vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
So, if your mutual fund account ""lost"" 20% in value that year because the market was falling, and you got no dividend or capital gains distributions either, remember that only 19.9% of that loss can be blamed on the President or Congress or Wall Street or public-sector unions or your neighbor's refusal to ditch his old PC in favor of a new Mac, and the rest (0.1%) has gone to FSEMX to pay for fees you agreed to when you bought FSEMX shares. If you invest directly in FSEMX through Fidelity's web site, there is no sales charge, and you pay no expenses other than the 0.1% annual expense ratio. There is a fee for selling FSEMX shares after owning them only for a short time since the fund wants to discourage short-term investors. Whatever other fees finance.yahoo.com lists might be descriptive of the uses that FSEMX puts its expense ratio income to in its internal management, but are not of any importance to the prudent investor in FSEMX who will never encounter them or have to pay them."
"As a financial advisor, I certainly don't regret it. However, I do see it as a stepping stone being that it's my first real job out of college.  Even though the job is extreme sales of insurance and investments, I feel that I've developed a plethora of people skills and worldly knowledge just by meeting with so many different people–whether existing or new clients whom I've ""brought onboard.""   My true passion is trading currency. I'm currently working on branching out into that field."
"On BlackRock's XIN page under Key Facts it says the number of holdings as 1. Looking at the top 10 holdings shows EFA as the number 1 holding with a 101% weighting. XIN is ""iShares MSCI EAFE Index ETF (CAD-Hedged)"", so it takes the underlying component and hedges it to CAD.  The underlying component is an ETF itself, EFA, so they only need to hold that one component (since that is the MSCI EAFE Index ETF). How is it possible to hold over 100%? Take a look at the full list of holdings.  While EFA is the only underlying security (e.g. ETF, Stock, Bond, et.c), the remaining holdings (looks to be 133 remaining holdings) are cash positions.  Some of those positions are negative for hedge purposes.  Because of this, the total value of the portfolio is less than the position of EFA itself (since total value is EFA plus a bunch of negative entries); because the total value is less than EFA itself, EFA has a > 100% weighting."
Buddy I know how a student investment club works, my school had a great one but thanks for the explanation. Doesn't change the fact that a valuation by some college kids is meaningless, but you wouldn't understand that because you're still a 20 year old kid with no industry experience. I love that you're bragging about your college to someone who has already graduated and made it into the industry, shows you really have no accomplishments to speak of.
Generally, the tax rate for PFIC is very high, so that if any of your stocks are classified as PFIC - you'd better talk to a professional tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State) about how to deal with them. Non-PFIC stocks are dealt with the same as if they were in the US, unless you match certain criteria described in the instructions to form 5471 (then a different set of rules apply, talk to a licensed tax adviser). I will be transferring most of my stock to my father this year, will this need to be declared ? Yes, using form 709. Gift tax may be due. Talk to a licensed tax adviser (EA/CPA licensed in your State). I have an apartment in India this year, will this need to be declared or only when I sell the same later on ? If there's no income from it - then no (assuming you own it directly in your own name, for indirect ownership - yes, you do), but when you sell you will have to declare the sale and pay tax on the gains. Again, treaty may come into play, talk to a tax adviser. Also, be aware of Section 121 exclusion which may make it more beneficial for you to sell earlier."
You have left out the most important piece of information: are you an American citizen? If you are, then PFIC rules mean you need to be very careful not to invest in any foreign index funds/ETFs. That means it will probably be easiest for you to just leave the money in the US and continue to invest it there. If you do not have US citizenship, and have never had a green card, then you will qualify for non-resident alien status after you've been gone for 3 years. Once that happens, you won't owe US capital gains tax (though you will owe it in AUS). You will owe 30% tax on dividends, though. Much more at Investopedia.
Yah, the MFE degrees can be a mixed bag. In general, these programs are improving and if you can get into a program like NYU, UCB or Carnegie Melon, then by all means I would recommend going. Your placement from an MFE program will be based on two things 1) Who your program director knows on Wall St. 2) Whether you are a foreign national. If you want to get a job in America as a MFE grad, you're facing an uphill battle compared to your American counterparts (unless you go to NYU, UCB, Carnegie Melon and maybe MIT or Chicago).  If you decide to get a PhD it will be in: Physics, Math, Computer Science or Economics. Furthermore, you will pretty much be restricted to a research quant role for the duration of your career. Most of these guys end up doing experimental/cutting-edge risk analysis and derivatives pricing for the middle office. There's always exceptions to this rule; and the CS guys will largely be back-office trading system engineers.  If you have interest in being a trader (the most lucrative Wall St. position outside of executives/managers) or a buy-side investment manager, then there's no need to go beyond an MSF/MSFE. At this point, it's more a matter of who you impress and who you know that will get you where you want to be.  If you want to do sell-side, front office or M&amp;A, then go get an MBA.
I know that you're a recent college graduate who newly entered an MBA program, which means it's not a very good one. I know that you aspire to be in finance which, as a result of your poor choices regarding school, means that you will never be more than a ScottTrade broker.   But as of right now you're just a student lying on the Internet about his portfolio, trying to feel like a finance big shot. I gave you an opportunity to prove you're not full of shit and you blew it, and somehow thought I wouldn't see right through it.
It was a forex account (foreign exchange trading).  At that time forex brokers were not regulated or required to be regulated so it was like the wild west.  It was indeed a learning experience and thankfully I was diversified so the hit hurt but did not ruin me.
Take the easy approach - as suggested by John Bogle (founder of Vanguard - and a man worthy of tremendous respect). Two portfolios consisting of 1 index fund each. Invest your age% in the Fixed Income index fund. Invest (1-age)% in the stock index fund.  Examples of these funds are the Total Market Index Fund (VTSMX) and the Total Bond Market Index (VBMFX). If you wish to be slightly more adventurous, blend (1-age-10)% as the Total Market Index Fund and a fixed 10% as Total International Stock Index (VGTSX).  You will sleep well at night for most of your life.
"First, let me say that $1000 is not that much of amount to invest in stocks. You need to remember that each transaction (buy/sell) has fees, which vary between $4-$40 (depending on the broker, you mentioned Scottrade - they charge $7 per transaction for stocks and about twice as much for some mutual funds). Consider this: you invest $1000, you gain $100. You'll pay $15 in fees just to buy/sell, that's 1.5% expense ratio. If you invest in more than 1 stock - multiply your fees. To avoid that you can look into mutual funds. Different brokers offer different funds for free, and almost all of them carry many of the rest for a fee. When looking into funds, you can find their expense ratio and compare. Remember that a fund with 1% expense ratio diversifies and invests in many stocks, while for you 1.5% expense ratio is for investing in a single stock. Is it a good idea to invest only in US or diversify worldwide? You can invest in the US, but in funds that diversify worldwide or across industries. Generally it is a good idea to diversify. I am 28. Should I be a conservative investor or take some risks? Depends on how bad of a shape will you be if you lose all your principle. What online brokerage service is the best? I have heard a lot about Scotttrade but want to be sure before I start. It seems to be the least expensive and most user-friendly to me. ""Best"" is a problematic term. Scottrade is OK, E*Trade is OK, you can try Sharebuilder, Ameritrade, there are several ""discount"" online brokers and plenty of on-line reviews and comparisons amongst them. What is a margin account and how would it affect my investing? From what I understand it comes into play when an investor borrows money from the broker. Do I need to use it at all as I won't be investing on a big scale yet. You understand right. There are rules to use margin accounts, and with the amount you have I'd advise against them even if you get approved.
As the name says, its for income earned in a Foreign country. If you have been paying US income tax on this while living in the US, nothing is going to change here. You should be informing yourself on how to avoid double taxation in your new country of residence. Passive income earned abroad (dividends, interest) also do not fall under this exemption.  The purpose of the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is to make it easy for expats who work abroad to avoid double income taxation without going through the complicated process of applying for tax credits. The US is the only industrial country that taxes its residents regardless of where they reside. That is also why it only goes to about $100,000 a year. If you are a high earner, they want to make it more difficult. Also as a side note, since you are going to be abroad for a year. I will point out that if you have more than $10,000 in foreign accounts at any point in the year you need to declare this in an FBAR form. This is not advertised as well as it should be and carries ridiculous penalties for non-compliance. I can't count the number of times I have heard a US expat say that they were unaware of this.
"Not really. It's good to supplement a shitty school and bad GPA with, a nice thing to pursue and great at teaching you finance if you're not a finance major.  It will undeniably look good on a resume, however, it will not make or break you, outside of possibly you being in Top 3 internship candidates and you're the only CFA candidate.  It's practically useless for trading, but a friend of mine at a brokerage is getting his so that he can have more ""authority"" with clients, although, he is at a foreign brokerage and the clients tend to need that assurance that the broker knows what they're doing."
There are some great answers on this site similar to what you asked, with either a non-jurisdictional or a US-centric focus. I would read those answers as well to give yourself more points of view on early investing. There are a few differences between Canada and the US from an investing perspective that you should also then consider, namely tax rules, healthcare, and education. I'll get Healthcare and Education out of the way quickly. Just note the difference in perspective in Canada of having government healthcare; putting money into health-savings plans or focusing on insurance as a workplace benefit is not a key motivating factor, but more a 'nice-to-have'. For education, it is more common in Canada for a student to either pay for school while working summer / part-time jobs, or at least taking on manageable levels of debt [because it is typically not quite as expensive as private colleges in the US]. There is still somewhat of a culture of saving for your child's education here, but it is not as much of a necessity as it may be in the US. From an investing perspective, I will quickly note some common [though not universal] general advice, before getting Canadian specific. I have blatantly stolen the meat of this section from Ben Miller's great answer here: Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing Once you have a solid financial footing, some peculiarities of Canadian investing are below. For all the tax-specific plans I'm about to mention, note that the banks do a very good job here of tricking you into believing they are complex, and that you need your hand to be held. I have gotten some criminally bad tax advice from banking reps, so at the risk of sounding prejudiced, I recommend that you learn everything you can beforehand, and only go into your bank when you already know the right answer. The 'account types' themselves just involve a few pages of paperwork to open, and the banks will often do that for free. They make up their fees in offering investment types that earn them management fees once the accounts are created. Be sure to separate the investments (stocks vs bonds etc.) vs the investment vehicles.
"The fund will take a small percentage of its assets to cover the expenses.  Reported returns come after the expense ratio has been factored into things. Money market mutual funds can have a zero yield in some cases though breaking the buck can happen in some cases as noted on Wikipedia: The first money market mutual fund to break the buck was First   Multifund for Daily Income (FMDI) in 1978, liquidating and restating   NAV at 94 cents per share. An argument has been made that FMDI was not   technically a money market fund as at the time of liquidation the   average maturity of securities in its portfolio exceeded two years.[7]   However, prospective investors were informed that FMDI would invest   ""solely in Short-Term (30-90 days) MONEY MARKET obligations.""   Furthermore, the rule, which restricts the maturities which money   market funds are permitted to invest in, Rule 2-a7 of the Investment   Company Act of 1940, was not promulgated until 1983. Prior to the   adoption of this rule, a mutual fund had to do little other than   present itself as a money market fund, which FMDI did. Seeking higher   yield, FMDI had purchased increasingly longer maturity securities and   rising interest rates negatively impacted the value of its portfolio.   In order to meet increasing redemptions the fund was forced to sell a   certificate of deposit at a 3% loss, triggering a restatement of its   NAV and the first instance of a money market fund ""breaking the   buck"". The Community Bankers US Government Fund broke the buck in 1994,   paying investors 96 cents per share. This was only the second failure   in the then 23-year history of money funds and there were no further   failures for 14 years. The fund had invested a large percentage of its   assets into adjustable rate securities. As interest rates increased,   these floating rate securities lost value. This fund was an   institutional money fund, not a retail money fund, thus individuals   were not directly affected. No further failures occurred until September 2008, a month that saw   tumultuous events for money funds. However, as noted above, other   failures were only averted by infusions of capital from the fund   sponsors. Thus consider how likely is Fidelity Investments prepared to have people question how safe is their money with them which is why fund sponsors rarely break the buck."
OTC markets group definitely has a lot of foreign and startup issuer is the tech field. Also you have to define technology. Do you want computer technology, engineering, hardware manufacturing, software companies, biotech, or something else? Technology can mean many things and what you specifically want may end up shaping your portfolio. Also technology is a volatile sector I'd diversify with something more stable like utilities or basic materials if I were you.
"My study times were as follows:  * L1:  Started studying for the December test in mid-September; spent approximately 110 hours total studying Schwesser materials.  * L2:  Failed the first time w/120 hrs of studying from Schwesser.  2nd time around started in February (of the year of the test), spent about 130 hours studying straight from CFAI.  * L3:  Started in February of the test year again, approximately 130 hours of studying CFAI material.  I almost never studied more than 2 hours straight at a time, but it was consistently 2 hrs a day - that matters.  How much you study is up to you.  You need to study until you can confidently do the problems they're going to ask (they actually telegraph these questions directly to you if you study the CFAI materials).  The number of hours spent studying, outside of the construct of ""do you understand this and can you replicate it,"" is irrelevant.  Good luck -  PS I had approximately 8 years of front-office experience as a sell-side market maker and buy-side execution trader before starting L1.  I had absolutely no understanding of corporate finance, financial reporting/analysis, and very little understanding of equity valuation before embarking on the coursework."
"Losses at a brokerage firm due to fraud are insured up to $500,000 per account for securities  by the SIPC (Securities Investors' Protection Corporation), which is the stock market version of the FDIC (that insures deposits). The protection amount for cash is $250,000. That's small comfort to ""big"" players in MF Global. But it does protect ""small"" investors like you."
This is finance, just because your from India doesn't mean much (And I was born and spent a good part of my youth in Kerala). I pretty actively invest in emerging markets and while India has a large number of problems, it is still looking like a good investment in this global environment.
Thanks for the huge insight. I am still a student doing an intern and this was given as my first task, more of trying to give the IA another perspective looking at these funds rather than picking. I was not given the investors preference in terms of return and risk tolerances so it was really open-ended.   However, thanks so much for the quick response. At least now I have a better idea of what I am going to deliver or at least try to show to the IA.
In that case, my initial analysis is correct--your breakeven is in the low teens for an annual required return. The Second Proposal Your second proposal... before any edits... refined things a little bit, to try to capture the any possible returns by not selling something. As I indicated there, (with what was an exaggerating assumption), the lack of clarity makes for an outlandish required return. The Second Proposal...with edits, or the one proposed above I will get to the one proposed above in a second, but first let me highlight a few problems with your friend's analysis. Simple interest: the only place (in the US at least) that will lend with simple interest is student loans. Any loan that you actually take out will be compound interest. Not an interest only loan: your ""friend"" is not calculating interest correctly. Since this isn't an interest-only loan, the principal balance will reduce every time you make a payment, by ~$320-$340 each month. This substantially reduces the total interest paid, to $272.79 over the total 24 months. ""Returns"": I don't know what country, or what business your friend works in, but ""returns"" are a very ambiguous concept. Investopedia defines returns as gains or losses. (I wish I could inhabit the lala land that your friend lives in when returns are always positive). TheFreeDictionary.com defines a return for finance as ""The change in the value of a portfolio over an evaluation period, including any distributions made from the portfolio during that period."" When you have not made it clear that any other money is being used in this investment plan (as was the case in scheme #1 and scheme #2a,) the loan still has to be paid. So, clearly the principal must be included in the return calculations. How to evaluate this proposed investment scheme Key dimensions: Loan ($8,000 ... 24 months ... 0.27% monthly rate... monthly compounding... no loan origination fees) Monthly payment (PMT in Excel yields $344.70).
It all depends on how much risk you take. The problem is you have no idea what the risks are, and so you will lose all your money. I would say zero. But if you want to have a go, try reading reminiscences of a stock operator, then try reading my own attempt to make sense of the same stuff Hey, as you're a student you could even try making sense of my FX and MM training on the same website. Good luck
"Here's a dump from what I use. Some are a bit more expensive than those that you posted. The second column is the expense ratio. The third column is the category I've assigned in my spreadsheet -- it's how I manage my rebalancing among different classes. ""US-LC"" is large cap, MC is mid cap, SC is small cap. ""Intl-Dev"" is international stocks from developed economies, ""Emer"" is emerging economies. These have some overlap. I don't have a specific way to handle this, I just keep an eye on the overall picture. (E.g. I don't overdo it on, say, BRIC + Brazil or SPY + S&P500 Growth.) The main reason for each selection is that they provide exposure to a certain batch of securities that I was looking for. In each type, I was also aiming for cheap and/or liquid like you. If there are substitutes I should be looking at for any of these that are cheaper and/or more liquid, a comment would be great. High Volume: Mid Volume (<1mil shares/day): Low Volume (<50k shares/day): These provide enough variety to cover the target allocation below. That allocation is just for retirement accounts; I don't consider any other savings when I rebalance against this allocation. When it's time to rebalance (i.e. a couple of times a year when I realize that I haven't done it in several months), I update quotes, look at the percentages assigned to each category, and if anything is off the target by more than 1% point I will buy/sell to adjust. (I.e. if US-LC is 23%, I sell enough to get back to 20%, then use the cash to buy more of something else that is under the target. But if US-MC is 7.2% I don't worry about it.) The 1% threshold prevents unnecessary trading costs; sometimes if everything is just over 1% off I'll let it slide.
I always advise my friends/family to secure a minimum health insurance before venturing into investments for returns. You can choose not to and start investing straight away, but should any adverse health conditions hit you, all your returns would be wiped out into paying for treatments unless you are earning disgusting amounts in investment returns. This risk increases when you are handling the bills of your family. When you stick your money into an index ETF, the most powerful tool as a retail investor would be dollar-cost-averaging and I strongly recommend you read up on it. Also, because I am not from the western part of the world, I do not have the cultural mindset that I have to move out and get into a world of debt to live on my own when I reached 18. I have to say I could not be more glad that the culture does not exist in Asian countries. I find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with living with your parents and I still am at age 24. The pressure that culture puts on teenagers is uncalled for and there are no obvious benefits to it, only unmanageable mortgage/rent payments arise from it with the entry level pay that a normal 18 year old could get."