because other things keep coming up that you spend your money on instead, whether frivolous luxuries or true emergencies. And there's always the possibility that something will happen to mess up your finances, from a big car repair bill to losing your job. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. Finally, maxing out your credit cards hurts your credit rating. The formulas are secret, but I understand that if you use more than half your available credit, that's a minus. How much it hurts you depends on lots of factors."}
{"question":"How to calculate the rate of return on selling a stock?","answer":"You probably want the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), see http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Internal_rate_of_return which is the compound interest rate that would produce your return. You can compute it in a spreadsheet with XIRR(), I made an example: https:\/\/spreadsheets.google.com\/ccc?key=0AvuTW2HtDQfYdEsxVlM0RFdrRk1QS1hoNURxZkVFN3c&hl=en You can also use a financial calculator, or there are probably lots of web-based calculators such as the ones people have mentioned."}
{"question":"I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it?","answer":"My late answer is: Be aware of the difference of being a contractor and being an employee.  I am not sure of the laws in Canada, but in the United States lots of small companies like to hire people as \"contractors\" but make them work under rules that fall into employee.   The business is trying to avoid paying payroll taxes, which is fine, but make sure you know your rights and responsibilities as a contractor vs employee. You can check with your state's Bureau of Labor and Industry in the US, but I am sure wherever you are from there is a government agency to do the same thing."}
{"question":"Retired, want to buy a mobile home; how to finance?","answer":"Do you think your 403b will earn more than the mortgage interest rate?  If so, then mortgage seems the way to go. Conservative investment strategies might not earn much more than a 3-4% mortgage, and if you're paying 5-6% it's more likely you'll be earning less than the mortgage. From another point of view, though, I would probably take a loan anyway just from a security standpoint - you have more risk if you put a third of your retirement savings into one purchase directly, whereas if you do a 10-15 year loan, you'll have more of a cushion.  Also, if you don't outlive the mortgage, you'll have had use of more of your retirement income than otherwise - though I do wonder if it puts you at some risk if you have significant medical bills (which might require you to liquidate your 403b but wouldn't require you to sell your house, so paying it off has some upside). Also, as @chili555 notes in comments, you should consider the taxation of your 403(b) income.  If you pull it out in one lump sum, some of it may be taxed at a higher rate than if you pulled it out more slowly over time, which will easily overwhelm any interest rate differences.  This assumes it's not a Roth 403(b) account; if it is Roth then it doesn't matter."}
{"question":"How can I check my credit score?","answer":"Check with your bank.  As of January, 2015, the following banks and credit unions are offering free credit-scores: Announced, in the pipeline: Source: Banks to offer FICO credit scores for free Personal Experience: I've been receiving free FICO score from my credit union for more than 6 months now. Advice: Most people have multiple bank\/credit-union accounts. The FICO score will be the same whoever offers it. If none of your financial institutions offer you a free credit-score then you may opt for free services like creditkarma.com or other paid services. Please note that a credit-score is number summarizing your credit-report and should not be confused.  In the news:"}
{"question":"Does the sale of personal items need to be declared as income on my income taxes?","answer":"Books would be considered Personal-Use Property according to Canada's income tax laws.  The most detailed IT I was able to find is IT-332R, which says: GAINS AND LOSSES 3. A gain on the disposition of personal-use property is normally a capital gain within the meaning of paragraph 39(1)(a). Where the property is a principal residence, the gain > is computed under paragraph 40(2)(b) or (c). 4. Under subparagraph 40(2)(g)(iii), a loss on a disposition of personal-use property, other than listed personal property, is deemed to be nil. [...] This part of the bulletin indicates that a gain might be considered a capital gain - not income.  However, you don't get to book a loss as a capital loss.  This is the first hint that your book sale - which is actually an exempt capital loss - shouldn't go on your tax return unless it's one of the \"listed\" items: LISTED PERSONAL PROPERTY 7. Listed personal property is defined in paragraph 54(e) to mean personal-use property that is all or any portion of, or any interest in or right to, any (a) print, etching, drawing, painting, sculpture, or other similar work of art, (b) jewellery, (c) rare folio, rare manuscript, or rare book, (d) stamp, or (e) coin. So unless you're selling rare books, the disposition (sale) of them is essentially exempt as income, regardless of whether you sold it at a profit or at a loss.  If it is rare, then you might be able to consider it a capital loss, which doesn't help you much unless you had other capital gains, but you can carry over capital losses to future years. There's also a newer IT related to hobbies and \"collecting\" items, IT-334R2.  This one says: 11. In order for any activity or pursuit to be regarded as a source of income, there must be a reasonable expectation of profit. Where such an expectation does not exist (as is the case with most hobbies), neither amounts received nor expenses incurred are included in the income computation for tax purposes and any excess of expenses over receipts is a personal or living expense, the deduction of which is denied by paragraph 18(1)(h). On the other hand, if the hobby or pastime results in receipts of revenue in excess of expenses, that fact is a strong indication that the hobby is a venture with an expectation of profit; if so, the net income may be taxable as income from a business. The current version of IT-504, Visual Artists and Writers, discusses the concept of \"a reasonable expectation of profit\" in greater detail. Where a hobby consists of collecting personal-use property or listed personal property, dispositions should be accounted for as described in the current version of IT-332, Personal-Use Property. (emphasis mine) In other words, if it's not the type of thing where you'd make a tax deduction when you bought it in the first place, then you clearly don't need to report it as income when you sell it. Just to be absolutely clear here: The fact that you are selling them at a loss is not actually what's important here. What's important is that, if the books aren't collectibles, then you would have had no expectation of profit.  If you did have that expectation then you could have made a tax deduction when you first purchased them. So in this case, it is probably not necessary for you to report the income; however, for the benefit of other readers, in some cases you might need to report it under \"other income\" or book it as a capital gain\/loss, depending on what those personal items are and whether or not you made a net profit."}
{"question":"Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest","answer":"There's nothing wrong with it. Living in a two-family house and renting the downstairs was a fairly standard path to the middle class and home ownership in the 20th century. Basically, if market conditions are good, you'll have someone else paying your mortgage. The disadvantage of the situation is that you're a landlord. So you have to deal with your tenant, who is also a neighbor. Most tenants are fine, but the occasional difficult person may come out of the woodwork. That model of achieving home ownership became less popular in the late 60's-early 70's when the law allowed two incomes to be used for mortgage underwriting. Also, as suburbanization became a national trend, absentee landlords became more common Sounds like you are in the right place at the right time, and have stumbled into a good deal."}
{"question":"Is gold really an investment or just a hedge against inflation?","answer":"Gold is a commodity.  It has a tracked price and can be bought and sold as such.  In its physical form it represents something real of signifigant value that can be traded for currency or barted.  A single pound of gold is worth about 27000 dollars. It is very valuable and it is easily transported as opposed to a car which loses value while you transport it.  There are other metals that also hold value (Platinum, Silver, Copper, etc) as well as other commodities.  Platinum has a higher Value to weight ratio than gold but there is less of a global quantity and the demand is not as high.  A gold mine is an investement where you hope to take out more in gold than it cost to get it out.   Just like any other business.  High gold prices simply lower your break even point. TIPS protects you from inflation but does not protect you from devaluation.  It also only pays the inflation rate recoginized by the Treasury.  There are experts who believe that the fed has understated inflation.  If these are correct then TIPS is not protecting its investors from inflation as promised.   You can also think of treasury bonds as an investment in your government.  Your return will be effectively determined by how they run their business of governing.  If you believe that the government is doing the right things to help promote the economy then investing in their bonds will help them to be able to continue to do so.  And if consumers buy the bonds then the treasury does not have to buy any more of its own."}
{"question":"What benefits are there to having a Pension (Retirement Account) In Ireland?","answer":"Here's an Irish government publication that should give you some background information to get you started. In a nutshell, you get tax benefits, but cannot withdraw money without penalty until you reach retirement age."}
{"question":"How to make a decision for used vs new car if I want to keep the car long term?","answer":"In a perfect world scenario you would get a car 2-5 years old that has very little mileage.  One of the long standing archaic rules of the car world is that age trumps mileage.  This was a good rule when any idiot could roll back an odometer. Chances are now that if you rolled your odometer back the car was serviced somewhere, had inspection or whatever and it is on a report.  If seller was found to do this they could face jail time and obviously now their car is almost worthless. Why do I mention this?  Because you can take a look at 2011 cars.  Those with 20K miles go for just a little more than those with 100K miles.   As an owner you will start incurring heavy maintenance costs around 100K on most newer cars. By buying cars with lower mileage, keeping them for a year or two, and reselling them before they get up in miles, you can stay in that magic area where you can drive a pretty good car for $200-300 a month.  Note that this takes work on both the buying and selling side and you often need cash to get these cars (dealers are good about siphoning really good used cars to employees\/friends).   This is a great strategy for keeping costs down and car value up but obviously a lot of people try to do this and it takes work and you have to be willing to settle sometimes on a car that is fine, but not exactly what you want. As for leasing this really gets into three main components: If you are going to do EVERYTHING at a dealership and you want something new or newish you might as well lease.  At least then you can shop around for apples to apples.  The problem with buying a new\/used car from the dealers in perpetuity isn't the buying process.  It is the fact that they will screw you on the trade-in.  A car that books for 20K may trade-in for 17K.  Even if the dealer says they are giving you 20K, then they make you pay list price for the car.   I have many many times negotiated a price of a car and then wife brought in our car separately and I can count on ZERO fingers how many times that the dealership honored both sides of the negotiations.  Not only did they not honor them but most refused to talk with us after they found out.   With a lease you don't have to worry about losing this money in the negotiations.  You might pay a little extra (or not since you can shop around) but after the lease you wash your hands of the car.   The one caveat to this is the high-end market.  When you are talking your Acura, Mercedes, Lexus... It is probably better to buy and trade in every couple years.  You lose too much equity by leasing, where it won't cover the trade-in gap and cost of your money being elsewhere.  I have a friend that does this and gets a slightly better car every 2-3 years with same monthly payment.   Another factor to consider is the price of a car.  If your car will be worth over $15K at time of sale you are going to have a hard time selling it by owner.  When amounts get this high people often need financing.  Yes they can get personal financing but most people are too lazy to do this.  So the number of used car buyers on let's say craigslist are way way fewer as you start getting over $10-12K and I have found $15K to be kind of that magic amount.   The pro-buy-used side is easy.  Aim for those cars around $12-18K that are out there (and many still under warranty).  These owners will have issues finding cash buyers.  They will drop prices somewhere between book price and dealer trade-in.  In lucky cases where they need cash maybe below dealer trade-in.  And remember these sellers aren't dealing with 100s let alone 10 buyers.  You drive the car for 3-4 years.  Maybe it is $7-10K.  But now you will get much much closer to book price because there will be far more buyers in this range."}
{"question":"Consumer Loans vs Mortgages","answer":"I went here: Consumer Loan Law. It seems that a consumer loan is anything other than a business loan or mortgage.  However, in California it seems to include a mortgage. It's a bit weird to see that a HEL can be considered a consumer loan even if it is the primary or the only loan on a property.  Getting a HEL can be a great low cost way to (re)finance a property as they tend to have low or no closing costs and lower interest rates."}
{"question":"When can we exercice an option?","answer":"If you're talking about ADBE options, that is an American style option, which can be exercised at any time before expiration. You can exercise your options by calling your broker and instructing them to exercise. Your broker will charge you a nominal fee to do so. As an aside, you probably don't want to exercise the option right now. It still has a lot of time value left, which you'll lose if you exercise. Just sell the option if you don't think ADBE will keep going up."}
{"question":"What is an ideal number of stock positions that I should have in my portfolio?","answer":"The two biggest issues that impact your question I would say are diversification and fees. If you have $10,000 to invest and only invest it in two securities, then a 20% drop in one security can have you lose 10% of your initial investment which I would consider a very high risk scenario. If you have $10,000 to invest and invest it in 20 securities, then a 20% drop in one security would only cause you to lose 1% of your initial investment. So far this is looking better from a diversification point of view. But then the issue of fees comes in. If you paid $10 per trade to buy those 20 securities you already spent 2% of your initial investment in fees! Not to mention you will pay at least another $200 to get out of all those positions. No right answer - but those are the two factors I always try to balance."}
{"question":"Selling property outside the US - gains are taxable, but how do they convert?","answer":"Since you did not treat the house as a QBU, you have to use USD as your functional currency.  To calculate capital gains, you need to calculate the USD value at the time of purchase using the exchange rate at the time of purchase and the USD value at the time of sale using the exchange rate at the time of sale.  The capital gain \/ loss is then the difference between the two.  This link describes it in more detail and provides some references: http:\/\/www.maximadvisors.com\/2013\/06\/foreign-residence\/ That link also discusses additional potential complications if you have a mortgage on the house. This link gives more detail on the court case referenced in the above link: http:\/\/www.uniset.ca\/other\/cs5\/93F3d26.html The court cases references Rev. Rul 54-105.  This link from the IRS has some details from that (https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-wd\/0303021.pdf): Rev. Rul. 54-105, 1954-1 C.B. 12, states that for purposes of determining   gain, the basis and selling price of property acquired by a U.S. citizen living in a foreign country should be expressed in United States dollars at the rates of exchange prevailing as of the dates of purchase and sale of the property,   respectively. The text of this implies it is for U.S. citizen is living in a foreign country, but the court case makes it clear that it also applies in your scenario (house purchased while living abroad but now residing in the US): Appellants agree that the 453,374 pounds received for their residence should be translated into U.S. dollars at the $1.82 exchange rate prevailing at the date of sale. They argue, however, that the 343,147 pound adjusted cost basis of the residence, consisting of the 297,500 pound purchase price and the 45,647 pounds paid for capital improvements, likewise should be expressed in U.S. dollar terms as of the date of the sale. Appellants correctly state that, viewed \"in the foreign currency in which it was transacted,\" the purchase generated a 110,227 pound gain as of the date of the sale, which translates to approximately $200,000 at the $1.82 per pound exchange rate. ... However fair and reasonable their argument may be, it amounts to an untenable attempt to convert their \"functional currency\" from the U.S. dollar to the pound sterling. ... Under I.R.C. \u00a7 985(b)(1), use of a functional currency other than the U.S. dollar is restricted to qualified business units (\"QBU\"s). ... appellants correctly assert that their residence was purchased \"for a pound-denominated value\" while they were \"living and working in a pound-denominated economy,\" ... And since appellants concede that the purchase and sale of their residence was not carried out by a QBU, the district court properly rejected their plea to treat the pound as their functional currency."}
{"question":"Do common stocks and preferred stocks have any differences in terms of percentage of the company per unit they represent?","answer":"Preferred stocks are, err... Preferred. The whole point of preferred stocks is that they have some preference over other classes of stocks (there may be more than 2, by the way). It can be more voting rights, more dividends or priority on dividends' distribution (common with VC investments), or priority on liquidations (in bankruptcy, preferred stock holders are ranked higher than common). Many times initial or critical investments are made on preferred terms, and the stocks are converted to common when certain thresholds are met. Obviously all these benefits require a premium on the price."}
{"question":"I'm 13. Can I buy supplies at a pet store without a parent\/adult present?","answer":"As long as your money is green and you aren't buying something prohibited to youngsters (booze, cigarettes, etc.) I doubt any store is going to refuse your business."}
{"question":"Is it a good idea to put everything in the S&P500?","answer":"What you choose to invest in depends largely on your own goals and time horizon.  You state that your time horizon is a few decades. Most studies have shown that the equity market as a whole has outperformed most other asset types (except perhaps property in some cases) over the long term.  The reason that time horizon is important is that equities are quite volatile. Who knows whether your value will halve in the next year? But we hope that over the longer term, things come out in the wash, and tomorrow's market crash will recover, etc.  However, you must realize that if your goals change, and you suddenly need your money after 2 years, it might be worth less in two years than you expect."}
{"question":"What should I do with my paper financial documents?","answer":"I won't add to the timelines, as I agree or don't care but my two cents are"}
{"question":"How can this stock have an intra-day range of more than 90% on 24Aug2015?","answer":"As you know, the market is in turmoil today. At this moment, 11:45 am, the S&P is down 2.3%, 45 points. But, premarket, it was down 100 points.  Now, premarket, I heard Jim Cramer say, \"today is not the day to use market orders.\" Yes, on Mad Money, he seems a bit eccentric, but he does offer some wise advice at times.  In my opinion, your stock had some people that did just that. A market order. And, regardless of the fundamentals of this company, buyers had no orders to buy. Except a couple wise guys (in both senses) that put in buys at crazy prices. And they filled. With an Apple, trading around $100, the book probably has millions of shares on order with a buy at $80 or higher. Just an example. I'd bet there were a number of stocks that had the profile of yours, i.e. a chart reflecting trades similar to a flash crash. There are some traders smiling ear to ear, and some crying in their beer.     (Note - I use the phrase \"in my opinion.\" This is the only explanation I can imagine. Occam's Razor.)"}
{"question":"Personal taxes for Shopify \/ Paypal shop?","answer":"I'm assuming you're in the United States for this. I highly recommend getting a CPA to help you navigate the tax implications. Likely, you'll pay taxes as a sole proprietor, on top of any other income you made. Hopefully you kept good records because you'll be essentially paying for the profits, but you'll need to show the revenue and expenditures that you had. If you have any capital expenditures you may be able ton amortize them. But again, definitely hire a professional to help you, it will be well worth the cost."}
{"question":"Where should my money go next: savings, investments, retirement, or my mortgage?","answer":"I frequently advise to go 401(k) up to the match. With no match, I'm not so sure.  If you are in the 15% bracket, I'd skip the 401(k). Your standard deduction is $5800 this year, do you itemize? I ask because the 15% bracket ends at $34,500, and I don't know if you manage enough deductions to get under that.  But - I'd only pt into the 401(k) what would otherwise be taxed at 25%, no more. Even then only if the 401(k) expenses were pretty reasonable. Will all the hoopla over retirement accounts, we easily forget the beauty of the investment in ETFs long term. You buy the SPY (S&P 500 ETF) and hold it forever. The gains are all deferred until you sell, and then they have a favored rate. You control the timing of the sale with no risk of penalty. The expenses are low, and over time, can make up for the lack of tax deduction (The pretax deposit) vs the 401(k) account. You die and the beneficiaries have a stepped up basis with no tax due (under whatever the limit is that year).  Long term, I'd go with low cost ETFs and pay the mortgage at the minimum payments. Even without itemizing, 4.2% is pretty low compared to the expected return over the next decade in stocks.  I recommend a look at Fairmark to help understand your marginal rate. Your gross doesn't matter as much as that line on 1040 \"taxable income.\" This will tell you if you are in the 25% bracket and if so, how deep.  Edit - If one's taxable income, line 43 on your 1040, I believe, puts him into the 15% bracket, there are issues using a pretax 401(k). The priority should be to use a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k). Being so close to that 25% bracket at 26 tells me you will grow, and\/o marry into it over time, that's the ideal time to use the pre-tax 401(k) to stay at 15%. i.e. deposit just enough to bring your taxable income right to that line of 15\/25%."}
{"question":"What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?","answer":"This is a long term investment but can be very useful during tough times. Be prepared not only to take but to give as well. Moreover:"}
{"question":"Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?","answer":"If you're into math, do this thought experiment: Consider the outcome X of a random walk process (a stock doesn't behave this way, but for understanding the question you asked, this is useful): On the first day, X=some integer X1. On each subsequent day, X goes up or down by 1 with probability 1\/2. Let's think of buying a call option on X. A European option with a strike price of S that expires on day N, if held until that day and then exercised if profitable, would yield a value Y = min(X[N]-S, 0). This has an expected value E[Y] that you could actually calculate. (should be related to the binomial distribution, but my probability & statistics hat isn't working too well today) The market value V[k] of that option on day #k, where 1 < k < N, should be V[k] = E[Y]|X[k], which you can also actually calculate. On day #N, V[N] = Y. (the value is known) An American option, if held until day #k and then exercised if profitable, would yield a value Y[k] = min(X[k]-S, 0).  For the moment, forget about selling the option on the market. (so, the choices are either exercise it on some day #k, or letting it expire) Let's say it's day k=N-1.  If X[N-1] >= S+1 (in the money), then you have two choices: exercise today, or exercise tomorrow if profitable. The expected value is the same. (Both are equal to X[N-1]-S). So you might as well exercise it and make use of your money elsewhere. If X[N-1] <= S-1 (out of the money), the expected value is 0, whether you exercise today, when you know it's worthless, or if you wait until tomorrow, when the best case is if X[N-1]=S-1 and X[N] goes up to S, so the option is still worthless. But if X[N-1] = S (at the money), here's where it gets interesting. If you exercise today, it's worth 0. If wait until tomorrow, there's a 1\/2 chance it's worth 0 (X[N]=S-1), and a 1\/2 chance it's worth 1 (X[N]=S+1). Aha! So the expected value is 1\/2. Therefore you should wait until tomorrow. Now let's say it's day k=N-2.  Similar situation, but more choices: If X[N-2] >= S+2, you can either sell it today, in which case you know the value = X[N-2]-S, or you can wait until tomorrow, when the expected value is also X[N-2]-S. Again, you might as well exercise it now. If X[N-2] <= S-2, you know the option is worthless. If X[N-2] = S-1, it's worth 0 today, whereas if you wait until tomorrow, it's either worth an expected value of 1\/2 if it goes up (X[N-1]=S), or 0 if it goes down, for a net expected value of 1\/4, so you should wait. If X[N-2] = S, it's worth 0 today, whereas tomorrow it's either worth an expected value of 1 if it goes up, or 0 if it goes down -> net expected value of 1\/2, so you should wait. If X[N-2] = S+1, it's worth 1 today, whereas tomorrow it's either worth an expected value of 2 if it goes up, or 1\/2 if it goes down (X[N-1]=S) -> net expected value of 1.25, so you should wait. If it's day k=N-3, and X[N-3] >= S+3 then E[Y] = X[N-3]-S and you should exercise it now; or if X[N-3] <= S-3 then E[Y]=0.  But if X[N-3] = S+2 then there's an expected value E[Y] of (3+1.25)\/2 = 2.125 if you wait until tomorrow, vs. exercising it now with a value of 2; if X[N-3] = S+1 then E[Y] = (2+0.5)\/2 = 1.25, vs. exercise value of 1; if X[N-3] = S then E[Y] = (1+0.5)\/2 = 0.75 vs. exercise value of 0; if X[N-3] = S-1 then E[Y] = (0.5 + 0)\/2 = 0.25, vs. exercise value of 0; if X[N-3] = S-2 then E[Y] = (0.25 + 0)\/2 = 0.125, vs. exercise value of 0. (In all 5 cases, wait until tomorrow.) You can keep this up; the recursion formula is E[Y]|X[k]=S+d = {(E[Y]|X[k+1]=S+d+1)\/2 + (E[Y]|X[k+1]=S+d-1) for N-k > d > -(N-k), when you should wait and see} or {0 for d <= -(N-k), when it doesn't matter and the option is worthless} or {d for d >= N-k, when you should exercise the option now}. The market value of the option on day #k should be the same as the expected value to someone who can either exercise it or wait. It should be possible to show that the expected value of an American option on X is greater than the expected value of a European option on X. The intuitive reason is that if the option is in the money by a large enough amount that it is not possible to be out of the money, the option should be exercised early  (or sold), something a European option doesn't allow, whereas if it is nearly at the money, the option should be held, whereas if it is out of the money by a large enough amount that it is not possible to be in the money, the option is definitely worthless. As far as real securities go, they're not random walks (or at least, the probabilities are time-varying and more complex), but there should be analogous situations. And if there's ever a high probability a stock will go down, it's time to exercise\/sell an in-the-money American option, whereas you can't do that with a European option. edit: ...what do you know: the computation I gave above for the random walk isn't too different conceptually from the Binomial options pricing model."}
{"question":"Why would you not want to rollover a previous employer's 401(k) when changing jobs?","answer":"I've changed jobs several times and I chose to rollover my 401k from the previous employer into an IRA instead of the new employer's 401k plan.  The biggest reason not to rollover the 401k into the new employer's 401k plan was due to the limited investments offered by 401k plans.  I found it better to roll the 401k into an IRA where I can invest in any stock or fund."}
{"question":"How does the importance of a cash emergency fund change when you live in a country with nationalized healthcare?","answer":"Unanticipated unemployment is usually the triggering factor for drawing on an emergency fund. Ask yourself: what happens if I lose my job tomorrow? Or my spouse becomes unemployed? What happens if I become disabled and can't work for x amount of time? Sure, you can discount your chances of needing such a fund if you have free health care. But having health insurance doesn't change the fact that an emergency fund is a good idea. There are many ways to go broke!"}
{"question":"Buy\/Selling prices at the stock exchange represent someone Selling\/Buying at that price?","answer":"You don't see Buying and Selling. You see Bid and Ask. Best Bid--Highest Price someone is willing to pay to buy a stock. Best Ask - Lowest price someone is willing to accept to sell a stock. As for your second question, if you can look up Accumulation\/Distribution Algorithm and Iceberg Order, you will get basic idea."}
{"question":"Which kind of investment seems feasible to have more cashflow every week or month?","answer":"Over the long run, you can expect to do about as well as the market itself. Depending on what time period you view, the stock market has typically provided returns of approximately 10%. Some years it is up, some years it is down. You may think you can get better returns, but you are mistaken. You may be able to do better over a short time period if you take on vastly more risk, but you won't be able to do so long term. In order to make $2000\/month, then, you will need approximately $240,000 to invest. And even then, you won't make that kind of return reliably. Some months, some years, you'll make more. Other times, you'll lose money. If anyone tells you they can double your money in a month (which is what you are hoping for), walk away. Because it is either illegal or a scam. The only way your plan can work is if you are reliably able to predict stocks which will go up by 10% in the next two days. You cannot do this. You can't even predict which stocks will go up by 10% in the next year."}
{"question":"Does it make sense to trade my GOOGL shares for GOOG and pocket the difference?","answer":"It appears very possible that Google will not have to pay any class C holders the settlement amount, given the structure of the settlement.  This is precisely because of the arbitrage opportunity you've highlighted.  This idea was mentioned last summer in Dealbreaker. As explained in a Dealbook article: The settlement requires Google to pay the following amounts if, one year from the issuance of the Class C shares, the value diverges according to the following formula: If the C share price is equal to or more than 1 percent, but less than 2 percent, below the A share price, 20 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 2 percent, but less than 3 percent, below the A share price, 40 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 3 percent, but less than 4 percent, below the A share price, 60 percent of the difference; If the C share price is equal to or more than 4 percent, but less than 5 percent, below the A share price, 80 percent of the difference.\" If the C share price is equal to or more than 5 percent below the A share price, 100 percent of the difference, up to 5 percent. ... If the Class A shares trade around $450 (after the split\/C issuance) and the C shares trade at a 4.5 percent discount during the year (or $429.75 per share), then investors expect a payment of: 80 percent times $450 times 4.5 percent = $16.20. The value of C shares would then be $445.95 ($429.75 plus $16.20). But if this is the new trading value during the year, that\u2019s only a discount of less than 1 percent to the A shares. So no payment would be made. But if no payment is made, we are back to the full discount and this continues ad infinitum. In other words, the value of a stock can be displayed as: {equity value} + {dividend value} + {voting value} + {settlement value} = {total share value} If we ignore dividend and voting values, and ignore premiums and discounts for risk and so forth, then the value of a share is basic equity value plus anticipated settlement payoff.  The Google Class C settlement is structured to reduce the payoff as the value converges.  And the practice of arbitrage guarantees (if you buy into at least semi-strong EMH) that the price of C shares will be shored up by arbitrageurs that want the payoff. The voting value of GOOGL is effectively zero, since the non-traded Class B shares control all company decisions.  So the value of the Class A GOOGL voting is virtually zero for the time being.  The only divergence between GOOGL and GOOG price is dividends (which I believe is supposed to be the same) and the settlement payoff.  Somebody who places zero value on the vote and who expects dividend difference to be zero should always prefer to buy GOOG to GOOGL until the price is equal, disregarding the settlement. So technically someone is better off owning GOOG, if dividends are the same and market prices are equal, just because the vote is worthless and the nonzero chance of a future settlement payoff is gravy. The arbitrage itself is present because a share that costs (as in the article) $429.75 is worth $445.95 if the settlement pays out at that rate.  The stable equilibrium is probably either just before or just after the threshold where the settlement pays off, depending on how reliably arbitrageurs can predict the movement of GOOG and GOOGL. If I can buy a given stock for X but know that it's worth X+1, then I'm willing to pay up to X+1.  In the google case, the GOOG stock is worth X+S, where S is an uncertain settlement payment that could be zero or could be substantial.  We have six tiers of S (counting zero payoff), so that the price is likely to follow a pattern from X to X+S5 to X-S5+S4 to X-S4+S3, and climbing the tier ladder until it lands in the frontier between X+S1 and X+S0.  Every time it jumps into X+S1, people should be willing to pay that new amount for GOOG, so the price moves out of payoff range and into X+S0, where people will only pay X. I'm actually simplifying here, since technically this is all based on future expectations.  So the actual price you'd pay is expressed thus: {resale value of GOOG before settlement payoff = X} + ( {expectation that settlement payoff will pay 100% of difference = S5} * {expected nominal difference between GOOG and GOOGL = D} ) + ({S4} * {80% D}) + ({S3} * {60% D}) + ({S2} * {40% D}) + ({S1} * {20% D}) + ({S0} * {0% D})  = {price willing to pay for Class C GOOG = P} Plus you'd technically have to present value the whole thing for the time horizon, since the payoff is in a year.  Note that I've shunted any voting\/dividend analysis into X.  It's reasonable to thing that S5, S4, S3, and maybe S2 are nearly zero, given the open arbitrage opportunity.  And we know that S0 times 0% of D is zero.  So the real analysis, again ignoring PV, is thus: P = X + (S1*D) Which is a long way of saying: what are the odds that GOOG will happen to be worth no more than 99% of GOOGL on the payoff determination date?"}
{"question":"Online stock screener to find stocks that are negatively correlated to another stock\/index? ","answer":"You may want to have a look at DiversifyPortfolio which will give you the info you want plus quite a bit more. They offer various tools all related to stock correlation and diversification. You'll be able to create heatmaps and various other charts showing stock correlations. It also has several scans which allow you to search for stocks that meet your requirements in terms of correlation to existing positions in your portfolio or to specific stocks \/ ETF's."}
{"question":"Is my employee stock purchase plan a risk free investment?","answer":"It's a risk free investment only if you have 100% warranty that you will be able to sell these stocks for a better price than what you've paid. And that's virtually impossible. I don't think there is any \"risk free investment\" when stocks are involved. You can try to minimize the risks and consider them low, but IMO it's dangerous."}
{"question":"Tax deductions on empty property","answer":"This doesn't sound very legal to me. Real estate losses cannot generally be deducted unless you have other real estate income. So the only case when this would work is when that person has bunch of other buildings that do produce income, and he reduces that income, for tax purposes, by deducting the expenses\/depreciation\/taxes for the buildings that do not. However, depreciation doesn't really reduce taxes, only defers them to the sale. As mhoran_psprep said - all the rest of the expenses will be minimal."}
{"question":"Executor of will ","answer":"I strongly doubt that being executor will make the assets of the estate vulnerable to a suit against him personally. The estate is it's own separate legal entity with its own TIN. Only creditors against the estate itself can make claims against it and after all creditors are paid, then the balance is distributed in accordance with the terms of the will. Unless he has commingled assets and treated estate assets as his own, the legal separation should be quite strong.  Whether his personal assets are at risk, remember that the opposition will likely overstate their case to try to scare him into settling. If the business was organized as an LLP or LLC, his personal assets should be pretty safe. If it was a sole proprietorship, he has occasion to worry."}
{"question":"How are mortgage interest rates determined?","answer":"Sheegan has a great explanation of how the TBA market contributes to  mortgage rates. The 30 Year Mortgage rates are closely tied to the 10-Year Treasury.  One can track this rate at many stock quoting sites using symbol TNX."}
{"question":"How can I profit on the Chinese Real-Estate Bubble?","answer":"Perhaps buying some internationally exchanged stock of China real-estate companies? It's never too late to enter a bubble or profit from a bubble after it bursts. As a native Chinese, my observations suggest that the bubble may exist in a few of the most populated cities of China such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the price doesn't seem to be much higher than expected in cities further within the mainland, such as Xi'an and Chengdu. I myself is living in Xi'an. I did a post about the urban housing cost of Xi'an at the end of last year: http:\/\/www.xianhotels.info\/urban-housing-cost-of-xian-china~15 It may give you a rough idea of the pricing level. The average of 5,500 CNY per square meter (condo) hasn't fluctuated much since the posting of the entry. But you need to pay about 1,000 to 3,000 higher to get something desirable. For location, just search \"Xi'an, China\" in Google Maps. =========== I actually have no idea how you, a foreigner can safely and easily profit from this. I'll just share what I know. It's really hard to financially enter China. To prevent oversea speculative funds from freely entering and leaving China, the Admin of Forex (safe.gov.cn) has laid down a range of rigid policies regarding currency exchange. By law, any native individual, such as me, is imposed of a maximum of $50,000 that can be converted from USD to CNY or the other way around per year AND a maximum of $10,000 per day. Larger chunks of exchange must get the written consent of the Admin of Forex or it will simply not be cleared by any of the banks in China, even HSBC that's not owned by China. However, you can circumvent this limit by using the social ID of your immediate relatives when submitting exchange requests. It takes extra time and effort but viable. However, things may change drastically should China be in a forex crisis or simply war. You may not be able to withdraw USD at all from the banks in China, even with a positive balance that's your own money. My whole income stream are USD which is wired monthly from US to Bank of China. I purchased a property in the middle of last year that's worth 275,000 CNY using the funds I exchanged from USD I had earned. It's a 43.7% down payment on a mortgage loan of 20 years: http:\/\/www.mlcalc.com\/#mortgage-275000-43.7-20-4.284-0-0-0.52-7-2009-year (in CNY, not USD) The current household loan rate is 6.12% across the entire China. However, because this is my first property, it is discounted by 30% to 4.284% to encourage the first house purchase. There will be no more discounts of loan rate for the 2nd property and so forth to discourage speculative stocking that drives the price high. The apartment I bought in July of 2009 can easily be sold at 300,000 now. Some of the earlier buyers have enjoyed much more appreciation than I do. To give you a rough idea, a house bought in 2006 is now evaluated 100% more, one bought in 2008 now 50% more and one bought in the beginning of 2009 now 25% more."}
{"question":"Where can I find accurate historical distribution data for mutual funds?","answer":"If you want to go far upstream, you can get mutual fund NAV and dividend data from the Nasdaq Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). This isn't for end-users but rather is offered as a part of the regulatory framework. Not surprisingly, there is a fee for data access. From Nasdaq's MFQS specifications page: To promote market transparency, Nasdaq operates the Mutual Fund Quotation Service (MFQS). MFQS is designed to facilitate the collection and dissemination of daily price, dividends and capital distributions data for mutual funds, money market funds, unit investment trusts (UITs), annuities and structured products."}
{"question":"What time period is used by yahoo finance to calculate beta","answer":"Citing the Yahoo Finance Help page, Beta: The Beta used is Beta of Equity. Beta is the monthly price   change of a particular company relative to the monthly price change of   the S&P500. The time period for Beta is 3 years (36 months) when   available. Regarding customised time periods, I do not think so."}
{"question":"How aggressive should my personal portfolio be?","answer":"Its important to note that aggression, or better yet volatility, does not necessarily offer higher returns.  One can find funds that have a high beta (measure of volatility) and lower performance then stock funds with a lower beta.   Additionally, to Micheal's point, better performance could be undone by higher fees.   Age is unimportant when deciding the acceptable volatility.  Its more important as to when the money is to be available.  If there might be an immediate need, or even less than a year, then stick to a savings account.  Five years, some volatility can be accepted, if 10 years or more seek to maximize rate of return. For example assume a person is near retirement age.  They are expected to have 50K per year expenses.  If they have 250K wrapped up in CDs and savings, and another 250K in some conservative investments, they can, and should, be \"aggressive\" with any remaining money.     On the contrary a person your age that is savings for a house intends to buy one in three years.  Savings for the down payment should be pretty darn conservative.   Something like 75% in savings accounts, and maybe 25% in some conservative investments.  As the time to buy approaches they can pull the money out of the conservative investments at a optimal time. Also you should not be investing without an emergency fund in place.  Get that done first, then look to invest. If your friend does not understand these basic concepts there is no point in paying for his advice."}
{"question":"Why is gold not a good investment? ","answer":"Gold is not really an investment at all, because it doesn't generate an income. It's only worth money because people think it's worth money (it has some industrial uses, but most gold is used as a store of value and not for industrial purposes), not because of its income stream."}
{"question":"Do you have to be mega-rich to invest in companies pre-IPO?","answer":"Short answer: No. Being connected is very helpful and there is no consequence by securities regulators against the investor by figuring out how to acquire pre-IPO stock. Long answer: Yes, you generally have to be an \"Accredited Investor\" which basically means you EARN over $200,000\/yr yourself (or $300,000 joint) and have been doing so for several years and expect to continue doing so  OR have at least 1 million dollars of net worth ( this is joint worth with you and spouse). The Securities Exchange Commission and FINRA have put a lot of effort into keeping most classes of people away from a long list of investments."}
{"question":"ESPP advantages and disadvantages","answer":"The typical deal is you can put 10% of your gross pay into the ESPP. The purchase will occur on the last deposit date, usually a 6 month period, at a 15% discount to the market price.  So, the math is something like this: Your return if sold the day it's purchased is not 15%, it's 100\/85 or 17.6%. Minor nitpick on my part, I suppose.  Also the return is not a 6 month return, as the weekly or bi-weekly deductions are the average between the oldest (6 mo) and the most recent (uh, zero time, maybe a week.) This is closer to 3 months. The annualized rate is actually pretty meaningless since you don't have 4 opportunities to achieve this return, it's important only if the cash flow hit causes you to borrow to support the ESPP purchases. The risk is whether the stock drops the 15% before you can execute the sell to take advantage of the gain.  Of course the return is gross, you need to net for taxes.  Edit to respond to comment below - When I said meaningless, I meant that you can't take the 17.6%, annualize it to 91.2% per year and think your $1000 will compound to $1912. It's as meaningless as when an investor gets a 10% gain on a stock in one day, and (with 250 trading days per year) decides his $1000 will be worth $2 quadrillion dollars after a year. The 17.6% is significant in that it's available twice per year, for a true 38% return over a year, but if borrowing to help the cash flow, that rate is really over 3 months."}
{"question":"Are REIT worth it and is it a good option to generate passive income for a while?","answer":"In financial markets, the gains you can expect to make (whether in the form of dividends or capital gains) correspond to the risks you are bearing.  There are a variety of REITs but you can expect to make only as much money in them as you bear risk (meaning you can also lose a lot of money in the ones that earn a lot).  In that sense they are just like other financial assets like stocks. If you are generically trying to increase your wealth by bearing risk, you can get a better risk\/reward ratio in a fully diversified portfolio including stocks and bonds as well and REITs.  \"Passive income\" means making money by bearing risk.  REITs alone, without diversifying into other financial assets, do a poor job of generating income for the amount of risk you bear. So why are REITs not very comparable to buying a house and renting it out?  Because in the latter case you are being paid not only for bearing the risk of the house depreciating but also you are being compensated for the work you do as a landlord.  Moreover, because the house doesn't trade in a liquid market like REITs do, it is possible to actually get a good deal, as opposed to the fair deal you will get on a REIT. TL;DR: The \"passive income\" generated by REIT investment is more similar to generic equity\/bond investment than it is to an investment in a physical home that you rent out.  If what you want is to make money without doing anything besides bear risk, you should invest in a fully diversified portfolio of financial assets (equity and bonds being the primary constituents but REITs potentially being a part as well)."}
{"question":"How can I invest my $100?","answer":"A safe investment would be to get a 5-year CD from Ally Bank.  No minimum deposit and no monthly maintenance fees.  1.74% APY at the moment.  I would choose a 5-year CD since the early withdrawal penalty is only 60 days interest, which will be negligible for a $100 investment and increasing the term significantly increases your interest rate. Regarding other suggestions: Even if you find a way purchase stock commission free, it will probably cost a $5-$10 commission to sell, wiping out probably a year or two of gains.  Also, I-Bonds must be held for a year minimum, which is problematic. At the end of the day, it's probably not really worth your time to do any of these.  $2 a year or $5 a year, it's still fairly insignificant and your time is surely worth more than that."}
{"question":"How can I figure out how a stock's price would change after I buy shares?","answer":"Stock price is based on supply and demand. Unless the stock you are looking to buy usually has very low volume trading 100 shares isn't likely to have any effect on price. There are many companies that have millions or tens of millions of shares trade daily. For stocks like that 100 shares is barely a trivial percentage of the daily volume. For thinly traded stocks you can look at the bid and ask size but even that isn't likely to get you an exact answer. Unless you are trading large volumes your trade will have no effect on the price of shares."}
{"question":"What determines a tax resident in Florida","answer":"Plenty of retired people do stay in the US for longer than 60 days and don't pay taxes. In this IRS document 60 days stay appears to be the test for having a 'substantial presence' in the US, which is part of the test for determining residency. However the following is also written: Even if you meet the substantial presence test, you can be treated as a nonresident alien if you are present in the United States for fewer than 183 days during the current calendar year, you maintain a tax home in a foreign country during the year, and you have a closer connection to that country than to the United States.  In other words, if your property in the US is not your main one, you pay tax in another country, and you stay there less than half the year, you should be treated as a non-resident (I am not a lawyer and this is not advice). This IRS webpage describes the tax situation of nonresident aliens. As I understand it, if you are not engaged in any kind of business in the US and have no income from US sources then you do not have to file a tax return. You should also look into the subject of double tax agreements. If your home country has one, and you pay taxes there, you probably won't need to pay extra tax to the US. But again, don't take my word for it."}
{"question":"Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate]","answer":"Yes.  If you reply back, they'll confirm that Uncle Alex did indeed leave you $7 million, and you just need to send them a few thousand dollars for taxes and estate fees and then they'll wire you the money.  And then there'll be customs fees.  And then more taxes.  And of course, there will be separate import fees.  And so on until you run out of money."}
{"question":"What are the risks & rewards of being a self-employed independent contractor \/ consultant vs. being a permanent employee?","answer":"When I worked for myself it was bad because But Ultimately I gave up my business and went to work for a school teaching, and through a series of other jobs ended up in a very stable reliable trustworthy job.  When I was younger the variable paycheck didn't outweigh the freedom.  Now that I am a dad I only think about having insurance and a secure job. The other option to consider is having a regular job, and then doing a little side work for yourself.  You get all the benefits of both (and all the detractions)"}
{"question":"Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains?","answer":"The problem is that short-term trends are really unpredictable.  There is nobody who can accurately predict where a fund (or even moreso, a single stock or bond) is going to move in a few hours, or days or even months. The long-term trends of the entire market, however, are (more or less) predictable.  There is a definite upward bias when you look at time-scales of 5, 10, 20 years and more.  Individual stocks and bonds may crash, and different sectors perform differently from year to year, but the market as a whole has historically always risen over long time scales. Of course, past performance never guarantees future performance.  It is possible that everything could crash and never come back, but history shows that this would be incredibly unlikely.  Which is the entire basis for strategies based on buying and holding (and periodically rebalancing) a portfolio containing funds that cover all market sectors. Now, regarding your 401(k), you know your time horizon.  The laws won't let you withdraw money without penalty until you reach retirement age - this might be 40 years, depending on your current age.  So we're definitely talking long term.  You shouldn't care about where the market goes over a few months if you won't be using the money until 20 years from now. The most important thing for a 401(k) is to choose funds from those available to you that will be as diverse as possible.  The actual allocation strategy is something you will need to work out with a financial advisor, since it will be different for every person.  Once you come up with an appropriate allocation strategy, you will want to buy according to those ratios with every paycheck and rebalance your funds to those ratios whenever they start to drift away.  And review the ratios with your advisor every few years, to keep them aligned with large-scale trends and changes in your life."}
{"question":"What to sell when your financial needs change, stocks or bonds?","answer":"Don't set mental anchor points. I am saying this as a total hypocrite, mind you, it isn't easy to follow that advice. My suggestion would be to look at each investment and ask yourself, \"Would I buy that at today's price?\", because if you wouldn't you need to sell regardless of whether you are cashing out. Effectively by staying in an investment you no longer believe in, you are giving up the opportunity cost of investing that money in something with a real chance to  give you a return, or in your case whatever purpose you have in mind for the cash."}
{"question":"Ways to save for child's college education where one need not commit to set contributions? [duplicate]","answer":"In my opinion, whichever plan or commodity system you use is just supplemental to a very simple thing: go to your bank's online account, set up a regular transfer (monthly in my case, maybe weekly for you depending on when you get your salary in your country\/state) to a savings' account in your kid's name with a decent rate, and just watch it grow. Then adjust to salary fluctuations if needed. Also, prefer a tax-free savings account. Been working fine for me for my oldest who's now 4 yo. Started by saving only a little each month and increased as our financial pressure eased up a bit. For his sister, I already set up a similar thing and I will \"equalize\" both accounts with additional payments over time (Hmm, actually, maybe that's not fair and they just need to be \"equalized\" in that they both have the same amount for a given age... but that's another question). Another option, which I set up for my oldest but not for his sister was a child trust fund with an initial payment. We moved countries and I don't find a plan that I find similarly attractive here, and the other one is locked until 18 yo. But, as with all portfolios, it comes with a risk. Note that I don't live in the U.S. in the land of crazy college fees. Though I've studied myself in countries where fees were already a drag (and I'm being polite) for various fields (IT and music studies, anyone?), I have to say when I see fees for the big league universities and colleges in the U.S. I am kind of shocked. Doable, but good luck with that and with your loans."}
{"question":"Average Price of a Stock","answer":"That metric is not very useful for anything other than very extremely long trading periods. Most strategies or concerned with price movement over much shorter time frames, 15 mins, 1 hr, 4 hr, daily, weekly, monthly. The MA or moving average is a trend following lagging indicator used to smooth out price fluctuations and more accurately reflect the price of trading instrument such as a stock (AAPL), commodity, or currency pair. Traders are generally concerned with current market trends and price action of the instrument they are trading. As such, an extremely long MA (average daily price, over a period of 365 days) are generally not that important."}
{"question":"Is it necessary to pay tax if someone lends me money to put into my mortgage?","answer":"A revocable trust? Else the title would be his...vs recieving a gift that large. Make it a business investment like a holding company. And use the trust as agreement to shares."}
{"question":"Benjamin Graham: Minimum Size of the company","answer":"Benjamin Grahams strategy was to invest in REALLY SAFE stocks. In his time lean businesses weren't as common as they are now and he found many companies with assets greater than the value of their shares. Putting a number figure on it isn't really necessary but the concept is useful. Its the idea that bigger companies are less turbulent (Which is something to avoid for an investor). Most companies in the top 500 or whatever will satisfy this."}
{"question":"What can I replace Microsoft Money with, now that MS has abandoned it? ","answer":"I've been budgeting with MS Money since 2004 and was pretty disappointed to hear it's being discontinued. Budgeting is actually a stress-relieving hobby for me, and I can be a bit of a control-freak when it comes to finances, so I decided to start early looking for a replacement rather than waiting until MS Money can no longer download transactions. Here are the pros and cons of the ones I've tried (updated 10\/2010): You Need A Budget Pro (YNAB) - Based on the old envelopes system, YNAB has you allot money from each paycheck to a specific budget category (envelope). It encourages you to live on last money's income, and if you have trouble with overspending, that can be a great plan. Personally, I'm a big believer in the envelope concept, so that's the biggest pro I found. Also, it's a downloaded software, so once I've bought it (for about $50) it's mine, without forced upgrades as far as I've seen. The big con for me was that it does not automatically download transactions. I would have to sign on to each institution's website and manually download to the program. Also, coming from Money, I'm used to having features that YNAB doesn't offer, like the ability to store information about my accounts. Overall, it's forward-thinking and a good budgeting system, but will take some extra time to download transactions and isn't really a comprehensive management tool for all my financial needs. You can try it out with their free trial. Mint - This is a free online program. The free part was a major pro. It also looks pretty, if that's important to you. Updating is automatic, once you've got it all set up, so that's a pro. Mint's budgeting tools are so-so. Basically, you choose a category and tell it your limit. It yells at you (by text or email) when you cross the line, but doesn't seem to offer any other incentive to stay on budget.  When I first looked at Mint, it did not connect with my credit union, but it currently connects to all my banks and all but one of my student loan institutions.  Another recent improvement is that Mint now allows you to manually add transactions, including pending checks and cash transactions.  The cons for me are that it does not give me a good end-of-the-month report, doesn't allow me to enter details of my paychecks, and doesn't give me any cash-flow forecasting. Overall, Mint is a good casual, retrospective, free online tool, but doesn't allow for much planning ahead. Mvelopes - Here's another online option, but this one is subscription-based. Again, we find the old envelopes system, which I think is smart, so that's a pro for me. It's online, so it downloads transactions automatically, but also allows you to manually add transactions, so another pro. The big con on this one is the cost. Depending on how you far ahead you choose to pay (quarterly, yearly or biannually), you're paying $7.60 to $12 per month. They do offer a free trial for 14 days (plus another 14 days offered when you try to cancel). Another con is that they don't provide meaningful reports. Overall, a good concept, but not worth the cost for me. Quicken - I hadn't tried Quicken earlier because they don't offer a free trial, but after the last few fell short, I landed with Quicken 2009. Pro for Quicken, as an MS Money user is that it is remarkably similar in format and options. The registers and reports are nearly identical. One frustration I'd had with Money was that it was ridiculously slow at start-up, and after a year or so of entering data, Quicken is dragging. Con for Quicken, again as an MS Money user, is that it's budgeting is not as detailed as I would like.  Also, it does not download transactions smoothly now that my banks all ask security questions as part of sign-in.  I have to sign in to my bank's website and manually download.  Quicken 2011 is out now, but I haven't tried it yet.  Hopefully they've solved the problem of security questions.  Quicken 2011 promises an improved cash-flow forecast, which sounds promising, and was a feature of MS Money that I have very much missed.  Haven't decided yet if it's worth the $50 to upgrade to 2011."}
{"question":"The difference between Islamic Banks and Western Banks","answer":"One of the principles of Sharia Banking is (Wikipedia): Shariah prohibits what is called \"Maysir\" and \"Gharar\". Maysir is involved in contracts where the ownership of a good depends on the occurrence of a predetermined, uncertain event in the future whereas Gharar describes speculative transactions. Both concepts involve excessive risk and are supposed to foster uncertainty and fraudlent behaviour. In other words risky investments are prohibited in Sharia Banking."}
{"question":"Stock options value","answer":"What you will probably get is an option to buy, for \u00a310,000, \u00a310,000 worth of stock. If the stock price on the day your option is granted is \u00a32.50, then that's 4,000 shares. Companies rarely grant discounted options, as there are tax disincentives. The benefit of the stock option is that when you exercise it, you still only pay \u00a310,000, no matter what the 4,000 shares are now worth. This is supposed to be an incentive for you to work harder to increase the value of the company. You should also check the vesting schedule. You will typically not be able to exercise all your options for some years, although some portion of it may vest each year."}
{"question":"Can a car company refuse to give me a copy of my contract or balance details?","answer":"Phone conversations are useless if the company is uncooperative, you must take it into the written word so it can be documented.  Sent them certified letters and keep copies of everything you send and any written responses from the company.  This is how you will get actual action."}
{"question":"What's the difference between stocks and shares?","answer":"For all practical purposes the words mean the same thing.  Shares are just stock in a particular company whereas stock can refer to shares over many companies. Investopedia has a good explaination. If you are a financial journalist you might want to make sure you are using the right term at the right time, but otherwise they are synonyms."}
{"question":"Can I deduct taxes for home office as a freelance computer software developer?","answer":"This answer is assuming you're in the US, which apparently you're not. I doubt that the rules in the EU are significantly different, but I don't know for sure. In case of an IRS control, is it ok to say that I regularly connect   remotely to work from home although in the work contract it says I   must work at client's office? No. Are there any other ways I can prove that this deduction is valid? No. You can't prove something is valid when its not. You can only deduct home office expense if it is used exclusively for your business, and your bedroom obviously is not."}
{"question":"Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk?","answer":"Based on what you've said I think buying a rental is risky for you. It looks like you heard that renting a house is profitable and Zillow supported that idea. Vague advice + a website designed for selling + large amounts of money = risky at the very least. That doesn't mean that rental property is super risky it just means that you haven't invested any time into learning the risks and how you can manage them. Once you learn that your risk reduces dramatically. In general though I feel that rental property has a good risk\/reward ratio. If you're willing to put in the time and energy to learn the business then I'd encourage you to buy property. If you're not willing to do that then rentals will always be a crap shoot. One thing about investing in rental property is you have the ability to have more impact on your investment than you do dropping money in the stock market which is good and bad."}
{"question":"Should my husband's business pay my business?","answer":"Is it worth it for me to \"charge\" him? I can think of two reasons why you might want to charge your husband:"}
{"question":"Auto Loan and Balance Transfer","answer":"This is what your car loan would look like if you paid it off in 14 months at the existing 2.94% rate: You'll pay a total of about $277 in interest.   If you do a balance transfer of the $10,000 at 3% it'll cost you $300 up front, and your payment on the remaining $5,000 will be $363.74 to pay it off in the 14 month period.  Your total monthly payment will be $1,099.45; $5,000 amortized at 2.94% for 14 months plus $10,300 divided by 14. ($363.74 + 735.71).  Your interest will be about $392, $300 from the balance transfer and $92 from the remaining $5,000 on the car loan at 2.94%. Even if your lender doesn't credit your additional payment to principal and instead simply credits future payments, you'd still be done in 15 months with a total interest expense of about $447.  So this additional administration and additional loan will save you maybe about $55 over 14 or 15 months."}
{"question":"Micro-investing: How to effectively invest frequent small amounts of money in equities? ","answer":"In terms of building the initial investment using some kind of mutual fund, I'd suggest you see my answer to this similar question https:\/\/money.stackexchange.com\/questions\/9943\/cheapest-or-free-online-broker-for-beginner For buying individual stocks later, you could look at sharebuilder, or a low cost broker, however most of them charge between $5-$7 per trade, and if you are doing small dollar value trades then that can really really eat into things if you try to trade a lot."}
{"question":"P\/E (or similar) for index funds?","answer":"ycharts.com has \"Weighted Average PE Ratio\" and a bunch of other metrics that are meant to correspond to well known stock metrics.  Other websites will have similar ratios."}
{"question":"How much does it cost to build a subdivision of houses on a large plot of land?","answer":"You can hire a builder to build for you on a lot that you would be happy to live on with utilities already connected. Subdividing a large piece of land gets a little more complicated. What easements exist, and what new easements would need to be created when connecting utilities? Would all of the lots already have street access, or do you need to dedicate some of the land to building a new road in the subdivision? Also, I edited your post because 83,000sqft is 1.9 acres. Building homes on .19 acre parcels (assuming no need for a road to take another 15% of the lot) reduces the value of the homes that you are building. You should run the numbers with 6 houses and see how attractive the math looks. Also, you should look for updated numbers on cost to build. Custom homes are likely closer to $275-$350 (where an architect is involved with drawing the plans)."}
{"question":"\"Business day\" and \"due date\" for bills","answer":"You definitely have an argument for getting them to reverse the late fee, especially if it hasn't happened very often. (If you are late every month they may be less likely to forgive.) As for why this happens, it's not actually about business days, but instead it's based on when they know that you paid. In general, there are 2 ways for a company to mark a bill as paid: Late Fees: Some systems automatically assign late fees at the start of the day after the due date if money has not been received. In your case, if your bill was due on the 24th, the late fee was probably assessed at midnight of the 25th, and the payment arrived after that during the day of the 25th. You may have been able to initiate the payment on the company's website at 11:59pm on the 24th and not have received a late fee (or whatever their cutoff time is). Suggestion: as a rule of thumb, for utility bills whose due date and amount can vary slightly from month to month, you're usually better off setting up your payments on the company website to pull from your bank account, instead of setting up your bank account to push the payment to the company. This will ensure that you always get the bill paid on time and for the correct amount. If you still would rather push the payment from your bank account, then consider setting up the payment to arrive about 5 days early, to account for holidays and weekends."}
{"question":"Would I ever need credit card if my debit card is issued by MasterCard\/Visa?","answer":"I haven't had a credit card in fifteen years. I use nothing but my debit card. (I find the whole idea of credit on a micro scale loathsome.) I have yet to encounter a single problem doing so, other than a lower than usual credit score for not keeping 23(!!!) revolving lines of credit open, or that's the number CreditKarma tells me I need in order to be an optimal consumer. In an nutshell, no, you don't NEED one. There are reasons to have them, but no."}
{"question":"Why does Warren Buffett say his fund performance, relatively, is likely to be better in a bear market than in a bull market?","answer":"If I have $100 and put it under the bed it will return 0%.  Relatively good in a bear market and relatively bad in a bull market."}
{"question":"In USA, what circumstances (if any) make it illegal for a homeless person to \"rent\" an address?","answer":"You owe taxes to the state where you earned the income, and also to the state where you physically live. Most, maybe all, states have laws that let you claim credits for taxes paid to other states so that you're not paying double taxes by living in one state while working in another. Most states have deals with all their neighboring states so that you only have to file taxes in one. For example, I live in Michigan, and Michigan borders Ohio. Lots of people who live near the border live in one state but work in the other. So the two have a deal that anyone who lives in Michigan but works in Ohio just has to file a Michigan tax return and pay Michigan taxes, and anyone who lives in Ohio and works in Michigan just has to pay Ohio taxes. Oh, I should note that these adjacent state deals apply only to employment income, not business income. If you own a business in another state, you'll still have to file taxes in that state. You still should get tax credits in your residence state. In general the fact that you use a server in another state doesn't make you liable for taxes in that state. I understand that New York says that if you work from home and the company headquarters is in New York, you have to pay New York taxes. Maybe there are a few other states who do this. But just because a server is in their state? I've never heard of this. If I order business supplies that are shipped from a warehouse in Arizona, that doesn't make me liable for Arizona income taxes, etc.  You are legally a \"resident\" of the state where you actually live. If you have a home and live in it most of the time, then you are a resident of the state where that home is. A \"home\" doesn't have to be a house. It could be an apartment, an RV that you live in in a trailer park, a tent, etc. If you don't own any sort of fixed home and you travel around a lot, this could be tricky. You mentioned Oklahoma. Oklahoma defines \"resident\" as follows:  An Oklahoma resident is a person domiciled in this state for the entire tax year. \"Domicile\" is the place established as a person\u2019s true, fixed, and permanent home. It is the place you intend to return whenever you are away (as on    vacation abroad, business assignment, educational leave or military assignment). A domicile, once established, remains until a new one is adopted. (https:\/\/www.ok.gov\/tax\/documents\/511NRPkt-14.pdf) I'm not sure that that clears things up for you. You can't just pick a state with low taxes and claim that as your residence. No way is the state where you actually live going to accept that. If you are in an ambiguous situation, like you spend 6 months per year in state A and 6 months in state B and you have no fixed home in either -- maybe you stay at motels or live in your minivan -- you might get away with picking the state with the most favorable tax laws as your residence. But if you spend 7 months in state A and 5 months in state B, state A will almost surely claim you are a resident and owe them taxes. If you regularly wander the country, never spend more than a few days in any one place, and rarely come back to the same place twice, then you have a complicated situation and you probably need to talk to a tax lawyer."}
{"question":"How do I determine if sale proceeds from an asset are taxable?","answer":"If it's fully expensed, it has zero basis. Any sale is taxable, 100%. To the ordinary income \/ cap gain issue raised in comment - It's a cap gain, but I believe, as with real estate, special rates apply. This is where I am out of my area of expertise, and as they say - \"Consult a professional.\""}
{"question":"Do retailers ever stock goods just to make other goods sell better? ","answer":"They may stock items that frame the various price points. Of course they risk having the items go stale before they are sold. You also have situations where the store will advertise an item, but end up taking a loss on that sale because it will bring people in, and they will make other purchases. Determining what to stock, how to display it, and how to advertise it involves both math and psychology."}
{"question":"What sort of tax treatment does a charitable micro-lending loan incur?","answer":"When lending through Kiva you are not making a \"charitable contribution\" it's a loan so you cannot deduct the amount you loaned out.  If you do lose money from your loan you can write off your entire loss same as you would with any other investment. However you should be careful because in the event of a tax audit you need to have the proper documentation in order to prove that loss (I don't know what Kiva provides). So to answer your question, no you would not be liable for any taxes from a Kiva loan."}
{"question":"Death and Capital Gains Taxes (United States)","answer":"My understanding is that when you die, the stocks are sold and then   the money is given to the beneficiary or the stock is repurchased in   the beneficiaries name. This is wrong, and the conclusion you draw from michael's otherwise correct answer follows your false assumption.  You seem to understand the Estate Tax federal threshold. Jersey would have its own, and I have no idea how it works there. If the decedent happened to trade in the tax year prior to passing, normal tax rules apply.  Now, if the executor chooses to sell off and liquidate the estate to cash, there's no further taxable gain, a $5M portfolio can have millions in long term gain, but the step up basis pretty much negates all of it.  If that's the case, the beneficiaries aren't likely to repurchase those shares, in fact, they might not even know what the list of stocks was, unless they sifted through the asset list. But, that sale was unnecessary, assets can be divvied up and distributed in-kind, each beneficiary getting their fraction of the number of shares of each stock. And then your share of the $5M has a stepped up basis, meaning if you sell that day, your gains are near zero. You might owe a few dollars for whatever the share move in the time passing between the step up date and date you sell.  I hope that clarifies your misunderstanding.  By the way, the IRS is just an intermediary. It's congress that writes the laws, including the tangled web of tax code. The IRS is the moral equivalent of a great customer service team working for a company we don't care for."}
{"question":"Is there a dollar amount that, when adding Massachusetts Sales Tax, precisely equals $200?","answer":"Yes, it's a simple calculation. (x+0.0625x)=200 or x=200\/1.0625 = $188.24 Technically $188.24 plus tax comes to $200.01. I would just eat the extra $0.01."}
{"question":"Asset management after leaving the USA","answer":"Yes to all three. However,"}
{"question":"1099-B, box 5, how to figure out cost basis?","answer":"For every document that the IRS posts, there will be a correlating instructions page. This would be the instructions for the 1099-B, here. Furthermore, as you will be reporting this on Form 8949, as a substitute for previously used Schedule D; instructions are here.This article explains that the best course of action is to donate the shares as the cost basis would switch to FMV (fair market value) of the assets today. But as this did not happen, I would recommend contacting the purchasing company directly. Being a share holder, and by purchasing the shares from the source, the accounting department should still have recorded the date of purchase along with the price sold. It may take effort to prove who you are, but if their accounting records are well documented, this will not be an issue.  If nothing else, claim a 100% capital gain on the entirety of the sale, and pay the tax. That is stated here."}
{"question":"Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score?","answer":"I want to recommend an exercise: Find all the people nearby who you can talk to in less than 24 hours about credit cards: Your family, whoever lives with you, and friends. Now, ask each of them \"what's the worst situation you've gotten yourself into with a credit card?\" Personally, the ratio of people who I asked who had credit cards to the ratio of people with horror stories about how credit cards screwed up their credit was nearly 1:1.  Pretty much, only one of them had managed to avoid the trap that credit cards created (that sole exception had worked for the government at a high paying job and was now retired with adult children and a lucrative pension).  Because it's trivially easy over-extend yourself, as a result of how credit cards work (if you had the cash at any second, you would have no need for the credit). But do your own straw poll, and then see what the experience of people around you has been.  And if there's a lot more bad than good out there, then ask yourself \"am I somehow more fiscally responsible than all of these people?\"."}
{"question":"What is 'consolidating' debt and why do people do it?","answer":"Debt consolidation is basically getting all your debt into one loan. This is possibly more convenient, and lets you close the other accounts (in the case of credit cards, preventing you from incurring any more debt). Ideally, your consolidated debt will have a better interest rate, so it saves you money as well. If you're defaulting on your debt already, you're likely combining this process with some negotiation with your existing creditors."}
{"question":"Tax brackets in the US","answer":"Yes, your tax bracket is 25%.  However, that doesn't mean that your take home pay will be 75% of your salary.  There is much more that goes into figuring out what your take home pay will be. First, you have payroll taxes.  This is often listed on your pay stub as \"FICA.\"  The Social Security portion of this tax is 6.2% on the first $118,500 of your pay and the Medicare portion is another 1.45% on the first $200,000.  (Your employer also has to pay additional tax that does not appear on your stub.)  So 7.65% of your salary gets removed off the top. In addition to the federal income taxes that get withheld, you may also have state income taxes that get withheld.  The amount varies with each state. Also, the 25% tax bracket does not mean that your tax is 25% of your entire salary.  You step through the tax brackets as your income goes up.  So part of your salary is taxed at 10%, part at 15%, and the remainder is at 25%. The amount of federal income tax that is withheld from your paycheck is really a rough estimate of how much tax you actually owe.  There are lots of things that can reduce your tax liability (personal exemptions, deductions, credits) or increase your tax (investment income, penalties).  When you do your tax return, you calculate the actual tax that you owe, and you either get a refund if too much was taken out of your check, or you need to send more money in if too little was taken out."}
{"question":"How can I borrow in order to improve a home I just bought?","answer":"It depends on your equity(assets -  liabilities). If you have a lot of equity, banks will be happy to lend you money because they now they can always seize your assets. If you don't have a lot of equity another option is to go to hard money lenders. They charge high rates and some of them lend-to-own, but is an option. And consider what Pete said, you might be a little optimistic."}
{"question":"How risky is it to keep my emergency fund in stocks?","answer":"I know this is heresy but if you have funds for significantly more   than 6 months of expenses (let's say 12 months), how risky would it be   to put it all into stock index funds? Quite risky as if you do need to dip into it, how fast could you get the cash? Also, do you realize the tax implications when you do sell the shares should you have an emergency? In the worst-case scenario, let's say you have a financial emergency   at the same time the stock market crashes and loses half its value.   You could still liquidate the rest and have sufficient funds for 6   months. Am I underestimating the risks of this strategy? That's not worst case scenario though. Worst case scenario would be another 9\/11 where the markets are closed for nearly a week and you need the money but can't get the funds converted to cash in the bank that you can use. This is in addition to the potential wait for a settlement in the case of using ETFs if you choose to go that way. In the case of money market funds, CDs and other near cash equivalents these can be accessed relatively easily which is part of the point. A staggered approach where some cash is kept in house, some in accounts that can easily accessed and some in other investments may make sense though the breakdown would differ depending on how much risk people are willing to take. If it truly is an emergency fund then the odds of needing it should be   very slim, so why live with near zero return on that money? Something to consider is what is called an emergency here? For some people a sudden $1,000 bill to fix their car that just broke down is an emergency. For others, there could be emergency trips to visit family that may have gotten into accidents or gotten a diagnosis that they may pass away soon. Consider what do you want to call an emergency here as chances are you may not be considering all that people would think is an emergency. There is the question of what other sources of money do you have to cover should issues arise."}
{"question":"Can a wealthy investor invest in or make a deal with a company before it goes public \/ IPO?","answer":"Yes, an investment can be made in a company before IPO. The valuation process is similar as that done for arriving at IPO or for a normal listed company. The difference may be the premium perceived for the idea in question. This would differ from one investor to other. For example, whether Facebook will be able to grow at the rate and generate enough revenues and win against competition is all a mathematical model based on projections. There are quite a few times the projection would go wrong, and quite a few times it would go correct. An individual investor cannot generally borrow from banks to invest into a company (listed or otherwise) (or for any other purpose) if he does not have any collateral that can be kept as security by the bank. An individual can get a loan only if he has sufficient collateral. The exceptions being small personal loans depending on one's credit history. The Private Equity placement arm of banks or firms in the business of private equity invest in start-up and most of the time make an educated guess based on their experience. More than half of their investments into start-ups end up as wiped out. An occasional one or two companies are ones that they make a windfall gain on."}
{"question":"How dividend payout happens","answer":"You will need to buy a stock before the ex-dividend date to receive the dividends. You can sell a stock on the ex-dividend date or after and you will receive the dividends. So if the ex-dividend date is the 5th August, you need to buy before the 5th and you can sell on the 5th or after, to receive the dividends. Definitions from the ASX: Record date The Record Date is 5.00pm on the date a company closes its share   register to determine which shareholders are entitled to receive   the current dividend.  It is the date where all changes to   registration details must be finalised.   Ex dividend date The ex dividend date occurs two business days before the company's   Record Date. To be entitled to a dividend a shareholder must have   purchased the shares before the ex dividend date. If you purchase   shares on or after that date, the previous owner of the shares (and   not you) is entitled to the dividend. A company's share price may move up as the ex dividend date approaches   and then fall after the ex dividend date."}
{"question":"Bank of the Sierra: Are they legit? How can the checking interest APY be so high?","answer":"I believe MrChrister's answer is correct:  Since they're FDIC insured, they are \"legit.\"  Second, on the seemingly too-good-to-be-true rate: They're basically making up the difference on other fees (not necessarily paid by you) in order to offer you the higher-than-market rate. I'd like to point out two things not mentioned about the current rate offer, though: The high 4.09% APY advertised is only on balances up to $25,000; anything over that threshold is at a lower 1.01% APY. The offer also states in the footnotes: \"Rates may change after the account is opened.\" You might want to see if they have a good history of paying higher than average interest rates. You wouldn't want to switch only to find out the promotional rate was a teaser that soon gets reduced."}
{"question":"Is person-person lending\/borrowing protected by law?","answer":"By protected you mean what exactly? In the US, generally you'd get a promissory note signed by B saying \"B promises to repay A such and such amount on such and such terms\". In case of default you can sue in a court of law, and the promissory note will be the evidence for your case. In case of B declaring bankruptcy, you'd submit the promissory note to the bankruptcy court to get in line with all the other creditors. Similarly in all the rest of the world, you make a contract, you enforce the contract in courts."}
{"question":"Entering the stock market in a poor economy","answer":"Buy low and sell high.  Right now stocks are cheap (or at least cheapish).  If you wait for better forecasts, the price will be higher.  They might go down still farther, but no one knows for sure when that will happen, or where the bottom is -- despite what the talking heads on TV say.  Remember that what you really care about is sell price minus purchase price (plus dividends, but I'll ignore that).  What happens between the time you buy and the time you sell is irrelevant financially, but can be important psychologically. If it was me, and you are sure you won't need the money for at least 10 years, or better still 15-20, I would buy some index funds.  Pick something that you are comfortable with (some are more aggressive\/risky than others), and then only look at it a few times a year, if that much.  Only do this as long as you are sure that you won't sell if the market drops further. That is a guaranteed way to lose money. This is what I've been doing for my retirement funds for 15 years, and its worked well so far."}
{"question":"Are founders of a company paid dividends?","answer":"Depends on if the stock pays a dividend or not. Some companies in their early years may choose to not pay dividends. Your calculations are off as the dividend stated is annual that you'd have to divide by 4 to get what the quarterly amount would be and there can be variances as Ellison's compensation package may well include options so that the number of shares he owns could fluctuate over the course of a year."}
{"question":"Why Google Finance puts to two decimal places for the trading volumes?","answer":"Many brokerages offer automatic dividend reinvestment. It is very infrequent that these dividends are exactly a whole share. So, if you have signed up for automatic dividend reinvestment, many brokerages will reinvest your dividends and assign to you a fractional share. I can't speak for how these shares work with regards to voting, but I can say that the value of these fractional holdings does change with stock price as if one genuinely could hold a fraction of a share."}
{"question":"If a stock doesn't pay dividends, then why is the stock worth anything?","answer":"It seems to me that your main question here is about why a stock is worth anything at all, why it has any intrinsic value, and that the only way you could imagine a stock having value is if it pays a dividend, as though that's what you're buying in that case.  Others have answered why a company may or may not pay a dividend, but I think glossed over the central question.  A stock has value because it is ownership of a piece of the company. The company itself has value, in the form of: You get the idea. A company's value is based on things it owns or things that can be monetized.  By extension, a share is a piece of all that. Some of these things don't have clear cut values, and this can result in differing opinions on what a company is worth.  Share price also varies for many other reasons that are covered by other answers, but there is (almost) always some intrinsic value to a stock because part of its value represents real assets."}
{"question":"As an American working in the UK, do I have to pay taxes on foreign income?","answer":"A) a tax treaty probably covers this for the avoidance of double taxation. Tax treaties can be very cryptic and have little precedence clarifying them http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/international\/article\/0,,id=169552,00.html B) I'm going to say NO since the source of your income is going to be US based. But the UK tax laws might also have specific verbage for resident source income. sorry it is an inconclusive answer, but should be some factors to consider and point you in the right direction."}
{"question":"What happens to your ability to borrow money based on our joint finances?","answer":"Several factors are considered in loans as significant as a home mortgage.  I believe the most major factors are 1) Credit report, 2) Income, and 3) Employment status If you borrow jointly, all joint factors are included, not just the favorable ones.  Some wrinkles this can cause may include: Credit Report - The second person on the loan may have poor credit or no credit.  This can\/will hurt your rate or even prevent them from being listed on the loan at all, which will also mean you can't include their income. In addition, there are future consequences: that any late payments, default, foreclosure, etc. will be listed on all borrower's reports. If you both have solid work history, great credit, and want to jointly own the home, then there shouldn't be any negatives.  If this is not the case, compare both cases (fully, not just rates, as some agents could sneakily say you can get the same rate either way but then not tell you closing costs in one scenario are higher), and pick the one that is best overall. This is just information from my recollection so make sure to verify and ask plenty of questions, don't go forward on assumptions."}
{"question":"What is a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) & how is it different from plain stock?","answer":"I own a few MLPs that operate oil\/gas pipelines (TSE:IPL-UN, NYSE:BPT, NYSE:APL), and I'm very happy with their performance. Because they don't pay corporate tax MLPs tend to pay higher dividends than most regular stocks. I pay H&R Block to do my taxes, and they sort out all the arcane details."}
{"question":"Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental","answer":"You have some of the math right, but are missing a few things. Here's what I can offer - if I leave anything out, someone please expand or clarify. Rental income can be reduced by mortgage interest and maintenance costs (as you mentioned), but also by property tax payments, association fees, insurance costs, landlord expenses, and depreciation. Note that if you don't live in the property for 3 years, you'll have to pay capital gains tax if\/when you sell the house. You can live in it again for 2 of the last 5 years to avoid this. Many people recommend only assuming you will get 10 months of rental income a year, to account for transitions between tenants, difficult in finding new tenants, and the occasional deadbeat tenant. This also adds a buffer for unexpected problems you need to fix in the house. If you can't at least break even on 10 months of income a year, consider the risk. I think there are also some cases where you need to repay depreciation amounts that you have deducted, but I don't know the details. Renting out a house can be fun and profitable, but it's very far from a sure thing. I'd always recommend preparation and caution, and of course talking to professionals about the finances, accounting, and lease-writing. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Is there a register that shows the companies with notifiable interest in a stock?","answer":"There are multiple places where you can see this.  Company house website On any financial news website, if you have access e.g. TESCO on FT On any 3rd party website which supply information on companies e.g. TESCO on Companycheck An observation though, FT lists down more shareholders for me than Companycheck as I pay for FT."}
{"question":"What is a Student Loan and does it allow you to cover a wide range of expenses relating to school?","answer":"The short answer is that you can use student loans for living expenses.  Joe provides a nice taxonomy of loans.  I would just add that some loans are not only guaranteed, but also subsidized.  Essentially the Government buys down the rate of the loan. The mechanics are that a financial aid package might consist of grants, work study (job), subsidized, and guaranteed loans.  One can turn down one or more of the elements of the package.  All will be limited in some form. The work study will have a maximum number of hours and generally has low pay.  Many find better deals working in the businesses surrounding the college or starting their own services type business.  The grants rarely cover the full cost of tuition and books.  The loans will both be limited in amount.  It mainly depends on what you qualify for, and generally speaking the lower the income the more aid one qualifies for. Now some students use all their grant, all their loan money and buy things that are not necessary.  For example are you going to live in the $450\/month dorm, or the new fancy apartments that are running $800\/month?  Are you going to use the student loan money to buy a car?  Will it be a new BMW or a 8 year old Camary? I see this first hand as I live near a large university.  The pubs are filled with college students, not working, but drinking and eating every night.  Many of them drive very fancy cars. The most onerous example of this is students at the military academies.  Attendees have their books and tuition completely paid for.  They also receive a stipend, and more money can be earned over the summer.  They also all qualify for a 35K student loan in their junior year.  Just about every kid, takes this loan.  Most of those use the money to buy a car.  I know a young lady who did exactly that, and so did many of her friends. So kids with a starting pay of 45K also start life with a 35K.  Buying a nice car in the military is especially silly as they cannot drive it while deployed and they are very likely to be deployed.  At least, however, they are guaranteed a starting job with a nice starting pay, and upward potential. College kids who behave similarly might not have it as good.  Will they even find work?  Will the job have the ability to move up?  How much security is in the job?  One might say that this does not apply to engineers and such, but I am working with a fellow with a computer science degree who cannot find a job and has not worked in the past 6 months.  This even though the market is super hot right now for computer engineers. So, in a word, be very careful what you borrow."}
{"question":"Teaching school kids about money - what are the real life examples of math, budgeting, finance?","answer":"If these are children that may be employed, in a few years, it may well be worth walking them through some basics of the deductions around employment, some basic taxes, uses of banks, and give them enough of a basis in how the economy of the world works.  For example, if you get a job and get paid $10\/hour, that may sound good but how much do various things eat at that so your take-home pay may be much lower?  While this does presume that the kids will get jobs somewhere along the way and have to deal with this, it is worth making this part of the education system on some level rather than shocking them otherwise. Rather than focusing on calculations, I'd be more tempted to consider various scenarios like how do you use a bank, what makes insurance worth having(Life, health, car, and any others may be worth teaching on some level), and how does the government and taxes fit into things. While I may be swinging more for the practical, it is worth considering if these kids will be away in college or university in a few years, how will they handle being away from the parents that may supply the money to meet all the financial needs?"}
{"question":"How smart is it to really be 100% debt free?","answer":"Debt increases your exposure to risk.  What happens if you lose your job, or a major expense comes up and you have to make a hard decision about skipping a loan payment?  Being debt free means you aren't paying money to the bank in interest, and that's money that can go into your pocket. Debt can be a useful tool, however.  It's all about what you do with the money you borrow.  Will you be able to get something back that is worth more than the interest of the loan? A good example is your education.  How much more money will you make with a college degree?  Is it more than you will be paying in interest over the life of the loan?  Then it was probably worth it. Instead of paying down your loans, can you invest that money into something with a better rate of rate of return than the interest rate of the loan?  For example, why pay off your 3% student loan if you can invest in a stock with a 6% return?  The money goes to better use if it is invested.  (Note that most investments count as taxable income, so you have to factor taxes into your effective rate of return.) The caveat to this is that most investments have at least some risk associated with them.  (Stocks don't always go up.)  You have to weigh this when deciding to invest vs pay down debts.  Paying down the debt is more of a \"sure thing\". Another thing to consider: If you have a long-term loan (several years), paying extra principal on a loan early on can turn into a huge savings over the life of the loan, due to power of compound interest.  Extra payments on a mortgage or student loan can be a wise move.  Just make sure you are paying down the principal, not the interest!  (And check for early repayment penalties.)"}
{"question":"UK Contractor with Limited Company","answer":"I know a guy on a much higher rate than me, about \u00a3500 per day, and he   claims to pay around 18% tax which has me bewildered Your acquaintance may be using a tax efficient, or \"marketed avoidance\" product identical or similar to those required to be registered or declared under DOTAS legislation in the UK. If this is the case then no, your accountant is not doing anything wrong - the 18% \"tax\" probably involves a radially different remuneration mechanism to the one you are using."}
{"question":"Does working in finance firms improve a person's finance knowledge?","answer":"It depends what you mean by financial knowledge.  Often you will work in a group focused on some aspect of the company's business.  As an example, I work for a company and my group works on econometric models.  Although I have a degree in finance, I don't encounter or talk about corporate or personal finance.  I do talk about investing with a friend, but in general, our group is focused on one aspect of finance and economics for the company.   From another direction, often financial companies will offer financial literacy training through HR and benefits programs where you can improve your knowledge of finance outside of your groups focus.   In the end, you will learn the most by persuing new knowledge through reading on current financial literature.  I hope this helps. Edit:  If you add some specifics to what you would like to learn about I may be able to point you in the right direction."}
{"question":"Can I get a discount on merchandise by paying with cash instead of credit?","answer":"I bought a car a few years ago. The salesman had the order, I knew the car I wanted and we had a price agreed on. When I refused the payment plan\/loan, his manager came over and did a hard sell. \"99% of buyers take the financing\" was the best he could do. I told him I was going to be part of the 1%. With rates so low, his 2 or 3% offer was higher than my own cost of money. He went so far as to say that I could just pay it off the first month. Last, instead of accepting a personal check and letting me pick up the car after it cleared, he insisted on a bank check to start the registration process. (This was an example of one dealer, illustrating the point.) In other cases, for a TV, a big box store (e.g. Best Buy) isn't going to deal for cash, but a small privately owned \"mom and pop\" shop might.  The fees they are charged are pretty fixed, they don't pay a higher fee cause I get 2% cash back, vs your mastercard that might offer less."}
{"question":"Can dividends be exploited?","answer":"In an ideal world Say on 24th July the share price of Apple was $600. Everyone knows that they will get the $ 2.65 on 16th August. There is not other news that is affecting the price. You want to go in and buy the shares on 16th Morning at $600 and then sell it on 17th August at $600. Now in this process you have earned sure shot $2.65\/- Or in an ideal world when the announcement is made on 24th July, why would I sell it at $600, when I know if I wait for few more days I will get $2.65\/- so i will be more inclined to sell it at $602.65 \/- ... so on 16th Aug after the dividend is paid out, the share price will be back to $600\/- In a real world, dividend or no dividend the share price would be moving up or down ... Notice that the dividend amount is less than 1% of the stock price ... stock prices change more than this percentage ... so if you are trying to do what is described in paragraph one, then you may be disappointed as the share price may go down as well by more than $2.65 you have made"}
{"question":"How much money should I put on a house?","answer":"Before doing anything else: you want a lawyer involved right from the beginning, to make sure that something reasonable happens with the house if one of you dies or leaves. Seriously, you'll both be safer and happier if it's all explicit. How much you should put on the house is not the right question. Houses don't sell instantly, and while you can access some of their stored value by borrowing against them that too can take some time to arrange. You need to have enough operating capital for normal finances, plus an emergency reserve to cover unexpectedly being out of work or sudden medical expenses. There are suggestions for how much that should be in answers to other questions. After that, the question is whether you should really be buying a house at all. It isn't always a better option than renting and (again as discussed in answers to other questions) there are ongoing costs in time and upkeep and taxes and insurance. If you're just thinking about the financials, it may be better to continue to rent and to invest the savings in the market. The time to buy a house is when you have the money and a reliable income, plan not to move for at least five years, really want the advantages of more elbow room and the freedom to alter the place to suit your needs (which will absorb more money)...  As far as how much to put down vs. finance: you really want a down payment of at least 20%. Anything less than that, and the bank will insist you pay for mortgage insurance, which is a significant expense. Whether you want to pay more than that out of your savings depends on how low an interest rate you can get (this is a good time in that regard) versus how much return you are getting on your investments, combined with how long you want the mortgage to run and how large a mortgage payment you're comfortable committing to. If you've got a good investment plan in progress and can get a mortgage which charges a lower interest rate than your investments can reasonably be expected to pay you, putting less down and taking a larger mortgage is one of the safer forms of leveraged investing... IF you're comfortable with that. If the larger mortgage hanging over you is going to make you uncomfortable,  this might not be a good answer for you. It's a judgement call. I waited until i'd been in out of school about 25 years before I was ready to buy a house. Since i'd been careful with my money over that time,  I had enough in investments that I could have bought the house for cash. Or I could have gone the other way and financed 80% of it for maximum leverage. I decided that what I was comfortable with was financing 50%. You'll have to work thru the numbers and decide what you are comfortable with. But I say again, if buying shared property you need a lawyer involved. It may be absolutely the right thing to do ... but you want to make sure everything is fully spelled out... and you'll also want appropriate terms written into your wills. (Being married would carry some automatic assumptions about joint ownership and survivor rights... but even then it's safer to make it all explicit.) Edit: Yes, making a larger down payment may let you negotiate a lower interest rate on the loan. You'll have to find out what each bank is willing to offer you, or work with a mortgage broker who can explore those options for you."}
{"question":"Should I invest in real estate to rent, real estate to live in, or just stocks and bonds to earn 10-15%?","answer":"That your asking is a good first step towards taking control of your future. But truly, you must seek the advice of a personal consultant that is much more in tune with your finances that anyone out here in the public will be.  You can get this type of advice locally, or if you want something online, I suggest oDesk or something similar to find a large pool of people and to efficiently find the right person for suited for your situation."}
{"question":"What's behind the long secular bull market in U.S. Treasuries?","answer":"I believe that it's largely irrational, fueled largely by foreign investors that are afraid to invest anywhere else. There are a few people out there right now who are writing about this: http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/us-treasuries-largest-bubble-in-world-history-says-nia-2011-08-30 http:\/\/articles.businessinsider.com\/2010-08-25\/markets\/30080511_1_fed-first-yields-mbs As to why would you invest in long-dated versus short? Probably to chase yield. The 30 year yields 30x more than the 1 year. It's also easier to buy on the long end if you believe that the economy will remain slow for another decade or two and therefore the central banks will keep rates low for a very long time. Of course, at the moment, long-dated treasury prices are artificially high because of operation twist."}
{"question":"Downside to temporarily lowering interest rates?","answer":"This is brilliant for AmEx; they make a cut off of every transaction you do, so even if you pay it off before you ever pay interest, they still may take some.  Balance transfers, on the other hand, generally have a transfer fee that locks in a percent, depending on the offer. For your own sake, it can be a good deal if you   Considering that they make some money, it makes sense why they offer people this - merchants, as you'll read from Nerd Wallet, are paying extra to use credit cards."}
{"question":"How will going from 75% Credit Utilization to 0% Credit Utilization affect my credit score?","answer":"You really don't know how credit scoring works. Let's think about the purpose of a credit score: to assess whether you're a high default risk. A lender wants to know, in this order: Utilization factors into the solvency assessment. If you are at 100% utilization of your unsecured credit, you're insolvent -- you can't pay your bills. If you are at 0%, you're as solvent as you can be. Most people who use credit cards are somewhere in the middle. When a bank underwrites a large loan like a mortgage or car loan, they use your credit score an application information like income and employment history to figure out what kind of loan you qualify for. Credit cards are called \"revolving\" accounts for a reason -- you're supposed to use them to buy crap and pay your bill in full at the end of the month.  My advice to you:"}
{"question":"Other than being able to borrow to invest, how is a margin trading account different from a cash account?","answer":"Probably the most significant difference is the Damocles Sword hanging over your head, the Margin Call. In a nutshell, the lender (your broker) is going to require you to have a certain amount of assets in your account relative to your outstanding loan balance. The minimum ratio of liquid funds in the account to the loan is regulated in the US at 50% for the initial margin and 25% for maintenance margins. So here's where it gets sticky. If this ratio gets on the wrong side of the limits, the broker will force you to either add more assets\/cash to your account t or immediately liquidate some of your holdings to remedy the situation. Assuming you don't have any\/enough cash to fix the problem it can effectively force you to sell while your investments are in the tank and lock in a big loss. In fact, most margin agreements give the brokerage the right to sell your investments without your express consent in these situations. In this situation you might not even have the chance to pick which stock they sell. Source: Investopedia article, \"The Dreaded Margin Call\" Here's an example from the article: Let's say you   purchase $20,000 worth of securities   by borrowing $10,000 from your   brokerage and paying $10,000 yourself.   If the market value of the securities   drops to $15,000, the equity in your   account falls to $5,000 ($15,000 -   $10,000 = $5,000). Assuming a   maintenance requirement of 25%, you   must have $3,750 in equity in your   account (25% of $15,000 = $3,750).   Thus, you're fine in this situation as   the $5,000 worth of equity in your   account is greater than the   maintenance margin of $3,750. But   let's assume the maintenance   requirement of your brokerage is 40%   instead of 25%. In this case, your   equity of $5,000 is less than the   maintenance margin of $6,000 (40% of   $15,000 = $6,000). As a result, the   brokerage may issue you a margin call. Read more: http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/university\/margin\/margin2.asp#ixzz1RUitwcYg"}
{"question":"Suitable Vanguard funds for a short-term goal (1-2 years)","answer":"If you are looking to invest for 1-2 years I would suggest you not invest in mutual funds at all. Your time horizon is too short for it to be smart to invest in the stock market.  I'd suggest a high-yield savings account or CD. I know they both have crappy returns, but the stock market can swing wildly with no notice. If you are ready to buy your house and the market is down 50% (it has happened multiple times in history) are you going to have to put off buying your home for an indefinite amount of time waiting to them to recover? If you are absolutely committed to investing in a mutual fund anyway against my advise I'd suggest an indexed fund that contains mostly blue chip stocks (indexed against the DOW)."}
{"question":"What happens to my stocks when broker goes bankrupt?","answer":"Here is my perception of the situation, obtained from reading Degiro's Client Agreement. If Degiro shuts down, it will notify you about the fact at least one month in advance, and you will have enough time to order a transfer of your positions to a different broker. If Degiro shuts down unexpectedly, your assets will remain to be held at SPV, a separate legal entity which Degiro uses to hold the financial instruments belonging to the clients. Since SPV does nothing else but holding the assets, it is very unlikely that something bad will happen with it on its own. With some help from Degiro and\/or the regulator (AFM) you should be able to transfer your assets from SPV to a different custodian and broker and thus regain control over them. If you have a non-Custody account, you have slightly higher chances of losing your assets, because Degiro can borrow your securities held at SPV. If both the client for whom Degiro borrowed a security and Degiro itself go bankrupt at the same time, the lent security will not be returned to SPV, there will arise a shortage, which will be proportionally distributed among the accounts of the clients holding this particular security. However, then the investor compensation scheme should kick in and help you recover up to 20000 EUR of your losses."}
{"question":"Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?","answer":"Largely, because stock markets are efficient markets, at least mostly if not entirely; while the efficient market hypothesis is not necessarily 100% correct, for the majority of traders it's unlikely that you could (on the long term) find significant market inefficiencies with the tools available to an individual of normal wealth (say, < $500k). That's what frequent trading intends to do: find market inefficiencies.  If the market is efficient, then a stock is priced exactly at what it should be worth, based on risk and future returns.  If it is inefficient, then you can make more money trading on that inefficiency versus simply holding it long.  But in stating that a stock is inefficient, you are stating that you know something the rest of the market doesn't - or some condition is different for you than the other million or so people in the market.  That's including a lot of folks who do this for a living, and have very expensive modelling software (and hardware to run it on).  I like to think that I'm smarter than the far majority of people, but I'm probably not the smartest guy in the room, and I certainly don't have that kind of equipment - especially with high frequency trading nowadays. As such, it's certainly possible to make a bit of money as a trader versus as a long-term investor, but on the whole it's similar to playing poker for a living.  If you're smarter than most of the people in the room, you might be able to make a bit of money, but the overhead - in the case of poker, the money the house charges for the game, in the case of stocks, the exchange fees and broker commissions - means that it's a losing game for the group as a whole, and not very many people can actually make money.  Add to that the computer-based trading - so imagine a poker game where four of the eight players are computer models that are really good (and actively maintained by very smart traders) and you can see where it gets to be very difficult to trade at a profit (versus long term investments, which take advantage of the growth in value in the company). Finally, the risk because of leverage and option trading (which is necessary to really take advantage of inefficiencies) makes it not only hard to make a profit, but easy to lose everything.  Again to the poker analogy, the guys I've known playing poker for a living do it by playing 10-20 games at once - because one game isn't efficient enough, you wouldn't make enough money.  In poker, you can do that fairly safely, especially in limit games; but in the market, if you're leveraging your money you risk losing a lot.  Every action you take to make it \"safer\" removes some of your profit."}
{"question":"Why does a ETN that is supposed to track Crude Oil like UWTI show constant decline every year? And am I an idiot for investing in it?","answer":"After looking at both S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index Excess Return (INDEXSP:SPGSCLP) and CS VS 3x LC ETN NYSEARCA: UWTI they seem to track well (using Google Finance).   I'm not seeing where your statement this ETN loses whether oil is gaining or not holds true.   Both have posted a year-over-year loss. In the past year the Crude Oil index has fallen from a high of 494 on October 6, 2014 to a low of 213 as of today October 5th, 2015.  So of course the UWTI will lose as well. Please also notice that that, as stated in the prospectus for UWTI: The ETNs are intended to be daily trading tools for sophisticated   investors to manage daily trading risks. They are designed t o achieve   their stated investment objectives on a daily basis, but their   performance over different periods of time can differ significantly fr   om their stated daily objectives. The ETNs are riskier than securities   that have intermediate or long-term investment objectives, and may not   be sui table for investors who plan to hold them for a period other   than one day. You might want to look into investing in an ETF for long term investment goals and objectives.  Oil ETF List"}
{"question":"How should I handle taxes for Minecraft server donations?","answer":"Technically, this is considered \"income\" for you, and is actually not considered a \"donation\" for your donors, but is instead a \"gift\" (not tax-deductible for your donors). So, you are technically required to report it, and there is a pretty significant audit trail that can be followed to prove you made that money. I don't know if PayPal is required to file 1099s for payments received, but if you've ever received such a document, so has the IRS, and they'll match it to the income you claimed and see a discrepancy, triggering an audit. Depending on the amount that it affects your taxes (it can be significant; if you have a  $50k\/yr day job, you'd owe the government 25 cents on every dollar donated), they can let it slide, they may simply dock your next return, or they may come after you for interest and penalties or even charge you with criminal tax fraud if they could prove you maliciously attempted to conceal this revenue. Now, if you already itemize using a Schedule A, then you can erase this income by deducting the costs of the server, not to exceed the amount of the donations. The best you can do is offset it; you cannot use this deduction to reduce taxable income from other sources. Also, you must itemize; you can't take your standard deduction, and with a maximum possible deduction of the actual costs of running the server ($1500, IF you receive enough donations to fully pay for it) compared to one person's standard deduction ($5800), you'll want to take the standard deduction if you don't have other significant deductions (medical expenses, mortgage interest\/property taxes, etc). If you were charging users a monthly fee for use of the server, then you've basically created a de facto sole proprietorship, and you would still have to count the fees as income, but could then deduct the full cost of running the server. You'd fill out a Schedule C listing the revenue and expenses, and back them up with statements from your ISP\/hosting company and from PayPal. Now, this would apply if you were running the server with the primary goal of making a regular profit; Schedule C cannot be used for income from a \"hobby\", undertaken primarily for enjoyment and where a few bucks in revenue is gravy. Whether you think you can get away with that in your current situation is your prerogative; I don't think you would, given that the donations are solicited and optional, and thus there is no expectation of ever turning a profit on this game server."}
{"question":"Is this the right formula to use implied volatility to gauge probability of a stock being within a certain range?","answer":"To get the probability of hitting a target price you need a little more math and an assumption about the expected return of your stock.  First let's examine the parts of this expression. IV is the implied volatility of the option.  That means it's the volatility of the underlying that is associated with the observed option price.  As a practical matter, volatility is the standard deviation of returns, expressed in annualized terms.  So if the monthly standard deviation is Y, then Y*SQRT(12) is the volatility. From the above you can see that IV*SQRT(DaysToExpire\/356) de-annualizes the volatility to get back to a standard deviation.  So you get an estimate of the expected standard deviation of the return between now and expiration. If you multiply this by the stock price, then you get what you have called X, which is the standard deviation of the dollars gained or lost between now and expiration.  Denote the price change by A (so that the standard deviation of A is X). Note that we seek the expression for the probability of hitting a target level, Q, so mathematically we want 1 - Pr( A < Q - StockPrice)  We do 1 minus the probability of being below this threshold because cumulative distribution functions always find the probability of being BELOW a threshold, not above. If you are using excel and assuming a mean of zero for returns, the probability of hitting or exceeding Q at expiration, then, is That's your answer for the probability of exceeding Q. Accuracy is in the eye of the beholder.  You'd have to specify a criterion by which to judge it to know the answer.  I'm sure more sophisticated methods exist that are more unbiased and have less error, but I think it's a fine first approximation."}
{"question":"How should I save money if the real interest rate (after inflation) is negative?","answer":"(Real) interest rates are so low because governments want people to use their money to improve the economy by spending or investing rather than saving. Their idea is that by consuming or investing you will help to create jobs that will employ people who will spend or invest their pay, and so on. If you want to keep this money for the future you don't want to spend it and interest rates make saving unrewarding therefore you ought to invest. That was the why, now the how. Inflation protected securities, mentioned in another answer, are the least risk way to do this. These are government guaranteed and very unlikely to default. On the other hand deflation will cause bigger problems for you and the returns will be pitiful compared with historical interest rates. So what else can be done? Investing in companies is one way of improving returns but risk starts to increase so you need to decide what risk profile is right for you.  Investing in companies does not mean having to put money into the stock market either directly or indirectly (through funds) although index tracker funds have good returns and low risk. The corporate bond market is lower risk for a lesser reward than the stock market but with better returns than current interest rates. Investment grade bonds are very low risk, especially in the current economic climate and there are exchange traded funds (ETFs) to diversify more risk away. Since you don't mention willingness to take risk or the kind of amounts that you have to save I've tried to give some low risk options beyond \"buy something inflation linked\" but you need to take care to understand the risks  of any product you buy or use, be they a bank account, TIPS, bond investments or whatever. Avoid anything that you don't fully understand."}
{"question":"Why would a company with a bad balance sheet be paying dividends?","answer":"While Ford and the other auto makers have a bad few years, some companies want to have a cash dividend. It appeals to certain investors. Others have tried to avoid dividends: Microsoft didn't start until ~2003; Apple only from mid 80's until mid 90's.; Google never has had a cash dividend. The desire to keep the dividend, or even to increase it, make some companies continue the practice; even when it doesn't make complete sense. Here is a list of stocks that have INCREASED their dividend for the last 25+ years: http:\/\/www.dividend.com\/dividend-stocks\/25-year-dividend-increasing-stocks.php Some have had good years, others bad years, in the last 25+ years."}
{"question":"As an employee, when is it inappropriate to request to see your young\/startup company's financial statements?","answer":"This is several questions wrapped together: How can I diplomatically see the company's financial information? How strong a claim does a stockholder or warrantholder have to see the company's financials? What information do I need to know about the company financials before deciding to buy in? I'll start with the easier second question (which is quasi implicit).  Stockholders typically have inspection rights.  For example, Delaware General Corporate Law \u00a7 220 gives stockholders the right to inspect and copy company financial information, subject to certain restrictions. Check the laws and corporate code of your company's state of incorporation to find the specific inspection right.  If it is an LLC or partnership, then the operating agreement usually controls and there may be no inspection rights.  If you have no corporate stock, then of course you have no statutory inspection rights.  My (admittedly incomplete) understanding is that warrantholders generally have no inspection rights unless somehow contracted for.  So if you vest as a corporate stockholder, it'll be your right to see the financials\u2014which may make even a small purchase valuable to you as a continuing employee with the right to see the financials.  Until then, this is probably a courtesy and not their obligation. The first question is not easy to answer, except to say that it's variable and highly personal for small companies.  Some people interpret it as prying or accusatory, the implication being that the founders are either hiding something or that you need to examine really closely the mouth of their beautiful gift horse.  Other people may be much cooler about the question, understanding that small companies are risky and you're being methodical.  And in some smaller companies, they may believe giving you the expenses could make office life awkward. If you approach it professionally, directly, and briefly (do not over-explain yourself) with the responsible accountant or HR person (if any), then I imagine it should not be a problem for them to give some information.  Conversely, you may feel comfortable enough to review a high-level summary sheet with a founder, or to find some other way of tactfully reviewing the right information. In any case, I would keep the request vague, simple, and direct, and see what information they show you.  If your request is too specific, then you risk pushing them to show information A, which they refuse to do, but a vague request would've prompted them to show you information B.  A too-specific request might get you information X when a vague request could have garnered XYZ.  Vague requests are also less aggressive and may raise fewer objections. The third question is difficult to say.  My personal understanding is some perspective of how venture capitalists look at the investment opportunity (you didn't say how new this startup is or what series\/stage they are on, so I'll try to stay vague). The actual financials are less relevant for startups than they are for other investments because the situation will definitely change.  Most venture capital firms like to look at the burn rate or amount of cash spent, usually at a monthly rate.  A high burn rate relative to infusions of cash suggests the company is growing rapidly but may have a risk of toppling (i.e. failing before exit).  Burn rate can change drastically during the early life of the startup.  Of course burn rate needs the context of revenues and reserves (and latest valuation is helpful as a benchmark, but you may be able to calculate that from the restricted share offer made to you).  High burn rate might not be bad, if the company is booming along towards a successful exit. You might also want to look at some sort of business plan or info sheet, rather than financials alone.  You want to gauge the size of the market (most startups like to claim 9- or 10-figure markets, so even a few percentage points of market share will hit revenue into the 8-figures).  You'll also have to have a sense for the business plan and model and whether it's a good investment or a ridiculous rehash (\"it's Twitter for dogs meets Match.com for Russian Orthodox singles!\").  In other words, appraise it like an investor or VC and figure out whether it's a prospect for decent return.  Typical things like competition, customer acquisition costs, manufacturing costs are relevant depending on the type of business activity. Of course, I wouldn't ignore psychology (note that economists and finance people don't generally condone the following sort of emotional thinking).  If you don't invest in the company and it goes big, you'll kick yourself.  If it goes really big, other people will either assume you are rich or feel sad for you if you say you didn't get rich.  If you invest but lose money, it may not be so painful as not investing and losing out the opportunity.  So if you consider the emotional aspect of personal finance, it may be wise to invest at least a little, and hedge against \"woulda-shoulda\" syndrome.  That's more like emotional advice than hard-nosed financial advice. So much of the answer really depends on your particular circumstances.  Obviously you have other considerations like whether you can afford the investment, which will be on you to decide.  And of course, the \u00a7 83(b) election is almost always recommended in these situations (which seems to be what you are saying) to convert ordinary income into capital gain.  You may also need cash to pay any up-front taxes on the \u00a7 83(b) equity, depending on your circumstances."}
{"question":"How to handle taxes related to affiliate marketing?","answer":"Is it right that I request form W-9 or form W-8BEN (for non U.S.   citizens) from the affiliate users before sending them payments? Not just OK. Required. I know that I have to send form 1099, but I don't know where does this   form should go to. Should I send it to the IRS or the affiliate user   or both? Both. There's also form 1096 that you need to send to the IRS.  Read the instructions. Should I send form 1099 once a year or each time I make a payment to   the affiliate? Once a year. Read the instructions. Do I have to send form 1099 when the money earned by the affiliate hit   a certain threshold or I have to send it anyway? $600 or more requires the form, but you can send for any amount. Read the instructions. Is there any other forms or documents to request from or send to the   affiliate user or the IRS? There may be additional forms. Especially if the recipient is a foreign person and you withhold taxes. Talk to your tax adviser."}
{"question":"How do I know when I am financially stable\/ready to move out on my own?","answer":"I'll just say this. You are in much better shape financially than I was when I moved out on my own and started supporting myself, and I did fine.  The 6 month emergency fund is nice, but I'd gamble that most people that have been out on their own for a long time can't match that. The main thing is just to keep a budget that is commensurate with your income and adjust it if you see that emergency fund start to dwindle. Look at it this way, assuming you are wrong and you completely weren't ready for independent living, you could always go back. Nothing ventured nothing gained."}
{"question":"Family suggests my first real estate. Advice?","answer":"Living in one unit of a multi-family while renting out the others, although not without its risks, can be a viable (if gradual) way to build wealth. It's been rebranded recently as \"house hacking\", but the underlying mechanics have been around for many years (many cities in the Northeast in particular remain chock full of neighborhoods of 3-family homes built and used for exactly that purpose for decades, though now frequently sub-divided into condos).  It's true you'd need to borrow money, but there are a number of reasons why it's certainly at least worth exploring (which is what you seem to be asking -- should you bother doing the homework -- tl;dr: yes): And yes, you would be relying on tenants to meet your monthly expenses, including a mortgage bill that will arrive whether the other units are vacant or not. But in most markets, rental prices are far less volatile than home prices (from the San Francisco Federal Reserve): The main result from this decomposition is that the behavior of the   price-rent ratio for housing mirrors that of the price-dividend ratio   for stocks. The majority of the movement of the price-rent ratio comes   from future returns, not rental growth rates. (Emphasis added) It's also important to remember that rental income must do more than just cover your mortgage -- there's lots of other expenses associated with a rental property, including insurance, taxes, maintenance, vacancy (an allowance for the periods when the property will be empty in between tenants), reserves for capital improvements, and more. As with any investment, it's all about whether the numbers work. (You mentioned not being interested in the \"upkeep work\", so that's another 8-10% off the top to pay for a property manager.) If you can find a property at an attractive price, secure financing on attractive terms, and can be reasonably confident that it will rent in the ballpark of 1.5-2% of the purchase price, then it might be a fine choice for you, assuming you are willing and able to handle the work of being a landlord -- something worth at least as much of your research time as the investment itself.  It sounds like you're still a ways away from having enough for even an FHA down payment, which gives you a great opportunity to find and talk with some local folks who already manage rental properties in your area (for example, you might look for a local chapter of the national Real Estate Investment Association), to get a sense of what's really involved."}
{"question":"Is there an advantage to a traditional but non-deductable IRA over a taxable account? [duplicate]","answer":"The simplest answer is that you can convert the IRA to a Roth, and since it was already taxed, pay no tax on conversion.  If, in your hypothetical situation, you happen to have an IRA already in place, you are subject to pro-rata rules on conversions, e.g. your balance is total $40K, $10K 'not deducted', a conversion is 75% taxed, convert $20K and the tax is on $15K of that money. But, there also might be a time when you are able to transfer IRA money into a 401(k), effectively removing the pretax deposits, and leaving just post tax money for a free conversion."}
{"question":"Will the ex-homeowner still owe money after a foreclosure?","answer":"Yes, the borrower is responsible for paying back the full amount of the loan. Foreclosure gives the bank possession of the property, which they can (and do) sell. Any shortfall is still the borrower's responsibility. But, no, the bank can't sell the property for a dollar; they have to make a reasonable effort. Usually the sale is done through a sheriff's sale, that is, a more or less carefully supervised auction. Bankruptcy will wipe out the shortfall, and most other debts, but the downside is that most of the rest of your assets will also be sold to help pay off what you owe. Details of what you can keep vary from state to state. If you want to go this route, hire a lawyer."}
{"question":"How is taxation for youtube\/twitch etc monetization handled in the UK?","answer":"Unless your video does very well, it's unlikely that your income from it will exceed your expenses incurred in making it, such as the purchase prices of your computer and video camera and the cost of your broadband connection, so there shouldn't be any tax to pay."}
{"question":"How useful is the PEG Ratio for large cap stocks?","answer":"It is not so useful because you are applying it to large capital. Think about Theory of Investment Value. It says that you must find undervalued stocks with whatever ratios and metrics. Now think about the reality of a company. For example, if you are waiting KO (The Coca-Cola Company) to be undervalued for buying it, it might be a bad idea because KO is already an international well known company and KO sells its product almost everywhere...so there are not too many opportunities for growth. Even if KO ratios and metrics says it's a good time to buy because it's undervalued, people might not invest on it because KO doesn't have the same potential to grow as 10 years ago. The best chance to grow is demographics. You are better off either buying ETFs monthly for many years (10 minimum) OR find small-cap and mid-cap companies that have the potential to grow plus their ratios indicate they might be undervalued. If you want your investment to work remember this: stock price growth is nothing more than You might ask yourself. What is your investment profile? Agressive? Speculative? Income? Dividends? Capital preservation? If you want something not too risky: ETFs. And not waste too much time. If you want to get more returns, you have to take more risks: find small-cap and mid-companies that are worth. I hope I helped you!"}
{"question":"Why does the calculation for percentage profit vary based on whether a position is short vs. long?","answer":"Simple math: 50-25=25, hence decline from 50 to 25 is a 50% decline (you lose half), while an advance from 25 to 50 is 100% gain (you gain 100%, double your 25 to 50). Their point is that if you have more upswings than downswings - you'll gain more on long positions during upswings than on short positions during downswings on average. Again - simple math."}
{"question":"Is there a free, online stock screener for UK stocks? ","answer":"Most free stock screeners for UK stocks, even those mentioned above, are very poor and not worth the effort really, and searching for stock screeners on a search engine will only bring up stock screeners for USA stocks. The best free UK stock screener (registration is required although this is FREE) is without any doubt on www.digitallook.com who also provide many other features like five year fundamentals, charts, prospects, etc, which can easily be downloaded onto a spreadsheet. I really wouldn't look elsewhere to be honest unless you are prepared to pay."}
{"question":"Is Amazon's offer of a $50 gift card a scam?","answer":"The most likely reason for this card is that Amazon has an arrangement with the issuer (I believe that that used to be Chase; may have changed since).  Such an arrangement may allow Amazon to take the risk of chargebacks, etc. in return for the issuer handling the mechanics of billing.  This is advantageous for Amazon, as otherwise they are subject to both their own procedures and those of the issuer.  Amazon would rather take the entire risk than share it with someone else who charges for the privilege.   Fees for processing credit cards can be as much as 5%, although 1-2% is more typical.  Due to its size, Amazon may already have negotiated fees lower than 1%.  But even so, any savings they make are to their benefit.  Further, now they can get a share of the fees charged to other merchants.  For example, if you buy a book from Barnes & Noble (an Amazon competitor) with the Amazon card, then Amazon gets some money in return, say 1% of the transaction.   If the price is the same on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, you can actually save money with the Amazon card.  Amazon gives more \"cash back\" in the form of gift card balance for an Amazon purchase.  So the card may mean that you buy from Amazon when you might otherwise have chosen someone else.  If we again assume a 20% margin, they only need $200 of additional purchases to make $40 of profit.  Someone who buys $1000 additional on the Amazon site makes them $200 of profit.  They're over $160 ahead.   Also note that Amazon is only giving you a gift card, which you have to use on Amazon.  And it's difficult to spend exactly $50.  As a practical matter, most people will buy, say, $60, with $10 of that money.  So they sell you $48 of merchandise (their cost, assuming a 20% margin) for $10.  They lost $38 on that transaction, but they've lured you into a long term relationship that may return more than that.  And they didn't lose the $50 you gained.  They only lost $38.   Think about it as a marketing cost.  Amazon is willing to pay $38 for a long term relationship with you.  From their perspective, doing so in such a way that you come out $50 ahead (assuming you would have made the same purchases without this), is a win-win.  Because once they have that relationship, they can leverage it to give them savings elsewhere.   This is Amazon's approach in general.  Originally all their products were drop shipped (from someone like Ingram Micro).  They handled the web site and billing while the drop shipper handled inventory and shipping.  Then Amazon added their own warehouses.  Now they can do all that separately.   This is just the same thing for buyers.  Amazon manages all the risk of the transaction and thus gets all the profit.  Because Amazon is managing the credit card risk, they have access to all the credit history.  This helps them better determine if that sudden shipment of a $2000 camera to Thailand is a real transaction (you're a photographer who regularly vacations in Thailand) or a fake (you've never been to Thailand in your life and your phone is camera enough).  That additional information may itself be worth enough to make the relationship profitable for Amazon.   Amazon certainly gets something out of the relationship.  You give them money.  And you are likely to give them more money with the Amazon card than they would otherwise receive.  But you get products in return.  Is that a good deal?  If you prefer having the products to the money, then yes.   Others have suggested that it's the irresponsible credit card users that generate the real profit.  I disagree.  They generate more revenue in the short term, but then they overspend and declare bankruptcy.  Then Amazon loses its money.  Yes, they get more interest and fees in that case, but if they lose $1000, they needed to make $1000 in profit just to break even.  It's safer to make the smaller short term profits with responsible customers who will continue to be customers for the long term.   A steady profit of $100 or $200 a year is better than a one time profit of $500 followed by a loss of $1000 followed by nothing for ten years.   Anyway, your question was if you should sign up for the card.  If you are planning on doing a lot of shopping on Amazon, you might as well.  It gives you cash back.  If shopping on Amazon is inconvenient, then perhaps that outweighs the advantage of the card.  The \"cash back\" is just Amazon money.  You can't spend it anywhere but Amazon.  If each transaction gives you a little bit of Amazon money, you have to keep going back to spend it."}
{"question":"Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?)","answer":"Depends what kind of expenses you intend to use this money for. If you plan to buy housing in the future (eg you're saving a deposit), then you need to ensure that the value doesn't deteriorate relative to the value of the housing you are likely to buy - so you could buy a Residential REIT, or buy some investment property. If you expect to use this money for food, then you should buy suitable assets (eg Wheat futures, etc). Link the current asset to the future expense, and you will be fine. If you buy Gold, then you are making a bet that Gold will retain its value compared to the thing you want to purchase in future. It doesn't matter what the price of Gold does in $US."}
{"question":"Making $100,000 USD per month, no idea what to do with it ","answer":"You already did the leg work by putting your money in a Schwab account. They have some of the lowest fees on index funds you can buy. I would keep things dead simple. Decide if you want some of it to be an IRA or not, and then plow your funds into a broad stock only index fund such as SCHB, SCHX, or SCHV (you could buy all three, but there would be no need to whatsoever). You will get around 2-2.5 % dividend yield, be diversified, and have extreme low fees. Fees are key to getting good returns in funds. Of course..set tax money aside as well."}
{"question":"Clarifications On PFIC Rules","answer":"Are these PFIC rules new? No, PFIC rules are not new, they've been around for a very long time. what would that mean if a person owned a non-US company stock, like a   company in Europe that makes chocolate? Is that considered assets that   produces passive income? No. But if a person owned a non-US company stock like a company that holds a company that makes chocolate - that would be passive income. this is non-US mutual funds that hold foreign shares, like a mutual fund in India, not a US fund which owns Indian stocks? Non-US fund. For those of you who are tax advisors, is the time length (30 hours)   true for filing form 8621? I would suggest not to fill this form on your own. Find a tax adviser specializing on providing services to expats, and have her do this. 30 hours for a person who has never dealt with taxes on this level before is probably not enough to learn all about PFIC, the real number is closer to 300 hours. While ZeroHedge article may be a sales pitch, PFIC rules should frighten you if they apply to your investments. Do not take them lightly, as penalties are steep and if you don't plan ahead you may end up paying way too much taxes than you could have."}
{"question":"Why do people use mortgages, when they could just pay for the house in full?","answer":"Condensed to the essence: if you can reliably get more income from investing the cost of the house than the mortgage is costing you, this is the safest leveraged investment you'll ever make. There's some risk, of course, but there is risk in any financial decision. Taking the mortgage also leaves you with far greater flexibility than if you become \"house- rich but cash-poor\". (Note that you probably shouldn't be buying at all if you may need geographic flexibility in the next five years or so; that's another part of the liquidity issue.) Also, it doesn't have to be either\/or. I borrowed half and paid the rest in cash, though I could have taken either extreme, because that was the balance of certainty vs.risk that I was comfortable with. I also took a shorter mortgage than I might have, again trading off risk and return; I decided I would rather have the house paid off at about the same time that I retire."}
{"question":"Professional tax for employees - startup in India","answer":"The tax is depended upon state where you are registered and the salary paid. More here  If you employ contract you need not pay tax."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"Merrill charges $500 flat fee to (I assume purchase) my untraded or worthless security. In my case, it's an OTC stock whose management used for a microcap scam, which resulted in a class action lawsuit, etc. but the company is still listed on OTC and I'm stuck with 1000s of shares. (No idea about the court decision)"}
{"question":"What is quotational loss in stock market?","answer":"In this instance \"quotational\" is a reference to a market price quote, not a mathematical function.  Staunch \"value investors\" like Graham, Dodd, Munger, Buffett et al. believe there is a material difference between what security is \"worth\" and what the current market mood quotes as its price.   You, the investor, perform your analysis then derive a value for a security. If there has been no material change to an aspect of the security you analyzed then there hasn't been a change in that security's value, even if there has been a decline in the price quoted by the market, that is a \"quotational loss.\""}
{"question":"Any experience with maxing out 401(k)?","answer":"You want to take the hit now.   There are tons of calculators out there, but the rule of 70 should be enough to help convince you: Assume you can put an extra $10k in a 401k now, or keep it.  If you pay ~30% in taxes, you  can have either: A) $7k now, or: B) What $10K will grow to in your 40 years till retirement less taxes at the end. The rule of 70 is a quick, dirty way to calculate compounded returns.  It says that if you divide 70 by your assumed return, you get the approximate number of years it will take to double your money.   So let's say you assume a 5% rate of return (you can replace that with whatever you want): 1) 70\/5 is 14, so you'll double your $10k every 14 years. 2) In 40 years, you'll double your money almost 3 times (2.86) 3) That means you'll end up with almost $80k before taxes 4) Even if we assume the same tax rate at retirement of 30% (odds are decent it's lower, since you'll have less income, presumably), you still have $56k. Whatever you think inflation will be, $56k later is a LOT better than $7k now."}
{"question":"Options liquidity and trading positions larger than the daily volume?","answer":"You definitely cannot be guaranteed to get the bid or ask if you are selling more than are available\/desired at those prices. What prices you do get depends on who is watching that contract and how willing they are to trade with you. This question is not much different from the question of whether you can easily get into or out of a large position in an illiquid small stock easily.  You can get out quickly if you are willing to take pennies on the dollar, or you may get a reasonable price if you take a long time to get out of (or into) your position.  You can't normally do both. In general taking large positions in illiquid assets is not something people want to do without lining up a buyer\/seller beforehand.  Instead see if you can achieve your objective with liquid investments."}
{"question":"Tax treatment of renovation costs and mortgage interest on a second house","answer":"Should I treat this house as a second home or a rental property on my 2015 taxes? If it was not rented out or available for rent then you could treat it as your second home. But if it was available for rent (i.e.: you started advertising, you hired a property manager, or made any other step towards renting it out), but you just didn't happen to find a tenant yet - then you cannot. So it depends on the facts and circumstances. I've read that if I treat this house as a rental property, then the renovation cost is a capital expenditure that I can claim on my taxes by depreciating it over 28 years. That is correct. 27.5 years, to be exact. I've also read that if I treat this house as a personal second home, then I cannot do that because the renovation costs are considered non-deductible personal expenses. That is not correct. In fact, in both cases the treatment is the same. Renovation costs are added to your basis. In case of rental, you get to depreciate the house. Since renovations are considered part of the house, you get to depreciate them too. In case of a personal use property, you cannot depreciate. But the renovation costs still get added to the basis. These are not expenses. But does mortgage interest get deducted against my total income or only my rental income? If it is a personal use second home - you get to deduct the mortgage interest up to a limit on your Schedule A. Depending on your other deductions, you may or may not have a tax benefit. If it is a rental - the interest is deducted from the rental income only on your Schedule E. However, there's no limit (although some may be deferred if the deduction is more than the income) if you're renting at fair market value. Any guidance would be much appreciated! Here's the guidance: if it is a rental - treat it as a rental. Otherwise - don't."}
{"question":"If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting?","answer":"I would not do a bill of sale for less, but a legal and safe way to reduce the taxes is to write separate bills for the boat, motor and trailer.  The taxes are paid at different rates and will represent to full sale price."}
{"question":"Organizing Expenses\/Income\/Personal Finance Documents (Paperless Office)","answer":"I'm trying to organize my financial papers as well.  I have a Fujitsu ScanSnap and it's tearing through my papers like a hot knife through butter (i.e. awesome). Here's how I'm addressing organizing the paper. I'm organizing mine a little bit organically.  Here are the main parts: So anyway, all that to say that it's not necessary to organize the files to the hilt.  If you want to, that's fine too, but it's a tradeoff:  up-front organization for possibly some time savings later.  The search function available is decreasing the advantage of organizing your files carefully.  If throwing all of your files in a digital pile makes your skin crawl, then I won't force you otherwise, but I'm not worried about it for the time being. What you're doing with the other tracking sounds fine to me.  Others may have different insights there."}
{"question":"Where to park money while saving for a car","answer":"I would split the savings as you may need some of it quickly for an emergency. At least 1\/2 should be very liquid, such as cash or MMA\/Checking.  From there, look at longer term CDs, from 30 day to 180 day, depending upon your situation.  Don't be surprised if by the time you've saved the money up, your desire for the car will have waned.  How many years will it take to save up enough?  2? 5? 10?  You may want to review your current work position instead, so you'll make more and hopefully save more towards what you do want. Important: Be prepared for the speed bumps of life. My landlord sold the house I was renting out from under me, as I was on a month-to-month contract.  I had to have a full second deposit at the ready to put down when renting elsewhere, as well as the moving expenses. Luckily, I had done what my tax attorney had said, which is \"Create a cushion of liquid assets which can cover at least three months of your entire outgoing expenses.\"   The Mormon philosophy is to carry at least one year's worth of supplies (food, water, materials) at all times in your home, for any contingency. Not Mormon, not religious, but willing to listen to others' opinions. As always, YMMV.  Your Mileage May Vary."}
{"question":"What happened when the dot com bubble burst?","answer":"It's tough to share exactly what happened. Go to yahoo and look at the chart for Cisco from 1990 to 2003 or so. From a split adjusted 8 cents a share, it peaked at just under $80 in March 2000, up by a factor of 1000. People were buying in thinking this stock would continue to rise at this pace, but logic says that's preposterous. By April of 2001, it was down to $14, 80% off its high, and later to drop below $10.  This was a classic bubble and should be studied so you don't get caught in them. A book titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds was published in 1841, yes is still an interesting read. Bubbles in markets are not new, but can be recognized and avoided. Cisco at $80 had a market cap of $438B. Had it risen 1000 fold over another decade, it would have been worth $438T, but all the wealth in the US isn't even $75T, so something was wrong, very wrong. This is one story, one stock. A remarkable time.  Yes, many companies went under, and the employees lost their jobs. And those who were heavy into the \"dotcom\" stocks lost as much as 80% (or more) of their wealth. Entire 401(k) accounts dropping this amount due to bad decisions. Those who bailed out in time survived, some doing better than others."}
{"question":"Confused about employee stock options: How do I afford these?","answer":"the short answer is: No. you do not HAVE to pay $125,000.00 at the end of your first year. that is only the amount IF you decide to exercise.  *fine print: But if you leave or get let go (which happens quite frequently at top tier Silicon Valley firms), you lose anything that you don't exercise. you're basically chained by a pair of golden handcuffs. in other words, you're stuck with the company until a liquidation event such as IPO or secondary market selling (you can expect to spend a few years before getting anything out of your stocks) Now, it's hard to say whether or not to exercise at that time, especially given we don't know the details of the company. you only should exercise if you foresee your quitting, anticipate getting fired, AND you strongly feel that stock price will keep going up. if you're in SF bay, i believe you have 10 years until your options expire (at which point they are gone forever, but that's 10 years and usually companies IPO well within 7 years). i would recommend you get a very good tax advisor (someone that understands AMT and stock options tax loopholes\/rules like the back of their hand).  I'm going to take a long shot and assume that you got an amazing offer and that you got a massive amount of ISOs from them. so i'll give this as an advice - first, congrats on owning a lot on paper today if you're still there. you chose to be an early employee at a good tech company. However, you should be more worried about AMT (alternative min tax). you will get enslaved by the IRS if you exercise your shares and can't pay the AMT. suppose, in your fictional scenario, your stock options increase 2x, on paper. you now own $1 Mil in options. but you would be paying $280000 in taxes if you chose to exercise them right now. Now, unless you can sell that IMMEDIATELY on the secondary market, i would highly advise you not to exercise right now. only exercise your ISOs when you can turn around and sell them (either waiting for IPO, or if company offers secondary market approved trading)."}
{"question":"Are personal finance \/ money management classes taught in high school, anywhere?","answer":"Did a little bit of digging, and found this article, from Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut.  Hopefully this will be a growing trend.  They say: A personal financial management class will now be offered at the beginning of the upcoming school year (2011-2012). According to the course catalogue, the focus of this course will be using mathematics as a tool in developing financial literacy skills. Topics covered in the course will include: earnings, banking, credit cards, loans, taxes, insurance, investing, loans, budgeting, and buying personal property. \"In a perfect world, everyone would be required to take a personal finance course,\" Principal John Dodig said."}
{"question":"Buy or sell futures contracts","answer":"Buying (or selling) a futures contract means that you are entering into a contractual agreement to buy (or sell) the contracted commodity or financial instrument in the contracted amount (the contract size) at the price you have bought (or sold) the contract on the contract expire date (maturity date).  It is important to understand that futures contracts are tradeable instruments, meaning that you are free to sell (or buy back) your contract at any time before the expiry date. For example, if you buy 1 \"lot\" (1 contract) of a gold future on the Comex exchange for the contract month of December 2016, then you entering into a contract to buy 100 ounces (the contract size) of gold at the price at which you buy the contract - not the spot price on the day of expiry when the contract comes to maturity.  The December 2016 gold futures contract has an expiry date of 28 December.  You are free to trade this contract at any time before its expiry by selling it back to another market participant.  If you sell the contract at a price higher than you have purchased it, then you will realise a profit of 100 times the difference between the price you bought the contract and the price you sold the contract, where 100 is the contract size of the gold contract.  Similarly, if you sell the contract at a price lower than the price you have purchased it, then you will realise a loss. (Commissions paid will also effect your net profit or loss). If you hold your contract until the expiry date and exercise your contract by taking (or making) delivery, then you are obliged to buy (or sell) 100 ounces of gold at the price at which you bought (or sold) the contract - not the current spot price. So long as your contract is \"open\" (i.e., prior to the expiry date and so long as you own the contract) you are required to make a \"good faith deposit\" to show that you intend to honour your contractual obligations.  This deposit is usually called \"initial margin\".  Typically, the initial margin amount will be about 2% of the total contract value for the gold contract.  So if you buy (or sell) one contract for 100 ounces of gold at, say, $1275 an ounce, then the total contract value will be $127,500 and your deposit requirement would be about $2,500.  The initial margin is returned to you when you sell (or buy) back your futures contract, or when you exercise your contract on expiry. In addition to initial margin, you will be required to maintain a second type of margin called \"variation margin\".  The variation margin is the running profit or loss you are showing on your open contract. For the sake of simplicity, lets look only at the case where you have purchased a futures contract.  If the futures price is higher than your contract (buy) price, then you are showing a profit on your current position and this profit (the variation margin) will be used to offset your initial margin requirement. Conversely, if the futures price has dropped below your contracted (buy) price, then you will be showing a loss on your open position and this loss (the variation margin) will be added to your initial margin and you will be called to put up more money in order to show good faith that you intend to honour your obligations.  Note that neither the initial margin nor the variation margin are accounting items.  In other words, these are not postings that are debited or credited to the ledger in your trading account.  So in some sense \"you don't have to pay anything upfront\", but you do need to put up a refundable deposit to show good faith."}
{"question":"Should I negotiate a lower salary to be placed in a lower tax bracket?","answer":"I think Feral Oink said it well here when someone asked if they should negotiate for additional benefits in lieu of a portion of salary. \"You never want to take a lower salary, especially not in exchange for something that is conditional e.g. benefits. Your salary is the only thing that is guaranteed as a condition of employment. Other things can be changed by the employer at a future point in time.\" Does it make sense to take a lower salary so I can still contribute to a Roth IRA?"}
{"question":"How to fix Finance::Quote to pull quotes in GnuCash","answer":"The yahoo finance API is no longer which broke the Finance:Quote perl module.  The Finance:Quote developers have been quick to fix things and have produced several new versions in the last week or two.  The short of it is that you need to update Finance:Quote, then obtain an AlphaVantage free key and tell Gnucash to use AlphaVantage as it's source for online quotes by editing your securities in the Price Editor."}
{"question":"Should I deduct or capitalize the cost to replace a water heater in my rental property? (details Below)","answer":"You may be able to choose.  As a small business, you can expense certain depreciable assets (section 179).  But by choosing to depreciate the asset, you are also increasing the cost-basis of the property.  Are you planning to sell the property in the next couple of years?  Do you need a higher basis? Section 179 - Election to expense certain depreciable business assets"}
{"question":"Company A is buying company B, what happens to the stock?","answer":"It depends on the timing of the events. Sometimes the buying company announces their intention but the other company doesn't like the deal. It can go back and forth several times, before the deal is finalized. The specifics of the deal determine what happens to the stock: The deal will specify when the cutoff is. Some people want the cash, others want the shares.  Some will speculate once the initial offer is announced where the final offer (if there is one) will end up. This can cause a spike in volume, and the price could go up or down. Regarding this particular deal I did find the following: http:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/expedia-to-acquire-orbitz-worldwide-for-12-per-share-in-cash-300035187.html Additional Information and Where to Find It Orbitz intends to file with the SEC a proxy statement as well as other   relevant documents in connection with the proposed transaction with   Expedia. The definitive proxy statement will be sent or given to the   stockholders of Orbitz and will contain important information about   the proposed transaction and related matters. SECURITY HOLDERS ARE   URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT CAREFULLY WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE   AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY   AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THOSE DOCUMENTS, BECAUSE THEY WILL   CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. The proxy statement and other relevant   materials (when they become available), and any other documents filed   by Expedia or Orbitz with the SEC, may be obtained free of charge at   the SEC's website, at www.sec.gov. In addition, security holders will   be able to obtain free copies of the proxy statement from Orbitz by   contacting Investor Relations by mail at ATTN: Corporate Secretary,   Orbitz Worldwide, Inc., 500 W. Madison Street, Suite 1000, Chicago,   Illinois 60661."}
{"question":"Is an analyst's \"price target\" assumed to be for 12 months out?","answer":"I don't think you can always assume a 12-month time horizon.  Sometimes, the analyst's comments might provide some color on what kind of a time horizon they're thinking of, but it might be quite vague."}
{"question":"Is there any drawback in putting all my 401K into a money market fund?","answer":"The drawback is not knowing when prices have reached a level where you are comfortable getting back in.   Someone who got out at S&P 1500 before the crash of '08 was very happy. But did they get back in at 666 or just watch the market come back 3X from that level? The S&P returned 10.46% from Jan '87 till Dec '14. I wonder how many traders got in and out just right to beat that number? Bottom line is that even the pro's acknowledge that timing the market is basically impossible, so why try?"}
{"question":"Payroll taxes on exercised stock options","answer":"The trickiest thing is the federal tax. It's typical to withhold 25% federal on this type of event. If your federal marginal rate was already towards the top of that bracket, you'll owe the missing 3% as you enter the 28% bracket. Nothing awful, just be aware."}
{"question":"Why are there many small banks and more banks in the U.S.?","answer":"Actually it seems you are not quite correct about the number of different banks in Canada. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_banks_and_credit_unions_in_Canada According to this link there are 82-86 banks in Canada plus credit unions. This may still be lower than what would correspond to the number of banks in the US, scaled for canadian population. One further reason not mentioned before could be that the population density in Canada outside of the metropolitan areas could be lower than in the US, leaving to few small towns large enough (10,000+ (a guess corrected due to comment)) to support a bank."}
{"question":"Apartment lease renewal - is this rate increase normal?","answer":"There has been almost no inflation during 2014-2015. do you mean rental price inflation or overall inflation? Housing price and by extension rental price inflation is usually much higher than the \"basket of goods\" CPI or RPI numbers. The low levels of these two indicators are mostly caused by technology, oil and food price deflation (at least in the US, UK, and Europe) outweighing other inflation. My slightly biased (I've just moved to a new rental property) and entirely London-centric empirical evidence suggests that 5% is quite a low figure for house price inflation and therefore also rental inflation. Your landlord will also try to get as much for the property as he can so look around for similar properties and work out what a market rate might be (within tolerances of course) and negotiate based on that. For the new asked price I could get a similar apartment in similar condos with gym and pool (this one doesn't have anything) or in a way better area (closer to supermarkets, restaurants, etc). suggests that you have already started on this and that the landlord is trying to artificially inflate rents. If you can afford the extra 5% and these similar but better appointed places are at that price why not move? It sounds like the reason that you are looking to stay on in this apartment is either familiarity or loyalty to the landlord so it may be time to benefit from a move."}
{"question":"How do I find a good mutual fund to invest 5K in with a moderately high amount of risk?","answer":"The \"Money 70\" is a fine list: http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/magazines\/moneymag\/bestfunds\/index.html Money magazine is usually more reasonable than the other ones (SmartMoney, Kiplinger's, etc. are in my opinion sillier). If you want a lot of depth, the Morningstar Analyst Picks are useful but you have to pay for a membership which is probably not worth it for now: http:\/\/www.morningstar.com\/Cover\/Funds.aspx (side note: Morningstar star ratings are not useful, I'd ignore those. analyst picks are pretty useful.) Vanguard is a can't-go-too-wrong suggestion. They don't have any house funds that are \"bad,\" while for example Fidelity has some good ones mixed with a bunch that aren't so much. Of course, some funds at Vanguard may be inappropriate for your situation. (Vanguard also sells third-party funds, I'm talking about their own branded funds.) If getting started with 5K I think you'd want to go with an all-in-one fund like a target date retirement fund or a balanced fund. Such a fund also handles rebalancing for you. There's a Vanguard target date fund and balanced fund (Wellington) in the Money 70 list. fwiw, I think it's more important to ask how much risk you need to take, rather than how much you are willing to take. I wrote this down at more length here: http:\/\/blog.ometer.com\/2010\/11\/10\/take-risks-in-life-for-savings-choose-a-balanced-fund\/ First pick your desired asset allocation, then pick your fund after that to match. Good luck."}
{"question":"How does the market adjust for fees in ETPs?","answer":"Because ETFs, unlike most other pooled investments, can be easily shorted, it is possible for institutional investors to take an arbitrage position that is long the underlying securities and short the ETF.  The result is that in a well functioning market (where ETF prices are what they should be) these institutional investors would earn a risk-free profit equal to the fee amount. How much is this amount, though? ETFs exist in a very competitive market.  Not only do they compete with each other, but with index and mutual funds and with the possibility of constructing one's own portfolio of the underlying.  ETF investors are very cost-conscious. As a result, ETF fees just barely cover their costs.  Typically, ETF providers do not even do their own trading.  They issue new shares only in exchange for a bundle of the underlying securities, so they have almost no costs.  In order for an institutional investor to make money with the arbitrage you describe, they would need to be able to carry it out for less than the fees earned by the ETF.  Unlike the ETF provider, these investors face borrowing and other shorting costs and limitations. As a result it is not profitable for them to attempt this.  Note that even if they had no costs, their maximum upside would be a few basis points per year.  Lots of low-risk investments do better than that. I'd also like to address your question about what would happen if there was an ETF with exorbitant fees.  Two things about your suggested outcome are incorrect.   If short sellers bid the price down significantly, then the shares would be cheap relative to their stream of future dividends and investors would again buy them.  In a well-functioning market, you can't bid the price of something that clearly is backed by valuable underlying assets down to near zero, as you suggest in your question. Notice that there are limitations to short selling.  The more shares are short-sold, the more difficult it is to locate share to borrow for this purpose.  At first brokers start charging additional fees.  As borrowable shares become harder to find, they require that you obtain a \"locate,\" which takes time and costs money.  Finally they will not allow you to short at all.  Unlimited short selling is not possible. If there was an ETF that charged exorbitant fees, it would fail, but not because of short sellers.  There is an even easier arbitrage strategy: Investors would buy the shares of the ETF (which would be cheaper than the value of the underlying because of the fees) and trade them back to the ETF provider in exchange for shares of the underlying.  This would drain down the underlying asset pool until it was empty.   In fact, it is this mechanism (the ability to trade ETF shares for shares of the underlying and vice versa) that keeps ETF prices fair (within a small tolerance) relative to the underlying indices."}
{"question":"Is it smart to only invest in mid- and small-cap stock equity funds in my 401(k)?","answer":"Can you easily stomach the risk of higher volatility that could come with smaller stocks? How certain are you that the funds wouldn't have any asset bloat that could cause them to become large-cap funds for holding to their winners? If having your 401(k) balance get chopped in half over a year doesn't give you any pause or hesitation, then you have greater risk tolerance than a lot of people but this is one of those things where living through it could be interesting. While I wouldn't be against the advice, I would consider caution on whether or not the next 40 years will be exactly like the averages of the past or not. In response to the comments: You didn't state the funds so I how I do know you meant index funds specifically? Look at \"Fidelity Low-Priced Stock\" for a fund that has bloated up in a sense. Could this happen with small-cap funds? Possibly but this is something to note. If you are just starting to invest now, it is easy to say, \"I'll stay the course,\" and then when things get choppy you may not be as strong as you thought. This is just a warning as I'm not sure you get my meaning here. Imagine that some women may think when having a child, \"I don't need any drugs,\" and then the pain comes and an epidural is demanded because of the different between the hypothetical and the real version. While you may think, \"I'll just turn the cheek if you punch me,\" if I actually just did it out of the blue, how sure are you of not swearing at me for doing it? Really stop and think about this for a moment rather than give an answer that may or may not what you'd really do when the fecal matter hits the oscillator. Couldn't you just look at what stocks did the best in the last 10 years and just buy those companies? Think carefully about what strategy are you using and why or else you could get tossed around as more than a few things were supposed to be the \"sure thing\" that turned out to be incorrect like the Dream Team of Long-term Capital Management, the banks that were too big to fail, the Japanese taking over in the late 1980s, etc. There are more than a few times where things started looking one way and ended up quite differently though I wonder if you are aware of this performance chasing that some will do."}
{"question":"Do Affordable Care Act business requirements apply to \"control groups?\"","answer":"Yes, it applies to control groups.  If I remember correctly common ownership rules are used to determine \"Applicable Large Employer\" status but if the time comes to owe a penalty, only the actual entity missing the mark will owe a penalty, not the entire control group. This is an excerpt from Section 4980H (the section that lays out employer requirements and penalties) (16) Employer. The term employer means the person that is the employer of an employee under the common-law standard. See \u00a7 31.3121(d)-1(c). For purposes of determining whether an employer is an applicable large employer, all persons treated as a single employer under section 414(b), (c), (m), or (o) are treated as a single employer. Thus, all employees of a controlled group of entities under section 414(b) or (c), an affiliated service group under section 414(m), or an entity in an arrangement described under section 414(o), are taken into account in determining whether the members of the controlled group or affiliated service group together are an applicable large employer. For purposes of determining applicable large employer status, the term employer also includes a predecessor employer (see paragraph (a)(36) of this section) and a successor employer. Link to the Federal Register"}
{"question":"Credit Card Points from Refund","answer":"That transaction probably cost the merchant $0.50 + 3% or close to $5.  They should have refunded your credit card so they could have recouped some of the fees. (I imagine that's why big-box retailers like Home Depot always prefer to put it back on your card than give you store credit) Consider yourself lucky you made out with $0.15 this time.  (Had they refunded your card, the 1% of $150 credit would have gone against next month's reward) Once upon a time folks were buying money from the US Mint by the tens of thousands $ range and receiving credit card rewards, then depositing the money to pay it off.. They figured that out and put a stop to it."}
{"question":"Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?","answer":"I realize that most posters are US based, but the UK on Saturday had its biggest ever payout (a miserable \u00a360m). Because of the rules there, the estimated \"value\" of a \u00a32 ticket was between \u00a33 and \u00a35. http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2016\/jan\/09\/national-lottery-lotto-drawing-odds-of-winning-maths"}
{"question":"Why have U.S. bank interest rates been so low for the past few years?","answer":"I've wondered the same thing.  And, after reading the above replies, I think there is a simpler explanation. It goes like this. When the bank goes to make a loan they need capital to do it. So, they can get it from the federal reserve, another bank, or us. Well, if the federal reserve will loan it to them for lets say 0.05%, what do you think they are going to be willing to pay us?  Id say maybe 0.04%. Anyway, I could be wrong, but this makes sense to me."}
{"question":"How to change a large quantity of U.S. dollars into Euros?","answer":"You would probably be better off wiring the money from your US account to your French account. That IMHO is the cheapest and safest way. It doesn't matter much which bank to use, as it will go through the same route of SWIFT transfer, just choose the banks with the lowest fees on both sides, shop around a little."}
{"question":"I am a contractor with revenue below UK's VAT threshold.  Should I register for VAT?","answer":"The most important thing to remember is that being VAT registered, you must add VAT to every bill, so every bill will be 20% higher. If the bill payer is a company, they don't care because they deduct the 20% VAT from their own VAT bill. If the bill payer is a private person, their cost of your services has just gone up by 20% and it is going to hurt your business. So the question is, what kind of customers do you have?  But if your customers are companies, then the flat rate scheme mentioned above is very little work and puts a nice little amount of extra cash in your pocket (suitable if your bills are mostly for your work and not for parts that you buy for the customer and bill them for)."}
{"question":"Help: Being charged interest on a loan for which I received no statements telling me of this debt for the past 15 years. Surprise!","answer":"Investigate the statute of limitations in your area.  15 years sounds like in most places it is past the allowable time a debt collector can legally collect or report it on your credit report. The statute of limitations means you still owe the debt, but they collector can no longer use the court system to collect it from you.  They can file a lawsuit, they will just lose.  Please read up on how to handle yourself with a debt that is past the SoL, so that you don't accidentally reset the clock. What I don't know for sure is how that applies to a business, and I cannot remember ever hearing a difference between personal vs business debt, but it is best to consult a lawyer regarding it. References:"}
{"question":"Will I get taxed on withdrawals from Real Cash Economy games?","answer":"Situation #1: I keep playing, and eventually earn 1000 PED. I withdraw   this. Will I get taxed? If so, by how much? This is probably considered an \"award\", so whatever your country taxes for lottery\/gambling winnings would be applicable. If there's no specific taxation on this kinds of income - then it is ordinary income. Situation #2: I deposit $5000, play the game, lose some money and   withdraw PED equal to $4000. Will I get taxed? If so, by how much? Since it is a game, it is unlikely that deducting losses from your income would be allowed.  However, the $4000 would probably not be taxed as income (since you are getting your own money back). Situation #3: I deposit $5000 and use this to buy in-game items. I   later sell these items for massive profits (200%+, this can happen   over the course of 2 years for sure). I withdraw $10000. Will I get   taxed? If so, by how much? Either the same as #1 (i.e.: ordinary income) or as capital gains (although tax authority may argue that this was not a for-profit investment, and capital gains treatment shouldn't be applicable). Will I get taxed on withdrawals from Real Cash Economy games? And do   the taxes apply to the full withdrawal, or only on the profits? Or   only on the profits above a certain amount? Generally income taxes only apply on income. So if you paid $10000 and got back $12000 - only the $2000 is considered income. However some countries may tax full amounts under certain conditions. Such taxes are called \"franchise taxes\". For a proper tax advice consult with the locally licensed tax adviser."}
{"question":"Foreign company incorporated in US and W9","answer":"According to the W9 instructions you are considered a U.S. person if: According to the following section, it looks like a C corporation may be easier then an LLC: All of this information can be found here: http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/fw9.pdf Hope this helps!"}
{"question":"Can I deduct \"Non-Reimbursable Expenses\"?","answer":"You can only deduct (with the 2% AGI threshold) expenses that: You've actually incurred. I.e.: you actually paid for equipment or services provided and can show receipts for the payment. At the request of the employer. I.e.: you didn't just decide on your own to buy a new book or take a class, your employer told you to. With business necessity. I.e.: it was in order for you to do your job. And you were not reimbursed by your employer. I.e.: you went somewhere and spent your after tax money on something employer explicitly told you to pay for, and you didn't get reimbursed for that. From your story - these conditions don't hold for you. As I said in the comments - I strongly suggest you talk to a lawyer. Your story just doesn't make any sense, and I suspect your employer is doing something very fishy here."}
{"question":"High-risk investing is better for the young? Why?","answer":"What is the importance or benefit of the assumption that high-risk is preferable for younger people\/investors instead of older people? Law of averages most high risk investments [stocks for examples, including Mutual funds]. Take any stock market [some have data for nearly 100 years] on a 15 year or 30 years horizon, the year on year growth is around 15 to 18 percentage. Again depends on which country, market etc ... Equally important every stock market in the same 15 year of 30 year time, if you take specific 3 year window, it would have lost 50% or more value. As one cannot predict for future, someone who is 55 years, if he catches wrong cycle, he will lose 50%. A young person even if he catches the cycle and loses 50%, he can sit tight as it will on 30 years average wipe out that loss."}
{"question":"Having trouble with APR calculation","answer":"Check your calculation of A**. I was able to duplicate their calculations using excel. Make you sure have accounted for all the terms, it can be easy to be one off. They are making a guess at the interest rate which will be wrong, then they are adjusting it to see how wrong it is, then making another adjustment. They will repeat until they see no movement in the guesses."}
{"question":"Would the purchase of a car for a business through the use of a business loan be considered a business expense?","answer":"You don't say what country you live in. If it's the U.S., the IRS has very specific rules for business use of a car. See, for starters at least, http:\/\/www.irs.gov\/publications\/p463\/ch04.html. The gist of it is: If you use the car 100% for business purposes, you NEVER use it to drive to the grocery store or to your friend's house, etc, then it is a deductible business expense. If you use a car party for business use and partly for personal use, than you can deduct the portion of the expense of the car that is for business use, but not the portion that is for personal use. So basically, if you use the car 75% for business purposes and 25% for personal use, you can deduct 75% of the cost and expenses. You can calculate the business use by, (a) Keeping careful records of how much you spent on gas, oil, repairs, etc, tracking the percentage of business use versus percentage of personal use, and then multiplying the cost by the percentage business use and that is the amount you can deduct; or (b) Use the standard mileage allowance, so many cents per mile, which changes every year. Note that the fact that you paid for the car from a business account has absolutely nothing to do with it. (If it did, then everyone could create a small business, open a business account, pay all their bills from there, and all their personal expenses would magically become business expenses.) Just by the way: If you are going to try to stretch the rules on your taxes, business use of a car or personal computer or expenses for a home office are the worst place to do it. The IRS knows that cars and computers are things that can easily be used for either personal or business purposes and so they keep a special eye out on these."}
{"question":"Any Ubiquitous Finance App That is on Mac, iOS and Windows?","answer":"I have been using bearsofts money app, both in mac and iOS. I think only down side with this apps is you need to buy them separately. http:\/\/ibearmoney.com\/money-mac.html"}
{"question":"What's the general principle behind choosing saving vs. paying off debt?","answer":"Depends upon the debt cost. Assuming it is consumer debt or credit card debt, it is better to pay that off first, it is the best investment you can make. Let's say it is credit card debt. If you pay 18% interst and have for example a $1,000 amount. If you pay it off you save $180 in interest ($1,000 times 18%). You would have to earn 18% on 1,000 to generate $180  if it was in aninvestment. Here is a link discussing ways of reducing debt Once you have debt paid off you have the cashflow to begin building wealth. The key is in the cashflow."}
{"question":"Growth rate plus dividend yieid total?","answer":"In my mind its not the same.   If growth is stock value then this is incorrect because of compound interest in stock price. $100 stock price after one year would be $105 and a dividend would be $2 Next year the stock would be  $110.20 (Compound Interest) and would the Dividend really go up in lock step with the stock price? Well probably not, but if it did then maybe you could call it the same. Even if the dollars are the same the growth rate is more variable than the dividends so its valuable to segregate the two. I am open to criticism, my answer is based on my personal experience and would love to hear contrary positions on this."}
{"question":"Where can I find a company's earnings history for free? ","answer":"Regulators? SEC, in the US. Its public records for public companies."}
{"question":"How to save money for future expenses","answer":"My answer will suck but it comes from someone who has been married: You can't control another person or convince them to do something.  What you can do is identify what they value and show how saving money increases their opportunities in what they value, but understand that the person could see what you're saying as invalid too.  If you're single and reading this, this is why you verify that the person has similar values to you. Think of it like someone who wants good gas mileage: you show them a car that gets 60MPG, and immediately they say, \"Well, but that's not a cool car.\"  So their value isn't the miles per gallon, and you may find the same is true with your spouse.  India is paying more interest than the US and Europe in their savings accounts (I believe the benchmark interest rate is 7.5%), so - assuming your spouse values more money - showing him how to use money in savings to passively earn money might be a technique that works.  But it may mean nothing to him because it's (1) not his actual value or (2) isn't enough to matter in his mind. In other words, this is all sales and whatever you do (and this is regardless of gender), don't manipulate, as in the long run that tends to build resentment.  If there is a specific problem that you know he sees as a major issue and saving money can help, I'd recommend showing how savings would help with that problem.  People generally like solutions to problems; just remember, what you think he sees as a problem may not be what he sees as a problem.  This is why I chuckle when I see single people give married people advice; you can't just \"convince the person enough\" because you are not that person; we have to speak their language and we should be careful to avoid creating resentment. The part that sucks (or doesn't depending on who you ask) is that if we can't convince others to do it, we should do it ourselves.  Either (1) earn money independently yourself when applicable (realizing that you are about to have a child and may be limited), or (2) save the money that you and your spouse have agreed that you're allotted, if this applies to your situation (a few spouses divide income even when one is an earner)."}
{"question":"Is there a significant danger to market orders as opposed to limit orders?","answer":"The risk of market orders depends heavily on the size of the market and the exchange. On big exchange and a security which is traded in hue numbers you're likely that there are enough participants to give you a \"fair\" price. Doing a market order on a security which is hardly dealed you might make a bad deal. In Germany Tradegate Exchange and the sister company the bank Tradegate AG are known to play a bit dirty: Their market is open longer than Frankfurt (Xetra) and has way lower liquidity. So it can happen that not all sell or buy orders can be processes on the Exchange and open orders are kept. Then Tradegate AG steps in with a new offer to full-fill these trades selling high or buying low. There is a German article going in details on wiwo.de either German or via Google Translate"}
{"question":"Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?","answer":"I think the key point that's making the other commenters misunderstand each other here is the concept of \"deductions\". I can only speak for the UK, but that's only a concept that business owners would understand in this country.  For things like child credits or low income tax credits, we don't get paid them at the end of the tax year, but into our bank accounts every couple of weeks all year round. Therefore, we have nothing to \"deduct\". If we work for a company and have business expenses, then the company pays for them. If we make interest on our savings, the bank pays it for us. We make money at our jobs, and the employer works out what taxes and national insurance we owe, based on a tax code that the government works out for us annually (which we can challenge).  To be fair, it's not like we're free from bureaucracy if we want to claim these benefits. There are often lots of forms if you want child benefit or disability allowances, for instance. We just apply as soon as we're eligible, rather than waiting to get a lump sum rebate. So it appears to be a very different system, and neither is inherently better than the other (though I'm personally glad I don't usually have to fill in a big tax return myself, which I only did one year when I was self employed). I'd be interested to know, since Google has let me down, which countries use the American system, and which the British or Czech."}
{"question":"How to finance necessary repairs to our home in order to sell it?","answer":"A typical HELOC will have about $300 in fees to open it. From there, it's up to you how much or how long to use it.  I'd shop around to find the bank that offers the right product for you."}
{"question":"Single investment across multiple accounts\u2026 good, bad, indifferent?","answer":"One implication is the added fees if you are investing in something with a trading cost or commission, such as your stock purchase. If you pay low costs to trade (e.g. with a discount broker) and don't switch your investments often, then costs overall should remain reasonable .. but always be aware of your costs and seek to minimize them."}
{"question":"How do I estimate my taxes when I have only 1099 income?","answer":"As long as you paid 100% of your last year's tax liability (overall tax liability, the total tax to pay on your 1040) or 90% of the total tax liability this year, or your underpayment is no more than $1000, you won't be penalized as long as you pay the difference by April 15th. That's per the IRS. I don't know where the \"10% of my income\" came from, I'm not aware of any such rule."}
{"question":"How expensive is it to keep minimal cash at a brokerage?","answer":"You're trying to mitigate the risk of having your investments wiped out by fraud committed by your broker by using margin loans to buy stock secured by other, non-cash assets in your account. The solution that you are proposing does not make any sense at all. You mitigate a very low probability\/high impact risk by doing something that comes with a high probability\/medium impact risk.  In addition to interest costs, holding stocks on margin subjects you to the very real risk of being forced to sell assets at inopportune times to meet margin calls. Given the volatility that the markets are experiencing in 2011, there is a high risk that some irrational decision in Greece could wipe you out. If I were worried about this, I would: If you have enough money that SIPC protection limits are an issue, you desperately need a financial adviser. Do not implement any strategy involving margin loans until you talk to a qualified adviser."}
{"question":"How can rebuilding a city\/large area be considered an economic boost?","answer":"You're entirely correct.  It's one of those \"broken window\" fallacies.   Have you ever witnessed the anger of   the good shopkeeper, James B., when   his careless son happened to break a   square of glass? If you have been   present at such a scene, you will most   assuredly bear witness to the fact,   that every one of the spectators, were   there even thirty of them, by common   consent apparently, offered the   unfortunate owner this invariable   consolation - \"It is an ill wind that   blows nobody good. Everybody must   live, and what would become of the   glaziers if panes of glass were never   broken?\" Frederic Bastiat's 1850 essay, \"That which is seen and that which is not seen\" is still the best and most beautifully-written of such explanations.   As you point out, a gain for the construction companies is more than offset by the loss of life and financial expenditure of the insurance companies.  Plus, it is never possible to quantify the entirety of the loss in terms of opportunities foregone (\"that which is not seen\").  People who were about to do incredible things but now gone.  Property, of any nature, no longer of use to build on or perform service. Any replacement comes at the expense of other opportunities."}
{"question":"Can I transfer my investment property into a SMSF?","answer":"Regarding transferring a residential investment property into your SMSF, no you cannot do it. You cannot transfer residential property into your SMSF from a related party. You can only transfer Business Real Property (that is commercial or industrial property) into a SMSF from a related party. You can buy new residential property inside your SMSF, and you can also borrow within the fund (using a non-recourse loan) to help you buy it, or you could buy it as tenants-in-common with your SMSF (that is you own say 50% in your own name and 50% under the SMSF). Regarding self-managing the investment properties held in your SMSF, yes you can, but you should make sure all your paperwork is in order (all your t's crossed and your i's dotted). You can even charge your SMSF for managing the properties, but this should be at market rates (not more)."}
{"question":"Is there any way to know how much new money the US is printing?","answer":"The Fed doesn't exactly have a specific schedule when they decide to create a new dollar. Instead, they engage in open market operations, creating and destroying money as is necessary to preserve a certain interest rate for lending and borrowing. It's an ongoing process. When the Fed meets periodically and they see that inflation is getting out of hand, they will raise that rate; when they see that the economy is weak, they will lower it. They change the target rate from time to time, but they seldom tell people exactly what they'll do in advance, aside from them recently saying that rates will remain incredibly low \"for an extended period of time\". There are people who trade futures contracts based on what they think these rates will be, and the Fed does publish information on what the market thinks the probabilities are. That's probably the closest thing to telling you \"how much and when\". If you want to know about the size of the money supply, ask the Federal Reserve; you probably want series H.6, Money Stock Measures. For an explanation of what the data series there means, ask Wikipedia: you're probably interested in M2, because that's what actually affects the economy, though M0 is closer to what they actually \"print\" (currency, bills and coins, and deposits at the central bank). If you're concerned about the actual real value of your dollar dropping, the actual value drop is better understood by looking at either the inflation rate, or an exchange rate against a foreign currency (and depending on what you were hoping to use that dollar for, there are a couple of different inflation rates). The standard inflation rate which measures what happens in your day to day life is the consumer price index, published by the BLS. There are a variety of forecasts of this, but I'm not aware of any official government-agency forecasts."}
{"question":"What does the phrase \"To make your first million\" mean?","answer":"I've not heard it used in any way other than one's net worth reaching a million.  No 30 yr old lawyer brags that his cumulative income just passed $1M because he may not have saved a dime of it."}
{"question":"What happens if I get approved for financing, but don't make the purchase?","answer":"Nothing will happen. It will not affect your credit score. You are not in trouble.  :) Assuming that you didn't already agree to a purchase contract, you are not obligated to purchase simply because you had a pre-approval credit check done. However, even if you did, since they aren't shipping yet, you could probably cancel. If you are in doubt, talk to customer service to ensure that they aren't planning on shipping one to you.  They did check your credit report (known as a hard pull), and this does temporarily affect your credit score. However, it affects it the same whether you complete the purchase or not. If you have another credit check done with another seller, it will result in another hard pull, affecting your credit score a little more. But I wouldn't worry about a few hard pulls if you need to do some shopping. Just don't go overboard, and you'll be fine."}
{"question":"When do I sell a stock that I hold as a long-term position?","answer":"This answer relies on why you are holding shares of a company in the first place. So let's address that: So does this mean you would like to vote with your shares on the directions the company takes? If so, your reasons for selling would be different from the next speculator who only is interested in share price volatility. Regardless of your participation in potential voting rights associated with your share ownership, a different reason to sell is based on if your fundamental reasons for investing in the company have changed.  Enhancements on this topic include: Trade management, how to deal with position sizes. Buying and selling partial positions based on price action while keeping a core long term position, but this is not something \"long term investors\" generally put too much effort in. Price targets, start your long term investment with a price target in mind, derived from a future market cap based on your initial fundamental analysis of the company's prospects. And finally, there are a lot of things you can do with a profitable investment in shares."}
{"question":"Do I repay Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) if I suddenly have income and assets","answer":"There are two types of insurance, which causes some confusion. Social Security Disability Insurance (which you indicate you have) is insurance you can receive benefit from if you earn enough \"work credits\" (payroll taxes) prior to your disability onset. It is not a needs-based program. Supplemental Security Income is a need-based program which does not consider your work history. To qualify for this, your total assets need to be lower than some threshold and your family income also below some threshold. If you inherit a home, or money, I doubt this would jeopardize your SSDI qualification, since your qualification was based on a disabling condition and work history. If you inherit an income property, which you manage (i.e. you become a landlord), this may jeopardize your claim that you are unable to work. Even if you are not making an \"income\" as the landlord, but the work your are performing is deemed to have some \"value\" this too could jeopardize your claim. All of this can be very complicated, and there are some excellent references on the web including SSA website, and some other related websites. Finally, if you become able to work while on SSDI, your benefit may\/will end depending on the level of work you are able to perform. But just because you are able to work again does not mean you need to repay past benefits received (assuming your condition has not been falsified). Your local social security office, or the social security main office both offer telephone support and can also answer questions regarding your concern. Here are a couple relevant links:"}
{"question":"What to do with south african currency free fall","answer":"Transfer your savings to a dollar-based CD. Or even better, buy some gold on them."}
{"question":"Why are capital gains taxed at a lower rate than normal income? ","answer":"There are many reasons, which other answers have already discussed. I want to emphasize and elaborate on just one of the reasons, which is that it avoids double taxation, especially on corporate earnings.  Generally, for corporations, its earnings are already taxed at around 40% (for the US - including State income taxes). When dividends are distributed out, it is taxed again at the individual level. The effect is the same when equity is sold and the distribution is captured as a capital gain. (I believe this is why the dividend and capital gain rates are the same in the US.) For a simplistic example, say there is a C Corporation with a single owner. The company earns $1,000,000 before income taxes. It pays 400,000 in taxes, and has retained earnings of $600,000. To get the money out, the owner can either distribute a dividend to herself, or sell her stake to another person. Either choice leads to $600,000 getting taxed at another 20%~30% or so at the individual level (depending on the State). If we calculate the effective rate, it is above 50%! Many people invest in stock, including mutual funds, and the dividends and capital gains are taxed at lower rates. Individual tax returns that contain no wage income often have very low average tax rates for this reason. However, the investments themselves are continuously paying out their own taxes, or accruing taxes in the form of future tax liability."}
{"question":"When is the right time to buy a car and\/or a house?","answer":"My recommendation is to pay off your student loans as quickly as possible. It sounds like you're already doing this but don't incur any other large debts until you have this taken care of.  I'd also recommend not buying a car, especially an expensive one, on credit or lease either. Back during the dotcom boom I and many friends bought or leased expensive cars only to lose them or struggle paying for them when the bottom dropped out. A car instantly depreciates and it's quite rare for them to ever gain value again. Stick with reliable, older, used cars that you can purchase for cash. If you do borrow for a car, shop around for the best deal and avoid 3+ year terms if at all possible. Don't lease unless you have a business structure where this might create a clear financial advantage. Avoid credit cards as much as possible although if you do plan to buy a house with a mortgage you'll need to maintain some credit history. If you have the discipline to keep your balance small and paid down you can use a credit card to build credit history. However, these things can quickly get out of hand and you'll wonder why you suddenly owe $10K, $20K or even more on them so be very careful with them. As for the house (speaking of US markets here), save up for at least a 20% down payment if you can. Based on what you said, this would be about $20-25K. This will give you a lot more flexibility to take advantage of deals that might come your way, even if you don't put it all into the house. \"Stretching\" to buy a house that's too expensive can quickly lead to financial ruin. As for house size, I recommend purchasing a 4 bedroom house even if you aren't planning on kids right away. It will resell better and you'll appreciate having the extra space for storage, home office, hobbies, etc. Also, life has a way of changing your plans for having kids and such."}
{"question":"What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: \u2018this time it\u2019s different'?","answer":"Essentially, he means \"one ignores history at their own peril\". We often hear people arguing that \"the old rules no longer apply\".  Whether it be to valuations, borrowing, or any of the other common metrics, to ignore the lessons of the past is to invite disaster.   History shows us that major crises in the markets usually occur when the old rules are ignored and people believe that current exceptional market conditions are justified by special circumstances."}
{"question":"Snowball debt or pay off a large amount?","answer":"Pay the highest rate debt first, it's as simple as that. When that debt is paid (the 24% card in this case) pay off the next one.  As far as having an emergency fund is concerned, I consider it a second priority. If one owes 24% money, that $2000 emergency fund is costing $480\/yr. Ouch. Avoid the behaviors that got you into debt in the first place, and pay the cards off as fast as you can. When you have no balance, start to save, first into the emergency account, then toward retirement."}
{"question":"LLC in states with customers with and without employees in the state","answer":"If I hire someone in Utah to do sales for me over the phone, and he   works out of his home, am I required to register an LLC or file my   current one as a foreign entity in Utah? Yes, since you've established presence in Utah. You'll register your current LLC in Utah, no point creating another one. If my sales guy, or I, call businesses in, say, Florida, and sell a   few businesses our services for online work like maybe a website   design, etc. Are we required to file our LLC In Florida as either a   new LLC or a foreign one? No, you need to register where you (your company, including your employees or physical offices) are physically present. You don't need to register in any state you ship products or provide services to. If no-one of your company's employees is present in Florida and you don't have an office\/rent a storage there - then you have no presence in Florida. If you actually go there to provide the services - then you do."}
{"question":"Will refinancing my auto loan hurt my mortgage approval or help it?","answer":"Generally it is not recommended that you do anything potentially short-term deleterious to your credit during the process of seeking a mortgage loan - such as opening a new account, closing old accounts, running up balances, or otherwise applying for any kind of loan (people often get carried away and apply for loans to cover furniture and appliances for the new home they haven't bought yet). You are usually OK to do things that have at least a short-term positive effect, like paying down debt. But refinancing - which would require applying for a non-home loan - is exactly the sort of hard-pull that can drop your credit rating. It is not generally advised. The exception to this is would be if you have an especially unusual situation with an existing loan (like your car), that is causing a deal-breaking situation with your home loan. This would for example be having a car payment so high that it violates maximum Debt-to-Income ratios (DTI). If your monthly debt payments are more than 43% of your monthly income, for instance, you will generally be unable to obtain a \"qualified mortgage\", and over 28-36% will disqualify you from some lenders and low-cost mortgage options. The reason this is unusual is that you would have to have a bizarrely terrible existing loan, which could somehow be refinanced without increasing your debt while simultaneously providing a monthly savings so dramatic that it would shift your DTI from \"unacceptable\" to \"acceptable\". It's possible, but most simple consumer loan refis just don't give that kind of savings. In most cases you should just \"sit tight\" and avoid any new loans or refinances while you seek a home purchase. If you want to be sure, you'll need to figure out your DTI ratio (which I recommend anyway) and see where you would be before and after a car refinance. If this would produce a big swing, maybe talk with some mortgage loan professionals who are familiar with lending criteria and ask for their opinion as to whether the change would be worth it. 9 times out of 10, you should wait until after your loan is closed and the home is yours before you try to refinance your car. However I would only warn you that if you think your house + car payment is too much for you to comfortably afford, I'd strongly recommend you seriously reconsider your budget, current car ownership, and house purchasing plans. You might find that after the house purchase the car refi isn't available either, or fine print means it wouldn't provide the savings you thought it would. Don't buy now hoping an uncertain cost-saving measure will work out later."}
{"question":"What to do if my aging father is sustaining a hobby that is losing several thousand dollars every month?","answer":"If this was going on in the UK, I would try to get a mental capacity assessment done on the father. There are laws that stop you taking advantage of people that don\u2019t understand what is going on; these laws could be used against the manager, but only if you can clearly prove that the father does not understand that the \"business\" is losing money. If the father does understand what is going on, then there is nothing you can do, as he has every right to waste his money, and anyone that may inherit what is left has no rights until he is dead."}
{"question":"How much tax do I have to pay in Redmond, Washington form my Microsoft Research Internship income?","answer":"An unmarried person with a total U.S.-sourced earned income under $ 37,000 during the year 2016 is likely to owe: If the original poster is not an \"independent contractor\", and is not \"billing corp-to-corp\" then: In summary: References:"}
{"question":"As a Brit, how do I invest in US ETFs","answer":"Vanguard has just recently started listing its funds in London but it doesn't look like the High Dividend Yield ETF is available yet. You'll need to either get a broker who can trade on the U.S. markets (there might be tax and exchange rate complications), or wait until Vanguard lists this stock on the London exchange."}
{"question":"Tax: 1099 paper form","answer":"You can print them on any IRS-approved paper, you don't have to use pre-printed forms. The IRS publishes specifications for paper that is approved for use for these kinds of forms (109*, W*, etc).  Here's the reason why it is important: Even the slightest deviation can result in incorrect scanning, and may affect money amounts reported for employees. Note that some portions of these forms are in different color (1099-MISC copy A). This is important, and using incorrect color will affect the IRS OCR mechanisms. Forms for individuals are less complicated with regards to technical specifications, because individuals must file them, and as such any complication will unnecessarily burden the citizenry. All the 109*, W* etc forms are not legally required to be filed by all citizens. You're only required to file them if you chose to do business, or chose to employ others. As such, using professional software and special forms is a cost of doing your business, and not a tax as it would be had it been mandatory to everyone. Mistakes in individual forms due to OCR failure or something else will be noticed by the taxpayers (less\/more refund, etc) or through the internal matching and cross-check. However, forms 109* and W* feed that matching and cross-check system and are considered source of truth by it, and as such their processing must be much more reliable and precise."}
{"question":"What are the implications of a corporate stock repurchase or share buyback program?","answer":"A stock buy back reduces the number of stocks available on the open market.  Since stocks are literally a share in ownership a buy back of the stock then when the company repurchases it has the effect of increasing the percent of ownership of the company of each stock. Zynga has a Market Cap of ~1810M so a 200M buy back will increase the ownership value of each stock by ~12%.  This has had the effect of an immediate stock price bump of around 12% which is to be expected as the value becomes the expected post buyback value. However long term gains will require Zynga to turn around their business.  This bump will only be sustainable if they can.  If their business continues to decline then its stock price will continue to slide.  There are some who would rather see Zynga invest that 200m in getting a new product to market to bring revenues up rather than spending precious capital on a plan to temporarily bump a stock that is headed towards the floor.  If on the other hand the revenue is poised to recover and the company has the excess capitol buying back stock low is a great way to get the most back for your shareholders bucks. Can they repurchase at any price and any time? They can write a buy order for any price at any time in the future, though they have some restrictions from the SEC mostly involving disclosures.  But it is up to the sellers to choose to sell at that price.  If they execute the buy back at a rate comparable to market rate then they are more likely to get takers than if they attempt to buy it back at a significant reduction from market price.  So since today(10-25-2012) the it is selling for ~2.30  A buy order for 2.30 is going to get more action than one at 2.00.  Investors will often look at the companies buy back offer for a company in decline(like Zynga has been) as the true value of the company.  If so then a lowball buyback offer could add downward pressure on the stock price."}
{"question":"How to check the paypal's current exchange rate?","answer":"The Paypal 'classic' site option has now been removed and you will not know what you will be charged UNTIL YOU COMMIT TO BUY.  Paypal told  me today ( brexit day 24th ) that their site is NOT connected to the Ebay site so when Ebay tells me '$77.00 approximately \u00a352.43' for an item I would in fact pay \u00a359.62.   You will Not be aware of this UNTIL you commit to by. Paypal informs me there are no plans to restore the 'classic' option Paypal site."}
{"question":"Who performs the blocking on a Visa card?","answer":"There are, in fact, two balances kept for your account by most banks that have to comply with common convenience banking laws.  The first is your actual balance; it is simply the sum total of all deposits and withdrawals that have cleared the account; that is, both your bank and the bank from which the deposit came or to which the payment will go have exchanged necessary proof of authorization from the payor, and have confirmed with each other that the money has actually been debited from the account of the payor, transferred between the banks and credited to the account of the payee.  The second balance is the \"available balance\". This is the actual balance, plus any amount that the bank is \"floating\" you while a deposit clears, minus any amount that the bank has received notice of that you may have just authorized, but for which either full proof of authorization or the definite amount (or both) have not been confirmed. This is what's happening here. Your bank received notice that you intended to pay the train company $X. They put an \"authorization hold\" on that $X, deducting it from your available balance but not your actual balance. The bank then, for whatever reason, declined to process the actual transaction (insufficient funds, suspicion of theft\/fraud), but kept the hold in place in case the transaction was re-attempted. Holds for debit purchases usually expire between 1 and 5 days after being placed if the hold is not subsequently \"settled\" by the merchant providing definite proof of amount and authorization before that time. The expiration time mainly depends on the policy of the bank holding your account. Holds can remain in place as long as thirty days for certain accounts or types of payment, again depending on bank policy. In certain circumstances, the bank can remove a hold on request. But it is the bank, and not the merchant, that you must contact to remove a hold or even inquire about one."}
{"question":"Buy small-cap ETF when you already have large-cap of the same market","answer":"Yes, you should own a diverse mix of company sizes to be well diversified. While both will probably get hit in a recession, different economies suit different sized companies very differently in many cases, and this diversity positions you best to not only not miss out in cases where small companies do better out of recessions than large, but also in environments where small companies rate of growth is larger in bull markets."}
{"question":"Is it sensible to keep savings in a foreign currency?","answer":"Is it sensible to keep savings in a foreign currency? The answer varies from one country to the next, but in the UK (or any other mature economy), I would advise against it. There are better ways to hedge against currency risks with the funds readily available to you through your ISA. You can keep your money relatively safe and liquid without ever paying a currency exchange fee."}
{"question":"At what point is it most advantageous to cease depositing into a 401k?","answer":"The only time to stop saving money for retirement is when you have enough money to retire tomorrow. Not all of your \"retirement savings\" need to be in a 401k, it is just better if you can. Be sure to get as much as you can from the employer matching program.  Unfortunately some employer matching programs discourage you from putting in too much.  I've been able to max out the 401k contribution a number of times, which helps. Remember:  you are likely to live to 100, so you better save enough to live that long.  I don't trust social security to be there.  I recommend saving so that you end up with \"enough to be comfortable\" -- this is usually about 25x your current income - PLUS inflation between now and when you plan to retire (age 62 is a good target). It is worth knowing your \"retirement savings number\".   If you are making $100K per year now, you need to target $2.5M - PLUS allowance for inflation between now and when you plan to retire. This usually means you need to also arrange to make more money as well as save as much as you can and to use passive investing.  Finance advisors are not worth it if you have less than $1M to invest."}
{"question":"What is the difference between equity and assets?","answer":"Accounts track value: at any given time, a given account will have a given value. The type of account indicates what the value represents. Roughly: On a balance sheet (a listing of accounts and their values at a given point in time), there is typically only one equity account, representing net worth, I don't know much about GNUCash, though. Income and expenses accounts do not go on the balance sheet, but to find out more, either someone else or the GNUCash manual will have to describe how they work in detail. Equity is more similar to a liability than to assets. The equation Assets = Equity + Liabilities should always hold; you can think of assets as being \"what my stuff is worth\" and equity and liabilities together as being \"who owns it.\" The part other people own is liability, and the part you own is equity. See balance sheet, accounting equation, and double-entry bookkeeping for more information. (A corporate balance sheet might actually have more than one equity entry. The purpose of the breakdown is to show how much of their net worth came from investors and how much was earned. That's only relevant if you're trying to assess how a company has performed to date; it's not important for a family's finances.)"}
{"question":"Will I be turned down for a car loan?","answer":"Considering I'm putting 30% down and having my father cosign is there   any chance I would be turned down for a loan on a $100k car? According to BankRate, the average credit score needed to buy a new car is 714, but they also show average interest rates at 6.39% for new-car loans to people with credit scores in the 601-660 range. High income certainly helps offset credit score to some extent.  Not every bank\/dealership does things the same way. Being self-employed you'd most likely be required to show 2 years of tax returns, and they'd use those as a basis for your income rather than whatever you have made recently. If using a co-signer, their income matters. Another key factor is debt to income ratio, if too much of someone's income is already spoken for by other debts a lender will shy away. So, yes, there's a chance, given all the information we don't know and the variability with lender policies, that you could be turned down for a car loan. How should I go about this? If you're set on pursuing the car loan, just go talk to some lenders. You'll want to shop around for a good rate anyway, so no need to speculate just go find out. Include the dealership as a potential financing option, they can have great rates. Personally, I'd get a much cheaper car. Your insurance premium on a 100k car will be quite high due to your age. You might be rightly confident in your earning potential, but nothing is guaranteed, situations can change wildly in short order. A new car is not a good investment or a value-retaining asset, so why bother going into debt for one if you don't have to? If you buy something in cash now, you could upgrade in a few years without financing if your earning prediction holds and would save quite a bit in car insurance and interest over the years between."}
{"question":"Should an IRA be disclaimed to allow it to be distributed according to a will?","answer":"There are two different possible taxes based on various scenarios proposed by the OP or the lawyer who drew up the OP's father's will or the OP's mother.   First, there is the estate tax which is paid by the estate of the deceased, and the heirs get what is left. Most estates in the US pay no estate tax whatsoever because most estates are smaller than $5.4M lifetime gift and estate tax exemption. But, for the record, even though IRAs pass from owner to beneficiary independent of whatever the will might say about the disposition of the IRAs, the value of the deceased's IRAs is part of the estate, and if the estate is large enough that estate tax is due and there is not enough money in the rest of the estate to pay the estate tax (e.g. most of the estate value is IRA money and there are no other investments, just a bank account with a small balance), then the executor of the will can petition the probate court to claw back some of the IRA money from the IRA beneficiaries to pay the estate tax due. Second, there is income tax that the estate must pay on income received from the estate's assets, e.g. mutual fund dividends paid between the date of death and the distribution of the assets to the beneficiaries, or income from cashing in IRAs that have the estate as the beneficiary. Now, most of OP's father's estate is in IRAs which have the OP's mother as the primary beneficiary and there are no named secondary beneficiaries. Thus, by default, the estate is the IRA beneficiary should the OP's mother disclaim the IRAs as the lawyer has suggested. As @JoeTaxpayer says in a comment, if the OP's mother disclaims the IRA, then the estate must distribute all the IRA assets to the three beneficiaries by December 31 of the year in which the fifth anniversary of the death occurs. If the estate decides to do this by itself, then the distribution from the IRA to the estate is taxable income to the estate (best avoided if possible because of the high tax rates on trusts). What is commonly done is that before December 31 of the year following the year in which the death occurred, the estate (as the beneficiary) informs the IRA Custodian that the estate's beneficiaries are the surviving spouse (50%), and the two children (25% each) and requests the IRA custodian to divide the IRA assets accordingly and let each beneficiary be responsible for meeting the requirements of the 5-year rule for his\/her share. Any assets not distributed in timely fashion are subject to a 50% excise tax as penalty each year until such time as these monies are actually withdrawn explicitly from the IRA (that is, the excise tax is not deducted from the remaining IRA assets; the beneficiary has to pay the excise tax out of pocket). As far as the IRS is concerned, there are no yearly distribution requirements to be met but the IRA Custodial Agreement might have its own rules, and so Publication 590b recommends discussing the distribution requirements for the 5-year rule with the IRA Custodian. The money distributed from the IRA is taxable income to the recipients. In particular, the children cannot roll the money over into another IRA so as to avoid immediate taxation; the spouse might be able to roll over the money into another IRA, but I am not sure about this; Publication 590b is very confusing on this point.   All this is assuming that the deceased passed away before well before his 70.5th birthday so that there are no issues with RMDs (the interactions of all the rules in this case is an even bigger can of worms that I will leave to someone else to explicate). On the other hand, if the OP's mother does not disclaim the IRAs, then she, as the surviving spouse, has the option of treating the inherited IRAs as her own IRAs, and she could then name her two children as the beneficiaries of the inherited IRAs when she passes away.  Of course, by the same token, she could opt to make someone else the beneficiary (e.g, her children from a previous marriage) or change her mind at any later time and make someone else the beneficiary (e.g. if she remarries, or becomes very fond of the person taking care of her in a nursing home and decides to leave all her assets to this person instead of her children, etc).  But even if such disinheritances are unlikely and the children are perfectly happy to wait to inherit till Mom passes away, as JoeTaxpayer points out, by not disclaiming the IRAs, the OP's mother can delay taking distributions from the IRAs till age 70.5, etc. which is also a good option to have. The worst scenario is for the OP's mother to not disclaim the IRAs, cash them in right away (huge income tax whack on her) or at least 50% of them, and gift the OP and his sibling half of what she withdrew (or possibly after taking into account what she had to pay in income tax on the distribution). Gift tax need not be paid by the OP's mother if she files Form 709 and reduces her lifetime combined gift and estate tax exemption, and the OP and his sibling don't owe any tax (income or otherwise) on the gift amount.  But, all that money has changed from tax-deferred assets to ordinary assets, and any additional earnings on these assets in the future will be taxable income. So, unless the OP and his sibling need the cash right away (pay off credit card debt, make a downpayment on a house, etc), this is not a good idea at all."}
{"question":"Recent college grad. Down payment on a house or car?","answer":"I generally agree with the sentiment in many other answers that $27K is more I would personally spend on a car if I were in your position. Having said that, the following assumes you are already intent on buying that car.  Even if you change your mind, I think the general ideas still apply."}
{"question":"How do I handle fund minimums as a beginning investor?","answer":"Buy the minimum of one fund now. (Eg total bond market) Buy the minimum of the next fund next time you have $2500. (Eg large-cap stocks.) Continue with those until you have enough to buy the next fund (eg small-cap stocks).  Adjust as you go to balance these funds according to your planned ratios, or as close as you can reasonably get without having to actually transfer money between the funds more than once a year or so. Build up to your targets over time. If you can't easily afford to tie up that first $2500, stay with banks and CDs and maybe money market accounts until you can. And don't try to invest (except maybe through a matched 401k) before you have adequate savings both for normal life and for an emergency reserve. Note too that the 401k can be a way to buy into funds without a minimum. Check with your employer. If you haven't maxed out your 401k yet, and it has matching funds, that is usually the place to start saving for retirement; otherwise you are leaving free money on the table."}
{"question":"How will my stock purchase affect my taxes?","answer":"Assuming you are in the US, and are an average joe, the answer to your question is no. Investment costs do not reduce your taxable income for the year you make the investment. They do factor in to the cost basis of your investment and so will affect your taxes in the year you sell the investment. If you want to reduce your taxable income, you could contribute the $5000 to a traditional ira, or 401k, assuming you qualify. Depending on where the account is held, you may then be able to use that $5k to purchase stock in the company you are interested in. The stock would be held in your IRA or 401k account, and would be subject to more restrictions than a normal brokerage account."}
{"question":"Why would a restaurant offer a very large cash discount?","answer":"This could be a case of the new chip card technology and dealing with slow reimbursement turnaround time. I recently visited a restaurant who was not using the chip technology, and it refused my card after several attempts. I found out from my bank it was because the restaurant was not set up for chip and I had not eaten there before....I know at the other end it takes far longer for the funds to get to the merchant; banks don't want to part with other people's money."}
{"question":"UK: Personal finance book for a twenty-something","answer":"As you are in UK, you should think in terms of Tax Free (interest and accumulated capital gains) ISA type investments for the long term AND\/OR open a SIPP (Self Invested Pension Plan) account where you get back the tax you have paid on the money you deposit for your old age. Pensions are  the best bet for money you do not need at present while ISAs are suitable for short term 5 years plus  or longer."}
{"question":"Not paying cash for a house","answer":"The common opinion is an oversimplification at best. The problem with buying a house using cash is that it may leave you cash-poor, forcing you to take out a home equity loan at some point... which may be at a higher rate than the mortgage would have been. On the other hand, knowing that you have no obligation to a lender is quite nice, and many folks prefer eliminating that source of stress. IF you can get a mortgage at a sufficiently low rate, using it to leverage an investment is not a bad strategy. Average historical return on the stock market is around 8%, so any mortgage rate lower than that is a relatively good bet and a rate MUCH lower (as now) is that much better a bet. There is, of course, some risk involved and the obligation to make mortgage payments, and your actual return is reduced by what you're paying on the mortage... but it's still a pretty good deal. As far as investment vehicles: The same answers apply as always. You want a rate of return higher than what you're paying on the mortgage, preferably market rate of return or better. CDs won't do it, as you've found. You're going to have to increase the risk to increase the return. That does mean picking and maintaining a diversified balance of investments and investment types. Working with index funds makes diversifying within a type easy, but you're probably going to want both stocks and bonds, rebalancing between them when they drift too far from your desired mix.  My own investments are a specific mix with one each of bond fund, large cap fund, small cap fund, REIT, and international fund. Bonds are the biggest part of that, since they're lowest risk, but the others play a greater part in producing returns on the investments. The exact mix that would be optimal for you depends on your risk tolerance (I'm classified as a moderately aggressive investor), the time horizon you're looking at before you may be forced to pull money back out of the investments, and some matters of personal taste. I've been averaging about 10%, but I had the luxury of being able to ride out the depression and indeed invest during it. Against that, my mortgage is under 4% interest rate, and is for less than 80% of the purchase price so I didn't need to pay the surcharge for mortgage insurance. In fact, I borrowed only half the cost of the house and paid the rest in cash, specifically because leveraging does involve some risk and this was the level of risk I was comfortable with. I also set the duration of the loan so it will be paid off at about the same time I expect to retire. Again, that's very much a personal judgement. If you need specific advice, it's worth finding a financial counselor and having them help you run the numbers. Do NOT go with someone associated with an investment house; they're going to be biased toward whatever produces the most income for them. Select someone who is strictly an advisor; they may cost you a bit more but they're more likely to give you useful advice. Don't take my word for any of this. I know enough to know how little I know. But hopefully I've given you some insight into what the issues are and what questions you need to ask, and answer, before making your decisions."}
{"question":"Close to retirement & we may move within 7 years. Should we re-finance our mortgage, or not?","answer":"Think of your mortgage this way - you have a $130K 16 year mortgage, at 6.75%.  At 4%, the same payment ($1109 or so) will pay off the loan in 12.4 years. So, I agree with littleadv, go for a 15yr fixed (but still make the higher payment) or 10 yr if you don't mind the required higher payment. Either way, a refinance is the way to go.  Edit - My local bank is offering me a 3.5% 15 yr loan with fees totaling $2500. For the OP here, a savings of 3.25% or first year interest savings of $4225. 7 months to breakeven.  It's important not to get caught up in trying to calculate savings 15-20 years out. What counts today is the rate difference and looking at it over the next 12 months is a start. If you break even to closing costs so soon, that's enough to make the decision."}
{"question":"Why buying an inverse ETF does not give same results as shorting the ETF","answer":"The most fundamental answer is that when you short a stock (or an ETF), you short a specific number of shares on a specific day, and you probably don't adjust this much as the price wobbles goes up and down. But an inverse fund is not tied to a specific start date, like your own transaction is.  It adjusts on an ongoing basis to maintain its full specified leverage at all times.  If the underlying index goes up, it has to effectively \"buy in\" because its collateral is no longer sufficient to support its open position.  On the other hand, if the underlying index goes down, that frees up collateral which is used to effectively short-sell more of the underlying.  So by design it will buy high and sell low, and so any volatility will pump money out of the fund. I say \"effectively\" because inverse funds use derivatives and contracts, rather than actually shorting the underlying security.   Which brings up the less fundamental issue.  These derivatives and contracts are relatively opaque; the counter-parties are in it for their own benefit, not yours; and the people who run the fund get their expenses regardless of how you do, and they are hard for you to monitor.  This is a hazardous combination."}
{"question":"Avoid Capital Gains on Rental","answer":"Just brainstorming here, but my gut feeling is it should be possible to sell your home to yourself with the sole purpose of resetting your basis. Taken at face value it feels illegal, but since I think we all would agree that you could sell your house to a third party and purchase the identical house next door for the same price (thus resetting your basis), why can't you purchase the same home right back? If one is legal, it seems odd for the other not to be. That being said, I have no idea how to legally do it. Perhaps you truly need a third party to step in which you sell it to, and then buy it back from them sometime in the future. Or perhaps you could start an LLC and have it purchase your home from you. Either way, I highly suggest finding an expert real estate attorney\/accountant before attempting this, and don't be surprised if you get multiple opposite opinions. I suspect this is a gray area which will highly depend on how tax \"aggressive\" you are willing to be."}
{"question":"Why is it good to borrow money to buy a house?","answer":"First, as others have commented, the idea that getting a mortgage to buy a house is always a good idea is false.  It depends on a number of factors including the current interest rate, what you think the future interest rate will do over the life of your mortgage, the relative cost of renting vs. buying, and how long you would stay in the house that you bought. To the extent that a mortgage for a house is more often recommended than buying other goods on credit, it is for these reasons: Except for #1 above, you could and can find other situations where taking a loan makes more sense than buying in cash.  This more true if you have the resources and the skill to invest money at a rate that beats the interest rate you pay to the creditor.  The general advice not to try this rests in the fact that most people don't have the resources or the skill to actually make this pay off, especially on high-interest rate loans or over short time periods."}
{"question":"Please explain the relationship between dividend amount, stock price, and option value?","answer":"There are a few reason why the stock price decreases after a dividend is paid:  What's the point of paying a dividend if the stock price automatically decreases? Don't the shareholders just break even? Companies have to do something with their profits. They beholden to their shareholders to make them money either by increasing the share value or paying dividends. So they have the choice between reinvesting their profits into the company to grow the business or just handing the profits directly to the owners of the business (the shareholders). Some companies are as big as they want to be and investing their profits into more capital offers them diminishing returns. These companies are more likely to pay dividends to their shareholders. I assume the price of the stock \"naturally\" increases over the year to reflect the amount of the dividend payment. This is kind of a vague question but then doesn't it make it difficult to evaluate the fluctuations in stock price (in the way that you would a company that doesn't pay a dividend)? It depends on the company. The price may recover the dividend drop... could take a few days to a week. And that dependings on the company's performance and the overall market performance.  With respect to options, I assume nothing special happens? So say I bought $9 call options yesterday that were in the money, all of a sudden they're just not? Is this typically priced into the option price? Is there anything else I need to know about buying options in companies that pay dividends? What if I had an in-the-money option, and all of a sudden out of nowhere a company decides to pay a dividend for the first time. Am I just screwed? One key is that dividends are announced in advance (typically at least, if not always; not sure if it's required by law but I wouldn't be surprised). This is one reason people will sometimes exercise a call option early, because they want to get the actual stock in order to earn the dividend. For \"out of the ordinary\" large cash dividends (over 10% is the guideline), stock splits, or other situations an option can be adjusted: http:\/\/www.888options.com\/help\/faq\/splits.jsp#3 If you have an options account, they probably sent you a \"Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options\" booklet. It has a section discussing this topic and the details of what kinds of situations trigger an adjustment. A regular pre-announced <10% dividend does not, while a special large dividend would, is what I roughly get from it. That \"Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options\" is worth reading by the way; it's long and complicated, but well, options are complicated. Finally, do all companies reduce their stock price when they pay a dividend? Are they required to? I'm just shocked I've never heard of this before. The company doesn't directly control the stock price, but I do believe this is automatic. I think the market does this automatically because if they didn't, there would be enough people trying to do dividend capture arbitrage that it would ultimately drive down the price."}
{"question":"Should I \"hedge\" my IRA portfolio with a life cycle \/ target date mutual fund?","answer":"First of all, it's great you're now taking full advantage of your employer match \u2013 i.e. free money. Next, on the question of the use of a life cycle \/ target date fund as a \"hedge\": Life cycle funds were introduced for hands-off, one-stop-shopping investors who don't like a hassle or don't understand.  Such funds are gaining in popularity: employers can use them as a default choice for automatic enrollment, which results in more participation in retirement savings plans than if employees had to opt-in.  I think life cycle funds are a good innovation for that reason. But, the added service and convenience typically comes with higher fees.  If you are going to be hands-off, make sure you're cost-conscious:  Fees can devastate a portfolio's performance. In your case, it sounds like you are willing to do some work for your portfolio.  If you are confident that you've chosen a good equity glide path \u2013 that is, the initial and final stock\/bond allocations and the rebalancing plan to get from one to the other  \u2013 then you're not going to benefit much by having a life cycle fund in your portfolio duplicating your own effort with inferior components.  (I assume you are selecting great low-cost, liquid index funds for your own strategy!)  Life cycle are neat, but replicating them isn't rocket science. However, I see a few cases in which life cycle funds may still be useful even if one has made a decision to be more involved in portfolio construction: Similar to your case: You have a company savings plan that you're taking advantage of because of a matching contribution.  Chances are your company plan doesn't offer a wide variety of funds.  Since a life cycle fund is available, it can be a good choice for that account.  But make sure fees aren't out of hand.  If much lower-cost equity and bond funds are available, consider them instead. Let's say you had another smaller account that you were unable to consolidate into your main account.  (e.g. a Traditional IRA vs. your Roth, and you didn't necessarily want to convert it.)  Even if that account had access to a wide variety of funds, it still might not be worth the added hassle or trading costs of owning and rebalancing multiple funds inside the smaller account.  There, perhaps, the life cycle fund can help you out, while you use your own strategy in your main account. Finally, let's assume you had a single main account and you buy partially into the idea of a life cycle fund and you find a great one with low fees. Except: you want a bit of something else in your portfolio not provided by the life cycle fund, e.g. some more emerging markets, international, or commodity stock exposure.  (Is this one reason you're doing it yourself?) In that case, where the life cycle fund doesn't quite have everything you want, you could still use it for the bulk of the portfolio (e.g. 85-95%) and then select one or two specific additional ETFs to complement it.  Just make sure you factor in those additional components into the overall equity weighting and adjust your life cycle fund choice accordingly (e.g. perhaps go more conservative in the life cycle, to compensate.) I hope that helps! Additional References:"}
{"question":"Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser?","answer":"My mother worked for one of the major American car rental companies. She talked about this topic with me and my answer will summarize the talk. 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? There is much more to the price equation. A premium rental car company (one that only rents fairly new, nice cars) has a certain image to maintain to protect their perceived value. A new-ist car also, besides the point of the image of the general company, commands a better rental price. Many Web sites and articles warn against buying former rental cars, because people renting these cars often mistreat them. This is a bad argument you've read. If former rental cars are in bad shape, the price will reflect that. If they are priced the same for the same miles ridden, they have equivalent wear and tear. In other words, the relative price of the car determines whether rental cars are more heavily worn not random people's opinions on the internet. People on the internet are mostly wrong. Irony intended. From the single company I have as reference, I also don't see that as relevant. There are company and governmental regulations to keep maintenance up. I clean my car once a year. Change the oil twice. Replace my wipers every eighteen months. And so forth. The maintenance cycles required for rental cars may (and this is just speculation) negate the gradual extra degradation that drivers may have on rental cars."}
{"question":"How do I begin investment saving, rather than just saving in a bank account?","answer":"CDs may be one good option if you have a sense of when you may need the money(-ish), especially with more generous early withdrawal penalties. You can also take a look at investing in a mix of stock and bond funds, which will lower you volatility compared to stocks, but increase your returns over bonds."}
{"question":"What are some good ways to control costs for groceries?","answer":"Cooking cheaply is time consuming. We cook cheaply, but we take more time to do it. May be hard for a busy family.  If you cook everything from scratch, it's usually a lot cheaper. Also pre-planning meals helps.  If you can coordinate your ingredients, you can save money.  Saving money takes time and practice. I find that when we're rushed, we waste a lot more food than when we properly take the time required."}
{"question":"Advantages\/disadvantages of buying stocks on dips vs buying outright?","answer":"If your stock is rising and you want to buy on a dip, the best way to do this is by looking at the chart and incorporating simple Technical Analysis techniques. Firstly, an uptrend is defined as a price chart with higher highs and higher lowers. If you get a lower high or a lower low (or both), it could be the end of the uptrend - be cautious. This can be seen on the chart below with an uptrend line drawn.  If you draw a trend line you can wait for the price to approach the trend line, bounce off it and start moving up again to buy your stock on a dip. If instead the price closes below the trend line, be very cautious - this could be the end of the uptrend and the start of a downtrend - no telling how low the price will go. If this is the case you can then draw a downtrend line and wait for the price to close above the downtrend line before making your purchase."}
{"question":"Car Loan upside down--refinance before selling?","answer":"Having just gone through selling a car, I can tell you that CarMax will most likely not be the best solution. I recently sold my '09 Pontiac Vibe which had a KBB and Edmonds value (private party sale) of around $6k. Trade-in value was around $4,800. I took it to the local CarMax for a quote, and they came back with $3,500.  Refinancing is tricky. Banks have a set limit on how old a car they will finance. Many won't even offer financing if the vehicle has over 100k miles. We looked at refinancing our other car, and even getting the APR down over a point we would only have saved $15\/mo or so. Banks typically offer much higher interest rates for used non-dealership cars and refinancing than they do for new cars, or even used cars purchased from a dealership. Assuming you have 2-3 years left on your loan, I don't think that refinancing would save you enough to be worth considering. CarMax sells cars in 1 of 2 ways. They are also up front with you about the process. They do not reference KBB or Edmonds or any other valuation tool other than their own internal system. They either take the car, spruce it up a bit, then resell it on their lot, or they sell it at auction. If they determine your car will be sold at auction, then they will offer you a rock bottom price. The determining factors that come into play include age of the car, mileage, and of course overall condition. If you Mini is still in good shape and doesn't have a lot of miles, then they may try to resell it on their lot, for which they could offer you closer to personal-sale price than trade-in. How many 2007's are for sale in your area? How much are they selling for? I did sell them a truck back in 2005 and received $200 more than KBB valued it for, but it was in great shape, only a couple of years old, relatively low mileage, and it was in high demand. God bless the South and their love for trucks! I ended up selling my Pontiac to another local car dealership. They offered me $5,300 (after negotiating, leaving the dealership, then negotiating more over the phone). It took me a day and a half and really very little effort. I have several friends that have gone through the same thing with selling cars, and all have had similar luck going to other dealerships, where prices can be negotiated, rather than CarMax.  CarMax has no incentive to \"settle\" or forgive your loan. If you really want to pay it off, save up what you believe the difference will be, then shop your car around the local dealerships and get prices for your Mini. Remember that dealers have to turn a profit, so be reasonable with your negotiation. If you can find comparable vehicles in your area listed for $X,000 then knock $1,500 off that price and tell the dealerships that's what you want."}
{"question":"How can I invest my $100?","answer":"There are websites out there that let people apply for micro-loans, and let other people fund those loans, and get a percent of the interest back as the loans are paid off. I have heard of people with spare cash \"investing\" in these sites. However, I don't think there is a guarantee of return of your money, and I have heard mixed reviews by people, so I will not link to any such sites here."}
{"question":"Offered a job: Should I go as consultant \/ independent contractor, or employee?","answer":"To be honest I don't know how any of this work in the US so my answer will be of very limited value to yourself, I suspect, but when it comes to the UK if you're going to get the same pay gross either way than being independent makes very little sense.  Running your own business is hassle, is generally more risky (although possibly not in your case) and costs money. Some of the most obvious costs are the added NI, probably the need for an accountant, at around \u00a31200 p\/a for basic accountancy service, you are obliged by law to have liability insurance and you probably want professional indemnity insurance, this will be around \u00a3600 p\/a minmum, and so on and so forth.  On top of that, oficially anyway, as a contractor, you really shouldn't be getting any benefits from the client, and so health insurance, company car, even parking are all meant to be arranged by, and paid by, your company, and can't (or rather - shouldn't) be charged to the client. So - I would say - if you're seriously thinking about setting up a consultancy company, and this client is first of many - set up a company, but take into account the sums you need to earn. If you're really thinking about employment - be an employee."}
{"question":"Why would a company issue a scrip dividend and how will this issue affect me?","answer":"Yes. Instead of paying a cash dividend to shareholders, the company grants existing shareholders new shares at a previously determined price. I'm sorry, but scrip issues are free (for all ordinary shareholders) and are in proportion to existing share holding. No payment is required from shareholders. So instead of having 10 $1 shares, the shareholder (if accepts) now could have 20 50p shares, if it was a one-for-one scrip issue."}
{"question":"Finding a good small business CPA?","answer":"Check your local better business bureau. They can tell you who is in business, who's bonded, and who has had a lot of complaints levied against them for shoddy practices."}
{"question":"How to invest in a currency increasing in value relative to another?","answer":"On international stock exchanges, they trade Puts and Calls, typically also for currencies. If for example 1 NOK is worth 1 $ now, and you buy Calls for 10000 NOK at 1.05 $ each, and in a year the NOK is worth 1.20 $ (which is what you predict), you can execute the Call, meaning 'buying' the 10000 NOK for the contracted 1.05 $ and selling them for the market price of 1.20 $, netting you 12000 - 10500 = 1500 $. Converting those back to NOK would give you 1250 NOK. Considering that those Calls might cost you maybe 300 NOK, you made 950 NOK. Note that if your prediction is common knowledge, Calls will be appropriately priced (=expensive), and there is little to make on them. And note also that if you were wrong, your Calls are worth less than toilet paper, so you lost the complete 300 NOK you paid for them. [all numbers are completely made up, for illustration purposes] You can make the whole thing easier if you define the raise of the NOK against a specific currency, for example $ or EUR. If you can, you can instead buy Puts for that currency, and you save yourself converting the money twice."}
{"question":"Why are earning credit card rewards often tied to groceries and gas?","answer":"There absolutely is a specific model that makes this so popular with so many credit card companies, and that model is \"per transaction fees\". Card companies also receive cost-sharing incentives from certain merchants. There is also a psychological reasoning as an additional incentive. When you want to accept credit cards as a source of payment as a business, you generally have three kinds of fees to pay: monthly\/yearly subscription fees, percentage of transaction fee, and per transaction fee.  The subscription fees can be waived and sometimes are expressed as a \"minimum cost\", so the business pays a certain amount whether you actually have people use credit cards or not. Many of these fees don't actually make it to the credit card companies, as they just pay the service providers and middle-men processing companies. The percentage of transaction fee means that the business accepting payment via credit card must pay a percentage usually ranging from 1-3% of the total transactions they accept. So if they get paid $10,000 a month by customers in the form of credit cards, the business pays out $100-300 a month to the credit card processor - a good portion of which will make it back to the credit card issuing company, and is a major source of income for them. The per transaction fee means that every time a transaction is run involving a card, a set fee is incurred by the business (which is commonly anywhere from $0.05 to $0.30 per transaction). If that $10,000 a month business mentioned previously had 10 customers paying $1,000 each at $0.10 a transaction, that's only $1 in fees to the credit card processors\/companies. But if instead that business was a grocery store with an average transaction of $40, that's $25 in fees.  This system means that if you are a credit card company and want to encourage people to make a specific kind of purchase, you should encourage purchases that people make many times for relatively small amounts of money. In a perfect world you'd want them to buy $1 bottles of water 5 times a day with their credit card. If the card company had 50,000 card holders doing this, at the end of 1 year the company would have $91,250,000 spread across 91,250,000 transactions. The card company might reasonably make $0.05 per transaction and %1 of the purchase total. The Get Rewarded For Drinking More campaign might earn the card company $912,500 in percentage fees and over $4.5 million in transaction fees. Yet the company would only have to pay 3% in rewards from the percentage fees, or $2.7 million, back to customers. If the card company had encouraged using your credit card for large once-yearly purchases, they would actually pay out more money in rewards than they collect in card-use fees. Yet by encouraging people to make small transactions very often the card company earns a nice net-income even if absolutely every customer pays their balance in full, on time, and pays no annual\/monthly fees for their card - which obviously does not happen in the real world. No wonder companies try so hard to encourage you to use your card all the time! For card companies to make real money they need you to use your credit card. As discussed above, the more often you use the card the better (for them), and there can be a built-in preference for small repeated transactions. But no matter what the size of transaction, they can't make the big bucks if you don't use the card at all! Selling your personal information isn't as profitable if they don't have in-depth info on you to sell, either. So how do they get you to make that plastic sing? Gas and groceries are a habit. Most people buy one or the other at least once a weak, and a very large number of us make such purchases multiple times a week. Some people even make such purchases multiple times a day! So how do people pay for such transactions? The goal of the card companies is to have you use their product to pay as much as possible. If you pay for something regularly you'll keep that card in your wallet with you, rather than it getting lost in a drawer at home. So the card companies want you to use your card as a matter of habit, too. If you use a card to buy for gas and groceries, why wouldn't you use it for other things too? Lunch, dinner, buying online? If the card company pays out more and makes less for large, less-regular purchases, then the ideal for them is to have you use the card for small regular purchase and yet still have you use the card for larger infrequent purchases even if you get reduced\/no rewards. What better way to achieve all these goals than to offer special rewards on gas and groceries? And because it's not a one-time purchase, you aren't so likely to game the system; no getting that special 5% cash-back card, booking your once-per-decade dream vacation, then paying it off and cancelling it soon after - which would actually make the card company lose money on the deal. In the end, credit card companies as a whole have a business model that almost universally prefers customers who use their products regularly and preferably for small amounts a maximum number of times. They want to reduce their expenses (like rewards paid out) while maximizing their revenue. They haven't figured out a better way to do all of this so well as to encourage people to use their cards for gas and groceries - everything else seems like a losing proposition in comparison. The only time this preference differs is when they can avoid paying some or all of the cost of rewards, such as when the merchants themselves honor the rewards in exchange for reduced or zero payment from the card companies. So if you use an airline card that seems to give you 10% back in airline rewards? Well, that's probably a great deal for the card company if the airline provides that reward at their own expense to try to boost business. The card company keeps the transaction-related fees and pays out almost nothing in rewards - the perfect offer (for them)!  And this assumes no shenanigans like black-out periods, \"not valid with any other offers\" rewards like on cars where only a fool pays full MSRP (and sometimes the rewards are tagged in this sort of way, like not valid on sale\/clearance items, etc), expiring rewards, the fact that they know not everyone uses their rewards, annual fees that are greater than the rewards you'll actually be obtaining after accounting for all the other issues, etc. And credit card industries are known for their shenanigans!"}
{"question":"Should I open a credit card when I turn 18 just to start a credit score?","answer":"Assuming I only use it to buy things I can afford (which I trust   myself to do), essentially treating it as a debit card, is this a good   idea? This is definitely a good idea. From my own experience, before I got my first credit card through my local bank (age 18), I tired to apply for a card that has cash back rewards and was rejected because I didn't have any credit history. After I had the card from my bank for 6 months, I applied for this Capital One card that I've had ever since."}
{"question":"More money towards down payment versus long-term investments","answer":"There are two components to any non-trivial financial decision:  Assuming that all things remain equal, borrowing money at a low rate while investing for a higher return is a no-brainer. The problem is, all things do not remain equal. For example: I think that you need to assess your position and preferences. I'd err on the side of being in less debt."}
{"question":"What prevents investors from buying high yield stocks and selling them as soon as their dividend is paid out?","answer":"The ex-dividend date, prevents this, but people are still able to do this and this is an investment strategy. There are some illiquid and immature markets where prices don't adjust.  In the options market people are able to find mispriced deep in the money calls to take advantage of the ex-dividend date. It is called dividend capture using covered calls."}
{"question":"In what cases can a business refuse to take cash?","answer":"Apartment complexes have had a long history of not accepting cash for payment of rent. This eliminates the problem of robbery and strongly reduces the risks of embezzlement.   THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE  Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution states:   No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts Previous editions of banknotes stated that the notes were redeemable in gold or in lawful money. The Mint Act of 1792 set gold and silver as legal currency (and that one did not have to accept \"base metal coins\" for more than $10 which is why coin rolls only go up to $10). The Coinage Act of 1873 dropped silver and made gold the legal standard for currency. In 1933, the \"redeemable in gold\" was changed by federal statute and the legend you mention was added. Prior to 1933, someone could demand that you pay them in gold and not with a bank note. Legislation in 1933 ended that. This clause in the Constitution leads some political groups to wish to return to a gold standard. I recommend reading the book Greenback as it describes how our currency got the way it did and why that clause appears on currency."}
{"question":"Should I use put extra money toward paying off my student loans or investing in an index fund?","answer":"First, I'd like to congratulate you on your financial discipline in paying off your loans and living well within your means.  I have friends who make more than twice your salary with similar debt obligations, and they barely scrape by month to month. If we combine your student loan debt and unallocated income each month, we get about $1,350.  You say that $378 per month is the minimum payment for your loans, which have an average interest rate of about 3.5%.  Thus, you have about $1,350 a month to \"invest.\" Making your loan payments is basically the same as investing with the same return as the loan interest rate, when it comes down to it.  An interest rate of 3.5% is...not great, all things considered, and barely above inflation.    However, that's a guaranteed return of 3.5%, more or less like a bond.  As noted previously, the stock market historically averages 10% before inflation over the long run. The US stock market is right around its historic high at this point (DJIA is at 20,700 today, April 6th, 2017 - historic high hit just over 21,000 on March 1, 2017).  Obviously, no one can predict the future, but I get the feeling that a market correction may be in order, especially depending on how things go in Washington in the next weeks or months.  If that's the case (again, we have no way of knowing if it is), you'd be foolish to invest heavily in any stocks at this point. What I would do, given your situation, is invest the $1,350\/month in a \"portfolio\" that's 50\/50 stocks and \"bonds,\" where the bonds here are your student loans.  Here, you have a guaranteed return of ~3.5% on the bond portion, and you can still hedge the other 50% on stocks continuing their run (and also benefiting from dividends, capital gains, etc. over time).  I would apply the extra loan payments to the highest-interest loan first, paying only the minimum to the others.  Once the highest-interest loan is paid off, move onto the next one. Once you have all your loans paid off, your portfolio will be pretty much 100% stocks, at which point you may want to add in some actual bonds (say a 90\/10 or 80\/20 split, depending on what you want).  I'm assuming you're pretty young, so you still have plenty of time to let the magic of compounding interest do its work, even if you happen to get into the market right before it drops (well, that, and the fact that you won't really have much invested anyway). Again, let me stress that neither I nor anyone else has any way of knowing what will happen with the market - I'm just stating my opinion and what my course of action would be if I were in your shoes."}
{"question":"How to account for startup costs for an LLC from personal money?","answer":"You don't even need to formally loan the LLC any money. You pay for the setup costs out of pocket, and then once the LLC is formed, you reimburse yourself (just like with an expense report). Essentially you submit an expense report to the LLC for the startup costs, and the LLC pays out a check to you, categorized for the startup expenses."}
{"question":"Would it make sense to take a loan from a relative to pay off student loans?","answer":"I will start with the assumption that you will never have any late payments and will fully pay off the loan. This may be a big assumption, but if you can't assume that, then you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. The answer depends on your income: You should calculate how much student loan interest you can deduct before and after the switch, and adjust the interest rate accordingly to compensate for any difference."}
{"question":"Clarify on some Stocks Terminology","answer":"Volume is measured in the number of shares traded in a given day, week, month, etc. This means that it's not necessarily a directly-comparable measure between stocks, as there's a large difference between 1 million shares traded of a $1 stock ($1 million total) and 1 million shares traded of a $1000 stock ($1 billion total). Volume as a number on its own is lacking in context; it often makes more sense to look at it as an overall dollar amount (as in the parentheses above) or as a fraction of the total number of shares in the marketplace. When you see a price quoted for a particular ticker symbol, whether online, or on TV, or elsewhere, that price is typically the price of the last trade that executed for that security. A good proxy for the current fair price of an asset is what someone else paid for it in the recent past (as long as it wasn't too long ago!). So, when you see a quote labeled \"15.5K @ $60.00\", that means that the last trade on that security, which the service is using to quote the security's price, was for 15500 shares at a price of $60 per share. Your guess is correct. The term \"institutional investor\" often is meant to include many types of institutions that would control large sums of money. This includes large banks, insurance companies, pooled retirement funds, hedge funds, and so on."}
{"question":"Why can't you just have someone invest for you and split the profits (and losses) with him?","answer":"On reflection there are financial products that do what you want, whole-life insurance policies that guarantee an annual dividend calculation on some index with a ceiling and floor.  So you will have a return within a defined minimum and maximum range.   There are a lot of opinions on the internet on this.  This Consumer Reports article is balanced These have a reputation for being bad for the consumer compared to buying term life and investing in a mutual fund separately, but if you want the guarantee (or are a \"moral hazard\" for a life insurance policy, closer to death than you appear on paper) it may be a product for you.   If you're very wealthy, there is an estate tax exploit in insurance death benefits that can make this an exceptional shield on assets for your heirs, with the market return just the gravy."}
{"question":"Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT","answer":"You can consider opening accounts either in Paypal or Google Wallet. In this way, you link your bank information to these accounts and the only information you need to provide your tenant is your e-mail id. Its safe and in this scenario -- just money transfer through bank account, there is no fee either for the sender (your tenant) or the receiver (you)."}
{"question":"Digital envelope system: a modern take ","answer":"I opened several free checking accounts at a local credit union.  One is a \"Deposit\" account where all of my new money goes.  I get paid every two weeks.  Every other Sunday we have our \"Money Day\" where we allocate the money from our Deposit account into our other checking accounts.  I have one designated as a Bills account where all of my bills get paid automatically via bill pay or auto-pay. I created a spreadsheet that calculates how much to save each Money Day for all of my upcoming bills.  This makes it so the amount I save for my bills is essentially equal.  Then I allocate the rest of my deposit money into my other checking accounts.  I have a Grocery, Household, and Main checking accounts but you could use any combination that you want. When we're at the store we check our balances (how much we have left to spend) on our mobile app.  We can't overspend this way.  The key is to make sure you're using your PIN when you use your debit card.  This way it shows up in real-time with your credit union and you've got an accurate balance.  This has worked really well to coordinate spending between me and my wife.  It sounds like it's a lot of work but it's actually really automated.  The best part is that I don't have to do any accounting which means my budget doesn't fail if I'm not entering my transactions or categorizing them. I'm happy to share my spreadsheet if you'd like."}
{"question":"Paying taxes on income earned in the US, but from a company based in Norway","answer":"I don't see why you would need an \"international tax specialist\". You need a tax specialist to give you a consultation and training on your situation, but it doesn't seem too complicated to me. You invoice your client and get paid - you're a 1099 contractor. They should issue you a 1099 at the end of the year on everything they paid you. Once you become full-time employee - you become a W2 employee and will get a W2 at the end of the year on the amounts paid as such. From your perspective there's nothing international here, regular business. You have to pay your own taxes on the 1099 income (including SE taxes), they have to withhold taxes from your W2 income (including FICA). Since they're foreign employers, they might not do that latter part, and you'll have to deal with that on your tax return, any decent EA\/CPA will be able to accommodate you with that. For the employer there's an issue of international taxation. They might have to register as a foreign business in your state, they might be liable for some payroll taxes and State taxes, etc etc. They might not be aware of all that. They might also be liable (or exempt) for Federal taxes, depending on the treaty provisions. But that's their problem. Your only concern is whether they're going to issue you a proper W2 and do all the withholdings or not when the time comes."}
{"question":"Buying under my bid price","answer":"It definitely depends on the exchange you are trading on. I'm not familiar with Scottrade, but a standard practice is to fulfill limit orders in the order they are placed.   Most of the time, you wouldn't see stocks trade significantly under your bid price, but since penny stocks are very volatile, it's more likely their price could drop quickly past your bid and then return above it while only fulfilling a portion of the orders placed. Example 1. Penny stock priced at $0.12 2. Others place limit orders to buy at $0.10 3. You place limit order to buy at $0.10 4. Stock price drops to $0.07 and some orders are filled (anything $0.07 or higher) based on a first-come first-served basis 5. Due to the increase in purchases of the penny stock, the price rises above $0.10 before your order is filled ***EDIT*** - Adding additional clarification from comment section. A second example If the price drops from $0.12 to $0.07, then orders for all prices from $0.07 and above will start to be filled from the oldest order first. That might mean that the oldest order was a limit buy order for 100 shares at $0.09, and since that is above the current ask price, it will be filled first. The next order might be for 800 shares at $0.07. It's possible for a subset of these to be filled (let's say 400) before the share's price increases from the increased demand. Then, if the price goes above $0.10, your bid will not be filled during that time."}
{"question":"Reporting financial gains from my online store","answer":"As a new (very!) small business, the IRS has lots of advice and information for you. Start at https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed and be sure you have several pots of coffee or other appropriate aid against somnolence.  By default a single-member LLC is 'disregarded' for tax purposes (at least for Federal, and generally states follow Federal although I don't know Mass. specifically), although it does have other effects. If you go this route you simply include the business income and expenses on Schedule C as part of your individual return on 1040, and the net SE income is included along with your other income (if any) in computing your tax. TurboTax or similar software should handle this for you, although you may need a premium version that costs a little more.  You can 'elect' to have the LLC taxed as a corporation by filing form 8832, see https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/limited-liability-company-llc . In principle you are supposed to do this when the entity is 'formed', but in practice AIUI if you do it by the end of the year they won't care at all, and if you do it after the end of the year but before or with your first affected return you qualify for automatic 'relief'. However, deciding how to divide the business income\/profits into 'reasonable pay' to yourself versus 'dividends' is more complicated, and filling out corporation tax returns in addition to your individual return (which is still required) is more work, in addition to the work and cost of filing and reporting the LLC itself to your state of choice. Unless\/until you make something like $50k-100k a year this probably isn't worth it. 1099 Reporting. Stripe qualifies as a 'payment network' and under a recent law payment networks must annually report to IRS (and copy to you) on form 1099-K if your account exceeds certain thresholds; see https:\/\/support.stripe.com\/questions\/will-i-receive-a-1099-k-and-what-do-i-do-with-it  . Note you are still legally required to report and pay tax on your SE income even if you aren't covered by 1099-K (or other) reporting. Self-employment tax. As a self-employed person (if the LLC is disregarded) you have to pay 'SE' tax that is effectively equivalent to the 'FICA' taxes that would be paid by your employer and you as an employee combined. This is 12.4% for Social Security unless\/until your total earned income exceeds a cap (for 2017 $127,200, adjusted yearly for inflation), and 2.9% for Medicare with no limit (plus 'Additional Medicare' tax if you exceed a higher threshold and it isn't 'repealed and replaced'). If the LLC elects corporation status it has to pay you reasonable wages for your services, and withhold+pay FICA on those wages like any other employer. Estimated payments. You are required to pay most of your individual income tax, and SE tax if applicable, during the year (generally 90% of your tax or your tax minus $1,000 whichever is less). Most wage-earners don't notice this because it happens automatically through payroll withholding, but as self-employed you are responsible for making sufficient and timely estimated payments, and will owe a penalty if you don't. However, since this is your first year you may have a 'safe harbor'; if you also have income from an employer (reported on W-2, with withholding) and that withholding is sufficent to pay last year's tax, then you are exempt from the 'underpayment' penalty for this year.  If you elect corporation status then the corporation (which is really just you) must always make timely payments of withheld amounts, according to one of several different schedules that may apply depending on the amounts; I believe it also must make estimated payments for its own liability, if any, but I'm not familiar with that part."}
{"question":"My bank wants to lower my credit limit on my credit card. Will this impact me negatively?","answer":"No, it will have no negative impact on getting a mortgage. You are building up a history with regular payments and are not carrying a balance on the card each month. Your ability to get a mortgage will ultimately be based on other things. Money Saving Expert has a good guide on what will affect your credit score. A further discussion on the topic that backs up that what a mortgage company is interested in is affordability and a stable history. They really don't care about utilisation ratios.  (Though might be spooked by almost maxed out cards - sign of poor spending control, or large unused limits - too easy to go into bad debt.)"}
{"question":"What happens to internal stock when a company goes public?","answer":"You'd likely be subject to a lock-up period before you could sell the shares along with possibly having other rules about how you could sell your shares as you'd likely be seen as an insider that may have information that gives you an unfair advantage for selling the stock possibly. Depending on how far in advance you hold the shares, you may or may not have adjustments in the valuation and number of shares as some companies may do a split or reverse split when preparing for an IPO. A company I worked for in the late 1990s had an IPO and my stock options had a revised strike price because of a reverse stock split that was done prior to the IPO."}
{"question":"Why can't house prices be out of tune with salaries","answer":"There's a few things going on here. If we fixed rates (and terms) over time we'd expect a pretty tight chart of home prices to income, almost lockstep. Add a layer of growth above that in boom times due to the wealth effect (when stocks are way up, we have extra money to blow on bigger houses) and the opposite when markets are down. Next, the effect of rates. With long term rates dropping from 14% in 1985 to 5% in 2003, the amount that can be bought for the same monthly payment rises dramatically as rates fall. Easy to lose site of that and the fact that the average size house has increased about 1.5% per year over the last 40 years, surely that can't continue.  When you normalize all these factors, houses cost fewer hours-worked almost at the peak of the market than 25 years ago. Mike's logical example of extrapolating out is very clever, I like it. In the short term, we'll see periods that are booms and busts, but actual prices will straddle the line representing the borrowing power of a week's pay."}
{"question":"Diversification reduces risk, but does this base on the assumption that expected return of each asset is always in proportion to its risk?","answer":"if I have a asset A with expected return of 100% and risk(measured by standard deviation) 1%, and asset B with expected return of 1% and risk 100%, would it be rational to put asset B into the portfolio ? In the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), investors are rational and have access to perfect information. Asset A sounds like an excellent investment,  B like a lousy one -- B is probably very far from the efficient frontier. Investors know this, so A's market capitalization will be high, B's low. According to the CAPM, you should then do the same rational thing everyone else is doing, which is to buy a lot of A and very little of B (each in proportion to its market capitalization). Of course the CAPM is just a model, and like any model it is only as good as its assumptions. However, I think this particular application of the model gives a pretty reasonable common-sense answer to the question."}
{"question":"Wash sale rules between tax advantaged and regular accounts","answer":"From the IRS Section 1091. Loss from Wash Sales of Stock or Securities  Section 1091(a) provides that in the case of any loss claimed to have been sustained from any sale or other disposition of shares of stock or securities where it appears that, within a period beginning 30 days before the date of such sale or disposition and ending 30 days after such date, the taxpayer has acquired (by purchase or by an exchange on which the entire amount of gain or loss was recognized by law),or has entered into a contract or option so to acquire, substantially identical stock or 3 securities, then no deduction shall be allowed under \u00a7 165 The document is not long, 4 pages, and should be read to see the intent. It's tough to choose the one snippet, but the conclusion is this is the definitive response to that question.  A purchase within an IRA or other retirement account can create a wash sale if such a purchase would be a wash sale otherwise, i.e. the fact that it's a retirement account doesn't avoid wash rules."}
{"question":"Total gain of portfolio including sold stocks?","answer":"You could create your own spreadsheet of Cash Flows and use the XIRR function in Excel: The formula is:"}
{"question":"Are there Cashflow Positive Investment Properties in the USA?","answer":"Americans are snapping, like crazy. And not only Americans, I know a lot of people from out of country are snapping as well, similarly to your Australian friend. The market is crazy hot. I'm not familiar with Cleveland, but I am familiar with Phoenix - the prices are up at least 20-30% from what they were a couple of years ago, and the trend is not changing. However, these are not something \"everyone\" can buy. It is very hard to get these properties financed. I found it impossible (as mentioned, I bought in Phoenix). That means you have to pay cash. Not everyone has tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash available for a real estate investment. For many Americans, 30-60K needed to buy a property in these markets is an amount they cannot afford to invest, even if they have it at hand. Also, keep in mind that investing in rental property requires being able to support it - pay taxes and expenses even if it is not rented, pay to property managers, utility bills, gardeners and plumbers, insurance and property taxes - all these can amount to quite a lot. So its not just the initial investment. Many times \"advertised\" rents are not the actual rents paid. If he indeed has it rented at $900 - then its good. But if he was told \"hey, buy it and you'll be able to rent it out at $900\" - wouldn't count on that. I know many foreigners who fell in these traps. Do your market research and see what the costs are at these neighborhoods. Keep in mind, that these are distressed neighborhoods, with a lot of foreclosed houses and a lot of unemployment. It is likely that there are houses empty as people are moving out being out of job. It may be tough to find a renter, and the renters you find may not be able to pay the rent. But all that said - yes, those who can - are snapping."}
{"question":"How does Google Finance calculate the Institution Owned metric for a stock","answer":"Institutional ownership has nearly lost all meaning. It used to mean mutual funds, investment banks, etc. Now, it means pension funds, who hold the rest of the equity assets directly, and insiders. Since the vast majority of investors in equity do not hold it directly, \"institutions\" are approaching 100% ownership on all major equities. Other sites still segment the data."}
{"question":"What is a good 5-year plan for a college student with $15k in the bank?","answer":"A good question -- there are many good tactical points in other answers but I wanted to emphasize two strategic points to think about in your \"5-year plan\", both of which involve around diversification: Expense allocation: You have several potential expenses. Actually, expenses isn't the right word, it's more like \"applications\". Think of the money you have as a resource that you can \"pour\" (because money has liquidity!) into multiple \"buckets\" depending on time horizon and risk tolerance. An ultra-short-term cushion for extreme emergencies -- e.g.  things go really wrong -- this should be something you can access at a moment's notice from a bank account. For example, your car has been towed and they need cash. A short-term cushion for emergencies -- something bad happens and you need the money in a few days or weeks. (A CD ladder is good for this -- it pays better interest and you can get the money out quick with a minimal penalty.) A long-term savings cushion -- you might want to make a down payment on a house or a car, but you know it's some years off. For this, an investment account is good; there are quite a few index funds out there which have very low expenses and will get you a better return than CDs \/ savings account, with some risk tolerance. Retirement savings -- $1 now can be worth a huge amount of money to you in 40 years if you invest it wisely. Here's where the IRA (or 401K if you get a job) comes in. You need to put these in this order of priority. Put enough money in your short-term cushions to be 99% confident you have enough. Then with the remainder, put most of it in an investment account but some of it in a retirement account. The thing to realize is that you need to make the retirement account off-limits, so you don't want to put too much money there, but the earlier you can get started in a retirement account, the better. I'm 38, and I started both an investment and a retirement account at age 24. They're now to the point where I save more income, on average, from the returns in my investments, than I can save from my salary. But I wish I had started a few years earlier. Income: You need to come up with some idea of what your range of net income (after living expenses) is likely to be over the next five years, so that you can make decisions about your savings allocation. Are you in good health or bad? Are you single or do you have a family? Are you working towards law school or medical school, and need to borrow money? Are you planning on getting a job with a dependable salary, or do you plan on being self-employed, where there is more uncertainty in your income? These are all factors that will help you decide how important short-term and long term savings are to your 5-year plan. In short, there is no one place you should put your money. But be smart about it and you'll give yourself a good head start in your personal finances. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Buying from an aggressive salesperson","answer":"He sounds like a very bad salesman and I should know, because I was a sales manager at a bike shop which sold bikes from $200 to $10k. Now I had a clear goal, which is to sell as many bikes at the highest price possible, but I didn't do that by making customers uncomfortable. Each customer received different treatment depending on what they were looking for.  For example, the $200 beach cruiser buyer was going to be told \"You look great on that bike... can I ring you up?\", whereas the racer interested in saving grams will receive a detailed discussion about his bike options.  The $200 bike customer won't have very sophisticated questions (although I could give a lecture on cruisers), so giving out too much info complicates a likely quick impulse buy.  On the other hand, we are building a relationship with the racer which will include detailed fitting sessions and time-consuming mechanical service.  While I also want to close a high priced sale, it will take several visits to prove both I have the right bike and this is the best shop. But no matter what you were buying, I was always pleasant and unhurried, and my customers left happy.   Specifically with this situation of high pressure tactics, the problem is the competition with internet sales.  Often customers will have only 2 criteria, the model and the price, and if a shop does not meet both, the customer walks right out.   Possibly this sales guy is a bit cynical with his tactics, but the reality is that if you have no relationship with that shop, you fall into the category of internet buyer.  One thing the sales guy could have done was not tell you we wasn't going to honor this price if you came back.  Occasionally there would be an internet buyer, and I showed no unpleasantness even though internet sellers could crush our brick and mortar shop.  I would mention a competitive price and if he bought it, great, and if not, that's just business.   As for the buyer, I would treat these tactics with a certain detachment.  I would personally chuckle at his treatment and ask if I could kick the tires, an user car saying.   I suppose the bottom line is if you are ready to buy this specific model, and if the price is right (and the shop is ethical so you won't get ripped off with garbage), then you have to be ready to buy on the spot. I will point out one horrible experience I had at a car dealership.  I came in 15 minutes before closing and a sales person gave me a price almost a third cheaper than list.  I wasn't ready to buy on my first visit ever to a dealership and of course, buying a car has all kinds of hidden fees.  I asked will this be the price tomorrow, and he said absolutely not.  I told him, \"so if I come in tomorrow morning, your dealer clock has only gone 15 minutes\" but that logic did not register with him.   Maybe he thought I was going to spend 15k on the spot and pressure tactics would work on me.  I never came back, but I did go another dealership and bought a car after a reasonable negotiation."}
{"question":"What happens if I just don't pay my student loans?","answer":"employed under the table and doesn't have a bank account If I could make that size 10,000,000 font I would.  Your friend likely also isn't paying taxes.  The student loan penalties will be nothing compared to what the IRS does to you.   Avoid taking financial advice from that person."}
{"question":"Do I not have a credit score?","answer":"You can't get your credit score for free, just the report with the information the score is based on.   If you got credit reports through annualcreditreport.com, the Score tab would typically contain an advertisement for purchasing your score.  If you have an ad-blocker enabled, that might be blocked, explaining the blank page.  Try turning off any browser extensions that alter how pages are shown.   The accounts page\/tab\/section should show something like \"0 open accounts\" or similar, to indicate that it is loading data.   Your lack of credit history probably does mean you don't have a credit score, so it's probably not worth paying anything to find that out.  The focus should be on the accuracy of the underlying report, since you can do something about that.   Should I be worried? I'd say no on that.   You'll have an easier time getting credit (and better terms) in the future if you start now with some account, even if it's a secured credit card you don't use much, because the age of the oldest and average accounts are factors in credit scoring models."}
{"question":"As an investing novice, what to do with my money?","answer":"I'm normally not a fan of partitioning investment money into buckets but your case may be the clearest case for it I've seen in awhile.  Your income and saving is good and you have two clearly defined goals of retirement saving and saving for a house each with very different time frames ~30 years and 3-5 years respectively. For medium term money, like saving for a house, just building up cash is not actually a bad idea. This minimizes the chance that a market crash will happen at the same time you need to withdraw the money.  However, given you have the means to take more risk a generally smarter scheme would be to invest much of the money in a broad liquid bond funds with a somewhat lower percentage in stocks and then reduce the amount of stock each year as you get closer even moving some into cash.  This gives reasonable positive expected return while lowering the risk of having to sell during a crisis as the time to purchase gets shorter and shorter. The retirement money should be invested for the long term as usual.  A majority in low-fee index stock funds\/etfs is the standard advice for good reason."}
{"question":"For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?","answer":"The point about insurance is solidarity. Think about this: In London a few hundred years ago people first started insuring their houses against fire. There were several insurance companies, and if you used one you got a marker on your house. So if your house caught fire they would come and check, and they would put the fire out only if it had their marker on it.  Now, in most places these days the fire brigade will always come and always put your fire out. We expect this, and we are happy to pay for this service by taxation, and we do not fret about wasted money if we pay it for decades without ever having a fire. We also do not complain if the neighbour's house burns, and they get the full fire service which we have been paying for.  Now all the fire brigade do is rescue you and put your fire out. Here in Germany every house owner is also obliged to have fire insurance, so if your house burns it can be repaired or rebuilt. Everyone pays insurance premiums, and I never heard anyone complain if they paid for 50 years and never claimed anything. If you need a new house the payout is huge. But the premiums are low. This only works if everyone is insured. This can only work if we all accept the concept of solidarity. It is easy to say, I don't smoke so I don't need to insure against fire, or, I live a healthy life so I don't need to insure against cancer. But lightning does not check your CV before it strikes. It hits you or your fellow man, and how can you justify not helping your neighbour? Insurance can only work if we all take part."}
{"question":"Multiple accounts stagnant after quitting job.","answer":"You ask multiple question here.  The 401(k) - move it to an IRA. As others stated,this will lower your costs, and open up a potential I didn't see mentioned, the conversion to a Roth IRA. A year in which your income is lower than average is a great opportunity to convert a bit of the IRA enough to \"top off\" the lower bracket in which you may find yourself.  The company stock? If you never worked for the company would you have bought this stock? Would you buy it now? If not, why keep it?  The loan is the toughest decision. Will you sleep better if it were paid in full? What's the rate? 6% or more, I'd pay it off, under 4%, less likely. I'd invest much of the cash and the $8000 in stock in a Dilip-recommended VFINX, and use the dividends to pay the loan each month."}
{"question":"Does the Black-Scholes Model apply to American Style options?","answer":"The difference between an American and European option is that the American option can be exercised at any time, whereas the European option can be liquidated only on the settlement date. The American option is  \"continuous time\" instrument, while the European option is a \"point in time\" instrument. Black Scholes applies to the latter, European, option. Under \"certain\" (but by no means all) circumstances, the two are close enough to be regarded as substitutes. One of their disciples, Robert Merton, \"tweaked\" it to describe American options. There are debates about this, and other tweaks, years later."}
{"question":"Can a stock exchange company actually go bust?","answer":"Technically, of course. Almost any company can go bankrupt. One small note: a company goes bankrupt, not its stock. Its stock may become worthless in bankruptcy, but a stock disappearing or being delisted doesn't necessarily mean the company went bankrupt. Bankruptcy has implications for a company's debt as well, so it applies to more than just its stock. I don't know of any historical instances where this has happened, but presumably, the warning signs of bankruptcy would be evident enough that a few things could happen.  Another company, e.g. another exchange, holding firm, etc. could buy out the exchange that's facing financial difficulty, and the companies traded on it would transfer to the new company that's formed. If another exchange bought out the struggling exchange, the shares of the latter could transfer to the former. This is an attractive option because exchanges possess a great deal of infrastructure already in place. Depending on the country, this could face regulatory scrutiny however. Other firms or governments could bail out the exchange if no one presented a buyout offer. The likelihood of this occurring depends on several factors, e.g. political will, the government(s) in question, etc. For a smaller exchange, the exchange could close all open positions at a set price. This is exactly what happened with the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMex) that MSalters mentioned. When the exchange collapsed in May 2013, it closed all open positions for their price on the Thursday before the shutdown date. I don't know if a stock exchange would simply close all open positions at a set price, since equity technically exists in perpetuity regardless of the shutdown of an exchange, while many derivatives have an expiration date. Furthermore, this might not be a feasible option for a large exchange. For example, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange lists thousands of products and manages hundreds of millions of transactions, so closing all open positions could be a significant undertaking.  If none of the above options were available, I presume companies listed on the exchange would actively move to other, more financially stable exchanges. These companies wouldn't simply go bankrupt. Contracts can always be listed on other exchanges as well. Considering the high level of mergers and acquisitions, both unsuccessful and successful,  in the market for exchanges in recent years, I would assume that option 1 would be the most likely (see the NYSE Euronext\/Deutsche B\u00f6rse merger talks and the NYSE Euronext\/ICE merger that's currently in progress), but for smaller exchanges, there is the recent historical precedent of the HKMex that speaks to #3. Also, the above answer really only applies to publicly traded stock exchanges, and not all stock exchanges are publicly-held entities. For example, the Shanghai Stock Exchange is a quasi-governmental organization, so I presume option 2 would apply because it already receives government backing. Its bankruptcy would mean something occurred for the government to withdraw its backing or that it became public, and a discussion of those events occurring in the future is pure speculation."}
{"question":"Is there any reason not to put a 35% down payment on a car?","answer":"I suggest you to apply for a car loan in other banks like DCU or wells fargo, you might get the loan with not the best rate, but after a year you can refinance your loan with a better rate in a different bank since you are going to have a better credit as long as you make your payments in time. I bought a Jetta 2014 last year, my loan is from Wells Fargo. Like you, my credit was low before the loan because I didn't have too much credit history. They gave me the loan with a 8.9% of interest."}
{"question":"What are my chances at getting a mortgage with Terrible credit but High income","answer":"First step, pull a copy of your credit report, and score. You should monitor that score and do what you can to bring it up. Your chances are far better if (a) you first save a sizable downpayment, and (b) go with a local bank that doesn't just write the mortgage and sell it. Better still, go to that local bank and inquire about REO (real estate owned by the bank) property. These are properties they foreclosed on and depending how they are carrying them, you might find decent opportunities. As a matter of logic, a local bank that owns these specific properties (as compared to debt pools where big banks have piles of paper owned fractionally) are more willing to get a new owner in and paying a new loan.  Congrats on the new, higher, income. I'd suggest you first build the emergency fund before the downpayment fund. Let us know how it goes."}
{"question":"Car Loan upside down--refinance before selling?","answer":"Carmax will be interested in setting a price that allows them to make money on the reselling of the vehicle. They won't offer you more than that. The determination of the value compared to the BlueBook value is based on condition and miles. The refinancing of the auto loan could lower your monthly payment, but may not save you any money in the short term. The new lender will also want an evaluation of the vehicle, and if it is less than the payoff amount of the current loan they will ask you to make a lump sum payment. This is addition to the cost of getting the new loan setup. If you can pay the delta between the value of the car and loan then do so, when you sell the car. Don't refinance unless you plan on keeping the car for many months, or you are just adding paperwork to the transaction."}
{"question":"Will my Indian debit card work in the U.S.?","answer":"Debit cards with the Visa or Mastercard symbol on them work technically everywhere where credit cards work. There are some limitations where the respective business does not accept them, for example car rentals want a credit card for potential extra charges; but most of the time, for day-to-day shopping and dining, debit cards work fine. However, you should read up the potential risks. A credit card gives you some security by buffering incorrect\/fraudulent charges from your account, and credit card companies also help you reverse incorrect charges, before you ever have to pay for it. If you use a debit card, it is your money on the line immediately - any incorrect charge, even accidential, takes your money from your account, and it is gone while you work on reversing the charge. Any theft, and your account can be cleaned out, and you will be without money while you go after the thief. Many people consider the debit card risk too high, and don't use them for this reason. However, many people do use them - it is up to you."}
{"question":"How to motivate young people to save money ","answer":"I posted a comment in another answer and it seems to be approved by others, so I have converted this into an answer. If you're talking about young adults who just graduated college and worked through it. I would recommend you tell them to keep the same budget as what they were living on before they got a full-time job. This way, as far as their spending habits go, nothing changes since they only have a $500 budget (random figure) and everything else goes into savings and investments. If as a student you made $500\/month and you suddenly get $2000\/month, that's a lot of money you get to blow on drinks. Now, if you put $500 in savings (until 6-12 month of living expenses), $500 in investments for the long run and $500 in vacation funds or \"big expenses\" funds (Ideally with a cap and dump the extra in investments). That's $18,000\/yr you are saving. At this stage in your life, you have not gotten used to spending that extra $18,000\/yr. Don't touch the side money except for the vacation fund when you want to treat yourself. Your friends will call you cheap, but that's not your problem. Take that head start and build that down payment on your dream house. The way I set it up, is (in this case) I have automatics every day after my paychecks come in for the set amounts. I never see it, but I need to make sure I have the money in there. Note: Numbers are there for the sake of simplicity. Adjust accordingly. PS: This is anecdotal evidence that has worked for me. Parents taught me this philosophy and it has worked wonders for me. This is the extent of my financial wisdom."}
{"question":"What can a CPA do that an EA cannot, and vice versa?","answer":"Although they may have some similar functions, CPAs and Enrolled Agents operate in two rather different areas of the accounting \"space.\" CPAs deal with financial statements, usually of corporations. They're the people you want to go to if you are making an investment, or if you own your own business, and need statements of pretax profit and loss prepared. Although a few of them are competent in taxation, the one thing many of them are weak at is tax rules, and this is where enrolled agents come in. Enrolled agents are more concerned with personal tax liability. They can 1) calculate your income taxes, and 2) represent you in hearings with the IRS because they've taken courses with IRS agents, and are considered by them to be almost \"one of us.\" Many enrolled agents are former IRS agents, actually. But they are less involved with corporate accounting, including things that might be of interest to stock holders. That's the CPA's province."}
{"question":"Why is it rational to pay out a dividend?","answer":"First, you need to understand that not  every investor's goals are the same. Some investors are investing for income. They want to invest in a profitable company and use the profit from the company as income. If that investor invests only in stocks that do not pay a dividend, the only way he can realize income is to sell his investment. But he can invest in companies that pay a regular dividend and use that income while keeping his investment intact.  Imagine this: Let's say I own a profitable company, and I offer to sell you part ownership in that company. However, I tell you this upfront: no matter how much profit our company makes, you will never get a penny from me. You will be getting a stock certificate - a piece of paper - and that's it. You can watch the company grow, and you can tell yourself you own it, but the only way you will personally benefit from your investment would be to sell your piece to someone else, who would also never see a penny in profit. Does that sound like a good investment? The fact of the matter is, stocks in companies that do not distribute dividends do have value, but this value is largely based on the potential of profits\/dividends at some point in the future. If a company vows never ever to pay dividends, why would anyone invest?  An investment would be more of a donation (like Kickstarter) at that point.  A company that pays dividends is possibly past their growth stage. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have stopped growing altogether, but remember that an expansion project for any company does not automatically yield a good result. If a company does not have a good opportunity currently for a growth project, I as an investor would rather get a dividend than have the company blow all the profit on a ill-fated gamble."}
{"question":"Pay cash for a home, get a reverse mortgage, and buy stock","answer":"I think you're missing a couple of things. First - why do you think its a reverse mortgage? More likely than not its a regular mortgage - home equity loan. If so, if they expect the stock market to rise significantly more than the amount of interest they pay on the loan - then its a totally sensible course of action. Second - the purchase in cash only to take out a loan later can definitely be a sensible way to do things. For example, if the seller wants to close fast, or if there are competing offers where not having a contingency is the tipping point. Another reason might be purchasing in an entity name (for example holding the title as an LLC), and in this case it is easier to get a loan if you already have the house, since the banks see the owner's actual commitment and not just promises."}
{"question":"Is there an academic framework for deciding when to sell in-the-money call options?","answer":"based on my understanding of your query...well you need to understand ATM and ITM options. The  delta and gamma factor specifically. Usually delta of ATM is around 0.5 while ITM option is above than that say 0.6 or 0.8 or 0.9 and deep ITM is very close to 1. for every movement of 1 buck the ITM will move say 1.6, ATM 0.5 and OTM 0.3 approx Say a ABC stock price is Rs. 300 so if you check option chart you try to see which one is closer. Suppose you find strikeprice of 320 \/ 300 \/ 280. So  320 is ITM, 300 is ATM and 280 is OTM for call options. So will the delta value (e.g 0.66 \/ 0.55 \/ 0.35). So suppose if stock price rise by 7% i.e Rs. 321 then strikeprice will rise simultaneously. Say ATM CE300 is rs.10 it will start rising by 0.55 i.e. Rs.10.55. The moment the share price move from Rs.300 to Rs.320 your ATM will turn to ITM. Now the tricker part if you buy OTM and the share price rise by 15% your OTM will now become ITM and your profit will roll around 100% to 120% approx. Hope it answers your query"}
{"question":"When an investor makes money on a short, who loses the money?","answer":"Not really. The lender is not buying the stock back at a lower price. Remember, he already owns it, so he need not buy it again. The person losing is the one from whom the short seller buys back the stock, provided that person bought the stock at higher price.  So if B borrowed from A(lender) and sold it to C, and later B purchased it back from C at a lower price, then B made profit, C made loss and A made nothing ."}
{"question":"Why can we cancel cheques, but not Western Union transfers?","answer":"When you send money with Western Union, it is essentially a cash transaction.  You supply Western Union with the name of the recipient and a location.  Your recipient then shows up at a Western Union office, shows some identification, and receives cash.  At this point, the transaction is over.  It is impossible to retract it at this point, because Western Union has already handed out cash, and they have no way of contacting the recipient any longer. This is the reason why you might want to legitimately use Western Union.  It is an instant way to send cash to anyone anywhere in the world.  Let's say that your best friend is stuck in a foreign land and desperately needs money.  You can give him cash just as fast as each of you can get to a Western Union office, and you don't even need a local bank account to do so. Unfortunately, however, the nature of the service also makes it useful for scammers.  You should never use this service to pay for something from someone you don't know, because there are absolutely no safeguards. As mentioned by user662852 in the comments, you can indeed cancel a Western Union money transfer if you do so before the money is picked up by the recipient.  But after they pick it up, the cash is gone."}
{"question":"What are good Monthly Income Funds? [Canada]","answer":"@sharam - big question.  I am going to answer part of it, but not as directly as you might like. You mention 4-6 cents per unit per month, but fail to give a unit price, so it is hard to tell how much return you are really looking for. Given the amount you have to invest, depending on your time horizon, you will do much better outside of mutual funds.  Many funds in this category have fees in the 2% range.  You actually have enough money to have a diversified portfolio on your own, without recourse to funds. If you want to use a fund-like product, I encourage you to look at well established ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).  They are basically like mutual funds that trade on the open stock market.  One good example in this category is iShares XDV Good Luck"}
{"question":"Advantages of paying more of your mortgage while you know you won't continue to live there your whole life","answer":"I will add one thought on to this thread.  This is a financial concept called \"Net Present Value\".  In plain English, it means \"What's the best use for your money right now?\" So, let's say you have an extra \u20ac300\/month which is not being spent on living expenses. If you leave that money under your pillow (or spend it on beer or fancy electronics!) instead of paying off your startersloan early, that is costing you 300*(0.04\/12) per month, every month.  So \u20ac1\/month, or \u20ac12\/year.  This is cumulative for the life of your loan.  So not paying \u20ac300 this month will ultimately cost you \u20ac120 assuming you keep the loan open for 10 years.  If you're saying \"pay my debts or spend the money on a snappy smartphone?\" the answer is that you should pay your debts. Now, here's the important part.  Let's suppose you have a better use for the money than beer or electronics.  Let's suppose you have a mutual fund which will reliably provide you with a return of 10% a year. If you put that \u20ac300\/month into a high-yield fund, and if the returns are consistent, you are STILL paying that \u20ac12\/year (because you invested elsewhere and didn't pay your debts), but you are realizing profits of 300*(0.1\/12)=\u20ac2.5\/month on the invested money.  \u20ac2.5-1=\u20ac1.5\/month, which is a net gain.  So, in some cases, paying off your debt may not be the best use of your money. There are a number of other questions involved which are related to your exposure to capital gains taxes, incentives or disincentives for holding debt, &c. &c.  These are generally country specific.  A poster above who seems to be familiar with Netherlands law did a good explanation of some of those incentives.  I'm in the US, and our incentive and disincentive system is different. TL;DR:  It depends."}
{"question":"Credit card fee and taxes","answer":"Credit card fees on a credit card used for personal expenses are not tax deductible. Credit card fees on a business credit card are deductible on schedule C (or whatever form you're using to report business income and expenses). If you are using the same card for both business and personal ... well, for starters, this is a very bad idea, because it creates exactly the question you're asking. If that's what you're doing, stop, and get separate business and personal cards. If you have separate business and personal cards -- and use the business card only for legitimate business expenses -- then the answer is easy: You can claim a schedule C deduction for any service charges on the business card, and you cannot claim any deduction for any charges on the personal card. In general, though, if you have an expense that is partly business and partly personal, you are supposed to figure out what percentage is business, and that is deductible. In an admittedly brief search, I couldn't find anything specifically about credit cards, but I did find this similar idea on the IRS web site: Generally, you cannot deduct personal, living, or family expenses. However, if you have an expense for something that is used partly for business and partly for personal purposes, divide the total cost between the business and personal parts. You can deduct the business part. For example, if you borrow money and use 70% of it for business and the other 30% for a family vacation, you can deduct 70% of the interest as a business expense. The remaining 30% is personal interest and is not deductible. Refer to chapter 4 of Publication 535, Business Expenses, for information on deducting interest and the allocation rules. (https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/deducting-business-expenses) So, PROBABLY, you could add up all the charges you made on the card, figure out how much was for business and how much for personal, calculate the business percentage, and then deduct this percentage of the service fees. If the amount involved is not trivial, you might want to talk to an accountant or a lawyer."}
{"question":"Is buying a home a good idea?","answer":"Buying a house may save you money compared with renting, depending on the area and specifics of the transaction (including the purchase price, interest rates, comparable rent, etc.). In addition, buying a house may provide you with intangibles that fit your lifestyle goals (permanence in a community, ability to renovate, pride of ownership, etc.). These factors have been discussed in other answers here and in other questions. However there is one other way I think potential home buyers should consider the financial impact of home ownership: Buying a house provides you with a natural 'hedge' against possible future changes in your cost of living. Assume the following: If these two items are true, then buying a home allows you to guarantee today that your monthly living expenses will be mostly* fixed, as long as you live in that community. In 2 years, if there is an explosion of new residents in your community and housing costs skyrocket - doesn't affect you, your mortgage payment [or if you paid cash, the lack of mortgage payment] is fixed. In 3 years, if there are 20 new apartment buildings built beside you and housing costs plummet - doesn't affect you, your mortgage payment is fixed. If you know that you want to live in a particular place 20 years from now, then buying a house in that area today may be a way of ensuring that you can afford to live there in the future. *Remember that while your mortgage payment will be fixed, other costs of home ownership will be variable. See below. You may or may not save money compared with rent over the period you live in your house, but by putting your money into a house, you have protected yourself against catastrophic rent increases. What is the cost of hedging yourself against this risk? (A) The known costs of ownership [closing costs on purchase, mortgage interest, property tax, condo fees, home insurance, etc.]; (B) The unknown costs of ownership [annual and periodic maintenance, closing costs on a future sale, etc.]; (C) The potential earnings lost on your down payment \/ mortgage principal payments [whether it is low-risk interest or higher risk equity]; (D) You may have reduced savings for a long period of time which would limit your ability to cover emergencies (such as medical costs, unexpected unemployment, etc.) (E) You may have a reduced ability to look for a better job based on being locked into a particular location (though I have assumed above that you want to live in a particular community for an extended period of time, that desire may change); and (F) You can't reap the benefits of a rental market that decreases in real dollars, if that happens in your market over time. In short, purchasing a home should be a lifestyle-motivated decision. It financially reduces some the fluctuation in your long-term living costs, with the trade-off of committed principal dollars and additional ownership risks including limited mobility."}
{"question":"What's a good way to find someone locally to help me with my investments?","answer":"I would start by talking to a Fee-Only Financial Planner to make sure the portfolio fits with your goals.  You can find a list here: http:\/\/www.napfa.org\/"}
{"question":"Deal with stock PSEC","answer":"It looks like it has to deal with an expiration of rights as a taxable event. I found this link via google, which states that  Not only does the PSEC shareholder have a TAXABLE EVENT, but he has   TWO taxable events. The net effect of these two taxable events has   DIFFERENT CONSEQUENCES for DIFFERENT SHAREHOLDERS depending upon their   peculiar TAX SITUATIONS. The CORRECT STATEMENT of the tax treatment of unexercised PYLDR rights   is in the N-2 on page 32, which reads in relevant part as follows: \"\u2026, if you receive a Subscription Right from PSEC and do not sell or   exercise that right before it expires, you should generally expect to   have (1) taxable dividend income equal to the fair market value (if   any) of the Subscription Right on the date of its distribution by PSEC   to the extent of PSEC\u2019s current and accumulated earnings and profits   and (2) a capital loss upon the expiration of such right in an amount   equal to your adjusted tax basis (if any) in such right (which should   generally equal the fair market value (if any) of the Subscription   Right on the date of its distribution by PSEC).\" Please note, for quarterly \"estimated taxes\" purposes, that the   DIVIDEND taxable events occur \"ON THE DATE OF ITS DISTRIBUTION BY PSEC   (my emphasis),\" while the CAPITAL LOSS occurs \"UPON EXPIRATION OF SUCH   RIGHT\" (my emphasis). They do NOT occur on 31 December 2015 or some   other date. However, to my knowledge, neither of the taxable events he mentions would be taxed by 4\/15. If you are worried about it, I would recommend seeing a tax professional. Otherwise I'd wait to see the tax forms sent by your brokerage."}
{"question":"Do I have to explain the source of *all* income on my taxes?","answer":"Appears to be a hypothetical question and not really worth answering but... Must it be explained.. no, not until audited. It's saying that for everything reported on a tax return, people have to include an explanation for everything, which you do not, unless you want to make some type of 'disclosure' which is a different matter. Must it be reported.. Yes, based on info presented. All income is taxable unless \"specifically exempted\" per the US Tax code or court cases. Gift vs Found Income... it's not 'found' income as someone gave (gifted) the money to him. Generally, gifts received are not taxable and don't have to be reported."}
{"question":"What is best investment which is full recession proof? ","answer":"Can anyone suggest all type of investments in India which are recession proof? There are no such investments. Quite a few think bullions like Gold tend to go up during recession, which is true to an extent; however there are enough articles that show it is not necessarily true. There are no fool proof investments. The only fool proof way is to mitigate risks. Have a diversified portfolio that has Debt [Fixed Deposits, Bonds] and equity [Stocks], Bullion [Gold], etc. And stay invested for long as the effects tend to cancel out in the long run."}
{"question":"Is it a good idea to teach children that work is linearly related to income?","answer":"As a parent I think you absolutely have to teach them that income is related to work because (for most people at least) it's a more fundamental principle than budgeting, investments, interest, etc. Once they've learned that the primary source of income is work, then you can start teaching them what to do with it, i.e. how to budget, economise, save, invest, etc."}
{"question":"How to avoid maintenance fee when balance drops below minimum?","answer":"Looks like you have three options: Outside of this you might need to look for a different type of account. Hope that helps."}
{"question":"Are you preparing for a possible dollar (USD) collapse? (How?)","answer":"I'd like to provide ideas other than gold, stocks, property, bonds on how to prepare for a severe crisis. My suggestions below may even make your life more happy now."}
{"question":"Assessing the value of an ETF","answer":"You seem to be assuming that ETFs must all work like the more traditional closed-end funds, where the market price per share tends\u2014based on supply and demand\u2014to significantly deviate from the underlying net asset value per share. The assumption is simplistic. What are traditionally referred to as closed-end funds (CEFs), where unit creation and redemption are very tightly controlled, have been around for a long time, and yes, they do often trade at a premium or discount to NAV because the quantity is inflexible. Yet, what is generally meant when the label \"ETF\" is used (despite CEFs also being both \"exchange-traded\" and \"funds\") are those securities which are not just exchange-traded, and funds, but also typically have two specific characteristics: (a) that they are based on some published index, and (b) that a mechanism exists for shares to be created or redeemed by large market participants. These characteristics facilitate efficient pricing through arbitrage. Essentially, when large market participants notice the price of an ETF diverging from the value of the shares held by the fund, new units of the ETF can get created or redeemed in bulk. The divergence quickly narrows as these participants buy or sell ETF units to capture the difference. So, the persistent premium (sometimes dear) or discount (sometimes deep) one can easily witness in the CEF universe tend not to occur with the typical ETF. Much of the time, prices for ETFs will tend to be very close to their net asset value. However, it isn't always the case, so proceed with some caution anyway. Both CEF and ETF providers generally publish information about their funds online. You will want to find out what is the underlying Net Asset Value (NAV) per share, and then you can determine if the market price trades at a premium or a discount to NAV. Assuming little difference in an ETF's price vs. its NAV, the more interesting question to ask about an ETF then becomes whether the NAV itself is a bargain, or not. That means you'll need to be more concerned with what stocks are in the index the fund tracks, and whether those stocks are a bargain, or not, at their current prices. i.e. The ETF is a basket, so look at each thing in the basket. Of course, most people buy ETFs because they don't want to do this kind of analysis and are happy with market average returns. Even so, sector-based ETFs are often used by traders to buy (or sell) entire sectors that may be undervalued (or overvalued)."}
{"question":"devastated with our retirement money that we have left","answer":"It sounds like the kinds of planners you're talking to might be a poor fit, because they are essentially salespersons selling investments for a commission. Some thoughts on finding a financial planner The good kind of financial planner is going to be able to do a comprehensive plan - look at your whole life, goals, and non-investment issues such as insurance. You should expect to get a document with a Monte Carlo simulation showing your odds of success if you stick to the plan; for investments, you should expect to see a recommended asset allocation and an emphasis on low-cost no-commission (commission is \"load\") funds. See some of the other questions from past posts, for example What exactly can a financial advisor do for me, and is it worth the money? A good place to start for a planner might be http:\/\/napfa.org ; there's also a franchise of planners providing hourly advice called the Garrett Planning Network, I helped my mom hire someone from them and she was very happy, though I do think your results would depend mostly on the individual rather than the franchise. Anyway see http:\/\/www.garrettplanningnetwork.com\/map.html , they do require planners to be fee-only and working on their CFP credential. You should really look for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) credential. There are a lot of credentials out there, but many of them mean very little, and others might be hard to get but not mean the right thing. Some other meaningful ones include Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) which would be a solid investment expert, though not necessarily someone knowledgeable in financial planning generally; and IRS Enrolled Agent, which means someone who knows a lot about taxes. A CPA (accountant) would also be pretty meaningful. A law degree (and estate law know-how) is very relevant to many planning situations, too. Some not-very-meaningful certifications include Certified Mutual Fund Specialist (which isn't bogus, but it's much easier to get than CFP or CFA); Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) which mostly means the person is supposed to understand securities fraud laws, but doesn't mean they know a lot about financial planning. There are some pretty bogus certifications out there, many have \"retirement\" or \"senior\" in the name. A good question for any planner is \"Are you a fiduciary?\" which means are they legally required to act in your interests and not their own. Most sales-oriented advisors are not fiduciaries; they wouldn't charge you a big sales commission if they were, and they are not \"on your side\" legally speaking. It's a good idea to check with your state regulators or the SEC to confirm that your advisor is registered and ask if they have had any complaints. (Small advisors usually register with the state and larger ones with the federal SEC). If they are registered, they may still be a salesperson who isn't acting in your interests, but at least they are following the law. You can also see if they've been in trouble in the past. When looking for a planner, one firm I found had a professional looking web site and didn't seem sketchy at all, but the state said they were not properly registered and not in compliance. Other ideas A good book is: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Smart-Simple-Financial-Strategies-People\/dp\/0743269942 it's very approachable and you'd feel more confident talking to someone maybe with more background information. For companies to work with, stick to the ones that are very consumer-friendly and sell no-load funds. Vanguard is probably the one you'll hear about most. But T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, USAA are some other good names. Fidelity is a bit of a mixture, with some cheap consumer-friendly investments and other products that are less so. Avoid companies that are all about charging commission: pretty much anyone selling an annuity is probably bad news. Annuities have some valid uses but mostly they are a bad deal. Not knowing your specific situation in any detail, it's very likely that 60k is not nearly enough, and that making the right investment choices will make only a small difference. You could invest poorly and maybe end up with 50K when you retire, or invest well and maybe end up with 80-90k. But your goal is probably more like a million dollars, or more, and most of that will come from future savings. This is what a planner can help you figure out in detail. It's virtually certain that any planner who is for real, and not a ripoff salesperson, will talk a lot about how much you need to save and so forth, not just about choosing investments. Don't be afraid to pay for a planner. It's well worth it to pay someone a thousand dollars for a really thorough, fiduciary plan with your interests foremost. The \"free\" planners who get a commission are going to get a whole lot more than a thousand dollars out of you, even though you won't write a check directly. Be sure to convert those mutual fund expense ratios and sales commissions into actual dollar amounts! To summarize: find someone you're paying, not someone getting a commission; look for that CFP credential showing they passed a demanding exam; maybe read a quick and easy book like the one I mentioned just so you know what the advisor is talking about; and don't rush into anything! And btw, I think you ought to be fine with a solid plan. You and your husband have time remaining to work with. Good luck."}
{"question":"What to do with your savings in Japan","answer":"The reason for these low interests is that the Japanese central bank is giving away money at negative interests to banks. Yes, negative. So, short of opening your own bank, you'll have to either choose less liquid investments or more risky ones. Get Japanese government bonds. Not a great interest, band not that liquid, but for a 5 years bond you'll do better than the bank can. Get Japanese corporate bonds. Still not great, and a bit more risky, it's better than nothing. Get a Japanese mutual fund. I can't recommend any though. Buy Japanese stock. Many Japanese stock have interesting kickbacks. For example if you buy enough stock of Book-Off you'll get some free books every month. it's risky though because I believe the next NIKKEI index crash is imminent."}
{"question":"What happens if futures contract seller defaults?","answer":"MD-Tech answered: The answer is in your question: derivatives are contracts so are enforced in the same way as any other contract.  If the counterparty refuses to pay immediately they will, in the first instance be billed by any intermediary (Prime Broker etc.) that facilitated the contract. If they still refuse to pay the contract may stipulate that a broker can \"net off\" any outstanding payments against it or pay out using deposited cash or posted margins. The contract will usually include the broker as an interested party and so they can, but don't need to, report a default (such that this is) to credit agencies (in some jurisdictions they are required to by law). Any parties to the trade and the courts may use a debt collection agency to collect payments or seize assets to cover payment. If there is no broker or the counterparty still has not paid the bill then the parties involved (the party to the trade and any intermediaries) can sue for breach of contract. If they win (which would be expected) the counterparty will be made to pay by the legal system including, but not limited to, seizure of assets, enforced bankruptcy, and prison terms for any contempts of court rulings. All of this holds for governments who refuse to pay derivatives losses (as Argentina did in the early 20th century) but in that case it may escalate as far as war. It has never done so for derivatives contracts as far as I know but other breaches of contract between countries have resulted in armed conflict. As well as the \"hard\" results of failing to pay there are soft implications including a guaranteed fall in credit ratings that will result in parties refusing to do business with the counterparty and a separate loss of reputation that will reduce business even further. Potential employees and funders will be unwilling to become involved with such a party and suppliers will be unwilling to supply on credit. The end result in almost every way would be bankruptcy and prison sentences for the party or their senior employees. Most jurisdictions allow for board members at companies in material breach of contract to be banned from running any company for a set period as well. edit: netting off cash flows netting off is a process whereby all of a party's cash flows, positive and negative, are used to pay each other off so that only the net change is reflected in account balances, for example: company 1 cash flows netting off the total outgoings are 3M + 500k = 3.5M and total incomings are 1.2M + 1.1M + 1.2M = 3.5M so the incoming cash flows can be used to pay the outgoing cash flows leaving a net payment into company1's account of 0."}
{"question":"Is Real Estate ever a BAD investment? If so, when?","answer":"Real estate is a lousy investment because: Renting a home and buying a home, all else being equal, are pretty similar in costs in the long term (if you can force yourself to invest the would-be down payment). So, buy a home if you want to enjoy the benefits of home ownership. Buy a home if you need to hedge against rising housing prices (e.g. you're on a fixed income and couldn't cope if rent increased a bunch when the economy heated up). Maybe buy a home if you're in a high tax bracket to save yourself from being taxed on your imputed rent, if it works out that way (consult your financial advisor). But don't consider it a really great investment vehicle. Returns are average and the risk profile isn't that attractive."}
{"question":"Why diversify stocks\/investments?","answer":"Diversifying is the first advice given to beginner in order to avoid big loss. For example in 2014 the company Theranos was really appealing before it fail in 2016. So a beginner could have invest ALL his money and lose it. But if he has deverified he wouldn't lost everything. As an investor goes from beginner to experience some still Diversify and other concentrate. Mostly it depends how much confident you are about an investement. If you have 20 years of experience, now everything about the company and you are sure there will be profit you can concentrate. If you are not 100% sure there will be a profit, it is better to Diversify. Diversifying can also be profitating when you loose money: because you will pay tax when you earn money, if you diversify you can choose to loose money in some stock (usually in december) and in this way cut your taxes."}
{"question":"Would open source credit score formulas be feasible?","answer":"The major bureaus use the Fair Isaac scoring model, for the most part.  Here's an excerpt from a web site (Versions of the FICO scoring model) to explain: One of the first things a newcomer to this board learns is the difference between FICO and FAKO scores. FAKO refers to the non-FICO scores offered by various companies. FAKO scores have little value since few of them are used by lenders and they do not match closely to FICO scores.    But even when you stick with FICO scores, confusion can ensue because FICO scores have many different editions, versions, and variations. On a single day, a consumer could theoretically have dozens of different FICO scores, depending on which version and credit agency is used to produce the score.   This post provides a summary of the various FICO versions. Please offer any corrections or updates, and they will be edited in.   The FICO scoring model with its familiar range of 300 to 850 was first introduced in 1989. Since then, FICO has released five major revisions:   1995, 1998, 2004, 2008, and 2014.  Each \"edition\" uses a different formula and produces a different score.   When a new FICO edition is released, many lenders continue using an older version for years before \"upgrading.\" The 1995 revision is no longer in common use, but later editions are still used by lenders.   Most FICO editions are commonly known by the year of introduction:  FICO 98, FICO 04, and FICO 08 (although FICO now calls it FICO Score 8, without the zero).   The most recent edition is FICO Score 9 introduced in 2014.   As of 2014, FICO Score 8 is the most commonly used. However, most mortgage lenders use FICO 04 for Equifax and Transunion, and FICO 98 for Experian.   In addition to the \"classic\" version, FICO offers \"Industry Option\" versions customized for auto loans, credit cards, installment loans, personal finance loans, and insurance. These have a score range of 250 to 900, so the scores are not fully comparable with \"classic\" versions. As of 2015, Auto and Bankcard scores are available from myFICO as described here.  Citibank provides the Equifax FICO 8 Bankcard score free each month to credit cards holders.   Each credit agency (Transunion, Equifax, and Experian) uses a customized version of each FICO edition. As a result, a consumer's FICO scores from each agency may differ even when all credit information is identical among the agencies.   Because there are many FICO versions, when a score is received, it's helpful to know which version it is. If a lender provides a credit score, ask for details such as which credit agency was used, which FICO edition was used, and whether the score is an Industry Option version. The lender may not always be willing or able to provide the answers, but it doesn't hurt to ask.  Transunion   Official name:   FICO Risk Score Classic 98    Common name:  TU-98   Available directly to consumers:   No    Real-world score range:  336 to 843     (as shown on page 16 of this Transunion document)   Equifax   Official name:   Equifax FICO Score 4  (also known as Equifax Beacon 96)   Common name:   EQ-98   This version appears to be seldom used, but a poster reported it used on a mortgage application in 2014.   Available directly to consumers:   No   Experian   Official name:   Experian FICO Score 2  (also known as Experian FICO Risk Model v2)   Common name:   EX-98   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO when buying a product that includes all 19 available scores (as described here).  Some credit unions such as PSECU provide it free each month to members.   Real-world score range:   320 to 844     (as shown on this Experian document) Most mortgage lenders use FICO 04 for Equifax and Transunion, and FICO 98 for Experian.   All three scores will normally be pulled and the middle score (not the average) will be used by the lender. Transunion   Official name:   Transunion FICO Score 4  (also known as Transunion FICO Risk Score Classic 04)   Common name:  TU-04   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO as described here.   Real-world score range:   309 to 839     (as shown on page 16 of this Transunion document)   Equifax   Official name:   Equifax FICO Score 5  (also known as Equifax Beacon 5.0)   Common name:   EQ-04   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO as described here.  Also available from Equifax when buying FICO score (as a one-time purchase with the \"Score Power\" product available here, or as part of credit monitoring available here).  Some credit unions such as DCU provide it free each month to members.    Real-world score range:   334 to 818   Experian   Official name:   Experian FICO Score 3 (also known as Experian FICO Risk Model v3)   Common name:   EX-04   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO when buying a product that includes all 19 available scores (as described here).   Real-world score range:   325 to 850     (as shown on this Experian document) Transunion   Official name:   Transunion FICO Score 8  (also known as Transunion FICO 8 Risk Score or FICO Risk Score Classic 08)   Common name:   TU-08   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO as described here. Some credit card issuers such as Discover, Barclays, and Walmart provides it free each month.   Real-world score range:   341 to 850     (as shown on page 15 of this Transunion document)   Equifax   Official name:   Equifax FICO Score 8  (also known as Equifax Beacon 09)   Common name:   EQ-08   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO as described here.    Real-world score range:   300  to 850   Experian   Official name:   Experian FICO Score 8  (also known as Experian FICO Risk Model v8)   Common name:   EX-08   Available directly to consumers:   from myFICO as described here.   Real-world score range:   316  to 850     (as shown on this Experian document) How FICO Score 8 differs from previous versions is explained here.    In May 2014, a poster named android01 received 850 scores from all three credit agencies, as described in this post.    In June 2014, a poster named fused received 850 scores from all three credit agencies, as described in this post.   This 2011 press release describes a study of FICO Score 8 scores.   From a sample of 250,000 credit reports, it found 0.02% had a score of 850, or about 1 out of every 5000 persons. In 2014, FICO announced a new version called FICO Score 9.  More info here. As of February 2016, the score is now available directly to consumers, as described here. This New York Times article  says FICO 9 includes two important changes:    unpaid debts that result in collection actions will no longer have a negative effect on a score if the debt has been paid.    unpaid medical debts will have less negative effect on scores. In 2001, FICO released a new scoring model called NextGen.   It is claimed to be an improvement over \"classic\" FICO models because it tracks more factors.  But it has failed to catch on with lenders because its score range of 150 to 950 is incompatible with the familiar 300 to 850 range, requiring lenders to recalculate cutoff scores and revise many rules and policies.  Only a small percentage of lenders reportedly use NextGen. Transunion   Official name:   Precision   Available directly to consumers:    No   Equifax   Official name:   Pinnacle   Available directly to consumers:   In 2014, Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed) began to provide this score free to its credit card holders, as discussed in this post.   Experian   Official name:   FICO Advanced Risk Score   Available directly to consumers:    No I included all of this to make the point that there are many variations of the scoring models, and all of them are customized to one degree or another by each of the major bureaus as a means of giving their models more credibility, as far as they're concerned. To your question about coming up with a \"fair\" scoring model, can you propose what makes current scoring models unfair?  I think it's a safe assumption to make that the financial community has already had a substantial amount of input into how the current scoring models work.  To think otherwise implies that the credit bureaus are just kinda \"winging it\" with whatever they think is best.  Their models are designed to give their client creditors the best scoring model possible based on what those creditors have stated is important to them. There isn't a unified single scoring model out there, and the bureaus definitely won't share the details of their modifications.  You can always come up with your own custom model, but how it compares to what's widely used, that's anyone's guess. I hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"question":"How to secure one's effort when working on a contract?","answer":"Anytime you do work without any payment until the work is complete, you are effectively extending credit to the party receiving your service. How much credit you are willing to extend will vary greatly, depending on the amount and the trustworthiness of the party. For example, if you are charging $50 for something, you probably won't bother to collect money upfront, whereas if you are charging $5,000 you probably would collect some upfront. But if the party you are working for is a large financially sound company, the number may be even much higher than $5K as you can trust you will be paid. Obviously there are many factors that go into how much credit you are willing to extend to your customer. (This is why credit reports exist for banks to determine how much credit to extend to you.) As for the specific case you are asking about, which may be classified as a decent amount of work for a small business, I would default to having a written scope of work, a place in the document for both parties to sign, and specify 50% upfront payment and 50% payment at completion. When you receive the signed document and the upfront payment (and possibly even after the check clears), you begin work. I would call this my \"default contract\" and adjust according to your needs depending on the size of the job and the trustworthiness of the customer. As for your question about how to deposit the check, that depends on what type of entity you are. If you are a sole proprietor you should ask for the checks to be made out to you. If you are a business then the checks should be made out to your business name. You don't need \"in trust\" or anything similar because your customer, after paying the upfront fee, must trust that you will do the work you promise to do, just like you have to trust that after completing the work you will receive the final payment. This is the reason the default is 50% before and after. Both parties are risking (roughly) the same amount. Tip: having done the \"default\" contract many times in my career, both as a sole proprietor and a business owner, I can assure you there is a big difference between a potential customer agreeing to something in advance, and actually writing a check. The upfront payment definitely helps weed out those that were never going to end up paying you, even if their intentions were good. Tip 2: be as specific as possible as to what the scope of work will include. If you don't, particularly with software, they'll be adding feature after feature and expecting it to be \"included\"."}
{"question":"Is debt almost always the cause of crashes and recessions?","answer":"The statement can be true, but isn't a general rule. Crashes and recessions are two different things. A crash is when the market rapidly revalues something when prices are out of equilibrium, whether it be stocks, a commodity or even a service.  When the internet was new, nobody knew how to design webpages, so web page designers were in huge demand and commanded insane price premiums. I literally had college classmates billing real companies $200+\/hr for marginal web skills. Eventually, the market \"clued up\" and that industry collapsed overnight. Another example of a crash from the supply point of view was the discovery of silver in the western US during the 19th century -- these discoveries increased the supply of the commodity to the point that silver coin eroded in value and devastated small family farms, who mostly dealt in silver currency. Recessions are often linked to crashes, but you don't need a crash to have a recession. Basically, during a recession, trade and industrial activity drop. The economy operates in cycles, and the euphoria and over-optimistic projections of a growing or booming economy lead to periods of reduced growth where the economy essentially reorganizes itself. Capital is a (if not the) key element of the economic cycle -- it's a catalyst that makes things happen. Debt is one form of capital -- it's not good, not bad. Generally cheap capital (ie. low interest rates) bring economic growth. Why? If I can borrow at 4%, I can then perform some sort of economic activity (bake bread, make computers, assemble cars, etc) that will earn myself 6, 8 or 10% on the dollar. When interest rates go up, economic activity slows, because the higher cost of credit increases the risk of losing money on an investment. The downside of cheap capital is that risk taking gets too easy and you can run into situations like the $2M ranch houses in California. The downside of expensive\/tight capital is that it gets harder for businesses to operate and economic activity slows down. The effects of either extreme cascade and snowball."}
{"question":"Are SPDR funds good for beginners?","answer":"No, SPDR ETFs are not a good fit for a novice investor with a low level of financial literacy.  In fact, there is no investment that is safe for an absolute beginner, not even a savings account.  (An absolute beginner could easily overdraw his savings account, leading to fees and collections.) I would say that an investment becomes a good fit for an investor as soon as said investor understands how the investment works.  A savings account at a bank or credit union is fairly easy to understand and is therefore a suitable place to hold money after a few hours to a day of research.  (Even after 0 hours of research, however, a savings account is still better than a sock drawer.) Money market accounts (through a bank), certificates of deposit (through a bank), and money market mutual funds (through a mutual fund provider) are probably the next easiest thing to understand.  This could take a few hours to a few weeks of research depending on the learner. Equities, corporate bonds, and government bonds are another step up in complexity, and could take weeks or months of schooling to understand well enough to try.  Equity or bond mutual funds -- or the ETF versions of those, which is what you asked about -- are another level after that. Also important to understand along the way are the financial institutions and market infrastructure that exist to provide these products:  banks, credit unions, public corporations, brokerages, stock exchanges, bond exchanges, mutual fund providers, ETF providers, etc."}
{"question":"Is losing money in my 401K normal?","answer":"My two cents: I am a pension actuary and see the performance of funds on a daily basis. Is it normal to see down years? Yes, absolutely. It's a function of the directional bias of how the portfolio is invested. In the case of a 401(k) that almost always mean a positive directional bias (being long). Now, in your case I see two issues: The amount of drawdown over one year. It is atypical to have a 14% loss in a little over a year. Given the market conditions, this means that you nearly experienced the entire drawdown of the SP500 (which your portfolio is highly correlated to) and you have no protection from the downside. The use of so-called \"target-date funds\". Their very implication makes no sense. Essentially, they try to generate a particular return over the elapsed time until retirement. The issue is that the market is by all statistical accounts random with positive drift (it can be expected to move up in the long term). This positive drift is due to the fact that people should be paid to take on risk. So if you need the money 20 years from now, what's the big deal? Well, the issue is that no one, and I repeat, no one, knows when the market will experience long down moves. So you happily experience positive drift for 20 years and your money grows to a decent size. Then, right before you retire, the market shaves 20%+ of your investments. Will you recoup these damages? Most likely yes. But will that be in the timeframe you need? The market doesn't care if you need money or not. So, here is my advice if you are comfortable taking control of your money. See if you can roll your money into an IRA (some 401(k) plans will permit this) or, if you contribute less that the 401(k) contribution limit you make want to just contribute to an IRA (be mindful of the annual limits). In this case, you can set up a self-directed account. Here you will have the flexibility to diversify and take action as necessary. And by diversify, I don't mean that \"buy lots of different stuff\" garbage, I mean focus on uncorrelated assets. You can get by on a handful of ETFs (SPY, TLT, QQQ, ect.). These all have liquid options available. Once you build a base, you can lower basis by writing covered calls against these positions. This is allowed in almost all IRA accounts. In my opinion, and I see this far too often, your potential and drive to take control of your assets is far superior than the so called \"professionals or advisors\". They will 99% of the time stick you in a target date fund and hope that they make their basis points on your money and retire before you do. Not saying everyone is unethical, but its hard to care about your money more than you will."}
{"question":"When to sell a stock?","answer":"I am a believer in stocks for the long term, I sat on the S&P right though the last crash, and am 15% below the high before the crash.  For individual stocks, you need to look more closely, and often ask yourself about its valuation. The trick is to buy right and not be afraid to sell when the stock appears to be too high for the underlying fundamentals. Before the dotcom bubble I bought Motorola at $40. Sold some at $80, $100, and out at $120. Coworkers who bought in were laughing as it went to $160. But soon after, the high tech bubble burst, and my sales at $100 looked good in hindsight. The stock you are looking at - would you buy more at today's price? If not, it may be time to sell at least some of that position."}
{"question":"What effect will the financial reform bill have on everyday Americans?","answer":"The Wall Street Journal says in its \"For Consumers\" section of its infographic: There's also some new agencies (including a \"consumer watchdog agency\"), and some new rules the SEC can implement, and it lets state pass more laws affecting national banks, but it doesn't look like there's much in particular that it does for consumers right away. Source - http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704569204575329211031691230.html"}
{"question":"Are solar cell panels and wind mills worth the money?","answer":"Solar water heaters are definitely questionable in the Northeast -- the season when you most need them is also the season when they are least effective. Solar electric isn't a huge moneymaker, but with rebates on installation and carbon-reduction credits (SRECs) -- and a group purchase discount if you can get one, either at a town level or through organizations like One Block Off The Grid -- it can definitely turn a profit. Early estimate was that my setup would pay its initial costs back in 4 years, and the panels are generally considered to be good for a decade before the cells have degraded enough that the panels should be replaced. I haven't had a negative electric bill yet, but I've gotten close, and my setup is a relatively small one (eight panels facing SSE on a 45-degree roof). Admittedly I've also been working to reduce electricity use; I don't think I have an incandescent bulb left in the house."}
{"question":"What did John Templeton mean when he said that the four most dangerous words in investing are: \u2018this time it\u2019s different'?","answer":"This refers to the faulty idea that the stock market will behave differently than it has in the past.  For example, in the late 1990s, internet stocks rose to ridiculous heights in price, to be followed soon after with the Dot-Com Bubble crash. In the future, it's likely that there will be another such bubble with another hot stock - we just don't know what kind.  Saying that \"this time it will be different\" could mean that you expect this bubble not to burst when, historically, that is never the case."}
{"question":"Are there any benefits to investing with a group of friends vs. by myself?","answer":"In most markets, there are fixed fees known as commissions. For instance, with a retail broker in the stock market, you can expect every trade to cost you $7.00 as an example, it is $7.00 regardless of if you place a trade for $25 or $25,000. You will see that just opening the trade, with a smaller amount, will eat up all of your profits and a majority of your capital, but if you opened the trade with more capital through the investment group, then the $7.00 commission will be much less of a tax on your trade. Basically, the only advantage is that the tax of commissions will be less if you have a larger account, if the commission is a fixed dollar value, which is not always true either. regardless, at $25 per month, not many markets will be accessible. There is also the possible educational aspect of investing with a group of people, or it can simply be clashing ideals."}
{"question":"Which technical indicators are suitable for medium-term strategies?","answer":"If I knew a surefire way to make money in FOREX (or any market for that matter) I would not be sharing it with you.  If you find an indicator that makes sense to you and you think you can make money, use it.  For what it's worth, I think technical analysis is nonsense. If you're just now wading in to the FOREX markets because of the Brexit vote I suggest you set up a play-money account first.  The contracts and trades can be complicated, losses can be very large and you can lose big -- quickly. I suspect FOREX brokers have been laughing to the bank the last couple weeks with all the guppies jumping in to play with the sharks."}
{"question":"For very high-net worth individuals, does it make sense to not have insurance?","answer":"I'm going to take a very crude view of this: Suppose that you have an event that would cost $100,000 if it occurred. If there's a 10% chance that it'll happen to you and the insurance costs less than $10,000, you'll make a profit \"on average.\" This is, of course, assuming that you could afford a $100,000 loss. If you can't, the actual loss could be much higher (or different). For example, if you couldn't afford surgery because you didn't have health insurance, it could be a lot more \"costly\" in a way that could be difficult to compare to the $100,000. Obviously, this is a very simplistic view of things. For example, making more than you paid on the premium typically isn't the only reason you'd buy insurance (even if you're high net worth). Just wanted to throw this out there for what it's worth though."}
{"question":"Valuing a small business to invest in ","answer":"There is nothing fair \/ unfair in such deals. It is an art than a science.  what kind of things should be considered, to work out what would be a fair percentage stake A true fair value is; take the current valuation of the company [This can be difficult if it is small and does not maintain proper records]. Divide by number of shares, that is the value of share and you should 20K worth of such shares. But then there is risk premium. You are taking a risk that an small start-up may do exceedingly well ... or it may close off. This risk premium is what is negotiated. It depends on how desperate the owner of the small company is; who all are interested in this specific deal ... if you want 30% share; someone else is ready to offer 20K for 15% of share. Or there is no one willing to lend 20K as they don't believe it will make money ... and the owner is desperate, you may even get 50%."}
{"question":"Which Benjamin Graham book should I read first: Security Analysis or Intelligent Investor?","answer":"Read the Security Analysis.  I believe if you read it completely, you will have a real good chance of succeeding at making good money.  If you find the book hard to read just go through it and underline under the text as you read it."}
{"question":"How to motivate young people to save money ","answer":"Are you sure the question even makes sense? In the present-day world economy, it's unlikely that someone young who just started working has the means to put away any significant amount of money as savings, and attempting to do so might actually preclude making the financial choices that actually lead to stability - things like purchasing [the right types and amounts of] insurance, buying outright rather than using credit to compensate for the fact that you committed to keep some portion of your income as savings, spending money in ways that enrich your experience and expand your professional opportunities, etc. There's also the ethical question of how viable\/sustainable saving is. The mechanism by which saving ensures financial stability is by everyone hoarding enough resources to deal with some level of worst-case scenario that might happen in their future. This worked for past generations in the US because we had massive amounts (relative to the population) of (stolen) natural resources, infrastructure built on enslaved labor, etc. It doesn't scale with modern changes the world is undergoing and it inherently only works for some people when it's not working for others. From my perspective, much more valuable financial skills for the next generation are:"}
{"question":"What kind of life insurance is cheaper? I'm not sure about term vs. whole vs. universal, etc","answer":"Whole life in most instances is a very bad plan. It's marketed as a life insurance policy wrapped in an investment but it does neither very well. The hidden caveat of whole life is that the investment goes away if you die.  Say for example I have a $100,000 whole life insurance policy and over the years I have paid in enough to have a $15,000 cash value on the policy. If I die, my family gets $100,000 and the cash value is lost. With term life you can get a substantially higher amount of coverage for a smaller payment. If you invest the difference you end up not only with better coverage, but a better cash value from the difference if you don't die (which is what we all hope for anyways). As JackiYo said, your insurance should be designed around replacing lost income\/value.  You should get 10x your annual income in term life insurance."}
{"question":"Are large companies more profitable than small ones?","answer":"This isn't as rigorous as it should be, but may offer some useful insight into how big and small companies differ operationally. Putting Apple aside, larger companies tend to sell larger volumes of products (even if they're MRI devices, or turbines) relative to what smaller companies can sell (obviously, in absolute terms as well).  They are also able to negotiate volume discounts as well as payment terms.  This allows them to finance sales through their supply chain.  However, their large direct competitors are able to do the same thing as well.  Competitive forces then drive prices down. Smaller businesses, without these advantages of scale, tend to have to charge higher margins since they have to pay directly (and, if their clients are large businesses, finance the sale). Small businesses still have higher proportional costs of operation.  Sadly, my reference here is a study I performed for the South African Revenue Service about ten years ago, and not available online. However, the time taken by a small business to manage admin, tax, HR is a greater proportion of revenue than for larger companies. If the small business is a start-up with big investment from venture finance, then they could subsidise their selling price, run at a loss and try and gain scale.  Funnily enough, there is a fantastic article on this by Joel Spolsky (Ben and Jerry's vs. Amazon) For the average highly-competitive smaller company, the best choice is to chase design\/quality\/premium markets in order to justify the higher margins they have to charge.   And that's what makes Apple interesting as a case study.  They were a small company in the presence of giants (Intel, Microsoft, IBM).  They were \"forced\" to concentrate on design and premium markets in order to justify their need for higher margins.  It almost didn't work but then they broke through.  Now they're in the unique position of having gained scale but are still small enough relative to other electronics manufacturers to continue charging that premium (by volume their sales are still relatively small but their margins make them a giant). This type of variation from market to market makes developing some sort of generalised solution very unlikely but the general requirement holds: that smaller companies must charge higher margins in order to create equivalent profits to larger companies which must gain scale through volume."}
{"question":"Purchasing options between the bid and ask prices, or even at the bid price or below?","answer":"I frequently do this on NADEX, selling out-of-the-money binary  calls. NADEX is highly illiquid, and the bid\/ask is almost always from  the market maker. Out-of-the-money binary calls lose value quickly  (NADEX daily options exist for only ~21 hours). If I place an  above-ask order, it either gets filled quickly (within a few minutes)  due to a spike in the underlying, or not at all. I compensate by  changing my price hourly.  As Joe notes, one of Black-Scholes inputs is volatility, but price  determines (implied) volatility, so this is circular. In other words, you can  treat the bid\/ask prices as bid\/ask volatilities. This isn't as  far-fetched as it seems:  http:\/\/www.cmegroup.com\/trading\/fx\/volatility-quoting-fx-options.html"}
{"question":"Funding an ira or roth ira","answer":"And on the last sentence, it doesn't matter when or where the money was earned (money is fungible, so there's generally not even any way to tell), but you do have to have sufficient earned income (that's basically money you earn from working, not from dividends and interest or selling stock and the like) in the contribution year to cover the IRA contribution."}
{"question":"are there any special procedures for managing non-petty cash?","answer":"After talking to two CPAs it seems like managing it using an imprest system is the best idea. The base characteristic of an imprest system is that a fixed amount is reserved and later replenished as it runs low.  This replenishment will come from another account source, e.g., petty cash will be replenished by cashing a cheque drawn on a bank account. Petty cash imprest system allows only the replenishment of the spend made. So, if you start the month with \u20ac100 in your petty cash float and spend \u20ac90 of that cash in the month, an amount of \u20ac90 will be then placed in your petty cash float to bring the balance of your petty cash float back to \u20ac100. The replenishment is credited to the primary cash account, usually a bank account (Dr - Petty Cash a\/c, Cr - Bank a\/c) and the debits will go to the respective expense accounts, based on the petty cash receipt dockets (Dr- Expense a\/c, Cr - Petty Cash a\/c). In a non imprest system where a fixed amount is issued every month, e.g., \u20ac100 every time cash is required, there is no incentive to ensure all money issued has been documented because when money is all spent a check for a fixed amount is issued. It is much more difficult to reconcile a non imprest system as you never know how much exactly should be in the float. In an imprest system the amount requested is documented, the documentation being the petty cash dockets and their associated receipts or invoices. So at all times you can check how much should be left in the petty cash float by deducting the amount spent from the opening petty cash float."}
{"question":"Fractional Reserve Banking and Insolvency","answer":"It certainly is possible for a run on the bank to drive it into insolvency.  And yes, if the bank makes some bad loans, it can magnify the problem. Generally, this does not happen, though.  Remember that banks usually have lots of customers, and people are depositing money and making mortgage payments every day, so there is usually enough on-hand to cover average banking withdrawl activity, regardless of any bad loans they have outstanding. Banks have lots of historical data to know what the average withdrawl demands are for a given day.  They also have risk models to predict the likelihood of their loans going into default.  A bank will generally use this information to strike a healthy balance between profit-making activity (e.g. issuing loans), and satisfying its account holders. In the event of a major withdrawl demand, there are some protections in place to guard against insolvency. There are regulations that specify a Reserve Requirement.  The bank must keep a certain amount of money on hand, so they can't take huge risks by loaning out too much money all at once.  Regulators can tweak this requirement over time to reflect the current economic situation. If a bank does run into trouble, it can take out a short-term loan.  Either from another bank, or from the central bank (e.g. the US Federal Reserve).  Banks don't want to pay interest on loans any more than you do, so if they are regularly borrowing money, they will adjust thier cash reserves accordingly. If all else fails and the bank can't meet its obligations (e.g. the Fed loan fell through), the bank has an insurance policy to make sure the account holders get paid.  In the US, this is what the FDIC is for.  Worst case, the bank goes under, but your money is safe. These protections have worked pretty well for many decades.  However, during the recent financial crisis, all three of these protections were under heavy strain.  So, one of the things banking regulators did was to put the major banks through stress tests to make sure they could handle several bad financial events without collapsing.  These tests showed that some banks didn't have enough money in reserve.  (Not long after, banks started to increase fees and credit card rates to raise this additional capital.) Keep in mind that if banks were unable to use the deposited money (loan it out, invest it, etc), the current financial landscape would change considerably."}
{"question":"Why are people from UAE and Dubai so rich? ","answer":"They aren't all rich on average. And oil and gas is actually now only about 25% of the economy in the UAE (incredibly!). There are good reasons why it felt that way, though: The UAE and a number of other oil-rich nations all realize that they need to diversify away from oil revenues. International investment and tourism are the main ways in which they hope to attract capital (free trade\/full foreign ownership\/no-tax zones, World Cup, etc.). Business and government are often one and the same or working closely together, and they are extremely savvy about cultivating your experience in their company, and want to make sure they are doing everything in their power to get you to like and spend money in their country. Essentially, you are visiting their version of Las Vegas. Additionally, they have taken on massive debt to create those kinds of cities and experiences. According to the World Bank and the CIA (see here), the per capita GDP of the UAE on a Purchasing Price Parity basis is about 18% higher than in the US. Since much of the oil wealth is controlled by the state, it is not certain how evenly that income is distributed (World Bank and CIA statistics do not provide R\/P or Gini data for UAE, while it is provided for most nations)."}
{"question":"What are the risks of Dividend-yielding stocks?","answer":"Dividend Stocks like any stock carry risk and go both up and down.  It is important to choose a stock based on the company's potential and performance.  And, if they pay a dividend it does help. -RobF"}
{"question":"Would cross holding make market capitalization apparently more?","answer":"I started to work out, step by step, why this doesn't work, but the scenario is too convoluted to make that helpful.  Basically, you're making mistakes in some or all of the following spots:"}
{"question":"What is the relationship between the earnings of a company and its stock price?","answer":"I have heard that people say the greater earning means greater   intrinsic value of the company. Then, the stock price is largely based   on the intrinsic value. So increasing intrinsic value due to   increasing earning will lead to increasing stock price. Does this make   sense ? Yes though it may be worth dissecting portions here. As a company generates earnings, it has various choices for what it can do with that money. It can distribute some to shareholders in the form of dividends or re-invest to generate more earnings. What you're discussing in the first part is those earnings that could be used to increase the perceived value of the company. However, there can be more than a few interpretations of how to compute a company's intrinsic value and this is how one can have opinions ranging from companies being overvalued to undervalued overall. Of Mines, Forests, and Impatience would be an article giving examples that make things a bit more complex. Consider how would you evaluate a mine, a forest or a farm where each gives a different structure to the cash flow? This could be useful in running the numbers here."}
{"question":"Best way to buy Japanese yen for travel?","answer":"Unless you need extremely large sums of money, I suggest you use an ATM or look for a credit card that has no foreign transaction fees (rare). AFAIK, it's not possible for a retail buyer to purchase currency at the current exchange rate quoted online.  You are always going to be paying some spread above that, and the ATM gets you the closest. You could also try to use a bank that has branches in your country and Japan (like HSBC) and do your banking there.  Then you likely wouldn't have to pay as much in fees (and possibly could draw on your account in Japan)."}
{"question":"Where do large corporations store their massive amounts of cash?","answer":"Short term investments, treasuries, current accounts."}
{"question":"Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?","answer":"Someone who buys a stock is fundamentally buying a share of all future dividends, plus the future liquidation value of the company in the event that it is liquidated.  While some investors may buy stocks in the hope that they will be able to find other people willing to pay more for the stock than they did, that's a zero sum game.  The only way investors can make money in the aggregate is if either stocks pay dividends or if the money paid for company assets at liquidation exceeds total net price for which the company sold shares. One advantage of dividends from a market-rationality perspective is that dividend payments are easy to evaluate than company value.  Ideally, the share price of a company should match the present per-share cash value of all future dividends and liquidation, but it's generally impossible to know in advance what that value will be.  Stock prices may sometimes rise because of factors which increase the expected per-share cash value of future dividends and liquidations. In a sane market, rising prices on an item will reduce people's eagerness to buy and increase people's eagerness to sell.  Unfortunately, in a marketplace where steady price appreciation is expected the feedback mechanisms responsible for stability get reversed.  Rapidly rising prices act as a red flag to buyers--unfortunately, bulls don't see red flags as signal to stop, but rather as a signal to charge ahead. For a variety of reasons including the disparate treatment of dividends and capital gains, it's often not practical for a company to try to stabilize stock prices through dividends and stock sales.  Nonetheless, dividends are in a sense far more \"real\" than stock price appreciation, since paying dividends generally requires that companies actually have sources of revenues and profits.  By contrast, it's possible for stock prices to go through the roof for companies which have relatively few assets of value and no real expectation of becoming profitable businesses, simply because investors see rising stock prices as a \"buy\" signal independent of any real worth."}
{"question":"What is the best way to stay risk neutral when buying a house with a mortgage?","answer":"Note: I am making a USA-assumption here; keep in mind this answer doesn't necessarily apply to all countries (or even states in the USA).  You asked two questions: I'm looking to buy a property. I do not want to take a risk on this   property. Its sole purpose is to provide me with a place to live. How   would I go about hedging against increasing interest rates, to counter   the increasing mortgage costs? To counter increasing interest rates, obtaining a fixed interest rate on a mortgage is the answer, if that's available.  As far as costs for a mortgage, that depends, as mortgages are tied to the value of the property\/home.  If you want a place to live, a piece of property, and want to hedge against possible rising interest rates, a fixed mortgage would work for these goals. Ideally I'd like to not lose money on my property, seeing as I will be   borrowing 95% of the property's value. So, I'd like to hedge against   interest rates and falling property prices in order to have a risk   neutral position on my property. Now we have a different issue.  For instance, if someone had opened a fixed mortgage on a home for $500,000, and the housing value plummeted 50% (or more), the person may still have a fixed interest rate protecting the person from higher rates, but that doesn't protect the property value.  In addition to that, if the person needed to move for a job, that person would face a difficult choice: move and sell at a loss, or move and rent and face some complications. Renting is generally a good idea for people who (1) have not determined if they'll be in an area for more than 5-10 years, (2) want the flexibility to move if their living costs rises (which may be an issue if they lose wages), (3) don't want to pay property taxes (varies by state), homeowner's insurance, or maintenance costs, (4) enjoy regular negotiation (something which renters can do before re-signing a lease or looking for a new place to live).  Again, other conditions can apply to people who favor renting, such as someone might enjoy living in one room out of a house rather than a full apartment or a person who likes a \"change of scenes\" and moves from one apartment to another for a fresh perspective, but these are smaller exceptions. But with renting, you have nothing to re-sell and no financial asset so far as a property is concerned (thus why some real estate agents refer to it as \"throwing away money\" which isn't necessarily true, but one should be aware that the money they invest in renting doesn't go into an asset that can be re-sold)."}
{"question":"Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money?","answer":"Consider looking into real estate investment trusts (REITs). Assuming that they are available for the area that you are considering they simplify the process of investing in this sector. Your money pooled with other investors and then invested in a broad range of properties. If you go this route make sure to only by REITs that are traded in the open market (liquidity and an honest current valuation). Even better I would consider a index fund of REITs for more diversification. Personally I do use a US based REIT index as a small part of my portfolio so as to get better diversification."}
{"question":"What are the scenarios if mining company around 4c decides to halt stock trading due to capital raising?","answer":"It appears that the company in question is raising money to invest in expanding its operations (specifically lithium production but that is off topic for here). The stock price was rising on the back of (perceived) increases in demand for the company's products but in order to fulfil demand they need to either invest in higher production or increase prices. They chose to increase production by investing. To invest they needed to raise capital and so are going through the motions to do that. The key question as to what will happen with their stock price after this is broken down into two parts: short term and long term: In the short term the price is driven by the expectation of future profits (see below) and the behavioural expectations from an increase in interest in the stock caused by the fact that it is in the news. People who had never heard of the stock or thought of investing in the company have suddenly discovered it and been told that it is doing well and so \"want a piece of it\". This will exacerbate the effect of the news (broadly positive or negative) and will drive the price in the short run. The effect of extra leverage (assuming that they raise capital by writing bonds) also immediately increases the total value of the company so will increase the price somewhat. The short term price changes usually pare back after a few months as the shine goes off and people take profits. For investing in the long run you need to consider how the increase in capital will be used and how demand and supply will change. Since the company is using the money to invest in factors of production (i.e. making more product) it is the return on capital (or investment) employed (ROCE) that will inform the fundamentals underlying the stock price. The higher the ROCE, the more valuable the capital raised is in the future and the more profits and the company as a whole will grow. A questing to ask yourself is whether they can employ the extra capital at the same ROCE as they currently produce. It is possible that by investing in new, more productive equipment they can raise their ROCE but also possible that, because the lithium mines (or whatever) can only get so big and can only get so much access to the seams extra capital will not be as productive as existing capital so ROCE will fall for the new capital."}
{"question":"If our economy crashes, and cash is worthless, should i buy gold or silver ","answer":"Neither. Food, fuel, and tools. Books on how to make and use basic tools -- the books published for farmers who want to kluge their own solutions might be helpful. Heck, help defend a library; it will be beyond price as soon as things settle out a bit. Having skills like blacksmithing and knowing how to teach could go a long way. SF really has explored this in better detail than we could possibly cover here."}
{"question":"Can individuals day-trade stocks using High-Frequency Trading (HFT)?","answer":"Yes you can, but to do so successfully, you need lots of money. You also need to be able to meet the criteria for being classified as a \"professional trader\" by the IRS. (If not, you'll be buried in paperwork.) The fact that you're asking about it here probably means that you do not have enough money to succeed at HFT."}
{"question":"Why do stock exchanges close at night?","answer":"Most stocks are not actively trades by lots of people.   When you buy or sell a stock the price is set by the \"order book\" \u2013 that is the other people looking to trade in the given stock at the same time. Without a large number of active traders, it is very likely the pricing system will break down and result in widely changing prices second by second.   Therefore for the market to work well, it need most people to be trading at the same time."}
{"question":"Why doesn't change in accounts receivable on balance sheet match cash flow statement?","answer":"I'm not an expert, but here is my best hypothesis. On Microsoft's (and most other company's) cash flow statements, they use the so-called \"indirect method\" of accounting for cash flow from operations. How that works, is they start with net income at the top, and then adjust it with line items for the various non-cash activities that contributed to net income. The key phrase is that these are accounting for the non-cash activities that contribute to net income. If the accounts receivable amount changes from something other than operating activity (e.g., if they have to write off some receivables because they won't be paid), the change didn't contribute to net income in the first place, so doesn't need to be reconciled on the cash flow statement."}
{"question":"Where is \"Cash Credit from Unsettled Activity\" coming from?","answer":"The Cash Credit from Unsettled Activity occurs because AGG issued a dividend in the past week. Since you purchased the ETF long enough before the record date (June 5, 2013) for that trade to settle, you qualified for a dividend. The dividend distribution was $0.195217\/share for each of your six shares, for a total credit of $1.17 = 6 * 0.195217. For any ETF, the company's website should tell you when dividends are issued, usually under a section titled \"Distributions\" or something similar. If you look in your Fidelity account's History page, it should show an entry of \"Dividend Received\", which confirms that the cash credit is coming from a dividend distribution. You could look up your holdings and see which one(s) recently issued a dividend; in this case, it was AGG."}
{"question":"Will prices really be different for cash and cards?","answer":"There are many gas stations where I live that already have different prices if you pay for cash vs. credit.  In addition, some small businesses are doing this as well.  My wife bought a birthday cake from a bakery.  If you paid with cash, you saved 5%."}
{"question":"How to transfer money to yourself internationally? ","answer":"I use XE.com for almost the same purpose.  They have free transfer options, such as ACH withdrawals and deposits.  I normally do a online bill payment through my international bank to XE, and have them deposit it in the US via ACH.  It takes 1-3 business days, and there's no fee beyond their small percentage (about 1.25%) on top of the exchange rate."}
{"question":"Feasibility of using long term pattern on short term investments","answer":"Most patterns can be used on various time frames. For example you could use candle stick reversal patterns on monthly charts, weekly charts, daily charts or intra-day charts like one hour, or even one minute charts. Obviously if you are looking for longer term positions you would be looking at daily, weekly or monthly charts and if you are looking for shorter term positions you would be looking at intra-day to daily charts.  You can also use a combination of time frames - for example, if you are trying to enter a trade over a long-term uptrend you could use a weekly chart to determine if the stock is currently uptrending and then use a daily chart to time your entry into the trade. Most patterns in general don't really determine how long you will be in the trade but instead usually can provide an entry trigger, a stop loss location and possibly a profit target.  So in general a pattern which is being used to enter into longer term trades on weekly charts can also be used to enter shorter term trades on intra-day charts."}
{"question":"How to approach building credit without a credit card","answer":"Ways to build credit without applying for credit cards: It takes some time for these types of actions to positively affect you.  I'd say at the very least 6 months.  You won't get the full benefit for several years.  However, the earlier you get started, the better."}
{"question":"Credit card closed. Effect on credit score (USA)","answer":"So My question is. Is my credit score going to be hit?  Yes it will affect your credit.  Not as much as missing payments on the debt, which remains even if the credit line is closed, and not as much as missing payments on other bills...   If so what can I do about it?  Not very much.  Nothing worth the time it would take.  Like you mentioned, reopening the account or opening another would likely require a credit check and the inquiry will add another negative factor.   In this situation, consider the impact on your credit as fact and the best way to correct it is to move forward and pay all your bills on time.  This is the number one key to improving credit score.   So, right now, the key task is finding a new job. This will enable you to make all payments on time.  If you pay on time and do not overspend, your credit score will be fine. Can I contact the creditors to appeal the decision and get them to not affect my score at the very least? I know they won't restore the account without another credit check). Is there anything that can be done directly with the credit score companies? Depending on how they characterize the closing of the account, it may be mostly a neutral event that has a negative impact than a negative event.  By negative events, I'm referring to bankruptcy, charge offs, and collections.  So the best way to recover is to keep credit utilization below 30% and pay all your bills and debt payments on time. (You seem to be asking how to replace this line of credit to help you through your unemployment.) As for the missing credit line and your current finances, you have to find a way forward.  Opening new credit account while you're not employed is going to be very difficult, if not impossible.  You might find yourself in a situation where you need to take whatever part time gig you can find in order to make ends meet until your job search is complete.  Grocery store, fast food, wait staff, delivery driver, etc. And once you get past this period of unemployment, you'll need to catch up on all bills, then you'll want to build your emergency fund.  You don't mention one, but eating, paying rent\/mortgage, keeping current on bills, and paying debt payments are the reasons behind the emergency fund, and the reason you need it in a liquid account.   Source:  I'm a veteran of decades of bad choices when it comes to money, of being unemployed for periods of time, of overusing credit cards, and generally being irresponsible with my income and savings.  I've done all those things and am now paying the price.  In order to rebuild my credit, and provide for my retirement, I'm having to work very hard to save.  My focus being financial health, not credit score, I've brought my bottom line from approximately 25k in the red up to about 5k in the red.  The first step was getting my payments under control.   I have also been watching my credit score.  Two years of on time mortgage payments, gradual growth of score.  Paid off student loans, uptick in score.  Opened new credit card with 0% intro rate to consolidate a couple of store line of credit accounts.  Transferred those balances.  Big uptick.  Next month when utilization on that card hits 90%, downtick that took back a year's worth of gains.  However, financially, I'm not losing 50-100 a month to interest. TLDR; At certain times, you have to ignore the credit score and focus on the important things.  This is one of those times for you.  Find a job.  Get back on your feet.  Then look into living debt free, or working to achieve financial independence."}
{"question":"What option-related strategies are better suited to increasing return potential?","answer":"I've traded covered calls now and then. This is a recent trade. Bought 1000 shares of RSH (Radio Shack) and sold 10 calls. So, I own the stock at a cost of $6.05, but have to let it go for $7.50. There's a 50c dividend in November, so the call buyer will call it away even if the stock trades below the strike. So, I'm expecting this is a 10 month trade for a 24% return.  This is one strategy where options clearly take down the risk (of course, I did not say 'remove', just lessens). The stock can be 10% lower a year out, and I'm still ahead by 8% plus the dividend if it's not canceled.  Note - it's a rare case for a one year trade to return 20% or more at a flat stock price. More common is 10-12%.  (I hope this example is acceptable as an example of this type of trade. If not, I can edit to \"XYZ corp\" to remove the stock name. (So if anyone comments, please do not repeat name in case I need to remove)"}
{"question":"What to do with small dividends in brokerage account?","answer":"Don't sit on it, because the money does not work for you. Add more money to it and buy a stock or stocks of the company."}
{"question":"How do I invest in emerging markets","answer":"Morningstar is often considered a trusted industry standard when it comes to rating mutual funds and ETFs.  They offer the same data-centric information for other investments as well, such as individual stocks and bonds.  You can consult Morningstar directly if you like, but any established broker will usually provide you with Morningstar's ratings for the products it is trying to sell to you. Vanguard offers a few Emerging Markets stock and bond funds, some actively managed, some index funds.  Other investment management companies (Fidelity, Schwab, etc.) presumably do as well.  You could start by looking in Morningstar (or on the individual companies' websites) to find what the similarities and differences are among these funds.  That can help answer some important questions: I personally just shove a certain percentage of my portfolio into non-US stocks and bonds, and of that allocation a certain fraction goes into \"established\" economies and a certain fraction into \"emerging\" ones.  I do all this with just a few basic index funds, because the indices make sense (to me) and index funds cost very little."}
{"question":"What are the differences between a REIT and an MLP?","answer":"A REIT is a real estate investment trust. It is a company that derives most of its gross income from and holds most of its assets in real estate investments, which, in this case, include either real property, mortgages, or both.  They provide a way for investors to get broad exposure in a real estate market without going to buy a bunch of properties themselves.  It also provides diversification within the real estate segment since REITs will often (but not necessarily) have either way more properties than an individual could get or have very large properties (like a few resorts) that would be too expensive for any one investor.  By law, they must pay at least 90% of their taxable income as dividends to investors, so they typically have a good dividend rate (possibly but not necessarily) at the expense of growth of the stock price.  Some of those dividends may be tax advantaged and some will not. An MLP is a master limited partnership.  These trade on the exchange like corporations, but they are not corporations. (Although often used in common language as synonyms, corporation and company are not the same thing.  Corporation is one way to organize a company under the law.)  They are partnerships, and when you buy a share you become a partner in the company.  This is an alternative form of ownership to being a shareholding.  In this case you are a limited partner, which means that you have limited liability as with stock.  The shares may appreciate or not, just like a stock, and you can generally sell them back to the market for a capital gain or loss under the same rules as a stock.  The main difference here from a practical point of view is taxes:  Partnerships (of any type) do no pay tax - Instead their income and costs are passed to the individual partners, who must then include it on their personal returns (Form 1040, Schedule E).  The partnership will send each shareholder a Schedule K-1 form at tax time.  This means you may have \"phantom income\" that is taxable even though cash never flowed through your hands since you'll have to account for the income of the partnership.  Many partnerships mitigate this by making cash distributions during the year so that the partners do actually see the cash, but this is not required.  On the other hand, if it does happen, it's often characterized as a return of capital, which is not taxable in the year that you receive it.  A return of capital reduces your cost basis in the partnership and will eventually result in a larger capital gain when you sell your shares. As with any investment, there are pros and cons to each investment type.  Of the two, the MLP is probably less like a \"regular\" stock since getting the Schedule K-1 may require some extra work at tax time, especially if you've never seen one before.  On the other hand, that may be worth it to you if you can find one that's appreciating in value and still returning capital at a good rate since this could be a \"best of everything\" situation where you defer tax and - when you eventually do pay, you pay at favorable capital gains rates - but still manage to get your cash back in hand before you sell. (In case not clear, my comments about tax are specific to the US.  No idea how this is treated elsewhere.) By real world example, I guess you meant a few tickers in each category?  You can find whole lists online.  I just did a quick search (\"list of MLP\" and \"list of REIT\"), found a list, and have provided the top few off of the first list that I found.  The lists were alphabetical by company name, so there's no explicit or implicit endorsement of these particular investments. Examples of REIT: Examples of MLP:"}
{"question":"What is a Student Loan and does it allow you to cover a wide range of expenses relating to school?","answer":"Is a student loan a type of loan or just a generic name used to refer to a loan for someone who is going back to school? A student loan from the federal government is a specific type of loan used for education purposes (i.e. attending college). They have guidelines associated with them that are very flexible as compared to a student loan from a private bank.  If a student loan is a different type of loan, does it only cover the costs of going to the school? Every student at a university has a \"budget\" or the \"cost of attendance\". That includes direct and indirect costs. Direct costs are ones billed directly to you (i.e. tuition, room and board - should you choose to live on campus, and associated fees). Indirect costs are such things like books, travel expenses (if you live out of state), and personal things. Direct costs are controlled by the school. Indirect costs are estimated. The school will usually conduct market research to determine the costs for indirect items. Some students go above that, and some go below. For example, transportation is an indirect cost. A school could set that at $500. There are students who will be above that, and some below that. If you choose not to live on campus, then rent and food will become an indirect cost. Student loans can cover up to 100% of your budget (direct and indirect added together). If your total budget is $60,000 (tuition, room and board, transportation, books, supplies, etc.) Then you are able to borrow up to that amount ($60,000). However, because your budget is both direct and indirect costs, you will only be billed for your direct costs (tuition, etc.). So if your direct costs equal $50,000 and your student loan was certified for $60,000, then you will get that $10,000 back in the form of a refund from the school. That does not mean you don't have to pay it back - you still do. But that money is meant for indirect costs (i.e. books, rent - if you're not staying on campus, etc.). If your school is on semesters vs quarters, then that amount is divided between the terms. Summer term is not factored in, that's another process. Also with student loans, there are origination costs - the money associated with processing a loan.  A good rule of thumb is to never borrow more than you need.  Source: I used to work in financial aid at my college."}
{"question":"When I google a ticker like XLE or something, I see a price which updates frequently (about every second or so), where can I find this for options?","answer":"You probably will not find to many places if any that give you live quotes on options because for the general public there is not that high of a demand. Most people do not even know what stock options are.  You can get update on some sites like CNBC, but you will have refresh constantly to get the latest option prices.  You can also try an online broker, most of whom will let you have access to their tools and quotes if you sign up for an account. Some require a deposit before you can access those tools and some don't. Personally, I use TD Ameritrade and I do not believe they require a deposit to use their tools, but don't quote me on that."}
{"question":"Can I participate in trading Facebook shares on their IPO day from any brokerage?","answer":"Yes. The real question is whether you should. You should consider your investment options, and take into the account that there's much more hype than value in many companies."}
{"question":"Since many brokers disallow investors from shorting sub-$5 stocks, why don't all companies split their stock until it is sub-$5","answer":"Vitalik has mentioned this in a comment but I think it ought to be expanded upon: Companies that aren't already penny stocks really don't stand to gain anything from trying to prevent short interest.  Short selling does not inherently lower the stock price - not any more so than any other kind of selling.  When somebody shorts a stock, it's simply borrowed from another investor's margin; as long as it's not a naked short resulting in an FTD (Failure To Deliver) then it does not add any \"artificial\" selling pressure. In fact, shorting can actually drive the price up in the long term due to stops and margin calls.  Not a guarantee, of course, but if a rally occurs then a high short interest can cause a cascade effect from the short \"squeeze\", resulting in an even bigger rally than what would have occurred with zero short interest.  Many investors actually treat a high short interest as a bullish signal. Compare with margin buying - essentially the opposite of short selling - which has the opposite effect.  If investors buy stocks on margin, then if the value of that stock decreases too rapidly they will be forced to sell, which can cause the exact same cascade effect as a short interest but in the opposite direction.  Shorting is (in a sense) evening out the odds by inflating the buying pressure at lower stock prices when the borrowers decide to cover and take profits. Bottom line is that, aside from (illegal) insider trading, it doesn't do businesses any good to try to manipulate their stock price or any trading activity.  Yes, a company can raise capital by selling additional common shares, but a split really has no effect on the amount of capital they'd be able to raise because it doesn't change the actual market cap, and a dilution is a dilution regardless of the current stock price.  If a company's market cap is $1 billion then it doesn't matter if they issue 1 million shares at $50.00 each or 10 million shares at $5.00 each; either way it nets them $50 million from the sale and causes a 5% dilution, to which the market will react accordingly. They don't do it because there'd be no point."}
{"question":"Is it beneficial to my credit score if I close my youngest credit lines while preserving my current credit utilization rate?","answer":"I wrote How Old is Your Credit Card? some time ago. The answer is yes, this helps the credit score, but this factor, age of accounts, is pretty minimal. Grabbing deals, as you did, I'm actually down to a \"C\" for this part of my score, but still maintain a 770 score."}
{"question":"Can you help me find an ETF Selection website that evaluates my ETF holdings?","answer":"I used to use etfconnect before they went paid and started concentrating on closed end funds. These days my source of information is spread out. The primary source about the instrument (ETF) itself is etfdb, backed by information from Morningstar and Yahoo Finance. For comparison charts Google Finance can't be beat. For actual solid details about a specific ETF, would check read the prospectus from the managing firm itself. One other comment, never trust a site that \"tells you\" which securities to buy. The idea is that you need sources of solid information about financial instruments to make a decision, not a site that makes the decision for you. This is due to the fact that everyone has different strategies and goals for their money and a single site saying buy X sell Y will probably lead you to lose your money."}
{"question":"US Double Taxation - Business Trips and the Foreign Tax Credit","answer":"If you're a US citizen, money earned while in the US is sourced to the US. So you can't apply FTC\/FEIE to the amounts attributable to the periods of your work while in the US even if it is a short business trip. Tax treaties may affect this. Most tax treaties have explicit provisions to exclude short trips from the sourcing rules, however due to the \"saving clause\" these would probably not apply to you if you're a US citizen - you'll need to read the relevant treaty. Your home country should allow credit for the US taxes paid on the US-sourced income, and the double-taxation avoidance provision should apply in this case. The technicalities depend on your specific country. You would probably not just remove it from the taxable income, there probably is a form similar to the US form 1116 to calculate the available credit."}
{"question":"What assets would be valuable in a post-apocalyptic scenario?","answer":"A book on the power of persuasion. The people will need you to lead them to the glory land like the Deacon* from Waterworld *Dennis Hopper.  Study up."}
{"question":"Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?","answer":"The value of an option has 2 components, the extrinsic or time value element and the intrinsic value from the difference in the strike price and the underlying asset price. With either an American or European option the intrinsic value of a call option can be 'locked in' any time by selling the same amount of the underlying asset (whether that be a stock, a future etc).  Further, the time value of any option can be monitised by delta hedging the option, i.e. buying or selling an amount of the underlying asset weighted by the measure of certainty (delta) of the option being in the money at expiry. Instead, the extra value of the American option comes from the financial benefit of being able to realise the value of the underlying asset early. For a dividend paying stock this will predominantly be the dividend. But for non-dividend paying stocks or futures, the buyer of an in-the-money option can realise their intrinsic gains on the option early and earn interest on the profits today. But what they sacrifice is the timevalue of the option.  However when an option becomes very in the money and the delta approaches 1 or -1, the discounting of the intrinsic value (i.e. the extra amount a future cash flow is worth each day as we draw closer to payment) becomes larger than the 'theta' or time value decay of the option. Then it becomes optimal to early exercise, abandon the optionality and realise the monetary gains upfront. For a non-dividend paying stock, the value of the American call option is actually the same as the European. The spot price of the stock will be lower than the forward price at expiry discounted by the risk free rate (or your cost of funding). This will exactly offset the monetary gain by exercising early and banking the proceeds. However for an option on a future, the value today of the underlying asset (the future) is the same as at expiry and its possible to fully realise the interest earned on the money received today. Hence the American call option is worth more. For both examples the American put option is worth more, slightly more so for the stock. As the stock's spot price is lower than the forward price, the owner of the put option realises a higher (undiscounted) intrinsic profit from selling the stock at the higher strike price today than waiting till expiry, as well as realising the interest earned. Liquidity may influence the perceived value of being able to exercise early but its not a tangible factor that is added to the commonly used maths of the option valuation, and isn't really a consideration for most of the assets that have tradeable option markets. It's also important to remember at any point in the life of the option, you don't know the future price path. You're only modelling the distribution of probable outcomes. What subsequently happens after you early exercise an American option no longer has any bearing on its value; this is now zero! Whether the stock subsequently crashes in price is irrelevent. What is relevant is that when you early exercise a call you 'give up' all potential upside protected by the limit to your downside from the strike price."}
{"question":"Where do I invest my Roth IRA besides stock market and mutual funds?","answer":"Nowhere. To back up a bit, mutual funds are the stock market (and the bond market). That is, when you invest in a mutual fund, your money is ultimately buying stocks on the open market. Some of it might be buying bonds. The exact mix of stocks and bonds depends on the mutual fund. But a mutual fund is just a basket of stocks and\/or bonds (and\/or other, more exotic investments). At 25, you probably should just be investing your Roth IRA in index stock mutual funds and index bond mutual funds. You probably shouldn't even be doing peer-to-peer lending (unless you're willing to think of any losses as the cost of a hobby); the higher interest rate you're getting is a reflection of the risk that your borrowers will default. I'm not even sure if peer-to-peer lending is allowed in Roth IRA's.  Investing in just stocks, bonds, and cast is boring, but these are easy investments to understand. The harder the investment is to understand, the easier it is for it to be a scam (or just a bad investment). There's not necessarily anything wrong with boring."}
{"question":"Is it possible to quantify the probability of sudden big movements for a high-volume stock?","answer":"This is a classic correlation does not imply causation situation.  There are (at least) three issues at play in this question: If you are swing- or day-trading then the first and second issues can definitely affect your trading.  A higher-price, higher-volume stock will have smaller (percentage) volatility fluctuations within a very small period of time. However, in general, and especially when holding any position for any period of time during which unknowns can become known (such as Netflix's customer-loss announcement) it is a mistake to feel \"safe\" based on price alone. When considering longer-term investments (even weeks or months), and if you were to compare penny stocks with blue chip stocks, you still might find more \"stability\" in the higher value stocks.  This is a correlation alone \u2014 in other words, a stable, reliable stock probably has a (relatively) high price but a high price does not mean it's reliable. As Joe said, the stock of any company that is exposed to significant risks can drop (or rise) by large amounts suddenly, and it is common for blue-chip stocks to move significantly in a period of months as changes in the market or the company itself manifest themselves. The last thing to remember when you are looking at raw dollar amounts is to remember to look at shares outstanding.  Netflix has a price of $79 to Ford's $12; yet Ford has a larger market cap because there are nearly 4 billion shares compared to Netflix's 52m."}
{"question":"Value of credit score if you never plan to borrow again?","answer":"There's many concrete answers, but there's something circular about your question. The only thing I can think of is that phone service providers ask for credit report when you want to start a new account but I am sure that could be worked around if you just put down a cash deposit in some cases. So now the situation is flipped - you are relying on your phone company's credit!  Who is to say they don't just walk away from their end of the deal now that you have paid in full?   The amount of credit in this situation is conserved. You just have to eat the risk and rely on their credit, because you have no credit. It doesn't matter how much money you have - $10 or $10000 can be extorted out of you equally well if you must always pay for future goods up front. You also can't use that money month-by-month now, even in low-risk investments. Although, they will do exactly that and keep the interest. And I challenge your assumption that you will never default. You are not a seraphic being. You live on planet earth. Ever had to pay $125,000 for a chemo treatment because you got a rare form of cancer? Well, you won't be able to default on your phone plan and pay for your drug (or food, if you bankrupt yourself on the drug) because your money is already gone. I know you asked a simpler question but I can't write a good answer without pointing out that \"no default\" is a bad model, it's like doing math without a zero element. By the way, this is realistic. It applies to renting in, say, New York City. It's better to be a tenant with credit who can withhold rent in issue of neglected maintenance or gross unfair treatment, than a tenant who has already paid full rent and has left the landlord with little market incentive to do their part."}
{"question":"Bond ETFs as a means to achieve risk parity","answer":"How is it possible that long term treasury bonds, which the government has never defaulted on, can hold more risk as an ETF then the stock market index? The risk from long-term bonds isn't that the government defaults, but that interest rates go up before you get paid, so investors want bonds issued more recently at higher interest rates, rather than your older bonds that pay at a lower rate (so the price for your bonds goes down). This is usually caused by higher inflation rates which reduce the value of the interest that you will be paid. Do you assume more risk investing in bond ETFs than you would investing in individual bonds? If you are choosing the right ETFs, there should be a lower amount of risk because the ETFs are taking care of the difficult work of buying a variety of bonds.  Are bond ETFs an appropriate investment vehicle for risk diversification? Yes, if you are investing in bonds, exchange traded funds are an appropriate way to buy them. The markets for ETFs are usually very liquid."}
{"question":"Why do some stocks have a higher margin requirement?","answer":"It's about how volatile the instrument is. Brokers are concerned not about you but about potential lawsuits stemming from their perceived inadequate risk management - letting you trade extremely volatile stocks with high leverage.  On top of that they run the risk of losing money in scenarios where a trader shorts a stock with all of the funds, the company rises 100% or more by the next day, in which case the trader owes money to the broker. If you look in detail you'll see that many of the companies with high margin requirements are extremely volatile pharmaceutical companies which depend heavily of FDA approvals."}
{"question":"Definition of gross income (Arizona state tax filing requirements)","answer":"I would suggest reading through page 1 of the Arizona Nonresident form instructions at the web address below: https:\/\/www.azdor.gov\/Portals\/0\/ADOR-forms\/TY2015\/10100\/10177_inst.pdf To quote: \"You are subject to Arizona income tax on all income derived from Arizona sources. If you are in this state for a temporary or transitory purpose or did not live in Arizona but received income from sources within Arizona during 2015, you are subject to Arizona tax. Income from Arizona sources includes the following: ...the sale of Arizona real estate...\""}
{"question":"Is there a general guideline for what percentage of a portfolio should be in gold?","answer":"My personal gold\/metals target is 5.0% of my retirement portfolio. Right now I'm underweight because of the run up in gold\/metals prices. (I haven't been selling, but as I add to retirement accounts, I haven't been buying gold so it is going below the 5% mark.) I arrived at this number after reading a lot of different sample portfolio allocations, and some books. Some people recommend what I consider crazy allocations: 25-50% in gold. From what I could figure out in terms of modern portfolio theory, holding some metal reduces your overall risk because it generally has a low correlation to equity markets. The problem with gold is that it is a lousy investment. It doesn't produce any income, and only has costs (storage, insurance, commissions to buy\/sell, management of ETF if that's what you're using, etc). The only thing going for it is that it can be a hedge during tough times. In this case, when you rebalance, your gold will be high, you'll sell it, and buy the stocks that are down. (In theory -- assuming you stick to disciplined rebalancing.) So for me, 5% seemed to be enough to shave off a little overall risk without wasting too much expense on a hedge. (I don't go over this, and like I said, now I'm underweighted.)"}
{"question":"How can this stock have an intra-day range of more than 90% on 24Aug2015?","answer":"EDIT: It was System Disruption or Malfunctions August 24, 2015 2:12 PM EDT   Pursuant to Rule 11890(b) NASDAQ, on its own motion, in conjunction   with BATS, and FINRA has determined to cancel all trades in security   Blackrock Capital Investment. (Nasdaq: BKCC) at or below $5.86 that   were executed in NASDAQ between 09:38:00 and 09:46:00 ET. This   decision cannot be appealed. NASDAQ will be canceling trades on the   participants behalf. A person on Reddit claimed that he was the buyer. He used Robinhood, a $0 commission broker and start-up.  The canceled trades are reflected on CTA\/UTP and the current charts will differ from the one posted below.  It is an undesired effect of the 5-minute Trading Halt.  It is not \"within 1 hour of opening, BKCC traded between $0.97 and $9.5\".  Those trades only occurred for a few seconds on two occasions.  One possible reason is that when the trading halt ended, there was a lot of Market Order to sell accumulated.  Refer to the following chart, where each candle represents a 10 second period. As you can see, the low prices did not \"sustain\" for hours.   And the published halts."}
{"question":"What is meant by \"priced in\"?","answer":"Priced in just means that the speaker thinks the current price has already taken that factor into account. For example, the difference in price right before and right after a dividend is released often differ exactly by that dividend -- the fact that the dividend would function as a \"relate\" on the purchase price was priced into the earlier quote, and its absence for another year was priced into the later quote. The ten can be applied to any expected or likely event, if you really think the price reflects that opportunity of risk. It just means that this factor, in the speaker's opinion, doesn't create an opportunity one can take advantage of."}
{"question":"Blog income taxes?","answer":"If thinking about it like a business you normally only pay taxes on Net income, not gross.  So Gross being all the money that comes in. People giving you cash, checks, whatever get deposited into your account. You then pay that out to other people for services, advertisement. At the end of the day what is left would be your 'profit' and you would be expected to pay income tax on that.  If you are just an individual and don't have an LLC set up or any business structure you would usually just have an extra page to fill out on your taxes with this info. I think it's a schedule C but not 100%"}
{"question":"Why do governments borrow money instead of printing it?","answer":"Yes - Simply put, printing money is called \"monetizing the debt\" and would result in some nasty inflation. It's a no-no as it quickly devalues the currency and makes it far more difficult to borrow in the future, an entire generation will remember getting burned by it. If, say, Canada's currency were suddenly worth half as much and you received half your investment back in US dollars (e.g. you paid US$10,000, but now have US$5000) would you ever trust them again?  The economy is far more complex than one can discuss here, but the fractional reserve system is the next creator of money, although it's not unlimited, the reserve requirement throttles it back. The demand for loans is impacted both by the rate itself and the bank's willingness to lend.  The housing bubble had multiple causes. In a sense Tucson is right. Anything we do to make houses more affordable can cause house price inflation. But - the over the top underwriting had more impact in my opinion. People lost sight of good lending practices. The option rate interest only ARMs were financial time bombs."}
{"question":"How do share dilution scams make money?","answer":"For this to work, those who control the dilution must also control their salaries because the only way for them to be paid off when it's the corporation itself selling is to gain access to the proceeds. When a corporation sells newly issued equity, the corporation itself owns the money.  To at least have the appearance of propriety, the scammers must be paid those proceeds.  Both actions imply that the board is captured by the scammers. There are many corporations that seem to do this even with persistently large market capitalizations. The key difference between this and pump-and-dump is that its a fraudulent group of investors selling in this case instead of the corporation itself. A detailed simple example Corporations are mandated by law to be little oligarchies; although, \"republic\" is now becoming more appropriate with all of the new shareholder rights.  A corporation is controlled at root by the board of directors who are elected by the shareholders.  The board has no direct operational control, as that is left to the \"king\", the CEO; however, the board does control what everyone wants access to: the money. Board members have all sorts of legal qualitative mandates on how to behave, and they've functioned fairly decently efficiently over the long run, but there are definitely some bad apples. Boards are somewhat intransigent since it's difficult to hold board elections, and usually only specific board members are put up for election by a shareholder vote, so a bad one has the potential to really get stuck in there.  Once a bad one is in there, they don't care because they know it will be tough to get them out, so they run roughshod over the company's purse. Only the board can take action on major funding such as the CEO's operating budget, board compensation, financing, investment, etc, some with shareholder approval, some without.  The corporation itself owns all of those assets, but the board controls them. In this example, they scheme with most likely the top executive, but a rubber stamp top executive could allow a lower rung to scheme with the board, but the board is always constant until the law is changed. Because there's no honor amongst thieves, the board votes which can require some combination of executive and shareholder approval are taken very close together: sell shares, increase salaries to key executive schemers, increase board compensation.  The trusting shareholders believe this is in the best interests of the company at large so go along. So the money flows from existing & new shareholders to the corporation now controlled by a malicious board and then finally to the necessary malicious executive and the vital malicious board."}
{"question":"Moving from Google Finance to Yahoo Finance","answer":"Perhaps you should use your own tracking software, such as GnuCash, Quicken, Mint, or even Excel.  The latter would work given you say you're manually putting in your transactions.   There's lots of pre-done spreadsheets for tracking investments if you look around.    I'm hoping that a web search gets you help on migrating transaction data, but I've yet to run into any tools to do the export and import beyond a manual effort.  Then again, I haven't checked for this lately. Not sure about your other questions, but I'd recommend you edit the question to only contain what you're asking about in the subject."}
{"question":"Ethics and investment","answer":"Are there businesses which professionally invest ethically? Yes.  The common term for this is \"socially responsible investing\".  Looking at that page and googling that term should provide you with plenty of pointers to funds to investigate. Of course, the definitions of \"ethical\" and \"socially responsible\" vary from person to person and fund to fund.  You'll have to take a look at each fund to see which ones match your principles."}
{"question":"Are stories of turning a few thousands into millions by trading stocks real?","answer":"you'll need 25k to start or 2k in multiple accounts, that way you have access to margin, and don't have to worry about Pattern day trading limits. Be right more than you are wrong. Go up look for 3x potential up vs down risk. Compound daily.  you can't double a penny every day every day for a month it becomes to difficult. but you can do 1%\/day or maybe better. 2k compounded 1% every day becomes 75k at the end of a year (but you'll likely have to take weekends off, or look for other markets)"}
{"question":"Bid price\u2026 sudden Drop","answer":"An option gives you the option rather than the obligation to buy (or sell) the underlying so you don't have to exercise you can just let the option expire (so long it doesn't have an automatic expiry). After expiration the option is worthless if it is out of the money but other than that has no hangover. Option prices normally drop as the time value of the option decays. An option has two values associated with it; time value and exercise value. Far out of the money (when the price of the underlying is far from the strike price on the losing side) options only have time value whereas deep in the money options (as yours seems to be) has some time value as well as the intrinsic value of the right to buy (sell) at a low (high) price and then sell (buy) the underlying.  The time value of the option comes from the possibility that the price of the underlying will move (further) in your favour and make you more money at expiry. As expiry closes it is less likely that there will be a favourable mood so this value declines which can cause prices to move sharply after a period of little to no revaluing. Up to now what I have said applies to both OTC and traded options but exchange traded options have another level of complexity in their trading; because there are fewer traders in the options market the size of trade at which you can move the market is much lower. On the equities markets you may need to trade millions of shares to have be substantial enough to significantly move a price, on the options markets it could be thousands or even hundreds. If these are European style options (which sounds likely) and a single trading entity was holding a large number of the exchange traded options and now thinks that the price will move significantly against them before expiry their sell trade will move the market lower in spite of the options being in the money. Their trade is based on their supposition that by the time they can exercise the option the price will be below the strike and they will lose money. They have cashed out at a price that suited them and limited what they will lose if they are right about the underlying. If I am not correct in my excise style assumption (European) I may need more details on the trade as it seems like you should just exercise now and take the profit if it is that far into the money."}
{"question":"Are there any dangers in publicly sharing my personal finance data?","answer":"I think it's advisable to exercise a fair amount of caution when posting information about yourself online. With the advances in data aggregation efforts, information that would have been considered sufficiently anonymized in years past might no longer be sufficient to protect you from bad actors online. For example, depending on which state, and even which county you live in, the county recorder's office may allow anyone with Internet access to freely search property records by your name. If they know approximately where you live (geolocation from the IP address that you use to post to a blog--which could be divulged if criminals compromised the blogging site) and your surname, they might be able to find your exact address if you own your home. If you have considerable wealth it could open you to targeted ransom attacks from organized criminals."}
{"question":"Starting a large business with a not so large income? ","answer":"For example, Biff Spoiles started an animation studio and production developing company to produce animations -- something in the ballpark of $12,000,000.00 U.S.D. -- and he had a $12K\/yearly salary. I have no clue what you mean, as others have mentioned. (I'm not sure what the \"12 million\" refers to?  Do you mean \"total cost of animations created by the company in a year\" or?  If so, \"12 million\" would amount to say 5 to 20 major, brand name TV commercials, for example.  Do you mean the \"cost of plant\" - so, for a \"TV commercial production company\" you mean purchasing desks, drawing pads, Porsches, and so on?) Your specific example of a \"film or TV-commercial production company\" is a bad example, it's not really a \"business\" - that is to say, it does not rely on capital and return on capital. The way famous \"film or TV-commercial production companies\" happens is precisely like this: A young guy\/girl G (perhaps a designer or filmmaker) is working, just as you say, for a menial wage at a film company. (G got that first job perhaps out of art school.)  G gets a chance at doing a photo shoot, animation, or helping direct a TV commercial.  G does a fantastic job. Later that year, a large important animation or commercial job arrives at the company; due to the earlier excellent result, G is allowed to work on the new one. G again he does a fantastic job.  Soon, within that company, G is a highly-regarded animator or director and has attracted fame amongst colleagues and clients. Eventually, G hears of a company (XYZ Hotel) that needs a TV ad made. (Or an animation, or whatever.) G says to XYZ, look, you could spend $230,000 with a production company, and in reality they'd have me direct it anyway. I'm leaving to work independently, so I will do your job for only $190,000. In a word, XYZ says \"Yes\" and hands over a cheque for $190,000.  G spends $160,000 on the usual actors, cameramen, editing, etc, and uses 2 months of G's own time, and pockets $5000 after tax. G then doesn't get a job for a couple months, and then gets three more in the new year. Because the commercial for XYZ was so good, XYZ gave him another couple to do, for another product line. Eventually G has just enough money coming in that he \"hires\" a few freelance people for a few weeks here and there ... a cameraman, illustrator, gopher, and so on.  Eventually G has enough TV ads solidly booked G can risk actually hiring long-time friend P as a producer.  P spends most of her time actually bringing in more work - and it builds from there. Eventually. You have a very busy, well-known in the industry, TV commercial production company with many staff and endless clients (example, say, http:\/\/rsafilms.com) It might be at some point in there (say, around year three), G would like to borrow the odd million bucks to basically \"help with cashflow.\" The answer to that is nothing more than \"through business contacts, G knows a wealthy dentist\/whoever who is prepared to do that.\" But note carefully that at that point, G's company is already very firmly established, famous for doing 20 spectacular animations\/commercials, and so on.  (Note too that 999 times out of 1000 when this happens, the money evaporates and the dentist D never sees a penny back. In that case G \"apologizes\".) Only much much later once the company has many, many staff and great cashflow, could the production company actually borrow from a bank, or perhaps from \"actual investors\", which is more what you have in mind. regarding your four categories.  Numbers 1 and 3 are totally wrong; they do not work at all like you are asking. indeed the very simple answer is: \"borrow money\" to start a category 1 or 3 type of business. It's totally inconceivable. (The only exception would be if you literally just have an extremely rich Uncle, who loans you a few million to \"start an animation studio\" - which would be completely whacky.  Because in that example: company XYZ could not care less if you \"have\" an animation studio (ie: your Uncle has given you a platinum card, and you bought a building, some drawing pads, and a few dozen Macs).  XYZ just couldn't care less.  All they care about is your folio of work.  In this example, RSA would get the job  :)  ) My guess is you're thinking people somehow magically go around \"borrowing money\" to get businesses like that started.  (Your examples 1 and 3.) The simple answer is they don't and can't -  your fears are assuaged!  :)"}
{"question":"Why would anyone want to pay off their debts in a way other than \"highest interest\" first?","answer":"In some cases, it might be rational to pay low-interest debt first, because the consequences of defaulting on that debt are worse.   Consider this simplified example.  Suppose you have two debts: a low-interest mortgage, secured by your house, and a high-interest unsecured credit card debt, both of which are within a few years of being paid off.  There is a chance that sometime between now and then, something will happen to disrupt your income (e.g. medical problems), and it won't be possible to make the payments on either loan.   Defaulting on the credit card loan will result in a lower credit score and calls from collection agencies.  Defaulting on the mortgage will result in the foreclosure or forced sale of your house, at best forcing you to move, and at worst leaving you homeless, at a time when you are also facing other (e.g. medical) problems.  So you might rationally judge that losing your house is much worse than bad credit.  Therefore, you might rationally conclude that it would be better to direct extra income toward paying down the mortgage, to increase the chances that, if and when an income disruption might occur, the mortgage would already be paid off.  In other words, you shorten the window of time where income disruption results in foreclosure. You might decide that this increased security is worth the extra interest you will pay, compared to the strategy where you pay the high-interest loan first. This is a fairly special situation, but you asked \"Why might it be a good idea to do this?\", and I am just giving an example where it could rationally be considered a good idea.   (Of course, in a real-life version of this example, there might be other options available, such as refinancing the mortgage.  If you like, you could imagine a more extreme example where the lower-interest debt is owed to Joey Knuckles the loanshark, who will come and break your kneecaps if you miss a payment.)"}
{"question":"Treatment of web domain ownership & reselling for tax purposes: Capital asset, or not?","answer":"I must say that this is a question that you should hire a professional tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State) to answer. It is way above our amateurs' pay-grade. That said, I'll tell you what I personally think on the issue. I'm not a licensed tax adviser, and nothing that I write here can be used in any way as a justification for any action. Read the full disclaimer in my profile. I believe you're right to treat those as assets. You bought them as an investment, and you intend to sell them for profit. Here the good news for you end. As we decided to define the domains as an asset, we need to decide what type of asset it is. I believe you're holding a Sec. 197 asset. This is because domain is essentially akin to franchise and trademark, and as such falls under the Sec. 197 definition. That means that your amortization period is 15 years. Your expenses related to these domains should also be amortized, on the same schedule. When you sell a domain, you can deduct the portion that you have not yet deducted from the amortization schedule from your proceeds. Keep in mind passive loss limitations, since losses from assets held as investment cannot offset Schedule C income."}
{"question":"How to invest in gold at market value, i.e. without paying a markup?","answer":"I agree that there is no reliable way to buy gold for less than spot, no more than there is for any other commodity. However, you can buy many things below market from motivated sellers. That is why you see so many stores buying gold now.  It  will  be hard to find such sellers now with the saturation of buyers, but if you keep an eye on private sales and auctions you may be able to pick up something others miss."}
{"question":"How to start personal finances?","answer":"I'm assuming you're in Germany or Europe based on your question, but here's an American's perspective that should pertain you you as well: Once you have a steady income and an emergency fund large enough to keep you from going bankrupt, then start learning about retirement and investment options."}
{"question":"Why are auto leases stubbornly strict about visa status and how to work around that?","answer":"Uh, you want to lease a car through a dealer? That is the worst possible way to obtain a car. Dealers love leases because it allows them to sell a car for an unnegotiated price and to hide additional fees. It's the most profitable kind of sale for them. The best option would be to buy a used car off of Craigslist or eBay, then sell it again the same way when you leave. If you sell the car for what you paid, then you get the car for a year for free. If you are determined to go through with the expensive, risky and annoying plan of leasing a car, then you should use a leasing agent. I recommend reading some car buying guides before going out into the wilderness with the tigers and bears. Comment on Leasing Tricks Don't get tricked by the \"interest rate\" game. The whole interest thing is just a distraction to trick you into think you are getting some kind of reasonable deal. The leasing company makes most of their money from fees. For example, if you get into an accident it is a big payday for them. The average person thinks they will never get into an accident, but the reality is that most people get into an accident sooner or later. They also collect big penalties for \"maintenance failures\". Forget to change the oil? BOOM! money. Forget to comply with manufacture recall? BOOM! more money. Forget to do the annual service? BOOM! more money. Scratch the car? BOOM! more money. The original car mats are missing? BOOM! you just paid $400 for a set of mats that cost the leasing company $25 bucks. The leasing company is counting on the fact that 99% of people will not maintain the car correctly or will damage it in some way. They also usually have all kinds of other bogus fees, so-called \"walk-away fees\", \"disposition fees\", \"initiation fees\". Whatever they think they can get away with. The whole system is calculated to screw you."}
{"question":"Do you know of any online monetary systems?","answer":"Congratulations!  You see the problem.  You can't get away from unstable currencies. The other problem is that the US will shut down anything that appears to be providing a replacement for the US Dollar.  Once a token or medallion or gift certificate or whatever starts being used outside the confines of one business or one network of businesses, it will be shut down, quickly.  It happened with Las Vegas gambling tokens.  Another more recent attempt was with the Liberty Dollar, gold and silver coins and certificates that not only had precious metal backing, but whose proponents encouraged taking them to retailers and paying with them as if they were US Dollars.  There were other problems with this idea, but it was the competitive stature of the Liberty dollar that got the headquarters raided and the main site shut down. Basically, all signs point toward dealing with currencies and their state of being systematically eroded over time.  If you do find one that appears to exist, be wary, because the rules can change at any time, and the \"money\" will be nowhere near as liquid as a proper currency."}
{"question":"Good book-keeping software?","answer":"Xero and WaveAccounting can make things easy, but they also have their limitations. I've used both for short periods of time but found both of them to be lacking. While the \"ease\" is appealing, the ability to drill into the details and get good reports is the downfall of both of these accounting systems. QuickBooks may seem like the easy answer here, but it really is the best for getting the power you want without getting too complicated."}
{"question":"An online casino owes me money and wants to pay with a wire transfer. Is this safe?","answer":"Keep in mind that in order to fund your online casino account, you either had to provide credit\/debit card info, or you had to give them your bank account number band routing number already. Now, assuming you've seen no fraudulent activity on your account(s) since then, and it was you who initiated the contact with them, what they're asking for is not totally unreasonable, nor is it all that unusual.  MANY companies require you to provide account\/routing info to do financial business with them, which doesn't automatically equate to nefarious purposes, so don't let yourself go down that rabbit hole unless there's some other serious red flag to the situation which you haven't shared with us. It is a bit odd they'd send you a check for a portion of the winnings, but maybe that's to demonstrate good faith on their part as to why they need you to provide them information to send the remainder of your winnings. That being said, the suggestion to open a bank account solely for purposes of receiving your winnings is a good one.  I would go a step further and, once the transfer is made, go to the bank in person and withdraw it in cash.  Then you can deposit it into your regular bank account without there being any possible connection between the two, just in case you decide to indulge your fears about this. Good luck!"}
{"question":"Is Bogleheadism (index fund investing) dead?","answer":"If the ship is sinking, switching cabins with your neighbor isn't necessarily a good survival strategy. Index funds have sucked, because frankly just about everything has sucked lately. I still think it is a viable long term strategy as long as you are doing some dollar cost averaging.  You can't think about long term investing as a steady climb up a hill, markets are erratic, but over long periods of time trend upwards. Now is your chance to get in near the ground floor.  I can completely empathize that it is painful right now, but I am a believer in market efficiency and that over the long haul smart money is just more expensive (in terms of fees) than set-it-and-forget it diversified investments or target funds."}
{"question":"Should we prepay our private student loans, given our particular profile?","answer":"You're in good shape as long as your income stays. Your only variable-rate debt now is your private student loan.  I think you'd be wise to pay that down first, and you sense that already. Worst-case, in the event of a bankruptcy, student loans usually cannot be discharged, so that isn't a way out. Once that loan is gone, apply what you were paying to your other student loan to knock that out. You might investigate refinancing your home (to another 30-year fixed).  You may be able to shave a half-percent off if your credit is stellar.  Given the size of the mortgage, this could be several thousand out of pocket, so consider that when figuring out potential payback time. Consider using any \"free time\" to starting up a side business (I'm assuming you both have day jobs but that may not be a correct assumption).  Start with what you know well.  You and your wife are experts in something, and have passion about something.  Go with that.  Use the extra income from that to either pay down your debts faster, or just reinvest in the business so that you can offset the income on your taxes. Again, you're in good shape.  Just do what you can to protect and grow your income streams."}
{"question":"Is it bad etiquette to use a credit or debit card to pay for single figure amounts at the POS","answer":"Generally, I consider it bad etiquette to inconvenience others.   I would recommend cash for small purchases. Try to offer as close to the required amount as possible.  Don't pay with several dollars worth of change if you can avoid it. You shouldn't need to carry a lot of cash.  When you do don't make it obvious."}
{"question":"Executor of will ","answer":"The creditors will not be able to go after his father's estate (assuming the father had nothing to do with the business), but at some point, the estate will be divided up. At that point, any money or assets that your husband inherits will be fair game, as they are now your husband's money or assets. I want to be clear; it's nothing to do with your husband being executor (or co-executor) of the estate. This does not contradict zeta-band's earlier answer; Zeta-band is talking about the estate before it is divided up, I'm just pointing out that there may be issues after it is divided up."}
{"question":"Are real estate prices memory-less?","answer":"Housing prices are set by different criteria. It can become memoryless the same as the stock if the criteria used to set its price in the past is no longer valid. For example, take Phoenix or Las Vegas - in the past these were considered attractive investments because of the economical growth and the climate of the area. While the climate hasn't changed, the economical growth stopped not only there but also in the places where people buying the houses lived (which is all over the world really). What happened to the housing market? Dropped sharply and stays flat for several years now at the bottom. So it doesn't really matter if the house was worth $300K in Phoenix 5 years ago, you can only sell it now for ~$50K, and that's about it. The prices have been flat low for several years and the house price was $50K, but does it mean its going to stay so? No, once economy gears up, the prices will go up as well. So its not exactly memory-less, but the stocks are not memory-less as well. There is correlation between the past and the future performance. If the environment conditions are similar - the performance is likely to be similar. For stocks however there's much more environment conditions than the housing market and its much harder to predict them. But even with the housing people were burnt a lot on the misconception that the past performance correlates to the future. It doesn't necessarily."}
{"question":"Should I give to charity by check or credit card?","answer":"The definite answer if you want to give a larger amount of money is: Ask the charity. Just drop them a mail with something like: Dear Sirs, I've decided to donate you $1,000,000 because I like what you do. Could you please tell me which option is more convenient and less costly for you? I can do either an online debit\/credit card payment, send you a check by mail, or make a bank transfer [cross out whichever you can't do]. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Even if you give \"just\" $2,000, it's surely enough to be worth for them writing you a reply and clarifying whichever way they prefer, so you don't waste neither their time nor the money this way."}
{"question":"Multiple hard inquiry for a single loan from car dealer?","answer":"This is normal with the dealer's financing.  To add more details to littleadv's answer, what happens is when you get the financing through the dealer, at first, they will try to do the loan on your behalf with local banks in your area. This is why you see several hard inquiries; one from each back. If none of these banks wants to take the loan, then dealer's financing entity will take the loan. This was my exact experience with Hyundai. In addition, don't get surprise if you start receiving letters saying that your loan was rejected. The dealer will send the loan requests simultaneously, and some of the banks might deny the loan. This also happened to me, and I have been owning my car for around a year. Still, make sure that the letters matches with the credit inquiries."}
{"question":"What's the difference, if any, between stock appreciation and compound interest?","answer":"Compounding is just the notion that the current period's growth (or loss) becomes the next period's principal. So, applied to stocks, your beginning value, plus growth (or loss) in value, plus any dividends, becomes the beginning value for the next period. Your value is compounded as you measure the performance of the investment over time. Dividends do not participate in the compounding unless you reinvest them.  Compound interest is just the principle of compounding applied to an amount owed, either by you, or to you. You have a balance with which a certain percentage is calculated each period and is added to the balance. The new balance is used to calculate the next period's interest, which again adds to the balance, etc. Obviously, it's better to be on the receiving end of a compound interest calculation than on the paying end. Interest bearing investments, like bonds, pay simple interest. Like stock dividends, you would have to invest the interest in something else in order to get a compounding effect. When using a basic calculator tool for stocks, you would include the expected average annual growth rate plus the expected annual dividend rate as your \"interest\" rate. For bonds you would use the coupon rate plus the expected rate of return on whatever you put the interest into as the \"interest\" rate. Factoring in risk, you would just have to pick a different rate for a simple calculator, or use a more complex tool that allows for more variables over time. Believe it or not, this is where you would start seeing all that calculus homework pay off!"}
{"question":"How does giving to charity work?","answer":"The intention of making the charitable contributions tax deductible is to provide an economic incentive to contribute to organizations which tend to improve the general welfare of the community. Deductibility impacts government revenue generation, but has positive impacts that probably offset that loss by encouraging more giving by folks subject to high income tax -- particularly small business owners.  Unless you own a home and have a mortgage you may not have enough deductions to get any financial benefit from charitable contributions. Charitable contributions are only deductible when your deductions exceed the standard deduction.  For most people, charitable contributions are a way to support something that you care about, and the tax benefits are a secondary benefit, or a way to enhance their own giving."}
{"question":"What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers?","answer":"The sting here is definitely in the tail, the PS that says We are starting to call you from the same day when we get your details. The initial email doesn't ask for details, it asks for commitment. Once committed, you will be more relaxed about providing details. This makes me think that this is more serious than a simple financial scam. This is an effort to steal your identity, and that could be much more serious than the one-off loss of a few thousand dollars. Here's why: 1. The scammer could get numerous credit cards and store cards in your name, run up thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in charges, and leave you stuck with explaining what happened. I know someone who went from being a multi-millionaire to a pauper in a few months when his identity was stolen - and he is no fool. 2. It will take you years to clear your name. Meanwhile, your credit is shot, and you might have trouble getting a job, renting an apartment, or simply getting a cellphone contract. 3. Once you've repaired your credit, the scammer can just go through his old files and do it all over again. 4. Cloaked in your identity, and therefore being seen as you, the scammer can pull any number of scams, for which you will eventually be blamed. Then as well as dealing with credit bureaus, you will be dealing with another, more serious bureau: the FBI."}
{"question":"Can you sell on the settlement date?","answer":"Yes, on the settlement the stock is yours to sell with no risk of freeride or day trading applying."}
{"question":"15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15","answer":"All of the answers given so far are correct, but rather narrow. When you buy a 30-year-mortgage, you are buying the right to pay off the debt in as long as 30 years.  What you pay depends on the interest rate and how long you actually take to pay it off (and principal and points and so on). Just as you are buying that right, the mortgager is selling you that right, and they usually charge something for it, typically a higher rate.  After all, they, and not you, will be exposed to interest risk for 30 years. However, if some bank has an aneurism and is willing to give you a 30-year loan for the same price as or lower than any other bank is willing to go for a 15-year loan, hey, free flexibility.  Might as well take it.  If you want to pay the loan off in 15 year, or 10 or 20, you can go ahead and do so."}
{"question":"What home improvements are tax deductible?","answer":"Home Improvements that improve the home's Energy Efficiency are currently eligible for federal tax credits. This includes renewable energy equipment (solar panels, etc.) and Nonbusiness Energy Property Tax Credit. The credit is 30% of the cost. From Intuit Turbo Tax: Energy Tax Credit: Equipment and materials can qualify for the Nonbusiness Energy   Property Credit only if they meet technical efficiency standards set   by the Department of Energy. The manufacturer can tell you whether a   particular item meets those standards. For this credit, the IRS   distinguishes between two kinds of upgrades. The first is \"qualified energy efficiency improvements,\" and it   includes the following:   \u2022Home insulation   \u2022Exterior doors   \u2022Exterior windows and skylights   \u2022Certain roofing materials The second category is \"residential energy property costs.\" It   includes:   \u2022Electric heat pumps   \u2022Electric heat pump water heaters   \u2022Central air conditioning systems   \u2022Natural gas, propane or oil waterheaters   \u2022Stoves that use biomass fuel   \u2022Natural gas, propane or oil furnaces   \u2022Natural gas, propane or oil hot water boilers   \u2022Advanced circulating fans for natural gas, propane or oil furnaces"}
{"question":"Why does gold have value?","answer":"It has semantic value (because we culturally believe gold is valuable).  There is a very important point here.  Gold and many other coin metals. This \"semantic value\" is enshrined in law through the special tax status of coin metals.  You can buy a kilo of gold and not pay sales tax.  You can't buy a kilo of iron or tin and do the same.  This is the important part because investors shouldn't care about semantics. I read that the taxable status varies by state or nation, so you need to be very careful.  It's possible to evade taxes without realizing it.  It also doesn't necessarily exempt you from the form of gold.  An ingot should be tax exempt.  A collector's coin may or may not be, depending on your local laws and the difference between the value of the weight of the gold, and the value of the form of the coin."}
{"question":"Roth IRA - Vanguard or Fidelity? If a college student had to pick one?","answer":"Well, a couple things to keep in mind: Even if you have enough to meet the minimum initial amount, you need to have at least that much income in the year you make the contribution. You'll probably be best served saving up in a savings account so that by the time you have an income (and can thus make contributions), you have enough cash to meet the minimum initial contribution."}
{"question":"How to save money for future expenses","answer":"First, talk to your husband about this. You really need to persuade him that you need to be saving, and get him to agree on how and how much. Second, if you husband is not good at saving, work on getting something set aside automatically - ideally deducted from a paycheck or transferred to a savings account automatically. If he is the kind of person who might dip into that account, try to make it a place he can't withdraw from Third, get some advice, possibly training, on budgeting. Buy a book, take a video course: even start by watching some TV shows on getting out of debt."}
{"question":"How to measure a currencies valuation or devaluation in relevance to itself","answer":"It's very hard to measure the worth of an abstract concept like money, particularly over long periods of time. In the modern era we have things like the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United States, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics literally sends \"shoppers\" out to find prices of things and surveys people to find out what they buy. This results in a variety of \"indexes\" which variously get reported by media outlets as \"inflation\" (or \"deflation\" if the change in value goes the other way). There are also other measurements available like the MIT Billion Prices Project which attempt to make their own reading of the \"worth\" of currencies. Those kinds of things are about the only ways to measure a currency's change in \"value to itself\" because a currency is basically only worth what one can buy with it. While it isn't \"all the world's currencies combined\", there is a concept of the International Monetary Fund's \"Special Drawing Rights (SDR)\", which is a basket of five currencies used by world central banks to help \"back\" each other's currencies, and is (very) occasionally used as a unit of currency for international contracts. One might be able to compare the price of one currency to that of the SDR, or even to any other weighted average of world currencies that one wanted, but I don't think it's done nearly as often as comparing currencies to the basket of goods one can buy to find \"inflation\". Even though one might think what would be important to measure would be overall Money Supply Inflation, much more often people care more about measuring Price Inflation. (Occasionally people worry about Wage Inflation, but generally that's considered a result of high Price Inflation.) In order to try to keep this on topic as a \"personal finance\" thing rather than an \"economics\" thing, I guess the question is: Why do you want to know? If you have some assets in a particular currency, you probably care most about what you'll be able to buy with them in the future when you want or need to spend them. In that sense, it's inflation that you're likely caring about the most. If you're trying to figure out which currency to keep your assets in, it largely depends on what currency your future expenses are likely to be in, though I can imagine that one might want to move out of a particular currency if there's a lot of political instability that you're expecting to lead to high inflation in a currency for a time."}
{"question":"Why buy insurance?","answer":"For big values the loss becomes negligible. Say you have a 10% chance to get 10 million $\/\u20ac\/Whatever, expected value 1m. You sell that chance for 990k, which loses you 10k of expected income. Why would you throw away 10k? Because in the face of getting almost 1m the 10k are insignificant, 1m and 990k will make you roughly equally rich. Also the richness increase from 1m to 10m is less than 10x since 1m gives you maybe 90% of the freedom that 10m does (depending on how well you can make 10m work for you, most people will just let it rot in the bank). Another way to look at it is to look at bankruptcy risk. Say I have 10k in the bank, which is nice. Those 10k cannot pay for a new house or 2 cars (mine and the one I hit), so I have a small risk of significant loss. If I buy an insurance I reduce my chance of going bankrupt from maybe 0.001% to 0% for a fairly small price. Usually you can buy insurance fairly cheap if you raise your deductible to maybe 5k (both for the house and the car) so that you shoulder the risk you can (shouldering risk = gaining money) and paying an insurance to shoulder the rest for you. That way you minimize the cost to remove the risk of bankruptcy. It makes sense to shoulder as much risk as you can (unless a fixed fee of the insurance makes in unfeasible) before paying others to do it for you so you can optimize your income while removing fatal risks."}
{"question":"What does bank do with \"Repaid Principal\"? ","answer":"Does it add to their lending reserves or is it utilized in other ways? It depends on how the economy and the bank in particular are doing. To simplify things greatly, banks get deposits and lend (or otherwise invest) the majority of those deposits. They must keep some percentage in reserve in case depositors want to make withdrawals, and if they get a high percentage of withdrawals (pushing them to be undercapitalized) then they may sell their loans to other banks. Whether they lend the money to someone else or use the money for something else will depend completely on how many reserves they have from depositors and whether they have people lined up to take profitable loans from them. I wrote this answer for the benefit of CQM, I'd vote to close this question if I had 49 more reputation points, since it's not really about personal finance."}
{"question":"What's so hard about a mutual fund manager pricing their mutual fund?","answer":"Given that a mutual fund manager knows, at the end of the day, precisely how many shares\/units\/whatever of each investment (stock, equity, etc.) they own, plus their bank balance,  It is calculating this given. There are multiple orders that a fund manager requests for execution, some get settled [i.e. get converted into trade], the shares itself don't get into account immediately, but next day or 2 days later depending on the exchange. Similarly he would have sold quite a few shares and that would still show shares in his account. The bank balance itself will not show the funds to pay as the fund manager has purchased something ... or the funds received as the fund manager has sold something. So in general they roughly know the value ... but they don't exactly know the value and would have to factor the above variables. That's not a simple task when you are talking about multiple trades across multiple shares."}
{"question":"Accounting equation: does income really decrease equity?","answer":"The accounting equation, in short, is: This can be further broken down into: Which can be further broken down into: The GnuCash equation is right, though I would substitute the word equity in that equation with a more-specific paid-in capital. Equity is (simply put) made up of 2 parts: shareholders' equity and retained earnings. Shareholders' equity is the amount invested by shareholders. Retained earnings is the amount earned by the business on behalf of the shareholders. Retained earnings is directly affected by your net income (which is income minus expenses). An increase in income will result in an increase in retained earnings. This must be balanced somewhere. Usually an increase in an asset. It may also be balanced by a decrease in equity. Likewise, increase in expenses will result in a decrease in retained earnings, which must also be balanced."}
{"question":"I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?","answer":"Keep saving or investing, but set aside a relatively modest amount for \"fun money\". That way, you can go have a good time without thinking too much about what you're spending within the limits you spend for yourself. You don't need to spend lavishly to have a good time!  Not having the stress on your shoulders of worrying about money is a huge thing. Savor it!"}
{"question":"Why do some companies offer 401k retirement plans?","answer":"Stated plainly... it's a benefit. Companies are not required to offer you any compensation above paying you minimum wage. But benefits attract higher quality employees.  I think a big part of it is that it is the norm. Employees want it because of the tax benefits. Employees expect it because almost all reputable companies of any significant size offer it. You could run a great company, but if you don't offer a 401k plan, you can scare away good potential employees. It would give a bad impression the same way that not offering health insurance would."}
{"question":"How to share income after marriage and kids?","answer":"This would be my suggestion: I would approach the problem thinking about the loss of monthly income you (as a couple) will be facing due to your wife's change to a part time job and divide that loss between the two of you. This means that if she goes from 2200 to 1100 monthly, you'd be losing 1100 per month.  To share this loss, you could repay your wife your part of the loss (550) so both of you are 550 euro down. However, this 550 loss is a bigger burden for your wife than it is for you, so this amount could be adjusted to make up for this inequality.  To make calculations simple and avoid developing a complicated model, you could give the 800 euro above your 3k to your wife for as long as she has to work part time."}
{"question":"Can I trust the Motley Fool?","answer":"Not sure how I came across the Motley Fool blog in the first instance, but found the writing style refreshing - then along came some free advice on ASX share prospects, then the next day and email expounding the benefits I would get by joining up for two years at 60% off if I hit the button \"now\", getting in at ground floor on the next technology stock rocket - I replied: \"What a hard sell - why wouldn't I apply the age old adage of \" If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is\" Their reply was; \"Thanks for your note. The honest answer is that despite people knowing they should do something to help themselves prepare for their financial futures, few actually do it. We find these messages actually work in getting people to hit 'yes', much better than an understated email that just says 'here are our results and our philosophy - let us know if you're interested', unfortunately. Yours Foolishly\" So I have put some of these recommendations onto a watch list, time will tell."}
{"question":"Replacement for mint.com with a public API? ","answer":"Plaid is exactly what you are looking for! It's docs are easy to understand, and you can sign up to their API and use their free tier to get started. An example request to connect a user to Plaid and retrieve their transactions data (in JSON):"}
{"question":"If an option's price is 100% made up of its intrinsic value, is there a way to guarantee a non-loss while having a chance at a profit?","answer":"The strategy looks good on paper but in reality, the 150 call will have some time value particularly if it has got some time to mature. Let us say this time value is 0.50 , so the call costs 3.50.   If the stock stays above 150 (actually above 149.50) , by the expiration of the call, you will lose this 0.50 . Then you need to keep buying calls over and over and hope one day a big down move will more than make up for all this lost premium. It is possible, but not entirely predictable. You may get lucky, but it may take many months to produce a significant move to make up for all the lost premium. If a big down move were to happen and the market had any indication of that in advance, that would be priced into the call already, so the 150 call may cost 4$ or 4.50$ if the market had wind of a big move. (a.k.a high implied volatility)"}
{"question":"How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?","answer":"In order to arrive at a decision you need the numbers: I suggest a spreadsheet.  List the monthly and annual costs (see other responses).  Then determine what the market rate for rental.  Once you have the numbers it will be clear from a numbers standpoint.  One has consider the hassle of owning property from a distance, which is not factored into the spreadsheet"}
{"question":"Where can I find historical ratios of international stock indexes? ","answer":"I found a possible data source. It offers fundamentals i.e. the accounting ratios you listed (P\/E, dividend yield, price\/book) for international stock indexes. International equity indices based on EAFE definitions are  maintained by Professor French of French-Fama fame, at Dartmouth's Tuck Business School website. Specifics of methodology, and countries covered is available here. MSCI is the data source. Historical time interval for most countries is from 1975 onward. (Singapore was one of the countries included). Obtaining historical ratios for international stock indices is not easily found for free. Your question didn't specify free though. If that is not a constraint, you may wish to check the MSCI Barra international stock indices also."}
{"question":"Would selling significantly below market affect the value of a stock","answer":"That amount of shares is too low to create \"ripples\" in the market. Usually you don't specify the price to sell the stock, unless you are personally on the floor trading the securities. And even then, with a volume of $50,000 it would just mean you threw away $45,000. For most people it would mean setting a $5 sell order, and the broker would understand that as \"sell this security so long the price is above $5\". When you get to the trading volume required to influence the price, usually you are also bound by some regulations banning some moves. One of them is the Pump and Dump, and even if you are suggesting the opposite, it might be in preparation of this scam. Also, the software used for High Frequency Trading (what all the cool kids[a] in Wall Street are using these days) employ advanced (and proprietary) heuristics to analyze the market and make thousands of trades in a short interval of time. On HTF's speed: Decisions happen in milliseconds, and this could result in big market moves without reason.  So a human trader attempting to manipulate the market versus these HTF setups, would be like a kid in a tricile attempting to outrun the Flash (DC comics). [a] Cool Kid: not really kids, more like suited up sharks. Money-eating sharks."}
{"question":"How to read bond yield quotes? What do the time, coupon, price, yield, and time mean?","answer":"The first thing that it is important to note here is that the examples you have given are not individual bond prices.  This is what is called the \"generic\" bond price data, in effect a idealised bond with the indicated maturity period.  You can see individual bond prices on the UK Debt Management Office website. The meaning of the various attributes (price, yield, coupon) remains the same, but there may be no such bond to trade in the market.  So let's take the example of an actual UK Gilt, say the \"4.25% Treasury Gilt 2019\".  The UK Debt Management Office currently lists this bond as having a maturity date of 07-Mar-2019 and a price of GBP 116.27.  This means that you will pay 116.27 to purchase a bond with a nominal value of GBP 100.00.  Here, the \"nominal price\" is the price that HM Treasury will buy the bond back on the maturity date.   Note that the title of the bond indicates a \"nominal\" yield of 4.25%.  This is called the coupon, so here the coupon is 4.25%.  In other words, the treasury will pay GBP 4.25 annually for each bond with a nominal value of GBP 100.00.  Since you will now be paying a price of GBP 116.27 to purchase this bond in the market today, this means that you will be paying 116.27 to earn the nominal annual interest of 4.25.  This equates to a 3.656% yield, where 3.656% = 4.25\/116.27.   It is very important to understand that the yield is not the whole story.  In particular, since the bond has a nominal value of GBP100, this means that as the maturity date approaches the market price of the bond will approach the nominal price of 100. In this case, this means that you will witness a loss of capital over the period that you hold the bond.  If you hold the bond until maturity, then you will lose GBP 16.27 for each nominal GBP100 bond you hold.  When this capital loss is netted off the interest recieved, you get what is called the gross redemption yield.  In this case, the gross redemption yield is given as approximately 0.75% per annum. NB.  The data table you have included clearly has errors in the pricing of the 3 month, 6 month, and 12 month generics."}
{"question":"How do I get into investing?","answer":"Don't do it until you have educated yourself enough to know what you are doing. I hope you won't take this personally, but given that you are wandering around asking random strangers on the Internet how to \"get into investing,\" I feel safe in concluding that you are by no means a sophisticated enough investor to be choosing individual investments, nor should you be trusting financial advisors to choose investments for you. Believe me, they do not have your interests at heart. I usually advise people in your position to start by reading one book: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. Once you've read the book by Malkiel you'll understand that the best strategy for all but the most sophisticated investors is to buy an index fund, which simply purchases a portfolio of ALL available stocks without trying to pick winners and losers. The best index funds are at Vanguard (there is also a Vanguard site for non-US residents). Vanguard is one of the very, very, very few honest players in the business. Unlike almost any other mutual fund, Vanguard is owned by its investors, so it has no profit motive. They never try to pick individual stocks, so they don't have to pay fancy high-priced analysts to pick stocks. If you find it impossible to open a Vanguard account from wherever you're living, find a local brokerage account that will allow you to invest in the US stock market. Many Vanguard mutual funds are available as ETFs which means that you buy and sell them just like any other stock on the US market, which should be easy to do from any reasonably civilized place."}
{"question":"Do mutual fund companies deliberately \"censor\" their portfolios\/funds?","answer":"There is a survivorship bias in the mutual fund industry. It's not about individual stocks in which those funds invest. Rather, it's in which funds and fund companies\/families are still around. The underperforming funds get closed or merged into other funds. Thus they are no longer reported, since they no longer exist. This makes a single company's mutual funds appear to have a better history, on average, than they actually did. Similarly, fund companies that underperform, will go out of business. This could make the mutual fund industry's overall history appear to be better than it actually was. Most companies don't do this to deliberately game the numbers. It's rational on the part of fund companies to close underperforming funds. When a fund has a below average history, investors will likely not invest in it, and will remove their existing money. The fund will shrink while the overhead remains the same, making the fund unprofitable for the company to run."}
{"question":"Are there alternatives to double currency account to manage payments in different currencies?","answer":"Yes, there is indeed a great alternative for all European residents: getting a Revolut account. Revolut is a fully-online bank who's main benefits include the lack of fees (with some limits) and a great exchange rate for all currency operations (better than what you would get at any brick and mortar bank in Europe). In your particular scenario it would work as following: This is what I personally use to handle a salary in EUR while living in Czech Republic. Things might change in the future once they run out of investor money, but for now it's the only solution I know for converting currencies without a loss."}
{"question":"Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?","answer":"Not 100% related, but the #1 thing you need to avoid is CREDIT CARD DEBT. Trust me on this one.  I'm 31, and finally got out of credit card debt about eight months ago. For just about my entire 20s, I racked up credit card debt and saved zero. Invested zero. It pains me to realize that I basically wasted ten years of possible interest, and instead bought a lot of dumb things and paid 25% interest on it. So yes, put money into your 401k and an IRA.  Max them out."}
{"question":"What is the meaning of \"short selling\" or \"going short\" a stock?","answer":"The 'normal' series of events when trading a stock is to buy it, time passes, then you sell it. If you believe the stock will drop in price, you can reverse the order, selling shares, waiting for the price drop, then buying them back. During that time you own say, -100 shares, and are 'short' those shares."}
{"question":"How do you invest in real estate without using money?","answer":"This is one way in which the scheme could work: You put your own property (home, car, piece of land) as a collateral and get a loan from a bank. You can also try to use the purchased property as security, but it may be difficult to get 100% loan-to-value. You use the money to buy a property that you expect will rise in value and\/or provide rent income that is larger than the mortgage payment. Doing some renovations can help the value rise. You sell the property, pay back the loan and get the profits. If you are fast, you might be able to do this even before the first mortgage payment is due. So yeah, $0 of your own cash invested. But if the property doesn't rise in value, you may end up losing the collateral."}
{"question":"Can LLC legally lend money to a friend?","answer":"One thing I would add to TTT's answer: One of the benefits of using an LLC for your business is right there in the name - \"limited liability\". It provides a level of protection for your personal assets should your business go bankrupt, get sued, and so forth. However, if someone can show that there's no real separation between your LLC's activities and your personal activities, then they can \"pierce the corporate veil\" and go after your personal assets. If this loan is really purely personal and not related to your business activities, you may create a paper trail that can later be used in this way. My advice would be to just avoid the whole thing and make the loan from personal funds. I don't see any upside to doing this out of the LLC funds."}
{"question":"Is the \"Bank on Yourself\" a legitimate investment strategy, or a scam?","answer":"Technically, this doesn't seem like a scam, but I don't think the system is beneficial.  They use a lot of half-truths to convince you that their product is right for you. Some of the arguments presented and my thoughts. Don't buy term and invest the rest because you can't predict how much you'll earn from the \"rest\"   Also Don't invest in a 401k because you can't predict how much you'll earn They are correct that you won't know exactly how much you'll have due to stock market, but that doesn't mean the stock market is a bad place to put your money.  Investing in a 401k is risky because of the harsh 401k withdrawal rules  Yes, 401ks have withdrawal rules (can't typically start before 59.5, must start by 70.5) but those rules don't hamper my investing style in any way.    Most Term Life Insurance policies don't pay out  They are correct again, but their conclusions are wrong. Yes, most people don't die while you have a term insurance policy which is why Term life insurance is relatively cheap.   But they aren't arguing you don't need insurance, just that you need their insurance which is \"better\" You need the Guaranteed growth they offer  The chart used to illustrate their guaranteed growth includes non-guaranteed dividends.   They invest $10,000 per year for 36 years and end up with $1,000,000.   That's a 5% return!  I use 10% for my estimate of stock market performance, but let's say it's only 8%.   The same $10,000 per year results in over $2 Million dollars.  Using 10.5% (average return of the S&P 500 over it's lifetime) the result is a staggering $3.7 MILLION.   So if I'm looking at $3.7M vs. $1M, It costs me $2.7 Million dollars to give me the same coverage as my term life policy. That's one expensive Term Life Insurance policy. My personal favorite: Blindly following the advice of Wall Street and financial \"gurus\" such as Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman got you where you are. Are you happy with the state of your finances? Do you still believe their fairytale, \"Buy Term (insurance) and Invest the Difference\"?  Yes, I sure do believe that fairytale and I'm prospering quite well thank you. :) While I don't think this is a scam, it's outrageously expensive and not a good financial choice."}
{"question":"What are the alternatives to compound interest for a Muslim?","answer":"There are lot of options. I personally avoid keeping money in bank accounts and invest in one of the funds. It's just my personal opinion, you can ask your Ulamas"}
{"question":"Possible to use balance transfers to avoid interest with major credit cards?","answer":"In theory, yes. In practice: So it can be gamed, but the odds are not on your side :)"}
{"question":"Where do countries \/ national governments borrow money from? ","answer":"There no legal framework that allows states like the US or countries in Europe to default on their debt.  Should congress pass a law to default the US supreme court is likely to nullify the law."}
{"question":"How can I legally and efficiently help my girlfriend build equity by helping with a mortgage?","answer":"This is fine, just have a plan before you go into it. Look up a co-ownership agreement contract off LegalZoom, they are like $15, or get a lawyer if you want. Decide if you want to be \"Joint tenants\" or \"Tenants in common\". You probably want to be joint tenants so that if one of you dies the property goes to the other person. Go through the agreement, make any changes you want, and then both sign it. These documents outline what happens if someone dies, or if you break up, or if you are allowed to sell your ownership, and anything else. Keep a record of who has paid what % of equity towards the house. Also look into tax laws, if the mortgage or house is only truly in 1 person's name they may get a tax break that the other person will not get. The co-ownership agreement is essentially the same agreement that happens when you're married, the only difference is that it happens automatically and implicitly when you're married. It's interesting that some people are saying this is a horrible idea when it's practically the same as the agreement you'd have if you were married. Whether you're single or married, if you own a house with another person and you break up, it's going to be a bit complicated. Get a contract in place beforehand so that things go as smoothly as possible. If you are both rational adults you shouldn't have any problems."}
{"question":"Ballpark salary equivalent today of \"healthcare benefits\" in the US?","answer":"You could probably see prices at one of the Obamacare websites.  I'm on Obamacare in Massachusetts, and the premiums for me ranged from about $300-600 per month.  For a couple, you just multiply by two (couples don't get any discounts over single people).  So for a couple, the cost is about $600-$1200 per month. I never looked at family prices because I don't have kids, but I think the family plans are not that much more than the plans for a couple."}
{"question":"Why do people always talk about stocks that pay high dividends?","answer":"It has little to do with money or finance.  It's basic neuroscience.  When we get money, our brains release dopamine (read Your Money and Your Brain), and receiving dividends is \"getting money.\"  It feels good, so we're more likely to do it again. What you often see are rationalizations because the above explanation sounds ... irrational, so many people want to make their behavior look more rational.  Ceteris paribus a solid growth stock is as good as a solid company that pays dividends. In value-investing terms, dividend paying stocks may appear to give you an advantage in that you can keep the dividends in cash and buy when the price of the security is low (\"underpriced\").  However, as you realize, you could just sell the growth stock at certain prices and the effect would be the same, assuming you're using a free brokerage like Robin Hood. You can easily sell just a portion of the shares periodically to get a   \"stream of cash\" like dividends. That presents no problem whatsoever,   so this cannot be the explanation to why some people think it is   \"smart\" to be a dividend investor. Yes, if you're using a brokerage like Robin Hood (there may be others, but I think this is the only one right now), then you are right on."}
{"question":"Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? ","answer":"They're not at all the same. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment method that pays off early investors with deposits from later ones. Fractional reserve banking is the practice of keeping only a fraction of a bank's demand deposits on reserve, while lending out the rest.  The reserve requirement is how central banks limit the amount of money that can float around in commercial banks. In the latter case, there is no \"later investor\" somewhere down near the bottom of a money food chain.  Every dollar, regardless of whether it was created fresh from one of the federal reserve banks or created via several chained loans, is worth the same.  If the dollars depreciate for whatever reason, they do so for everyone. Now, if you want a good example of a Ponzi scheme that is actually legal, look at Social Security. Edit: A \"debt-based society\" is separate from fractional-reserve banking.  If the Fed creates $1,000,000, the total amount of money that can float around is still capped based on whatever the reserve requirement is.  (For a 10% reserve requirement, it's something like $10,000,000.)  We have unsustainable debt increases because of lack of self-control on the part of our leaders.  The fractional-reserve process helps it along, but it's not the culprit.  It's an enabler."}
{"question":"What kinds of information do financial workers typically check on a daily basis?","answer":"In addition to the information in the other answer, I would suggest looking at an economic calendar. These provide the dates and values of many economic announcements, e.g. existing home sales, durable orders, consumer confidence, etc. Yahoo, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal all provide such calendars. Yahoo provides links to the raw data where available; Bloomberg and the WSJ provide links to their article where appropriate. You could also look at a global economic calendar; both xe.com and livecharts.co.uk provide these. If you're only interested in the US, the Yahoo, Bloomberg, and WSJ calendars may provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio, but foreign announcements also affect US markets, so it's important to get as much perspective as possible. I like the global economic calendars I linked to above because they rate announcements on \"priority\", which is a quick way to learn which announcements have the greatest effect. Economic calendars are especially important in the context of an interview because you may be asked a follow-up question. For example, the US markets jumped in early trading today (5\/28\/2013) because the consumer confidence numbers exceeded forecasts (from the WSJ calendar, 76.2 vs 2.3).  As SRKX stated, it's important to know more than the numbers; being able to analyze the numbers in the context of the wider market and being aware of the fundamentals driving them is what's most important. An economic calendar is a good way to see this information quickly and succinctly.  (I'm paraphrasing part of my answer to another question, so you may or may not find some of that information helpful as well; I'm certainly not suggesting you look at the website of every central bank in the morning. That's what an economic calendar is for!)"}
{"question":"Is it a good idea to rebalance without withdrawing money?","answer":"Rebalancing has been studied empirically quite a bit, but not particularly carefully and actually turns out to be very hard to study well.  The main problem is that you don't know until afterward if your target weights were optimal so a bad rebalancing program might give better performance if it strayed closer to optimal weights even if it didn't do an efficient job of keeping near the target weights. In your particular case either method might be preferred depending on a number of things: You can see why there isn't a generally correct answer to your question and the results of empirical studies might very wildly depending on the mix of assets and risk tolerance.  Still if your portfolio is not too complicated you can estimate the costs of the two methods without too much trouble and figure out if it is worthwhile to you. EDIT In Response to Comment Below: Your example gets at what makes rebalancing so hard empirically but also generally pretty easy in practice.  If you were to target 75% Equity (25% bonds?) and look at returns only for 30 years the \"best\" rebalancing method would be to never rebalance and just let 75% equity go to near 100% as equity has better long term returns.  This happens when you look only at returns as the final number and don't take into account the change in risk in your portfolio. In practice, most people that are still adding (or subtracting in retirement) to a retirement portfolio are adding (removing) a significant amount compared to the total amount in their portfolio.  In the case you discribe, it is cheaper (massively cheaper in the presence of load fees) just to use new capital to trade toward your target, keeping your risk profile.  New money should be large enough to keep you near enough your target.  If you just estimate the trading costs\/fees in both cases I think you'll see just how large the difference is between the two methods this will dwarf any small differences in return over the long run even if you can't trade back all the way to your target."}
{"question":"Why companies appear in several stock exchanges?","answer":"If I buy the one from NSY, is it the \"real\" Sinopec? No - you are buying an American Depository Receipt. Essentially some American bank or other entity holds a bunch of Sinopec stock and issues certificates to the American exchange that American investors can trade.  This insulates the American investors from the cost of international transactions.   The price of these ADRs should mimic the price of the underlying stock (including changes the currency exchange rate) otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist.  Other than that, the main difference between holding the ADR and the actual stock is that ADRs do not have voting rights. So if that is not important to you then for all intents and purposes trading the ADR would be the same as trading the underlying stock."}
{"question":"Historical P\/E ratios of small-cap vs. large-cap stocks?","answer":"There is most likely an error in the WSJ's data.  Yahoo! Finance reports the P\/E on the Russell 2000 to be 15 as of 8\/31\/11 and S&P 500 P\/E to be 13 (about the same as WSJ). Good catch, though!  E-mail WSJ, perhaps they will be grateful."}
{"question":"What happens if I just don't pay my student loans?","answer":"Never forget that student lenders and their collection agencies are dangerous and clever predators, and you, the student borrower, are their legal prey. They look at you and think, \"food.\" My friend said she never pays her student loans and nothing has happened.  She's wrong. Something has happened. She just doesn't know about it yet. Each unpaid bill, with penalties, has been added to the balance of her loan.  Now she owes that money also. And she owes interest on it. That balance is probably building up very fast indeed. She's playing right into the hands of her student lender. They are smiling about this. When the balance gets large enough to make it worthwhile, her student lender will retain an aggressive collection agency to recover the entire balance. The agency will come after her in court, and they are likely to win.  If your friend lives in the US, she'll discover that she can't declare bankruptcy to escape this. She has the bankruptcy \"reform\" act of 2006, passed during the Bush 43 regime, to thank for this. A court judgement against her will make it harder for her to find a job and even a spouse. I'm not saying this is right or just. I believe it is wrong and unjust to make university graduates into debt slaves. But it is true. As for being paid under the table, I hope your friend intends on dying rather than retiring when she no longer can work due to age. If she's paid under the table she will not be eligible for social security payments.  You need sixteen calendar quarters of social security credit to be eligible for payments.  I know somebody like this. It's a hell of a way to live, especially on weekends when the local church feeding programs don't operate.  Paying people under the table ought to be a felony for the business owner."}
{"question":"Unable to understand logic behind why there is no exit load on liquid fund","answer":"I think you are having trouble understanding what 'liquid' means. Liquidity refers to how easily an asset can be converted to cash. More liquid = more easily converted to cash, less liquid, less so. Any kind of exit load is going to make an asset less liquid due to the penalties associated with making the sale. So, the whole point of liquid funds is to give people the option of selling quickly if they need to. Since an exit load is meant to discourage this behavior, liquid funds tend not to have one. The point isn't what the financial institution 'gets', it's about offering a service to clients with a particular investment need."}
{"question":"Beginning investment","answer":"The advice I have is short and sweet. Be an investor, not a speculator. Adopt the philosophy of Warren Buffet which is the 'buy and hold' philosophy. Avoid individual stocks and buy mutual funds or ETFs. Pick something that pays dividends and reinvest those dividends. Don't become a speculator, meaning avoid the 'buy low, sell high' philosophy.  EDIT:For some reason I cannot add a comment, so I am putting my response here.  @jad The 'buy low, sell high' approach makes money for the stock broker, not necessarily you. As we learn in the movie Trading Places, each buy or sell creates a commission for the broker. It is those commission expenses that eat away at your nestegg. Just don't sell. If a security is trading at $10 a share and pays $0.25 a share each quarter then you are getting 10% ROI if you buy that security (and if it continues to pay $0.25 a share each quarter). If the price goes up then the ROI for new buyers will go down, but your ROI will still be the same. You will continue to get 10% for as long as you hold that security. A mutual fund buys the individual stocks for you. The value of the fund is only calculated at the end of the day. An ETF is like a mutual fund but the value of the ETF is calculated moment by moment."}
{"question":"Transfer from credit to debit ","answer":"As other answers and comments suggest you are trying to do something... odd to say the least. No one wants to use a credit card to finance a checking\/current account because you are creating a debt on that credit card (unless you are in the odd situation where the card is in credit) that will immediately start accruing interest at a rate probably in excess of 10% per annum. That is not a clever thing to do. What you really need to do is find an account that one of you owns that has a positive balance and use an internet banking service to transfer part of that positive balance onto the debit card. The other solution is not to use the debit card at all but use the credit card to complete the purchases you are trying to manage with the debit card. The reason that BofA and AmEx customer support can't help you is that no one would ever do what you want to do; they would either move existing money from another account or ask for a bank loan."}
{"question":"Why do 10 year-old luxury cars lose so much value?","answer":"The answer is very simple. Part of the luxury is having the cutting edge technology with the very latest features. The price premium is not just from increased build quality; it's simply a perception. Additionally, 10 years takes its toll on a car. The smooth suspension gets rougher over time, and all the little features start to break down. Part of the price of that car factors in the expense of expected repairs. That's true of every car, but the repairs are more expensive when there are lots of gadgets to break down, especially on imports."}
{"question":"Do Americans really use checks that often?","answer":"From a Canadian point of view, I think we are generally very similar to how you describe Austria.  The only thing I use cash for, is to pay for my coffee at a local micro-roaster who only accepts cash.  Cheques, I only use to pay friends.  Everything else is debit or credit card.  Very few businesses around here will even accept cheques anymore."}
{"question":"Planning to invest in stock, age 16","answer":"Don't try individual stocks. If you have a job, any job, even one from mowing lawns, you can open a Roth IRA. If you are under 18 you will need your parents\/guardian to setting up the account. You can put the an amount equal to your earned income into the Roth IRA, up to the annual maximum of $5500. There are advantages to a Roth IRA:  What happens if you are using your income to pay for your car, insurance, etc? You can get the money from your parents, grandparents. The only rule is that you can't invest more than you have earned. Act before Tax day (April 15th). You know what you made last year. If you open the account and make the contribution before April 15th it can count for last year, as long as you are clear with the broker\/bank when you make the deposit."}
{"question":"Would I qualify for a USDA loan?","answer":"All the above advices plus this: For you first house, you should start smaller. Buy a 100k or less condo if possible, then grow from there. You sell every 5 years or so when the market is favorable and you will slowly get to that nice 250k house."}
{"question":"Is there a Canadian credit card which shows holds?","answer":"It's not so much a credit card, but a financial institution's online platform that either provides this functionality or not. The following Canadian financial institutions show an itemized list of pre-authorized transactions (not an exhaustive list):  The following institutions show a total value of pre-authorized transactions: Most other institutions show the available credit (e.g. Chase Financial used by Amazon Rewards), which give an indication of how much you have to spend. By subtracting the current balance and the available balance from the total credit limit, you can get an indication of the total amount of pre-authorized transactions. Example: $1000 - $500 - $400 = $100 is the amount of pre-authorized transactions. From TD's EasyWeb demo (http:\/\/tdeasywebdemo.com\/v2\/#\/en\/PFS\/accounts\/activity\/chq), it appears that they don't include pre-authorized transactions in the Available Credit. You can verify for yourself by logging in to online banking after you make a purchase and comparing the Available Credit to [Credit Limit - Current Balance]. If it is equal, then they don't include, if it is different (most likely for the value of the transaction), then they do."}
{"question":"Saving\/ Investing a lump sum","answer":"5 years is very short term, and since you are sure you'll need the money, investing it into the markets should probably not be done. You can toss it in Ally bank for 1% or consider a 5 yr raise your rate CD A decent write-up on time horizons: http:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/investing\/110813\/using-time-horizons-investing.asp If you want to go the stock\/bond route you can assess the benefits of using something like a vanguard target date fund, or a roboadvisor such as wealthfront or betterment. You need to assess whether you think you may move up your time horizon, say you want to buy a house in 4 years, or, if it is 5 years, are you ok with it being 6.5-7 if there is a market downturn."}
{"question":"Does the stock market create any sort of value?","answer":"When you own stock in a company, you do literally own part of the business, even if it's a small portion. Anyone amassing over 50% of shares really does have a controlling interest. No, you can't trade a handful of AAPL shares back to Apple for an iPod, but you can sell the shares and then go buy an iPod with the proceeds. Stock prices change over time because the underlying companies are worth more or less and people are willing to pay more or less for those shares. There is no Ponzi scheme because each share you own can be bought or sold on the open market. Dividends come from the company profits, not from other investors. On the other hand, money only has value because everyone believes it has value. There's the real conspiracy."}
{"question":"How to make money from a downward European market?","answer":"The best way to make money on a downward market is to buy at the bottom, sell at the top.  Lather, rinse, repeat."}
{"question":"What is considered high or low when talking about volume?","answer":"Volume is really only valuable when compared to some other volume, either from a historical value, or from some other stock.  The article you linked to doesn't provide specific numbers for you to evaluate whether volume is high or low. Many people simply look at the charts and use a gut feel for whether a day's volume is \"high\" or \"low\" in their estimation. Typically, if a day's volume is not significantly taller than the usual volume, you wouldn't call it high. The same goes for low volume. If you want a more quantitative approach, a simple approach would be to use the normal distribution statistics: Calculate the mean volume and the standard deviation. Anything outside of 1.5 to 2.0 standard deviations (either high or low) could be significant in your analysis. You'll need to pick your own numbers (1.5 or 2.0 are just numbers I pulled out of thin air.) It's hard to read anything specific into volume, since for every seller, there's a buyer, and each has their reasons for doing so. The article you link to has some good examples of using volume as a basis for strengthening conclusions drawn using other factors."}
{"question":"Why doesn't Japan just divide the Yen by 100? ","answer":"Another possibly significant issue, is that the number ten thousand is very important in the Japanese language.  In Japanese, you count in ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, BUT instead of a 'hundred thousand', you have ten ten thousands.  and then one hundred ten thousands, and then a thousand ten thousands.   The ten thousand yen note, equivalent roughly to the $100 bill, is the main base of Japanese currency.  If you go to the bank, for example, you will almost always take out your money in ten thousand yen notes.   Knowing a little about the language, i would say it would become quite strange and un-natural to suddenly start using a hundred as the main note value.  I doubt the Japanese people would ever even consider that, and my guess is the only people who are even put out by the large number of zeroes are foreigners who are used to dealing in dollars and cents."}
{"question":"Can I get a discount on merchandise by paying with cash instead of credit?","answer":"There are two fundamentally different reasons merchants will give cash discounts. One is that they will not have to pay interchange fees on cash (or pay much lower fees on no-reward debit cards).  Gas stations in my home state of NJ already universally offer different cash and credit prices.  Costco will not even take Visa and MasterCard credit cards (debit only) for this reason. The second reason, not often talked about but widely known amongst smaller merchants, is that they can fail to declare the sale (or claim a smaller portion of the sale) to the authorities in order to reduce their tax liability.  Obviously the larger stores will not risk their jobs for this, but smaller owner-operated (\"mom and pop\") stores often will.  This applies to both reduced sales tax liability and income tax liability.  This used to be more limited per sale (but more widespread overall), since tax authorities would look closely for a mismatch between declared income and spending, but with an ever-larger proportion of customers paying by credit card, merchants can take a bigger chunk of their cash sales off the books without drawing too much suspicion. Both of the above are more applicable to TVs than cars, since (1) car salesmen make substantial money from offering financing and (2) all cars must be registered with the state, so alternative records of sales abound.  Also, car prices tend to be at or near the credit limit of most cards, so it is not as common to pay for them in this way."}
{"question":"Is it smart to only invest in mid- and small-cap stock equity funds in my 401(k)?","answer":"Your initial premise (mid-cap and small-cap company stocks have outperformed the market) is partially correct - they have, over many 40 yr periods, provided higher returns than large caps (or bond funds). The important thing to consider here is that risk adjusted, the returns from a diversified portfolio are far more robust - with proper asset allocation you and expect high returns and reduce your risk simultaneously.  Imagine this scenario - you decide to stick to small \/ mid caps for 10 - 15 yrs and move into a more diversified portfolio then. Had you made that decision during a sustained period of poor small cap performance (late 80s or the 40's) you would have lost a boatload of return, as those were periods were small \/ mids underperformed the market as a whole, and large caps in particular. As an example, from 1946 to 1958 large caps outperformed small every single year. If 2016 were to be the first year of a similar trend, you've done yourself a major disservice.  Since the dot com crash small \/mids have outperformed for sure, pretty much every year - but that doesn't mean that they will continue to do so. The reason asset allocation exists is precisely this - over a 40 yr period, no single asset class outperforms a diversified portfolio.  If you attempt to time the market, even if you do so with a multi-decade time horizon in mind, there a good chance that you will do more poorly."}
{"question":"If one owns 75% of company shares, does that mean that he would have to take upon himself 75% of the company's expenses?","answer":"I think your question might be coming from a misunderstanding of how corporate structures work - specifically, that a corporation is a legal entity (sort of like a person) that can have its own assets and debts. To make it clear, let's look at your example. We have two founders, Albert and Brian, and they start a corporation called CorpTech. When they start the company, it has no assets - just like you would if you owned nothing and had no bank account. In order to do anything, CorpTech is going to need some money. So Albert and Brian give it some. They can give it as much as they want - they can give it property if they want, too. Usually, people don't just put money into a corporation without some sort of agreement in place, though. In most cases, the agreement says something like \"Each member will own a fraction of the company that is in proportion to this initial investment.\" The way that is done varies depending on the type of corporation, but in general, if Albert ends up owning 75% and Brian ends up owning 25%, then they probably valued their contributions at 75% and 25% of the total value. These contributions don't have to be money or property, though. They could just be general \"know-how,\" or \"connections,\" or \"an expectation that they will do some work.\" The important thing is that they agree on the value of these contributions and assign ownership of the company according to that agreement. If they don't have an agreement, then the laws of the state that the company is registered in will say how the ownership is assigned. Now, what \"ownership\" means can be different depending on the context. When it comes to decision-making, you could \"own\" one percentage of the company in terms of votes, but when it comes to shares of future profits, you could own a different amount. This is why you can have voting and non-voting versions of a company's stock, for example. So this is a critical point - the ownership of a company is independent of the individual contributions to the company. The next part of your question is related to this: what happens when CorpTech sees an opportunity to make an investment? If it has enough cash on hand (because of the initial investment, or through financing, or reinvested profits), then the decision to make the investment is made according to Albert and Brian's ownership agreement, and they spend it. The money doesn't belong to them individually anymore, it belongs to CorpTech, and so CorpTech is spending it. They are just making the decision for CorpTech to spend it. This is why people say the owners are not financially liable beyond their initial investment. If the deal is bad, and they lose the money, the most they can lose is what they initially put in. On the other hand, if CorpTech doesn't have the money, then they have to figure out a way to get it. They might decide to each put in an amount in proportion to their ownership, so that their stake doesn't change. Or, Albert might agree to finance the deal 100% in exchange for a larger share of ownership. Or, he could agree to fund all of it without a larger stake, because Brian is the one who set the deal up. Or, they might take out a loan, and not need to invest any new money. Or, they might find an investor who agrees to put in the needed money in exchange for a a 51% share, in which case Albert and Brian will have to figure out how to split the remaining 49% if they agree to the deal. The details of how all of this would work depend on the structure (LLC, LLP, C-corp, S-corp, etc), but in general, the idea is that the company has assets and debts, and the owners can have voting rights, equity rights, and rights to future profits in any type of split that they want, regardless of what the companies assets and debts are, or what their initial investment was."}
{"question":"Error in my car loan papers, what do I do?","answer":"The absolute first thing you need to do is contact the bank. Also, do you have a copy of the loan papers you signed? You should look over those as soon as possible as well. I'm sure you want these payments going toward your FICO score and not your mothers."}
{"question":"why would someone buy or sell just a few shares in stocks ","answer":"I buy or sell a few shares whenever I have a small amount of money to transfer into out of my mutual funds. Since I'm not paying transaction fees, there is no reason not to, when that is what makes sense. If you are paying a fee for each transaction, of course it makes sense to try to wait until you have a larger amount to move so the overhead per share is lower."}
{"question":"What are the differences between gold\/siver \"coin\" vs. \"round\"?","answer":"littleadv gave a great answer, but neglected to mention one thing.  Modern minted coins usually only contain a (high) percentage of a precious metal.  For example pre-1965 quarters are 90% silver and 10% other, to maintain strength and durability. Rounds of silver bullion are usually .9999%, or fine, silver, which is considerably softer."}
{"question":"Where can I find open source portfolio management software? ","answer":"I've just recently launched an open source wealth management platform - wealthbot.io ...  \"Webo\" is mostly targeted at RIA's to help the manage multiple portfolios, etc. Take a look at the demo at demo.wealthbot.io, you'll also find links to github, etc. there. It's a rather involved project, but if you are looking for use cases of rebalancing, portfolio accounting, custodian integration, tax loss harvesting, and many other features available at some of the popular robo-advisors, you might find it interesting."}
{"question":"Got charged ridiculous amount for doctor's walk in visit. What are my options?","answer":"Some doctors will give folks who are not covered by insurance a price break. If that describes you, you could ask. But if you didn't discuss the price in advance, that isn't the doctor's fault, any more than it would be the mechanic's fault if you asked for auto service without getting an estimate first. Consider it a cheap lesson in not making assumptions."}
{"question":"valuing options","answer":"Below I will try to explain two most common Binomial Option Pricing Models (BOPM) used. First of all, BOPM splits time to expiry into N equal sub-periods and assumes that in each period the underlying security price may rise or fall by a known proportion, so the value of an option in any sub-period is a function of its possible values in the following sub period. Therefore the current value of an option is found by working backwards from expiry date through sub-periods to current time. There is not enough information in the question from your textbook so we may assume that what you are asked to do is to find a value of a call option using just a Single Period BOPM. Here are two ways of doing this: First of all let's summarize your information: Current Share Price (Vs) = $70 Strike or exercise price (X) = $60 Risk-free rate (r) = 5.5% or 0.055 Time to maturity (t) = 12 months Downward movement in share price for the period (d) = $65 \/ $70 = 0.928571429 Upward movement in share price for the period (u) = 1\/d = 1\/0.928571429 = 1.076923077 \"u\" can be translated to $ multiplying by Vs => 1.076923077 * $70 = $75.38 which is the maximum probable share price in 12 months time. If you need more clarification here - the minimum and maximum future share prices are calculated from stocks past volatility which is a measure of risk. But because your textbook question does not seem to be asking this - you probably don't have to bother too much about it yet. Intrinsic Value: Just in case someone reading this is unclear - the Value of an option on maturity is the difference between the exercise (strike) price and the value of a share at the time of the option maturity. This is also called an intrinsic value.  Note that American Option can be exercised prior to it's maturity in this case the intrinsic value it simply the diference between strike price and the underlying share price at the time of an exercise. But the Value of an option at period 0 (also called option price) is a price you would normally pay in order to buy it. So, say, with a strike of $60 and Share Price of $70 the intrinsic value is $10, whereas if Share Price was $50 the intrinsic value would be $0. The option price or the value of a call option in both cases would be fixed.  So we also need to find intrinsic option values when price falls to the lowest probable and rises to the maximum probable (Vcd and Vcu respectively) (Vcd) = $65-$60 = $5 (remember if Strike was $70 then Vcd would be $0 because nobody would exercise an option that is out of the money) (Vcu) = $75.38-$60 = $15.38 1. Setting up a hedge ratio:  h = Vs*(u-d)\/(Vcu-Vcd) h = 70*(1.076923077-0.928571429)\/(15.38-5) = 1 That means we have to write (sell) 1 option for each share purchased in order to hedge the risks. You can make a simple calculation to check this, but I'm not going to go into too much detail here as the equestion is not about hedging. Because this position is risk-free in equilibrium it should pay a risk-free rate (5.5%). Then, the formula to price an option (Vc) using the hedging approach is: (Vs-hVc)(e^(rt))=(Vsu-hVcu) Where (Vc) is the value of the call option, (h) is the hedge ratio, (Vs) - Current Share Price, (Vsu) - highest probable share price, (r) - risk-free rate, (t) - time in years, (Vcu) - value of a call option on maturity at the highest probable share price. Therefore solving for (Vc): (70-1*Vc)(e^(0.055*(12\/12))) = (75.38-1*15.38) => (70-Vc)*1.056540615 = 60 => 70-Vc = 60\/1.056540615 => Vc = 70 - (60\/1.056540615)  Which is similar to the formula given in your textbook, so I must assume that using 1+r would be simply a very close approximation of the formula above. Then it is easy to find that Vc = 13.2108911402 ~ $13.21 2. Risk-neutral valuation: Another way to calculate (Vc) is using a risk-neutral approach. We first introduce a variable (p) which is a risk-neutral probability of an increase in share price. p = (e^(r*t)-d)\/(u-d) so in your case: p = (1.056540615-0.928571429)\/(1.076923077-0.928571429) = 0.862607107 Therefore using (p) the (Vc) would be equal: Vc = [pVcu+(1-p)Vcd]\/(e^(rt)) => Vc = [(0.862607107*15.38)+(0.137392893*5)]\/1.056540615 => Vc = 13.2071229185 ~ $13.21 As you can see it is very close to the hedging approach. I hope this answers your questions. Also bear in mind that there is much more to the option pricing than this. The most important topics to cover are: Multi-period BOPM Accounting for Dividends Black-Scholes-Merton Option Pricing Model"}
{"question":"what's the best option to save money on everyday expenses? ","answer":"There is a saying in business: what gets measured gets done. Track every expense you make. Later, look over what you have learned. If 5% of your total budget is going to something frivolous, maybe you could halve it? If 1% or 0.1% is going to that frivolous expense, there's not much to be gained even by eliminating it. If you spend $200\/mo on coffees, dropping those will help. If you spend $10\/mo on coffees, you need to look elsewhere for your big savings. Have a target: I want to put $X into savings each month. Therefore I can only spend $Y. What do you have to change about last month's spending patterns to get down to $Y? Where are the easy targets for you? They will be different than the easy targets for me. What absolutely cannot change for you? Once you know the costs of what you're doing, you will know where it's possible to save, and where it's \"worth it\" to economize."}
{"question":"Buying my first car out of college","answer":"I agree with the consensus as far as getting a cheaper car, paying with cash, getting a more fuel efficient car, etc.  But I'd like to point out, you should make sure you really need a car at all.  I ride a bike to work!  If I need a car, I can use Zipcar or City Car Share or borrow a friend's car, rent a car, take the train, ride a bus, walk.  But mostly, ride my bike.  Burn fat not gasoline! ;)"}
{"question":"Should I keep most of my banking, credit, and investment accounts at the same bank?","answer":"For personal accounts, I can't imagine that this is too much of a problem.  The only concern that I can think of (for American banks) is that FDIC only insures you up to $100,000 if the bank were to go belly-up.  If you're getting over that amount of money, you may want to \"diversify\" a little more."}
{"question":"College student interested in starting a stock portfolio, how much should I invest? ","answer":"You should invest a trivial (<500$USD) amount of money in a stock portfolio. If you aren't able to make more on the market than the interest rates of your loans, you are losing money. This question has discussed this topic as well."}
{"question":"What types of ETFs are taxed differently by the IRS?","answer":"Very interesting question. While searching i also found that some precious metal ETFs (including IAU) gains are taxed at 28% because IRS considers it \"collectible\", rather than the usual long term 15% for stocks and stock holding ETFs. As for capital gain tax you have to pay now my guess it's because of the following statement in the IAU prospectus (page 34): When the trust sells gold, for example   to pay expenses, a Shareholder will   recognize gain or loss ...."}
{"question":"How to handle Client Deposits in Xero (or any finance software, really)","answer":"I haven't worked with Xero before, but can't you just set it up as accounts payable? Put in an accounts payable for the contract. When the client makes a payment, the accounts payable goes down and the cash goes up."}
{"question":"If accepting more than $10K in cash for a used boat, should I worry about counterfeiting?","answer":"I'd worry more about falsifying documents of sale.  No good reason at all to do that. Detecting counterfeit bills is easy if they're all new bills.  Hold them up to the light and look for the watermark and the numbered tape in the bill.  Refuse any bad ones."}
{"question":"Treatment of web domain ownership & reselling for tax purposes: Capital asset, or not?","answer":"As others have said, please talk to a professional adviser. From my quick research, domain names can only be amortized as 197 intangible if it's used for the taxpayer's business. For example, if Corp A pays $200,000 for corpa.com and uses that to point to their homepage, they can amortize it over 15 years as a 197 intangible. (Please refer to this IRS memo https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-wd\/201543014.pdf.) The above memo does not issue any guidance in your case, where domains are purchased for investment or resale. Regarding domain names, the U.S. Master Depreciation Guide (2016) by CCH says: Many domain names are purchased in a secondary market from third parties [...] who register names and resell them at a profit. These cost must be capitalized because the name will have a useful   life of more than one year. The costs cannot be amortized because a   domain name has no useful life. So your decision to capitalize is correct, but your amortization deductions may be challenged by the IRS. When you sell your domain, the gain will be determined by how you treat these assets. If you treat your domains as 197 intangibles, and thus had ordinary deductions through amortization, your gain will be ordinary. If you treated them as capital assets, your gain will be a capital gain. Very conceptually, and because the IRS has not issued specific guidelines, I think holding domain names for resale is similar to buying stock of a company. You can't amortize the investment, and when you sell, the gain or loss is a capital gain\/loss."}
{"question":"Is Amazon's offer of a $50 gift card a scam?","answer":"It's not a scam. They just want you to be an Amazon customer for many years and you'll be advertising Amazon to anyone who sees your credit card. $50 is known as the cost of \"customer acquisition\" and it is a very good deal for someone who may become a Prime member and spend $1000s a year on Amazon."}
{"question":"1.4 million cash. What do I do?","answer":"For now, park it in a mix of cash and short term bond funds like the Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade fund. The short term fund will help with the inflation issue. Make sure the cash positions are FDIC insured. Then either educate yourself about investing or start interviewing potential advisors. Look for referrals, and stay away from people peddling annuities or people who will not fully disclose how they get paid. Your goal should be to have a long-term plan within 6-12 months."}
{"question":"Free, web-based finance tracking with tag\/label support?","answer":"Mint.com does all of that (except for the cash at hand)."}
{"question":"I cosigned for a friend who is not paying the payment","answer":"I would like to add one minor point for clarity: Cosigning means that you, alongside your friend, enter into a contract with the bank. It does not necessarily mean that you now have a contract with your friend, although that could implicitly be concluded. If the bank makes use of their contracted right to make you pay your friend's debts with them, this has no effect on your legal relationship with your friend. Of course, you can hold him or her liable for your damages he or she has caused. It is another question whether this would help you in practice, but that has been discussed before."}
{"question":"What is approximate tax deduction for this scenario?","answer":"House rent allowance:7500 House Rent can be tax free to the extent [less of] Medical allowance : 800 Can be tax free, if you provide medical bills. Conveyance Allowance : 1250 Is tax free.  Apart from this, if you invest in any of the tax saving instruments, i.e. Specified Fixed Deposits, NSC, PPF, EPF, Tution Fees, ELSS, Home Loan Principal etc, you can get upto Rs 150,000 deductions. Additional Rs 50,000 if you invest into NPS. If you have a home loan, upto Rs 200,000 in interest can be deducted. So essentially if you invest rightly you need not pay any tax on the current salary, apart from the Rs 200 professional tax deducted."}
{"question":"Do budgeting % breakdowns apply globally?","answer":"The exact percentages depend on many things, not just location. For example, everyone needs food.  If you have a low income, the percentage of your income spent on food would be much higher than for someone that has a high income. Any budgeting guidelines that you find are just a starting point.  You need to look at your own income and expenses and come up with your own spending plan. Start by listing all of the necessities that you have to spend on.  For example, your basic necessities might be: Fund those categories, and any other fixed expenses that you have.  Whatever you have left is available for other things, such as: and anything else that you can think of to spend money on.  If you can save money on some of the necessities above, it will free up money on the discretionary categories below.   Because your income and priorities are different than everyone else, your budget will be different than everyone else, too.  If you are new to budgeting, you might find that the right budgeting software can make the task much easier.  YNAB, EveryDollar, or Mvelopes are three popular choices."}
{"question":"Should I try to hedge my emergency savings against currency and political concerns?","answer":"First thing is that your English is pretty damn good.  You should be proud.  There are certainly adult native speakers, here in the US, that cannot write as well. I like your ambition, that you are looking to save money and improve yourself.   I like that you want to move your funds into a more stable currency. What is really tough with your plan and situation is your salary.  Here in the US banks will typically have minimum deposits that are high for you.  I imagine the same is true in the EU.  You may have to save up before you can deposit into an EU bank. To answer your question:  Yes it is very wise to save money in different containers.  My wife and I have one household savings account.  Yet that is broken down by different categories (using a spreadsheet).  A certain amount might be dedicated to vacation, emergency fund, or the purchase of a luxury item.  We also have business and accounts and personal accounts.   It goes even further.  For spending we use the \"envelope system\".  After our pay check is deposited, one of us goes to the bank and withdraws cash.  Some goes into the grocery envelope, some in the entertainment envelope, and so on.   So yes I think you have a good plan and I would really like to see a plan on how you can increase your income."}
{"question":"A friend wants to use my account for a wire transfer. Is this a scam or is it legitimate?","answer":"I know people who work in the gulf and most contracts are of the 14 days on\/ 14 days (or so) off flavor. I've never heard of someone being onboard a ship or platform for a year. I bet this is a scam."}
{"question":"Is it safe to accept money in the mail?","answer":"Another option is to set up an accoutn with Western Union Bill Payment Solutions, where your customer could go to one of their locations and pay in cash and then the cash is transferred to your account. See \"Walk in Cash Payments\" on their site."}
{"question":"should the Market Capitalization be equal to the Equity of the firm","answer":"Lots of questions: In general, no. Market Capitalization and Equity represent 2 different things.  Equity first, the equity of a firm is the value of the assets (what it owns) less its liabilities (what it owes) and consists (broadly) of two components - share capital (what the firm gets when it sells to investors as part of an IPO or subsequent share issue) and retained earnings (what the firm has as a result of making profits and not paying them out as dividends). This is the theoretical liquidation value of the firm - what it is worth if it stops trading, sells all its assets and pays all its debts. Market Capitalization is the current value of the future cash flow of the firm as perceived by the market - the value today of all the dividends that the firm will pay in the future for as long as it exists. This is the theoretical going concern value of the firm - what it is worth as a functioning business. In general, Market Capitalization is bigger than Equity - if it isn't the firm is worth more as scrap than as an operating business. Um ... no. If you don't have any shares then you are by definition not an owner. Having shares is what makes you an owner. What I think you mean is, is it possible for the owner(s) of a private company to sell all of its shares when it goes public? The answer is yes. It is uncommon for a start-up owner to do this but it is standard practice for \"corporate raiders\" who buy failing companies, take them private, restructure them and then take them public again - they have done their job and they are not interested in maintaining an ownership stake. Nope. See above and below. Not at all, equity is an accounting construct and market capitalization is about market sentiment. Consider the following hypothetical firm: It has $1m in equity, it makes $4m in profit and will do for the foreseeable future, it pays all of that $4m out as dividends - if we work on a simple ROI of 10% then this firm is worth $40m dollars - way more than its equity."}
{"question":"Adding a 180 day expiration to checks","answer":"Your bank has discretion to honor checks after 6 months, so you should talk to your bank about their specific policy. In general, banks won't accept \"large\" stale checks. The meaning of \"large\" varies -- $25,000 in NYC, as little as $2k in other places. Banks that service high-volume check issuers (like rebate companies) reject checks at 180 days. For business purposes, I think some banks will create accounts for specific mailings or other purposes as well. (i.e. 2011 refund account) The accounts close after a year."}
{"question":"Calculating the value of an investors inventory","answer":"Is it just -34*4.58= -$155.72 for CCC and -11*0.41= -$4.51 for DDD? Yes it needs to be recorded as negative because at some point in time, the investor will have to spend money to buy these shares [cover the short sell and return the borrowed shares]. Whether the investor made profit or loss will not be reflected as you are only reflecting the current share inventory."}
{"question":"Using credit card points to pay for tax deductible business expenses","answer":"For simplicity, let's start by just considering cash back. In general, cash back from credit cards for personal use is not taxable, but for business use it is taxable (sort of, I'll explain later). The reason is most personal purchases are made with after tax dollars; you typically aren't deducting the cost of what you purchased from your personal income, so if you purchase something that costs $100 and you receive $2 back from the CC company, effectively you have paid $98 for that item but that wouldn't affect your tax bill. However, since businesses typically deduct most expenses, that same $100 deduction would have only been a $98 deduction for business tax purposes, so in this case the $2 should be accounted for. Note, you should not consider that $2 as income though; that would artificially inflate your revenue. It should be treated as a negative expense, similar to how you would handle returning an item you purchased and receiving a CC refund. Now for your specific questions: Part 1: As a small business owner, I wish to attend an annual seminar to improve my business. I have enough credit card reward points to cover the airfare, hotel, and rental car. Will those expenses still be deductible at the value displayed on the receipt? Effectively no, these expenses are not deductible. If you deduct them they will be completely counter-acted by the \"refund\" you receive for the payments. Part 2: Does it matter if those points are accrued on my personal credit card, rather than a business credit card? This is where it gets hairy. Suppose your company policy is that employees make purchases with their own personal credit cards and submit receipts for reimbursement. In this case the employer can simply reimburse and would not know or care if the employee is racking up rewards\/points\/cashback. The trick is, as the employee, you must always purchase business related items normally so you have receipts to show, and if you receive cashback on the side there seems to be a \"don't ask, don't tell\" rule that the IRS is OK with. It works the same way with heavy business travelers and airline miles- the free vacations those users get as perks are not treated as taxable income. However, I would not go out of my way to abuse this \"loophole\". Typically, things like travel (airfare, hotel, car rental, meals) are expected. But I wouldn't go purchase 100 company laptops on your personal card and ask the company to reimburse you. The company should purchase those 100 laptops on a company card and effectively reduce the sale price by the cashback received. (Or more realistically, negotiate a better discount with your account rep and just cut them a check.) Part 3: Would there be any difference between credit card points and brand-loyalty points? If the rental car were paid for with points earned directly on the rental car company's loyalty system (not a CC), would that yield a different result? There is no difference. Perhaps the simplest way to think about this is you can only deduct an expense that you actually incur. In other words, the expense should show up on a bank or CC statement. This is why when you volunteer and work 10 hours for a charity, you can't call that a \"donation\" of any amount of money because there is no actual payment made that would show up on a bank statement. Instead you could have billed the charity for your 10 hours of work, and then turned around and donated that same amount back to them, but it ends up being a wash."}
{"question":"If the put is more expensive than the call, what does it mean","answer":"What it means is that the stock has already moved down. Options and other derivatives follow the price of the underlying they are not a precursor to what the underlying is going to do. In other words, the price of a derivative is derived from the underlying."}
{"question":"For a car, what scams can be plotted with 0% financing vs rebate?","answer":"Here's a number-crunching example of how the \"Zero interest rate\" offer is misleading. Suppose the offer is that a car \"costs $24,000.00 with zero percent financing over 24 months\"  or as an alternative, \"$3,000.00 off for cash\". Ignore the hype:  the quoted prices and the quoted interest rates.  Look at what really happens to two people who take advantage of the two offers, One person hands over $21,000.00 cash, and leaves with the new car. The second promises to make 24 payments of $1000.00, one a month, starting in one month's time, and also leaves with the same make and model new car. The two people have received exactly the same benefit, so the two payment schemes must have the same value. A mortgage program will tell you that paying off a $21,000.00 loan by making 24 monthly payments of $1000.00 requires an interest rate of 1.10% a month, or an effective annual rate of 14.03%."}
{"question":"Why might it be advisable to keep student debt vs. paying it off quickly?","answer":"I'm no financial advisor, but I do have student loans and I do choose to pay them off as slowly as I can. I will explain my reasoning for doing so. (FWIW, these are all things that pertain to government student loans in the US, not necessarily private student loans, and not necessarily student loans from other countries) So that's my reasoning. $55 per month for the rest of my life adds up to a large amount of money over the course of my life, but the impact month-to-month is essentially nonexistent. That combined with the low interest and the super-low-pressure-sales-tactics means I just literally don't have any incentive to ever pay it all off. Like I said before, I'm just a guy who has student loans, and not even one who is particularly good with money, but as someone who does choose not to pay off my student loans any faster than I have to, this is why."}
{"question":"How is your credit score related to credit utilization?","answer":"Curious, why are you interested in building\/improving your credit score? Is it better to use your card and pay off the bill completely every month? Yes. How is credit utiltization calculated?    Is it average utilization over the month, or total amount owed\/credit_limit per month? It depends on how often your bank reports your balances to the reporting agencies. It can be daily, when your statement cycle closes, or some other interval. How does credit utilization affect your score?  Closest to zero without actually being zero is best. This translates to making some charges, even $1 so your statement shows a balance each statement that you pay off. This shows as active use. If you pay off your balance before the statement closes, then it can sometimes be reported as inactive\/unused. Is too much a bad thing?  Yes. Is too little a bad thing? Depends. Being debt free has its advantages... but if your goal is to raise your credit score, then having a low utilization rate is a good metric. Less than 7% utilization seems to be the optimal level.  \"Last year we started using a number, not as a recommendation, but as a fact that most of the people with really high FICO scores have credit utilization rates that are 7 percent or lower,\" Watts said. Read more: http:\/\/www.bankrate.com\/finance\/credit-cards\/how-to-bump-up-your-credit-score.aspx Remember that on-time payment is the most important factor. Second is how much you owe. Third is length of credit history. Maintain these factors in good standing and you will improve your score: http:\/\/www.myfico.com\/CreditEducation\/WhatsInYourScore.aspx"}
{"question":"How to calculate my estimated taxes. 1099 MISC + Self Employment","answer":"There is a shortcut you can use when calculating federal estimated taxes.  Some states may allow the same type of estimation, but I know at least one (my own--Illinois) that does not. The shortcut: you can completely base your estimated taxes for this year on last year's tax return and avoid any underpayment penalty.  A quick summary can be found here (emphasis mine): If your prior year Adjusted Gross Income was $150,000 or less, then   you can avoid a penalty if you pay either 90 percent of this year's   income tax liability or 100 percent of your income tax liability from   last year (dividing what you paid last year into four quarterly   payments). This rule helps if you have a big spike in income one year,   say, because you sell an investment for a huge gain or win the   lottery. If wage withholding for the year equals the amount of tax you   owed in the previous year, then you wouldn't need to pay estimated   taxes, no matter how much extra tax you owe on your windfall. Note that this does not mean you will not owe money when you file your return next April; this shortcut ensures that you pay at least the minimum allowed to avoid penalty. You can see this for yourself by filling out the worksheet on form 1040ES.  Line 14a is what your expected tax this year will be, based on your estimated income.  Line 14b is your total tax from last year, possibly with some other modifications.  Line 14c then asks you to take the lesser of the two numbers.  So even if your expected tax this year is one million dollars, you can still base your estimated payments on last year's tax."}
{"question":"What is the value in using the \"split transaction\" feature present in some personal finance management tools?","answer":"Split transactions are indispensable to anybody interested in accurately tracking their spending. If I go to the big-box pharmacy down the road to pick up a prescription and then also grab a loaf of bread and a jug of milk while there, then I'd want to enter the transaction into my software as: I desire entering precise data into the software so that I can rely on the reports it produces. Often, I don't need an exact amount and estimated category totals would have been fine, e.g. to inform budgeting, or compare to a prior period. However, in other cases, the expenses I'm tracking must be tracked accurately because I'd be using the total to claim an income tax deduction (or credit).  Consider how Internet access might be commingled on the same bill with the home's cable TV service.  One is a reasonable business expense and deduction for the work-at-home web developer, whereas the other is a personal non-deductible expense. Were split transaction capability not available, the somewhat unattractive alternatives are: Ignore the category difference and, say, categorize the entire transaction as the larger or more important category.  But, this deliberately introduces error in the tracked data, rendering it useless for cases where the category totals need to be accurate, or, Split the transaction manually. This doesn't introduce error into the tracked data, but suffers another problem: It makes a lot of work. First, one would need to manually enter two (or more) top-level transactions instead of the single one with sub-amounts.  Perhaps not that much more work than if a split were entered. Worse is when it comes time to reconcile:  Now there are two (or more) transactions in the register, but the credit card statement has only one.  Reconciling would require manually adding up those transactions from the register just to confirm the amount on the statement is correct.  Major pain! I'd place split transaction capability near the top of the list of \"must have\" features for any finance management software."}
{"question":"What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent?","answer":"The other thing to remember is seasonality.  Just because monthly rent is $900\/month doesn't guarantee that you'll bring in $900\/month.  Plenty of university towns have peak demand during the months of Aug\/Sept when students are moving in, but you have to beg\/\/plead\/\/give discounted rent to keep units full during 'off-season' times.  Assuming vacancy during 3 months\/year, your average monthly rent is only $675. ($900 * 9 \/ 12) This may change the economics of your investment."}
{"question":"Who can truly afford luxury cars?","answer":"Bravo to A.O's analysis, even with it's resentful tone.... I did not have any help from my parents and still can't afford a luxury car. I have two college degrees, raised three children, and have always worked at least a 40 hour work week. The only reason I can give is not wanting it badly enough... It all boils down to what each of us wants out of life and our perspective. If your perspective is to compete with others in appearances, you will end up empty. However, if you want a quality, enriched life, there is nothing wrong with what you drive. It all boils down to how you feel about what you drive...."}
{"question":"How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate]","answer":"I would like to add my accolades in saving $3000, it is an accomplishment that the majority of US households are unable to achieve. source While it is something, in some ways it is hardly anything.  Working part time at a entry level job will earn you almost three times this amount per year, and with the same job you can earn about as much in two weeks as this investment is likely to earn, in the market in one year.   All this leads to one thing:  At your age you should be looking to increase your income.  No matter if it is college or a high paying trade, whatever you can do to increase your life time earning potential would be the best investment for this money.   I would advocate a more patient approach.  Stick the money in the bank until you complete your education enough for an \"adult job\".  Use it, if needed, for training to get that adult job.  Get a car, a place of your own, and a sufficient enough wardrobe.  Save an emergency fund.  Then invest with impunity. Imagine two versions of yourself.  One with basic education, a average to below average salary, that uses this money to invest in the stock market.  Eventually that money will be needed and it will probably be pulled out of the market at an in opportune time.  It might worth less than the original 3K! Now imagine a second version of yourself that has an above average salary due to some good education or training.  Perhaps that 3K was used to help provide that education.  However, this second version will probably earn 25,000 to 75,000 per year then the first version.  Which one do you want to be?  Which one do you think will be wealthier?   Better educated people not only earn more, they are out of work less.  You may want to look at this chart."}
{"question":"What does the term \"match the market\" mean?","answer":"From Investopedia:  \"Beating the market\" is a difficult phrase to analyze. It can be used   to refer to two different situations: 1) An investor, portfolio manager, fund or other investment specialist   produces a better return than the market average. The market average   can be calculated in many ways, but usually a benchmark - such as the   S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average index - is a good   representation of the market average. If your returns exceed the   percentage return of the chosen benchmark, you have beaten the market   - congrats! (To learn more, read Benchmark Your Returns With Indexes.) 2) A company's earnings, sales or some other valuation metric is   superior to that of other companies in its industry. Matching the market, I would presume will be generating returns equivalent to the index you are comparing your portfolio with. If for a sector\/industry then it would be the returns generated by the sector\/industry. As an index is more or less a juxtaposition of the market as a whole, people tend to use an index."}
{"question":"Tenant wants to pay rent with EFT","answer":"Given a routing number \/ account number, it's easy to print a check with those details.  All you need is a MICR font.  No EFT needed. I would recommend that instead, you get his account information, and set up a direct withdrawal.  Of course, then you could potentially use HIS account fraudulently, but that would be true even if he just wrote you a check."}
{"question":"How can I find stocks with very active options chains?","answer":"If you're willing to shell out some cash, vendors will be quite happy to sell you everything you need. Picking one out of thin air, and no idea if this is a good price or not, the CBOE will sell you EOD data for every option for $40 for one day, and at a discount for multiple days.  Beyond the high\/low\/close for each contract, you get the volume. Or a month of TAQ data will run your $1550, for what that's worth, which probably isn't a lot for a retail strategy."}
{"question":"Where can I find a definition of psychological barriers with respect to marketable securities?","answer":"GuruFocus has an excellent summary of psychological barriers in the markets:  http:\/\/www.gurufocus.com\/news.php?id=88451"}
{"question":"Stock market vs. baseball card trading analogy","answer":"Baseball cards don't pay dividends. But many profitable companies do just that, and those that don't could, some day. Profits & dividends is where your analogy falls apart.  But let's take it further.  Consider: If baseball cards could somehow yield a regular stream of income just for owning them, then there might be yet another group of people, call them the Daves.  These Daves I know are the kind of people that would like to own baseball cards over the long term just for their income-producing capability.  Daves would seek out the cards with the best chance of producing and growing a reliable income stream.  They wouldn't necessarily care about being able to flip a card at an inflated price to a Bob, but they might take advantage of inflated prices once in a while. Heck, even some of the Steves would enjoy this income while they waited for the eventual capital gain made by selling to a Bob at a higher price.  Plus, the Steves could also sell their cards to Daves, not just Bobs.  Daves would be willing to pay more for a card based on its income stream: how reliable it is, how high it is, how fast it grows, and where it is relative to market interest rates.  A card with a good income stream might even have more value to a Dave than to a Bob, because a Dave doesn't care as much about the popularity of the player. Addendum regarding your comment: I suppose I'm still struggling with the best way to present my   question. I understand that companies differ in this aspect in that   they produce value. But if stockholders cannot simply claim a   percentage of a company's value equal to their share, then the fact   that companies produce value seems irrelevant to the \"Bobs\". You're right \u2013 stockholders can't simply claim their percentage of a company's assets. Rather, shareholders vote in a board of directors.  The board of directors can decide whether or not to issue dividends or buy back shares, each of which puts money back in your pocket.  A board could even decide to dissolve the company and distribute the net assets (after paying debts and dissolution costs) to the shareholders \u2013 but this is seldom done because there's often more profit in remaining a going concern. I think perhaps what you are getting hung up on is the idea that a small shareholder can't command the company to give net assets in exchange for shares.  Instead, generally speaking, a company runs somewhat like a democracy \u2013 but it's each share that gets a vote, not each shareholder. Since you can't redeem your shares back to the company on demand, there exists a secondary market \u2013 the stock market \u2013 where somebody else is willing to take over your investment based on what they perceive the value of your shares to be \u2013 and that market value is often different from the underlying \"book value\" per share."}
{"question":"How much more than my mortgage should I charge for rent?","answer":"I am sorry to say, you are asking the wrong question. If I own a rental that I bought with cash, I have zero mortgage. The guy I sell it to uses a hard money lender (charging a high rate) and finances 100%. All of this means nothing to the prospective tenant.  In general, one would look at the rent to buy ratio in the area, and decide whether homes are selling for a price that makes it profitable to buy and then rent out.  In your situation, I understand you are looking to decide on a rent based on your costs. That ship has sailed. You own already. You need to look in the area and find out what your house will rent for. And that number will tell you whether you can afford to treat it as a rental or would be better off selling.  Keep in mind - you don't list a country, but if you are in US, part of a rental property is that you 'must' depreciate it each year. This is a tax thing. You reduce your cost basis each year and that amount is a loss against income from the rental or might be used against your ordinary income. But, when you sell, your basis is lower by this amount and you will be taxed on the difference from your basis to the sale price.  Edit: After reading OP's updated question, let me answer this way. There are experts who suggest that a rental property should have a high enough rent so that 50% of rent covers expenses. This doesn't include the mortgage. e.g. $1500 rent, $750 goes to taxes, insurance, maintenance, repairs, etc. the remaining $750 can be applied to the mortgage, and what remains is cash profit.  No one can give you more than a vague idea of what to look for, because you haven't shared the numbers. What are your taxes? Insurance? Annual costs for landscaping\/snow plowing? Then take every item that has a limited life, and divide the cost by its lifetime. e.g. $12,000 roof over 20 years is $600. Do this for painting, and every appliance. Then allow a 10% vacancy rate. If you cover all of this and the mortgage, it may be worth keeping. Since you have zero equity, time is on your side, the price may rise, and hopefully, the monthly payments chip away at the loan."}
{"question":"What risks are there acting as a broker between PayPal and electronic bank transfers?","answer":"There are several red flags here. can they get my bank account info in any way from me transferring money to them? Probably yes. Almost all bank transactions are auditable, and intentionally cause a money track. This track can be followed from both sides. If they can use your bank account as if they were you, that is a bit deeper than what you are asking, but yes they (and the polish cops) can find you through that transfer. I did look up the company and didn't find any scam or complaints concerning them. Not finding scams or complains is good, but what did you find? Did you find good reviews, the company website, its register, etc, etc? How far back does the website goes (try the wayback machine) Making a cardboard front company is very easy, and if they are into identity theft the company is under some guy in guam that never heard of poland or paypal. As @Andrew said above, it is probably a scam. I'd add that this scam leverages on the how easier is to get a PayPal refund compared to a regular bank transfer. It is almost impossible to get the money back on an international transaction. Usually reverting a bank transfer requires the agreement in writing of the receiver and of both banks. As for paypal, just a dispute from the other user: You are responsible for all Reversals, Chargebacks, fees, fines, penalties and other liability incurred by PayPal, a PayPal User, or a third party caused by your use of the Services and\/or arising from your breach of this Agreement. You agree to reimburse PayPal, a User, or a third party for any and all such liability. (source) Also, you might be violating the TOS: Allow your use of the Service to present to PayPal a risk of non-compliance with PayPal\u2019s anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing and similar regulatory obligations (including, without limitation, where we cannot verify your identity or you fail to complete the steps to lift your sending, receiving or withdrawal limit in accordance with sections 3.3, 4.1 and 6.3 or where you expose PayPal to the risk of any regulatory fines by European, US or other authorities for processing your transactions); (emphasis mine, source) So even if the PayPal transfer is not disputed, how can you be sure you are not laundering money? Are you being paid well enough to assume that risk?"}
{"question":"Recommended finance & economy book\/blog for a Software Engineer? ","answer":"For economics I recommend mises or these videos to get you started. For daily critical analysis of financial markets, keynesian government policies, and other interesting reading I recommend zerohedge.  I've learned more about financial markets and government regulations by reading the comments section on zerohedge articles than anywhere else on the internet.  The comment section is very raw (i.e. lots of fucking cursing) but there are some jewels of information in there. For daily critical thinking I suggest lewrockwell."}
{"question":"What are some time tested passive income streams?","answer":"Any kind of savings account is a passive income stream."}
{"question":"How is yahoo finance P\/E Ratio TTM calculated?","answer":"The correct p\/e for bp.l is 5.80. Bp.l is on the London stock exchange and prices are in local currency. The share price of 493 is reported in pence (not dollars). The EPS is reported in pounds. Using .85 pounds = 85 pence, you calculate the EPS as follows: 493.40\/85 = 5.80 PE Yahoo totally screwed up. They converted the .85 pounds into US dollars ($1.34) but didn't convert the 493 pence. By using the 493 as dollars, they got 493.9\/1.34 = 368 pe! Notice that Yahoo reports the American Depository Shares (symbol 'BP') with an EPS of $8.06. That correctly reflects that there are 6 shares of BP.l per ADS (1.34 * 6 = 8.04). But why is the share price listed at $46.69? Well...  493 GBp (pence) = 4.93 pounds 4.93 pounds  = 7.73 USD 7.73 USD * 6 shares per ADS = 46.38 USD"}
{"question":"Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses?","answer":"Another way of explaining the puzzling balance: Right after a particular bill is paid, you have $0 saved to pay that bill the next time.  Just before the bill is next due, you wisely have the whole amount saved;  that's the purpose of the whole process.  So, for that bill, on average over time, you'll have one-half that upcoming bill in the account. But the same argument holds for every one of the upcoming bills.  So, for a large number of bills, with varying sizes and times between occurrence, the average amount in the account will be approximately one-half of the total amount of all the bills that you're saving for."}
{"question":"Can I invest in the housing market via the stock exchange?","answer":"Have you considered a self-directed IRA to invest, rather than the stock market or publicly traded assets? Your IRA can actually own direct title to real estate, loan money via secured or unsecured promissory notes much like a hard money loan or invest into shares of an entity that invests in real estate. The only nuance is that the IRA holder is responsible for finding and deciding upon the investment vehicle.  Just an option outside of the normal parameters, if you have an existing IRA or old 401(k) or other qualified plan, this might be an option for you."}
{"question":"How can I get a mortgage I can't afford?","answer":"Honestly I would look for a house you can afford and one that is below the maximum amount of what they are willing to lend you.  The reason is owning a house is not a quick loan that you can pay off in a year or two (unless you're rich then I would question why are you even bothering with a loan). This is a long term commitment; can you honestly say your job will provide the money for the mortgage, the upkeep and remodeling of the house (even if it's the perfect house you will want to change something, make the bathroom bigger, put in a pool table etc.. etc..), living expenses and any hiccups life throws at you? Like most of us, that answer will be no. Always have money and supplies for that rainy day, for those lean days. For that mortgage payment. And if nothing happens you can always use the money to pay the mortgage off faster or take a vacation."}
{"question":"15 year mortgage vs 30 year paid off in 15","answer":"Besides the reason in @rhaskett's answer, it is important to consider that paying off a 30-year mortgage as if it was a 15-year is much more inconvenient than just paying the regular payments of a 15-year mortgage.  When you pay extra on your mortgage, some lenders do not know what to do with the extra payment, and need to be told explicitly that the extra needs to be applied toward the principal.  You might need to do this every month with every payment.  In addition, some lenders won't allow you to set up an automatic payment for more than the mortgage payment, so you might need to explicitly submit your payment with instructions for the lender each month, and then follow up each month to make sure that your payment was credited properly.  Some lenders are better about this type of thing than others, and you won't really know how much of a hassle it will be with your lender until you start making payments. If you intend to pay it off in 15 years, then just get the 15-year mortgage."}
{"question":"Claiming mileage allowances, what are the rules\/guidelines?","answer":"I believe so (that you can, not that you are greedy) I run my own business and, generally speaking, am 'charging' my company 40p per mile as per the quote above. I did not know about the ability to claim the shortfall, as it is not relevant to me, but it makes perfect sense and I'm sure that a phone call to HMRC will help you understand how to claim.  As for the greedy question - personally I think that laws are there for a reason (both ways) so if there's money to be claimed - there's no reason not to do so, unless of course the hassle is greater than the potential gain. One last note - not sure exactly what the rules around this are, but I know that the allowance is not applicable for one's general commute and so if you're travelling to the same place over 40% of the time for more than two years you are no longer allowed to claim these miles."}
{"question":"Should I fund a move by borrowing or selling other property assets?","answer":"When you compare the costs of paying your current mortgage with the rental income from the flat, you're not really comparing like with like. Firstly, the mortgage payments are covering both interest and capital repayments, so some of the 8k is money that is adding to your net worth. Secondly, the value of the flat (130k) is much more than the outstanding mortgage (80k) so if you did sell the flat and pay off the mortgage, you'd have 50k left in cash that could be invested to provide an income. The right way to compare the two options is to look at the different costs in each scenario. Let's assume the bigger house will cost 425k as it makes the figures work out nicely. If you buy the bigger house with a bigger mortgage, you will need to borrow 50k more so will end up with a mortgage of 130k, and you will still have the 8k\/year from the flat. Depending on your other income, you might have to pay tax on the 8k\/year - e.g. at 40% if you're a higher-rate taxpayer, leaving you with 4.8k\/year. If you sell the flat, you'll have no mortgage repayments to make and no income from the flat. You'll be able to exactly buy the new house outright with the 50k left over after you repay the mortgage, on top of your old house. You'd also have to pay some costs to sell the flat that you wouldn't have to with the bigger mortgage, but you'd save on the costs of getting a new mortgage. They probably aren't the same, but let's simplify and assume they are. If anything the costs of selling the flat are likely to be higher than the mortgage costs. Viewed like that, you should look at the actual costs to you of having a 130k mortgage, and how much of that would be interest. Given that you'll be remortgaging, at current mortgage rates, I'd expect interest would only be 2-3%, i.e around 2.5k - 4k, so significantly less than the income from the flat even after tax. The total payment would be more because of capital repayment, but you could easily afford the cashflow difference. You can vary the term of the mortgage to control how much the capital repayment is, and you should easily be able to get a 130k mortgage on a 425k house with a very good deal. So if your figure of 8k rent is accurate (considering void periods, costs of upkeep etc), then I think it easily makes sense to get the bigger house with the bigger mortgage. Given the tax impact (which was pointed out in a comment), a third strategy may be even better: keep the flat, but take out a mortgage on it in exchange for a reduced mortgage on your main house. The reason for doing it that way is that you get some tax relief on the mortgage costs on an investment property as long as the income from that property is higher than the costs, whereas you don't on your primary residence. The tax relief used to just be at the same tax rate you were paying on the rental income, i.e. you could subtract the mortgage costs from the rental income when calculating tax. It's gradually being reduced so it's just basic rate tax relief (20%) even if you pay higher-rate tax, but it still could save you some money. You'd need to look at the different mortgage costs carefully, as \"buy-to-let\" mortgages often have higher interest rates."}
{"question":"Why invest in IRA while a low-cost index fund is much simpler?","answer":"Whoa. These things are on two dimensions.  It's like burger and fries, you can also have chicken sandwich and fries, or burger and onion rings.   You can invest in an taxable brokerage account and\/or an IRA.  And then, within each of those...  You can buy index funds and\/or anything else. All 4 combinations are possible.  If someone says otherwise, take your money and run.  They are a shady financial \"advisor\" who is ripping you off by steering you only into products where they get a commission. Those products are more expensive because the commission comes out of your end.  Not to mention any names.  E.J.    If you want financial advice that is honest, find a financial advisor who you pay for his advice, and who doesn't sell products at all.  Or, just ask here.  But I would start by listening to Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, whomever you prefer.  And read John Bogle's book.   They can tell you all about the difference between money market, bonds, stocks, managed mutual funds (ripoff!) and index funds. IRA accounts, Roth IRA accounts and taxable accounts are all brokerage accounts.  Within them, you can buy any security you want, including index funds.  The difference is taxation.  Suppose you earn $1000 and choose to invest it however  Later you withdraw it and it has grown to $3000.  Investing in a taxable account, you pay normal income tax on the $1000. When you later withdraw the $3000, you pay a tax on $2000 of income.  If you invested more than a year, it is taxed at a much lower \"capital gains\" tax rate.  With a traditional IRA account, you pay zero taxes on the initial $1000.  Later, when you take the money out, you pay normal income tax on the full $3000.  If you withdrew it before age 59-1\/2, you also pay a 10% penalty ($300).  With a Roth IRA account, you pay normal income tax on the $1000.  When you withdraw the $3000 later, you pay NOTHING in taxes.  Provided you followed the rules.   You can invest in almost anything inside these accounts: Money market funds. Terrible return.  You won't keep up with the market.  Bonds.  Low return but usually quite safe.  Individual stocks.  Good luck.   Managed mutual funds.  You're paying some genius stock picker to select high performing stocks. He has a huge staff of researchers and  good social connections.  He also charges you 1.5% per year overhead as an \"expense ratio\", which is a total loss to you.  The fact is, he can usually pick stocks better than a monkey throwing darts.  But he's not 1.5% better!  Index funds.  These just shrug and buy every stock on the market.  There's no huge staff or genius manager, just some intern making small adjustments every week.  As such, the expense ratio is extremely small, like 0.1%.    If any of these investments pay dividends, you must pay taxes on them when they're issued, if you're not in an IRA account.  This problem gets fixed in ETF's.  Index ETF's.  These are index funds packaged to behave like stocks.  Dividends increase your stock's value instead of being paid out to you, which simplifies your taxes.  If you buy index funds outside of an IRA, use these.  Too many other options to get into here."}
{"question":"Why would I pick a specific ETF over an equivalent Mutual Fund?","answer":"Something to consider is how do you want to handle fractional shares. Most open-end funds can easily go to fractional shares to that if you want to invest $500 in a fund each month, it is a relatively easy transaction where some shares will be fractional and handled easily. An ETF may not always work that way unless you go through something like Sharebuilder that would allow the fractional shares as if the ETF is trading at $150\/share, you could buy 3 shares but still have $50 that you want to invest but can't as stocks trade in whole share numbers usually. This is without adding brokerage commissions. Depending on the broker, re-investing dividends may or may not be that simple as fractional shares could be a problem since those 3 shares aren't likely to have enough of a dividend to equal another share being bought with the proceeds. If you want the flexibility of stop and limit orders then the ETF may make more sense while the open-end fund is simply to invest whole dollar amounts that then lead to fractional shares. Don't forget to factor in minimums and other stuff as VFIAX may have a bit of a minimum to it as well as possible fees that could be annoying as I remember VFINX having some account maintenance fees that were a bit irksome back in the day that may still be around in some cases so be sure to read the fine print on things."}
{"question":"How to evaluate investment risk in practical terms","answer":"Generally investing in index-tracking funds in the long term poses relatively low risk (compared to \"short term investment\", aka speculation). No-one says differently. However, it is a higher risk than money-market\/savings\/bonds. The reason for that is that the return is not guaranteed and loss is not limited. Here volatility plays part, as well as general market conditions (although the volatility risk also affects bonds at some level as well). While long term trend may be upwards, short term trend may be significantly different. Take as an example year 2008 for S&P500. If, by any chance, you needed to liquidate your investment in November 2008 after investing in November 1998 - you might have ended up with 0 gain (or even loss). Had you waited just another year (or liquidated a year earlier) - the result would be significantly different. That's the volatility risk. You don't invest indefinitely, even when you invest long term. At some point you'll have to liquidate your investment. Higher volatility means that there's a higher chance of downward spike just at that point of time killing your gains, even if the general trend over the period around that point of time was upward (as it was for S&P500, for example, for the period 1998-2014, with the significant downward spikes in 2003 and 2008). If you invest in major indexes, these kinds of risks are hard to avoid (as they're all tied together). So you need to diversify between different kinds of investments (bonds vs stocks, as the books \"parrot\"), and\/or different markets (not only US, but also foreign)."}
{"question":"How can I buy these ETFs?","answer":"Some of the ETFs you have specified have been delisted and are no longer trading.  If you want to invest in those specific ETFs, you need to find a broker that will let you buy European equities such as those ETFs.  Since you mentioned Merrill Edge, a discount broking platform, you could also consider Interactive Brokers since they do offer trading on the London Stock Exchange.  There are plenty more though.  Beware that you are now introducing a foreign exchange risk into your investment too and that taxation of capital returns\/dividends may be quite different from a standard US-listed ETF. In the US, there are no Islamic or Shariah focussed ETFs or ETNs listed.  There was an ETF (JVS) that traded from 2009-2010 but this had such little volume and interest, the fees probably didn't cover the listing expenses.  It's just not a popular theme for North American listings."}
{"question":"Taxation from variations in currency","answer":"Here is the technical guidance from the accounting standard FRS 23 (IAS 21) 'The Effects of Changes in Foreign Exchange Rates' which states: Exchange differences arising on the settlement of monetary items or on translating monetary items at rates   different from those at which they were translated on initial recognition during the period or in previous   financial statements shall be recognised in profit or loss in the period in which they arise. An example:  You agree to sell a product for $100 to a customer at a certain date. You would record the sale of this product on that date at $100, converted at the current FX rate (lets say \u00a31:$1 for ease) in your profit loss account as \u00a3100. The customer then pays you several $100 days later, at which point the FX rate has fallen to \u00a30.5:$1 and you only receive \u00a350. You would then have a realised loss of \u00a350 due to exchange differences, and this is charged to your profit and loss account as a cost. Due to double entry bookkeeping the profit\/loss on the FX difference is needed to balance the journals of the transaction. I think there is a little confusion as to what constitutes a (realised) profit\/loss on exchange difference. In the example in your question, you are not making any loss when you convert the bitcoins to dollars, as there is no difference in the exchange rate between the point you convert them. Therefore you have not made either a profit or a loss.  In terms of how this effects your tax position; you only pay tax on your profit and loss account. The example I give above is an instance where an exchange difference is recorded to the P&L. In your example, the value of your cash held is reflected in your balance sheet, as an asset, whatever its value is at the balance sheet date. Unfortunately, the value of the asset can rise\/fall, but the only time where you will record a profit\/loss on this (and therefore have an impact on tax) is if you sell the asset."}
{"question":"Should I Pay Off my Student Loan Debts First or Invest in an Index Fund?","answer":"You are on the right track with your math, but be wary of your assumptions. If you can borrow money at x% (and can afford to make payments on the debt), and you can get a return of > x% from investing, then you would make more money by keeping the debt and investing your savings. Another way to think of it: by paying off the debt you are getting a guaranteed 5% return because that's the rate you'd have paid if you kept the debt. Be wary of your assumption of getting a 10% return in the S&P 500. Nothing is guaranteed, even over the long term. Actual results may well be less, and you could lose money. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing: why not pay off the higher rate debt at 5% and keep the 3% debt? That's a guaranteed 5% return by paying off the NSLSC loan. And 3% is a pretty low interest rate. If you can afford to make the payments, I see nothing wrong with investing your savings instead of paying off the loan. Make sure you have an emergency fund, too."}
{"question":"Where can I find accurate historical distribution data for mutual funds?","answer":"In the case of a specific fund, I'd be tempted to get get an annual report that would disclose distribution data going back up to 5 years.  The \"View prospectus and reports\" would be the link on the site to note and use that to get to the PDF of the report to get the data that was filed with the SEC as that is likely what matters more here.  Don't forget that mutual fund distributions can be a mix of dividends, bond interest, short-term and long-term capital gains and thus aren't quite as simple as stock dividends to consider here."}
{"question":"Is there a term for the risk of investing in an asset with a positive but inferior return?","answer":"I'd question whether a guaranteed savings instrument underperforming the stock market really is a risk, or not?  Rather, you reap what you sow. There's a trade-off, and one makes a choice.  If one chooses to invest in a highly conservative, low-risk asset class, then one should expect lower returns from it.  That doesn't necessarily mean the return will be lower \u2014 stock markets could tank and a CD could look brilliant in hindsight \u2014 but one should expect lower returns.  This is what we learn from the risk-return spectrum and Modern Portfolio Theory. You've mentioned and discounted inflation risk already, and that would've been one I'd mention with respect to guaranteed savings. Yet, one still accepts inflation risk in choosing the 3% CD, because inflation isn't known in advance.  If inflation happened to be 2% after the fact, that just means the risk didn't materialize.  But, inflation could have been, say, 4%. Nevertheless, I'll try and describe the phenomenon of significantly underperforming a portfolio with more higher-risk assets.  I'd suggest one of: Perhaps we can sum those up as: the risk of \"investing illiteracy\"? Alternatively, if one were actually fully aware of the risk-reward spectrum and MPT and still chose an excessive amount of low-risk investments (such that one wouldn't be able to attain reasonable investing goals), then I'd probably file the risk under psychological risk, e.g. overly cautious \/ excessive risk aversion. Yet, the term \"psychological risk\", with respect to investing, encompasses other situations as well (e.g. chasing high returns.) FWIW, the risk of underperformance also came to mind, but I think that's mostly used to describe the risk of choosing, say, an actively-managed fund (or individual stocks) over a passive benchmark index investment more likely to match market returns."}
{"question":"How does giving to charity work?","answer":"A simpler view is that tax deductions allow you to give to charities from your gross salary, not your net salary."}
{"question":"Is it better to miss the dividend and buy the undervalued stock?","answer":"As yet another explanation of why it does not really matter, you can look at this from the valuation point of view. Stock price is the present value of its future cash flows (be it free cash flow of the firm or dividends, depending on the model). Let's have a look at the dividends case. Imagine, the price of the stock is based on only three dividends streams $5 dollars each: dividend to be paid today, in year 1, and in year 2. Each should be discounted back to today (say, at 10%), except today's dividend, since today is now.  Once that dividend is paid, it is no longer in the stream of cash flows. So if we just delete that first $5 from the formula, the price will adjust itself down by the amount of the dividend to $8.68. NOTE that this is a very simple example, since in reality cash flows streams are arguably infinite and because there are many other factors affecting stock price. But simply for your understanding, this example should provide you with the reason simply from the valuation perspective."}
{"question":"What's the difference between buying bonds and buying bond funds for the long-term?","answer":"why would anyone buy a long-term bond fund in a market like this one,   where interest rates are practically bottomed out? 1) You are making the assumption that interest rates has bottom out hence there is no further possibility of it  going down further , i mean who expected Lehman Brother to go bankrupt 2) Long term investors who are able to wait for the bad times of the bond market to end and in the mean time dont mind some dividend payment of 2-3%"}
{"question":"where to get stock price forecast","answer":"I believe you are looking for price forecasts from analysts. Yahoo provides info in the analyst opinions section: here is an example for Apple the price targets are located in the \"Price Target Summary\" section."}
{"question":"I'm an American in my mid 20's. Is there something I should be doing to secure myself financially?","answer":"I may be walking on thin ice but that's never stopped me from answering before. ;) I have a PhD in physics.  I knew that I wasn't a die-hard publisher so I didn't pursue academia. A postdoc will likely pay about what a person with a BS in math could make in industry, but you're now a few years past that age.  You'll be playing catch-up.  The magic of compounding was working on a small amount of money while you were studying, if it was anything like my experience. When I think \"postdoc\" I think \"you're looking for tenure track\" so if that's incorrect forgive me.  Competition will be fierce for those positions, meaning you'll be looking at not one but several postdoc positions, all at low salaries.  Postdocs are a way of absorbing the glut of PhDs. Tenure track is a long road, and by the time you get there -- if you get there -- who knows if there will be such a thing as tenure? Long way of putting this:  I'd take a good, hard, careful look outside of academia for your employment if you're concerned about your financial outlook."}
{"question":"Table of how many years it takes to make a specified return on the stock market?","answer":"The Money Chimp site lets you choose two points in time to see the return. i.e. you give it the time (two dates) and it tells you the return.  One can create a spreadsheet to look at multiple time periods and answer your question that way, but I've not seen it laid out that way in advance. For what it's worth, I am halfway to my retirement number. I can tell you, for example that at X%, I hit my number in Y years. 8.73% gets me 8\/25\/17 (kid off to college) 3.68% gets me 8\/25\/21 (kid graduates), so in a sense, we're after the same type of info. With the long term return being in the 10% range, you're going to get 3 years or so as average, but with a skewed bellish curve when run over time."}
{"question":"Data source for historical intra-day bid\/ask price data for stocks? ","answer":"Check the answers to this Stackoverflow question https:\/\/stackoverflow.com\/questions\/754593\/source-of-historical-stock-data a number of potential sources are listed"}
{"question":"I carelessly invested in a stock on a spike near the peak price. How can I salvage my investment?","answer":"The worth of a share of stocks may be defined as the present cash value of all future dividends and liquidations associated therewith.  Without a crystal ball, such worth may generally only be determined retrospectively, but even though it's generally not possible to know the precise worth of a stock in time for such information to be useful, it has a level of worth which is absolute and not--unlikely market price--is generally unaffected by people buying and selling the stock (except insofar as activities in company stock affect a company's ability to do business). If a particular share of stock is worth $10 by the above measure, but Joe sells it to Larry for $8, that means Joe gives Larry $2.  If Larry sells it to Fred $12, Fred gives Larry $2.  The only way Fred can come out ahead is if he finds someone else to give him $2 or more.  If Fred can sell it to Adam for $13, then Adam will give Fred $3, leaving Fred $1 better off than he would be if he hadn't bought the stock, but Adam will be $3 worse off. The key point is that if you sell something for less than it's worth, or buy something for more that it's worth, you give money away.  You might be able to convince other people to give you money in the same way you gave someone else money, but fundamentally the money has been given away, and it's not coming back."}
{"question":"what if a former employer contributes to my 401k in the year following my exit?","answer":"According to the IRS, you can still put money in your IRA. Here (https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/Retirement-Plans\/Plan-Participant,-Employee\/Retirement-Topics-IRA-Contribution-Limits) they say: Can I contribute to an IRA if I participate in a retirement plan at work? You can contribute to a traditional or Roth IRA whether or not you participate in another retirement plan through your employer or business. However, you might not be able to deduct all of your traditional IRA contributions if you or your spouse participates in another retirement plan at work. Roth IRA contributions might be limited if your income exceeds a certain level. In addition, in this link (https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/Retirement-Plans\/IRA-Deduction-Limits), the IRS says: Retirement plan at work: Your deduction may be limited if you (or your spouse, if you are married) are covered by a retirement plan at work and your income exceeds certain levels. The word 'covered' should clarify that - you are not covered anymore in that year, you just got a contribution in that year which was triggered by work done in a previous year. You cannot legally be covered in a plan at an employer where you did not work in that year."}
{"question":"How to get rid of someone else's debt collector?","answer":"Sue the debt collectors in small claims court.   There are several example stories around the internet, but this is a well written one from the consumerist. If your phone is a cell phone: \"it  is against the law for a company to  leave a pre-recorded message on your  cell phone.\" In fact, the call frequency increased   once they realized they had reached a   live person. I called each of these   companies multiple times, and though I   was given assurances each time that my   number would be taken off of their   lists, the calls continued, morning,   noon and night. At my wits end, I   decided the only way to have the   harassing calls stop was to file suits   against the collection companies. It's   very important to understand that it   is against the law for a company to   leave a pre-recorded message on your   cell phone. Armed with this knowledge,   I filed suit against several of the   collection companies. I filed in small   claims court so I did not need to hire   an attorney, and the process was as   simple as completing a paragraph on a   complaint form. For evidence, I had   over a hundred Google Voicemail   transcripts showing the times the   companies called and the text of the   pre-recorded messages. Mysteriously, the calls all stopped   immediately on the same date the   collection companies received the   certified letters stating they were   being sued. Then a new flurry of calls   began pouring in. This time it was   their attorneys. The attorneys representing these out   of state collection companies were all   desperate to settle out of court. hey   did not want to incur the expense of   traveling for court or hiring a local   law firm who wasn't on retainer. They   also understood they had no   justifiable defense for the calls. To   make a long story short, so far I have   successfully sued 3 of these   collection companies and settled for   more than $5,000 out of court. All it   cost me was $35 and 20 minutes per   suit. Making these companies pay is the only   incentive for them to stop their   illegal and harassing practices. If   more consumers knew their rights and   actually took a few minutes to stand   up for them, it would become less   profitable for these companies to   conduct business the way they do now. -Source And whether you have a cell phone or land line,  It is illegal for the debt collectors to tell you they are calling to collect a debt for someone else under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (wikipedia, ftc docs). What Remedies Are Available If The   Debt Collector Violates The Law Under   the Fair Debt Collection Practices   Act, you have the right to sue a debt   collector in state or federal court   within one year from the date of the   violation. If you win, you may recover   damages in the amount of any losses   you suffered as a result of the   violation, plus an additional amount   of up to $1,000.00. You may also be   able to recover court costs and   attorney fees. If the same debt collector has engaged   in unlawful conduct with a number of   consumers, it may be possible to find   a lawyer who will file a class action   lawsuit. -Source With regard to whether you can sue under FDCPA if you are not the debtor, one FDCPA lawyer (take with grain of salt) says yes: Did you know that it doesn't matter if   you owe the account the debt collector   is calling you about or not? If a debt   collector violates the FDCPA (the   federal Fair Debt Collection Practices   Act, 15 USC 1692 et. seq.) that debt   collector could be liable to pay you   statutory damages, actual damages,   attorney's fees, and court costs. -Source"}
{"question":"Should I sell my stocks to reduce my debt?","answer":"Put yourself in this position - if you had no debts and no investments, would you borrow money at those rates to invest in the stock market?  If no, then pay off the debts.  If yes, then keep them."}
{"question":"Should I pay more than 20% down on a home?","answer":"First of all, realize that buying a home isn't really an investment.  It is cheaper to rent.  In recent years, people were able to sell their houses for astronomical profits, but that won't be happening much in the future.  Additionally, there are many hidden costs of owning a home. Regarding the mortgage interest tax deduction, don't buy a house just to get this.  It is like spending $1 to get back some amount of money less than $1.  So just keep that in mind. Are you debt free?  If not, pay off your other debts before buying a home.  I follow the advice of Dave Ramsey, so I'll echo it here.  Make sure you have an emergency fund and no debt. At this point I think you are ready to buy a house.  When you do, put down as much as you can; above 20% if possible.  Then get a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. At this point, start saving for your kid's college (if you believe in that) and paying down your home. Having no mortgage is a dream many people never have.  I cannot wait until I have no mortgage.  Don't get suckered into getting a high priced loan.  Pay down as much of the price of the house as possible up front.  This gives you flexibility too.  What if you need to sell quickly?  Well, you will have equity from the get-go, so this will be much easier. Good luck with your purchase!"}
{"question":"Why does selling and then rebuying stock not lead to free money?","answer":"There are several reasons. First, if you sell your stock \"at any price\", you may be selling it for less than you originally bought it for.  Thus you will take a loss right at the beginning of your scheme.  If you \"rinse and repeat\", the problem only gets worse.  Every time you sell your stock, you will have to sell it at an even lower price in order to lower the price even more.  Then you buy it back and. . . just resell it an even lower price?  It should be clear that you are not making any money this way. Second, even if you don't sell it at an absolute loss, you must sell it at a relative loss in order to lower the price.  In other words, if someone will currently buy your shares for $X, and you want to lower the price, you must sell them for less than $X.  But you could have made more money by selling them for $X, since someone was already willing to buy them at that price.  In order to bring the price down significantly, you have to sell the stock for less than people currently believe it is worth, which means you're incurring a loss relative to just selling it at the market rate.  Of course, you can still make money if it goes back up again, but selling it at an extra loss this way just makes it harder to break even. Third, if you sell the stock at $X, whoever you sold it to is not going to sell it right back to you at $X, because then they would not make any money.  You could in theory buy it from someone else, but the same principle holds: if the stock price has just gone down, people who have it may be waiting for it to go back up.  This is doubly true if anyone suspects you have been trying to manipulate the stock price, because they will then suspect that the price drop is artificial and it will soon go back up. Fourth, even if someone did sell it right back to you at the price you sold it for, then what?  You now hold the stock at a lower price, but you don't gain unless it goes back up.  If it wasn't going up before until you took action, there is no reason to suppose it will go back up now.  In fact, if you had enough shares to significantly influence the price, other people may have been fooled into thinking the value is actually lower now. The basic problem is that, in order for you to buy it at a low price, someone else has to sell it at that low price.  It is easy to sell someone a stock for less than it's worth, but it will be hard to get people to sell it back to you for less than it's worth.  If you engage in deceptive practices to get people to do this, you may be guilty of securities fraud."}
{"question":"Why do stocks go up? Is it due to companies performing well, or what else? [duplicate]","answer":"Remember that shares represent votes at the shareholders' meeting. If share price drops too far below the value of that percentage of the company, the company gets bought out and taken over. This tends to set a minimum share price derived from the company's current value. The share price may rise above that baseline if people expect it to be worth more in the future, or drop s bit below if people expect awful news. That's why investment is called speculation. If the price asked is too high to be justified by current guesses, nobody buys. That sets the upper limit at any given time. Since some of this is guesswork, the market is not completely rational. Prices can drop after good news if they'd been inflated by the expectation of better news, for example. In general, businesses which don't crash tend to grow.  Hence the market as a whole generally trends upward if viewed on a long timescale. But there's a lot of noise on that curve; short term or single stocks are much harder to predict."}
{"question":"Why would Two ETFs tracking Identical Indexes Produce different Returns?","answer":"In your other question about these funds you quoted two very different yields for them. That pretty clearly says they are NOT tracking the same index."}
{"question":"What is the preferred way to finance home improvements when preparing to sell your house?","answer":"sheegaon's reply looks fine to me, a HELOC can usually be set up for a minimal ($50?) fee, and is currently a pretty low rate, mine is 2.5%.  If this doesn't appeal to you, my other suggestion is a 401(k) loan. While this is usually a last resort and 'not' recommended, a short term use may make sense. The rate is low, and you can pay in back in full after moving into the new house."}
{"question":"Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off?","answer":"A $250K earner might have $4M in retirement savings and $500K in available funds, but doesn't wish to spend all his liquidity on the house. In general, a house might cost 2-3 times one's annual income. It would take many years to get that saved up. They might want to have the house sooner.  It all goes back to choice, priorities, personal preference."}
{"question":"Why is the highest quintile the only quintile whose wealth exceeds its income? ","answer":"I think you came up with a worthy Masters\/PhD research project, it is a great question. This is in Australia so it is difficult for me to have complete perspective.  However, I can speak about the US of A. To your first point relatively few people inherit their wealth.  According to a brief web search about 38% of billionaires, and 20% of millionaires inherited their wealth.  The rest are self-made. Again, in the US, income mobility is very common.  Some act like high level earners are just born that way, but studies have shown that a great deal of income mobility exists.  I personally know people that have grown up without indoor plumbing, and extremely poor but now earn in the top 5% of wage earners.   Quid's points are valid.  For example a Starbucks, new I-Phone, and a brake job on your car are somewhat catastrophic if your income is 50K\/year, hurts if your income is 100K, and an inconvenience if you make 250K\/year.  These situations are normal and happen regularly.  The first person may have to take a pay day loan to pay for these items, the second credit card interest, the third probably has the money in the bank.  All of this exaggerates the effect of an \"emergency\" on one's net worth.    To me there is also a chicken-and-egg effect in wealth building and income.  How does one build wealth?  By investing wisely, planning ahead, budgeting, delaying gratification, finding opportunities, etc...  Now if you take those same skills to your workplace isn't it likely you will receive more responsibility, promotions and raises?  I believe so.  And this too exaggerates the effect on one's net worth.  If investing helps you to earn more, then you will have more to invest. To me one of the untold stories of this graph is not just investing, but first building a stable financial base.  Having a sufficient emergency fund, having enough and the right kind of insurance, keeping loans to a minimum.  Without doing those things first investments might need to be withdrawn, often at an inopportune time, for emergency purposes. Thanks for asking this!"}
{"question":"Shorting: What if you can't find lenders?","answer":"Your question has 6 questions marks along with comments on what you'd like to know.  Yes, there are stocks that are tough to short, a combination of low float, high current short positions, etc. Interest charged on the position rises in a supply\/demand fashion.  To unwind the position, there's always going to be stock available to buy. A shortage of willing sellers will cause the price to go up, but you'll see a bid\/ask and the market will clear, i.e. The buy order fills."}
{"question":"What are the procedures or forms for a private loan with the sale of a vehicle?","answer":"Draft up a promissory notes.  Have a lawyer do it use one of those online contract places if you have simple needs.  Your promissory note need to cover Be specific.  There are probably a lot more items that can be included, and if a quick internet search is any indication it gets deep fast. http:\/\/lmbtfy.com\/?q=car+sale+promissory+note (Like @LittleAdv says) Head to your DMV with the title and the promissory note.  The title is signed over to you and held by the DMV.  When you pay up, the seller informs the DMV and they send you the title.  If you don't pay up, the seller can legally repossess the car.  All butts are covered. Pay the note as agreed.  When you are all paid up, your friend notifies the DMV who then mail you the title. Your butt is covered because your name is on the car, you can insure it and nobody can take it from you (legally) if you are paying the note as agreed.   Your pal's butt is covered because if you stop paying half way through, he can keep whatever you have paid him and get his car back."}
{"question":"Can rent be added to your salary when applying for a mortgage?","answer":"The decision as to what counts as income is up to the bank. You'll need to ask them whether or not rental income can be included in the total. I can offer some anecdotal evidence: when I applied for a mortgage to buy my home, I already had a rental property with a buy-to-let mortgage on it. Initially the bank regarded that property as a liability, not an asset, because it was mortgaged! However, once I was able to show that there was a good history of receiving enough rent, they chose to ignore the property altogether -- i.e. it wasn't regarded as a liability, but it wasn't regarded as a source of income either. More generally, as AakashM says, residential mortgages are computed based on affordability, which is more than just a multiple of your salary. To answer your specific questions: Covered above; it's up to the bank. If you're married, and you don't have a written tenancy agreement, and you're not declaring the \"rent\" on your tax return, then it seems unlikely that this would be regarded as income at all. Conversely, if your partner is earning, why not put their name on the mortgage application too? Buy-to-let mortgages are treated differently. While it used to be the case that they were assessed on rental income only, nowadays lenders may ask for proof of the landlord's income from other sources. Note that a BTL cannot be used for a property you intend to live in, and a residential mortgage cannot be used for a property you intend to let to tenants -- at least, not without the bank's permission."}
{"question":"Are banks really making less profit when interest rates are low? ","answer":"Banks make less profit when \"long\" rates are low compared to \"short\" rates. Banks lend for long term purposes like five year business loans or 30 year mortgages. They get their funds from (mostly) \"short term\" deposits, which can be emptied in days. Banks make money on the difference between 5 and 30 year rates, and short term rates. It is the difference, and not the absolute level of rates, that determines their profitability. A bank that pays 1% on CDs, and lends at 3% will make money. During the 1970s, short rates kept rising,and banks were stuck with 30 year loans at 7% from the early part of the decade, when short rates rose to double digits around 1980, and they lost money."}
{"question":"Is it better to use DRIP or invest when stock drops before ex-date?","answer":"Unless you suffer from the illusion that you can time the market, it honestly doesn't matter much; the difference is lost in the noise. That may be true even if you do suffer from that illusion.  Also, as discussed here previously, the drop in a stock's price right after the dividend has been paid just reflects the fact that you aren't about to get an immediate refund in the form of a dividend. If you look at the real cost per share, it's meaningless and can\/should be ignored. Buying after the dividend is paid may save you a tiny fraction of a cent of short-term income tax, but that's meaningless in real terms."}
{"question":"Is the Net Profit the 'final word' on a company's health? ","answer":"To answer your question briefly: net income is affected by many things inside and outside of management control, and must be supplemented by other elements to gain a clear picture of a company's health. To answer your question in-depth, we must look at the history of financial reporting: Initially, accounting was primarily cash-based. That is, a business records a sale when a customer pays them cash, and records expenses when cash goes out the door. This was not a perfectly accurate system, as cashflow might be quite erratic even if sales are stable (collection times may differ, etc.). To combat problems with cash-based accounting, financial reporting moved to an accrual-based system. An accrual is the recording of an item before it has fully completed in a cash transaction. For example, when you ship goods to a customer and they owe you money, you record the revenue - then you record the future collection of cash as a balance sheet item, rather than an income statement item. Another example: if your landlord charges you rent on December 31st for the past year, then in each month leading up to December, you accrue the expense on the income statement, even though you haven't paid the landlord yet. Accrual-based accounting leaves room for accounting manipulation. Enron is a prime example; among other things, they were accruing revenue for sales that had not occurred. This 'accelerated' their income, by having it recorded years before cash was ever collectible. There are specific guidelines that restrict doing things like this, but management will still attempt to accelerate net income as much as possible under accounting guidelines. Public companies have their financial statements audited by unrelated accounting firms - theoretically, they exist to catch material misstatements in the financial statements. Finally, some items impacting profit do not show up in net income - they show up in \"Other Comprehensive Income\" (OCI). OCI is meant to show items that occurred in the year, but were outside of management control. For example, changes in the value of foreign subsidiaries, due to fluctuations in currency exchange rates. Or changes in the value of company pension plan, which are impacted by the stock market. However, while OCI is meant to pick up all non-management-caused items, it is a grey area and may not be 100% representative of this idea. So in theory, net income is meant to represent items within management control. However, given the grey area in accounting interpretation, net income may be 'accelerated', and it also may include some items that occurred by some 'random business fluke' outside of company control. Finally, consider that financial statements are prepared months after the last year-end. So a company may show great profit for 2015 when statements come out in March, but perhaps Jan-March results are terrible. In conclusion, net income is an attempt at giving what you want: an accurate representation of the health of a company in terms of what is under management control. However it may be inaccurate due to various factors, from malfeasance to incompetence.  That's why other financial measures exist - as another way to answer the same question about a company's health, to see if those answers agree. ex: Say net income is $10M this year, but was only $6M last year - great, it went up by $4M! But now assume that Accounts Receivable shows $7M owed to the company at Dec 31, when last year there was only $1M owed to the company. That might imply that there are problems collecting on that additional revenue (perhaps revenue was recorded prematurely, or perhaps they sold to customers who went bankrupt).  Unfortunately there is no single number that you can use to see the whole company - different metrics must be used in conjunction to get a clear picture."}
{"question":"How can I deposit a check made out to my business into my personal account?","answer":"Depending on where you are, you may be able to get away with filing a \"Doing Business As\" document with your local government, and then having the bank call the county seat to verify this. There is generally a fee for processing\/recording\/filing the DBA form, of course. But it's useful for more purposes than just this one. (I still need to file a DBA for my hobby work-for-pay, for exactly this reason.)"}
{"question":"\"Correct\" answer on Visa credit quiz doesn't make sense","answer":"I agree with you. The quiz was looking at it differently, as if you had a huge card balance and were making minimum payments.  The fact that I run all my spending through my cards somehow looks like my card payments are 60-70% of my budget. But when you break it out, zero of that is interest, and it's just a budgeting tool."}
{"question":"Is being a landlord a good idea? Is there a lot of risk?","answer":"Risk is the capital you have staked in pursuit of profit. The danger is that you lose what you have risked.  For some bets (risks), you can get insurance to cover for losses.  Now the \"game\" of Landlord and Tenant requires you to play fully by the rules set forth by your legislators. In your case, that is the legislators of the State of Texas. Without knowing those rules, you could be liable (open to civil prosecution) for violating those rules. Tenants could be savvy to those rules or savvy enough to hire someone, a lawyer, who knows those rules. As well, in the game of Landlord and Tenant, you must ascertain the creditworthiness of your would-be tenant. If the tenant fails to pay rent, that tenant can detain the residence. You will incur additional outlays to gain possession of your property (ownership in your rental). Now the game of Landlord vs Landlord is different. You can't pick up houses easily enough and even if you could, likely the expense of doing so could wipe out any would profits from having the house as a rental. So, in Landlord vs Landlord, you get constrained by where your rental sits. Thus you must forecast what will the neighborhood look like in five, ten, fifteen years."}
{"question":"What would a stock be worth if dividends did not exist? [duplicate]","answer":"Unrealistic assumption, but I'll play along. Ultimately, dividends would exist because some innovative shareholder of some company, at some time, would desire income from their investment and could propose the idea of sharing the profit. Like-minded investors also desiring income could vote for dividends to come into existence \u2014 or, rather, vote for a board of directors that supports enactment of the idea. (In your fictitious world, shareholders do still control the corporation, right?) In this world, though, dividends wouldn't be called \"dividends\", a terrible name that's too \"mathy\" for the inhabitants of that world. Rather, they would institute a quarterly or annual shareholder profit share. Governments would enact legislation to approve of\u2014nay, encourage such an innovation because it becomes a new source of recurring income they can tax. Alternatively, even if the idea of a cash dividend didn't occur to anybody in that world, investors would realize the stock price is depressed and could propose and vote for the board to institute share buybacks. The company repurchasing some portion of shares periodically would provide income to shareholders participating in the buyback. If the buyback were oversubscribed, they could structure it fairly (pro-rata participation, etc.) Alternatively, shareholders would pressure the board (or fire them and vote in a new board) to put the company up for sale and find a larger buyer, who would purchase the shares for cash. This can't scale forever, though, so the pressure will increase for solutions like #1 and #2."}
{"question":"Is there data and proof that a diversified portfolio can generate higher returns than the S&P 500 Index?","answer":"While it's definitely possible (and likely?) that a diversified portfolio generates higher returns than the S&P 500, that's not the main reason why you diversify. Diversification reduces risk.  Modern portfolio theory suggests that you should maximize return while reducing risk, instead of blindly chasing the highest returns. Think about it this way--say the average return is 11% for large cap US stocks (the S&P 500), and it's 10% for a diversified portfolio (say, 6-8 asset classes). The large cap only portfolio has a 10% chance of losing 30% in a given year, while the diversified portfolio has a 1% chance of losing 30% in a year. For the vast majority of investors, it's worth the 1% annual gap in expected return to greatly reduce their risk exposure. Of course, I just made those numbers up. Read what finance professors have written for the \"data and proof\". But modern portfolio theory is believed by a lot of investors and other finance experts. There are a ton of studies (and therefore data) on MPT--including many that contradict it."}
{"question":"Do options always expire on third Friday of every month","answer":"Traditionally options expired on the 3rd Wednesday of the months of Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec as this day was never a holiday. See IMM dates. However as option use exploded there were monthly and weekly options created on different schedules. The exchange will specify when its options expire in the contract."}
{"question":"How does Value get rounded in figuring out Bonds Value?","answer":"With the formula you are using you assume that the issued bond (bond A) is a perpetual. Given the provided information, you can't really do more than this, it's only an approximation.  The difference could be explained by the repayment of the principal (which is not the case with a perpetual). I guess the author has calculated the bond value with principal repayment.  You can get more insight in the calculation from the excel provided at this website: http:\/\/breakingdownfinance.com\/finance-topics\/bond-valuation\/fixed-rate-bond-valuation\/"}
{"question":"Square reported my credit card transactions as personal income?","answer":"Square is a company. They need to detail as part of their corporate taxes all of their expenses. The money they collected for you, and sent to you, is not income for themselves. Their tax form included the amount of money they sent you, along with either your Social Security Number of corporate tax id. The IRS computers match the information regarding expenses to the information regarding income. In this case the expense listed by Square didn't match-up with a line of your tax forms for that year. The IRS now sees that as unreported income. If you didn't tell them about other expenses you had, they can only assume your expenses were zero.  Congratulations you have a business. Unfortunately the Federal, state and local governments now will want to know about your business. You may have to fill out multiple years worth of tax forms and other required forms. Yes, you should getting professional accounting and tax help."}
{"question":"Buying shares in a company after you quit","answer":"Insider trading is when you buy or sell an investment based on material, non-public information that gives you an unfair advantage over the rest of traders in that market.  Working for a company is one way that you might have such information, but whether it is insider trading is not contingent on you working there. You could use that information a long time after leaving the company. You don't even need to have worked there. If a friend\/relative gave you non-public information because THEY work there, it is still insider trading."}
{"question":"Are RSUs ever taxed as long term capital gains?","answer":"Yes. You incur income tax on the RSU on they date they vest. At this point you own the actual shares and you can decide to sell them or to hold them. If you hold them for the required period, and sell them later, the difference between your price at vesting and the sales price would be taxed as long term capital gains. Caution: if you decide to hold, you are still liable to pay income tax in the year they vest. You have to pay taxes on income that you haven't made yet. This is fairly dangerous: if the stock goes down, you may lose a lot of this tax payment. Technically you could recover some of this through claiming capital losses, but that this is severely restricted: the IRS makes it much easier to increase taxes through gains than reducing taxes through losses."}
{"question":"Income and taxes with subcontracting?","answer":"Since you say 1099, I'll assume it's in the US. :) Think of your consulting operation as a small business. Businesses are only taxed on their profits, not their revenues. So you should only be paying tax on the $700 in the example you gave. Note, though, that you need to be sure the IRS thinks you're a small business. Having a separate bank account for the business, filing for a business license with your local city\/state, etc are all things that help make the case that you're running a business. Of course, the costs of doing all those things are business expenses, and thus things you can deduct from that $1000 in revenue at tax time."}
{"question":"What is a \"retail revolving account,\" and does it improve my credit score?","answer":"A retail revolving account is essentially a credit card offered by a store (or chain of stores) and usable only at that store. In my area, the Sears department store's \"Sears card\" would be a good example. Stores offer these to capture a bit more profit from the transaction. They don't have to pay someone else's processing fees, and they get to keep any interest you pay. Of course they also accept the costs that go along with retail lending. It operates just like any other revolving-credit card. Read the fine print of the agreement to see what the grace period is, if any, and what APR they're charging after that. These cards also serve as a marketing tool. Some stores don't accept any other card. Some can do \"instant approvals\" to encourage you to make a large purchase now rather than continuing to shop around. Some may offer special deals only if you use their card -- I paid 0% interest for a year on my refrigerator, which was convenient for me. And so on. Gasoline stations also used to offer their own cards... though these days it's common for them to offer a branded version of one of the major credit cards instead."}
{"question":"Loan to son - how to get it back","answer":"I think you've made a perfectly valid suggestion, and, if your son is struggling somewhat financially now, one that may be very welcome. If you agree to forgive the debt at this time in lieu of a similar amount forgone in future inheritance, it will eliminate the never ending interest-only payments, free up $200+ a month for you son on a tight budget, and improve your own credit score once you pay off the credit line. It's also, in my opinion, a good idea to be open about this in advance with your other children heirs so that everyone will understand what is expected during the eventual probate. My paternal grandfather was the recipient of a great deal of financial largess from his wealthy mother during her life, and it was fully understood by him, her, and his siblings, that in exchange he would not share in her estate when she passed. He didn't, there were no problems, and he and his siblings stayed close for the rest of their lives."}
{"question":"For a major expensive home renovation (e.g. addition, finished basement, or new kitchen) should one pay cash or finance with a loan? Would such a loan be \"good\" debt?","answer":"Reasons to pay with cash Reasons to borrow Things to watch out for"}
{"question":"What happens to a company when it issues preference shares?","answer":"In most cases , preferential sharesholders are paid dividends first before common shareholders are paid . In the event of a company bankruptcy , preferential shareholders have the right to be paid first before common shareholders. In exchange for these benefits , preferential shareholders do not have any voting rights. The issuing of preferential shares has no impact on share prices or issuing of bonuses , it is a mere coincidence that the stock price went up"}
{"question":"Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?","answer":"Wealth gained hastily will dwindle  but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. Proverbs 13:11 (ESV) Put another way...  \"Easy come, easy go\" You cannot sustain 100% annual ROI. Sooner than you think you will hit a losing streak. Casinos depend on this truth. You may win a few rolls of the dice. But betting your winnings will eventually cause you to lose all."}
{"question":"US Bank placing a hold on funds from my paycheck deposit: Why does that make sense?","answer":"First, congratulations on the paycheck!  :-) On the holds: Is it possible that by allowing your account balance to go negative (into overdraft) that you triggered such treatment of your account?  Perhaps the bank is being more cautious with your account since that happened.  Just how long did you have their $150 on hold?  ;-) Or, perhaps it's not you specifically but the bank is being more cautious due to credit conditions that have been prevalent these last years.  Consider: allowing you to cash a check immediately \u2013 when it technically hasn't cleared yet \u2013 is a form of credit.  Maybe it isn't you they don't trust well enough yet, but the company that issued the check?  Checks bounce, and not by fault of the depositor. I once had a new account, years ago, and discovered a 5 day hold on deposits.  The irony was it was a check drawn on the same bank!  I called my banker and asked about it \u2013 and suggested I'd take my business back to my old bank.  I was in the process of applying for a mortgage with the new bank.  Holds were removed. But you may have some trouble with the \"I'll walk\" technique given the climate and your recent overdraft situation and no leverage \u2013 or if you do have some leverage, consider using it. But before you assume anything, I would, as JohnFx suggested, ask your bank about it.  Pay your branch a visit in person and talk to the manager.  Phone calls to customer service may be less successful.  If it's not a big issue and more a minor technical policy one, the bank may remove the holds.  If they won't, the manager ought to tell you why, and what you can do to solve it eventually."}
{"question":"Why would this FHA refinance cause my mortgage insurance payment to increase so much?","answer":"If you're refinancing a conforming (Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac) mortgage, don't go with an FHA. Try a HARP refinance, which won't increase your mortgage insurance even if your home has lost value. HARP also limits the risk-based pricing adjustments that can be charged, so your rate should be very competitive. With an FHA mortgage, even once you get the loan-to-value ratio down to 80 percent, you still have mortgage insurance for several years, plus the upfront costs. In your case, I think it's a bad deal."}
{"question":"Am I understanding buying options on stock correctly","answer":"There is a reason why most professional option traders are sellers instead of buyers. Option sellers IMO are analogous to insurance companies that come out ahead in the long run. That is not to say if you are bullish about a stock then you should not buy it. I personally would never buy an option outright and look to reduce my cost basis by selling options around it such as:"}
{"question":"What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan?","answer":"I wanted to know that what if the remaining 40% of 60% in a LTV (Loan to Value ratio ) for buying a home is not paid but the borrower only wants to get 60% of the total amount of home loan that is being provided by lending company. Generally, A lending company {say Bank] will not part with their funds unless you first pay your portion of the funds. This is essentially to safeguard their interest. Let's say they pay the 60% [either to you or to the seller]; The title is still with Seller as full payment is not made. Now if you default, the Bank has no recourse against the seller [who still owns the title] and you are not paying. Some Banks may allow a schedule where the 60\/40 may be applied to every payment made. This would be case to case basis. The deal could be done with only paying 20% in the beginning to the buyer and then I have to pay EMI's of $7451.  The lending company is offering you 1.1 million assuming that you are paying 700K and the title will be yours. This would safeguard the Banks interest. Now if you default, the Bank can take possession of the house and recover the funds, a distress sale may be mean the house goes for less than 1.8 M; say for 1.4 million. The Bank would take back the 1.1 million plus interest and other closing costs. So if you can close the deal by paying only 20%, Bank would ask you to close this first and then lend you any money. This way if you are not able to pay the balance as per the deal agreement, you would be in loss and not the Bank."}
{"question":"What is this discrepency between Fidelity's and Google's stock price chart; large price spike?","answer":"This is from Google Finance right now."}
{"question":"At what percentage drop should you buy to average down","answer":"TL;DR; There is no silver bullet. You have to decide how much to invest and when on your own.  Averaging down definition: DEFINITION of 'Average Down' The process of buying additional shares in a company at lower prices than you originally purchased. This brings the average price you've paid for all your shares down. BREAKING DOWN 'Average Down' Sometimes this is a good strategy, other times it's better to sell off a beaten down stock rather than buying more shares.  So let us tackle your questions: At what percentage drop of the stock price should I buy more shares. (Ex: should I wait for the price to fall by 5% or 10% to buy more.) It depends on the behaviour of the security and the issuer. Is it near its historical minimum? How healthy is the issuer? There is no set percentage. You can maximize your gains or your losses if the security does not rebound. Investopedia: The strategy is often favored by investors who have a long-term investment horizon and a contrarian approach to investing. A contrarian approach refers to a style of investing that is against, or contrary, to the prevailing investment trend.  (...) On the other side of the coin are the investors and traders who generally have shorter-term investment horizons and view a stock decline as a portent of things to come. These investors are also likely to espouse trading in the direction of the prevailing trend, rather than against it. They may view buying into a stock decline as akin to trying to \"catch a falling knife.\" Your second question: How many additional shares should I buy. (Ex: Initially I bought 10 shares, should I buy 5,10 or 20.) That depends on your portfolio allocation before and after averaging down and your investor profile (risk apettite). Take care when putting more money on a falling security, if your portfolio allocation shifts too much. That may expose you to risks you shouldn't be taking. You are assuming a risk for example, if the market bears down like 2008: Averaging down or doubling up works well when the stock eventually rebounds because it has the effect of magnifying gains, but if the stock continues to decline, losses are also magnified. In such cases, the investor may rue the decision to average down rather than either exiting the position or failing to add to the initial holding.  One of the pitfalls of averaging down is when the security does not rebound, and you become too attached to be able to cut your losses and move on. Also if you are bullish on a position, be careful not to slip the I down and add a T on said position. Invest with your head, not your heart."}
{"question":"Why do Americans have to file taxes, even if their only source of income is from a regular job?","answer":"A couple things. First of all, most people's MAIN source of income is from their job, but they have others, such as bank interest, stock dividends, etc. So that income has to be reported with their wage income. The second thing is that most people have deductions NOT connected with their job. These deductions reduce income (and generate refunds). So it's in their interest to file."}
{"question":"What is a good 5-year plan for a college student with $15k in the bank?","answer":"You can put them in a 5 years CD and getting a maximum of %2.5 APY if you're lucky. If you put 15k now, in 5 years you'll have $1.971. If it sounds good then take a look at the current inflation rate (i'm in usa)... If you want to think about retirement then you should open a Roth IRA. But you won't be able to touch the money without penalties (10% of earnings) before you get 59 1\/2 years old. Another option would be to open a regular investment account with an online discounted broker. Which one? Well, this should be a totally separate question... If you decide to invest (Roth IRA or regular account) and you're young and inexperienced then go for a balanced mutual fund. Still do a lot of research to determine your portfolio allocation or which fund is best suited for you. Betterment (i never used it) is a no brainer investment broker.  Please don't leave them in a generic checking or low interest savings account because you'll save nothing (see inflation again)..."}
{"question":"Why is a stock that pays a dividend preferrable to one that doesn't?","answer":"One reason to prefer a dividend-paying stock is when you don't plan to reinvest the dividends.  For example, if you're retired and living off the income from your investments, a dividend-paying stock can give you a relatively stable income."}
{"question":"What are the common moving averages used in a \"Golden Cross\" stock evaluation?","answer":"Technical analysis is insufficient. You're halfway to figuring it out if you start to question why a 50 day moving average vs 200 vs 173. Invest in companies that are attractively valued vs. their sales\/growth\/divends\/anythingelsereal"}
{"question":"Is it common in the US not to pay medical bills?","answer":"In addition to the good answers already provided, I want to point out that many (most?) providers will handle filing your health insurance claim for you even though it's really your responsibility. So here's how medical bills \"you don't have to pay\" might come about: * It's possible that your balance is $4, or $20, or $65, or even still $100 depending on your particular insurance plan. Whatever is left at this step is what you pay."}
{"question":"Is there a formula to use to analyse whether an investment property is a good investment?","answer":"I know of no generic formula for determining if an investment property is a good investment, besides the trivial formula. Make sure your income is greater than your expenses, and hope the value of the property doesn't drop. Some people will tell you to expect the monthly rent to be a fixed percentage of the purchase price, but that is a goal not a certainty. It is also impossible to estimate the difficulty renting the property, or how long the roof will last. Taxes can't be predicted, as the value of the house increase, so do the property taxes, but you might not be able to increase the rent.  You can't even predict the quality of the tenant. Will they damage the property? Or skip out early? You will need somebody who knows the local market to estimate the local conditions, and help you determine the estimated costs and income based on the actual property involved."}
{"question":"How can I determine if my portfolio's rate of return has been \"good\", or not?","answer":"There isn't really enough information here to go on.  Without knowing when you invested that money we can't find your rate of return at all, and it's important to measure your rate against risk.  If you take on significantly more risk than the overall market but only just barely outperform it, you probably got a lousy rate of return. If you underperform the market but your risk is significantly lower then you might have gotten a very good rate of return.  A savings account earning a guaranteed 4% might be a better return than gambling on the roulette wheel and making 15%."}
{"question":"Optimal Asset Allocation","answer":"When you have multiple assets available and a risk-free asset (cash or borrowing) you will always end up blending them if you have a reasonable objective function.  However, you seem to have constrained yourself to 100% investment.  Combine that with the fact that you are considering only two assets and you can easily have a solution where only one asset is desired in the portfolio.  The fact that you describe the US fund as \"dominating\" the forign fund indicates that this may be the case for you.  Ordinarily diversification benefits the overall portfolio even if one asset \"dominates\" another but it may not in your special case. Notice that these funds are both already highly diversified, so all you are getting is cross-border diversification by getting more than one.  That may be why you are getting the solution you are.  I've seen a lot of suggested allocations that have weights similar to what you are using. Finding an optimal portfolio given a vector of expected returns and a covariance matrix is very easy, with some reliable results.  Fancy models get pretty much the same kinds of answers as simple ones.  However, getting a good covariance matrix is hard and getting a good expected return vector is all but impossible.  Unfortunately portfolio results are very sensitive to these inputs.  For that reason, most of us use portfolio theory to guide our intuition, but seldom do the math for our own portfolio.  In any model you use, your weak link is the expected return and covariance.  More sophisticated models don't usually help produce a more reasonable result. For that reason, your original strategy (80-20) sounds pretty good to me.  Not sure why you are not diversifying outside of equities, but I suppose you have your reasons."}
{"question":"Historical Stock Prices of delisted company [duplicate]","answer":"For those on a budget, check if your local library has access to \/ or a copy of the \"Standard & Poor's Daily Stock Price Record\". Access to that or a similar service may be available as part of your library patronage. If not available it may be available at your metropolitan central library.  Comprehensive stock pricing data which provides adjustments for splits, mergers, capital distributions and other relevant events is still a premium product. External link to New York Public Library blog post on subject: http:\/\/www.nypl.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/09\/finding-historical-stock-prices"}
{"question":"Working on a tax free island to make money?","answer":"The Cayman Islands has an income tax enacted, it is just currently 0%.  It raises revenues from its tourism, import duties, and business registration.  It is part of the UK commonwealth and therefore enjoys the military protection of that federation, but doesn't have to spend on it. But unlike the US, the UK does not have an umbrella federal income tax on its overseas territories, so the Cayman Islands doesn't have to pass that down to its citizens nor do its citizens\/residents have to be encumbered by one. It was not taxed by the King when it was first incorporated (hm, might need to fact check that). They also didn't go to war with the king over some small tax, so they got treated differently than some other North American colonies you might think of. The Cayman Islands is not the only government that raises revenues this way. Delaware also has a 0% income tax and raises the majority of its revenues on business registration (and perpetual franchise taxes on those businesses), allowing it to spare its citizens from passive income taxes. But unlike a US state, a citizen or business in a UK overseas territory does not have federal regulatory overhead, making it more attractive as a worldwide financial center."}
{"question":"Best Time to buy a stock in a day ","answer":"Buy it at the close. That way you won't lose money (even if marked to market) on the day."}
{"question":"\"Inflation actually causes people not to spend\"\u2026 could it be true? ","answer":"We need to be careful what we are talking about here. Inflation on a economy-level scale at an expected rate will not change consumer habits because the price increase is manageable. You have to realize that prices are not increasing in isolation: wages will have to rise along too.  High inflation that is expected will increase consumption of durable goods, as people attempt to 'get rid of their money' before the price changes on them. A good example of this was post-WWI germany, where hyperinflation was so bad that offices began to pay their employees twice daily, so they could adjust their wages, and so that their employees could go out during lunch and after work to buy something with the money before the price changed on them. Unexpected inflation may cause a temporary dip in spending until wages adjust, however consumers still need to buy, so they will likely push for higher wages, leading to consumption to stay about level. There is another effect to inflation as well: People who have savings will have their savings eroded over time if the economy is inflationary. To preserve their wealth, they will invest it. In a deflationary environment, money will increase in value simply by being hoarded, so they will be less willing to invest it. Deflation also increases the cost of interest on a loan, while inflation decreases it. So the overall effect is for an increase in spending under inflation, and a decrease under deflation. The person you have quoted is quite wrong. Price increases in a particular sector will cause consumer spending to decrease but this is a bad example, as it is not inflation, but rather a supply\/demand problem of a particular consumer good. They are applying a micro-economic model (price increases of a single good) to a macroeconomic problem (price increases in the entire economy) when price increases at a global scale have the opposite effects. A good theoretical test of this is: what would happen if everyone in the US suddenly had twice as much money? (Ignoring international trade, of course). The answer: prices will double, and nothing else will change. The reason is, people will have more money to spend, but will require more money for their services, so in the end it all cancels out."}
{"question":"How to invest 100k","answer":"How to spend the money is up to you. That includes spending money on your house. (This is a safer way to look at it than an \"investment\". Not that it can't ever be treated as such, but that doing so often makes it easy to justify bad decisions and overspending on the house.) So with regards to the mortgage: So if it's not a monstrously huge deal, you might prefer to avoid default. Now,  how to invest the rest while waiting to spend it, now..."}
{"question":"I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it?","answer":"I know this is a little late but here is my answer. No. You do not \"need\" to incorporate. In fact, incorporating in your situation will cost you in legal fees, administrative headaches, and a fair bit in taxes. The CRA would probably look at your corporation as a personal services corporation and it would not be allowed to claim a number of tax reductions. The tax rate would end up being over the top range (unless you are in Quebec where it would be just under the top marginal range)."}
{"question":"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?","answer":"In Canada section 347 of the Canadian Criminal Code makes it illegal to charge more than 60% annually.  Since most Canadian credit card annual interest fee is below this they are within that legal limit.  However this is limited only to the rate and not necessarily a cap on the absolute interest charges."}
{"question":"What factors would affect the stock price of a sports team?","answer":"Costs are almost entirely salaries Apart from all the usual costs incurred by running a large, complex, business, ManU  are servicing debt that is getting up around the GBP500M mark. This is debt racked up by the Glazer family since purchasing the team, as well as debt they took with them to the team.  What sort of factors would affect their share price?  Product endorsements, ticket prices, attendance, and merchandise sales are all important contributors. But also, performance in the domestic league and in domestic and European cups are also factors. Should their participation falter for any reason, that ripples through everything (decrease in brand exposure) - and this is, along with the debt problem, the biggest risk. Edit: By the way, you are aware that this is an NYSE IPO; you can see how they have done on the FTSE over the past 10 years or so."}
{"question":"Calculate time to reach investment goals given starting balance?","answer":"Here's a formula;  I had to go over to SEMath, use their MathJax to compose the answer and then paste this screen shot. As a result, I can't fix a typo:  \"ST\" is the same as \"St\""}
{"question":"How feasible would it be to retire just maxing out a Roth IRA?","answer":"Interesting. The answer can be as convoluted\/complex as one wishes to make it, or back-of-envelope.  My claim is that if one starts at 21, and deposits 10% of their income each year, they will likely hit a good retirement nest egg. At an 8% return each year (Keep in mind, the last 40 years produced 10%, even with the lost decade) the 10% saver has just over 15X their final income as a retirement account. At 4% withdrawal, this replaces 60% of their income, with social security the rest, to get to nearly 100% or so replacement. Note - I wrote an article about Social Security Benefits, showing the benefit as a percent of final income. At $50K it's 42%, it's a higher replacement rate for lower income, but the replacement rate drops as income rises. So, the $5000 question. For an individual earning $50K or less, this amount is enough to fund their retirement. For those earning more, it will be one of the components, but not the full savings needed.  (By the way, a single person has a standard deduction and exemption totaling $10150 in 2014. I refer to this as the 'zero bracket.' The next $8800 is taxed at 10%. Why go 100% Roth and miss the opportunity to fund these low or no tax withdrawals?)"}
{"question":"I'm only spending roughly half of what I earn; should I spend more?","answer":"I use to think there was something wrong with me because I always hated spending money.  This hatred of spending resulted in me always saving quite a bit of my income. Since I don't enjoy spending it, why am I making and saving it (besides for an emergency fund)?  I've come to the realization that I enjoy my free time more than I enjoy making lots of money.  So I go to work for something to do - and pay the bills - but I am no longer trying to advance my career, or be the best at my profession, or climb some corporate ladder, or be some superstar.  In fact, I'm considering a career change where I would make half of what I'm making now. What's my point?  If having a lot of savings depresses you and you don't enjoy spending it then consider reducing your income."}
{"question":"Is it possible to trade CFD without leverage?","answer":"Yes, just set aside the amount of money. If you buy a cfd long in a stock for a 1000$, set aside 1000$. If you buy a cfd short, set aside the same amount and include a stoploss at the value at which the money is depleted. In this case however, you can stil lose more, because of opening gaps. By doing this, you replicate the stock return, apart from the charged interest rate."}
{"question":"In what state should I register my web-based LLC?","answer":"Register in Nevada.  It's a no brainer.  I understand that it's not a great deal of money, but if you can save several hundred dollars per year, why not?  It's the same amount (actually probably less) of paperwork to register in Nevada."}
{"question":"Allocating IRA money, clarification needed","answer":"There was a time that a rule of thumb stated your stock allocation should be 100-your age. That rule suggests that you are at 65%stock\/35% bond\/cash. If you are comfortable having this money 100% invested, the best advice would be dollar cost averaging, anything more specific would suggest market timing."}
{"question":"selling apple stock limit order","answer":"Your order may or may not be executed.  The price of stock can open anywhere.  Often yesterday's close is a good indication of today's open, but with a big event overnight, the open may be somewhere quite different.  You'll have to wait and see like the rest of us.  Also, even if it doesn't execute at the open, the price could vary during the day and it might execute later."}
{"question":"Is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets?","answer":"Your questions In the world of technical analysis, is candlestick charting an effective trading tool in timing the markets? It depends on how you define effective. But as a standalone and systematic strategy, it tends not to be profitable. See for example Market Timing with Candlestick Technical Analysis: Using robust statistical techniques, we find that candlestick trading rules are not profitable when applied to DJIA component stocks over 1\/1\/1992 \u2013 31\/12\/2002 period. Neither bullish or bearish candlestick single lines or patterns provide market timing signals that are any better than what would be expected by chance. Basing ones trading decisions solely on these techniques does not seem sensible but we cannot rule out the possibility that they compliment some other market timing techniques. There are many other papers that come to the same conclusion. If used correctly, how accurate can they be in picking turning points in the market? Technical analysts generally fall into two camps: (i) those that argue that TA can't be fully automated and that interpretation is part of the game; (ii) those that use TA as part of a systematic investment model (automatically executed by a machine) but generally use a combination of indicators to build a working model. Both groups would argue (for different reasons) that the conclusions of the paper I quoted above should be disregarded and that TA can be applied profitably with the proper framework. Psychological biases It is very easy to get impressed by technical analysis because we all suffer from \"confirmation bias\" whereby we tend to acknowledge things that confirm our beliefs more than those that contradict them. When looking at a chart, it is very easy to see all the occurences when a certain pattern worked and \"miss\" the occurences when it did not work (and not missing those is much harder than it sounds). Conclusions"}
{"question":"List of web sites or online forums for stock picking and security analysis","answer":"This is a great forum, mostly focused around mutual funds though: http:\/\/www.bogleheads.org\/"}
{"question":"How can I live outside of the rat race of American life with 300k?","answer":"Even with a good investment strategy, you cannot expect more than 8-10% per year in average. Reducing this by a 3% inflation ratio leaves you with 5 - 7%, which means 15k$ - 21k$. Consider seriously if you could live from that amount as annual income, longterm. If you think so, there is a second hurdle - the words in average. A good year could increase your capital a bit, but a bad year can devastate it, and you would not have the time to wait for the good years to average it out. For example, if your second year gives you a 10% loss, and you still draw 15k$ (and inflation eats another 3%), you have only 247k$ left effectively, and future years will have to go with 12k$ - 17k$. Imagine a second bad year. As a consequence, you either need to be prepared to go back to work in that situation (tough after being without job for years), or you can live on less to begin with: if you can make it on 10k$ to begin with (and do, even in good years), you have a pretty good chance to get through your life with it. Note that 'make it with x' always includes taxes, health care, etc. - nothing is free. I think it's possible, as people live on 10k$ a year. But you need to be sure you can trust yourself to stay within the limit and not give in and spent more - not easy for many people."}
{"question":"Why would a stock opening price differ from the offering price?","answer":"The offering price is what the company will raise by selling the shares at that price.  However, this isn't usually what the general public sees as often there will be shows to drive up demand so that there will be buyers for the stock.  That demand is what you see on the first day when the general public can start buying the stock.  If one is an employee, relative or friend of someone that is offered, \"Friends and Family\" shares they may be able to buy at the offering price. Pricing of IPO from Wikipedia states around the idea of pricing: A company planning an IPO typically appoints a lead manager, known as   a bookrunner, to help it arrive at an appropriate price at which the   shares should be issued. There are two primary ways in which the price   of an IPO can be determined. Either the company, with the help of its   lead managers, fixes a price (\"fixed price method\"), or the price can   be determined through analysis of confidential investor demand data   compiled by the bookrunner (\"book building\"). Historically, some IPOs both globally and in the United States have   been underpriced. The effect of \"initial underpricing\" an IPO is to   generate additional interest in the stock when it first becomes   publicly traded. Flipping, or quickly selling shares for a profit, can   lead to significant gains for investors who have been allocated shares   of the IPO at the offering price. However, underpricing an IPO results   in lost potential capital for the issuer. One extreme example is   theglobe.com IPO which helped fuel the IPO \"mania\" of the late 90's   internet era. Underwritten by Bear Stearns on November 13, 1998, the   IPO was priced at $9 per share. The share price quickly increased   1000% after the opening of trading, to a high of $97. Selling pressure   from institutional flipping eventually drove the stock back down, and   it closed the day at $63. Although the company did raise about $30   million from the offering it is estimated that with the level of   demand for the offering and the volume of trading that took place the   company might have left upwards of $200 million on the table. The danger of overpricing is also an important consideration. If a   stock is offered to the public at a higher price than the market will   pay, the underwriters may have trouble meeting their commitments to   sell shares. Even if they sell all of the issued shares, the stock may   fall in value on the first day of trading. If so, the stock may lose   its marketability and hence even more of its value. This could result   in losses for investors, many of whom being the most favored clients   of the underwriters. Perhaps the best known example of this is the   Facebook IPO in 2012. Underwriters, therefore, take many factors into consideration when   pricing an IPO, and attempt to reach an offering price that is low   enough to stimulate interest in the stock, but high enough to raise an   adequate amount of capital for the company. The process of determining   an optimal price usually involves the underwriters (\"syndicate\")   arranging share purchase commitments from leading institutional   investors. Some researchers (e.g. Geoffrey C., and C. Swift, 2009) believe that   the underpricing of IPOs is less a deliberate act on the part of   issuers and\/or underwriters, than the result of an over-reaction on   the part of investors (Friesen & Swift, 2009). One potential method   for determining underpricing is through the use of IPO Underpricing   Algorithms. This may be useful for seeing the difference in that \"theglobe.com\" example where the offering price is $9\/share yet the stock traded much higher than that initially."}
{"question":"What evidence exists for claiming that you cannot beat the market?","answer":"No such evidence exists, because many people do beat the market. And many people fail to earn market rate of return. The way you achieve the former is generally to take risks that also increase the likelihood of the latter. The amount of time and effort you invest may bias that result, but generally risk and potential reward tend to track pretty closely since everyone else is making the same evaluations. You can't prove a negative. We can't prove unicorns don't exist either. We can advise you that hunting for one is probably not productive; many others have been trying, and if there was one we'd probably have seen at least something that encourages us to continue looking. Not impossible, but the evidence is far from encouraging. Market-rate-of-return can be achieved fairy reliably with minimal risk and minimal effort, and at mostly long-term tax rates. I consider that sufficient for my needs. Others will feel otherwise."}
{"question":"What is the best way to get cash from my retirement accounts for a home down payment?","answer":"You can withdraw the contributions you made to Roth IRA tax free. Any withdrawals from Roth IRA count first towards the contributions, then conversions, and only then towards the gains which are taxable. You can also withdraw up to $10000 of the taxable portion penalty free (from either the Traditional IRA or the Roth IRA, or the combination of both) if it is applied towards the purchase of your first primary residence (i.e.: you don't own a place yet, and you're buying your first home, which will become your primary residence). That said, however, I cannot see how you can buy a $250K house. You didn't say anything about your income, but just the cash needed for the down-payment will essentially leave you naked and broke. Consider what happens if you have an emergency, out of a job for a couple of months, or something else of that kind. It is generally advised to have enough cash liquid savings to keep you afloat for at least half a year (including mortgage payments, necessities and whatever expenses you need to spend to get back on track - job searching, medical, moving, etc). It doesn't look like you're anywhere near that. Remember, many bankruptcies are happening because of the cash-flow problem, not the actual ability to repay debts on the long run."}
{"question":"What is the correct pronunciation of CAGR?","answer":"I always hear people pronounce it to rhyme with \"bagger\"."}
{"question":"Can housing prices rise faster than incomes in the long run? ","answer":"In a strictly mathematical sense, no. Or rather, it depends what 'long run' means.  Say today the home average is $200K, and payment is $900\/mo. The $900 today happens to be about 20% of the median US monthly income (which is approximately $54,000\/yr). Housing rises 4%\/yr, income 3%\/yr. In 100 years (long enough?) the house costs $10M but incomes are 'only' $1.03M\/yr, and the mortgage, even at the same rate is $45K\/month, or, to be clear, it rose to 52% of monthly income.  My observation is that, long term, the median home costs what 25% of median income will support, in terms of the mortgage after downpayment. Long term. That means that if you graph this, you'll see trends above and below the long term line. You'll see a 25 year bubble form starting in the late 80's as rates dropped from near 18% to the Sub-4% in the early 00s. But once you normalize it to percent of income to pay the loan, much of the bubble is flattened out. At 18%, $1500\/mo bought you a $100K mortgage, but at 3.5%, it bought $335K. This is in absolute dollars, wages also rose during that time. I am just clarifying how rates distort the long term trends and create the short term anomalies."}
{"question":"Can I Accept Gold?","answer":"Yes. \"There is, ...no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and\/or services.\" Taken from the US Department of the Treasury."}
{"question":"The Benefits\/Disadvantages of using a credit card","answer":"In the UK, using a credit card adds a layer of protection for consumers. If something goes wrong or you bought something that was actually a scam, if you inform the credit card company with the necessary documents they  will typically clear the balance for that purchase (essentially the burden of 'debt' is passed to them and they themselves will have to chase up the necessary people). Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act  I personally use my credit card when buying anything one would consider as  \"consumer spending\" (tvs, furniture ect). I then pay off the credit card immediately. This gives me the normal benefits of the credit card (if you get cashback or points) PLUS the additional consumer credit protection on all my purchases.  This, in my opinion is the most effective way of using your credit card."}
{"question":"What is the purpose of property tax?","answer":"Governments only have a few ways to get income: tax income, tax consumption, tax property (cars & boats), tax real estate, or tax services (hotel & meals). The National, state, county, city, and town taxing authorities determine what is taxed and what the rate will be to get enough money to run their share of the government. In general the taxing of real estate is done by the local government, but the ability to tax real estate is granted to them by the state. In the United States the local government decides, generally through a public hearing, what the rate will be. You can usually determine the current rate and tax value of the home prior to purchase. Though some jurisdictions limit the annual growth of value of the property, and then catch it up when the property is sold. That information is also in  public records.   All taxes are used to build roads, pay for public safety, schools, libraries, parks.. the list is very long. Failure to pay the tax will result in a lien on the property, which can result in your losing the property in a tax sale.  Most of the time the bank or mortgage company insists that your monthly payment to them includes the monthly portion of the estimated property tax, and the fire insurance on the property. This is called escrow. This makes sure the money is available when the tax is due. In some places is is paid yearly, on other places every six months. With an escrow account the bank will send the money to the government or insurance company. Here is the big secret: you have been indirectly paying property tax. The owner of the apartment , townhouse, or home you have been renting has been paying the tax from your monthly payment to them."}
{"question":"Are cashiers required to check a credit card for a signature in the U.S.?","answer":"So my wife was at work today and got yelled at by both a cop and her managers for simply LOOKING at the card. I don't understand I also work in retail and of course I must see the card to ensure it is a real card, it is a very strict policy that we must have a valid physical card to run any credit\/debit transactions. People put skimmers everywhere you use your card and can pick up the info off the strip and put it onto another card and use it without you noticing right away. With the right equipment they can put their name on it or the name on their fake I.d. so the only red flag would be them trying to use several different cards"}
{"question":"Working out if I should be registered as self-employed in the UK","answer":"As 'anonymous' already mentioned, I think the correct answer is to go see an accountant. That said, if you are already have to fill in a tax return anyway (ie, you're already a high rate taxpayer) then I don't see why it should be an issue if you just told HMRC of your additional profit via your tax return. I never was in the situation of being employed with a side business in the UK, only either\/or, but my understanding is that registering as self employed is probably more suitable for someone who doesn't PAYE already. I might be wrong on this as I haven't lived in the UK for a couple of years but an accountant would know the answer. Of course in either case, make sure that you keep each an every scrap of paper to do with your side business."}
{"question":"How often do typical investors really lose money?","answer":"I'll just add this: In the best hedge funds and proprietary trading funds, stock selection is approached very scientifically in order to minimize losses\/maximize gains. Researchers think of a trading idea and carefully test it to see which methods of stock selection work and how well, and finally they combine them. Every day researchers update their models based on the past performance of each indicator.  All this is just too much work to be done manually. Firms use machine learning methods to understand markets. They try to figure out what is normal, what did not happen correctly at a specific time, what will happen in future. For instance, they use deep learning networks to look at unlabeled data, and figure out what is normal and what is not. These networks can analyze an unstructured haystack of noise, and separate out the signal. This is very relevant to finance and markets because finding the patterns and anomalies in market data has been the bread and butter of traders for decades. Deep learning networks give us applications like feature learning. By 'features,' I'm referring to certain attributes in data that indicate an event. By anticipating them, we can help predict future price movements. New technology is allowing us to break new ground in managing risk, to be a-typical and manage risk in ever-improving ways. It's the responsibility of every trader, whether working for themselves or others, to take advantage of this technology to improve the collective investing experience. I care very deeply about this. I have many close friends, in the finance world and without, who have lost large amounts of money to poor trade tools and lack of transparency."}
{"question":"Why are credit cards preferred in the US?","answer":"There are several reasons why credit cards are popular in the US: On the other hand, debit cards do not have any of these going for them.  A debit card doesn't make much money for the bank unless you overdraw or something, so banks don't have incentive to push you to use them as much.  As a result they don't offer rewards other benefits. Some people say the ability to spend more than you have is a downside of a credit card.  But it's really an upside.  The behavior of doing that when it isn't needed is bad, but that's not the card's fault, it's the users'.  You can get a credit card with a very small limit if this is an issue for you. The question I find interesting is why debit cards are more popular in your home country.  I can't think of any advantage they offer besides free cash back.  But most people in the US don't use cash much either.  I have to think in your home country the banks have a different revenue model or perhaps your country isn't as eager to offer tons of easy credit to everyone as the US is."}
{"question":"Working for recruiter on W-2 vs. working for client on 1099?","answer":"The tax savings of being 1099 can be significant.  It depends on your salary, and what you can deduct.  You may want to consult with an accountant.   The social security tax, for the self employed, is 12.4% of profit not on revenue.  If you can write off more than half of the income as expenses then you could be paying less than a w-2 employee. Also you might make a higher salary as a 1099, it is rare the offer the same compensation for a W-2 as a 1099 as the former has higher expenses for the employer. It is hard to know without actual numbers, actual expected expense deductions and so forth.  Which is why I would suggest consulting with an accountant.  You may want to talk to one in the state where he will be working rather than where you live now."}
{"question":"Super-generic mutual fund type","answer":"Since you already have twice your target in that emergency fund, putting that overage to work is a good idea. The impression that I get is that you'd still like to stay on the safe side. What you're looking for is a Balanced Fund.  In a balanced fund the managers invest in both stocks and bonds (and cash). Since you have that diversification between those two asset classes, their returns tend to be much less volatile than other funds. Also, because of their intended audience and the traditions from that class of funds' long history, they tend to invest somewhat more conservatively in both asset classes.  There are two general types of balanced funds: Conservative Allocation funds and Moderate Allocation funds. Conservative allocation funds invest in more fixed income than equity (the classic mix is 60% bonds, 40% stocks). Moderate allocation funds invest in more equity than fixed income (classic mix: 40% bonds, 60% stocks). A good pair of funds that are similar but exemplify the difference between conservative allocation and moderate allocation are Vanguard's Wellesley Income Fund (VWINX) for the former and Vanguard's Wellington Fund (VWELX) for the latter. (Disclaimer: though both funds are broadly considered excellent, this is not a recommendation.) Good luck sorting this out!"}
{"question":"Why would you elect to apply a refund to next year's tax bill?","answer":"The refund may offset your liability for the next year, especially if you are a Schedule \"C\" filer.  By having your refund applied to the coming year's taxes you are building a 'protection' against a potentially high liability if you were planning to sell a building that was a commercial building and would have Capital Gains. Or you sold stock at a profit that would also put you in the Capital Gain area.  You won a large sum in a lottery, the refund could cushion a bit of the tax. In short, if you think you will have a tax liability in the current year then on the tax return you are filing for the year that just past, it may be to your benefit to apply the refund.  If you owe money  from a prior year, the refund will not be sent to you so you will not be able to roll it forward.    One specific example is you did qualify in the prior year for the ACA.  If in the year you are currently in- before you file your taxes-- you realize that you will have to pay at the end of the current year, then assigning your refund will pay part or all of the liability. Keep in mind that the 'tax' imposed due to ACA is only collected from your refunds.  If you keep having a liability to pay  or have no refunds due to you, the liability is not collected from you."}
{"question":"Pay off car loan entirely or leave $1 until the end of the loan period?","answer":"If I were you, I would pay off the car loan today. You already have an excellent credit score.  Practically speaking, there is no difference between a 750 score and an 850 score; you are already eligible for the best loan rates.  The fact that you are continuing to use 5 credit cards and that you still have a mortgage tells me that this car loan will have a negligible impact on your score (and your life). By the way, if you had told me that your score was low, I would still tell you to pay off the loan, but for a different reason.  In that case, I would tell you to stop worrying about your score, and start getting your financial life in order by eliminating debt.  Take care of your finances by reducing the amount of debt in your life, and the score will take care of itself.  I realize that the financial industry stresses the importance of a high score, but they are also the ones that sell you the debt necessary to obtain the high score."}
{"question":"Why do people buy insurance even if they have the means to overcome the loss?","answer":"Insurance is a funny product.  As you said, it is a little like gambling.  When I buy term life insurance, I'm essentially betting that I'm going to die within the next 20 years, and the insurance company is betting that I'm not.  I'm hoping to lose that bet! Besides all of the reasons that other answers mentioned, I think part of the reason is psychological.  As in my example, I'm setting up a kind of a win-win situation for myself here.  Let's go with car insurance, a less-morbid example than my first example.  If I don't get into a car accident, great!  If I do get into a car accident, then the traumatic event is at least offset by the fact that the financial impact to me is minimal.  Win-win."}
{"question":"Why is the fractional-reserve banking not a Ponzi scheme? ","answer":"It is possible to pay down debt (including interest) without issuing new debt money to pay for it. I think this is the heart of your question. Let me present a highly contrived example in which society has four people and one bank. Here is a bank with $100 in initial deposits. Total money supply in this society is $100. (We assume there is no currency circulating, since you're interested in debt money.) This bank lends out $90 to Bob at 1 year maturity and 10% APR. Bob spends this $90 with Charlie to buy raw materials. Charlie deposits $90 in the bank. The money supply just grew from $100 to $190. Bob does something with the raw materials and adds some kind of value, eventually selling the finished goods for $110. In our little silly economy, the only people who have money are Adam and Charlie, so we must assume that between the two of them they buy $110 worth of goods from Bob. Let's say Adam buys $60 and Charlie buys $50 -- the actual amounts don't matter. Bob deposits this money at the bank. Still $190 of money supply. At the end of 1 year, Bob instructs the bank to transfer payment from his deposit account to his loan account. The bank wipes clean his debt and the money remaining in Bob's account represents his return. Who is this David guy? He's the owner of the bank. He grosses $9 in interest from the loan to Bob, and he pays $5 to Adam as interest on Adam's deposit. The remaining $4 is the profit to the bank's owner. Money supply decreased from $190 to $100 after Bob pays off his loan. I realized after writing this, the one thing I left out is, \"where does Adam get $100 to start with?\" Presumably Adam starts off with some kind of currency, either fiat money or commodity money. (IOW, debt money can't be created out of nothing, it has to be expanded on top of some kind of currency.)"}
{"question":"Health insurance deduction on schedule C if also full time employee with w2?","answer":"Checkout the worksheet on page 20 of Pub 535.  Also the text starting in the last half of the third column of page 18 onward. https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/p535.pdf The fact that you get a W-2 is irrelevant as far as I can see.  Your self-employment business has to meet some criteria (such as being profitable) and the plan needs to be provided through your own business (although if you're sole proprietor filing on Schedule C, it looks like having it in your own name does the trick).  Check the publication for all of the rules. There is this exception that would prevent many people with full-time jobs on W-2 from taking the deduction: Other coverage. You cannot take the deduc\u00adtion for any month you were eligible to partici\u00adpate in any employer (including your spouse's) subsidized health plan at any time during that month, even if you did not actually participate. In addition, if you were eligible for any month or part of a month to participate in any subsidized health plan maintained by the employer of ei\u00adther your dependent or your child who was un\u00adder age 27 at the end of 2014, do not use amounts paid for coverage for that month to fig\u00adure the deduction. (Pages 20-21).  Sounds like in your case, though, this doesn't apply. (Although your original question doesn't mention a spouse, which might be relevant to the rule if you have one and he\/she works.) The publication should help.  If still in doubt, you'll probably need a CPA or other professional to assess your individual situation."}
{"question":"Why isn't money spent on necessities deductible from your taxes?","answer":"Another way to look at it is that deductibles are intended as incentives or subsidies to particular industries (in this case the healthcare industry). Guaranteeing a decent standard of living and making sure everybody can meet the costs of \"necessities\" can be achieved much more easily by a low tax rate on the first XXX$ of income and\/or generic welfare benefits rather than any measure focused on making healthcare, food or whatnot cheaper or free under certain conditions. Incidentally, many countries do have different forms of benefits or tax breaks for accommodation-related expenses."}
{"question":"How should I handle student loans when leaving University and trying to buy a house?","answer":"Concise answers to your questions: Depends on the loan and the bank; when you \"accelerate\" repayment of a loan by applying a pre-payment balance to the principal, your monthly payment may be reduced. However, standard practice for most loan types is that the repayment schedule will be accelerated; you'll pay no less each month, but you'll pay it off sooner. I can neither confirm nor deny that an internship counts as job experience in the field for the purpose of mortgage lending. It sounds logical, especially if it were a paid internship (in which case you'd just call it a \"job\"), but I can't be sure as I don't know of anyone who got a mortgage without accruing the necessary job experience post-graduation. A loan officer will be happy to talk to you and answer specific questions, but if you go in today, with no credit history (the student loan probably hasn't even entered repayment) and a lot of unknowns (an offer can be rescinded, for instance), you are virtually certain to be denied a mortgage. The bank is going to want evidence that you will make good on the debt you have over time. One $10,000 payment on the loan, though significant, is just one payment as far as your credit history (and credit score) is concerned. Now, a few more reality checks: $70k\/yr is not what you'll be bringing home. As a single person without dependents, you'll be taxed at the highest possible withholdings rate. Your effective tax rate on $70k, depending on the state in which you live, can be as high as 30% (including all payroll\/SS taxes, for a 1099 earner and\/or an employee in a state with an income tax), so you're actually only bringing home 42k\/yr, or about $1,600\/paycheck if you're paid biweekly. To that, add a decent chunk for your group healthcare plan (which, as of 2014, you will be required to buy, or else pay another $2500 - effectively another 3% of gross earnings - in taxes). And even now with your first job, you should be at least trying to save up a decent chunk o' change in a 401k or IRA as a retirement nest egg. That student loan, beginning about 6 months after you leave school, will cost you about $555\/mo in monthly payments for the next 10 years (if it's all Stafford loans with a 50\/50 split between sub\/unsub; that could be as much as $600\/mo for all-unsub Stafford, or $700 or more for private loans). If you were going to pay all that back in two years, you're looking at paying a ballpark of $2500\/mo leaving just $700 to pay all your bills and expenses each month. With a 3-year payoff plan, you're turning around one of your two paychecks every month to the student loan servicer, which for a bachelor is doable but still rather tight. Your mortgage payment isn't the only payment you will make on your house. If you get an FHA loan with 3.5% down, the lender will demand PMI. The city\/county will likely levy a property tax on the assessed value of land and building. The lender may require that you purchase home insurance with minimum acceptable coverage limits and deductibles. All of these will be paid into escrow accounts, managed by your lending bank, from a single check you send them monthly. I pay all of these, in a state (Texas) that gets its primary income from sales and property tax instead of income, and my monthly payment isn't quite double the simple P&I. Once you have the house, you'll want to fill the house. Nice bed: probably $1500 between mattress and frame for a nice big queen you can stretch out on (and have lady friends over). Nice couch: $1000. TV: call it $500. That's probably the bare minimum you'll want to buy to replace what you lived through college with (you'll have somewhere to eat and sleep other than the floor of your new home), and we're already talking almost a month's salary, or payments of up to 10% of your monthly take-home pay over a year on a couple of store credit cards. Plates, cookware, etc just keeps bumping this up. Yes, they're (theoretically) all one-time costs, but they're things you need, and things you may not have if you've been living in dorms and eating in dining halls all through college. The house you buy now is likely to be a \"starter\", maybe 3bed\/2bath and 1600 sqft at the upper end (they sell em as small as 2bd\/1bt 1100sqft). It will support a spouse and 2 kids, but by that point you'll be bursting at the seams. What happens if your future spouse had the same idea of buying a house early while rates were low? The cost of buying a house may be as little as 3.5% down and a few hundred more in advance escrow and a couple other fees the seller can't pay for you. The cost of selling the same house is likely to include all the costs you made the seller pay when you bought it, because you'll be selling to someone in the same position you're in now. I didn't know it at the time I bought my house, but I paid about $5,000 to get into it (3.5% down and 6 months' escrow up front), while the sellers paid over $10,000 to get out (the owner got married to another homeowner, and they ended up selling both houses to move out of town; I don't even know what kind of bath they took on the house we weren't involved with). I graduated in 2005. I didn't buy my first house until I was married and pretty much well-settled, in 2011 (and yes, we were looking because mortgage rates were at rock bottom). We really lucked out in terms of a home that, if we want to or have to, we can live in for the rest of our lives (only 1700sqft, but it's officially a 4\/2 with a spare room, and a downstairs master suite and nursery\/office, so when we're old and decrepit we can pretty much live downstairs). I would seriously recommend that you do the same, even if by doing so you miss out on the absolute best interest rates. Last example: let's say, hypothetically, that you bite at current interest rates, and lock in a rate just above prime at 4%, 3.5% down, seller pays closing, but then in two years you get married, change jobs and have to move. Let's further suppose an alternate reality in which, after two years of living in an apartment, all the same life changes happen and you are now shopping for your first house having been pre-approved at 5%. That one percentage point savings by buying now, on a house in the $200k range, is worth about $120\/mo or about $1440\/yr off of your P&I payment ($921.42 on a $200,000 home with a 30-year term). Not chump change (over 30 years if you had been that lucky, it's $43000), but it's less than 5% of your take-home pay (month-to-month or annually). However, when you move in two years, the buyer's probably going to want the same deal you got - seller pays closing - because that's the market level you bought in to (low-priced starters for first-time homebuyers). That's a 3% commission for both agents, 1% origination, 0.5%-1% guarantor, and various fixed fees (title etc). Assuming the value of the house hasn't changed, let's call total selling costs 8% of the house value of $200k (which is probably low); that's $16,000 in seller's costs. Again, assuming home value didn't change and that you got an FHA loan requiring only 3.5% down, your down payment ($7k) plus principal paid (about another $7k; 6936.27 to be exact) only covers $14k of those costs. You're now in the hole $2,000, and you still have to come up with your next home's down payment.  With all other things being equal, in order to get back to where you were in net worth terms before you bought the house (meaning $7,000 cash in the bank after selling it), you would need to stay in the house for 4 and a half years to accumulate the $16,000 in equity through principal payments. That leaves you with your original $7,000 down payment returned to you in cash, and you're even in accounting terms (which means in finance terms you're behind; that $7,000 invested at 3% historical average rate of inflation would have earned you about $800 in those four years, meaning you need to stick around about 5.5 years before you \"break even\" in TVM terms). For this reason, I would say that you should be very cautious when buying your first home; it may very well be the last one you'll ever buy. Whether that's because you made good choices or bad is up to you."}
{"question":"Who owned my shares before me?","answer":"The answer in theory is yes. The answer in reality is no. Let me explain: Combine all of these lists and perhaps you could get a complete record."}
{"question":"Personal credit card for business expenses","answer":"You should be careful about mingling your personal money and that of the business, even if it is a sole prop right now.  It is a good habit to keep separate business and personal bank\/credit accounts just so that when you change to an LLC, it is simpler for you to separate what belongs to the company and what is yours personally.  What you're doing makes it more difficult (although only marginally so) to itemize business deductions that were paid with an ostensibly personal credit account.  The better habit to get into now is keeping that distinct separation between personal and business. That being said, there's nothing illegal in what you're doing, but it would make an accountant cringe, that's for sure. (chuckle) Hope this helps. Good luck!"}
{"question":"What are the ins\/outs of writing-off part of one's rent for working at home?","answer":"Be ruthlessly meticulous about the IRS regulations for deducting a home office.  If it's allowed, it's allowed."}
{"question":"ADR vs Ordinary shares","answer":"There are basically two different markets for ADRs and ordinary shares. 1) The American market, 2) the \"local\" market. The following is not true for most stocks in \"developed\" markets. But it is often true that the American market (for ADRs) is far more liquid than the local market for ordinary shares of a developing country. For instance, there was a time when the ADRs of Telmex (Telefonos of Mexico) was the fifth most traded stock in the world, after Exxon (before its merger with Mobil), IBM, Microsoft, and A T&T, meaning that it was easy to trade with low fees on the NYSE. It was much harder and slower to buy the local shares of Telmex in Mexico, on the Mexican exchange. Also, the accompanying currency transactions were harder to execute with the ord, because you have to settle in local currency and pay an FX commission. With the ADR, the exchange rate is \"built\" into the (dollar) price, and you settle in dollars."}
{"question":"How to prevent myself from buying things I don't want","answer":"Make a deal with yourself. You can buy the things that you want, but only after you've read three books on behavioral economics. You should probably start first with Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, which will help you understand why the discount makes you covet the products even more than you would without it. Then find and read two more high-quality books from the same genre.  If you gain self-awareness from this, you will begin to understand why you are conflicted (hint: you really don't want the things you think you do). And you probably won't purchase anything in spite of the fact that you kept the first part of the bargain."}
{"question":"Is it possible to make money by getting a mortgage?","answer":"In the Netherlands its cheaper in some cases to have a mortgage then to own a house.   Example: If you own a house you pay more taxes (because you own something expensive you have to pay \"eigendoms belasting\" < owners tax). So if you instead of owning the house,  keep the mortgage low and only pay the mortgage interest, the interest will be much lower then the tax you would have to pay. The sweet spot (for lowest interest and not having to pay the owners tax) is different for any mortgage but by grandparents use this method and they pay a really small amount for a rather large house."}
{"question":"Company stock listed in multiple exchanges?","answer":"Keep in mind that the exchanges do not hold, buy, or sell the stock - people (or funds) do.  All the exchange does is facilitate the sale of stock from one entity to another. So the shares outstanding (and market cap) for a company are set regardless of how many exchanges the stock is listed on.  The company typically indicates the number of shares outstanding in its financial statements.  I do not know if the exchange itself keeps track of shares outstanding; it may just report whatever the company publishes. So theoretically, if you wanted to buy all of the stock of a company, you could do it all in one exchange, provided that all the existing holders of the stock were willing to sell you their shares.  There are many issues with that, though, which I don't think are germane to your question."}
{"question":"When does it make financial sense to take advantage of employer's tuition reimbursement program?","answer":"If you know that you want that advanced degree; And there is a way to have your employer pay for some of it or all of it; And you are reasonably certain that you will not be quitting for X years after completing the degree; Then it is financially sound to consider having the company pay for it. If you are interested in finding out if an advanced degree in that field is possible\/feasible for you; but you aren't 100% sure; And it is possible for your company to pay for the first few classes; then it is financially sound to consider having them pay for the first semesters worth of classes. The key is to determine if the company has a requirement that you must complete the degree, or you will owe them the money. In many cases you are not committed to having them pay for all semesters. I have known employees who used the company to pay for the early classes, then paid for the last few on their own.  Keep in mind that most employers only pay you for the classes that you have good grades; they require you to submit paperwork before the semester; but don't pay you back until after the semester. Because of a rolling time frame you can protect yourself by keeping in reserve the maximum amount that you would have to repay the employer if you quit. For the companies I have worked for you only had to stay an extra year, you would only have owed them for that last year if you quit. Keeping a years tuition in reserve allows you to mitigate the risk of having to quit. If the question is about risk, then hedging make sense."}
{"question":"Clear example of credit card balance 55 days interest-free \"trick\"?","answer":"Well, I answered a very similar question \"Credit card payment date\" where I showed that for a normal cycle, the average charge isn't due for 40 days. The range is 35-55, so if you want to feel good about the float just charge everything the day after the cycle closes, and nothing else the rest of the month. Why is this so interesting? It's no trick, and no secret.  By the way, this isn't likely to be of any use when you're buying gas, groceries, or normal purchases. But, I suppose if you have a large purchase, say a big TV, $3000, this will buy you extra time to pay. It would be remiss of me to not clearly state that anyone who needs to take advantage of this \"trick\" is the same person who probably shouldn't use credit cards at all. Those who use cards are best served by charging what they can afford to pay at that moment and not base today's charges on what paychecks will come in by the due date of the credit card bill."}
{"question":"Why should the P\/E ratio of a growth stock match its percentage earnings growth rate?","answer":"Your observation is mostly right, that 1 is a the number around which this varies.  You are actually referencing PEG, P\/E to Growth ratio, which is a common benchmark to use to evaluate a stock. The article I link to provides more discussion."}
{"question":"Effect on Bond asset allocation if Equity markets crash?","answer":"I agree that the cause of the crash can make a huge difference in the effect on the bond market. Here's a few other possibilities: All that to say that there's no definitive answer as to how the bond market will respond to an equity crash.  Bonds are much more highly correlated to equities lately, but that could be due to much lower interest rates pushing more of the risk of bonds to the credit worthiness of the issuer, increasing correlation."}
{"question":"Why would a bank need to accept deposits from private clients if it can just borrow from the Federal Reserve?","answer":"Central Banks are essentially a cartel, designed to let banks in general borrow money from depositors at relatively low interest rates.  They do this in two ways:  By reassuring depositors that momentary cash flow problems at banks will not result in banks failing, they lower the interest rates that depositors demand.  And by imposing strict regulations on banks that are borrowing from depositors at high interest rates.  (People who move money to the banks offering the highest interest rates are especially likely to participate in bank runs.) Borrowing \"too much\" from the Central Bank is considered to be a sign of a bank that is too weak to attract deposits from depositors at \"reasonable\" interest rates. If a bank borrows \"too much\" (as a percentage of the bank's assets) from the Central Bank, the bank regulators will subject the bank to heavy scrutiny.  If the bank fails to find ways to reduce its borrowing from the Central Bank, the bank regulators are likely to steal the bank from its shareholders, and sell the bank to a \"stronger\" bank that pays lower interest rates."}
{"question":"Calculating Future Value: Initial deposit and recurring deposits of a fixed but different Value","answer":"If I is the initial deposit, P the periodic deposit, r the rent per period, n the number of periods, and F the final value, than we can combine two formulas into one to get the following answer: F = I*(1+r)n + P*[(1+r)n-1]\/r In this case, you get V = 1000*(1.05)20 + 100*[(1.05)20-1]\/0.05 = 5959.89 USD. Note that the actual final value may be lower because of rounding errors."}
{"question":"Is it accurate to say that if I was to trade something, my probability of success can't be worse than random?","answer":"The previous answers make valid points regarding the risks, and why you can't reasonably compare trading for profit\/loss to a roll of the die. This answer looks at the math instead. Your assumption: I have an equal probability to make a profit or a loss. Is incorrect, for the reasons stated in other answers. However, the answer to your question: Can I also assume that probabilistically speaking, a trader cannot do worst than random? Is \"yes\". But only because the question is flawed. Consequently it's throwing people in all directions with their answers. But quite simply, in a truly random environment the worst case scenario, no matter how improbable, is that you lose over and over again until you have nothing left. This can happen in sequential rolls of the dice AND in trading securities\/bonds\/whatever. You could guess wrong for every roll of the die AND all of your stock picks could become worthless. Both outcomes result in $0 (assuming you do not gamble with credit). Tell me, which $0 is \"worse\"? Given the infinite number of plays that \"random\" implies, the chance of losing your entire bankroll exists in both scenarios, and that is enough by itself to make neither option \"worse\" than the other. Of course, the opposite is also true. You could only pick winners, with an unlimited upside potential, but again that could happen with either dice rolls or stock picks. It's just highly improbable. 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? Nope. This is where it all falls apart. Just because your chances of losing it all are similarly improbable, does not make you more likely to win with one method or the other. Regression to the mean, when given infinite, truly random outcomes, makes it impossible to \"have an edge\". Also, \"probabilistically\" isn't a word, but \"probably\" is."}
{"question":"2016, USA banks with low\/no fee for incoming OVERSEAS USD wire transfers? ","answer":"Ally Bank $0 - from their website (emphasis mine): To receive a wire transfer from a non-U.S. bank: Incoming wire transfers from a non-US bank are processed by our   designated receiving bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. You'll need to provide the following information to the person or   business sending the wire transfer to you: Receiving Bank: JP Morgan   Chase Bank, N.A. ABA\/Routing Number: 021000021 Address: 1 Chase   Manhattan PLZ, New York, NY 10005 SWIFT Code or Bank Identification   Code: CHASUS33 Beneficiary Account Number: 802904391 Beneficiary Name:   List 'Ally Bank' since the wire is being processed by JP Morgan Chase   Bank, N.A. Further Credit: Your Ally Bank Account Number and your name   as it appears on your Ally Bank account. Note: We won't charge you to receive a wire transfer into your Ally   account. https:\/\/www.ally.com\/help\/search.html?term=SWIFT&console=false&context=Help&domain=www.ally.com&section=Help+%26+FAQs Alliant Credit Union $0 - from their website (emphasis mine): Direct international wire transfers  International wire transfers are   handled through our correspondent bank for processing. International   wires can take up to 10 business days to be credited to the receiving   institution. Funds should be wired to: Northern Trust ABA# 071000152 \"Note: US   Banks do not use SWIFT codes. This ABA # is used in place of SWIFT   codes for US Banks.\" 50 South La Salle Street, Chicago, IL 60603 For further credit: Alliant Credit Union Account Number 35101804 11545   W. Touhy Avenue, Chicago, IL 60666 For final credit: Member\u2019s name and complete address (No P.O. Box)   Member\u2019s 14-digit account number Destination of funds (checking,   savings or loan number)  Incoming wire transfers: Wire transfers received Monday - Friday,   7:00am - 3:00pm, CT, will be credited to your account the same day.   Wire transfers received after 3:00pm, CT, Monday - Friday and on the   weekend will be credited the next business day. Fees:   We do not charge a fee to receive incoming wire funds. However, the financial institution wiring the funds may charge for this   service. http:\/\/www.alliantcreditunion.org\/help\/receiving-a-wire-transfer-to-your-alliant-account"}
{"question":"If I believe a stock is going to fall, what options do I have to invest on this?","answer":"Aganju has mentioned put options, which are one good possibility. I would suggest considering an even easier strategy: short selling.  Technically you are borrowing the stock from someone and selling it.  At some point you repurchase the stock to return to the lender (\"covering your short\").  If the stock price has fallen, then when you repurchase it, it will be cheaper and you keep the profit. Short selling sounds complicated but it's actually very easy--your broker takes care of all the details.  Just go to your brokerage and click \"sell\" or \"sell short.\"  You can use a market or limit order just like you were selling something you own.  When it sells, you are done.  The money gets credited to your account.  At some point (after the price falls) you should repurchase it so you don't have a negative position any more, but your brokerage isn't going to hassle you for this unless you bought a lot and the stock price starts rising.  There will be limits on how much you can short, depending on how much money is in your account.  Some stocks (distressed and small stocks) may sometimes be hard to short, meaning your broker will charge you a kind of interest and\/or may not be able to complete your transaction. You will need a margin account (a type of brokerage account) to either use options or short sell.  They are easy to come by, though. Note that for a given amount of starting money in your account, puts can give you a much more dramatic gain if the stock price falls.  But they can (and often do) expire worthless, causing you to lose all money you have spent on them.  If you want to maximize how much you make, use puts.  Otherwise I'd short sell. About IPOs, it depends on what you mean.  If the IPO has just completed and you want to bet that the share price will fall, either puts or short selling will work.  Before an IPO you can't short sell and I doubt you would be able to buy an option either. Foreign stocks?  Depends on whether there is an ADR for them that trades on the domestic market and on the details of your brokerage account.  Let me put it this way, if you can buy it, you can short sell it."}
{"question":"How are long-term\/short-term capital gains tax calculated on restricted stock?","answer":"Is the Grant Date or the Vest Date used when determining the 12-month cutoff for long-term and short-term capital gains? You don't actually acquire the stock until it's vested, so that is the date and price used to determine your cost basis and short-term\/long-term gain\/loss.  The grant date really has no tax bearing. If you held the stock (time between vesting and sale) for more than one year you will owe long-term CG tax, if less than one year you will owe short-term CG tax."}
{"question":"I have $10,000 sitting in an account making around $1 per month interest, what are some better options? ","answer":"There are many considerations before deciding on the best place for your funds: How liquid do you need the funds to be?   If this is for an emergency fund I would keep at least some in an account that you have instant access to,  What is your risk (volatility) tolerance? Would you be OK with the value dropping by as much as 30% in a year knowing that over time you'll probably earn 8-12% on it?  If not, then equity funds or other stock investments are probably not the best move for you. Do you need the funds now or are they for long-term (retirement) savings? Are you eligible to fund an IRA? That would defer your taxes until you withdraw the funds from the account, but there are age restrictions that you must heed to avoid penalties. Are CDs a good idea? They do pay decent interest, but in return for that you lock up your funds for a set period of time.  All that to say that there are many facets to determining the best place for your funds.  If you provide more specifics you can get a more specific answer."}
{"question":"Historically how do share prices perform after mass selling after an employee reward scheme?","answer":"Like others have already said, it may cause an immediate dip due to a large and sudden move in shares for that particular stock. However, if there is nothing else affecting the company's financials and investors perceive no other risks, it will probably bounce back a bit, but not back to the full value before the shares were issued. Why? Whenever a company issues more stock, the new shares dilute the value of the current shares outstanding, simply because there are now more shares of that stock trading on the market; the Earnings Per Share (EPS) Ratio will drop since the same profit and company value has to be spread across more shares. Example:  If a company is valued at $100 dollars and they have 25 shares outstanding, then the EPS ratio equates to $4 per share (100\/25 = 4).  If the company then issues more shares (stock to employees who sell or keep them), let's say 25 more shares, then shares outstanding increase to 50, but the company's value still remains at $100 dollars. EPS now equates to $2 per share (100\/50 = 2). Now, sometimes when shareholders (especially employees...and especially employees who just received them) suddenly all sell their shares, this causes a micro-panic in the market because investors believe the employees know something bad about the company that they don't. Other common shareholders then want to dump their holdings for fear of impending collapse in the company. This could cause the share price to dip a bit below the new diluted value, but again if no real, immediate risks exist, the price should go back up to the new, diluted value. Example 2: If EPS was at $4 before issuing more stock, and then dropped to $2 after issuing new stock, the micro-panic may cause the EPS to drop below $2 and then soon rebound back to $2 or more when investors realize no actual risk exists. After the dilution phase plays out, the EPS could actually even go above the pre-issuing value of $4 because investors may believe that since more stock was issued due to good profits, more profits may ensue. Hope that helps!"}
{"question":"Explanation on Warren Buffett's famous quote","answer":"In the short term the market is a popularity contest In the short run which in value investing time can extend even to many years, an equity is subject to the vicissitudes of the whims by every scale of panic and elation. This can be seen by examining the daily chart of any large cap equity in the US.  Even such large holdings can be affected by any set of fear and greed in the market and in the subset of traders trading the equity. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience high variance in the short rurn. in the long term [the stock market] is a weighing machine In the long run which in value investing time can extend to even multiple decades, an equity is more or less subject only to the variance of the underlying value. This can be seen by examining the annual chart of even the smallest cap equities over decades.  An equity over such time periods is almost exclusively affected by its changes in value. Quantitatively, this statement means that equities experience low variance in the long run."}
{"question":"Would I qualify for a USDA loan?","answer":"Just general advice but you should pay off your credit cards and car loans before buying a house. Or you may be able to add some extra on to the mortgage to pay off your credit card and car debt right away. Credit card interest rates can be ten times the interest rates on mortgages and car loans are not far behind. The sooner you get them paid off completely the sooner you will have enough money for mortgage payments."}
{"question":"Where can I trade FX spot options, other than saxobank.com? ","answer":"If you have a big pocket there are quite a few.. not sure if they take us clients though. Vcap, Barclays, Icap, Fixi, Fc Stone, Ikon.. Then there are probably a few banks that have x options also but i don't know if a private investor can trade them. A few im not sure if they have fx options or if they are \"good\": GFTFOREX, Gain capital, XTB, hmslux, Ifx Markets, Alpari, us.etrade.com Betonmarkets might be something if you are interested in \"exotic options\" maybe?"}
{"question":"If you want to trade an equity that reflects changes in VIX, what is a good proxy for it?","answer":"There is no good proxy for VIX, because it is a completely made-up value. Most listed options trade on an underlying security.  I can therefore choose to buy either the stock, or a future or option on that stock.  In this way, the future and option are derivatives in that they derive their value (in part) based on something else, in this case the stock price as of now. VIX is a different entity altogether.  It is based on the volatility of the market, using \"market expectation of near term volatility conveyed by stock index option prices\".  But the FAQ goes on to state that they are adding factors into the formula. So right away there is no one equity\/stock that you can hold that will necessarily match the VIX in any significant way, because it is not directly based on stocks, but indirectly through other options and computations. In effect, therefore, the VIX in indeed only available through its options, and is not observable (tradable) in and of itself."}
{"question":"Forex vs day trading for beginner investor","answer":"This image is an advertisement from this week's Barron's. The broker would want to put himself in the best light, correct?  This shows you that of their current accounts, 53.5% are not profitable. And these guys have the best track record of the list. Also keep in mind that their client base isn't random. The winners tend to stay, so even if it were 50\/50, the 50% of losers might represent many times that number of people who came to the table, lost their money and left."}
{"question":"What is a stock split (reverse split)?","answer":"It was actually a reverse split meaning that every 10 shares you had became 1 share and the price should be 10x higher. - Citigroup in reverse split The chart just accounts for the split. The big dip is Googles way of showing from what price it split from. If you remember before the split the stock was trading around $4-$5 after the reverse split the stock became 10x higher. Just to clear it up a 1:2(1 for 2) split would mean you get 1 share for every 2 shares you have. This is known as a reverse split.  A 2:1(2 for 1) split means you get 2 shares for every 1 share you have. The first number represents the amount of shares you will receive and the second number represents how many shares you will be giving up."}
{"question":"If Bernie Madoff had invested in Berkshire Hathaway, would the ponzi actually have succeeded? ","answer":"I could be wrong, but I doubt that Bernie started out with any intention of defrauding anyone, really.  I suspect it began the first time he hit a quarter when his returns were lower than everyone else's, or at least not as high as he'd promised his investors they'd be, so he fudged the numbers and lied to get past the moment, thinking he'd just make up for it the next quarter.  Only that never happened, and so the lie carried forward and maybe grew as things didn't improve as he expected. It only turned into a ponzi because he wasn't as successful at investing as he was telling his investors he was, and telling the truth would have meant the probability that he would have lost most of his clients as they went elsewhere.  Bernie couldn't admit the truth, so he had to keep up the fiction by actually paying out returns that didn't exist, which required constantly finding new money to cover what he was paying out.  The source of that money turned out to be new investors who were lured in by people already investing with Bernie who told them how great he was as a financial wizard, and they had the checks to prove it. I think this got so far out of hand, and it gradually dragged more and more people in because such things turn into black holes, swallowing up everything that gets close. Had the 2008 financial crisis not hit then Bernie might still be at it.  The rapid downturns in the markets hit many of Bernie's investors with margin calls in other investments they held, so they requested redemptions from him to cover their calls, expecting that all of the money he'd convinced to leave with him really existed.  When he realized he couldn't meet the flood of redemptions, that was when he 'fessed up and the bubble burst. Could he have succeeded by simple investing in Berkshire?  Probably.  But then how many people say that in hindsight about them or Amazon or Google, or any number of other stocks that turned out similarly? (grin)  Taking people's money and parking it all in one stock doesn't make you a genius, and that's how Bernie wanted to be viewed.  To accomplish that, he needed to find the opportunities nobody else saw and be the one to get there first.  Unfortunately his personal crystal ball was wrong, and rather than taking his lumps by admitting it to his investors, his pride and ego led him down a path of deception that I'm sure he had every intention of making right if he could.  The problem was, that moment never came. Keep in mind one thing:  The $64 billion figure everyone cites isn't money that really existed in the first place.  That number is what Bernie claimed his fund was worth, and it is not the amount he actually defrauded people out of.  His actual cash intake was probably somewhere in the $20 billion range over that time.  Everything else beyond that was nothing more than the fictionalized returns he was claiming to get for his clients.  It's what they thought they had in the bank with him, rather than what was really there."}
{"question":"Do I have to pay taxes on income from my website or profits?","answer":"Being a tax professional, my understanding is that the threshold limit is a single limit for all your source(s) of income. Now many people who already draw salary which is liable to tax, develop application for mobile and generate some income. Such income is liable to tax, if along with other income they exceed the threshold limit.  Income will have surely related expenses. And the expenses which are related to earning of the income are allowed to be deducted."}
{"question":"ESPP taxes after relocating from Europe to the United States?","answer":"I would suggest to get an authoritative response from a CPA. In any case it would be for your own benefit to have at least the first couple of years of tax returns prepared by a professional. However, from my own personal experience, in your situation the income should not be regarded as \"US income\" but rather income in your home country. Thus it should not appear on the US tax forms because you were not resident when you had it, it was given to you by your employer (which is X(Europe), not X(USA)), and you should have paid local taxes in your home country on it."}
{"question":"What effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock?","answer":"No, the stock market is not there for speculation on corporate memorabilia.  At its base, it is there for investing in a business, the point of the investment being, of course, to make money.  A (successful) business earns money, and that makes it valuable to its owners since that money can be distributed to them.  Shares of stock are pieces of business ownership, and so are valuable.   If you knew that the business would have profit of $10,000,000 every year, and would distribute that to the owners of each of its 10,000,000 shares each year, you would know to that each share would receive $1 each year.  How much would such a share be worth to you?  If you could instead put money in a bank and get 5% a year back, to get $1 a year back you would have to put $20 into the bank.  So maybe that share of stock is worth about $20 to you.  If somebody offers to sell you such a share for $18, you might buy it; for $23, maybe you pass up the offer. But business is uncertain, and how much profit the business will make is uncertain and will vary through time.  So how much is a share of a real business worth?  This is a much harder call, and people use many different ways to come up with how much they should pay for a share.  Some people probably just think something like \"Apple is a good company making money, I'll buy a share at whatever price it is being offered at right now.\"  Others look at every number available, build models of the company and the economy and the risks, all to estimate what a share might be worth, more or less.  There is no indisputable value for a share of a successful business. So, what effect does a company's earnings have on the price of its stock?  You can only say that for some of the people who might buy or sell shares, higher earnings will, all other thing being equal, have them be willing to spend more to buy it or demand more when selling it.  But how much more is not quantifiable but depends on each person's approach to the problem.  Higher earnings would tend to raise the price of the stock.  Yet there are other factors, such as people who had expected even higher earnings, whose actions would tend to lower the price, and people who are OK with the earnings now, but suspect trouble for the business is appearing on the horizon, whose actions would also tend to lower the price. This is why people say that a stock's price is determined by supply and demand."}
{"question":"Should I pay off my student loan before buying a house?","answer":"It might be a good idea, because later in life if a large expense shows up or an income source disappears, you will only have the mortgage payment, rather than a mortgage AND a student loan payment."}
{"question":"Purpose of having good credit when you are well-off?","answer":"People just love becoming more well-off than they currently are, and one of the ways they do it is with leverage. Leverage requires credit. That desire is not exclusive to people who are not already well-off. For a well-off person who wants to become more well-off by expanding their real estate ventures, paying cash for property is a terrible way to go about it. The same goes for other types of business or market investment. Credit benefits the well-off even more greatly than it benefits the poor or the middle-class."}
{"question":"Why would I choose a 40-Year depreciation instead of the standard 27.5-Year?","answer":"There are specific cases where you are required to use ADS: Required use of ADS.   You must use ADS for the following property. Listed property used 50% or less in a qualified business use. See chapter 5 for information on listed property. Any tangible property used predominantly outside the United States during the year. Any tax-exempt use property. Any tax-exempt bond-financed property. All property used predominantly in a farming business and placed in service in any tax year during which an election not to apply the   uniform capitalization rules to certain farming costs is in effect. Any property imported from a foreign country for which an Executive Order is in effect because the country maintains trade   restrictions or engages in other discriminatory acts. See publication 946. If none of those apply to your property - you may elect ADS. Why would you elect ADS when you're not required to use it? If you can't think of a reason, then don't elect it. For most people the shorter the depreciation period - the more they can deduct (or accumulate in passive losses) each year, and that is usually the desirable case. If you plan on selling in 10 years, keep in mind the depreciation recapture and consider whether the passive losses (offsetting regular income) are worth the extra tax in this case."}
{"question":"Do Square credit card readers allow for personal use?","answer":"My husband used this device at work in an organization\/club that collects dues for fundraisers. The fundraisers are only for the club. So I think that is not business at all. They have no business tax id#, etc? and they use it for personal reasons when collecting money via Cc#'s if this helps you."}
{"question":"Is threatening to close the account a good way to negotiate with the bank?","answer":"To avoid going on and on in the comments I'm going to add this point that seems to be missing from the other answers. \"Banks often offer me deals while negotiating to open an account (since they are under high pressure to open an account)\"   Would these happen to be the regionally advertised account opening deals like a $200 new checking account bonus if you deposit at least $x and leave it for at least 90 days?  This kind of deal is not unique to you.  This is not offered to you because of your unique negotiating ability. You need to understand the authority of the person you're dealing with.  Products are designed in the corporate arm of the bank.  Once a product is ready, it's rolled out to branches to be sold; sometimes with some fancy sign-up bonus.  A checking account is a product, just like an iPhone.  Apple took the headphone jack out of the iPhone 7, no amount of negotiating with the Genius at the Apple store will put it back for you. Vote with your wallet, show the bank you're unhappy by leaving."}
{"question":"Should I wait a few days to sell ESPP Stock?","answer":"An instant 15% profit sounds good to me, so you can't go wrong selling as soon as you are able. Here are a couple other considerations: Tax implications: When you sell the stock, you have to pay taxes on the profit (including that 15% discount). The tax rate you pay is based on how long you wait to sell it. If you wait a certain amount of time (usually 2 years, but it will depend on your specific tax codes) before you sell, you could be subject to lower tax rates on that profit. See here for a more detailed description. This might only apply if you're in the US. Since you work for the company, you may be privy to a bit more information about how the company is run and how likely it is to grow. As such, if you feel like the company is headed in the right direction, you may want to hold on the the stock for a while.  I am generally wary of being significantly invested in the company you work for. If the company goes south, then the stock price will obviously drop, but you'll also be at risk to be laid off. As such you're exposed much more risk than investing in other companies. This is a good argument to sell the stock and take the 15% profit.*  * - I realize your question wasn't really about whether to sell the stock, but more for when, but I felt this was relevant nonetheless."}
{"question":"Is the \"Bank on Yourself\" a legitimate investment strategy, or a scam?","answer":"Oddly enough, I started to research the \"Bank on Yourself\" strategy today as well (even before I'd ran across this question!). I'd heard an ad on the radio for it the other day, and it caught my attention because they claimed that the strategy isn't prone to market fluctuations like the stock market. It seemed in their radio ad that their target market was people who had lost serious money in their 401k's. So I set about doing some research of my own. It seems to me that the website bankonyourself.com gives a very superficial overview of the strategy without truly ever getting to the meat of it. I begin having a few misgivings at the point that I realized I'd read through a decent chunk of their website and yet I still didn't have a clear idea of the mechanism behind it all. I become leery any time I have to commit myself to something before I can be given a full understanding of how it works. It's shady and reeks of someone trying to back you into a corner so they can bludgeon you with their sales pitch until you cry \"Mercy!\" and agree to their terms just to stop the pain (which I suspect is what happens when they send an agent out to talk to you). There were other red flags that stood out to me, but I don't feel like getting into them. Anyway, through the use of google I was able to find a thread on another forum that was a veritable wealth of knowledge with regard to the mechanism of \"Bank on Yourself\" how it works.  Here is the link: Bank on Yourself\/Infinite Banking... There are quite a few users in the thread who have excellent insights into how all of it works. After reading through a large portion of the thread, I came away realizing that this strategy isn't for me. However, it does appear to be a potential choice for certain people depending upon their situation."}
{"question":"Is Stock Trading legal for a student on F-1 Visa doing CPT in USA?","answer":"you dont need any permits or be inside the US to trade the exact same securities on US exchanges. you can literally move your bitcoin from a chinese exchange to us exchange in seconds.  i don't see how you can possibly run into legal issues if anyone from outside the country can trade bitcoins on an exchange inside the country without any permit. a lot of these exchanges dont ask for ID or social security number anyways. none of it is government regulated. also trading anything is never a passive income. theres no such thing as an easy or obvious investment. there are always risks- and the actual risk is often deceivingly low"}
{"question":"What does the average log-return value of a stock mean?","answer":"Probably the best way to investigate this is to look at an example. First, as the commenters above have already said, the log-return from one period is log(price at time t\/price at time t-1) which is approximately equal to the percentage change in the price from time t-1 to time t, provided that this percentage change is not big compared to the size of the price. (Note that you have to use the natural log, ie. log to the base e -- ln button on a calculator -- here.) The main use of the log-return is that is a proxy for the percentage change in the price, which turns out to be mathematically convenient, for various reasons which have mostly already been mentioned in the comments. But you already know this; your actual question is about the average log-return over a period of time. What does this indicate about the stock? The answer is: if the stock price is not changing very much, then the average log-return is about equal to the average percentage change in the price, and is very easy and quick to calculate. But if the stock price is very volatile, then the average log-return can be wildly different to the average percentage change in the price. Here is an example: the closing prices for Pitchfork Oil from last week's trading are: 10, 5, 12, 5, 10, 2, 15. The percentage changes are: -0.5, 1.4, -0.58, 1, -0.8, 6.5 (where -0.5 means -50%, etc.) The average percentage change is 1.17, or 117%. On the other hand, the log-returns for the same period are -0.69, 0.88, -0.88, 0.69, -1.6, 2, and the average log-return is about 0.068. If we used this as a proxy for the average percentage change in the price over the whole seven days, we would get 6.8% instead of 117%, which is wildly wrong. The reason why it is wrong is because the price fluctuated so much. On the other hand, the closing prices for United Marshmallow over the same period are 10, 11, 12, 11, 12, 13, 15. The average percentage change from day to day is 0.073, and the average log-return is 0.068, so in this case the log-return is very close to the percentage change. And it has the advantage of being computable from just the first and last prices, because the properties of logarithms imply that it simplifies to (log(15)-log(10))\/6. Notice that this is exactly the same as for Pitchfork Oil. So one reason why you might be interested in the average log-return is that it gives a very quick way to estimate the average return, if the stock price is not changing very much. Another, more subtle reason, is that it actually behaves better than the percentage return. When the price of Pitchfork jumps from 5 to 12 and then crashes back to 5 again, the percentage changes are +140% and -58%, for an average of +82%. That sounds good, but if you had bought it at 5, and then sold it at 5, you would actually have made 0% on your money. The log-returns for the same period do not have this disturbing property, because they do add up to 0%.  What's the real difference in this example? Well, if you had bought $1 worth of Pitchfork on Tuesday, when it was 5, and sold it on Wednesday, when it was 12, you would have made a profit of $1.40. If you had then bought another $1 on Wednesday and sold it on Thursday, you would have made a loss of $0.58. Overall, your profit would have been $0.82. This is what the average percentage return is calculating. On the other hand, if you had been a long-term investor who had bought on Tuesday and hung on until Thursday, then quoting an \"average return\" of 82% is highly misleading, because it in no way corresponds to the return of 0% which you actually got!  The moral is that it may be better to look at the log-returns if you are a buy-and-hold type of investor, because log-returns cancel out when prices fluctuate, whereas percentage changes in price do not. But the flip-side of this is that your average log-return over a period of time does not give you much information about what the prices have been doing, since it is just (log(final price) - log(initial price))\/number of periods. Since it is so easy to calculate from the initial and final prices themselves, you commonly won't see it in the financial pages, as far as I know.  Finally, to answer your question: \"Does knowing this single piece of information indicate something about the stock?\", I would say: not really. From the point of view of this one indicator, Pitchfork Oil and United Marshmallow look like identical investments, when they are clearly not. Knowing the average log-return is exactly the same as knowing the ratio between the final and initial prices."}
{"question":"Why do card processing companies discourage \"cash advance\" activities","answer":"I thought this was because credit card companies charge the retailer a fee to accept credit card payments. If you spend $100, the retailer pays $1 (or whatever percentage they have negotiated) to the credit card provider.  Handing over $100 cash and paying $1 fee to Visa means a loss to the retailer. The same transaction on $100 worth of product means the loss is accepted out of the profit margin which the retailer accepts to attract custom."}
{"question":"Best starting options to invest for retirement without a 401k","answer":"Being from the UK, I'd not heard of a Roth IRA, but it sounds very similar to our own ISA (Individual Savings Account).  Having just looked it up, I couldn't believe the annual limit was so low: $5500!  Still, you have to work within your jurisdiction's legal framework (or agitate for change?). I would definitely agree with Ben Miller's answer: you need different savings buckets for the different savings objectives you'll have throughout the different periods of your life.  I, for instance, am now a parent of two young children.  I am fortunate to be able to provide for them on multiple levels: I hope that's of some help."}
{"question":"How to exclude stock from mutual fund","answer":"Chris - you realize that when you buy a stock, the seller gets the money, not the company itself, unless of course, you bought IPO shares. And the amount you'd own would be such a small portion of the company, they don't know you exist.  As far as morals go, if you wish to avoid certain stocks for this reason, look at the Socially Responsible funds that are out there. There are also funds that are targeted to certain religions and avoid alcohol and tobacco. The other choice is to invest in individual stocks which for the small investor is very tough and expensive. You'll spend more money to avoid the shares than these very shares are worth.  Your proposal is interesting but impractical. In a portfolio of say $100K in the S&P, the bottom 400 stocks are disproportionately smaller amounts of money in those shares than the top 100. So we're talking $100 or less. You'd need to short 2 or 3 shares. Even at $1M in that fund, 20-30 shares shorted is pretty silly, no offense.  Why not 'do the math' and during the year you purchase the fund, donate the amount you own in the \"bad\" companies to charity.  And what littleadv said - that too."}
{"question":"When a stock price goes down, does the money just disappears into thin air?","answer":"You buy a $100k sport car, but don't buy any insurance. You take a curve too fast and jump out just in time to see your car go off a cliff, like a chase movie. The value went from $100k to zero in seconds. Where did the $100k go?"}
{"question":"What are the tax liabilities or impact for selling gold?","answer":"Gold is classified as a collectible so the gain rates are as follows: So you'd report a gain of $100 or $1,000 , depending on which coin you sold."}
{"question":"Should I keep most of my banking, credit, and investment accounts at the same bank?","answer":"Here's my answer for what it's worth:"}
{"question":"Small withdrawals from IRA","answer":"Yes, it really will hurt you to keep pulling your money from your IRA. Your best bet is to set up a payment plan with the IRS, and pay the taxes you owe now, as well as adjust your withholding (with a new W-4 to your payroll department) so that you don't have a large tax liability next year. These tax advantaged plans really are designed to penalize you if you pull the money out early to give you incentive to keep the money for retirement. Your best bet is to make a monthly budget that includes your tax payments for taxes owed this year, as well as higher deductions from your paycheck to properly withhold taxes for next year."}
{"question":"Asset classes: Is a Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC) considered a bond?","answer":"There is a third type of asset that a GIC falls into: Cash. So while it does share some characteristics of a bond, such as (often) having a fixed interest rate, and having the ability to ladder their maturities, they would generally be considered part of your Cash component of your portfolio."}
{"question":"Is the BA Avios Visa airlines rewards card worth it?","answer":"I am a proud member of the BA frequent fliers' club (Executive Club). Their service is superb. Their avios (aka miles) are quite useful. However, that is if you're not flying with British Airways, because if you do - you'll pay enormous amounts as \"taxes\". I've used their avios on Air Berlin, American Airlines and Iberia - several times each, and their prices are very reasonable (including trans-Atlantic flights, although I mostly used it for domestic flights in the US and EU). If you only fly BA - their club charges ridiculous amounts for taxes and you would probably want to be in one of their partners' clubs. Depending on your traveling pattern - I'd suggest American Airlines (if you travel a lot in the US) or Qantas (if you travel to far East). I'm not familiar with other partners' clubs, so can't tell. So whether or not the 50K avios worth the investment is really up to you - it depends greatly on your traveling pattern and where you can use them. If only on BA - not sure if it is worth the trouble (although you do end up with about 50%-70% discount of the regular price when you buy miles tickets)."}
{"question":"Should we invest some of our savings to protect against inflation?","answer":"Okay. Savings-in-a-nutshell. So, take at least year's worth of rent - $30k or so, maybe more for additional expenses. That's your core emergency fund for when you lose your job or total a few cars or something. Keep it in a good savings account, maybe a CD ladder - but the point is it's liquid, and you can get it when you need it in case of emergency. Replenish it immediately after using it. You may lose a little cash to inflation, but you need liquidity to protect you from risk. It is worth it. The rest is long-term savings, probably for retirement, or possibly for a down payment on a home. A blended set of stocks and bonds is appropriate, with stocks storing most of it. If saving for retirement, you may want to put the stocks in a tax-deferred account (if only for the reduced paperwork! egads, stocks generate so much!). Having some money (especially bonds) in something like a Roth IRA or a non-tax-advantaged account is also useful as a backup emergency fund, because you can withdraw it without penalties. Take the money out of stocks gradually when you are approaching the time when you use the money. If it's closer than five years, don't use stocks; your money should be mostly-bonds when you're about to use it. (And not 30-year bonds or anything like that either. Those are sensitive to interest rates in the short term. You should have bonds that mature approximately the same time you're going to use them. Keep an eye on that if you're using bond funds, which continually roll over.) That's basically how any savings goal should work. Retirement is a little special because it's sort of like 20 years' worth of savings goals (so you don't want all your savings in bonds at the beginning), and because you can get fancy tax-deferred accounts, but otherwise it's about the same thing. College savings? Likewise. There are tools available to help you with this. An asset allocation calculator can be found from a variety of sources, including most investment firms. You can use a target-date fund for something this if you'd like automation. There are also a couple things like, say, \"Vanguard LifeStrategy funds\" (from Vanguard) which target other savings goals. You may be able to understand the way these sorts of instruments function more easily than you could other investments. You could do a decent job for yourself by just opening up an account at Vanguard, using their online tool, and pouring your money into the stuff they recommend."}
{"question":"Can I trust the Motley Fool?","answer":"Hmm.. hey bro, not personal, but is what comes to mind: I guess my answer will be highly down voted... =P"}
{"question":"How does a defined contribution plan work","answer":"It is comparing apples to oranges. From govt or institution point of view defined contribution is better than defined benefits as they don't have to carry obligations. Although defined benefit sounds good, one can't guarantee it will be enough when you retire compared to inflation. It often becomes political issue. Defined contribution puts you in charge."}
{"question":"Why are American Express cards are not as popular as Visa or MasterCard?","answer":"My experience is in the United States only. In the past, American Express marketed its products as more exclusive and prestigious than other cards.  There was an attempt to give the impression that cardholders were more qualified financially.  In return, fees were higher both to merchants and to cardholders.  At the time (early 1990's), it was not common to use credit cards for small purchases, such as groceries or fast food.  Credit cards were used for larger purchases such as jewelry or electronics or dinner in a nicer restaurant. Once it became popular to use credit cards for everyday purchases, the demand for customers using credit cards changed to the highest number of people instead of people of higher status.  At that point, Visa (and to a lesser extent Mastercard) transaction volume increased dramatically.  Merchants needed the largest number of customers with cards, not the most financially stable.  As Visa volume grew, and people started using Visa for small purchases, the use of American Express decreased as their habits changed (once someone got used to pulling out Visa, they did it in every situation).  Merchants are less willing to go through the extra hassle of accepting cards that are used by fewer people.  Over time, I suspect this process led to the gap between Visa and American Express. As a merchant, in order to accept credit cards, you have to set up a bank account and maintain a merchant account.  Accepting Visa, MC and Discover can all be done through one account, but American Express has traditionally required a separate relationship, as well as its own set of rules and fees that were generally higher.  Since there are relatively few American Express cardholders compared to Visa, there is doubt about whether it is worth it accept the card.  It depends upon the customer base.  Fine restaurants still generally accept American Express."}
{"question":"Primary residence converted to a rental property & tax implications","answer":"You will need to look at the 27.5 year depreciation table from the IRS. It tells you how you will be able to write off the first year. It depends on which month you had the unit ready to rent. Note that that it might be a different month from when you moved, or when the first tenant moved in. Your list is pretty good. You can also claim some travel expenses or mileage related to the unit. Also keep track of any other expenses such as switching the water bill to the new renter, or postage.  If you use Turbo tax, not the least expensive version, it can be a big help to get started and to remember how much to depreciate each year."}
{"question":"How can I figure out when I'll be able to write call options of a stock?","answer":"You can't know. It's not like every stock has options traded on it, so until you either see the options listed or a company announcement that option will trade on a certain date, there's no way to be sure."}
{"question":"Why don't banks give access to all your transaction activity?","answer":"Although if you count only your data, it would be quite less 10 MB, multiply this by 1 million customers and you can see how quickly the data grows. Banks do retain data for longer period, as governed by country laws, typically in the range of 7 to 10 years.  The online data storage cost is quite high 5 to 10 times more than offline storage. There are other aspects, Disaster recover time, the more the data the more the time. Hence after a period of time Banks move the data into Archive that are cheaper to store but are not available to online query, plus the storage is not optimized for search. Hence retrieval of this data often takes few days if the regulator demands or court or any other genuine request for data retrieval."}
{"question":"Why doesn't a mutual fund in my 401(k) have a ticker symbol?","answer":"That share class may not have a ticker symbol though \"Black Rock MSCI ACWI ex-US Index\" does have a ticker for \"Investor A\" shares that is BDOAX.  Some funds will have multiple share classes that is a way to have fees be applied in various ways.  Mutual fund classes would be the SEC document about this if you want a government source within the US around this. Something else to consider is that if you are investing in a \"Fund of funds\" is that there can be two layers of expense ratios to consider.  Vanguard is well-known for keeping its expenses low."}
{"question":"What is the best, low risk investment I can make now?","answer":"First of all, bear in mind that there's no such thing as a risk-free investment. If you keep your money in the bank, you'll struggle to get a return that keeps up with inflation. The same is true for other \"safe\" investments like government bonds. Gold and silver are essentially completely speculative investments; over the years their price tends to vary quite wildly, so unless you really understand how those markets work you should steer well clear. They're certainly not low risk. Repeatedly buying a property to sell in a couple of years time is almost certainly a bad idea; you'll end up paying substantial transaction fees each time that would wipe out a lot of the possible profit, and of course there's always the risk that prices would go down not up. Buying a property to keep - and preferably live in - might be a decent option once you have a good deposit saved up. It's very hard to say where prices will go in future, on the one hand London prices are very high by historical standards, but on the other hand supply is likely to remain severely constrained for years to come. I tend to think of a house as something that I need one of for the rest of my life, and so in one sense not owning a house to live in is a gamble that house prices and rents won't go up substantially. If you own a house, you're insulated from changes in rent etc and even if prices crash at least you still have somewhere to live. However that argument only works really well if you expect to keep living in the same area under most circumstances - house prices might crash in your area but not elsewhere."}
{"question":"When is the right time to buy a new\/emerging technology?","answer":"As you said, the next generation will be cheaper and more efficient. Same for the generation after that. From a financial standpoint, there isn't a steadfast theory that supports when to buy the technology. It comes down to primarily personal issues.  As far as I know, Musk's claims about the cost were relating to a traditional slate roof, not a traditional asphalt shingle roof. I can't recall if he explicitly said one way or the other, but I have yet to see any math that supports a comparison to asphalt shingles. If you look at all of the demos and marketing material, it's comparisons to various styles of tile roofing, which is already more expensive than asphalt shingles.  Do you feel it's worth it to invest now, or do you think it would be more worth it to invest later when the costs are lower? A new roof will last 10-20 years (if not longer...I'm not a roof expert). Do you need a new roof yet? Are your electricity bills high enough that the cost of going solar will offset it enough? Can you sell unused power back to your power company? I could go on, but I think you get the point. It's entirely a personal decision, and not one that will have a definitive answer. If you keep waiting to make a purchase because you're worried that the next generation will be cheaper and more efficient, then you're never going to make the purchase."}
{"question":"Could there be an interest for a company to make their Share price fall?","answer":"Are you really talking about share price, or share value? Because what about stock splits? Market Cap stays the same, but the price per share is lowered. This is so that the stock is more liquid and accessible to a greater number of investors. This encourages people to invest in the stock though. I can't really think of any reasons why a company would want to lower their share value or discourage people from investing unless they are trying to reacquire shares. Returning value to the shareholders is the #1 priority of any publicly traded company."}
{"question":"Are services provided to Google employees taxed as income or in any way?","answer":"(1). Is this right? Pretty much, though this is a really rudimentary way to think about it. (2). If it is, why is it that extensive services are provided by high margin companies competing for talent, rather then lower margin businesses looking to boost their profits by reducing their expenditures on employees (by cutting out the government)? It's the polar opposite of that. Google (and companies like that) do things like have a day care center on premises.  The company staffs a day care center which has costs, then lets employees use it for free.  This is a business expense for Google, and in relative terms, a considerably large business expense that a lower margin business could no afford. Employer healthcare is a tax protected expense for employees via section 125 of the tax code.  The company portion of the healthcare costs are a deductible business expense to the company, as expected.  Healthcare is different than most other expenses because the employee can forego income before it's effectively received which negates it from taxable income.   This doesn't work for something like food purchased at a cafe on a Google complex.  If employee money is being spent at a corporate cafe, it's taxable income being spent (though the cost of running the cafe is a tax deductible business expense to the company). There have been discussions in congress to assess a value as income to employees for services like on site child care and no cost employee cafeterias. To address your new example: For example, suppose John Doe makes $100,000 a year taxed at a rate of 20%, for a take home pay of $80,000. He spends $10,000 on food. His employer Corporation decides to give him all of his food and deduct it as a business expense - costing them $10,000. But now they can pay John Doe an amount so his take home pay will be reduced by $10,000 - $87,500 The company is now spending $97500 employing John Doe, for a savings of $2500$. This would be an audit prone administrative nightmare.  Either You need John to submit receipts for reimbursement up to the $10,000 agreed upon amount which would require some kind of administrative staff, or After a very short period of time John forgets the abstract value of the food cost arrangement, that is only really benefiting the employer in the form of lower payroll expense, and is enticed away for more pay somewhere else anyway.  The company may be saving $2,500, though again there will be an additional administrative expense of some sort, but John is only saving $500 ($97,500 * 0.20 - $100,000 * 0.20)."}
{"question":"Tax liability in US for LLC's owned by an Indian Citzen","answer":"I am from India. I visited US 6-8 times on business VISA and then started 2 Member LLC. Myself and My wife as LLC Members. We provide Online Training to american students from India. Also Got EIN number. Never employed any one. Do i need to pay taxes? Students from USA pays online by Paypal and i am paying taxes in India. Do i need to pay Taxes in US? DO i need to file the Tax returns? Please guide me. I formed LLC in 2010. I opened an Office-taken Virtual office for 75 USD per month to open LLC in 2010. As there is physical virtual address, am i liable for US taxes? All my earning is Online, free lancing."}
{"question":"I've tracked my spending and have created a budget, now what do I do with it?","answer":"Having been in exactly this position (not in a debt hole, built a budget to get a better view of what spending is), I can say what the greatest gift it brings is: it's a decision tool. When you are spending out of only one account, you often make decisions based on the total money in the account. \"Should we go out for dinner? Can I make this impulse purchase?\" This is terrible, because many, if not all, of those dollars are already intended for certain future expenses like groceries, bills, etc. You can't see how many of those dollars are discretionary. A budget is like having many accounts. Instead of looking at your real account(s) to make spending decisions, you look at your budget lines. You to want impulse buy a gadget \u2014 do you have money remaining in a relevant budget line? If yes, the decision is yours, if no, the budget is telling you that you don't have dollars for that.* Similarly for more prosaic purchases \u2014 you want to splurge on some non-staple groceries to make a fancy dinner or try out a new recipe, and the budget line for Groceries will tell you if you can do that. Instead of looking at (e.g.) $6000 in a chequing account, you're looking at $600 (assigned) \u2212 $146.86 (spend) = $453.14 (available) in a monthly groceries budget line. Just like you can now see where your money has been going, by maintaining and using your budget lines, and having every single dollar you spend go through the budget (to show your totally assigned, total spent, and total remaining), you can continue to see where your money is going in near real-time. You're no longer looking at bills and statements to figure out what's going on and plan, you're looking at money flows and future intentions, as you should be. This approach to budgeting has completely changed our finances. So that's what a budget is for: real-time spending decision-making control over your money, which for us has translated into a lovely mix of painless austerity in spending categories where austerity is smart, and guilt-free spending in more indulgent categories because we have already determined exactly how much we can afford and wish to spend. * A budget line with insufficient funds doesn't actually take the decision entirely away from you though. If a budget line doesn't have funds to spare for a given purchase, you can still make the purchase \u2014 but now you're also making the decision to go and revise your budget, taking dollars away from other budget lines to adjust the line you've overspent, to keep the budget accurate."}
{"question":"Is This A Scam? Woman added me on LinkedIn first, then e-mailed offering me millions of dollars [duplicate]","answer":"It is absolutely a scam.  Anyone who tells you they can give you a large amount of money for free is trying to scam you.  Additional warning signs include:"}
{"question":"What are my options to deal with Student Loan debt collectors?","answer":"You have not specified what country you are in. That radically changes everything. In case you are in Canada, there's a great blog that covers bankruptcy and student loans, at http:\/\/student-loan-bankruptcy.ca\/. Fundamentally, in order to discharge government-backed student loans, you must have ceased to be a student for at least seven years prior to filing. Even then, though, the government can object, in which case you will still have to repay some or all of the loan. More generally, given that the collection agency appears to be operating in bad faith, you'll want to ensure that they send you written documentation of any offer they are extending you. If they refuse to do this, you should assume that they aren't actually offering you anything at all and you will have to pay back the full amount plus interest and penalties. Note that, in many countries, if you settle the debt (that is, pay anything less than the full amount plus interest and penalties), this will be a black mark on your credit report. In this case, if you repaid the full $16,000 and they forgave the extra $4,000, they would most likely still add a note to your credit report indicating that you did not pay the full amount that you owed, and this will negatively impact your credit rating even beyond your late payments."}
{"question":"Does a withdrawal of $10000 for 1st home purchase count against Roth IRA basis?","answer":"From Schwab With a Roth, withdrawals of contributions are always tax-free because   you've already paid income taxes on that money. So are withdrawals of   earnings of up to $10,000 under the homebuyer exemption, assuming   you've had the Roth for five-plus years. But if you withdraw more than   $10,000 in earnings, that money will be subject to both ordinary   income taxes and the 10 percent penalty."}
{"question":"What are the differences between an investment mortgage and a personal mortgage?","answer":"According to my wife who used to work in the industry, since an investment mortgage is more likely to fail (they are just riskier) there are higher loan to value requirements and higher interest rates. They are just different products for different situations."}
{"question":"Live in Florida & work remote for a New York company. Do I owe NY state income tax?","answer":"New York State is one of a few states that will go after telecommuter taxes (such that some people may end up paying double tax even if they don't live in NY).  There are a few ways that you can avoid this. If you NEVER come to NY for work, and your employer can stipulate that your position is only available to be filled remotely, you will likely be covered. But there are a myriad of factors relating to this such as whether the employer reimburses you for your home office and whether you keep \"business records\" at your office.  Provided you can easily document the the factors in TSB-M-06(5)I, you shouldn't have to pay NYS taxes.  (source: I've worked with a NYS tax attorney as an employer to deal with this exact scenario)."}
{"question":"Will ADR owner enjoy same benefit as common shares holders","answer":"I would say you should invest in the market that is more convenient for you, bearing in mind that if you buy ADRs you may have some things to keep an eye on depending on certain events as mentioned by duffbeer703. So, if you are investing with an account in the U.S., go with the ADRs as that will avoid some currency conversion hassles and possible exchange rate issues.  I am not certain, but I have a feeling that would also make it easier for you to keep the taxman happy."}
{"question":"Good habits pertaining to personal finance for someone just getting started?","answer":"If you are not working, I believe you would be getting some money from your family to meet your expenses. In such a case, I would start with maintaining a Cash A\/c which would list your monthly expenses and the money you received, which is what I used to do at your age. You can maintain it in a notebook with pen\/pencil or using online tools such as Google Sheets. Enter each expense entries each day as debits and entries towards any money you receive as credits. At the end of the month, tally them and see how much you have left. Also, this gives you a clear picture of where your expenses are what is that you can avoid. On longer term, this can help you form an annual budget for your personal finances."}
{"question":"I'm currently unemployed and have been offered a contract position. Do I need to incorporate myself? How do I do it?","answer":"Do you need to incorporate? This depends on whether the company prefers you to be incorporated.  If you are going through a recruiting company, some of them are willing to deal with non-incorporated people (Sole Proprietor) and withhold taxes from your cheques for you. If you do want to incorporate, you can do it yourself, go through a paralegal, or you can even do it online.  I did mine in Ontario for about $300 (no name search - i just have a numbered corporation like 123456 Ontario Inc.) through www.oncorp.com - there are other sites that do it as well. Things to consider - if you're contracting through a corporation you most likely need to: Talk to an accountant about these for clarification - most of them will give you an initial consultation for free. Generally speaking, accountant fees for corporate filing taxes averages about $1000-2000 a year."}
{"question":"Is there a tax deduction for renting office space in service of employer?","answer":"I disagree with BrenBran, I don't think this is qualified as unreimbursed employee expense. For it to qualify, it has to be ordinary and necessary, and specifically - necessary for your employer. This is not the case for you, as there's no such necessity. From employer's perspective, you can work from your home just as well. In fact, the expense is your personal, as it is your choice, not \"unreimbursed employee expense\" since your employer didn't even ask you to do it. You should clarify this with a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in New York)."}
{"question":"When is an IPO considered failure? ","answer":"Just skimming through the Wikipedia article on airberlin, I notice there is more to the story than simply \"airberlin's IPO failed, so they postponed it and did it anyways.\" 3 points to keep in mind about IPOs:  1) An IPO is the mechanism for taking a private company and setting it up for shares to be owned by \"the public\".  2) The process of selling shares to the public often allows original owners and\/or early investors to \"cash out\". Most countries (including member nations of the EU) limit some transactions like pre-IPO companies to \"accredited investors\".  3) Selling shares to the public also can allow the company to access more funds for growth. This is particularly important in a capital-intensive business like an airline; new B737-MAX costs >$110M. New A320neo costs >$105M USD.  Ultimately, the question of a successful IPO depends on how you define success. Initially, there was a lot of concern that the IPO was set up with too much focus on goal #2... allowing the management & owners to cash out.  It looks like the first approach was not meeting good opinions in the market during 2006. A major concern was that the initial approach focused on management only cashing out its shares and no money actually going to the company to support its future.  The investment bankers restructured the IPO, including the issuance of more new shares so that more $ could end up in the company's accounts, not just in the accounts of the management.  If anything, it's still a pretty successful IPO given that the shares were successfully listed, the company collected the money it needed to invest and grow, and the management still cashed out."}
{"question":"How could I find someone to find a room for me to live in? (For a fee, of course.)","answer":"Many colleges have offices that can help students find off campus housing. They will have information about rooms being let by families, and about houses being shared by groups of students. The biggest issue is that many of the best places were filled months ago. With only a month to go before classes start time is tight. You can also look for electronic listings organized through a campus newspaper.  The advantage of going through university resources is that they will have more information regarding the types of students they are looking for. A house full of undergrads is different than a family house that rents only to young professors."}
{"question":"What drives the stock of bankrupt companies?","answer":"What drives the stock of bankrupt companies? The company's potential residual assets. When a company goes bankrupt it is required to sell its assets to pay off its debts. The funds raised from selling assets go to the following entities:  The usual order of debt repayment, in terms of the lender, will be the government, financial institutions, other creditors (i.e. suppliers and utility companies), bondholders, preferred shareholders and, finally, common shareholders. Depending on the amount of debt and the value of a company's assets, the common shareholders may receive some left over from liquidated assets. This would drive the stock price of a bankrupt company."}
{"question":"Working as a freelancer overseas, but US Citizen, what is my tax situation?","answer":"This person must pay taxes in both the overseas country and in the U.S. This is unusual; generally, only the U.S. demands this. Depending on the specific country, he would likely not be taxed twice as the U.S. generally recognises tax paid in a different country. Note there are some gotchas, though. For example, although Canada has a generally higher tax scheme than the U.S., you may still end up owing tax if you use the Tax-Free Savings Account system in Canada, as that is not recognised in the U.S. As to whether or not this person should form a company, that is far too broad a question. It's going to depend in large part on the tax situations of the countries involved. This person needs to consult an accountant specialising in this situation. That is, on personal versus business tax and on tax involving U.S. citizens. Yes, this person can and indeed must file and pay taxes in the U.S., from outside the U.S."}
{"question":"Calculating a stock's price target","answer":"The price-earnings ratio is calculated as the market value per share divided by the earnings per share over the past 12 months. In your example, you state that the company earned $0.35 over the past quarter. That is insufficient to calculate the price-earnings ratio, and probably why the PE is just given as 20. So, if you have transcribed the formula correctly, the calculation given the numbers in your example would be: 0.35 * 4 * 20 = $28.00 As to CVRR, I'm not sure your PE is correct. According to Yahoo, the PE for CVRR is 3.92 at the time of writing, not 10.54. Using the formula above, this would lead to: 2.3 * 4 * 3.92 = $36.06 That stock has a 52-week high of $35.98, so $36.06 is not laughably unrealistic. I'm more than a little dubious of the validity of that formula, however, and urge you not to base your investing decisions on it."}
{"question":"Why are interest rates on saving accounts so low in USA and Europe?","answer":"The short answer is that banking is complicated, but the bank really doesn't need your money because it can get it from the Fed almost free, it can only use 90% of the money you give the bank, it can only make money on that 90% from very low-risk and thus low-return investments, and as it has to show a profit to its shareholders it will take whatever cut it needs to off the top of the returns. All of these things combine to make savings account interest roughly .05% in the US right now. The longer answer: All FDIC-insured banks (which the US requires all \"depositor\" banks to be) are subject to regulation by the Federal Reserve. The very first rule that all banks must comply with is that depositor money cannot be invested in things the Fed terms \"risky\". This limits banks from investing your money in things that have high returns, like stocks, commodities and hedges, because along with the high possible returns come high risk. Banks typically can only invest your savings in T-debt and in certain Fed-approved AAA bonds, which have very low risk and so very little return. The investment of bank assets into risky market funds was a major contributor to the financial crisis; with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, banks had been allowed to integrate their FDIC-insured depositor business with their \"investment banking\" business (not FDIC insured). While still not allowed to bet on \"risky\" investments with deposits, banks were using their own money (retained profits, corporate equity\/bond money) to bet heavily in the markets, and were investing depositor funds in faulty AAA-rated investment objects like CDOs. When the housing market crashed, banks had to pull out of the investment market and cash in hedges like credit-default swaps to cover the depositor losses, which sent a tidal wave through the rest of the market. Banks really can't even loan your money out to people who walk in, like you'd think they would and which they traditionally used to do; that's how the savings and loan crisis happened, when speculators took out huge loans to invest, lost the cash, declared bankruptcy and left the S&Ls (and ultimately the FDIC) on the hook for depositors' money.  So, the upshot of all this is that the bank simply won't give you more on your money than it is allowed to make on it.  In addition, there are several tools that the Fed has to regulate economic activity, and three big ones play a part. First is the \"Federal Funds Rate\"; this is the interest rate that the Fed charges on loans made to other banks (which is a primary source of day-to-day liquidity for these banks). Money paid as interest to the Fed is effectively removed from the economy and is a way to reduce the money supply. Right now the FFR is .25% (that's one quarter of one percent) which is effectively zero; borrow a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) from the Fed for one month and you'll pay them a scant $208,333. Banks lend to other banks at a rate based on the FFR, called the Interbank Rate (usually adding some fraction of a percent so the lending bank makes money on the loan). This means that the banks can get money from the Fed and from other banks very cheaply, which means they don't have to offer high interest rates on savings to entice individual depositors to save their money with the bank. Second is \"quantitative easing\", which just means the Fed buys government bonds and pays for them with \"new\" money. This happens all the time; remember those interest charges on bank loans? To keep the money supply stable, the Fed must buy T-debt at least in the amount of the interest being charged, otherwise the money leaves the economy and is not available to circulate. The Fed usually buys a little more than it collects in order to gradually increase the money supply, which allows the economy to grow while controlling inflation (having \"too much money\" and so making money worth less than what it can buy).  What's new is that the Fed is increasing the money supply by a very large amount, by buying bonds far in excess of the (low) rates it's charging, and at fixed prices determined by the yield the Fed wants to induce in the markets. In the first place, with the Fed buying so many, there are fewer for institutions and other investors to buy. This increases the demand, driving down yields as investors besides the Fed are willing to pay a similar price, and remember that T-debt is one of the main things banks are allowed to invest your deposits in. Inflation isn't a concern right now despite the large amount of new money being injected, because the current economy is so lackluster right now that the new cash is just being sat upon by corporations and being used by consumers to pay down debt, instead of what the Fed and Government want us to do (hire, update equipment, buy houses and American cars, etc). In addition, the \"spot market price\" for a T-bond, or any investment security, is generally what the last guy paid. By buying Treasury debt gradually at a fixed price, the Fed can smooth out \"jitters\" in the spot price that speculators may try to induce by making low \"buy offers\" on T-debt to increase yields. Lastly, the Fed can tell banks that they must keep a certain amount of their deposits in \"reserve\", basically by keeping them in a combination of cash in the vault, and in accounts with the Fed itself. This has a dual purpose; higher reserve rates allow a bank to weather a \"run\" (more people than usual wanting their money) and thus reduces risk of failure. An increased reserves amount also reduces the amount of money circulating in the economy, because obviously if the banks have to keep a percentage of assets in cash, they can't invest that cash. Banks are currently required to keep 10% of \"deposited assets\" (the sum of all checking and savings accounts, but not CDs) in cash. This compounds the other problems with banks' investing; not only are they not getting a great return on your savings, they can only use 90% of your savings to get it."}
{"question":"How do I get a list of the top performing funds between two given dates?","answer":"I found one such tool here: Point-to-Point Returns tool"}
{"question":"What to do when a job offer is made but with a salary less than what was asked for?","answer":"Not-very-serious companies always try to reduce your pretended salary. This also happens in Argentina. My advice is to look for another opportunity because you have to take into account that if you join the company this will happen again; for example, in the future, they may lowball you on raises."}
{"question":"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","answer":"The key factors here are  You will need to pay tax in the UK only if you live more than 183 days - that too in a tax year. Indian tax system will also classify you as a NR (Non-resident) if you live outside for more than 182 days in a tax year.  In your case, your income will be in India and will stay in India. So there should not be any UK tax until you try and get that money to the UK. I will not go into outlining what if you want to go down that road since it does not apply. As for tax in India, You will need to pay tax since the source of income is Indian.  Hope this helps."}
{"question":"What are the marks of poor investment advice?","answer":"My \"bad advice detector\" gets tingled by the following:"}
{"question":"Trading : how to deal with crashes (small or big)","answer":"caveat: remember that complex derivatives can be very bad for your wealth (even if you FULLY understand them)."}
{"question":"Short term investing vs Leaving money alone?","answer":"Should I invest the money I don't need immediately and only withdraw it next year when I need it for living expenses or should I simply leave it in my current account? This might come as a bit of a surprise, but your money is already invested. We talk of investment vehicles. An investment vehicle is basically a place where you can put money and have it either earn a return, or be able to get it back later, or both. (The neither case is generally called \"spending\".) There are also investment classes which are things like cash, stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc.: different things that you can buy within an investment vehicle. You currently have the money in a bank account. Bank accounts currently earn very low interest rates, but they are also very liquid and very secure (in the sense of being certain that you will get the principal back). Now, when you talk about \"investing the money\", you are probably thinking of moving it from where it is currently sitting earning next to no return, to somewhere it can earn a somewhat higher return. And that's fine, but you should keep in mind that you aren't really investing it in that case, only moving it. The key to deciding about an asset allocation (how much of your money to put into what investment classes) is your investment horizon. The investment horizon is simply for how long you plan on letting the money remain where you put it. For money that you do not expect to touch for more than five years, common advice is to put it in the stock market. This is simply because in the long term, historically, the stock market has outperformed most other investment classes when looking at return versus risk (volatility). However, money that you expect to need sooner than that is often recommended against putting it in the stock market. The reason for this is that the stock market is volatile -- the value of your investment can fluctuate, and there's always the risk that it will be down when you need the money. If you don't need the money within several years, you can ride that out; but if you need the money within the next year, you might not have time to ride out the dip in the stock market! So, for money that you are going to need soon, you should be looking for less volatile investment classes. Bonds are generally less volatile than stocks, with government bonds generally being less volatile than corporate bonds. Bank accounts are even less volatile, coming in at practically zero volatility, but also have much lower expected rates of return. For the money that you need within a year, I would recommend against any volatile investment class. In other words, you might take whichever part you don't need within a year and put in bonds (except for what you don't foresee needing within the next half decade or more, which you can put in stocks), then put the remainder in a simple high-yield deposit-insured savings account. It won't earn much, but you will be basically guaranteed that the money will still be there when you want it in a year. For the money you put into bonds and stocks, find low-cost index mutual funds or exchange-traded funds to do so. You cannot predict the future rate of return of any investment, but you can predict the cost of the investment with a high degree of accuracy. Hence, for any given investment class, strive to minimize cost, as doing so is likely to lead to better return on investment over time. It's extremely rare to find higher-cost alternatives that are actually worth it in the long term."}
{"question":"How is someone tax exempt at Walmart in Canada?","answer":"The short answer is you're tax exempt if the tax laws say you are.  There are a bunch of specific exemptions based on who you are, what you're buying and why. Taking British Columbia as an example. One exemption is supplies for business use: Some exemptions are only available to certain purchasers in certain circumstances. These exemptions include: You can also claim an exemption if you are buying \"adult size\" clothing for a child under 15 years. Farmers are exempt from sales tax on various goods and services. First Nations individuals are exempt in some circumstances. And so on and so on."}
{"question":"Free service for automatic email stock alert when target price is met? ","answer":"You can do it graphically at zignals.com and freestockcharts.com."}
{"question":"What if 40% of the remaining 60% Loan To Value (ratio) is not paid, or the borrower wants to take only 60% of the loan?","answer":"This is the meat of your potato question. The rephrasing of the question to a lending\/real estate executive such as myself, I'd ask, what's the scenario? \"I would say you're looking for an Owner Occupied, Super Jumbo Loan with 20% Down or $360K down on the purchase price, $1.8 mil purchase price, Loan Amount is ~$1.45 mil. Fico is strong (assumption). If this is your scenario, please see image. Yellow is important, more debt increases your backend-DTI which is not good for the deal. As long as it's less than 35%, you're okay.  Can someone do this loan, the short answer is yes. It's smart that you want to keep more cash on hand. Which is understandable, if the price of the property declines, you've lost your shirt and your down payment, then it will take close to 10 years to recover your down. Consider that you are buying at a peak in real estate prices. Prices can't go up more than they are now. Consider that properties peaked in 2006, cooled in 2007, and crashed in 2008. Properties declined for more than 25-45% in 2008; regardless of your reasons of not wanting to come to the full 40% down, it's a bit smarter to hold on to cash for other investments purposes. Just incase a recession does hit.  In the end, if you do the deal-You'll pay more in points, a higher rate compared to the 40% down scenario, the origination fee would increase slightly but you'll keep your money on hand to invest elsewhere, perhaps some units that can help with the cashflow of your home. I've highlighted in yellow what the most important factors that will be affected on a lower down payment. If your debt is low or zero, and income is as high as the scenario, with a fico score of at least 680, you can do the deal all day long. These deals are not uncommon in today's market. Rate will vary. Don't pay attention to the rate, the rate will fluctuate based on many variables, but it's a high figure to give you an idea on total cost and monthly payment for qualification purposes, also to look at the DTI requirement for cash\/debt.  See Image below:"}
{"question":"How can a company charge a closed credit card?","answer":"You should contact the Company who purchased your visa balance and ask\/write the following questions:  1. Dispute the charge from Emusic.com as invalid. 2. Instruct that no future charges will be accepted.  3. How come Emusic.com was allowed to debit your account? 4.  When did they purchased your visa account? 5.  Ask for written verification that they purchased your account from the original company? such as a bill of sale? 6.  Ask if the company is a registered debt collector in your state? 7. The FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT (FDCPA) may apply to your circumstance(s) and provide for $1,000 in damages to the consumer and $1,000 attorney fees from a third party debt collector per violation. You may want to seek the advice of an attorney  to help determine if you have a good cause to sue the company and Emusic. If you did not receive anything form Emusic.com or your contract\/agreement ended without a cancelation\/early termination fee,  ALso, file a written dispute with Emusic.com.  Check your credit report.   Many companies automatically charge your accounts through automatic payments after termination of the agreement because they get away with it in the U.S., if the consumer does not take steps to dispute the current charge and stop future charges from occurring in the future. Never use auto pay unless required and the service is essential.  When using auto pay use a dedicated account not your main checking account. It is less of a pain in the neck to close the account if its your 2nd or 3rd checking account and not your only account."}
{"question":"What is an \"International Equity\"?","answer":"Assuming you're in the United States, then International Equity is an equity from a different country.  These stocks or stock funds (which reside in a foreign country) are broken out seperately becuase they are typically influenced by a different set of factors than equities in the United States: foreign currency swings, regional events and politics of various countries."}
{"question":"What would I miss out on by self insuring my car?","answer":"One way to look at insurance is that it replaces an unpredictable expenses with a predictable fees. That is, you pay a set monthly amount (\"premium\") instead of the sudden costs associated with a collision or other covered event. Insurance works as a business, which means they intend to make a substantial profit for providing that service. They put a lot of effort in to measuring probabilities, and carefully set the premiums to get make a steady profit*. The odds are in their favor. You have to ask yourself: if X happened tomorrow, how would I feel about the financial impact? Also, how much will it cost me to buy insurance to cover X? If you have a lot of savings, plenty of available credit, a bright financial future, and you take the bus to work anyway, then totaling your car may not be a big deal, money wise. Skip the insurance. If you have no savings, plenty of debt, little prospects for that improving, and you depend on your car to get to work just so you can pay what you already owe, then totaling your car would probably be a big problem for you. Stick with insurance. There is a middle ground. You can adjust your deductible. Raise it as high as you can comfortably handle. You cover the small stuff out of pocket, and save the insurance for the big ticket items. *Insurance companies also invest the money they take as premiums, until they pay out a claim. That's not relevant to this discussion, though."}
{"question":"Where can I buy stocks if I only want to invest a little bit at a time, and not really be involved in trading?","answer":"I don't want to get involved in trading chasing immediate profit  That is the best part. There is an answer in the other question, where a guy only invested in small amounts and had a big sum by the time he retired. There is good logic in the answer. If you put in lump sum in a single stroke you will get at a single price. But if you distribute it over a time, you will get opportunities to buy at favorable prices, because that is an inherent behavior of stocks. They inherently go up and down, don't remain stable. Stock markets are for everybody rich or poor as long as you have money, doesn't matter in millions or hundreds, to invest and you select stocks with proper research and with a long term view. Investment should always start in small amounts before you graduate to investing in bigger amounts. Gives you ample time to learn. Where do I go to do this ?  To a bank ? To the company, most probably a brokerage firm. Any place to your liking. Check how much they charge for brokerage, annual charges and what all services they provide. Compare them online on what services you require, not what they provide ? Ask friends and colleagues and get their opinions. It is better to get firsthand knowledge about the products. Can the company I'm investing to be abroad? At the moment stay away from it, unless you are sure about it because you are starting. Can try buying ADRs, like in US. This is an option in UK. But they come with inherent risk. How much do you know about the country where the company does its business ? Will I be subject to some fees I must care about after I buy a stock? Yes, capital gains tax will be levied and stamp duties and all."}
{"question":"Can anybody explain the terms \"levered beta riders\", \"equity long-short\" and \"the quant process driven discipline\" for me, please?","answer":"Translation : Funds managers that use traditionnal methods to select stocks will have less success than those who use artificial intelligence and computer programs to select stocks.  Meaning : The use of computer programs and artificial intelligence is THE way to go for hedge fund managers in the future because they give better results.  \"No man is better than a machine, but no machine is better than a man with a machine.\" Alternative article : Hedge-fund firms, Wall Street Journal. A little humour : \"Whatever is well conceived is clearly said, And the words to say it flow with ease.\" wrote Nicolas Boileau in 1674."}
{"question":"Townhouse or stand-alone house for a first home?","answer":"If you buy a townhouse, you often are in a condominium arrangement in the US (when you're really in a rowhouse in particular).  So that's a downside right away: you have to have a HOA, or at least some sort of common agreement, though it might not have formal meetings.  Everyone who owns an interest in the entire group of townhouses gets some say in landscaping and such. Beyond that though, townhouses (and similarly, condominiums) are often easier to own (as they don't have as much maintenance that you have to do), but more expensive because you pay someone to do it (the landscaping, the external repairs, etc.).  You likely don't have as much control over what the external looks like (because you have to be in agreement with the other owners), but you also don't have to do the work, unless your agreement is to collectively do the mowing\/landscaping, which you should know in advance.   I wouldn't underestimate the value of easier, by the way; it's very valuable to not have to deal with as many repairs and to be able to go a week without thinking about mowing or watering.  In that sense it can be a nice transition into ownership, getting some-but-not-all of the obligations.  But if that's something you really value, doing the landscaping and mowing and whatnot, that's relevant too.  You can always tell your realtor to look for townhouses where the owners do some\/all of the landscaping, though that opens up a different can of worms (where you rely on others to do work that they may not do, or do well). They're also somewhat noisier; you may be sharing a wall (but not necessarily, air-gap townhouses do exist) and either way will be closer to your neighbors.  Does noise bother you?  Conversely, are you noisy?  In a college town this is probably something to pay attention to. Price wise, of course stay well within your means; if being close to the city center is important, that may lead you to buy a townhouse in that area.  If being further out isn't a problem, you'll probably have similar choices in terms of price as long as you look in cheaper areas for single family homes."}
{"question":"Short term parking of a large inheritance?","answer":"Here's what I suggest... A few years ago, I got a chunk of change.  Not from an inheritance, but stock options in a company that was taken private.  We'd already been investing by that point.  But what I did: 1.  I took my time. 2.  I set aside a chunk of it (maybe a quarter) for taxes.  you shouldn't have this problem. 3.  I set aside a chunk for home renovations. 4.  I set aside a chunk for kids college fund 5.  I set aside a chunk for paying off the house 6.  I set aside a chunk to spend later 7.  I invested a chunk.  A small chunk directly in single stocks, a small chunk in muni bonds, but most just in Mutual Funds. I'm still spending that \"spend later\" chunk.  It's about 10 years later, and this summer it's home maintenance and a new car...  all, I figure it, coming out of some of that money I'd set aside for \"future spending.\""}
{"question":"Does this plan make any sense for early 20s investments?","answer":"The plan doesn't make sense.  Don't invest your money. Just keep it in your bank account. $5000 is not a lot, especially since you don't have a steady income stream. You only have $1000 to your name, you can't afford to gamble $4000. You will need it for things like food, books, rent, student loans, traveling, etc. If you don't get a job right after you graduate, you will be very happy to have some money in the bank. Or what if you get a dream job, but you need a car?  Or you get a job at a suit & tie business and need to get a new wardrobe? Or your computer dies and you need a new one? You find a great apartment but need $2500 first, last & security? That money can help you out much more NOW when you're starting out, then it will when you're ready to retire in your 60's."}
{"question":"Are there any catches with interest from banks?  Is this interest \"too good to be true\"?","answer":"Tax won't be an issue. You have a personal tax free allowance of \u00a37475 this coming year, so your first \u00a37475 will be tax free. 1.09% is pretty abysmal (sorry - but we've wrecked the economy for you young fullas), so you'll only earn about \u00a384 a month. Not as awesome as you were expecting I think. Would recommend getting advice on other means of generating an income with your 100k. Because if you bought a cheap flat (cheap enough to own without a mortgage), you could probably earn between \u00a3300-\u00a3400 a month fairly comfortably. (I'm not suggesting you become a landlord, just that interest rates currently suck)"}
{"question":"Does dollar cost averaging really work?","answer":"Dollar cost averaging moderates risk. But you pay for this by giving up the chance for higher gains. If you took a hundred people and randomly had them fully buy into the market over a decade period, some of those people will do very well (relative to the rest) while others will do very poorly (relatively). If you dollar cost average, your performance would fall into the middle so you don't fall into the bottom (but you won't fall into the top either)."}
{"question":"Automatic transaction on credit card to stay active","answer":"Put one of your monthly bills on it.  (Utility bill, Netflix, monthly donation to charity, etc.) I have several automatic, recurring monthly charges on my credit card. If you don't have any current monthly bills that you want to switch, contact the Red Cross, or a charity of your choice. They would be very happy to charge your credit card once a month. Alternatively, it might be okay to let it close."}
{"question":"Borrowing 100k and paying it to someone then declaring bankruptcy","answer":"This sounds like a crazy idea, but in reality people don't make the wisest decisions when considering bankruptcy in Australia.  My suggestion would be to get some advice from an insolvency specialist."}
{"question":"Are COBRA premiums deductible when self-employed?","answer":"COBRA premiums are not deductible on 1040 line 29; to qualify, the IRS says the insurance plan must be in your name (COBRA is in your former employer's name).  H&R Block confirms this."}
{"question":"Why are American-style options worth more than European-style options?","answer":"An option is an instrument that gives you the \"right\" (but not the obligation) to do something (if you are long). An American option gives you more \"rights\" (to exercise on more days) than a European option. The more \"rights,\" the greater the (theoretical) value of the option, all other things being equal, of course. That's just how options work.  You could point to an ex post result, and and say that's not the case. But it is true ex ante."}
{"question":"How to rescue my money from negative interest?","answer":"The problem is that every option comes with risk - as you note, if you put money in stocks, you could lose (and many stocks are overpriced).  If you put money in bonds, you could lose (many bonds are overpriced).  If you buy precious metals, they could fall further currently.  If you hold cash, central banks might try to ban cash (we'll hear the typical \"This will never happen\" from financial advisers - and they'll be wrong).  Cryptocurrencies are an option, but boy do they fluctuate, so there's risk here too. Those are options and all come with risks, and here's my preferred approach to handling negative interest rates:"}
{"question":"Is it a good idea to put everything in the S&P500?","answer":"At a very high-level, the answer is yes, that's a good idea. For money that you want to invest on the scale of decades, putting money into a broad, market-based fund has historically given the best returns. Something like the Vanguard S&P 500 automatically gives you a diverse portfolio, with super low expenses. As it sounds like you understand, the near-term returns are volatile, and if you really think you might want this money in the next few years, then the stock market might not be the best choice. As a final note, as one of the comments mentioned, it makes sense to hold a broad, market-based fund for your IRA as well, if possible."}
{"question":"Australian stocks - any dividend tax or capital gains tax?","answer":"For non Australian residents: Dividends withholding tax rate is 30%.  Depending upon your country of residence where there is a tax treaty in place to avoid double taxation, then this can be reduced.  Note that only dividends that are unfranked are subject to this (in Australia, if tax has already been paid by the company then they can distribute dividends as \"franked\" dividends\"). For example, if you owned shares in Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), their most recent dividend from Feb 2015 (Paid 2 April 2015)  was $1.98 fully franked.  No withholding tax is applicable. There is no capital gains tax for non-residents on share transactions. There are other \"tax events\" that related to large shareholdings in a company (>10%) with property holdings but I'm guessing that is not an issue. https:\/\/www.ato.gov.au\/Individuals\/Tax-return\/2014\/In-detail\/Publications\/You-and-your-shares-2013-14\/?page=14 https:\/\/www.ato.gov.au\/Business\/International-tax-for-business\/Previous-years\/Capital-gains-and-foreign-residents\/ https:\/\/www.ato.gov.au\/Business\/International-tax-for-business\/Previous-years\/Capital-gains-and-foreign-residents\/?page=13#Foreign_residents_holding_interests_in_Australian_fixed_trusts https:\/\/www.kpmg.com\/Global\/en\/services\/Tax\/regional-tax-centers\/asia-pacific-tax-centre\/Documents\/CountryProfiles\/Australia.pdf"}
{"question":"Why would you sell your bonds?","answer":"Investment strategies abound. Bonds can be part of useful passive investment strategy but more active investors may develop a good number of reasons why buying and selling bonds on the short term. A few examples: Also, note that there is no guarantee in bonds as you imply by likening it to a \"guaranteed stock dividend\". Bond issuers can default, causing bond investors to lose part of all of their original investment. As such, if one believes the bond issuer may suffer financial distress, it would be ideal to sell-off the investment."}
{"question":"Trading US stocks from India","answer":"I believe I have to pay taxes in US since it is a US broker. No, not at all. The fact that the broker is a US broker has nothing to do with your tax liabilities. You should update the banks and the broker with your change of status submitting form W8-BEN to them. Consult a tax professional proficient with Indo-US tax treaty as to what you should put in part II. The broker might withhold some of your income and remit it as taxes to the IRS based on what you put in W8-BEN and the type of income, but you can have it refunded (if it exceeds your liability) by submitting a tax return (form 1040-NR). You do have to pay tax in India, based on the Indian tax law, for your profits in the US. Consult with an Indian tax accountant on that. If I'm not mistaken, there are also currency transfer restrictions in India that you should be aware of."}
{"question":"Company revenue increased however stock price did not","answer":"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. During the time between earnings announcements, analysts occasionally publish their assessment of a company, including their estimate of the company's value and future earnings. And as part of an earnings report, companies often include \"guidance\": their prediction for the upcoming quarter (this will frequently be a conservative estimate, so they're more likely to achieve it). Investors make their purchase and sale decisions based on this information. When the earnings report comes out, investors compare these actual returns to analysts' predictions and the company's guidance. If their results are in line with these predictions, the stock price is unlikely to move much, as those results are already incorporated into the stock price. If the company is doing better than predicted, it's usually a good sign, and the price often rises; conversely, if it's doing worse, the price will likely fall. But it's not as simple as this. As others have explained, for long-term investors, stock prices are based on expectations of future activity. If the results of that quarter include some one-time actions that are unlikely to repeat, investors will often discount that portion."}
{"question":"Can I sell a stock immediately?","answer":"If you place a market order, you are guaranteed to sell your stock unless the stock is in a trading halt. A market order does not guarantee the price you sell the stock at.  If you place a market order, even if the stock is very illiquid a market maker will guarantee a market, but will not guarantee a price."}
{"question":"Can I move my 401k to another country without paying tax penalty?","answer":"hello \u2013 I am a natural born US citizen; I have worked 35+ years in the United States; I have a 401(k), IRA, Social Security benefits. I have researched the ex-patriot possibilities for several years. I've consulted both accountants and tax attorneys. The long answer is: hire tax consultants\/attorneys to try to shelter what assets you can. 401(k), IRA, and Social Security benefits are all taxable worldwide to US citizens. unless you become the citizen of your new country of residence, these taxes are unavoidable. since all of the above assets are considered \"pretax\" to the US government, they are all taxable on distribution whether slowly or in lump sum. the short answer is: \"Hotel California\"\u2026 \"Relax, said the watchman \u2013 we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time, but you can never leave\u2026\""}
{"question":"If I plan to buy a car in cash, should I let the dealer know?","answer":"Ideally you would negotiate a car price without ever mentioning: And other factors that affect the price. You and the dealer would then negotiate a true price for the car, followed by the application of rebates, followed by negotiating for the loan if there is to be one. In practice this rarely happens. The sales rep asks point blank what rebates you qualify for (by asking get-to-know-you questions like where you work or if you served in the armed forces - you may not realize that these are do-you-qualify-for-a-rebate questions) before you've even chosen a model. They take that into account right from the beginning, along with whether they'll make a profit lending you money, or have to spend something to subsidize your zero percent loan. However unlike your veteran's status, your loan intentions are changeable. So when you get to the end you can ask if the price could be improved by paying cash. Or you could try putting the negotiated price on a credit card, and when they don't like that, ask for a further discount to stop you from using the credit card and paying cash."}
{"question":"Higher mortgage to increase savings to invest?","answer":"I don't follow the numbers in your example, but the fundamental question you're asking is, \"If I can borrow money for a low cost, and if I think I can invest it and receive returns greater than that cost, should I do it?\" It doesn't matter where that money comes from, a mortgage that's bigger than it needs to be, a credit card teaser rate, or a margin line from your stock broker. The answer is \"maybe\" - depending on the certainty you have about the returns you'd receive on your investments and your tolerance for risk. Only you can answer that question for yourself. If you make less than your mortgage rates on the investments, you'll wish you hadn't! As an aside, I don't know anything about Belgian tax law, but in US tax law, your deductions can be limited to the actual value of the home. Your law may be similar and thus increase the effective mortgage interest rate."}
{"question":"Can we amend last year's Schedule C to indicate reduced income due to a customer refund this year for a product we sold last year?","answer":"I am not an accountant, but I have a light accounting background, despite being primarily an engineer.  I also have a tiny schedule C business which has both better and worse years.  I am also in the United States and pay US taxes.  I assume you are referring to the US Form 1040 tax return, with the attached Schedule C.  However little I know about US taxes, I know nothing about foreign taxes. You are a cash-basis taxpayer, so the transactions that happen in each tax year are based on the cash paid and cash received in that year.  You were paid last year, you computed your schedule C based on last year's actual transactions, and you paid taxes on that income. You can not recompute last years schedule C based on the warranty claim. You might want to switch to an accrual accounting method, where you can book allowances for warranty claims.  It is more complex, and if your business is spotty and low volume, it may be more trouble than it is worth. At this point, you have two months to look for ways to shift expenses into next year or being income into this year, both of which help offset this loss. Perhaps a really aggressive accountant would advise otherwise (and remember, I am not an accountant), but I would take the lumps and move on. This article on LegalZoom (link here) discusses how to apply a significant net operating loss (NOL) in this year to the previous two years, and potentially carry it forward to the next two years.  This does involve filing amended returns for the prior two years, showing this year's NOL.  For this to be relevant, your schedule C loss this year must exceed your other W2 and self-employment income this year, with other tests also applied. Perhaps a really aggressive accountant would advise otherwise (and remember, I am not an accountant), but I would take the lumps and move on."}
{"question":"Why does the share price tend to fall if a company's profits decrease, yet remain positive?","answer":"It has got to do with market perceptions and expectation and the perceived future prospects of the company. Usually the expectation of a company's results are already priced into the share price, so if the results deviate from these expectations, the share price can move up or down respectfully. For example, many times a company's share price may be beaten down for increasing profits by 20% above the previous year when the expectation was that it would increase profits by 30%. Other times a company's share price may rise sharply for making a 20% loss when the expectation was that it would make a 30% loss. Then there is also a company's prospects for future growth and performance. A company may be heading into trouble, so even though they made a $100M profit this year, the outlook for the company may be bleak. This could cause the share price to drop accordingly. Conversely, a company may have made a loss of $100M but its is turning a corner after reducing costs and restructuring. This can be seen as a positive for the future causing the share price to rise. Also, a company making $100M in profits would not put that all into the bank. It may pay dividends with some, it may put some more towards growing the business, and it might keep some cash available in case cash-flows fluctuate during the year."}
{"question":"Is it OK to use a credit card on zero-interest to pay some other credit cards with higher-interest?","answer":"I've done exactly what you are describing and it was a great move for me. A few years back I had two credit cards. One had a $6000 balance and a fairly high interest rate that I was making steady payments to (including interest).  The other was actually tied to a HELOC (home equity line of credit) whose interest rate was fixed to \"prime\", which was very low at the time, I think my effective rate on the card was around 3%.  So, I pulled out one of the \"cash advance checks\" from the HELOC account and paid off the $6000 balance. Then I started making my monthly payments against the balance on the HELOC, and paid it off a bit more quickly and with less overall money spent because I was paying way less interest. Another, similar, tactic is to find a card that doesn't charge fees for balance transfers and that has a 0% interest rate for the first 12 months on transferred balances. I am pretty sure they are out there. Open an account on that card, transfer the balance to it, and pay it down within 12 months. And, try not to use the card for anything else if you can help it."}
{"question":"When a stock price goes down, does the money just disappears into thin air?","answer":"In short, thanks to the answers and comments posted so far.  No actual money is magically disappeared when the stock price goes down but the value is lost. The value changes of a stock is similar to the value changes of a house. The following is the long answer I came up with based on the previous answers and comments alone with my own understandings. Any experts who find any of the following is 200% out of place and wrong, feel free to edit it or make comments. Everything below only applies if the following are true: The stock price is only decreasing since the IPO because the company has been spending the money but not making profits after the IPO. The devaluation of the stock is not the result of any bad news related to the company but a direct translation of the money the company has lost by spending on whatever the company is doing. The actual money don\u2019t just disappear into the thin air when the stock price goes down. All the money involved in trading this stock has already distributed to the sellers of this stock before the price went down.  There is no actual money that is literally disappeared, it was shifted from one hand to another, but again this already happened before the price went down.   For example, I bought some stocks for $100, then the price went down to $80. The $100 has already shifted from my hand to the seller before the price went down. I got the stock with less value, but the actual money $100 did not just go down to $80, it\u2019s in the hand of the seller who sold the stock to me.  Now if I sell the stock to the same seller who sold the stock to me, then I lost $20, where did the $20 go? it went to the seller who sold the stock to me and then bought it back at a lower price. The seller ended up with the same amount of the stocks and the $20 from me. Did the seller made $20? Yes, but did the seller\u2019s total assets increased? No, it\u2019s still $100, $80 from the stocks, and $20 in cash. Did anyone made an extra $20? No. Although I did lost $20, but the total cash involved is still there, I have the $80 , the seller who sold the stock to me and then bought it back has the $20. The total cash value is still $100. Directly, I did lost $20 to the guy who sold me the stock when the stock has higher value and then bought it back at a lower price. But that guy did not increased his total assets by $20. The value of the stock is decreased, the total money $100 did not disappear, it ended up from one person holding it to 2 people holding it. I lost $20 and nobody gained $20, how is that possible? Assume the company of the stock never made any profit since it\u2019s IPO, the company just keeps spending the money, to really track down where the $20 I lost is going, it is the company has indirectly spent that money. So who got that $20 I lost? It could be the company spent $20 for a birthday cake, the $20 went to the cake maker. The company never did anything to make that $20 back, so that $20 is lost. Again, assume the stock price only goes down after  its IPO, then buying this stock is similar to the buying a sport car example from JoeTaxpayer (in one of the answers), and buying an apple example from BrenBarn(in one of the comments from JoeTaxpayer\u2019s answer).  Go back to the question, does the money disappears into the thin air when the value of the stock goes down? No, the money did not disappear, it switched hands. It went from the buyer of the stock to the company, and the company has spent that money. Then what happens when the stock price goes down because bad news about the company? I believe the actual money still did not just disappear. If the bad news turn out to be true that the company had indeed lost this much money, the money did not disappear, it\u2019s been spent\/lost by the company. If the bad news turn out to be false, the stock price will eventually go up again, the money is still in the hand of the company. As a summary, the money itself did not disappear no matter what happens, it just went from one wallet to another wallet in many different ways through the things people created that has a value."}
{"question":"What does the -V indicate on MKC ticker","answer":"MKC is non-voting stock, MKC\/V is voting stock. Ofter times you'll see two or more stock symbols for a company.  These usually reflect different classes of stocks.  For example, voting vs. non-voting (as in this case) or preferred vs non-preferred stock."}
{"question":"Are the \"debt reduction\" company useful?","answer":"No. Not in the Uk anyway, they are just an extra person\/company that you have to pay."}
{"question":"Resources to begin trading from home?","answer":"A good place to start is to read, such as :  Robert T. Kiyosaki : poor dad rich dad. It is quite simple but it gives the good mindset to start. But moreover it is stated in the book : \"the best investement you can make is educate yourself\". You current situation is quite difficcult, but don't give up on your study. From your post i didn't understand : do you have a master degree?  If you love math, learn coding and find a job in banking or else. People that know how to code AND have a good level in math worth a lot."}
{"question":"Pros, cons, and taxation of Per Diem compensation?","answer":"Hence new employer pays a part of the salary as per diem compensation   along with regular salary and says that per-diem compensation is   non-taxable. Per-diem is not taxable. But that is not what you're describing. It appears that either you or the prospective employer, misunderstood what per-diem is. As per US law is it legally allowed non taxable per diem compensation   to employees? Yes. What are the pros and cons of having per diem compensation? Per-diem is not compensation. It is not part of your salary. It is not part of your employment contract. If I have to report my salary to any one like banks, insurance   companies, do I need to include Per diem compensation or not? No, because it is not compensation. Back to the first item: Per-diem is paid to you during business trips when you're away from your (tax) home. It is not part of your compensation, and is only allowed for business trips. Contract work on site for any prolonged period of time (1 year or more, as a definitive rule, but can be less) is not a business trip. For that period of time your tax home becomes that location, so you're not away. You're home. You should discuss it with a licensed tax adviser (EA\/CPA licensed in your State), but it seems to me that either you misunderstood something, or your prospective employer is trying to evade taxes (both yours and his) by disguising part of your compensation as per-diem. It is very likely that when you get caught, the employer will just issue you 1099 on the amounts and leave you hanging."}
{"question":"Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0?","answer":"You are incorrect in saying that you have a capital gains of $0. You either have no capital gains activity, because you haven't realized it or you have an unrealized capital gains of -$10k. If you were to sell immediately after receiving the dividend you would end up as a wash investment wise - the 10k of dividend offsetting the 10k capital wash. Though due to different tax treatments of money you may be slightly negative with respect to taxes.  You are taxed when you receive the money. And you realized that 10k in dividends - even if you didn't want too.  In the future if this bothers you. You need to pay attention to the dividend pay out dates for funds. But then just after they payout a dividend and have drain their cash account. The issue is that you unknowingly bought 90k of stock and 10k of cash. This information is laid out in the fund documentation, which you should be reviewing before investing in any new fund."}
{"question":"Equity - date of offer, or date of joining?","answer":"TL;DR: The date they were granted.  (Usually, this follows both an offer and acceptance.) It's not uncommon for a new vesting clock to start when there's a new round of funding coming in, because the investors want to make sure the key people are going to be engaged and incentivized going forward from that point.  They don't lower their expectations for how long they want folks engaged based on the person having started earlier.  Non-institutional investors may have the same concerns as institutional investors here and use the same vesting strategy to address them. Primary recognition of the benefits from having had people start earlier or be there longer (so long as it correlates with having gotten more done) is embedded in the valuation (which affects how much founders' shares are diluted in the raise)."}
{"question":"Where can I get AEX historical data - Amsterdam? ","answer":"Try the general stock exchange web page. http:\/\/www.aex.nl I did a quick trial myself and was able to download historical data for the AEX index for the last few years.  To get to the data, I went to the menu point \"Koersen\" on the main page and chose \"Indices\". I then entered into the sub page for the AEX index. There is a price chart window in which you have to choose the tab \"view data\". Now you can choose the date range you need and then download in a table format such as excel or csv. This should be easy to import into any software.  This is the direct link to the sub page: http:\/\/www.aex.nl\/nl\/products\/indices\/NL0000000107-XAMS\/quotes"}
{"question":"Can I write off time I spent working on my business?","answer":"No, you cannot write off time, period. You should price the time spent into your product. I, occasionally, work on side projects of my own and forgo the   possibility of earning direct income for that time. Income not earned is income not taxed, so there's nothing to deduct."}
{"question":"What is the best way to determine if you should refinance a mortgage?","answer":"Yes, take the new rate, but instead of using the new 30 year term, calculate the payment as though the new mortgage were at the remaining term. 3 years into a 30? You calculate the payment as if the new mortgage were 27 years.  This will tell you what you are really saving. Now, take that savings and divide into your closing costs if any. That will give you the break even. Will you be in the house that long?  If you can find a no closing cost deal, it's worth it for even 1\/8% savings."}
{"question":"Should I finance a new home theater at 0% even though I have the cash for it?","answer":"Read the fine print and you will be fine.  The big caveat is that if you miss a payment for any reason, you will be in default as far as the promotional financing is concerned and will typically owe ALL of the accrued interest, which is usually computed at 20-25% per year. Personally, I use these sorts of offers all of the time at places like Home Depot for stuff that doesn't generally need warranty service. (Wood, tools, etc) Usually I pay the thing off over time as CDs mature. If I'm buying a TV, computer, etc. I always use my AMEX, because I get an extra year of warranty service and points for free."}