"Options have legitimate uses as a way of hedging a bet, but in the hands of anyone but an expert they're gambling, not investing. They are EXTREMELY volatile compared to normal stocks, and are one of the best ways to lose your shirt in the stock market yet invented. How options actually work is that you're negotiating a promise that, at some future date or range of dates, they will let you purchase some specific number of shares (call), or they will let you sell them that number of shares (put), at a price specified in the option contract. The price you pay (or are paid) to obtain that contract depends on what the option's seller thinks the stock is likely to be worth when it reaches that date. (Note that if you don't already own the shares needed to back up a put option, you're promising to pay whatever it takes to buy those shares so you can sell them at the agreed upon price.) Note that by definition you're betting directly against experts, as opposed to a normal investment where you're usually trying to ride along with the experts. You are claiming that you can predict the future value of the stock better than they can, and that you will make a profit (on the difference between the value locked in by the option and the actual value at that time) which exceeds the cost of purchasing the option in the first place.  Let me say that again: the option's price will have been set based on an expert's opinion of what the stock is likely to do in that time. If they think that it's really likely to be up $10 per share when the option comes due (really unlikely for a $20 stock!!!), they will try to charge you almost $10 per share to purchase the option at the current price. ""Almost"" because you're giving them a guaranteed profit now and assuming all the risk. If they're less sure it will go up that much, you'll pay less for the option -- but again, you're giving them hard money now and betting that you can predict the probabilities better than they can. Unless you have information that the experts don't have -- in which case you're probably committing insider trading -- this is a very hard bet to win. And it can be extremely misleading, since the price during the option period may cross back and forth over the ""enough that you'll make a profit"" line many times. Until you actually commit to exercising the option or not, that's all imaginary money which may vanish the next minute. Unless you are willing and able to invest pro-level resources in this, you'd probably get better odds in Atlantic City, and definitely get better odds in Las Vegas. If you don't see the sucker at the poker table, he's sitting in your seat. And betting against the guy who designed and is running the game is usually Not a Good Idea."


Amazon is beating Google at releasing voice assistant products. Owning both a Google Home, an Amazon Echo and two Echo dots, I can say that the Google Home is way closer to being a virtual assistant than anything made by Amazon. My echo is good at controlling my smart home but that's about it. The Google Home has the intelligence and information of Google behind it and you can ask it random questions and give it random tasks and it knows what to do. The echo fails 4/5 times with things like that. All it's going to take is Google adding more functionality to the Home and it will easily leapfrog the Echo.  Edit: spelling


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"I would have characterized myself as ""quant-oriented,"" having graduated from college with a CS degree.  ""Unfortunately"" for me, I was placed in OTC equity market making.  I'd say that my desk was full of knuckle-draggers who definitely could make life hard for younger guys.    By the time I was trading commodities, it was almost purely an upstairs game - so no need to worry about fighting through the mines (pits)."


Yea that's all fine and dandy if you have the resources to afford not having a reliable income while you take the risk of being entrepreneurial.    One of my good friends just sold his company to yelp for $9mil.  Good for him, I wish him the best.  But it's easy to justify taking the risk of starting your own company if your parents are worth $200mil and bought you a $3mil house.  In that situation, you aren't actually taking a risk.


Is the business an S-Corp, LLC or Sole Prop? I am going to guess based on the question that it is an LLC that you never closed with the state and you live in a state (NY) that charges a fee for having an LLC in the state in which case you owe those fees to the state. I am not aware of any taxes on the mere existence of a business by the IRS. I think you are going to find out that the are no taxes owed to the IRS for this nonexistent activity.


Not exactly. There are a few ways to manage your taxes with investments. 1) For most investments you get taxed on any gain in value in the investment or dividends paid by that investment. Most investments (with some exceptions for mutual funds) you don't take the tax hit until you sell the investment and realize the gain. For bonds, cds, and other cash type investments you have to pay taxes in the year they pay out the interest or dividend. 2) You can put money (up to a certain limit) in a traditional IRA and can subtract that amount from your income for tax calculation for the year you invest it. However, you are going to pay taxes on it when you take the money out at retirement. It really just delays the taxes. 3) If you put the money in a Roth IRA, you don't get a tax break now, but you don't have to pay any taxes on the money or the gains when you take it out at retirement. 4) The gains from some mutual funds can be tax exempt, but that just saves you from paying tax on the increase in value.  5) Don't fall for scams that try to use insurance policies as investments to avoid taxes. The fees are ginormous, which usually makes them a ripoff.


If you haven't already, check out his earlier articles when he was at DealBreaker.com - GREAT stuff, my [favourite one](http://dealbreaker.com/2011/09/lets-just-go-ahead-and-assume-that-greek-letters-evil/) is when UBS had a delta one trader Kweku losing $2.1b from unauthorized/unreported trades in the midst of Dodd Frank/Volcker Rule was being discussed.   > A thing that you probably do is go borrow one million shares of UBS and sell them short. This is a sensible thing to do. Why is it sensible? Well, for one thing, your desk is called “delta one,” and you’ve written a derivative, and you want to delta hedge that derivative, and so you pull out a Black-Scholes calculator and plug in a lot of variables and get stuck but then you look at your business card and you’re like, oh, shit, the answer is “one,”


I've heard higher end jobs suck too.  It's the polar opposite of what a lot of silicon valley strives for: you get no stake in anything, you are only as good as your last project, and you have hella rough deadlines.  A lot of young devs go in with a romanticized view of Bezos and what he's done.


The air.money website is actually a service of city forex which is registered with FCA/HMR/ICO: FCA AUTHORISED PAYMENTS INSTITUTION# 524412 HMRC MSB Registration #12191402 ICO Registration #Z8811634 Therefore, you should be okay transacting with air.money


"Here is my simplified take: In any given market portfolio the market index will return the average return on investment for the given market. An actively managed product may outperform the market (great!), achieve average market performance (ok - but then it is more expensive than the index product) or be worse than the market (bad).  Now if we divide all market returns into two buckets: returns from active investment and returns from passive investments then these two buckets must be the same as index return are by definition the average returns. Which means that all active investments must return the average market return.  This means for individual active investments there are worse than market returns and better then market returns - depending on your product. And since we can't anticipate the future and nobody would willingly take the ""worse than market"" investment product, the index fund comes always up on top - IF - you would like to avoid the ""gamble"" of underperforming the market. With all these basics out of the way: if you can replicate the index by simply buying your own stocks at low/no costs I don't see any reason for going with the index product beyond the convenience."


The rules are quite different.  There is no special home purchase penalty-free withdrawal.  In the case that your account has been open for five years, you can withdraw the principal (but not the earnings) without penalty.  You may want to talk to a professional for further details. The real question is: why do you want to borrow against your future to finance your present?  Your down payment funds should come from another source than your retirement.  Retirement funds should only be touched in the direst financial straights.


I maintain a strong bias against taking on any debt, of any sort, and I feel it serves me well.  This is not to say I would never take on a debt, like a car loan, mortgage, or educational loan.  It's just that there is a built in bias against it.   The reason that bias is good is that, in my view, taking on (unforced) debt presents the following problems: Therefore, the standing no-debt bias. That said, if there is a very compelling reason to take on unforced debt, it could override the bias.  The best example I know is that my mother bought a house with a mortgage when she had the cash, because CDs at that time were paying far more than the mortgage interest rate (this was back around the 80s when CDs hit an absurd 18%!).  To not take on that debt would be refusing free money!  But that's a rare case.  Today, CDs and other guaranteed interest streams are at historical lows, so this factor is really not in play.


Your house is not an asset, it is a liability. Assets feed you. Liabilites eat you. Robert Kiyosaki From a cash flow perspective your primary residence (ie your house) is an investment but it is not an asset. If you add up all the income your primary residence generates and subtract all the expenses it incurs, you will see why investment gurus claim this. Perform the same calculations for a rental property and you're more likely to find it has a positive cash flow. If it has a negative cash flow, it's not an asset either; it's a liability. A rental property with a negative cash flow is still an investment, but cash flow gurus will tell you it's a bad investment. While it is possible that your house may increase in value and you may be able to sell it for more than you paid, will you be able to sell it for more than all of the expenses incurred while living there? If so, you have an asset.  Some people will purchase a home in need of repair, live in it and upgrade it, sell it for profit exceeding all expenses, and repeat. These people are flipping houses and generating capital gains based on their own hard work. In this instance a person's primary residence can be an asset. How much of an asset is calculated when the renovated house is sold.


Maybe Amazon doesn't get direct subsidies but that wasn't the argument. The point is political power in America is controlled by economic power. So companies like Amazon wield large political power.  Perhaps the ultimate goal would be to push back on government tyranny but make no mistake, in our current society, it's the private wealth economic tyranny that need to be pushed back. And at times enlarging government is the only option to protect the marginalized from further misery.


> yeah... thats a little hard to believe   Why? What's harder to believe is that Equifax *would* tell all their officers. The way to keep a secret is to tell no one, and Equifax desperately needed to keep it a secret while they investigated, applied bandaids, and thought up a moving-forward strategy. (I don't like how long they waited, but announcing it immediately would be even worse from a security standpoint.)  > I dont think a single person buys that these guys all just decided to sell stock at the same time right before a story hits that will tank the value of the company  That's a very disengenuous account. They sold at different times, not immediately before the story hit, and officers of major companies sell shares all the time. It's the equivalent of me thinking it's suspicious that you put 10% of your credit line on your credit card *just one month* before someone stole your identity. People do use credit cards. One month before isn't that close. It might be fraud, but it's just not that clear. It's not even likely, given how small the amounts were.


Write to the Bank and request to the bank to close the account and ask them to transfer the funds to an account in Russia. Edit.  The process varies from bank to bank and you have to establish your identity.


Please consult at CA for specific's to your case. In general any income earned abroad can be brought to India tax free within 7 years. For more details refer to http://www.nritaxservices.com/ret_indn.htm


I can't relate in the slightest to your desire to be manipulated more effectively.   And again, your shitty connection is a political problem, not a technological hurdle. You can and should have better pipe. Push for that, instead of asking spambots to spy on your habits more aggressively.


One thing to consider: the Apple service plan covers replacement of the battery in addition to the normal things you expect.  Since the battey is not consumer replaceable, and, according to what I hear, is almost certain to wear out within the two year life of the phone, and is more expensive to have Apple replace than the extended coverage, it's probably worth it.  (Disclaimer: this was told to me by my son who used an iPhone for two years before I got mine.  I haven't independently verifies his facts. This also applied to the 3G and 3GS. I'm just assuming it's also true for the 4.)


"Depends on your account. If you have a margin account, then you can ""withdraw"" the margin, and it will get paid off/settled on T+3. However if it's a cash account then you will most likely need to wait. Call your broker and ask, each broker has different rules."


>Are you saying they did commit fraud but it's hard too pin on any one person? You say there is little evidence there was fraud but that it's too hard to prove there was fraud. So what did they do if it wasn't fraud?  I am saying both. I am saying that as a general matter criminal fraud is difficult to prove and expensive to litigate. Fraud requires intent. You have to know or reasonably know that what you are doing is fraudulent and you do it anyway. Proving that mens rea is extremely difficult in this situation. Risky does not mean fraudulent. The entire market was bundling mortgage backed securities. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (government backed entities) were the largest buyers of MBS.  The point is that if the banks honestly believed that they MBS were secure and the regulators at the time did not see a problem with them - then how can you prove criminal fraud? We are only displaying hindsight bias because the subprime market did indeed implode and it did affect the wider mortgage market and the economy. But it wasn't known that would happen at the time. No financial models projected that everything would fail.  You can blame lack of foresight or whatever, but risky losses is not criminal. Corporations are allowed the business judgment rule which is arguably the strongest presumption in all of law. There were bad models, but they weren't fraudulent.   Now there could have been fraud in certain circumstances - but in no way was it systematic. It was bad modeling and bad economics.  Again, [Bernanke has multiple quotes](http://www.businessinsider.com/bernanke-quotes-2010-12?op=1) saying there was no problem. How can the bank's actions be fraudulent when the top regulator is saying nothing is wrong and the market is working as intended?


In addition to the other answers, here's a proper strategy that implements your idea: If the options are priced properly they should account for future dividend payments, so all other things aside, a put option that is currently at the money should be in the money after the dividend, and hence more expensive than a put option that is out of the money today but at the money after the dividend has been paid. The unprotected futures (if priced correctly) should account for dividend payments based on the dividend history and, since maturing after the payment, should earn you (you sell them) less money because you deliver the physical after the dividend has been paid. The protected ones should reflect the expected total return value of the stock at the time of maturity (i.e. the dividend is mentally calculated into the price), and any dividend payments that happen on the way will be debited from your cash (and credited to the counterparty). Now that's the strategy that leaves you with nearly no risk (the only risk you bear is that the dividend isn't as high as you expected).  But for that comfort you have to pay premiums.  So to see if you're smarter than the market, subtract all the costs for the hedging instruments from your envisaged dividend yield and see if your still better than the lending rate.  If so, do the trade.


Unless and until you are ready to do the ground work and get your hands dirty in the market, it is better to let the money where it is. But how to distribute money in which asset classes, industry etc is your choice to make. But remember that a big investment company doesn't guarantee that you will always earn a return higher than the market or it is safe with them. They are also bound to make mistakes and go bust, but it would be quite rare for companies, with billions of assets because they have strict checks in place and invest with extreme caution and proper research. One option is to try dabbling in the markets yourself, slowly, not everything at once. You will learn a lot and there are loads of information on the net and books in stores which could get you started. You will need to do a lot of groundwork to beat the market. That is difficult but not impossible. People have done it time and time again and they have put in hard work to do so. And I don't see with a little bit of work and time, why you shouldn't be able to do that, unless and until you are lazy and don't intend to do it.


Let me get this straight, if I'm smart and save money to last times between jobs using my own money, I shouldn't take the unemployment given to me?  If I'm reckless and save nothing on my own, I should be bailed out though.  No-, That's ridiculous.  Of course I'll take the unemployment, it's given whether I have 0 dollars or 1,000,000 dollars.


"You are not interpreting the table correctly. The $20K ""base rate"" that you think should have been eliminated is in fact the total tax for the whole bracket. You only dipped partially into the bracket, and the $3K reduction accounts for that. Look at the table again: What it means is that if you earn $100K, you will pay $6897.50 + 25% of (100000-50400) = $12400. If you earn $140000, you'll pay $26835 + (140000-130150) * 0.28 = $2758. So why the difference between $26835 and $6897.50? That's exactly 25% of $79500, which is the difference between $130150 and $50400 - the whole value of the bracket."


In this colorful world, every girl is allowed to dream of their birthday party and being parent fulfilling their wishes is a wonderful affair. If you are ready to turn your daughter’s whimsical dreams into beautiful reality? Get ready with the idea of ‘Spa Party Bus’, which is not only a brilliant but a beautiful birthday idea!


Honestly it was because I wanted to start a meaningful discussion about it. I posted the article because it seems like to me from the article that it ONLY favors the big tech companies. The rules and regulations seem to stifle small businesses with reporting and restrictions. Considering this is a business subrreddit, I thought it was a meaningful discussion to start.


"A lot of your options depends on the type of debt you have.  If you're single, young, and have lots of credit card debt then don't discount bankruptcy.  It's definitely not an ""appealing"" thought I'm sure, but it's an option.  One thing I did was completely cut myself off from most forms of credit (credit cards and personal credit loans).  I know my weaknesses.  I will never, ever, ever, get another credit card.  I'm probably older than you are and have lived with debt for a long time.  I'm pretty much debt free; at least from debts that are not covered 100% by assets.  It took a long time.  Keep your spirits up.  Maybe try contacting a credit councilor; one of the real ones that aren't paid for by credit card companies.  I've known people that took that route."


"> I think folks aren't reading this right. It's not ""you voted for Trump, which I disagree with.""  It's absolutely ""you voted for Trump, which I disagree with.""    In fact, it's the more extreme version of ""you voted for Trump, which I _so_ disagree with, I am going to call into question any decision you will make ever.""    That's a clear fallacy.    You have to judge Tiel on the standards which are relevant to what you are looking for him to do.   Tiel is a recognized expert of starting and running businesses.  He's _not_ a recognized expert of politics.  Being good at running businesses doesn't create the ability to understand politics on a higher level, nor does poor political judgement make him also poor at running businesses."


Advantages of Gold IRA (regardless of where you're holding it): Disadvantages of Gold IRA: Instead, you can invest in trust funds like SLV (The ETF for silver) or GLD in your regular brokerage IRA. These funds negotiate their prices of storage, are relatively liquid, and shield you from the dangers of owning physical metal while providing opportunity to invest in it at market prices.


"You're supposed to be filling form 433-A. Vehicles are on line 18. You will fill there the current fair value of the car and the current balance on the loans. The last column is ""equity"", which in your case will indeed be a negative number. The ""value"" is what the car is worth. The ""equity"" is what the car is worth to you. IRS uses the ""equity"" value to calculate your solvency. Any time you fill a form to the IRS - read the instructions carefully, for each line and line. If in doubt - talk to a professional licensed in your state. I'm not a professional, and this is not a tax advice."


Home of Shanghai is Chinese real estate agency based in Shanghai.  http://www.homeofshanghai.com help exparts to rent apartment in Shanghai and find their dream home in China.  http://www.homeofshanghai.com  offers Shanghai Properties for rent by Type:  New apartments for rent in Shanghai Old apartments for rent in Shanghai Lane houses for rent in Shanghai Villas for rent in Shanghai Offices for rent in Shanghai Serviced apartments for rent in Shanghai


I'm not saying that Amazon wouldn't end up in Denver. But there's nothing special about Denver. Take a look at Boise Idaho, Salt Lake City Utah, or for non-mountains something like Kansas City Missouri.      All cities with decent economies, decent Universities, middle of the country, sizable populations, similar living styles / activities (except for Kansas City with no mountains). Yet Denver is easily 2x the cost of living or more over each of those other 3.      There's nothing so special about Denver to make it 2x the price. It's simply over hyped.


If you're willing to shell out some cash, vendors will be quite happy to sell you everything you need. Picking one out of thin air, and no idea if this is a good price or not, the CBOE will sell you EOD data for every option for $40 for one day, and at a discount for multiple days.  Beyond the high/low/close for each contract, you get the volume. Or a month of TAQ data will run your $1550, for what that's worth, which probably isn't a lot for a retail strategy.


The price of a share of a mutual fund is its Net Asset Value (nav). Before the payout of dividends and capital gain distribution, the fund was holding both stock shares and cash that resulted from dividends and capital gains. After the payout, a share only holds the stock. Therefore once the cash is paid out the NAV must drop by the same amount as was paid out per share. Thus of course assumes no other activity or valuation changes of the underlying assets. Regular market activity will obscure what the payout does to the NAV.


"Clearly someone gaming the system. One of those reviews is ""first review ever, no friends,"" which is EXACTLY what a filter should catch. I'm actually happy that the filter caught about half of these reviews. It's the other half that make my brow furrow."


AC  Repair in Hyderabad.You can enjoy more benefits on spare parts and accessories. We are having experienced technicians across different branches. We will be available in any season to give you better service. Our super expert technicians will find out the root cause of the problem and diagnose it. We provide service for not only Carrier AC but also other companies ACs also. You can contact to the below numbers to get your AC repaired.ph no: 040-60506610, 60506611, 60506622.


How do credit unions work in the US?   Why not just get rid of deposit insurance for commercial banks and keep it for credit unions. Restrict credit unions ability to filter money to the new 'investment bank' sector by keeping them out of repo and money markets (not sure if this is done currently) and bang - Corporates/institutions can still lend short and banks can still lend long in the professional world, while unsophisticated retail customer's checking accounts at least are protected from the inevitable crash.


No. You're entitled to 1% of votes at the shareholders' meeting (unless there's class division between shareholders, that is). If more than 50% of the shareholders vote to close the company, sell off its assets and distribute the proceeds to the owners - you'll get 1% share of the distributions.


-Most investors would be insulated against losses through diversified portfolios. -Uber's staff would lose their stock options, and along with drivers, would face unemployment. -Other services would grow to meet consumer demands.  I don't mean to be rude, but these answers are so obvious, this article is one step above clickbait.


WhyHellYeah, What do you do for a living? I am an accountant in the energy industry. I will never be a union member and at $50,000 a year I already make more money than 75% of people and 50% of all households in the USA... I am in the position where Unions are a threat to my lifestyle and income...   But I do know that collective bargaining is the only thing that prevents capitol from exploiting labor. I'm really curious why you feel differently?   >but EEOC is expanding  Whats wrong with an agency that is tasked to enforce laws against workplace discrimination expanding? Do you think that workplaces should discriminate against employees?


Been digging through all the EU VAT directives and have called HMRC as well.. There does not seem to be any lower threshhold for charging VAT into the EU. If you sell £10 of goods/services you have to charge VAT and file a VAT return. Your options are: 1) Register for MOSS and file a single VAT return in your home country for all countries. In the UK this means that you also have to be VAT registered and have to charge VAT locally as well - even if you are below the UK threshold. 2) Register and file a VAT return in every EU country you sell into.  You also have to apply the correct VAT rate for each country (typically 15% to 27%), and you have to keep at least two pieces of evidence for the customer location. eg. billing address, IP address, etc.


"Im curious what kind of a response youll get here. Wondering how economists feel these days. My most memorable quote from college ""A bank will loan you an umbrella on a sunny day, and will take it back when it rains."" I didnt expect that quote to be so literally accurate."


My Wife:   * Shitty genetics, lots of health problems   * By her own admission at *least* 10 IQ points down from fetal alcohol/drug exposure/being fed alcohol/drugs by her abusive mother beginning at age 3 (or earlier). Compensates by compulsively writing down everything in lists so she can remember things.   * Grew up in rural Indiana, dirt poor, abused physically, emotionally and sexually   * Realized at age 12 that she'd be pregnant by 15 if she didn't find a way out   * On her own initiative found a relative out of state to live with. Not a happy living situation but it allowed her to at least graduate high school.   * Got into college, not a great college but at least college.   * Got a degree.   * Took a job teaching in an poverty stricken area so she could give back to kids growing up the way she did.  Yup. All luck. She never could have done it without all that luck. Oh wait a second, no, she took responsibility for her own life and made something of herself instead of kicking back and waiting for a handout like all her friends and family who, oddly, haven't had much *luck* since and still live in poverty in rural Indiana.    Did I mention she makes more money, works less hours and has better benefits than I do?


Financial advisors are a client facing role and their utilization of math is relatively limited as far as I am aware. Most of the bigger PWM/AWM groups do the analytical work at a head office and the FA's in the field are basically account men. Their entire livelihood is based around relationship management with their clients.


Sounds you need to read up on S corp structures. I think this would benefit you if you generate income even after you physically stopped working which is incomes from membership fees, royalties % of customer revenue, middle man etc...  Under the Scorp, you as the sole member must earn a wage that fair and at current market value. You pay social security and Medicare on this wage. The interesting thing here is that an Scorp can pay out earning dividends  without having to pay payroll taxes but the catch is that you, as the sole employee must earn a fair wage.   As for paying the other member you may want to look into 1099 contract work plus a finders fee. The 1099 hourly wage does not require you to pay Medicare and SS.   The common fee I'm used to is 5% of gross invoice. Then you would pay her an hourly wage. The company then bills these hours multiplied by 2 or 3 (or whatever you think is fair) to the client. Deduct expenses from this and that's your profit.   Example. Contractor brings Client A which is estimated as a  100 hour project with $100 cost in supplies and requires 2 hours of your time @ $40/hr.   You quote 100 hours @ $50 to client, client agrees and gives you down payment.   You then present the contract work to your contractor, they complete the work in 100 hours and bill you at $25.   You pay your contractor 2500 plus the 5% ($250)  and your company earns $2070 (5000 - 2500 - 100-80)  And you'll earn $80 minus the payroll tax.   Then at the end of the quarter or year or however you want to do earning payouts your LLC- Scorp will write you a check for $2070 or whatever earning % you want to take. This is then taxed at your income tax bracket.   One thing to keep in mind is what is preventing this other person from becoming your competition? A partnership would be great motivation to try and bring in as much work under the LLC. But if you start shafting people then they'll just keep the work and cut you out.


As Nathan has correctly noted, ACH processes transactions in daily batches. The reason for that is accounting - the money doesn't actually change hands for each transaction. All the transactions are aggregated and calculated in the batch process, and the money only changes hands for the difference. Consider this: If each transaction was to be handled separately, each time banks would have to adjust their books to account for the money movement. But if we do it in batch we have this: The resulting inter-bank transfers: Total for the original 30 transactions - 2 transactions between the banks: A->B and C->A. If you need money to be transferred immediately (relatively) - you can use wire transfer. Some banks will still aggregate and batch-process those, but more than once a day. They'll charge you additional fee for their inconvenience.


I remember in the 90's when Best Buy sold CDs for lower prices than any other vendor. That was the only reason I ever shopped with them. Should've kept that theme up of 'lower prices on everything NSA', and maybe not treated their customers badly.


A cautionary tale:  About 25 years ago I decided that I should try my hand at investing in some technology companies.   I was in the computer biz but decided that I might suffer from myopia there, so I researched some medical startups.  And I did some reasonably good research, given the available resources (the Internet was quite primitive).  I narrowed things down to 4-5 companies, studying their technology plans, then researched their business plans and their personnel. In the end I picked a drug company.  Not only did it have a promising business plan, but it had as it's CEO a hotshot from some other company, and the BOD was populated buy big names from tech companies and the like.  AND the company had like $2 of cash for every $1 of outstanding share value, following their recent IPO. So I sold a bit of stock I had in my employer and bought like $3000 worth of this company. Then, taking the advice I'd seen several places, I forgot about it for about 6 months. When I went back to look their stock value had dropped a little, and the cash reserves were down about 20%.  I wasn't too worried.  6 months later the cash was down 50%.  Worrying a little.  After I'd had the stock for about 2 years the stock price was about 10% of what I'd paid.  Hardly worth selling, so I hung on for awhile longer. The company was eventually sold to some other company and I got maybe $50 in stock in the new company.


"One option might be to set up a separate bank account and a separate credit card account, which you would use only for your ebay transactions.  I have a friend who does a lot of selling on ebay, and this is exactly what she did.   It's reasonable to want to protect your personal finances from any complications that might arise with PayPal and/or ebay.  But since you definitely have to provide a bank account and c.c. number (there's no way around this), the best solution might be to set up separate ""ebay-only"" accounts.  And be sure not to link them to any of your personal accounts, for added protection. If you're planning to do a lot of selling, this is probably a good idea anyway just for record-keeping purposes. If you do a lot of selling on ebay, you might consider setting up a ""merchant account"". There are some limitations on international transactions (currently you can't sell to residents of UK, Australia, or France), and payment processing is a few days slower. But there seem to be fewer fees/risks/etc associated with a  merchant account. I don't know much more about it, but here's an article from an ebay seller, including pros and cons of PayPal vs. merchant accounts. http://www.ebay.com/gds/Selling-on-eBay-without-PayPal/10000000021351301/g.html"


"The diversification offered by the advisor can easily be duplicated at Vanguard with something like the Ivy Portfolio. Simplify it or complicate it to your liking, with Vanguard index REITs, index stock funds, international, bond, etc. Set up automatic contributions and don't watch your money like a hawk. Set it and forget it, or maybe rebalance your holdings once a year. The main thing advisors are good for (at your level of assets) is persuading investors to stay in the market during a crash. Most investors will sell after a crash, and completely miss out on the rebound. It's human nature to be a terrible market timer. But if you can really promise yourself never to sell in a panic, then you don't need an advisor at your asset level. Fees like ""1.25%"" sound like a okay deal but should be viewed in context. With an average annual return of, say, 7%, a 1.25% fee represents nearly 18% of your gain for the year. And 1.25% may be the least of your fees - what about fees when you get out of the funds? (Neat trick, huh, calling a fee ""1.25%"" instead of ""~18%""..). Is active management worth 18% of your yearly gain? Your advisor's fee and the active funds' fees compound year after year, because they take the fees out of your account every year (or month)."


"Oh wow, well that's encouraging... I've had a professor of mine, one of the most successful in our school (PHD in economics, CFA, partner at an investment firm, among other things) describe the CFA as, ""6 agonizing hours of just not having enough time!""   We will see. Thanks for the replies."


Unfortunately, grads with physics, engineering, and comp-sci degrees are _still_ suffering. It's not a guarantee for a job.  What _does_ help is first-hand experience in your field of choice -- which is why more grads and undergrads need to obtain internships and some sort of career-related work experience.


That's the real tale of this story. It's not like it's hard for the owner to find an employee for subway. The employee worked in this arrangement for 2 years happily because it makes a whole lot more sense than working 2 jobs 25 to 30 hours a week. Some shit hit the fan that inevitably always will in low pay low skill jobs and the employee is gonna stick it to his boss. He has the right to do so and he'll win easily the owner was a dumb ass for doing the deal.


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I won't because a person like you should only be physically removed or caste into a permanent class of plebs or deported to France or other populations who value subjugation of others over freedom from subjugation.  Plebs like you are the cause of all totalitarianism in the world and ideally, you'd all be in North Korea detention center.


Note that many funds just track indexes. In that case, you essentially don't have to worry about the fund manager making bad decisions. In general, the statistics are very clear that you want to avoid any actively managed fund. There are many funds that are good all-in-one investments. If you are in Canada, for example, Canadian Couch Potato recommends the Tangerine Investment Funds. The fees are a little high, but if you don't have a huge investment, one of these funds would be a good choice and appropriate for 100% of your investment. If you have a larger investment, to the point that Tangerine's MER scares you a little, you still may well look at a three or four fund (or ETF) portfolio. You may choose to use an actively-managed fund even though you know there's virtually no chance it'll beat a fund that just tracks an index, long-term. In that case, I'd recommend devoting only a small portion of your portfolio to this fund. Many people suggest speculating with no more than 10% of your combined investment. Note that other people are more positive on actively-managed funds.


What I mean to say is that this is never the right way to bring up an issue. If you disagree with it so vehemently, you have the option of leaving for a company which shares your values. (Sorry for the you/your, I'm not literally talking about you.)


This sounds to me like a very nice little job for a computer. This assumes that you have some experience of programming a computer, which I believe you do. A program like this does not require a lot of programming experience; a beginner in any simple scripting language could implement it, which is why I think it is a fairly general answer. You can set up a small simulation with either your real loans, or the examples you have given. Then have the computer work through the situation at a monthly time step until the debt is paid, and have it output all the interesting information per month. Then you set it up with your different payment scenarios: each paying proportionally, each paying their own debt separately, paying them in different orders etc. When you have these graphs, it should be possible to answer your main questions: The more information you add to this simulation, the more effective it gets. For example, I'm sure there are various tax deductions that you can make, depending on how much each of you pay, that depends on all sorts of things (location, income, age?).


First I'd like to echo msemack's answer. Start by maxing out your 401K and IRA contributions. Not a lot of people just starting their career have the luxury of doing much more outside of that. Here are some additional tips that I learned when I was just getting started:


>What you're pretty systematically failing to appreciate is the **pain** felt by people during structural unemployment.  I don't really see what relevance that has to this discussion. Yes, unemployment can suck. What does that have to do with Wal-Mart salary rates?


So you’ve decided to capitalize on your big, spacious house by renting it out. Before you go out in search of your first tenants, though, it’s important to get it prepared for leasing first. Think of yourself as a home seller trying to prep his home for an open house.


2 + 20 isn't really a investment style, more of a management style.  As CTA I don't have specific experience in the Hedge Fund industry but they are similar.   For tech stuff, you may want to check out Interactive Brokers.   As for legal stuff, with a CTA you need to have power of attorney form, disclosure documents, risk documents, fees, performance, etc. You basically want to cover your butt and make sure clients understand everything.   For regulatory compliance and rules, you would have to consult your apporiate regulatory body. For a CTA its the NFA/CFTC. You should look at getting licensed to provide crediabilty. For a CTA it would be the series 3 license at the very least and I can provide you with a resource for study guides and practice test taking for ALL licenses.   I can provide a brief step by step guide later on.


Over 1,300 tubes containing radioactive water inside San Onofre nuclear plant's steam generators in California has been reportedly damaged enough that they need to be taken out of service. To date, the safety of tubing that snakes around the plant's 4 steam generators were installed in a multimillion-dollar upgrade three years ago.


Do your homework on all types bonds and other lower-risk instruments, including bond funds and ETFs. I left too much money sitting around as cash over the last 5 years.


I feel like no one really has he right to step in and ask me what I'm spending my own money on and why Well, yes - the bank do, and they are legally required to. It's for legal purposes and for your own protection. The bank are looking for money laundering, generally. You can't withdraw more than $10,000 cash without the bank having to report it; however, if you ask for $10,000, the bank tell you that they have to report it, and so you reduce your request to (say) $9,500, the bank will still report it - with a note on the report saying that you initially requested a higher limit. They also check spending patterns. If for the last six months you've withdrawn $1,000 in cash each month, but for the last four days you've asked for $5,000 each time, then they'll ask what the money is being used for, in case you're being defrauded. Your question implies that the 'financial people' are asking for the money in cash. If so, then that's a big (BIG!) red flag. No reputable company would ask for deposits that cannot be traced. In this case, I'd be looking for other 'financial advisors'. Interview several, not just the ones used by your friends and/or relatives. And if you don't understand an investment completely, then you shouldn't be making that investment. Your advisor would not be risking their OWN money on it, would they...


For India there are very few services that are integrated with Bank & Card Accounts. one such example is from myuniverse from Birla Group, other is money manager from ICICI Bank and also a service from Intuit


They also pay really well and give people freedom.  The dignity you get from not having to worry about your time off being refused or worrying about picking your kid up in an emergency is priceless and builds loyalty.


You cannot bootstrap yourself to prosperity by having more children.  The cost of raising a child is more than what you'll get from the government.  It's like drinking seawater - it costs your body more water than you take in, which is why you die of dehydration.


It's not so much pros and cons as much as it is what are your savings goals? While it's best to start early to save money for retirement, you may have numerous short- to medium-term savings goals (school, down payment, etc). Here's a template you can consider. I would suggest that you open up an RRSP mutual fund or brokerage account and invest a certain amount that you feel free locking up for the next few decades and investing it in some sort of growth product (perhaps look at portfolios using the Couch Potato strategy). Then, also open up a TFSA mutual fund or brokerage account and use it to invest for medium-term goals (i.e. 5-10 years). Invest in products that will allow for some growth but with low chance of losing principle in that time frame. What I wouldn't do is open up a TFSA savings account and use it for day-to-day savings. The tax you save is negligible and you would need to keep track of deposits and withdrawals to ensure that you don't overcontribute for the tax year. Similarly, an RRSP savings account or GIC is far too conservative at your age, IMHO. Think of RRSP and TFSA as investment vehicles rather than accounts per se. Either type allows for you to invest in a vast array of products, including mutual funds, equities, some derivatives, gold, bonds, GICs, etc.  To conclude, my view is to use RRSP to invest for conventional retirement goals, and use the TFSA to invest for medium-term and early retirement goals.


When dividend is announced the stock and option price may react to that news, but the actual payout of the dividend on the ex-dividend date is what you probably are referring to. The dividend payout affects the stock price on the ex-dividend date as the stock price will drop by the amount of paid out dividend (not taking into account other factors). This in turn drives the prices of all options.  The amount of change in the option price for this event is not only dependent the dividend payout, but also on how far these are in our out of the money and what there time to expiration is. The price of a call option that is far out of the money would react less than the price of a put that would be far in the money. Therefore I would argue that these two will not necessarily offset each other.


It might go down a bit, or it might not. That is nearly impossible to predict, as the relative volumes are unknown, and the exact procedure is also unknown (they might do the selling over a longer period, or as a buy back, or immediately, or...) However, why would you want to wait at all? It is generally not a great idea to put your savings into the company you work for ('all eggs in one basket' - when it goes down, you lose your job and your savings), so the best approach is to pick a good day in the next weeks and sell the stock and invest into something more neutral.


With this level of income, you might consider a Solo 401(k). It would allow you a much higher level of contributions and is more appropriate for your savings than the limited IRA deposits. It also offers a considerable number of options not available for IRAs. A loan for example.


It does have to do with supply and demand in a sense.  My salary, as an engineer, has relatively little to do with the supply and demand of the parts my employers company makes.  My salary does, however, depend (in part) on the supply of fellow engineers that have comparable skill sets to mine and the demand that companies have for engineers with comparable skill sets to mine.


I wouldn't lose any sleep on it until it actually happens.  I believe generally the agreement of the merchant with the credit card company says they must submit to the company's arbitration.  If they come back to you, I would definitely get in touch with Visa to complain. Here's some great advice on dealing with unscrupulous debt collection, the main points being It's actually you that should be threatening to sue them if the repairs were incompetent or dangerous!


"No one really DOES care. This is what a marketer will tell you, though. Be as ""authentic"" as you can be. The best marketing strategy is the one that can't have any holes shot through it. Don't give anyone even the remotest chance of being able to undermine your ""pitch""."


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"The biggest driver will your first job out undergraduate.  Cfa and MBA are career accessories but it's tough to reverse a ""bad"" first job.   Get good grades.  Be involved in clubs. Determine what companies recruit at your school.  Network effectively."


Here's some advice: Never go into business with a friend. Thats a rule that's as old as time. It already seems to me that you're encountering some disparity issues financially. This is a bad idea, man. Stop now, while you still can!


Gail Vaz-Oxlade has a budget calculator here that shows how much of your monthly net income should be allocated where. She recommends 35% for housing, 15% for transportation, 25% for life, 15% for debt repayment, and 10% for savings. Some people spend more then they make and her budget sheet helps get things under control for those people. For someone like yourself who seems to have things under control, this budget sheet can be a guideline for you. Play with the percentages if you like, and keep your spending under 100%.


With respect to the 401(k). Before taking a hardship withdrawal, one must first deplete the ability to take any 401(k) loans available. This is a regulation. The 401(k) loan limit is the lesser of $50k, 50% your vested balance, or $50k minus the highest loan balance within the last year. Here's the good news: it is not a taxable event; you can pay back over a maximum of 5 years; interest is low (usually 4.25% or so). The bad news: if you terminate employment then the loan balance must be repaid or else it becomes taxable income plus a 10% penalty. I suggest you consider eliminating the credit card debt via this option. Pay back as aggressively as possible and if/when you terminate you can take the 10% penalty - it will be far less of an impact than 25k accruing approximately 25% annually.


It's better to set corporate tax rates at 0% and instead tax individuals or property. Taxes reduce what you tax. Subsidies increase what you subsidize. If you want to eliminate cigarettes or corporations, you tax them heavily.  What Starbucks does pails in comparison to Ikea.


Here are the pros and cons and an analytical framework for making a decision. Pros of walking away: Cons: Here's the framework: compare the value of first and second sections for you [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/business/30serviceside.html?_r=0 [2] http://www.mortgagecalculator.org/


TD will only sell the stock for you if there's a buyer. There was a buyer, for at least one transaction of at least one stock at 96.66. But who said there were more? Obviously, the stocks later fell, i.e.: there were not that many buyers as there were sellers. What I'm saying is that once the stock passed/reached the limit, the order becomes an active order. But it doesn't become the only active order. It is added to the list, and to the bottom of that list. Obviously, in this case, there were not enough buyers to go through the whole list and get to your order, and since it was a limit order - it would only execute with the limit price you put. Once the price went down you got out of luck.  That said, there could of course be a possibility of a system failure. But given the story of the market behavior - it just looks like you miscalculated and lost on a bet.


You need to run a virus scan on your computers to make sure you do not have a key-logger program running on either.  I would also think about designating one old computer to only access your bank accounts and not do anything but that.   If your computer is infected then every time you login your credit cards can be compromised.


It could also be that Rovio already had a couple of investors, and if they're failing to make any returns, they could be holding an IPO to return some money to the shareholders. Similar to SNAP. Wouldn't surprise me either, Angry Birds seemed like it had a ton of potential as a brand at its apex and went nowhere.


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"That works for something like consulting where you are advising the client on specific things but for accounting jobs like Tax and Audit work which have been very commoditized  it's expected to only bill the client for ""productive hours"" because the project only has a set budget and we need to get the work done. My work hours is seen as a cost to my team because my project needs to make money which the partner/manager/senior are all responsible for keeping man hours down. (Again that's hours chargeable to the client wasted hours in the day don't count).  And then on top of that we need to hit a certain number of chargeable client hours per week.    It's an annoying balance"


Here is some good advice, read your UCO prospectus.  It seems to hold 20% of it's value ($600MM out of $3B) via 13800 of the Apr 21st 2015 contracts.  (expiring in 30 days)   Those will be rolled very quickly into the May contracts at a significant loss of NAV. (based on current oil futures chains)   Meaning if crude oil stays exactly the same price, you'd still lose 1% (5% spread loss * .20% the percentage of NAV based off futures contracts) on the roll each month.   Their other $2.4Billion is held in swaptions or cash, unsure how to rate that exposure.  All I know is those 13,800 contracts are in contango danger during roll week for the next few months (IMO).  I wonder if there is a website that tracks inflows and outflows to see if they match up with before and after the roll periods. http://www.proshares.com/funds/uco_daily_holdings.html How Oil ETFs Work Many oil ETFs invest in oil futures contracts. An oil futures contract is a commitment to buy a given amount of crude oil at a given price on a particular date in the future. Since the purpose of oil ETFs is only to serve as an investment vehicle to track the price of oil, the creators of the fund have no interest in stockpiling actual oil. Therefore, oil ETFs such as USO periodically “roll over” their futures contracts by selling the contracts that are approaching expiration and buying contracts that expire farther into the future. The Contango Problem While this process of continually rolling over futures contracts may seem like a great way to track the price of crude oil, there’s a practical problem with the method: contango. The rollover method would work perfectly if oil funds could sell their expiring contracts for the exact same price that they pay for the futures contracts they buy each month. However, in reality, it’s often true that oil futures contracts get more expensive the farther their expiration date is in the future. That means that every time the oil ETFs roll over their contracts, they lose the difference in value between the contracts they sell and the contracts they buy. That’s why funds like USO, which invests only in WTI light, sweet crude oil futures contracts, don’t directly track the performance of the WTI crude oil spot price. http://www.etftrends.com/2015/01/positioning-for-an-oil-etf-rebound-watch-for-contango/ Due to these reasons, I'd deem UCO for swing trading, not for 'investing' (buy-and-hold).  Maybe later I'll remember why one shouldn't buy and hold leveraged vehicles (leverage slippage/decay).    Do you have an exit price in mind ? or are you buy and hold ?


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This is the real Truth and why we are soon going to find that Iran will also reverse course and every country that is able, will nuclearize.  Once the middle east is nuclear then there will be peace.  Nobody is stupid enough to trust or believe the US anymore not even our allies, especially when PePe le pew sends his shit stain of a son in law for pretend peace meetings.  I think actually in his own retarded stupid bumbling way, the Idiot in chief has actually set the world on the path to peace because everybody is going to tell America to stick freedom up its own ass.   PS: what does it have to do with the economy . . .it will bankrupt america


"It's likely that the main reason is the additional currency risk for non-USD investments. A wider diversification in general lowers risk, but that has to be balanced by the risk incurred when investing abroad.  This implies that the key factor isn't so much the country of residence,  but the currency of the listing. Euro funds can invest across the whole Euro zone. Things become more complex when you consider countries whose currency is less trusted and whose economy is less diversified. In those cases, the ""currency risk""  may be more due to the national currency, which justifies a more global investment strategy."


Lol to be fair, our monetary system is nutty. Money is created out of thin air because (mainly) 3 institutions trade debt around. I get the basics but also have no clue what some concepts actually mean.  Like the national debt; its growing, does that even matter? Its not like anyone is going to call that debt in and collapse the whole global system. Or the big one; so the government doubles the money supply in 2008 but we didn't have run away inflation... that does not make any sense. Its all imaginary. The only sense there is to make, is that some rich sociopath/s are now richer.


You may be in a situation where buying is preferred, especially because you can enter the market in a strong position - with a 20% down payment.  If you have the financial ability to assume the risk of owning, you may be better off.  I would consider two things.  Renting is purchasing a service. You are buying the flexibility to move with minimum hassle and the landlord is assuming the risk of owning the asset (property). They will make money on you, like any service provider. Buying is purchasing an asset. You are buying the underlying asset and assume all the risks associated with it. This is large, unforeseen maintenance, fees, taxes, depreciation, etc... Some of these risks were passed to you as a renter, but some were not.  Just like purchasing $400k in stock, if you have to sell when the market is down, you lose big. You win if you can hold. Unlike a stock, real estate will eat your cash in taxes and repairs unless it is rented. If you are willing to be a long-distance landlord, this may work out. Understand that property management fees will eat into your rent income and being long-distance will give more potential for a bad tenant to ruin your property value. These and other factors (e.g. vacancy rate) will increase your risk of loss and should be considered. Some of this will be your preference, since you will spend much more time dealing with buying/selling/property management as opposed to a more clean rental situation. Is this hassle worth the savings? For many, yes; others, no. Finally, I hope this calculator can help clarify some of the financial aspects for you.  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html?_r=0 Good Luck!


If you have a 20,000 balance and a 8.75% interest rate, you should be paying between $145 and $150 in interest each month, with the balance going to principal.  (0.0875/12=0.007292, and that times 20,000 is 145.83; as interest is compounded daily, it'll be a little higher than that.)  If the minimum is below $145, then you are not covering the interest; I suspect that is what is happening here, and they're reporting interest paid that wasn't covered in a prior month (assuming you have some months where you only pay the statement minimum, which is less than the total accrued interest). Assuming you're in the US (or most other western countries), your loan servicer should be explaining the exact amount each payment that goes to principal and interest.  I recommend calling them up and finding out exactly why it's not consistent; what should be happening, assuming you pay more than the amount of interest each month, is the interest should go down (very) slowly each month and the amount paying off principal should go up (also slowly).  EG: Etc., until eventually the interest is zero and your loan is paid off.  It probably won't go this quickly for this size of loan - you're only paying off a tiny percentage of principal each month, $50/$20000 or 1/400th - so you won't make too much headway at this rate.   Even adding another $25 would make a huge difference to the length of the loan and the amount of interest paid, but that's another story.   You will eventually at this rate pay off the loan (at $200 a month for all 12 months); this isn't dissimilar to a 30 year mortgage in terms of percent interest to principal (in fact, it's better!).  $50 a month times twelve is $600; 400 payments would take care of it (so a bit over 30 years).  However, as you go you pay more principal and less interest, so you will actually pay it off in 15 years if you continue paying $200 a month exactly. What you may be seeing in your case is a combination of things: In months you pay less (ie, $100, say), the extra $45 in interest needs to go somewhere.  It effectively becomes part of the principal, but from what I've seen that doesn't always happen directly - ie, they account it differently at least for a short time (up to a year, in my experience). This is because of tax laws, if I understand correctly - the amount you pay in interest is tax-deductible, but not the amount of the principal - so it's important for you to have as much called 'interest' as possible.  Thus, if you pay $100 this month and $200 next month, that total of $300 is paying ~$290 of interest and $10 of principal, just as if you'd paid it $150 each month. If you had any penalties, such as for late payments, those come out off the top before interest; they may sometimes take that out as well. All in all, I strongly suggest having an enforced minimum (on your end) of the interest amount at least; that prevents you from being in a situation where your loan grows.  If you can't always hit $200, that's fine; but at least hit $150 every single month.  Otherwise you have a never ending cycle of student loan debt that you really don't want to be in. Separately, on the $1000 payment: As long as you make sure it's not assigned in such a way that the lender only accepts a month's worth at a time (which shouldn't happen, but there are shady lenders), it shouldn't matter what is called 'principal' and what is called 'interest'.  The interest won't go up just because you're making a separate payment (it'll go down!).  The portion that goes to interest will go to paying off the amount of interest you owe from the time of your last payment, plus any accrued but unpaid interest, plus principal.  You won't have the option of not paying that interest, and it doesn't really matter anyway - it's all something you owe and all accruing interest, it only really matters for accounting and taxes.  Double check with your lender (on the phone AND on their website, if possible) that overpayments are not penalized and are applied to principal immediately (or within a few days anyway) and you should be fine.


Ehh, everyone can forecast, even idiots and most people have conceptualized the consequences that could happen from that behavior and have decided to do it anyways. It makes sense if the job pays like shit and sucks to do. Hell, I'd do it if I had to go back to fast food and I'm great at thinking ahead (in my not so humble opinion)


Hey Forum,  I recently had an update to the app where it now allows you to find out your markup percentage. All you have to do is put in your desired profit at the end of the month and then put in how many items you want to sell each month and the entire formula is calculated for you in less than a second. Extremely convenient and extremely time-saving.  You can download the Android version here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.markupmagic.companymarkup&hl=en   And the iOS here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/markup-magic-profit-calculator/id1183206273?mt=8   We are currently redoing the website so you can look out for that soon enough. :)  As always, suggestions and comments are always welcome as we want this to be the best app it can be for users.  Take care and have a wonderful time.


> The recommendations included reviewing Mr. Kalanick’s responsibilities and reallocating them, with an increased emphasis on a chief operating officer at the company.  Does that mean moving him from CEO into more of a COO role, or bringing on a COO and reallocating those responsibilities to that person?


Might not be a bad buy tomorrow morning but it won't spike back up if Amazon is just going to run them out of business, which means your money is being thrown away. It's better to invest in something that didn't just have it's death warrant drafted and signed.


I am a carsalesman. Lets get one thing straight, we are not allowed to give people a better deal just because they pay cash, regardless of what some people say. That can be seen a discrimination as not all people are fortunate enough to have cash available. if anything, finance is better for the dealership, as we get finance commission and the finance company DOES pay us the total amount immidiatly


You are long the puts. By exercising them you force the underlying stock to be bought from you at your strike price. Let's say your strike it $100 and the stock is currently $25. Buy 100 shares and exercise 1 (bought/long) put. That gives you $7500 of new money, so do the previous sentence over again in as many 'units' as you can.


"Useless statistic.  From the article:  ""The four-week moving average of claims, a less-volatile measure, climbed to 377,750, the highest in a month, from 376,000. The number of people continuing to collect jobless benefits increased 34,000 in the week ended May 26 to 3.29 million. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of workers receiving extended benefits under federal programs.  Those who’ve used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments slumped by almost 105,000 in the week ended May 19 to 2.83 million."""


"is your credit history ruined, or merely dinged? Is the blow   recoverable? Any bad credit rating event is recoverable given enough time / money to solve the problem.  As far as ""Ruined"" vs"" ""Dinged"", well, that's a matter of opinion; some people think that one bad item is the end of the world, others not so much.  You will have an unpaid debt listed on your report.  This will drop your score.  The amount it impacts the score will depend on other factors in your report. Can the carrier try to get the money back in court? I assume you'll   wind up dealing with a debt collector.  Yes they could go to court, but that's unlikely at least in the short term.  Far more likely is that the debt ends up sold to a debt collection agency for pennies on the dollar.  The debt collection agency will harass you until you pay and they might file in court if they think the debt is more than enough to cover the court costs. Will this affect any other relationships you have? Possibly.  A bad rating may make it more difficult to get credit in the future.  However that depends on numerous other factors such as your entire history.  It could even prevent you from being hired from certain jobs - not many of them, but some.   Is it criminal? Read this: http://www.startribune.com/investigators/95692619.html  The US does NOT have a debtors prison.  However if the company decides to file a court case and you fail to appear or fail to abide by the court ruling then, in some states, you could be committing a crime and may be thrown in jail.  At which point you are on the hook not just for the original fee but potentially a plethora of other costs.  Never mind the loss of reputation when your friends, family and coworkers find out that you are sitting in jail. At the end of the day, just pay the debt.  If you agreed to the plan and the plan has an early cancellation fee then the moral and ethical thing to do is pay it.  Trying to see how bad it would be to ignore it isn't the right way to live."


Zuckerberg already cashed out $1B.  But that was planned from the get-go so he could diversify.  Employees with stock options still have to wait before they can cash out.  I think its 6 months after IPO.


This is bullshit.  It's only doing what it's programmed to do.  This completely avoid the issue of: 1) who did the programming to make a business this way? 2) is this, in any way, ethical?  Cancer cells are just doing what they do best, so much so that they excel at doing what they do.  Doesn't make them good for the organism.


"I've been in a similar situation before. While contracting, sometimes the recruiting agency would allow me to choose between being a W2 employee or invoicing them via Corp-2-Corp. I already had a company set up (S-Corp) but the considerations are similar. Typically the C2C rate was higher than the W2 rate, to account for the extra 7.65% FICA taxes and insurance. But there were a few times where the rate offered was identical, and I still choose C2C because it enabled me to deduct many of my business expenses that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to deduct. In my case the deductions turned out to be greater than the FICA savings. Your case is slightly different than mine though in that I already had the company set up so my company related costs were ""sunk"" as far as my decision was concerned. For you though, the yearly costs associated with running the business must be factored in. For example, suppose the following: Due to these expenses you need to make up $3413 in tax deductions due to the LLC. If your effective tax rate on the extra income is 30%, then your break even point is approximately $8K in deductions (.3*(x+3413)=3413 => x = $7963) So with those made up numbers, if you have at least $8K in legitimate additional business expenses then it would make sense to form an LLC. Otherwise you'd be better off as a W2. Other considerations:"


Can you explain this to me? I'm under the impression that the CEO is generally hired by the board because he/she is supposed to be the expert, and the board provides broad guidance as to where the business should go. There is no one really above the CEO in the traditional sense as I understand it, but I would like to see what you mean if you don't mind explaining.


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In current times, the instant way to success is associated with a feature to get real Instagram followers! With social media overtaking almost every sphere of life, it is imperative that you need to be ‘within the sight’ of the concerned people to crack it big! Just make sure that you get the authentic ‘followers’ from the correct source.


Why does Apple have to do their own maps app anyway? You don't have to keep everything in house. Google and other nav companies have already spent a ton of money and resources creating fantastic navigation maps. Why not just license their work and slap your own UI over it and call it a day?


"Of course it can. This is a time value of money calculation. If I knew the maturity date, or current yield to maturity I'd be able to calculate the other number and advise how much rates need to rise to cause the value to drop from 18 to 17. For a 10 year bond, a rise today of .1% will cause the bond to drop about 1% in value. This is a back of napkin calculation, finance calculators offer precision. edit - when I calculate present value with 34 years to go, and 5.832% yield to maturity, I get $14.55. At 5.932, the value drops to $14.09, a drop of 3.1%.  Edit - Geo asked me to show calculations. Here it goes - A) The simplest way to calculate present value for a zero coupon bond is to take the rate 5.832%, convert it to 1.05832 and divide into the face value, $100. I offer this as the ""four function calculator"" approach, so one enters $100 divided by 1.05832 and repeat for the number of years left. A bit of precision is lost if there's a fractional year involved, but it's close. The bid/ask will be wider than this error introduced.  B) Next - If you've never read my open declaration of love for my Texas Instruments BA-35 calculator, here it is, again. One enters N=34 (for the years) FV = 100, Rate = 5.832, and then CPT PV. It will give the result, $14.56.  C) Here is how to do it in Excel -  The numbers in lines 1-3 are self evident, the equation in cell B4 is =-PV(B3/100,B1,0,B2) - please note there are tiny differences in the way to calculate in excel vs a calculator. Excel wants the rate to be .05832, so I divided by 100 in the equation cell.  That's the best 3 ways I know to calculate present value. Geo, if you've not noticed, the time value of money is near and dear to me. It comes into play for bonds, mortgages, and many aspect of investing. The equations get more complex if there are payments each year, but both the BA-35 and excel are up to it."


Obviously mate. Mortgage advisors don't have just one client, similarly why should you have only one advisor? it´s an open market. Don't worry about wasting their time, you are not wasting their time if you are considering a mortgage. then, in case you found a better deal with another mortgage advisor then that´s life - someone was better then them.


Eh, Five Guys just isn't that good.  Of course it is better than places like McDonalds and I haven't stepped foot in a McDonalds in at least 10 years. But why would I go to Five Guys when I can choose from at least 10 other burger joints in my area that make a much better burger for the same price or cheaper.  If anything Five Guys appeals to the people that don't know what they want and have been going to McDonalds their whole lives.


"> I am shorted almost 50% of the market rate for others in the same field.  The bitch of it is if I left for a year and came back, they probably would pay me that difference, maybe even more.  This happens surprisingly often.  Companies will ""anchor"" your compensation based on your starting salary and the distribution of salaries within your pay grade.  So even if circumstances change significantly (e.g. you gain a Master's degree, or take on additional responsibility) your compensation tends to change only gradually.  Sadly, you're also right that often your only real option is to take your talents elsewhere.  In fact, I've even read this as ""career advice"" - I'd say it's an open secret that biggest pay-bumps in your career will come when you change employers."


Also make a menu and make a shopping list from that.  It will help you control how much you buy, and help to enforce only buying what you need.  You don't need to limit your menu, but buying what you need in appropriate quantities will help.  Don't forget to add snacking and desserts to your menu.


In general yes, however you are creating a false dichotomy. I can choose to fly and accept that level of radiation, and fly safely, all without the TSA being involved. The radiation on the plane is a necessary risk that must be accepted for flying, whereas going through TSA is not.


He means [Technical Analysis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis).  It can really be simple. Even just trading on the RSI is a way to make money.   To learn it, I'd suggest reading wikipedia and messing around with a trading platform- there's one I use at work which is quite user-friendly, I'll PM you if you're interested. Don't really want to be spouting employer information on reddit.


US Treasury securities are the safest investment. You can buy short term by buying T-Bills.  You buy T-bills at a discount to face. For example, to buy a four week T-bill the treasury will take $99.98 out of your account. In four weeks the treasury will deposit $100 into your account. The $0.02 difference is your Intrest on the loan. Compounded over a year (13 four week periods) you get a 0.24% interest. But (presumably) more importantly (to you) you get your original $99.98 back.  Your government cannot nationalize money that you have on loan to the United States Government.  Edit : oops, I dropped a decimal position in my original calculation of compounded rate of interest. It is now corrected.


Michael Bach Atlanta is the Chief Executive Officer of Drezden Capital Advisors.  He was a 16 year veteran in the fund market whereby Michael Bach, Atlanta was earlier the Managing Associate of a mid-market Personal Equity firm.  To his credit, Michael Bach Atlanta has applied enterprise takeovers in the health, transportation, submission and different manufacturing disciplines.  During his period in the Personal Value industry he started and completed dealings which included debt offerings (Senior and Mezzanine Debt) totaling $189 million, Equity capital assemblages totaling $34 million, as well as executing joining transactions and divestitures totaling $281million during his profession.  Mr. Bach joined North Carolina A&T State College in Greensboro, North Carolina, focusing in each Architectural and Mechanical Architectural.


"The thing to look at is PayPal's ""PayPal.me"" service, which is a pretty neat little item.  When you sign up for a PayPal.me account (totally free), you create a unique username.  So for example, my PayPal.me account name is DanCAnderson.  I can give someone the following web link to send me $500: http://paypal.me/DanCAnderson/500 If you click the link above, you'll see what the user sees (my company name is Salt River Networks, Inc.).  I gave a live link so you can see the working example of it (no need for anyone to send money! chuckle). I can change the amount by simply changing the value at the end of the URL. When they go to that link, they see a landing page with your name on it and the amount to send to you, then they go through the normal process of paying via PayPal. It's a pretty neat service, and I've used to it bill a few clients for work I've done by emailing that link to them rather than going through the whole PayPal procedure."


Talk about coincidence, we just recieved letters from our bank saying that our interest only loans will be going up by 0.46% and if we want to keep our lower rate we will need to change early to P&I. Now our Interest only periods end in 6 months to about 16 months anyway. We have decided to change to P&I early and save on our interest expenses. Why? Because the main purpose of investing is to make money not to save on tax. Even if you are on the highest marginal tax rate for every extra dollar of expenses you spend and claim as a deduction you will only get about 50 cents back through tax savings. If you are on the lowest marginal tax rate your tax savings will reduce to less than 20 cents for every extra dollar spent. If you are investing in order to save on tax you may be investing for the wrong reasons. Your primary reason for investing should be to make money, for wealth creation. A good reason to stay with an Interest only loan for an investment property would be if you require the extra cash flow you would receive compared with an I&P loan.


no u dont need to go to a top college and there's always hope. hell you'll even be able to break in even if your grades suck. find an area of finance that you're interested in, become as specific as possible, and get really, really good in that area. it isn't enough to say you're into finance. won't even be sufficient to say you're interested in trading. be as specific as possible - macro currency trading, emerging market rates volatility arbitrage, european credit - and then be the best young guy around in that area. then its just a matter of getting in front of people and getting noticed by the right people. good luck.


">I don't think you realize how ignorant people can be.  lol - seriously?  Does this mean she doesn't know how to wipe her ass?  Doesn't know to wash her teeth?  You're really arguing that.... really?  For a women who went through American schooling, and who didn't grow up as a nomad in the dessert?  You're serious?  She never understood ""Condoms stop pregnancy""?"


Yes, provided you're not over the IRA deductibility limit as well. –  JoeTaxpayer♦ Aug 4 at 18:02 Note that if you get refunded for excess contributions, it usually happens in the following year, in which case it doesn't affect the year where these contributions occured -- rather, the refund counts as taxable income in the year you received the refund. –  user102008 Aug 11 at 8:11


I think if you are only trading stocks with average volume greater than 1M you should not have any trouble entering a 10,000 size trade. If you are you can try a couple of things: Change your order from a market order to a limit order, however this may potentially reduce the number of shares that are actually traded on that day, and you may miss out on some or all of your order. Limit your trading to more liquid stocks, say average daily volumes above 10M or 100M. Apart from that you might have to just put up with some extra slippage and incorporate it into your trading plan. That is you can reduce your R multiple to allow some slippage.


"The first one was a summation of the experience at the end of the article. Both were comments regarding reliability which is what each article and respective section was addressing.   >...reliability concerns after unfavourable Edmunds and Consumer Reports long-term use reviews  -  > ""Our car amassed quite the repair résumé during the last 17 months.""  -  >""Consumer Reports' Tesla Model S has more than its share of problems"""


Depending on the specific bond, here is the official info. http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/gmbondholders/index.html Bottom line, it won't be determined for a while yet, as the filing with the Bankruptcy Court still has lots of blanks.


"I think the problem is that the due diligence involves checking with the ratings agencies and see what they say, if the ratings agencies say ""Oh, yeah, that's an awesome and safe investment!"" there isn't any other way to find out it isn't."


In my experience, you don't need to endorse a check with a signature to deposit it into your account.  You do if you are exchanging the check for cash.  Businesses usually have a stamp with their account number on them.  Once stamped, those checks are only able to be deposited into that account.  Individuals can do the same.   I have had issues depositing insurance and government checks in the past that had both my and my wife's name on them.  Both of us had to endorse the check to be able to deposit them.  I think this was some kind of fraud prevention scheme, so that later one of us couldn't claim they didn't know anything about the check.


Question is, what is this number 0.01140924 13.69/12=0.01140924 In addition, how does one come out with the EIR as 13.69% pa? When calculating payments, PV = 9800, N=36 (months), PMT=333.47, results in a rate of 1.140924% per period, and rate of 13.69%/yr. No idea how they claim 7.5% In Excel, type =RATE(36,333.47,-9800,0,0) And you will get 1.141% as the result.  36 = #payments, 333.47 = payment per period, -9800 is the principal (negative, remember this) And the zeros are to say the payments are month end, second zero is the guess.  Edit - I saw the loan is from a Singapore bank. It appears they have different rules on the rates they quote. As quid's answer showed the math, here's the bank's offer page -  The EIR is the rate that we, not just US, but most board members, are used to. I thought I'd offer an example using a 30 year mortgage.   Yo can see above, a 6% fixed rate somehow morphs into a 3.86% AR. No offense to the Singapore bankers, but I see little value in this number. What surprises me most, is that I've not seen this before.  What's baffling is when I change a 15yr term the AP drops to less than half. It's still a 6% loan and there's nothing about it that's 2 percent-ish, in my opinion.  Now we know.


So, let's get this straight.  You believe that whites are the smartest race in existence, and that blacks are a whole standard deviation stupider than whites. That is to say you believe that the average African American is functionally retarded.  That's what you're arguing here. That's what the IQ test results say. If you believe that IQ isn't culturally biased then that's your argument. Your study says that's not true. In the conclusion they say that there's no epigenetic cause for this disparity, but that's what you're arguing.  I want to see you write that out. Tell your friends tell the world that you think whites are superior in intelligence to all other races. If you won't then accept that IQ is flawed and shut your mouth.


NO Even worse, most BTL(buy to let) lenders will not lend if you are going to be living in the property.    There are very few lenders that will touch something like this.    It is likely you will also need to use bridging for the time the building work takes at something like 1.5% per month! Try posting the question to http://www.propertytribes.com/ as there are a few UK mortgage experts on that site.


From what little I know about statistics and behavioral finance, it appears that the “October effect” is based more on psychology than actual statistics.  With that said, if you’re young you shouldn’t worry. I couldn’t care less if the market gets smacked again and drops 20%+. I’m only 31 and have plenty of time to make my money back and capitalize on depressed asset prices. If you’re older though, that’s an entirely different story and one should account for their required time horizon.


The Oil futures are exactly that.  They are people forecasting the price of oil at a point of time in the future where they are willing to buy oil at that price. That said, Do you have evidence of a correlation of Price of oil to the shares of oil stocks?  Oil companies that are good investments are generally good investments regardless of the cost of oil.  If you did not know about oil futures then you might be best served by consulting an investment professional for some guidance.


At this point, fault goes to those who show up to these BS meetings.  At the very start of his Presidency, there were hopes that he would consider the thoughts and concerns of the advisory boards he had created.   Now, after just a few months, it is very clear that these advisory boards are just for show -- to make it seem like Trump is this well informed President with all of these inputs from tech leaders. But, Trump really doesn't care and he more than likely will go with the most selfish option.   Ask Musk -- he tried but finally realized that the Trump isn't a President of all of the American people. Trump will go with the option that benefits Trump (politically or financially) and the backwards desires of his supporters. Trump's own WH staff can't get him to behave.  At this point, joining these meetings is just padding Trump's ego so he can tell the world that he had Apple's CEO come in to the WH and give ideas -- but, then do the exact opposite of the recommendations. These meetings are photo ops and marketing gimmicks.


If you owe a lot of money (more then $500 or $1000) you will get hit with penalties. You will also have to file every quarter the next year. That is very painful. There is a safe harbor if you make sure that you have withheld more money than your taxes from the previous year. The information you provided is not enough for me to give specific advice. But here is a hint: Right after you file this year, use turbo tax to determine what changes you can make to your withholding to minimize any excess withholding.


One more thing to consider is that $1M today is not the same as $1M 30 years from now because of inflation.  Consider that just 30 years ago (1980) the average house price in the US was only about $69K and a new car cost around $7K on average.  When you retire, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that you could be paying $1.5M for a typical house, $100K for mid-grade car, by the time you retire in 30 years.  Of course, over the rest of your working life your salary will likely increase due to inflation too, so that will help. In 1980 the average US income was around $19K/year. So even though that number seems huge, it is because it is denominated in currency that has been devalued significantly.


My husband used this device at work in an organization/club that collects dues for fundraisers. The fundraisers are only for the club. So I think that is not business at all. They have no business tax id#, etc? and they use it for personal reasons when collecting money via Cc#'s if this helps you.


All that is an issue with non competitive market.  My premise was that in capitalism, not in crony capitalism nor in heavily regulated so that it is non competitive or high in market barrier.   Way to solve non competitive market due to crony capitalism or too heavily regulated market usually is not more regulation.  That makes it worse. Role of regulation is to factor in extranality, promote transparency and such.  Not inflate wages of people who don't deserve it


You could say the same thing but replace money with pacman and it would be true for the guys who are really good at pacman.   Making money can be no different than any other hobby. The only difference is that you can engage in direct exchange after the fact instead of barter exchange.   But make no mistake enjoying it does not make warren any more insane than the pacman guys (or more seriously most academics).


"When trading Forex each currency is traded relative to another. So when shorting a currency you must go long another currency vs the currency you are shorting, it seems a little odd and can be a bit confusing, but here is the explanation that Wikipedia provides: An example of this is as follows: Let us say a trader wants to trade   with the US dollar and the Indian rupee currencies. Assume that the   current market rate is USD 1 to Rs.50 and the trader borrows Rs.100.   With this, he buys USD 2. If the next day, the conversion rate becomes   USD 1 to Rs.51, then the trader sells his USD 2 and gets Rs.102. He   returns Rs.100 and keeps the Rs.2 profit (minus fees). So in this example the trader is shorting the rupee vs the dollar. Does this article add up all other currency crosses to get the 'net' figure? So they don't care what it is depreciating against? This data is called the Commitment of Traders (COT) which is issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)  In the WSJ article it is actually referring to Forex Futures. In an another article from CountingPips it explains a bit clearer as to how a news organization comes up with these type of numbers. according to the CFTC COT data and calculations by Reuters which calculates the dollar positions against the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc. So this article is not talking about futures but it does tell us they got data from the COT and in addition Reuters added additional calculations from adding up ""X"" currency positions. No subscription needed: Speculators Pile Up Largest Net Dollar Long Position Since June 2010 - CFTC Here is some additional reading on the topic if you're interested: CFTC Commitment of the Traders Data – COT Report FOREX : What Is It And How Does It Work? Futures vs. Forex Options Forex - Wiki"


"Like JoeTaxpayer said, I don't know of any difference between the backdoor and a regular Roth IRA contribution besides the issue with existing pre-tax IRA money. So if it is your practice to contribute at the beginning of the year (good for you, most people wait until the last minute), then doing a backdoor seems like the safe choice. Some people have speculated that, hypothetically, the IRS could use the ""step transaction doctrine"" to treat it as a single direct contribution to a Roth IRA (which then would be disallowed and cause you a penalty until you take it out), but I have never heard of this happening to anyone. As for the paperwork, you just need to fill out one extra form at tax time, Form 8606 (you need to complete two parts of it, one for the non-deductible contribution, and one for the conversion). It is pretty straightforward. (Although I've found that it is a pain to do it in tax software.) Another option would be for you to contribute to a Roth IRA now, but when you discover that you're over the limit at the end of the year, re-characterize it as a Traditional contribution and then convert it back to Roth. But this way is not good because then there is a long time between the Traditional contribution and the Roth conversion, and earnings during this time will be taxed at conversion."


"Whatever you do, you need to be saving a lot more to have a good chance at retirement at a reasonable age. With a combined salary of $150,000, I'd recommend: In total, that's $47,000/year in tax advantaged accounts, plus whatever you put into taxable accounts. Your $150,000 yearly income, less $90,000/year in savings is still an income of $60,000. People live comfortably and raise families on a lot less. Consider how fortunate you are. You could retire in 10 years, if you wanted, by increasing your savings and decreasing your expenses. Seriously, I'm speaking from first-hand experience. If you stay on your present course (saving $2,000/mo), at a 7% real return, you'll need about 37 years to accumulate $3,800,000 (in today's dollars), which is enough to: Even if those student loans are forgiven, that only knocks off about 2 years. If you are in your late 30s now, there's a decent chance you'll be dead before you retire. As for buying a house or not, this depends a lot on your personal circumstance and how the rental market in your city compares. In your decision, don't forget to consider: Renting is not necessarily throwing money away any more than buying a house is. If you take out a mortgage, you'll be ""throwing away"" a lot of money anyway. Look for a ""loan amortization calculator"" to see how much goes to interest versus principal. For a $500,000 loan at a 3.5% rate, you will be paying approximately $1400 per month in interest versus only $800 towards the principal. When you deduct insurance, taxes, maintenance, etc from that $800, you may find you are still throwing away most of your monthly payment on interest and expenses you wouldn't have if you rented. The money you do ""save"", after interest and expenses, isn't really saved. Housing markets go up and down, but on average, over the long term, they go up just enough to keep up with inflation, meaning a 0% real return. If renting means less cash out of pocket per month, you can put that extra cash towards investments that yield a much higher return. Sure, you may need to continue making rental payments in perpetuity, but you can save enough extra money to pay for the rental in investment income. Again, it depends considerably on how the housing and rental markets compare where you live. Popular cities (San Francisco, New York, Paris, etc.) tend to favor renting. Unpopular cities (Detroit, St. Louis) and rural areas tend to favor buying. Further reading: Mr. Money Mustache: Rent vs. Buy: If You Have to Ask, You Should Probably Rent"


I have control over the time I spend in certain places, yes. The point is to be involved in as many things as possible. Meet new people, generate relationships, etc etc.   Any amount of success I've had at what I do comes from spending the time getting to know and become friends with people. I don't really consider that luck.