vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"I went to Morningstar's ""Performance"" page for FUSEX (Fideltiy's S&P 500 index fund) and used the ""compare"" tool to compare it with FOSFX and FWWFX, as well as FEMKX (Fidelity Emerging Markets fund). According to the data there, FOSFX outperformed FUSEX in 2012, FEMKX outperformed FUSED in 2010, and FWWFX outperformed FUSEX in both 2010 and 2012. When looking at 10- and 15-year trailing returns, both FEMKX and FWWFX outperformed FUSEX. What does this mean? It means it matters what time period you're looking at. US stocks have been on an almost unbroken increase since early 2009. It's not surprising that if you look at recent returns, international markets will not stack up well. If you go back further, though, you can find periods where international funds outperformed the US; and even within recent years, there have been individual years where international funds won. As for correlation, I guess it depends what you mean by ""low"". According to this calculator, for instance, FOSFX and FUSEX had a correlation of about 0.84 over the last 15 years. That may seem high, but it's still lower than, say, the 0.91 correlation between FUSEX and FSLCX (Fideltiy Small Cap). It's difficult to find truly low correlations among equity funds, since the interconnectedness of the global economy means that bull and bear markets tend to spread from one country to another. To get lower correlations you need to look at different asset classes (e.g., bonds). So the answer is basically that some of the funds you were already looking at may be the ones you were looking for. The trick is that no category will outperform any other over all periods. That's exactly what volatility means --- it means the same category that overperforms in some periods will underperform in others. If international funds always outperformed, no one would ever buy US funds.
Non-target undergrad in the south, but I networked with right people. Through the finance clubs I got an equity research role for the school's investment fund and leveraged that for an interview at a home developer but the partners there ultimately went with someone else. They happened to be investors at the firm I currently work at and thought my background would make me a good fit. Once I started working there, I took on as many projects/responsibilities as I could. I'm actually in the process of partnering up with the trader to take on some outside investors and get his algos running. He's been trading for ~25 years and I couldn't believe what his returns were at first, so I'm fairly excited to work with him.
Reading the descriptions on Amazon.com it appears Investments is a graduate text and Elements of Investments is the undergraduate version of the text.
"I would recommend ""The Intelligent Investor"" by Benjamin Graham. Though it's not a substitute for the CFAI curriculum, the book does cover a lot of ground.  I'd like to take the time to point out that given your lack of experience, the potential employer wont be looking for a very high level of technical expertise. Put in another way, a basic understanding of financial statements might very well suffice. Freshies are generally required to have that along with a good grasp of MS Suite (sans Access)."
"According to the FAFSA info here, they will count your nonretirement assets when figuring the EFC. The old Motley Fool forum question I mentioned in my comment suggests asking the school for a ""special circumstances adjustment to your FAFSA"".  I don't know much about it, but googling finds many pages about it at different colleges.  This would seem to be something you need to do individually with whatever school(s) your son winds up considering.  Also, it is up to the school whether to have mercy on you and accept your request. Other than that, you should establish whatever retirement accounts you can and immediately begin contributing as much as possible.  Given that the decision is likely to be complicated by your foreign income, you should seek professional advice from an accountant versed in such matters."
"There are ""strict"" regulations about co-mingling customer funds with other high risk investments.  People that lost money were not investing in MF Global, they simply had trading accounts there.  A lot were just hedging commodities (like farmers) to help stabilize prices for themselves.  Imagine having a 1 million dollar trading account at E-trade annnnnnd it's gone, because the company illegally was using YOUR money to cover losses in some high risk investment.  Would you be pissed- should someone goto jail?"
"FSEMX has an annual expense ratio of 0.1% which is very low. What that means is that each month, the FSEMX will pay itself one-twelfth of 0.1% of the total value of all the shares owned by the shareholders in the mutual fund. If the fund has cash on hand from its trading activities or dividends collected from companies whose stock is owned by FSEMX or interest on bonds owned by FSEMX, the money comes out of that, but if there is no such pot (or the pot is not large enough), then the fund manager has the authority to sell some shares of the stocks held by FSEMX so that the employees can be paid, etc. If the total of cash generated by the trading and the dividend collection in a given year is (say) 3% of the share value of all the outstanding mutual fund, then only 2.9% will be paid out as dividend and capital gain distribution income to the share holders, the remaining 0.1% already having been paid to FSEMX management for operating expenses. It is important to keep in mind that expenses are always paid even if there are no profits, or even if there are losses that year so that no dividends or capital gains distributions are made. You don't see the expenses explicitly on any statement that you receive. If FSEMX sells shares of stocks that it holds to pay the expenses, this reduces the share value (NAV) of the mutual fund shares that you hold. 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.
"I'll add a bit to Paul's excellent write up. Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (form 2555): notice the earned there. It doesn't exclude capital gains, interest, dividends, and basically everything that is not salary. You pay US taxes on it from the first cent. Foreign tax credit - foreign tax credit (form 1116) doesn't reduce your US tax dollar for dollar (even though it may appear that it does from the generic explanations). By using this form you may end up accumulating unused credit while still paying double taxes at the same time. Happened to me. Thank Congress for the logical and reasonable US tax laws. New FATCA form 8938: as opposed to FBAR (that goes to the FinCEN in the Treasury), this one goes to the IRS. it contains very similar info, but the threshold requirements are different. You may have to file FBAR, but not these, or you may have to file both. Being an American citizen, some European banks will refuse to provide services to you. Again, thank Congress for FATCA. It requires foreign banks to enforce US tax regulations on US citizens, and banks that won't will get penalized in the US. Many banks refuse to provide services to Americans because of that because what IRS requires is illegal in most countries. Some countries (like UK and some other EU countries) have signed treaties with the US to resolve this, but many haven't. Currency conversion - as I commented to Paul, you convert the amounts when you receive them, which may have your fixed EUR salary be converted to different dollar amounts every time. You need to make sure you do it right. Pensions, savings, investments - if you're doing these in non-US instruments prepare to be penalized. US taxes foreign investments much more aggressively than domestic. If you're investing in indexes/mutual funds, or you're a principle in a corporation, or you create a pension account - you'll get hit by additional reporting requirements and tax. Tax treaties - the US has tax treaties with many EU countries, and equalization treaties with some.
Academy of Financial Studies (AFS), based in Delhi is offering effective programs for investors as well as traders in investment banking in india. Investment banking is the process of raising money through debt (loans and bonds) or else equity (IPOs or Private Equity placements). This money is used for funding the capital expenditures, dividend payouts and working capital etc.
"The question is asking for a European equivalent of the so-called ""Couch Potato"" portfolio. ""Couch Potato"" portfolio is defined by the two URLs provided in question as, Criteria for fund composition Fixed-income: Regardless of country or supra-national market, the fixed-income fund should have holdings throughout the entire length of the yield curve (most available maturities), as well as being a mix of government, municipal (general obligation), corporate and high-yield bonds. Equity: The common equity position should be in one equity market index fund. It shouldn't be a DAX-30 or CAC-40 or DJIA type fund. Instead, you want a combination of growth and value companies. The fund should have as many holdings as possible, while avoiding too much expense due to transaction costs. You can determine how much is too much by comparing candidate funds with those that are only investing in highly liquid, large company stocks. Why it is easier for U.S. and Canadian couch potatoes It will be easier to find two good funds, at lower cost, if one is investing in a country with sizable markets and its own currency. That's why the Couch Potato strategy lends itself most naturally to the U.S.A, Canada, Japan and probably Australia, Brazil, South Korea and possibly Mexico too. In Europe, pre-EU, any of Germany, France, Spain, Italy or the Scandinavian countries would probably have worked well. The only concern would be (possibly) higher equity transactions costs and certainly larger fixed-income buy-sell spreads, due to smaller and less liquid markets other than Germany. These costs would be experienced by the portfolio manager, and passed on to you, as the investor. For the EU couch potato Remember the criteria, especially part 2, and the intent as described by the Couch Potato name, implying extremely passive investing. You want to choose two funds offered by very stable, reputable fund management companies. You will be re-balancing every six months or a year, only. That is four transactions per year, maximum.
We used Fabozzi's textbook ""Foundations of Financial Markets and Institutions,"" which is over 600 pages deep and we were required to know essentially all of it. Watch the videos and follow the readings and you'll be a finance whiz soon! Financial Markets on Open Yale And that's your roadmap to what you want. There are other economics books and it's true that the first few chapters of both Mankiw books are largely the same, but that's because any economics course always covers the basics first. If you want to look at other books, Krugman has written some good books as well. Be sure to read reviews because some books are meant for 2nd/3rd year econ students, so you don't want to get a too advanced book. At the novice level, we're interested in understanding the basic concepts so we can master Fabozzi. As for finance books - Fabozzi teaches you all the fundamentals of financial markets so you've got a powerful foundation. From there you can expand to more niche books such as books on investing or on monetary policy or whatever you want. Best of luck!"
If your end goal is IB and you can get in to a good school, then the second one.  Otherwise, an MFin from a non-target school will be a difficult sell without experience, I think.   /r/financialcareers if you haven't tried already
"I don't want to hate on those other comments but as a college student having a 4.0 and going to a ""target"" school are not realistic goals for everyone. The best advice I would give you is to be passionate about the field. It sounds dumb on its face but being involved in student investment clubs/funds or competing in investment competitions are great ways to get exposure and meet people in the field while building your resume. Internships are incredibly important because that's where you prove to yourself and others that you are a capable person.   You also have a lot of options ahead of you. You can do research, client facing roles (CFP), and even corporate finance. I wasn't a finance major but I spent 3 years in college working in our student managed investment fund and it absolutely paid off (now doing corporate finance). You have to want to learn and grow. It's not realistic for a college student with limited resources to get your CFA level 1 or series exams, especially if it doesn't suit your field. Be open to different types of jobs and build relationships with your professors who are well connected. It does help to have stellar grades and it helps to be at a top school but our state school has put kids on the Street. You just have to be hungry and realistic about your talents and passion.   Good luck to you."
Now suppose that there was no PFIC law. Then the US investors in the mutual fund would do better if the mutual fund were in a foreign country, for two reasons: a) The fund would no longer distribute 1099's. That means the shareholders wouldn't have to pay tax every year on their proportions of the fund's own income/gains. The money that would have sooner gone to the IRS can sit around for years earning interest. b) The fund could return profits to shareholders exclusively through capital gains rather than dividends, thus ensuring that all of the investors' income on the fund would be taxed at <15%-20% rather than up to 39%. The fund could do this by returning cash to shareholders exclusively through buybacks. However, the US mutual fund industry doesn't want to move the industry to Canada, and it only takes a few newspaper articles about a foreign loophole to make congress spring to action. 4) It depends. If you have a PEDIGREED QEF election in place (as I do for my biotech shares) then form 8621 takes a few minutes by hand. However, this requires both the company and the investor to fully cooperate with congress's vision for PFICs. The company cooperates by providing a so-called ""PFIC annual information sheet"", which replaces the 1099 form for a US mutual fund. The investor cooperates by having a ""QEF election"" in place for EACH AND EVERY TAX YEAR in which he held the stock and by reporting the numbers from the PFIC annual information sheet on his return. (Note that the QEF election persists once made, until revoked. There are subtleties here that I am glossing over, since ""deemed sale"" elections and other means may be used to modify a share's holding period to come into compliance.) Note that there is software coming out to handle PFICs, and that the software makers will already run their software to make your form 8621 for $75 or so. I should also warn you that the blogs of tax accountants and tax lawyers all contradict each other on the basic issue of whether you can take capital losses on PFICs for which you have no form 8621 elections.
I actually initiated the program by walking in and talking to the SFA. We sat down and talked about how I would advise clients on possible investment strategies. Most people would act as if I kicked their dog, but I guess Americans appreciate their Saturdays, which is understandable.   I got a few bites where a client with a $250,000 money-market account questioned me on a few banking opportunities and so I passed him on to one of our banking specialists (who earn commission) and I didn't see a fucking dollar of that.
"The raw question is as follows:  ""You will be recommending a purposed portfolio to an investment committee (my class). The committee runs a foundation that has an asset base of $4,000,000. The foundations' dual mandates are to (a) preserve capital and (b) to fund $200,000 worth of scholarships. The foundation has a third objective, which is to grow its asset base over time.""   The rest of the assignment lays out the format and headings for the sections of the presentation.  Thanks, by the way - it's an 8 week accelerated course and I've been out sick for two weeks. I've been trying to teach myself this stuff, including the excel calculations for the past few weeks."
Congrats on finishing your time and starting school.  I recommend reading the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.  Other than being a great basic investing book, it highlights a shift from actively managed brokerage accounts.  If you want to be an IB, it is important to understand the market you are getting into (and the different changing aspects of it).  As for further reading / prep, start learning about the Series 7, 63, 66 exams.  Become comfortable with finances and never stop reading.  Good luck!
Well for an actuary position 1-2 exams for an internship is fairly standard. As for CFA level 1 a bunch of people at my old firm told me that's what got them through the first door. But agreed that networking trumps all.
"Hey, I hear ya on this situation. I also graduated from a good school (Finance/Comp Sci) with a mediocre GPA and had difficulty securing a full time position in finance. My best advice is to network the shit out of alumni you can connect to through LinkedIn or your schools alumni network homepage. People are MUCH more open to talking than you would typically think. Like your friends said, getting into IBD as an analyst is ideal as it gives you a great line on your resume, shows you worked hard, and has amazing training. Now comes the really shitty part of this conversation, if you've already graduated college, it's next to impossible to get into a bulge bracket as an analyst. Your best bet in this case would be to try to get into a mid-cap or boutique IB and work your way from there. Again though, networking means 100x more than anything else. Now the good news, investment research is very different from investment banking. Yes, equity research is within an investment bank (sell-side and buy-side), but it is very different from investment banking (see Chinese Walls). It's easier to make the transition into research without formal recruiting than it is to get into IB directly. Couple things to keep in mind, KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SELL-SIDE AN BUY-SIDE. I'm not talking about just one buys stuff the other tries to get you to buy it. I'm talking about conflicts of interest on the sell-side, personalities, types of research, what your role entails, org structure, etc. SELL-SIDE IS EXTREMELY DIFFERENT THAN BUY-SIDE!! Buy-side is MUCH less flexible than sell-side in recruiting, also. Do you currently own stocks, trade, track stocks all day long, etc.? If the answer is no to any of those, buy-side is really really hard. They want people who live and breath investing, markets, news, companies, because that's what they do. Also, training is effectively non-existent on the buy-side due to the size of the shops (some can have $10b with 10 people including admins). Now lets talk sell-side.
To start with, I should mention that many tax preparation companies will give you any number of free consultations on tax issues — they will only charge you if you use their services to file a tax form, such as an amended return. I know that H&R Block has international tax specialists who are familiar with the issues facing F-1 students, so they might be the right people to talk about your specific situation. According to TurboTax support, you should prepare a completely new 1040NR, then submit that with a 1040X. GWU’s tax department says you can submit late 8843, so you should probably do that if you need to claim non-resident status for tax purposes.
You really just need to learn about finance, trading and the markets. I know a chemical engineer that did an IB internship. He joined our universities Investments club and just learned everything from there. He never took a single business class
I would say it really depends on where you are applying.   Almost all the candidates that we get directly from school are either CFA level I candidates or have passed it already. It has become ubiquitous enough to not be note worthy for us (can't speak for other places). However, if you don't have anything else going on atm then definitely take the exam.  I would also say that you should pick/hone your programming skills revise your textbooks. I can't believe the number of MFE graduates who don't know what risk-neutral pricing means.
Yes.  I passed the CFA Level 1 with three months of studying with only a BS in Economics and a career as a Financial Advisor.  I took a local review course with my local CFA chapter in San Francisco, then sprang for some test question banks and just plowed through them.  Anytime I missed a question, I reread the section on that question, wrote out an index card to drill the concept, drilled the concepts for awhile, and then took the test questions again.  Good luck.
No, you don't. But you do need to file FBAR to report your foreign accounts if you have $10K or more at any given day in all of them combined, when you're a US resident. You need to file FBAR annually by the end of June (note: it must be received by FinCEN by the end of June, but nowadays you file it electronically anyway).
"I'm in a similar situation. First, a 529 plan can be use for ""qualifying"" international schools.  There are 336 for 2015, which includes many well known schools but also excludes many schools, especially lower level or vocational schools and schools in non-English speaking countries. I ran 3 scenarios to see what the impact would be if you invested $3000 a year for 14 years in something tracking the S&P 500 Index: For each of these scenarios, I considered 3 cases: a state with 0% income tax, a state with the median income tax rate of 6% for the 25% tax bracket, and California with an income tax rate of 9.3% for the 25% tax bracket. California has an addition 2.5% penalty on unqualified distributions.  Additionally, tax deductions taken on contributions that are part of unqualified distributions will be viewed as income and that portion of the distribution will be taxed as such at the state level. Vanguard's 500 Index Portfolio has a 10 year average return of 7.63%.  Vanguard's S&P 500 Index fund has a 10 year average return of 7.89% before tax and 7.53% after taxes on distributions. Use a 529 as intended: Use a 529 but do not use as intended: Invest in a S&P 500 Index fund in a taxable account: Given similar investment options, using a 529 fund for something other than education is much worse than having an investment in a mutual fund in a taxable account, but there's also a clear advantage to using a 529 if you know with certainty you can use it for qualified expenses.  Both the benefits for correct use of a 529 and the penalties for incorrect use increase with state tax rates. I live in a state with no income tax so the taxable mutual fund option is closer to the middle between correct and incorrect use of a 529.  I am leaning towards the investment in a taxable account."