"The reason I don't want to get into here it is because internet debates over these things turn into an absolute shit-show, instantly.   In a nutshell, the (sane parts of) argument comes down to very difficult-to-prove assumptions about how perfectly fiat currency can/will be implemented.  - The (sane) case for gold is that it is very difficult to get into the kind of money-printing mischief that places like Zimbabwe and Argentina have got into when your currency is based on something with a finite and slow-growing supply. It's hard to print more gold.   - The (sane) case for fiat currency is that it is ridiculous to hamstring the entire economy by tying it to one arbitrary commodity with a fluctuating value and supply that does not correlate well with overall economic output.   A perfectly-implemented fiat currency, printed and ordained by a perfectly omniscient, perfectly competent, and perfectly benevolent central bank (let's call it ""God money""), is the ideal. That's pretty much axiomatic, and even sane gold-bugs would tend to allow the above, so far as it goes, including all stipulations.   In fact, someone inclined to believe in divine intervention might make a case that gold is precisely that: a hard-to-forge, easy-to-detect, easy-to-handle metal placed on earth by God in quantities just right to serve as currency.  The problem is that a really *bad* fiat currency is absolutely terrible: leads to nightmare-scenarios; people starving on one side of a fence while tons of crops are being burned on the other side because of runaway price-discrepancies, stuff like that. Again, even (sane) Keynesians will allow as much.   The problem is that the crazies, ideologues, and single-issue zealots come out of the woodwork when you start getting into this stuff, and tend to dominate the conversation (if ""conversation"" is a fair word to use). In a sense, the ""sane"" spectrum of debate boils down to an almost ideological divide:   - Whether you believe that a sort of permanent, technocratic, central-bank/currency-issuer is possible/plausible.  Because if it *is* achievable, it is almost certainly better than just tying the whole economy to the price of a single commodity. If it is *not* achievable, then it is almost certainly better to let the markets adjust and correct, however imperfectly, than to tie the whole economy to the whims and wishes of incompetent and politically-motivated money-printers. (I hope that makes sense, and that it is a fair representation of the conundrum).  The problem with making an argument is that you've got a hodge-podge of technical (and sometimes fairly complicated) nitty-gritty, plus a certain amount of starting-assumption/worldview/ideological stuff, all smooshed together, and almost all of it is very hard/impossible to ""prove"" via evidential scientific testing.   Both the technical and historical stuff have strong conflicting indicators, and it's obviously not possible to, say, set up two identical societies and let them run for a thousand years, controlling for everything but monetary policy, and see what happens.   Macro-economics is a very imperfect science. It has certainly given the world some very useful and valuable insights and axioms, but the testing methods are extremely indirect and heavily subject to interpretation: you really have only the historical record to draw on, and it is almost impossible to find examples that control for whatever variable is in question.   Macro, ideally, *tries* really hard to be science, but you're always kind of picking from bad examples when testing a hypothesis, trying to line up vaguely similar historical periods to isolate for some common factor. It's kind of like geology or theoretical physics, except with much smaller and messier data-sets. Ten thousand years from now, it will be much easier to look at the historical data and isolate for particular variables over multiple hundred-year spans across a variety of cultural, political, and socio-economic backgrounds.   For now, the peanut-gallery is chock full of questions that the experts cannot answer, and the record is full of exceptions to every rule, and a lot of it frankly boils down to worldview and ideology (with a healthy dollop of ""I'm smarter than you"" to finish the sauce).   Since I personally prefer technical questions to politics, I will leave it to others to formulate and debate those things."


There are two impacts: First, if the pound is dropping, then buying houses becomes cheaper for foreign investors, so they will tend to buy more houses as investments, which will drive house prices up. Second, in theory you might be able to get a mortgage in a foreign country, let's say in Euro, and you might hope that over the next few years the pound would go up again, and the Euros that you owe the foreign bank become worth less.


we are working aggressively to bring in the housing bubble in for a soft landing   meanwhile, the US bubble was never managed in the first place, has already burst and caused a recession that's the worst since the great depression.   you were saying? yes, at this point in time, the chinese bubble looks worse because the US bubble already killed us and we don't have one anymore.


This is me going off my assumptions here...  With Lyft, I think you'd be right. Most people are doing it as a part-time gig and would otherwise own/lease a car.   With Uber, most people are doing it as a career. Most drivers are former taxi drivers. Uber has started promoting programs to help drivers lease new cars with -- I'd assume -- discounted rates. Thus, Uber is promoting its drivers to make a financial commitment to get new cars but is still treating them as independent contractors who can be terminated from the system without cause and are subject to Uber's whims to reduce or change the business model/pricing structure.   It's a huge risk for drivers to take, and I fear most aren't accurately assessing the risk when they sign up.


India-based Comantra, alleged to get involved in phone assistance fraud, thrown out of Microsoft’s Gold Partner membership program The centers contact persons saying that they’re working for Microsoft and they happen to be “alerted” to issues with the user’s computer. Microsoft has eventually thrown the Indian firm that was among the “Gold” associates in the [...]


"Losses at a brokerage firm due to fraud are insured up to $500,000 per account for securities  by the SIPC (Securities Investors' Protection Corporation), which is the stock market version of the FDIC (that insures deposits). The protection amount for cash is $250,000. That's small comfort to ""big"" players in MF Global. But it does protect ""small"" investors like you."


This is the thing - you will have to pretty much live it for the next ten plus years (far longer than you need for a PhD). You can become a heart surgeon in less. The question is if you don't make it all the way, would you still be happy?  If you have an interest in financial mathematics, then I would add that it isn't all Citigroup. There are plenty of other places in financial institutions (both large and small) that can be more interesting and possibly less demanding than actuarial work for less work.


Cripes, did anybody think to proofread it in all that time? It has random spaces in the middle of every other word. From the executive summary it looks like a fairly optimistic overview of transhumanist goals (which I've been aware of and supported for years now, thanks kindly) without anything that should cause you to flip a shit as you have here.   There's nothing inherent to human enhancement or future technology that suggests less privacy or liberty for individuals - in fact a lot of human snooping, minding, and emergency decision-making can be replaced by automated systems with memories kept short by law. If all you're concerned about is the potential abuses by tyrannical governments then you're never going to welcome any technological change in the future and you probably find yourself at odds with most of the advances from the 20th century. Tyrannical governments can ruin and abuse *anything.* Any ex-Soviet will tell you they can be just as nosy and suppressive with pen and paper as with computers and nanomabots. The control problem you seek to address is tyranny, not technology.  I'm skimming through this bloody massive document and not seeing anything so horrible that unfamiliarity warrants accusations of mental deficiency. It looks like five hundred pages of breathless futurism with plentiful concern for privacy. Point me toward the bug up your ass or I'm just going to write this off as luddite fearmongering.


1. you want /r/personalfiance  2. 1 payment or 4-5 makes no difference 3. what makes the difference are a) interest rate b) pay as much as possible every month 4. pay as much as you can into the credit card with the highest interest rate, and the minimum payment on the rest; as you pay off a credit card, make as big of a payment to the one that has the highest interest rate 5. stop charging anything on any credit card and stop getting into any kind of debt 6. as you pay off a credit card, call the company and cancel it.


Summarized article: The London-based investment bank Barclays Bank has agreed to pay penalties of $450 million to settle charges it attempted to manipulate key benchmark interest rates.   The settlement is with the US Department of Justice, the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the British Financial Services Authority (FSA).   Investigators found that Barclays manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) which measures how much banks will charge each other for loans, and in turn, affects the cost of loans and mortgages to consumers.   Between 2005 and 2009, Barclays staff would base its estimates for the Libor on the requests of its derivatives traders, who wanted to manipulate the rate to benefit their trading positions. The traders would ask their Barclays colleagues to adjust their rate estimates up or down to post a profit for the bank.  The FSA said that Barclays appeared to have a wide acceptance of its derivatives traders lobbying its colleagues and found evidence through a trail of emails and instant messages.   Barclays has admitted its actions fell short of industry standards but it is unclear if there was any impact to consumers.   The FSA is investigating several major banks for similar violations.  * For more summarized news, subscribe to the [/r/SkimThat](http://www.reddit.com/r/SkimThat) subreddit


Nah, they actually need them seriously, it's the main profit center for retail. The thing is, it's not that bad, the return shipping rates Amazon is giving to sellers are actually amazing. What I don't understand is why they can't offer those rates to us if we sell something and print the label from Amazon. Like they are ridiculously good. It would probably be cheaper for me to make a fake order and return for every shipment that I actually send out.


Ah, so GS didn't tell its customers to sell stocks.  Businesses aren't concerned about healthcare, the EPA and the NLRB.  Healthcare isn't about to get tossed by the SC.  And Fast & Furious wasn't a way to change gun laws. (Try to compare it to Wide Receiver and I guarantee you'll fail like the typical liberal idiot you are.)  Oh, and I didn't get downvotes because people think I'm a republican. LOL  Why do liberals simply ignore facts?  This president is a complete failure and Romney is the only choice we have. Sorry you can't handle the truth.  Worthy only of mockery, you shall be laughed at for the next 2 seconds.


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.


Back end fees should not really matter much in DCA vs VA as they are both ways of deploying money in the markets and back end fees happen when selling not deploying.  The only difference I can think of would be if the back end fees have a holding period and if you need to take the money out before that period end some money may be subject to a higher fee.  The difference should not generally be large and since it is largely random whether DCA or VA deploys the capital more quickly it makes little difference. On a related note, DCA or VA makes little difference and when transaction fees are significant or time frames are long (retirement) generally, on average, both lose to lump-sum investing. Finally, as Chris mentioned mutual funds with load fees (especially back end but even front end) are considered poor investment choices as the vast majority don't give excess returns that justify the heavy fee load.


If I could, I would buy you a coffee and then we could rant together the whole evening - that's how much I agree with you! You know, the right wing is trying the same fucking thing here in Norway too, but that will happen over my dead body.


No.  An exchange rate tells you the exchange rate, that's all.  Changes in exchange rates are a little more interesting because they suggest economic changes (or anticipation of such), but since the exchange rate is the composite of many economic forces, determining what changes may be in action from an exchange rate change is not really possible.


"Actually no. You're in a subreddit where productivity is valued above ""business cosmetics"", and racism and misogyny are valued by their impact in the workplace. In this case OP described perfectly and truely what happens when you have a group of women working together for a long period of time."


You should be able to sell it to a collection agency. I just googled and this is the first results: CollectYourBills.com


Unfortunately, you still owe the collection agency the money. Once they bought your debt, they became the ones that you needed to pay. Nothing that you do or pay to the apartment complex has any bearing on their right to collect that debt. As far as the agency is concerned you gave the apartment complex a gift.  As to whether you can get the complex to refund that payment, you will need to speak to a lawyer. And it may hinge on what obligation the complex had of reminding/informing you that your debt had been sold to a collection agency.


Well the only way you can actually legally do a bond issuance is through a broker dealer. In order to register and actually sell the securities to outside investors, you need a registered representative at a registered broker dealer. This falls under blue sky laws. You LEGALLY have to have one.  Also, why would you prefer to issue? I mean public debt offerings are massive undertakings (hence why I said unless no one is pitching you, why do it). For example, as a first time issuer, you would have to register with the SEC, every state you plan to issue in, submit historical AUDITED financials, comply with SOX and other accounting filings, bring in due diligence, go on roadshows, etc. This stuff costs A LOT of time and money.   For example, since you've never issued before, if you're cooking the books and the bankers don't catch it they can be legally liable for fraud.  Also, how much are you even trying to raise?


All else constant, yes. It's one more reason rates aren't being raised quickly. The housing market is very delicate. Before the crash, a lot of homes in my area were 25% cheaper than after the rates dropped to historic lows. My area wasn't heavily affected by the recession, but homeowners still greatly benefitted from the increase in housing values which led to a lot more investment, though the houses aren't actually worth anything more.   To raise rates dramatically now would be to trap a lot of homebuyers in homes that aren't worth what they owe.


Here's an old-ish article from the NYT that discusses this.


Earnings per share is the company profit (or loss), divided by the number of outstanding shares. The number should always be compared to the share price, so for instance if the EPS is $1 and the share price is $10, the EPS is 10% of the share price. This means that if the company keeps up this earning you should expect to make 10% yearly on your investment, long term. The stock price may fluctuate, but if the company keeps on making money you will eventually do so too as investor. If the EPS is low it means that the market expects the earnings to rise in the future, either because the company has a low profit margin that can be vastly improved, or because the business is expected to grow. Especially the last case may be a risky investment as you will lose money if the company doesn't grow fast enough, even if it does make a healthy profit. Note that the listed EPS, like most key figures, is based on the last financial statement. Recent developments could mean that better or worse is generally expected. Also note that the earnings of some companies will fluctuate wildly, for instance companies that produce movies or video games will tend to have a huge income for a quarter or two following a new release, but may be in the negative in some periods. This is fine as long as they turn a profit long term, but you will have to look at data for a longer period in order to determine this.


You could certainly look at the holdings of index funds and choose index funds that meet your qualifications.  Funds allow you to see their holdings, and in most cases you can tell from the description whether certain companies would qualify for their fund or not based on that description - particularly if you have a small set of companies that would be problems. You could also pick a fund category that is industry-specific. I invest in part in a Healthcare-focused fund, for example.  Pick a few industries that are relatively diverse from each other in terms of topics, but are still specific in terms of industry - a healthcare fund, a commodities fund, an REIT fund.  Then you could be confident that they weren't investing in defense contractors or big banks or whatever you object to. However, if you don't feel like you know enough to filter on your own, and want the diversity from non-industry-specific funds, your best option is likely a 'socially screened' fund like VFTSX is likely your best option; given there are many similar funds in that area, you might simply pick the one that is most similar to you in philosophy.


Nope, sorry.  ChemChina-Syngenta are not US companies and they couldn't care less about US when it comes to long term strategy. Chem china is also in about to merge with sino chem.  This will be by far the largest diversified company in the world. followed by BASF.  Dow Dupont, will shrink, since they have the weakest global reach, compared to Asian and european counterpart.   Bayer-Monsanso? They see the writing on the wall. Either they  look for partners quickly or become irrelevant.   There is no option. Either become bigger/more  efficient or perish.


I typed my information into both last year, and while they were not exactly the same, they were within $10 of each other. For my simple 2009 taxes they were not different in any meaningful way.


Military Members who are assigned to locations where dependents are not allowed to travel at government expense (such as basic training, and some unaccompanied overseas assignments) can live in the barracks for free, and still continue to receive the housing allowance, in order to provide a household for their family members.


Typically this isn't a random order- having a small volume just means it's not showing on the chart, but it is a vlid price point. Same thing would've happened if it would've been a very large order that shows on the chart. Consider also that this could have been the first one of many transactions that go far below your stop point - would you not have wanted it to be executed then, at this time, as it did? Would you expect the system to look into future and decide that this is a one time dip, and not sell; versus it is a crash, and sell? Either way, the system cannot look in the future, so it has no way to know if a crash is coming, or if it was a short dip; therefore the instrcutions are executed as given - sell if any transfer happens below the limit. To avoid that (or at least reduce the chance for it), you can either leave more distance (and risk a higher loss when it crashes), or trade higher volumes, so the short small dip won't execute your order; also, very liquid stocks will not show such small transaction dips.


how much capital do you have? how much capital will you need? if you don't have much capital, how do you plan to finance? what are your short-term projections? long-term projections? what assets do you need? overhead? supply chain initiatives? how ripe is the market for your idea? how do you plan to differentiate yourself from your competitors? who's your biggest competitor? what are they going to be doing 5 years out? who are your customers? have you segmented them? who are your distributors and channels? how do you plan to promote your company?


I can't speak to Tangerine's system specifically, but I have used similar systems through Bank of America and Chase (both US-based).  It sounds like my experience in terms of identity verification were very similar, and I now use this to pay several contractors on a regular basis. No problems so far.


It doesn't matter who wants what. If you spend more than you have, you have to cut stuff. The longer you wait, the more it hurts. California has waited way too long, that means they have to cut deep, which means a lot more people get hurt than if they cut 8 years ago.


This is surprising, I'm not sure if they do this anymore. I got an overdraft fee a couple months when they tried to pay the balance on my CC. I had plenty in savings to cover it. I called and argued with them because they re-ran the draft to pay the CC the next day too, when they should have been well aware there weren't funds in the checking account, but they wouldn't do anything about it.  The first time I've ever had a gripe with them.


Generally, paying down your mortgage is a bad idea. Mortgages have very low interest rates and the interest is tax deductable. If you have a high interest mortgage, or PMI, you might consider it, but otherwise, your money is better off in some sort of index fund. On the other hand, if your choices are paying down a mortgage or blowing your money on hookers and booze, by all means do the mortgage. Typical priorities are: Dave Ramsey has a more detailed plan.


From a little guy perspective, I've been working inside computers since I first cracked open my Apple IIE in the 80's.  There's some sort of disconnect in my brain with mobile devices. I can barely use the functions on my smartphone and I just can't seem to grasp the fundamentals. It makes me feel so old.


"...and the 'winner' will get to be the next ""Brazil-by-the-[whatever that city's known for]"". There'll be [private, secret transportation](https://io9.gizmodo.com/5976477/the-hidden-bus-routes-in-san-francisco-that-are-only-for-techno-elites) so the imported elite won't have to rub up against the favela-dwellers. Of course the Bezos-thralls will totally distort the property-value distribution.  But hang in there, locals. Once the tax subsidy period runs out, you'll get 'your' city back after Amazon conducts another hysterical selection process."


Be ruthlessly meticulous about the IRS regulations for deducting a home office.  If it's allowed, it's allowed.


You are omitting how the company made 120 million in the previous year and may be facing a shrinking market and thus have poor future prospects. If the company is shrinking, what will the shares be worth down the road. Remember companies like AOL or Blackberry? There was a time they had big profits before things changed which is the part you aren't considering here. If the company has lost something big on its earnings, e.g. the oil wells it owned have run out of reserves or the patents on its key drugs have expired, then there could be the perception that the company won't be able to compete in the future to continue to deliver earnings. Some companies may well end up going broke as one could look at GM for a company that used to be one of the largest car companies in the world and yet it ended up going broke.


In any case you need a CA. Please consult one. I am selling a plot of land that I own in India. This would be treated as capital gains event and you would owe taxes on the gains. I would like to purchase an apartment in India for my parents use. Yes you can. You maybe able to offset some gains on land sale against the apartment.  Would like to gift part the money (about INR 20 lakhs) towards my US born son's college education in the US. As you are NRI; Under FEMA, you can transfer funds from your NRO account to US. A form 15CAB and 15CB need to be submitted to the bank to enable transer.


Seems a little early.  Here's my advice: if you don't feel ready, you're probably not completely ready. In that case, it would probably be best if you worked as the assistant to the president of your business for a while to learn the ins and outs.  Even if you are confident, keep the current president around to help. Maybe they can occupy the vice president position while you take over ownership. You'll want somebody there who knows what's up when shit hits the fan.


You will have a tough time matching Staples, etc. on general use items (copy paper, file folders, etc.). The big box stores use copy paper as a loss leader to pull in clients. You will need to specialize with your products and services to carve out a niche.


"I didn't intend to compare them for the purposes of pointing out any similarities.  I just found it interesting that some people thought Google was overvalued and that the company turned out to be a juggernaut.  Facebook perhaps has more serious problems but who knows where the company will be in 8 years.  Perhaps then we'll look back at the criticism and think, ""it should have been obvious that blah blah blah."""


The iPhone 6 looked really good so I didn't buy a case for it when I got it. But it slipped out of my hands and shattered less than 48 hours of ownership.   I'd be curious what the percentage of people without a case is. I almost never see someone still going bareback. Everyone seems to use a case.


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


You have defined net profit to include all income and, presumably, expenses. Specifically, you are including income from other sources and are including finance costs and tax expense. For the quarter ended June 30, 2015, the net profit, by your definition, is 12.58. This is given on line 9 of the PDF. You ask how you can review this information. You cannot, given only the PDF you linked to. Note that the numbers have not been audited so it is the case that no trusted third party has yet reviewed it and signed off that the information is accurate.


"In that example, ""creating money"" could be used interchangeably with ""making promises"".  There's no inflation, and no problem, so long as everyone keeps their promises. Which sounds like a horrifying thing to say about the foundations of the economy, but the remarkable thing is that people mostly do."


"The basic equation taught in day one of accounting school is that Assets = Liabilities + Equity. My first point was that I looked at the actual financial statements published as of the end of the 2nd quarter 2017, and the total liabilities on their audited balance sheet were like $13 billion, not $20b. I don't know where the author got their numbers from.  My second point: Debt usually needs to be paid on prearranged terms agreed upon by the debtor and the debtee, including interest, so it is important for a business to keep track of what they owe and to whom, so they can make timely payments. As long as they have the cash on hand to make payments plus whatever interest they owe, and the owners are happy with the total return on their investment, then it doesn't really matter how debt they have on the balance sheet.  Remember the equation A=L+E. There are precisely two ways to finance a business that wants to acquire assets: liabilities and/or equity. The ""appropriate"" level of debt vs equity on a balance sheet varies wildly, and totally depends on the industry, size of the business, cash flow, personal preferences of the CEO, CFO, shareholders et al, etc.    It gets way more detailed and complicated than that obviously, but the point is that looking at debt alone is a meaningless metric. This is corporate finance and accounting 101, so you can probably find tons of great articles and videos if you want to learn more."


I don't know about this particular person, however I have an example about my friend. Born in a very rich family he went to Harvard and the worked 2 years for Goldman. Now, I should mention, he is a rather bright fellow, and a great human being as well, but when asked about his studies and work experience in Goldman he described it as not very challenging.


LoL, maybe they should focus on the crappy food.  Subway is getting killed on taste and value by all the Shawarma joints where we live.  For $6 i can get a shawarma packed with actual chicken and veggies that aren't processed to oblivion.


> Children from low-income families have only a 1 percent chance of reaching the top 5 percent of the income distribution, versus children of the rich who have about a 22 percent chance.  * Most rich parents have children who become rich people.   * Therefore: Most rich people are the children of rich parents.   Is guilty of the same logical fallacy as:  * Most rapists are males.   * Therefore: Most males are rapists.   You're claiming the data suggest something that it does not. Stats don't lie, but people do.


As for what you can do, deposit the ~$3000 in an interest bearing account, and collect the interest on their money.  When they finally ask for it back, you immediately pay them, but you keep the interest earned.  Now it's in your interest for them to take as long as possible to ask for repayment and you've done nothing wrong.


I paid with my Visa credit card. Generally on credit cards, the holds / authorizations are valid for a month on single transactions. So if you haven't been charged on your card, it seems that there was some technical error with the online market place. They were not able to trace this. Is there an expiration date on these kind of online purchases? Should I expect the money to be withdrawn at any time? There are 2 different aspects, one is do you still owe them money and can they ask you; It would be yes, I don't know the timelines. This would depend on establishing a contract etc. They can contact you for unpaid invoice. Can they again charge the credit card automatically ... generally No.


There is no single 'market interest rate'; there are myriad interest rates that vary by risk profile & term. Corporate bonds are (typically) riskier than bank deposits, and therefore pay a higher effective rate when the market for that bond is in equilibrium than a bank account does. If you are willing to accept a higher risk in order gain a higher return, you might choose bonds over bank deposits. If you want an even higher return and can accept even higher risk, you might turn to stocks over bonds. If you want still higher return and can bear the still higher risk, derivatives may be more appealing than stocks.


I'm 50ish: still play video games and just recently started needed power naps.    Getting stuff done, automation and other work is really the only thing that provides satisfaction.  I volunteer to teach kids coding and help neighborhood kids with mechanical stuff.   Never was big on going out.    Taking a vacation to a white sandy beach would drive me nuts after about six hours.  My vacations seem to look a lot like work too :)


ETFs are both liquid (benefits active traders) and a simple way for people to invest in funds even if they don't have the minimum balance needed to invest in a mutual fund (EDIT: in which purchases are resolved at the end of the trading day). One big difference between ETFs and mutual funds is that you must buy ETFs in whole units, whereas you can add $100 to a mutual fund and the fund will determine -- usually to 4 decimal places -- how many shares you've purchased.


Yes, there are times when co-signing is the right choice. One is when you know more about the person than the loan issuer does. Consider a young person who has just started working in a volatile field, the kind of job where you can be told on Friday that you only get one shift next week but things might pick up the week after, and who makes maybe $12 an hour in that job. You've done the math and with 40 hour weeks they can easily afford the loan. Furthermore, you know this person well and you know that after a few weeks of not enough shifts, they've got the gumption to go out and find a second job or a different job that will give them 40 hours or more a week. And you know that they have some savings they could use to ensure that no payments will be missed even on low-wage weeks. You can cosign for this person, say for a car loan to get them a car they can drive to that job, knowing that they aren't going to walk away and just stop making the payments. The loan issuer doesn't know any of that.  Or consider a young person with poor credit but good income who has recently decided to get smart about money, has written out a budget and a plan to rehabilitate their credit, and who you know will work passionately to make every payment and get the credit score up to a place where they can buy a house or whatever their goal is. Again, you can cosign for this person to make that happen, because you know something the lender doesn't. Or consider a middle aged person who's had some very hard knocks: laid off in a plant closing perhaps, marriage failure, lost all their house equity when the market collapsed, that sort of thing. They have a chance to start over again somewhere else and you have a chance to help. Again you know this isn't someone who is going to mismanage their money and walk away from the payments and leave you holding the bag. If you would give the person the money anyway (say, a car for your newly graduated child) then cosigning instead gives them more of a sense of accomplishment, since they paid for it, and gives them a great credit rating too. If you would not give the person the entire loan amount, but would make their payments for many months or even a year (say, your brother's mortgage for the house where he lives with a sick wife and 3 small children), then cosigning is only making official what you would have done anyway.  Arrange with the borrower that if they can't make their payments any more, you will backstop them AND the item (car, house, whatever) is going up for sale to cover your losses. If you don't think you could enforce that just from the strength of the relationship, reconsider co-signing. Then sign what you need to sign and step away from it. It's their loan, not yours. You want them to pay it and to manage it and to leave you out of it until it's all paid off and they thank you for your help. If things go south, you will have to pay, and it may take a while for you to sell the item or otherwise stop the paying, so you do need to be very confident that the borrower is going to make every single payment on time. My point is just that you can have that confidence, based on personal knowledge of character, employment situation, savings and other resources, in a way that a lender really cannot.


"As far as I agree to everyone saying that ""you should stop borrowing"" & etc, I see a lot of sense of getting balance transfer cards if you are actually paying it off. Considering a scenario, you have a CC with balance of $5000 on each at roughly ~24% interest which results in ~$1200 interest per year. Your minimum due is ~$110, where you are paying $100 / mo for only interest and ~$10 / mo to cover your balance. If minimum is all you can pay with your current cash flow - yes, pleease do a balance transfer. Assuming your transfer cost is 3% and 0% interest for 21 months ( as many CCs do now ) your cost will be $150, but paying off $110 / month for 21 months you will pay off roughly $2000 off your balance, instead of ~$210 if you were paying only your minimum due. After 21 months - you'll have a balance of ~$3000 ( instead of $4800 ) and then you can repeat. If your cash flow gets better - please make as many more / bigger payments any time you can to reduce the balance and you'll pay off sooner."


He owns the majoirty of berkshire hathaway which owns a lot of big companies outright as well as fractions of other big public companies. For example, his holding company berkshire hathaway which lets say he owns 50% of, owns 10% of coca cola. This means that every can or bottle of coke sold, berkshire hathaway gets 10% of the profit so say .01 per can. Thats a lot given the millions of cans sold. Since he owns 50% of berkshire hathaway that means he is getting half a penny of every can of coke sold.   Do this with all of his companies and investment holdings and you get to billions of dollars.


>It will not do anything except make insurance companies really happy and create a race to the bottom, where we get the worst policies offered by encouragin insurers to go to the states with the least restrictions.  Competition is not a race to the bottom. If people can attain better deals by crossing state lines, then that will drive insurance companies to decrease costs while increasing quality of service.  >In fact, there is no evidence insurers even want to do this.  Which should tell you that it is a good idea.


It used to be much more common, particularly for sub-prime loans. If you do run into someone offering a loan with a prepayment penalty, you should certainly consider other options.


"From what I have read from O'Neil to Van Tharp, etc, etc, no one can pick winners more than 75% of the time regardless of the system they use and most traders consider themselves successful if 60% of the trades are winners and 40% are losers.  So I am on the side that the chart is only a reflection of the past and cannot tell you reliably what will happen in the future. It is difficult to realize this but here is a simple way for you to realize it. If you look at a daily chart and let's say it is 9:30 am at the open and you ask a person to look at the technical indicators, look at the fundamentals and decide the direction of the market by drawing the graph, just for the next hour. He will realize in just a few seconds that he will say to him or her self ""How on earth do you expect me to be able to do that?""  He will realize very quickly that it is impossible to tell the direction of the market and he realizes it would be foolhardy to even try. Because Mickey Mantle hit over 250 every year of his career for the first 15 years it would be a prudent bet to bet that he could do it again over the span of a season, but you would be a fool to try to  guess if the next pitch would be a ball or a strike. You would be correct about 50% of the time and wrong about 50% of the time. You can rely on LARGER PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR OVER YEARS, but short hourly or even minute by minute prediction is foolish. That is why to be a trader you have to keep on trading and if you keep on trading and cut your losses to 1/2 of your wins you will eventually have a wonderful profit.  But you have to limit your risk on any one trade to 1% of your portfolio.  In that way you will be able to trade at least 100 times.  do the math.  trade a hundred times.  lose 5% and the next bet gain 10%.  Keep on doing it. You will have losses sometimes of 3 or 4 in a row and also wins sometimes of 3 or 4 in a row but overall if you keep on trading even the best traders are generally only ""right"" 60% of the time.  So lets do the math. If you took 100 dollars and make 100 trades and the first trade you made 10% and reinvested the total and the second trade you lost 5% of that and continue that win/loss sequence for 100 trades you would have 1284 dollars minus commissions. That is a 1200% return in one hundred trades.  If you do it in a roth IRA you pay no taxes on the short term gains.  It is not difficult to realize that the stock market DOES TREND. And the easiest way to make 10% quickly is to in general trade 3x leveraged funds or stocks that have at least 3 beta from the general index.  Take any trend up and count the number of days the stock is up and it is usually 66-75% and take any down trend and it is down 66-75% of the days.  So if you bet on the the beginning of a day when the stock was up and if you buy the next day about 66-75% of the time the stock will also be up. So the idea is to realize that 1/3 of the time at least you will cut your losses but 2/3 of the time you will be up then next day as well.  So keep holding the position based on the low of the previous day and as the stock rises to your trend line then tighten the stock to the low of the same day or just take your profit and buy something else.  But losing 1/3 times is just part of ""the unpredictable"" nature of the stock market which is causes simply because there are three types of traders all betting at the same time on the same stock.  Day traders who are trading from 1 to 10 times a day, swing traders trading from 1 day to several weeks and buy and hold investors holding out for long term capital gains. They each have different price targets and time horizons and THAT DIFFERENCE is what makes the market move.  ONE PERSON'S SHORT TERM EXIT PRICE AT A PROFIT IS ANOTHER PERSONS LONG TERM ENTRY POINT and because so many are playing at the same time with different time horizons, stop losses and exit targets it is impossible to draw the price action or volume.  But it is possible to cut your losses and ride your winners and if you keep on doing that you have a very fine return indeed."


Some other store will pop up that isn't a corporate slave wage shop with local employees that actually know how computers and electronics work.  Hell some of might have commission, it's crazy how much more actually helpful an employee is when commission is involved in a store where people can easily spend thousands...


Something like cost = a × avg_spreadb + c × volatilityd × (order_size/avg_volume)e. Different brokers have different formulas, and different trading patterns will have different coefficients.


Would you lend RadioShack money through the holidays? No, because the decline in revenue means there are no customers shopping in the stores and the cash flow will be insufficient to pay for the inventory. This is going to play out the same way it did for Linens 'n Things, Borders, and Circuit City.


I'm a bot, *bleep*, *bloop*. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:  - [/r/talkbusiness] [Please let me know what you think. I am starting a travel-inspired business and I am starting with this. Any input will be appreciated.](https://www.reddit.com/r/talkbusiness/comments/79u1ew/please_let_me_know_what_you_think_i_am_starting_a/)  &nbsp;*^(If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads.) ^\([Info](/r/TotesMessenger) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=/r/TotesMessenger))*


I don't understand the hubbub about qwikster. Netflix wants to move in the direction of streaming only and they should. I don't even have a dvd player hooked up to my tv anymore. If you want dvd's you will still get them in basically the same fashion except the name will be different. What's the big deal?


But it's the fact the company calls it a material concern, and hasn't disclosed material information to investors that puts this into a potential SEC issue.  So yes, author hangs a lot on that line, but that line is what makes it most interesting to investors.


That's because the wealthy are paid for every engine stroke, and they know the car is almost out of fuel, and is heading for a cliff.  So they are making plans to bail while collecting as many resources from the car's operation before it's inevitable crash.


>According to research by the economists Ross Levine and Yona Rubinstein, people who become entrepreneurs are not only apt to have had high self-esteem while growing up (and to have been white, male and financially secure)  Well no crap. Mom and pops is about the main determinate.   >Entrepreneurs are well off before http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/  http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3088-american-dream-wealthy-parents.html


Most likely, this will not work they way you think. First things first, to get a loan, the bank needs to accept your collateral. Note that this is not directly related to the question what you plan to do with the loan. Example: you have a portfolio of stocks and bonds worth USD 2 million. The bank decides to give you a loan of USD 1 million against that collateral. The bank doesn't care if you will use the loan to invest in foreign RE or use it up in a casino, it has your collateral as safety. So, from the way you describe it, I take it you don't have the necessary local collateral but you wish to use your foreign investments as such. In this case it really doesn't matter where you live or where you incorporate a company, the bank will only give you the loan if it accepts the foreign collateral. From professional experience with this exact question I can tell you, there are very few banks that will lend against foreign property. And there are even less banks, if any, that will lend against foreign projects. To sum it up: Just forget banks. You might find a private lender to help you out but it will cost you dearly. The best option you have is to find a strategic partner who can cough up the money you need but since he is taking the bigger risk, he will also take the bigger profit share.


Are you tensed at the idea of packing and moving in the city of Los Angeles? No more worries now. Our moving company, FlatRateMoversLA offers Moving services Los Angeles at the most competitive prices. As we charge based on the entire work, you can save lot of money.


A company like M. Davis & Sons should be your best option. Even with other service provisions like rigging, steel fabrication in NJ and industrial maintenance, you can have a better package since they have skilled and seasoned inspectors and technicians.


In the same way that you are taxed on the actual amount of money you convert from the Traditional IRA to the Roth IRA -- rather than on the amount of money that you initially contributed to your 401(k) or on the amount of money that you rolled over to your Traditional IRA -- that converted amount becomes the contributions to your Roth. So (3) is the correct answer. It doesn't matter how you accumulated the money in the first place; as long as the IRS has had the opportunity to dig their claws into it, it counts as a contribution to your Roth.


Depending on your broker, you can buy these stocks directly at the most liquid local exchanges. For instance, if you are US resident and want to to buy German stocks (like RWE) you can trade these stocks over InteractiveBrokers (or other direct brokers in the US). They offer direct access to German Xetra and other local markets.


If you encounter  the problem often then you can hire the Mold Remediation Fort Lauderdale services as they will check thoroughly with the mold and the affected area. Using the bleach water solution is the best method as they will wash away with the harmful bacteria present I them.


To build a US credit record, you need a Social Security Number (SSN), which is now not available for most non-residents.   An alternative is an ITIN number, which is now available to non-residents only if they have US income giving a reason to file a US tax return (do you really want to get into all that...). Assuming you did have a reason to get a ITIN (one reason would be if you sold some ebooks via Amazon US, and need a withholding refund under the tax treaty), then recent reports on Flyertalk give mixed results on whether it's possible to get a credit card with an ITIN, and whether that would build a credit record.  It does sound possible in some cases.   A credit record in any other country would not help.  You would certainly need a US address, and banks are increasingly asking for a physical address, rather than just a mailbox. Regardless, building this history would be of limited benefit to you if you later became a US resident, at that point you would be eligible for a new SSN (different from the ITIN) and have to largely start again. If getting a card is the aim, rather than the credit record, you may find some banks that will offer a secured card (or a debit card), to non-residents, especially in areas with lots of Canadian visitors (border, Florida, Arizona).  You'd find it a lot easier with a US address though, and you'd need to shop around a lot of banks in person until you find one with the right rules.  Most will simply avoid anyone without an SSN.


"> For instance, one of his sage-like pieces of advice is to put a clause in your contract saying ""subject to the approval of all business partners"". Then if you feel like backing out, you claim that your cat is your business partner and he didn't like the deal. I am not making this up.   I'm no contract lawyer, but shouldn't the signature on the contract mean a binding approval of its terms for the signer and everyone they implicitly represent?  I mean, otherwise, what power does the signature hold for the other party, if the signee can just claim later that their unspecified business partner doesn't like your face?"


"There is no free lunch. ""Free"" can cost you a small fortune over time.  If you wish to sit through a free pitch you may as well go to a time share seminar. Just keep your hands in your pocket and don't sign anything.  In the end, you will be best served spending the time it will take to learn to manage your own money. Short term, spend a few hundred dollars and find a fee only planner who will give you general advice.  My disdain for the ""bank guy"" goes back to an overheard conversation. An older woman, in her 70s was asking about investing in T-bills vs the bank CD. T-bills were a bit higher yield at the time. The banker stated that the CD was FDIC insured,but T-bills were not. This was decades ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday."


In some jurisdictions you can donate the development rights. You and the family still own it, but nothing can ever be built on it. In some cases you will still be able to build a cabin or similar structure on a few acres, but the bulk has to be left natural.  The advantage is that by giving away the logging or other development rights the land loses much of its value, thus reducing the tax value of the land. There are some hoops that you need to jump through, but this is not an unusual transaction. Another choice it to see if the land touches any similar conservation areas. It can be possible to donate the land to the government or other conservation group, but it would revert to the family if they ever tried to sell or develop the land. Because you don't own it you would not have to pay taxes, but hikers, canoeists and campers could still use it. By donating the land to the same organization a your neighbors it can streamline the paperwork for people who want to through hike.


[Here.](https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/) I'm pretty sick of the crying about the bailout. My libertarian friends just don't seem to grasp how much worse things would have been if we let them fail. No one seems to recall their history courses on the great depression, a bank run would probably have brought us to or knees for decades along with complete lack of trust that would have been instilled in an entire generation. Yes, the banks should have been punished, but that's a separate issue in my mind. They also should be held to higher capital requirements to ensure their ability to weather these rare events. But we need regulation BECAUSE we cannot allow them to fail and we need LARGE fines or heavy-handed indictments to enforce them rather than a slap on the wrist.


I won't answer in a detailed manner because most people at this site like answers with certain bias' on these questions, like pool resources always relative to which partner is asking.  If you follow the above advice, you are hoping things work out.  Great!  What if they don't?  It will be very messy.  Unlike most of my peers, I did NOT follow the above advice and had a very clean exit with both of us feeling very good (and no lawyers got involved either; win-win for both of us with all the money we saved). One assumption people make is the person with the lowest income has the strictest limits.  This is not always true; I grew up in poverty, but have a very high income and detest financial waste.  I can live on about €12,000 a year and even though my partner made a little less, my partner liked to spend.   Counter intuitive, right?  I was supposed to be the spender because I had a large income, but I wasn't.  Also, think about an example with food - sharing expenses.  Is it fair for one partner to split whey protein if one partner consumes it, but the other doesn't (answer: in my view, no)? My advice based on your questions: Balance the frugal vs. spendthrift mentality rather than income ratios.  If you're both frugal, then focus on income ratios - but one may be more frugal than the other and the thought of spending €300 a month on housing is just insane to a person like me, whereas to most it's too little.  Are you both exactly the same with this mentality - and be honest? Common costs that you both agree on can be easily split 50-50 and you can often benefit from economies of scale (like internet, cell phone). Both of us feel very strongly about being financially independent and if possible we both don't want to take money from each other. This is so healthy for a relationship.  My partner and I split and we both still really love each other.  We're headed in different directions, but we did not want to end bitterly.  What you wrote is part of why we ended so well; we both were very independent financially.   Kids are going to be a challenge because they come with expenses that partners don't always agree on.  What do you and her think of childcare, for instance?  You really want to know all this upfront; again a frugal vs. spendthrift mindset could cause some big tensions.


Plain and simple, go into business.  I was in the exact same boat as you 5 years ago. Was going to school to become a Pharmacist while working in a Dominick's pharmacy as a tech. Absolutely hated it and did not see myself standing behind that counter for the rest of my life. Not to mention that a pharmacists job will be one of the firsts in the medical field to be automated.   Left pharmacy school to start my business degree. Got a couple of sales jobs for the experience while completing my bachelors. Now I'm working in Chicago as a commercial real estate broker. The plan is to work in this for the foreseeable future, and then parlay this career into my own business ventures and real estate investing and build from there!


I assume you're talking about a sell order, not a buy order. When you place a limit sell order, your order is guaranteed to be placed at that price or higher.  If the market is currently trading much higher than the price of your sell order, then your mistakenly low limit order will be essentially a market order, and will be filled at  the current bid price. So the only way this is a problem is if you want to place a limit sell that is much higher than the current market, but mistakenly place a limit lower than the current market.


"If you are the sole owner (or just you and your spouse) and expect to be that way for a few years, consider the benefits of an individual 401(k). The contribution limits are higher than an IRA, and there are usually no fees involved. You can google ""Individual 401k"" and any of the major investment firms (Fidelity, Schwab, etc) will set one up free of charge. This option gives you a lot of freedom to decide how much money to put away without any plan management fees. The IRS site has all the details in an article titled One-Participant 401(k) Plans. Once you have employees, if you want to set up a retirement plan for them, you'll need to switch to a traditional, employer-sponsored 401k, which will involve some fees on your part. I seem to recall $2k/yr in fees when I had a sponsored 401(k) for my company, and I'm sure this varies widely.  If you have employees and don't feel a need to have a company-wide retirement plan, you can set up your own personal IRA and simply not offer a company plan to your employees. The IRA contribution limits are lower than an individual 401(k), but setting it up is easy and fee-free. So basically, if you want to spend $0 on plan management fees, get an individual 401(k) if you are self-employed, or an IRA for yourself if you have employees."


(1) Not literally every person...this screams that you don't know what you are talking about. There is literally no one on my team that puts it behind their name nor any of my friends from my MBA program.  (2) They aren't as I just proved to you in 3 minutes  (3) Your advice is complete and utter shit.   (4) As I have already articulated:   (A) undergrads know shit, those that have zero experience and an MBA know less than shit.  (B) Learning advanced concepts without knowing anything about the real world won't help him, he won't be able to apply anything he has learned.   (C) He loses any opportunity to reset his career or recruit into a high level position based on some asshole's advice on the internet.   (D) He will command a higher wage exiting MBA with work experience instead of likely taking more debt that he needs to.   (E) he gets to deal with hiring managers like me that will grill him on why he thought it was a good idea to do his MBA directly after undergrad with no work experience.   I might sound like a dick - but I'm not the one handing out shitty advice that highlights how inexperienced you are.


"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."


Its all about speculation. Like stocks, real estate fluctuates and is sometimes volatile. Educate yourself on the house you are buying and the area it is in. I wouldn't spend over 20% of current net worth on a house. Its all a gamble. And you have to think realistically whether or not you can AFFORD losing all the value of it.


Well, once you get a distillation column going, you'll find that the results of refining is quite a bit more than just [gasoline](http://www.globalization101.org/uploads/Image/Energy/picture-refinery.jpg). Even then, the octane level of the gasoline you produce will probably be too low without some additives.


"When I was in the industry and before I got in I watched The Kudlow Report on CNBC at 7.   Coverage was fairly well rounded so you had some highly technical segments going on too to balance out things like politics. They also had awesome guests like people from the Treasury and FED and my favorite, Robert Shiller, was on pretty often.  When I was in college nobody I knew watched it. Then I interned at one of the Big 4 for a top notch advisor and said ""You bet I do!"" Upon asking him.  This was all 6 years ago so..."


"I held shares in BIND Therapeutics, a small biotechnology company on the NASDAQ that was liquidated on the chapter 11 auction block in 2016. There were sufficient proceeds to pay the debts and return some cash to shareholders, with payments in 2016 and 2017. (Some payments have yet to occur.) The whole process is counter-intuitive and full of landmines, both for tax preparation & planning and receiving payments: Landmine 0: Some shareholders will sell in a panic as soon as the chapter 11 is announced.  This would have been a huge mistake in the case of BIND, because the eventual liquidation payments were worth 3 or so times as much as the share price after chapter 11.  The amount of the liquidation payments wasn't immediately calculable, because the company's intellectual property had to be auctioned. Landmine 1: The large brokerages (Vanguard, Fidelity, TDA, and others) mischaracterized the distributions to shareholders on form 1099, distributed to both shareholders and the IRS. The bankruptcy trustee considered this to be their responsibility. According to the tax code and to the IRS website, the liquidation is taxed like a sale of stock, rather than a dividend. ""On the shareholder level, a complete liquidation can be thought of as a sale of all outstanding corporate stock held by the shareholders in exchange for all of the assets in that corporation. Like any sale of stock, the shareholder receives capital gain treatment on the difference between the amount received by the shareholder in the distribution and the cost or other basis of the stock."" Mischaracterizing the distributions as dividends makes them wrongly ineligible to be wiped out by the enormous capital loss on the stock.  Vanguard's error appeared on my own 1099, and the others were mentioned in an investor discussion on stocktwits.  However, Geoffrey L Berman, the bankruptcy trustee stated on twitter that while the payments are NOT dividends, the 1099s were the brokers' responsibility. Landmine 2: Many shareholders will wrongly attempt to claim the capital loss for tax year 2016, or they may have failed to understand the law in time for proper tax planning for tax year 2016. It does not matter that the company's BINDQ shares were cancelled in 2016.  According to the IRS website ""When a shareholder receives a series of distributions in liquidation, gain is recognized once all of the shareholder's stock basis is recovered. A loss, however, will not be recognized until the final distribution is received."" In particular, shareholders who receive the 2017 payment will not be able to take a capital loss for tax year 2016 because the liquidation wasn't complete.  Late discovery of this timing issue no doubt resulted in an end-of-year underestimation of 2016 overall capital gains for many, causing a failure to preemptively realize available capital losses elsewhere. I'm not going to carefully consider the following issues, which may or may not have some effect on the timing of the capital loss: Landmine 3: Surprisingly, it appears that some shareholders who sold their shares in 2016 still may not claim the capital loss for tax year 2016, because they will receive a liquidation distribution in 2017. Taken at face value, the IRS website's statement ""A loss, however, will not be recognized until the final distribution is received"" appears to apply to shareholders of record of August 30, 2016, who receive the payouts, even if they sold the shares after the record date.  However, to know for sure it might be worth carefully parsing the relevant tax code and treasury regs. Landmine 4: Some shareholders are completely cut out of the bankruptcy distribution. The bankruptcy plan only provides distributions for shareholders of record Aug 30, 2016.  Those who bought shares of BINDQ afterwards are out of luck. Landmine 5: According to the discussion on stocktwits, many shareholders have yet to receive or even learn of the existence of a form [more secure link showing brokers served here] required to accept 2017 payments.  To add to confusion there is apparently ongoing legal wrangling over whether the trustee is able to require this form. Worse, shareholders report difficulty getting brokers' required cooperation in submitting this form. Landmine 6: Hopefully there are no more landmines. Boom. DISCLAIMER: I am not a tax professional. Consult the tax code/treasury regulations/IRS publications when preparing your taxes.  They are more trustworthy than accountants, or at least more trustworthy than good ones."


No, the more conservative approach is to use the market value of debt (at least assuming its trading at a discount). A company wouldn't necessarily have to come to an agreement with creditors, they would just default on their obligations. In which case the company may file for bankruptcy protection, which allows for a variety of scenarios to play out (both consensual and not).   As for when debt trades at a premium, we're talking about two different factors that effect bond prices. Credit risk and interest rate risk. But yes, a company does have a higher financial obligation if interest rates decline. They're stuck paying 8% in an environment where they could refinance for 6%. If they refinance, then creditors more than likely aren't going to take less than par. If they don't refinance, then they have the opportunity cost of essentially overpaying on their cost of debt.


If it gets bad enough that banks start failing, you probably will have a hard time accessing overseas accounts.  That's real SHTF stuff.  If so, lighters and toilet paper are probably the best investment you can make besides canned and dried food. Update:   Complete breakdown of society is far more likely than the paranoid fantasy of Trump establishing an authoritarian government.  The general population would rise up and you would find the civil unrest portion to be important. As for lighters and toilet paper, think about it for a minute.  If you've got a case of food in cans but no way to heat them, would you trade a can for a lighter?  Two cans?  And toilet paper would be worth its weight in gold after about 2 months. If you really want to be a prepper, seeds, medicine, are all good things, but the really important thing to have is skills.  Know how to hunt, clean an animal, tend a garden, clean and dress a wound. Having gold and diamonds would be a decent hedge for a fraction of your investments.


"Some reasons I take low-interest loans are: Leverage. If the loan's rate is low enough, then I can invest the cash in something fairly low-risk, and make more money than I pay in interest. The interest rate has to be pretty low, say below 4% or so. My auto loan is low enough and my home loan is low enough if you count the tax deduction. Obviously you have to invest in something riskier than cash here, though. And consider taxes, which lower the rate you're paying on a home loan, but also lower the returns you're getting on any bonds you invest in. Liquidity and flexibility. If I have N thousands in cash instead of tied up in my house, then I could use that money to survive many months of unemployment for example, or handle any other emergency. But if you become unemployed or have some other emergency, it will be too late to get a home loan. Credit rating. It's good to use some credit, just so you can get more if you need it. But this isn't a reason to take a particular loan, just a reason to have some kind of credit card or loan. Budgeting. When budgeting, it's best to think of expenses such as cars and houses in terms of a monthly cost, so you can see how they nudge out or allow other spending. (When negotiating with a car dealer, of course, use total cost so you don't get screwed by him messing with interest rates.) I wouldn't take a loan just to ease the budgeting (you can always manually ""amortize"") but it's a nice side effect. For credit cards, there are more buyer protections and you get a nice transaction log (again useful in budgeting). Also you don't have to carry around cash, or worry about your checking account balance. So credit cards are just convenient. But even though my card has a very low rate, it isn't low enough that I want to keep a balance month-to-month, so I don't use credit cards to actually borrow money."


As a personal advice, its best avoided to take a loan for a vacation. Having said that it would also depend on the amount of loan that one is planning to take and the duration for repaying the loan and the rate of interest.   One has to also consider if you borrow; when you are paying the loan back, is that money comming out of something else that was budgeted. Say paying this loan means that you can't save enough for the downpayment for your house you plan to buy next year or will mean less contributions to retirement savings. If so then its definately advisable to forego the vacation travel. You can still take the holiday and enjoy at home doing something else that of meaning.


">walmart hires them because they have a low marginal utility undeserving of a higher wage.  No, the job they do at Wal-Mart has a low marginal utility.  Human beings don't have one innate ""marginal utility"" statistic on a cosmic character sheet, you know."


Listening to him speak he does give off the impression that he has a good deal of business sense. Whether or not that translates into how he manages his personal finances though, I've got no idea.   It's possible to spend lavishly but responsibly. That definitely doesn't appear to be Floyd's style, but time will tell with Conor.


The short answer is, with limited credit, your best bet might be an FHA loan for first time buyers.  They only require 3.5% down (if I recall the number right), and you can qualify for their loan programs with a credit score as low as 580. The problem is that even if you were to add new credit lines (such as signing up for new credit cards, etc.), they still take time to have a positive effect on your credit.  First, your score takes a bit of a hit with each new hard inquiry by a prospective creditor, then your score will dip slightly when a new credit account is first added. While your credit score will improve somewhat within a few months of adding new credit and you begin to show payment history on those accounts, your average age of accounts needs to be two years or older for the best effect, assuming you're making all of the payments on time. A good happy medium is to have between 7 and 10 credit lines on your credit history, and to make sure it's a mix of account types, such as store cards, installment loans, and credit cards, to show that you can handle various types of credit. Be careful not to add TOO much credit, because it affects your debt-to-income ratio, and that will have a negative effect on your ability to obtain mortgage financing. I really suggest that you look at some of the sites which offer free credit scores, because some of them provide great advice and tips on how to achieve what you're trying to do.  They also offer credit score simulators, which can help you understand how your score might change if, for instance, you add new credit cards, pay off existing cards, or take on installment loans.  It's well worth checking out. I hope this helps.  Good luck!


Personally I could care less about what people think about my choices. If you feel that you are forced to do it then you are probably not making that choice out of your own desire. I eat vegan but I still ride Uber. I do not care about external pressure and neither should anyone else. Does not sound healthy or sane at all.


"This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](http://www.businessinsider.com/gig-economy-milton-friedman-full-employment-wage-growth-2017-8) reduced by 89%. (I'm a bot) ***** > In 1967, Milton Friedman argued that low unemployment spurred wage rises, wages rises in turn spurred inflation, and inflation then spurred further wage rises.  > He made a crucial claim, new at the time, which today is taken for granted: That low unemployment spurs wage rises, those wages rises in turn spur inflation, and that inflation then spurs further wage rises down the line, for as long as the rate of inflation continues to grow.  > As The Economist lamented this week, Friedman&#039;s explanation fails to explain current wage conditions: low inflation, low unemployment, and non-existent wage increases.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6x0anp/gig_economy_has_destroyed_milton_friedmans/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~201275 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **wage**^#1 **inflation**^#2 **Friedman**^#3 **work**^#4 **rise**^#5"


I am a believer in that theory. My opinion is that over the long term, we can expect 25% of income to reflect the payment on one's mortgage, and if you drew a line over time reflecting the mortgage this represents plus the downpayment, you'd be very close to a median home price. The bubble that occurred was real, but not as dramatic as Schiller's chart implies. $1000 will support a $124K 30yr mortgage, but $209K at 4%. This is with no hype, and exact same supply/demand pressures.  The market cap of all US companies adds to about $18T. The total wealth in the US, about $60T. Of course US stocks aren't just held by US citizens, it's a big world.  Let me suggest two things - the world is poor in comparison to much of the US. A $100,000 net worth puts you in the top 8% in the world. The implication of this is that as the poorer 90% work their way up from poverty, money will seek investments, and there's room for growth.  Even if you looked at a closed system, the US only, the limit, absent bubbles, would be one that would have to put a cap on productivity. In today's dollars we produce more than we did years ago, and less than we will in the future. We invent new things faster than the old ones are obsoleted. So any prognostication that our $18T market can grow to say, $30T, does not need to discuss P/Es or bubbles, but rather the creation of new products and businesses that will increase the total market.  To summarize -  Population growth (not really discussed), Productivity, and long term reduced Poverty will all keep that boundary to be a growing number.  That said, this question may be economic, and not PF, in which case my analysis is bound for the Off-Topic barrel. Fascinating question.


Whoever pays the most, gets the produce. The longer it sits, starts going bad, the lower the value goes. For walmart to sell at their prices, they need to buy as cheap as possible.   Most big juice companies don't have their own farms, they buy for the lowest price to make a profit, they actually just buy the fruit as its less of a risk. The one's they buy definitely do not look like whats on the juice box. If you dig into it, there is more info on the internet that shows these kinds of things. The food industry is quiet bad.


"The name of the Gilt states the redemption date, but not the original issue date. A gilt with 8.75% yield and close to its redemption date may have been issued at a time when interest rates were indeed close to 8.75%. For example in the early 1990s, the UK inflation rate was about 8%. One reason for preferring high or low coupon gilts is the trade off between capital gains and income, and the different taxation rules for each. If you buy a gilt and hold it to its maturity date, you know in advance the exact price that it will be redeemed for (i.e. £100). You may prefer to take a high level of income now, knowing you will make a capital loss in future (which might offset some other predictable capital gain for tax purposes) or you may prefer not to take income that you don't need right now, and instead get a guaranteed capital gain in future (for example, when you plan to retire from work). Also, you can use the change in the market value of gilts as a gamble or a hedge against your expectation of interest rate changes in future, with the ""government guaranteed"" fallback position that if your predictions are wrong, you know exactly what return you will get if you hold the gilts to maturity. The same idea applies to other bond investments - but without the government guarantee, of course."


Where we’re going, we don’t need profits Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Print this page 15 SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 By: Alexandra Scaggs Simply put, earnings no longer reliably reflect changes in corporate value and are thus an inadequate driver of investment analysis. – Profs Feng Gu and Baruch Lev, in a paper for the CFA Institute’s Financial Analysts Journal Well then!  This idea challenges the very heart of traditional equity-market investment analysis. The authors point out that legendary stock-picker Benjamin Graham spent hundreds of pages of his 1962 book on analysing and predicting earnings and other quarterly metrics. Earnings prediction is still central to most sell-side analysis as well.  But if profits, EBITDA or sales were truly central for corporate valuation, wouldn’t markets punish regular loss-makers like Tesla and Amazon more severely? And wouldn’t there be a stronger return to predicting profits?  The returns to such predictions have diminished over time, according to the authors of the paper, which might help explain the persistent underperformance by active fund managers. While the professors commit a minor chart crime below by starting the Y-axis at 1.5 per cent, it seems notable that potential gains were lower during the 2009 downturn than during the dot-com bust:  The 30-year pattern of the gains from the earnings growth investment strategy is depicted in Figure 2. Again, the deterioration of gains from perfect growth prediction is evident. Clearly, the problem lies with reported earnings, not in the way investors use them. Simply put, earnings no longer reliably reflect changes in corporate value and are thus an inadequate driver of investment analysis.  The decline in profits’ importance can be explained by a fundamental change in the way companies create value, they say.  There are lots of names for the change: The information revolution, the rise of the knowledge economy, and so on. No matter what you call it, the idea is that modern production relies less on physical capital and more on intellectual capital.  Accounting and financial analysis methods have failed to adapt to this change, they say. For example, companies are required to expense R&D and sales expenses immediately, while they can amortise expenses from capital investment and acquisitions (including intangibles) over time. They argue those rules penalise the important methods of modern value creation, since R&D costs create lasting returns from new products and SG&A expenses create lasting returns from new customers.  Of course, one person’s “internally generated intangibles” can be another’s “overpaid salesforce”. But the difference in accounting treatment between those costs and acquired intangibles can make it difficult to compare within industries:  Thus, a company pursuing an innovation strategy based on acquisitions will appear more profitable and asset rich than a similar enterprise developing its innovations internally. Consequently, reported earnings, assets, and market multiples (P/E, book-to-market ratio) cannot be compared within industries, and earnings definitely do not reflect intrinsic value creation. And as far as we can tell, the professors aren’t lobbying to start amortising all sales costs and executive compensation. Instead, they say we should stop looking at the consequences of corporate value creation — the quarterly reports — and start looking at its causes.  They suggest financial analysis based on strategic assets, which are (1) rare, (2) difficult to imitate and (3) generate net benefits, like growth in a customer base or sales.  There would be four steps to this type of analysis. From the paper, with our emphasis:  1. Taking inventory of strategic assets: Compiling a list of the major strategic assets of the enterprise; distinguishing between operating and dormant assets (e.g., patents under development or licensed out versus abandoned patents), active brands (enabling the charging of a premium product price) and brands in name only, or producing oil and gas properties and those under exploration versus inactive properties. Such inventory taking establishes the foundation—active strategic assets—of the company’s competitive advantage. 2. Enhancing strategic assets: Without continued investment and replenishment, even highly productive assets will wither on the vine (recall Dell). You should ask, Is the spending on R&D, technology purchases, customer acquisition, brand support, and employee training sufficient to maintain and grow the business? Cutting R&D or employee training to “make the numbers” clearly bodes ill for future growth. 3. Defending strategic assets: These assets are vulnerable to competition (from similar products), infringement, and technological disruption, raising the question of whether the company’s assets are adequately protected by continuous innovation, patent defensive walls, and litigation. A continuous loss of market share clearly indicates a failure to protect assets. 4. Asset deployment and value creation: Are the strategic assets, along with other company resources, optimally deployed to create value (e.g., retail outlets with increasing same-store sales)? And what is this value? Note that in our analysis, the measurement of the periodic value created is a byproduct rather than the focus of the analysis. We prefer to measure value created by cash flows to avoid the multiple managerial estimates embedded in earnings. In contrast to the cash flows generally used by analysts (EBITDA), however, we add to cash flows the company’s investments in value-creating strategic assets, such as R&D, IT, and unusual brand creation expenditures, which are not really operating cash outflows. Now, if we are living in a period of secular stagnation, this could be seen as an attempt to lower the bar to make up for lackluster capital investment. (One academic literature review we found on the topic of strategic assets only cites papers from around the time of the dot-com bubble. Fancy that!)  What’s more, “defending strategic assets” can sound a lot like “maintaining monopoly power”, depending on the methods companies use in their defence. So an investment analysis focussed on strategic assets might also require more aggressive anti-trust regulation.  But if you accept the idea that widespread adoption of the internet brought a fundamental and irreversible change in the drivers of growth, there are worse approaches to financial analysis you can take.  There’s more detail and argument in the paper, which you can find here.


Although Amazon and Whole Foods encompass less than 2% of the US grocery market, I'd be curious as to whether antitrust regulation could be relevant here or to any part of Amazon's business.  As Amazon monopolizes, it actually benefits customers via lower prices and more free Prime perks - so the basic definition of a monopoly would have to be adjusted to apply.


Just look at GNP for manufacturing, and then compare population sizes.  If you've got 4x the people and you're only producing slightly more than another country in finished goods, what does that say about your manufacturing sector?  Is it a world beater, or an also ran?    Also, of course, most of the margin for those products is realized post manufacture.  Selling shit to consumers is hard.    Also consider things like this: >This is partly because a large share of Chinese production costs consists of imports from other countries. Xing and Detert (2010) demonstrate this by examining the production costs of an iPhone. In 2009, it cost about $179 in China to produce an iPhone, which sold in the United States for about $500. Thus, $179 of the U.S. retail cost consisted of Chinese imported content. However, only **$6.50** was actually due to assembly costs in China. The other $172.50 reflected costs of parts produced in other countries, including **$10.75** for parts made in the United States.  http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html  The US adds more value to the manufacturing process of an iPhone (forgetting design entirely) than the country that ends up with the credit for its manufacture.


It would be interesting to do an anonymous survey of upper management, to find out how many of them actually thought the retail stores would turn around.  It seems hard to believe they were deluding themselves, it seems more likely they each were trying to fool their own boss, or the shareholders, a little longer, so they could keep their jobs a bit longer, and pretending that their subordinates fooled them.


Whats their actual service area?  I can't imagine it's huge.  In Austin, TX we are getting google fiber but we already had a second cable company called Grande in part of the city offering faster speeds at less money then TWC.  The problem was it wasn't really cost effective for them to expand their service area so they only cover pockets of the city.  Grande incidentally were the first company to offer 1 gig internet in Austin after Google fiber was announced however the area for that was even smaller then their normal service area.  Basically just big enough so they could say they were first.  If a company already in the business can't even expand their service area I don't think new players are going to be very likely.


Both have merits, Korea can plan long term for their families inheritance, the west needs to make massive gains every year short term and if the choice is screw the consumer or build loyalty. They are legally required to do the former.  I wish there were no corporations, limited  companies only.  The corporation is nothing like it was legally allowed to be.


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 § 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.


I imagine careers are pretty short. Sure, if you burn your 20's and 30's then it's no bueno, but if you're good enough at age 19 and can take a year off to bank a cool 6 figures, what's your opportunity cost? Not much.


There is inflation, but it's hidden through various mechanisms. What do you call housing price increases and wage declines? What do you call the fed essentially paying down the inflation with free money and prices still pressuring upwards? I get the sense there is a great underlying pressure for inflation to burst out from the fed's free money pressure chamber. For all our sake, I really hope the pressure chamber holds or I'm totally wrong in the first place.


"Sorry, I figured maybe if we could a man on the moon, we develop an app lets you know the trade in value for an item on Amazon. Fuck off with you sarcastic ""wow"" remark, nothing insightful, nothing helpful just you masturbating your own ego with a three letter word, you must feel so proud."


Tesla doesn't exist without a loan from the public sector that got them up and running.  They have since paid that back and obtained public financing, but Tesla certainly doesn't disprove the notion that subsidies are required to make nonhydrocarbon energy sources competitive with traditional fuels.


According to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, your service would appear to be exempt from taxes.  However, if you are charging for tangible items, those would incur a sales tax.


"Your counterexample of Deserved"" is telling. There are two distinct lines of thought in justice: punitive and preventative. Punitive focuses on retribution, while preventative focuses on isolation or elimination of an individual from a situation where it can do further harm.""  [Deserves got nothing to do with it.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpDkYZWeeVg),is this both?"


What I do have is this (sample only): Stock X: Average Price of all I purchased before = 80 Total Shares = 200 So if Stock X's price today is 100 how do I know how much my average price will be? Using your sample if you buy 100 new shares and the price is 85 for the purpose of this example your previous total cost is $16,000 ($80 average cost * 200 shares).  With the new example you are adding $8500 to your total cost (100 new shares * $85 example cost per share)  that gives us a total cost of $24,500 and 300 shares. $24,500/300 gives us an average cost of $81.67 per share. As long as you have the average cost and the number of shares you can calculate a new average without knowing what the price was for each transaction. It may still become important to find the price information for tax purposes if you do not sell all of those shares at once and use FIFO for your taxes.


Here's another way to look at this that might make the decision easier: Looking at it this way you can turn this into a financial arbitrage opportunity, returning 2.5% compared to paying cash for the vehicle and carrying the student loan.  Of course you need to take other factors into account as well, such as your need for liquidity and credit. I hope this helps!


"How much is rent in your area? You should compare a rental payment versus your mortgage payment now, bearing in mind the opportunity cost of the difference. Let's say that a rental unit in your area that has the same safety & convenience as your house costs $1600 per month to rent, and your mortgage is $2400. By staying in the house, you are losing that $800 month as well as interest earned on banking that money (however, right now, interest rates are negligible). Factor in total cost of ownership too, meaning extra utilities for one or the other (sometimes houses are cheaper, sometime not), property insurance and taxes for the house (if they aren't already in escrow through your mortgage) and generic house repair stuff.  If the savings for a rental are worth more than a couple hundred a month, then I suggest you consider bailing. Start multiplying $500-1000 per month out over a year or two and decide if that extra cash is better for you than crappy credit. Also, this is not the most ethical thing, but I do know of one couple who stopped paying their mortgage for several months, knowing they were going to give the house back at the end. They took what they would have spent in mortgage payments during that time into a savings account, and will have more than enough cash to float for the few years that their credit is lowered by the default. Also something to consider is that we are in a time of ridiculous numbers of people defaulting. As such, a poor credit score might start to be more common among people with decent incomes, to the point where a ""poor"" score in 5 years is worth about the same as an ""average"" score today. I wouldn't count on that, but it might soften the blow of your bad credit if you default."


">Sorry, but I have yet seen any of his ""exploit"" clearly hurt the consumer  Licensing ""one-click"" and affliate programs result in other companies unable to provide the same to their customers at competitive prices, thus clearly hurting the consumers. Maybe not *their* consumers, but certainly everyone else's.  Now if he said this on the same day he stopped the licensing fees, I would agree with you."


The effect on your credit score would be a positive one.  If you have plenty of money now then pay off the balance each month. If you are very disciplined and can pay off the balance each month you could stop using your debit card to make daily purchases and use your credit card instead. That way you can keep your money in an interest bearing account all month and pay the bill in full when it comes due.


Credit card fraud is an extremely (to stress, EXTREMELY) small proportion of total credit card transactions.  The card issuing entities all offer zero fraud liability, even on debit cards.  There are millions of transactions every day and fraud loss just isn't worth developing, and supporting, an additional authentication layer that faces the consumer. To be clear, the downside is cost.  Cost to develop, cost to implement, cost to maintain, cost to support.  All of this to stop something that millions of people have yet to even experience.