vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
There are 2 trades involved - keep in mind that the function of the CIO is to hedge out the banks risk from a very high level. Credit and interest rate risk should come to mind since what does a bank do (for the most part)? Loan money.   Trade #1 - The bank is long corporate debt, that's no secret, so they're always exposed to a high amount of macro economic risk. So the CIO hedged this initially by taking a bearish stance on junk bonds. This is somewhat narrow, but still reasonable.   Trade #2 - What you'd call a second order hedge in an attempt to offset the overly bearish but still embarrassingly narrow position in trade #1. All on the Markit CDX IG 9 (Investment Grade Series 9 10yr), Mr Iksil sold CDS tranches out to 2017 and bought to 2012.   So, the books were flat (with a slight optimistic edge) through 2012, and bullish on the economy out to 2017.   Unfortunately, credit markets didn't exactly take off. The economy stayed volatile, and Bruno had to keep digging deeper into the trade, selling back year tranches to buy front the front years. This eventually wonked spreads out so badly that everyone who cared caught on and, when JPM decided the time had come to take their losses, hedge funds started picking them off on the unwinds.
If held in one savings account, how can I easily manage what percentage is planned for which   purpose? I used a spreadsheet for some years, but found it clumsy for everyday use. Thus I wrote some software which my wife and I use for our short-term as well as long-term planning, available at http://budgeter.sourceforge.net. It specifically helps with splitting the money in one or several accounts into logical categories. (The software is not the most user-friendly ever, so there may be better suggestions that follow, but it works well for us. Please feel free to suggest improvements to it as well.)
I use Banktivity.  It's very much not free, but it automatically downloads all my bank and credit card activity and has excellent reporting options.
It's been a long time since I've used MS Money and/or Quickbooks (never Quicken), but I've used GnuCash over the past year or so. It works, but it does suffer from some usability problems. Some of the UI is clunky. Data entry sequences are a little harder than they should be. Reports could be a little prettier. But overall it does work, and it's the best I've found on linux. (I would definitely appreciate pointers to something better.)
A credit card is essentially a contract where they will loan you money in an on demand basis.  It is not a contract for you to loan them money. The money that you have overpaid is generally treated as if it is a payment for a charge that you have made that has not been processed yet.  The bank can not treat that money as a deposit and thus leverage it make money them selves. You can open an account and get a debit card.  This would allow you to accrue interest for your deposit while using your money.  But if you find one willing to pay you 25% interest please share with the rest of us :)
The broker may be purchasing the CDs through a CDARS participant financial institution.  You can bypass your broker and go to a CDARS participant FI yourself.  CDARS is a network of financial institutions that spread your deposit across multiple FIs, guaranteeing your FDIC coverage.  The advantage is you have a single point of contact - your chosen financial institution.  You do not have to have any contact with the other FIs where your deposit may be spread. In fact, on your statements or online banking it will appear as if your large CD is all with your chosen FI.  The spreading will happen behind the scenes.  A local participating institution can help explain this program to you.
"Uh, have you tried google docs? Start off simple. Other than that, for the moment I use GNUCash. Some day I might try to write my own, but for now it works well enough. I have a number of scheduled transactions in GNUCash, and it records them days in advance. You talk about ""I should have how much money"", but GNUCash offers a slightly better format: Future Minimum Balance. If you want to know whether you can spend money in an account without triggering a chain reaction, that's the number you want. Being web-based so that it can be accessed from any OS. GNUCash is cross platform, with Windows, OSX and Linux clients. It also supports mysql/postgres database backends, so while it's not ""Web based"", you can keep your data ""in the cloud""."
"Yes, CDOs certainly allow the investor to choose the tranche they want to invest in. As you said, lower risk higher priority tranches get paid first but also have a lower coupon rate. The higher risk lower priority (""junior"" or ""mezzanine"") tranches pay last, if it all, but have higher coupons."
Ok, so as a result of the Equifax breach I placed a credit freeze on all my accounts. Just to verify my understanding, if in the future I want to apply for a home loan, open a new bank account, etc... I need to individually unfreeze my accounts with each of the credit companies right? (e.g. I can't just unfreeze one, I have to unfreeze them all)
Actually BofA never charged for their debit card usage. It was all heresy from the media because Wells Fargo and Chase Bank were actually charging their customers. As to your credit card, you know that you can close that at anytime and pay off whatever owing balance you have left with it still closed.
Anything over a $10,000 deposit is reported to the IRS. I'm not sure if you need to fill out a form or if the bank does it automatically. As long as it's legit I don't see that there would be any issues. The worst that would happen is somebody would have to talk to the IRS and explain that it was their money and not a  gift of some sort. Edit it is reported to the FinCEN not the IRS https://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/pages_manual/OLM_017.htm
"I completely agree with @littleadv in favor of using the credit card and dispute resolution process, but I believe there are more important details here related to consumer protection. Since 1968, US citizens are protected from credit card fraud, limiting the out-of-pocket loss to $50 if your card is lost, stolen, or otherwise used without your permission. That means the bank can't make you pay more than $50 if you report unauthorized activity--and, nicely, many credit cards these days go ahead and waive the $50 too, so you might not have to pay anything (other than the necessary time and phone calls). Of course, many banks offer a $50 cap or no fees at all for fraudulent charges--my bank once happily resolved some bad charges for me at no loss to me--but banks are under no obligation to shield debit card customers from fraud. If you read the fine print on your debit card account agreement you may find some vague promises to resolve your dispute, but probably nothing saying you cannot be held liable (the bank is not going to lose money on you if they are unable to reverse the charges!). Now a personal story: I once had my credit card used to buy $3,000 in stereo equipment, at a store I had never heard of in a state I have never visited. The bank notified me of the surprising charges, and I was immediately able to begin the fraud report--but it took months of calls before the case was accepted and the charges reversed. So, yes, there was no money out of my pocket, but I was completely unable to use the credit card, and every month they kept on piling on more finance fees and late-payment charges and such, and I would have to call them again and explain again that the charges were disputed... Finally, after about 8 months in total, they accepted the fraud report and reversed all the charges. Lastly, I want to mention one more important tool for preventing or limiting loss from online purchases: ""disposable"", one-time-use credit card numbers. At least a few credit card providers (Citibank, Bank of America, Discover) offer you the option, on their websites, to generate a credit card number that charges your account, but under the limits you specify, including a maximum amount and expiration date.
"Played ""the balance transfer game"" once recently, just as a reference - Got a balance transfer offer for a sock drawer no-AF card. 2% up-front fee, 0% APR. Grace period was, by the time I acted on it, about 16 months. Used it to pay down an auto loan with an APR slightly higher than 2%, and brought my equity back to positive. Towards the end when I rolled over the auto loan, thanks to the positive equity I was offered a rate discount on the new loan. Essentially this was a piggyback loan on the original auto loan funded by credit card (via balance transfer). Saved some interest charges without having to refinance."
As long as you can be trusted with a Credit Card i find that if you have a setup that uses three accounts: 1. your Credit Card, 2. 2. a high interest internet account (most of these accounts don’t have fees), 3. a savings account.  The Method that works for me is: 1st i calculate my fixed monthly bills i.e Rent and utilities and then transfer it into my high interest account.  for the month whenever i make a purchase i transfer the money into the high interest account ( this way I can keep a running balance of what money I have left to spend in the month. Then when the Credit Card bill comes I transfer the money out of the high interest account across to pay off the Credit Card ( this way you generate interest on the money which you would have spent throughout the month and still maintain $0 of interest from the Credit Card) over a year you can generate at least enough money in interest to go out for dinner on one of free flights!
Awesome, you are a math guy.  Very good for you.  In theory, what you are proposing, should work out great as the math works out great.  However have you taken a economics or finance coursework?  The math that they do in these class will leave a most math guys uncomfortable with the imprecision even when one is comfortable with chaos theory. Personal finance is worse.  If it were about math things like reverse mortgages, payday lenders, and advances on one income tax returns would not exist.   The risk derived from the situation you describe is one born out of behavior.  Sometimes it is beyond control of the person attempting your scheme.  Suppose one of these happen: In my opinion the market is risky enough without borrowing money in order to invest.  Its one thing to not pay extra principle to a mortgage in order to put that money in play in the market, it is another thing to do what you are suggesting.  While their may be late fees associated with a mortgage payment, a fixed rate mortgage will not change if you late on payment(s). On these balance transfer CC schemes they will jack your rate up for any excuse possible.  I read an article that the most common way to end up with a 23%+ credit card was to start out with a 0% balance transfer.  One thing that is often overlooked is that the transfer fee paid jacks up the stated rate of the card.   In the end, get out of consumer debt, have an emergency fund, then start investing.  Building a firm financial foundation is the best way to go about it.  Without one it will be difficult to make headway.  With one your net worth will increase faster then you imagined possible.
There are currently 2 2% cards that I am aware of. The Citi Double Cash Credit Card and the Fidelity 2% AMEX card. Good thread for Fidelity card is here.  And a good thread for the Citi card is here.
"A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is a contract between two parties. A useful analogy is insurance (but by no means exact).  I pay a quarterly premium in order to insure myself against another event.  In this case, it might be that I own some IBM Bonds.  I am happy to own those bonds, and like the ""coupon"" that they pay me.  But I am a little worried about IBM going bankrupt.  So I can find someone willing to sell me a CDS.  So long as I keep up my ""premium"" payments, if IBM goes into default on their bonds, I get a payout. This analogy does break down at a couple of levels.  Firstly there is no requirement that I have to own the IBM bond in the first place.  I can in effect then ""take a view"" on IBM going into default by purchasing a CDS without owning the underlying asset. Also in the real insurance world, there are various capital requirements that the companies have to adhere to, while CDS market, being essentially unregulated has none. So to summarize, and while The Pedia has a pretty good article, they are good both to hedge your bet (i.e. protect your actual owned asset) or as a speculative tool to take a ""view"" on the likelihood of a company to go bankrupt."
"I'm a bit loathe to offer this response, but some pre-paid credit card vendors offer ""direct deposit"" to the card. Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart is one of them -- the very first ""how to reload"" option is direct deposit from an employer: https://www.walmartmoneycard.com/walmart/account/learn-how I think this sort of service encourages bad money habits. People shouldn't have to pay fees to get their own money."
I used square in the past for personal yard sale and they did not transfer balance to my bank acct because they told me it was against their policy and I had to have a business license that they could either refund the credit cards i process or keep the money. So they kept it I never got it back. I don't recommend anybody to use square.
Yes, it is.  Got to start somewhere.  Typically directly through a company itself. Check out this site that lists a bunch of them and their minimum requirements.  Not many only accept $100 but there are a few. ie. ACTIVEnergy Income Fund, CIBC, COMPASS Income Fund, Suncor Energy Inc. and a few others.
Consider the numbers in Joe's example together with the following assumptions: $5000 and $1000 are the balances owed at the beginning of the month, no new charges or service fees during that month, and the previous month's minimum monthly payment was made on the day that the statement paid so that the finance charge for the current month is on the balances stated). The finance charge on the $5000 balance is $56.25, while the finance charge on the $1000 balance is $18.33, giving a minimum required payment of $56.25+18.33+60 = $134.58. Of the $600 payment, $134.58 would be applied to the lower-rate balance ($5000 + $56.25 = $5056.25) and reduce it to $4921.67. The excess $465.42 would be applied to the high-rate balance of $1000+18.33 = $1018.33 and reduce it to $552.91. In general, it is a bad idea to take a cash advance from a credit card. Don't do it unless you absolutely must have cash then and there to buy something from a merchant who does not accept credit cards, only cash, and don't be tempted to use the ""convenience checks"" that credit-card companies send you from time to time. All such cash advances not only carry larger rates of interest (there may also be upfront fees for taking an advance) but any purchases made during the rest of the month also become subject to finance charge. In other words, there is no ""grace period"" for new charges, and this state of affairs will last for one month beyond the first credit-card statement whose statement is paid off in full in timely fashion. Finally, turning to the question asked, viz. "" I am trying to determine how much I need to pay monthly to zero the balance, ...."", as per the above calculations, if the OP makes the minimum required payment of $134.58 plus $1018.33, that $134.58 will be applied to the low-rate balance and the rest $1018.33 will pay off the high-rate balance in full if the payment is made on the day the statement is issued.
"What's going on here is that Amazon/visa thinks that the money they will earn on average from irresponsible credit card users is more value than 50$ each. This is the same logic that is behind the cash back or airplane point bonuses many credit cards offer, or the ""apply and get a free 2-liter of soda"" that some stores offer. I would need more information about the card to say whether or not you should apply (What are the fees, if any? What is the interest rate? etc)."
"I recently needed to compute a better balance that let us pick and choose what to include in the computed sum without losing information, so I revisited this topic and I'm pleased to say that I've found a solution that works (at least for our data - you may have transactions that this code doesn't recognize, but you can always modify it to match). My solution was written natively for MS SQL Server 2008 or later, it uses a scalar UDF, a VIEW, and a windowed aggregate (SUM OVER (ORDER BY ...) which means it should be almost-syntax compatible with PostgreSQL. MySQL does not support OVER but you can perform a running-sum using a variable with arithmetic addition directly in the SELECT clause. Create a database table with this schema (feel free to exclude columns you're not interested in, such as Option1Name): Create a UNIQUE index on TxnId - you could use it as a primary-key, I suppose. You might be tempted to create a Foreign-Key relationship between ReferenceTxnId and TxnId, however this will fail if you enforce it: we have many transactions where ReferenceTxnId points to a Transaction that doesn't exist. This is usually in the case of [Type] = 'Web Accept Payment Received' AND [Status] = 'Canceled'. We also have some TransactionId values longer than 17 characters: some TransactionIds start with ""U-"" - all pending money requests, I suspect this indicates the transaction is ""unfinished"". Re-download your entire PayPal History CSV files so that you have the latest retroactive updates. Import these CSV files into this PayPalHistory table. Do a simple test to see how bad PayPal's default data is: To find out where the differences are coming from, run this query: (The ORDER BY (...), RowId is to ensure consistent ordering when multiple transactions share the same timestamp) As you scroll through the results, you'll see how the naive SUM is thrown-off from the official PayPal-computed Balance column.
"So I've done some digging and have some new information.   I looked up Beam in California's business search and found Beam Financial, registered in November of 2015 by Yinan Du, incorporated in Delaware.  Searched Delaware's database and found a listing from 6/24/2014 with the agent ""National Registered Agents, Inc""--not much to go on from that.   Some Google Sluething and it appears that Du was previously in charge of something called 24quan.com (not entirely sure what that business was).   Still trying to figure out which bank will be covering them for FDIC and when they will launch."
"What our friend ""otherwiseyep"" is describing in his first posts is *credit*, not money.  Money and credit are two very different things.  Economies function on capital, which is existing savings and supply of goods/services.  They cannot function on promises alone (credit).  So from the perspective of Austrian economists, his OP's were misleading."
I get CapIQ and Bloomberg, and I definitely prefer Bloomberg just because of the completeness of information. There's nowhere else that you can get a full financial statement breakdown and then seconds later have a debt distribution schedule and then with another couple keystrokes get a complete credit ratings history and have that only be scratching the surface of the info available. CapIQ is sometimes better than Bloomberg for street consensus estimates going out more than a year or two but I don't find myself using it that much.
"These days, just about any bank has the ability to schedule payments for free.  I usually use this.  My wife has a Chase MasterCard, because they used to automatically credit the 1% cash back monthly.  Now they ""improved"" the card, and you need to go online and redeem the rewards, either in $20 increments, or to pay off a previous purchase, which seems to be a real gimmick.  They probably get back the 1% cash back for that purchase if you use this feature.  Weird people."
Contact AmEx. They are the only ones who might have a current list.
I'm not sure about the laws in specific states. However it's part of their merchant agreement that they can not charge a fee for a customer paying with credit card. It's also against merchant agreements to require a minimum purchase to use a credit card, although this is less commonly enforced. Apparently (http://fso.cpasitesolutions.com/premium/le/06_le_ic/fg/fg-merchants.html) merchants can offer a cash discount. Offering payment by credit card, though practically a requirement in todays retail environment, is a privilege for the merchant. It's a way of making buying convenient for the customer. As a result, penalizing the customer in any way is not just against their agreement, but rather disingenuous as well. edit: here's a bit more information about what they can and can't do. Amex prohibits discrimination, so if a merchant can't do something to a Visa/MC customer they can't do it to an Amex customer either. http://fso.cpasitesolutions.com/premium/le/06_le_ic/fg/fg-merchants.html
It may seem very simple on its face but you don't know the merchant's agreement.  You don't know who is providing the processing equipment.  You don't know a lot of things.  You know that Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex and others have network requirements and agreements.  You know that laws have been changed to allow merchant surcharges (previously it was contracts that prohibited surcharges, not laws).   That gas station, or that pizza parlor, or any other merchant doesn't have a direct relationship with Visa or Mastercard; it has an agreement with a bank or other processing entity.  The issue here, is whom do you even call?  And what would you gain?  Find out what bank is contracted for that particular equipment and file a complaint that the merchant charged you $0.35?  Maybe the merchant agreement allows surcharges up to state and local maximums?  You don't know the terms of their agreement.  Calling around to figure out what parties are involved to understand the terms of their agreement is a waste of time, like you said you can just go across the street if it's so offensive to you.  Or just carry a little cash.   If that's not the answer you're looking for, here's one for you: There is no practical recourse.
A *lot* of big companies offer credit cards. And it makes total sense. For example, if you have a Macy's card, you get access to special discounts that you wouldn't normally get. It saves the consumer money and builds loyalty to the brand. Same for Southwest credit cards. It's a completely normal move.  EDIT: Also, Uber doesn't actually have to do much - it's the issuing bank that manages the program. *Most* of the branded credit cards you see are Chase, BTW. Amazon and Southwest are both run by Chase.
The only way I can think of to do this would be to take a cash advance against the card, then buy the wire transfer with that cash. Of course cash advances typically start accumulating interest immediately, since the credit card company isn't capturing a fee from the vendor, and may be at a different interest rate than other charges... so given the choice, I'd suggest you write a check instead. As @KiethS points out, there have been a number of scams involving getting people to send (non-cancellable) wire transfers and then not delivering the goods/services paid for. A wire transfer is, essentially, cash. If you don't know exactly who you're dealing with, don't.