vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Also I think everyone forgets that a lot of the time U.S. Bonds are the ONLY place to park money. Where else can someone invest 1.5 trillion? I think between the bond yields and inflation rate, China isn't really making a profit on this investment.  Better to lose a little than a lot I guess. The problem with the U.S. is that they don't use this profitable scheme to pay down debt.
Like most other investment decisions - it depends. Specifically in this case it depends upon your view of the FX (Foreign Exchange) market over the next few years, and how sensitive you are to losses. As you correctly note, a hedge has a cost, so it detracts from your overall return. But given that you need to repatriate the investment eventually to US Dollars, you need to be aware of the fluctuations of the dollar versus other currencies. If you believe that over your time horizon, the US dollar will be worth the same as now or less, then you should not buy the hedge.  If the dollar is the same - the choice is/was obvious.  If you believe the US dollar will be weaker in the future, that means that when you repatriate back to US dollars, you will purchase more dollars with your foreign currency. If on the other hand, you believe the US Dollar will get stronger, then you should certainly lock in some kind of hedge.  That way, when your foreign currency would have effectively bought fewer US, you will have made money on the hedge to make up the difference. If you choose not to hedge now, you can likely hedge that exposure at any time in the future, separate from the initial investment purchase buy buying/selling the appropriate FX instrument. Good Luck
There is no country tag, so I will answer the question generally. Is it possible...? Yes, it's possible and common. Is it wise? Ask Barings Bank whether it's a good idea to allow speculative investing.
If you are tax-resident in the US, then you must report income from sources within and without the United States.  Your foreign income generally must be reported to the IRS.  You will generally be eligible for a credit for foreign income taxes paid, via Form 1116. The question of the stock transfer is more complicated, but revolves around the beneficial owner.  If the stocks are yours but held by your brother, it is possible that you are the beneficial owner and you will have to report any income. There is no tax for bringing the money into the US.  As a US tax resident, you are already subject to income tax on the gain from the sale in India.  However, if the investment is held by a separate entity in India, which is not a US domestic entity or tax resident, then there is a separate analysis.  Paying a dividend to you of the sale proceeds (or part of the proceeds) would be taxable.  Your sale of the entity containing the investments would be taxable.  There are look-through provisions if the entity is insufficiently foreign (de facto US, such as a Subpart-F CFC).  There are ways to structure that transaction that are not taxable, such as making it a bona fide loan (which is enforceable and you must pay back on reasonable terms).  But if you are holding property directly, not through a foreign separate entity, then the sale triggers US tax; the transfer into the US is not meaningful for your taxes, except for reporting foreign accounts. Please review Publication 519 for general information on taxation of resident aliens.
There aren't and for a good reason. The long term trend of INR against USD, GBP, EUR and other harder currencies is down. Given the inflation differential between these economies and India's, fund managers and investors should expect this to continue. Therefore, if you are invested for any reasonable length of time, you would expect the forex movements to add to your returns. Historically, this has been true of international funds run in India.
In theory, yes, it makes sense to sell your current bonds in pursuit of higher yields. In practice, there are a lot of smart people out there who own bonds, and the market is very efficient, so you won't see opportunities to trade new bonds for old bonds with better yields from the same issuer. If you do find someone willing to buy your old bond for a higher amount, it probably points to a change in the contract that the new bonds were issued under. (see Argentina for an example)
"A general principle in finance is that you shouldn't stick with an investment or situation just because it's how you're currently invested. You can ask yourself the following question to help you think it through: If, instead, I had enough GBP to buy 20000 CHF, would I think it was a good idea to do so? (I'm guessing the answer is probably ""no."") This way of thinking assumes you can actually make the exchange without giving someone too big of a cut. With that much money on the line, be sure to shop around for a good exchange rate."
The article links to William Bernstein’s plan that he outlined for Business Insider, which says: Modelling this investment strategy Picking three funds from Google and running some numbers. The international stock index only goes back to April 29th 1996, so a run of 21 years was modelled.  Based on 15% of a salary of $550 per month with various annual raises: Broadly speaking, this investment doubles the value of the contributions over two decades. Note:  Rebalancing fees are not included in the simulation. Below is the code used to run the simulation.  If you have Mathematica you can try with different funds.    Notice above how the bond index (VBMFX) preserves value during the 2008 crash.  This illustrates the rationale for diversifying across different fund types.
Think about it this way: if you buy a bond that matures in 5 years, you're effectively betting that you won't have an emergency for the next 5 years. If you do, you'll have to either sell the bond or, if you're allowed to get the money back early, you'll likely forfeit a good amount of the interest you earned in the process (which kind of kills the point of buying the bond in the first place). Edit: As @Barmar pointed out in the comments, you may also have to pay taxes on the profits if you sell at a favorable price. In the U.S. at least, capital gains on stuff held for less than a year is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate and stuff held longer than a year is taxed at the long-term capital gains tax rate. So, if you hold the investment for less than a year, you're opening yourself up to the risks of short-term stock fluctuations as well as potential tax penalties, so if you put your emergency fund in stocks you're essentially betting that you won't have an emergency that year (which by definition you can't know). The purpose of an emergency fund is just that - to be an emergency fund. Its purpose isn't really to make money."
You can calculate your exposure intuitively, by calculating your 'fx sensitivity'. Take your total USD assets, let's assume $50k. Convert to EUR at the current rate, let's assume 1 EUR : 1.1 USD, resulting in 45.5k EUR . If the USD strengthens by 1%, this moves to a rate of ~1.09, resulting in 46k EUR value for the same 50k of USD investments. From this you can see that for every 1% the USD strengthens, you gain 500 EUR. For every 1% the USD weakens, you lose 500 EUR. The simplest way to reduce your exchange rate risk exposure, is to simply eliminate your foreign currency investments. ie: if you do not want to be exposed to fluctuations in the USD, invest in EUR only. This will align your assets with the currency of your future expenses [assuming you intend to continue living in Europe].This is not possible of course, if you would like to maintain investments in US assets.  One relatively simple method available to invest in the US, without gaining an exposure to the USD, is to invest in USD assets only with money borrowed in USD. ie: if you borrow $50k USD, and invest $50k in the US stock market, then your new investments will be in the same currency as your debt. Therefore if the USD strengthens, your assets increase in relative EUR value, and your debt becomes more expensive. These two impacts wash out, leaving you with no net exposure to the value of the USD. There is a risk to this option - you are investing with a higher 'financial leverage' ratio. Using borrowed money to invest increases your risk; if your investments fall in value, you still need to make the periodic interest payments. Many people view this increased risk as a reason to never invest with borrowed money. You are compensated for that risk, by increased returns [because you have the ability to earn investment income without contributing any additional money of your own]. Whether the risk is worth it to you will depend on many factors - you should search this site and others on the topic to learn more about what those risks mean.
Also, a currency failing is significantly different from a prices denominated in a currency inflating. If you're worried about prices inflating and decreasing the purchasing power of your dollars (which usually occurs in modern economies) then it's a good idea to look for investments and asset allocations that, over time, have outpaced the rate of inflation and that even with the effects of inflation, still give you a high enough rate of return to meet your investment goals in real, inflation-adjusted terms. If you have legitimate reason to worry about your currency failing, perhaps because your country doesn't maintain stable monetary or fiscal policies, there are a few things you can do. First, define what you mean by ""failing."" Do you mean ceasing to exist, or simply falling in unit purchasing power because of inflation? If it's the latter, see the previous paragraph. If the former, investing in other currencies abroad may be a good idea. Questions about currencies actually failing are quite general, however, and (in my opinion) require significant economic analysis before deciding on a course of action/hedging. I would ask the same question about my home's value against an inflated currency as well. Would it keep the same real value. Your home may or may not keep the same real value over time. In some time periods, average home prices have risen at rates significantly higher than the rate of inflation, in which case on paper, their real value has increased. However, if you need to make substantial investments in your home to keep its price rising at the same rate as inflation, you may actually be losing money because your total investment is higher than what you paid for the house initially. Of course, if you own your home and don't have plans to move, you may not be concerned if its value isn't keeping up with inflation at all times. You're deriving additional satisfaction/utility from it, mainly because it's a place for you to live, and you spend money maintaining it in order to maintain your physical standard of living, not just its price at some future sale date. 1) I use dollars as an example. This applies to all currencies."
The other idea behind asset allocation is that if the market changes - e.g. your stocks go up a lot while your bonds stagnate - you rebalance and buy more bonds. If the stock market subsequently crashes, you move some of your bond money back into stocks. This basically means that you buy low and sell high, just by maintaining your asset allocation. This is generally more reliable than trying to ""time the market"" and move into an asset class before it goes up (and move out before it goes down). Market-timing is just speculation. You get better returns if you guess right, but you get worse returns if you guess wrong. Commodity funds are useful as another way to diversify your portfolio, and can serve as a little bit of protection in case of crisis or inflation. You can buy gold, silver, platinum and palladium ETFs on the stock exchanges. Having a small amount of money in these funds isn't a bad idea, but commodities can be subject to violent price swings! Moreover, a bar of gold doesn't really earn any money (and owning a share of a precious-metals ETF will incur administrative, storage, and insurance costs to boot). A well-run business does earn money. Assuming you're saving for the long haul (retirement or something several decades off) my suggestion for you would be to start by investing most of your money* in index funds to match the total world stock market (with something like the aforementioned NYSE:VT, for instance), a small portion in bonds, and a smaller portion in commodity funds. (For all the negative stuff I've said about market-timing, it's pretty clear that the bond market is very expensive right now, and so are the commodities!) Then, as you do additional research and determine what sort investments are right for you, add new investment money in the places that you think are appropriate - stock funds, bond funds, commodity funds, individual stocks, sector-specific funds, actively managed mutual funds, et cetera - and try to maintain a reasonable asset allocation. Have fun. *(Most of your investment money. You should have a separate fund for emergencies, and don't invest money in stocks if you know you're going need it within the next few years)."
You don't need a visa to invest in US equity. You don't need a visa to profit from US equity. There may be other legal considerations, but they aren't visa related, hope that helps
At the heart of this issue is an accounting disagreement that BIS has with current accounting standards.  So basically, foreign investors want to invest in lucrative American Dollar investment products but they don't want to have to buy American Dollars in order to do so because of foreign exchange risk (the risk that by the time your investment is realized, any gains are adversely effected by the change in currency values). So instead, they trade in a series of (currency) swaps that allow them to mitigate that foreign exchange risk. In doing so, they are only required by current accounting standards to record such transactions at fair value = 0, thus skipping over the balance sheet and only hitting the footnotes. BIS believes these transactions should be recorded at gross values and on the balance sheet as opposed to the footnotes.  The debt is hidden insofar as global dollar debt is calculated using liabilities on balance sheets and not the footnotes. That being said, in no way are these transactions truly hidden as (1) any good analyst values footnotes as much as the financial statements themselves and (2) exposure isn't really the same as debt.  TL:DR BIS (as reputable as they are) wants to change currently accepted accounting standards and screaming $14 TRILLION DOLLARS is their way of doing it.
"Is there anything to this?  I know China has been acquiring very large amounts of debt relative to their GDP, but it's almost all been thrown into infrastructure as far as I've heard... which is usually one of the best ""investments"" a country can make.  As someone who isn't an economist, this seems at least partially politically motivated, as the timing alone of this seems very suspect.  What's the other side of the coin on this one?"
well, probably taxed a little. and taxed when they spend it, and taxed again when it is spent again. like fikirte said, this is foreign money. if the americans want access to it they have to make it easy. they've done it in the past http://law-journals-books.vlex.com/vid/the-portfolio-interest-exemption-53348889 sorry there is a lack of sources in real english.
It depends primarily on how the Canadian economy is designed i.e export oriented or import oriented. If you look at this, it shows more or less equal amount of exports and imports. For the specific case of Canada, the exports would become costlier, because of a costlier dollar, but at the same time imports would become cheaper. This is only a generalization, not specific goodswise, which would require a more detailed ananlysis. But investors have a different dilemma. Canadian investors would find  it cheaper to invest abroad so may channel their investments abroad because they may find it costlier to invest in Canada. While foreign investors would find it costlier to invest in Canada and may wait for later or invest somehwre else.  Then government may try to boost up investment and start lowering the interest rates, if it sees the rising dollar as detrimental for the Canadian economy and investments flowing abroad instead of Canada. But what would be the final outcome of the whole rigmarole is little difficult to predict, because something is arriving and something is departing and above all goverment is doing something or is going to do. But the basic gist is Canadian exporters will be sad and Canadian importers will be happy, but vice versa for foreign investors intending to invest in Canada.
I can't give you a specific answer because I'm not a tax accountant, so you should seek advice from a tax professional with experience relevant to your situation. This could be a complicated situation. That being said, one place you could start is the Canada Revenue Agency's statement on investment income, which contains this paragraph: Interest, foreign interest and dividend income, foreign income,   foreign non-business income, and certain other income are all amounts   you report on your return. They are usually shown on the following   slips: T5, T3, T5013, T5013A To avoid double taxation, Canada and the US almost certainly have a foreign tax treaty that ensures you are only taxed in your country of residence. I'm assuming you're a resident of Canada. Also, this page states that: If you received foreign interest or dividend income, you have to   report it in Canadian dollars. Use the Bank of Canada exchange rate   that was in effect on the day you received the income. If you received   the income at different times during the year, use the average annual   exchange rate. You should consult a tax professional. I'm not a tax professional, let alone one who specializes in the Canadian tax system. A professional is the only one you should trust to answer your question with 100% accuracy.
It ought to be possible to buy a foreign exchange future (aka forex future / FX future). Businesses use these futures to make sure their exchange rate is predictable: if they put a bunch of money into manufacturing things that'll be ready a year later, it helps to know that the currency exchange rate shifts won't wipe out all their profits. If you're willing to take on some of that risk, and if things go your way, you can make money. They are essentially contracts between two private parties to pay each other a certain amount of money based on the movement of the currencies, so the Chinese government doesn't actually need to be involved and no renminbi need to change hands, you can just trade the contracts. Note that the exchange rate is currently fixed by the Chinese government, so you're going to be subject to enhanced levels of political risk, and they may not be as widely available or readily tradable as other foreign exchange futures, so check with a broker before opening your account. I couldn't find them on my personal Etrade account, but a quick Google search reveals CME Group offering some. There are probably others.  Foreign exchange futures are an advanced investing tool and carry risk. Be sure you understand the risk, in particular how much money you can end up on the hook for if things don't go your way. Also remember, futures expire: you're not just betting on the rate changing, but you're betting on it changing within a certain amount of time.
This is Ellie Lan, investment analyst at Betterment. To answer your question, American investors are drawn to use the S&P 500 (SPY) as a benchmark to measure the performance of Betterment portfolios, particularly because it’s familiar and it’s the index always reported in the news. However, going all in to invest in SPY is not a good investment strategy—and even using it to compare your own diversified investments is misleading. We outline some of the pitfalls of this approach in this article: Why the S&P 500 Is a Bad Benchmark. An “algo-advisor” service like Betterment is a preferable approach and provides a number of advantages over simply investing in ETFs (SPY or others like VOO or IVV) that track the S&P 500. So, why invest with Betterment rather than in the S&P 500? Let’s first look at the issue of diversification. SPY only exposes investors to stocks in the U.S. large cap market. This may feel acceptable because of home bias, which is the tendency to invest disproportionately in domestic equities relative to foreign equities, regardless of their home country. However, investing in one geography and one asset class is riskier than global diversification because inflation risk, exchange-rate risk, and interest-rate risk will likely affect all U.S. stocks to a similar degree in the event of a U.S. downturn. In contrast, a well-diversified portfolio invests in a balance between bonds and stocks, and the ratio of bonds to stocks is dependent upon the investment horizon as well as the individual's goals. By constructing a portfolio from stock and bond ETFs across the world, Betterment reduces your portfolio’s sensitivity to swings. And the diversification goes beyond mere asset class and geography. For example, Betterment’s basket of bond ETFs have varying durations (e.g., short-term Treasuries have an effective duration of less than six months vs. U.S. corporate bonds, which have an effective duration of just more than 8 years) and credit quality. The level of diversification further helps you manage risk.
"You mentioned three concepts: (1) trading (2) diversification (3) buy and hold.   Trading with any frequency is for people who want to manage their investments as a hobby or profession.  You do not seem to be in that category.  Diversification is a critical element of any investment strategy.  No matter what you do, you should be diversified.  All the way would be best (this means owning at least some of every asset out there).  The usual way to do this is to own a mutual or index fund.  Or several.  These funds own hundreds or thousands of stocks, so that buying the fund instantly diversifies you. Buy and hold is the only reasonable approach to a portfolio for someone who is not interested in spending a lot of time managing it.  There's no reason to think a buy-and-hold portfolio will underperform a typical traded portfolio, nor that the gains will come later.  It's the assets in the portfolio that determine how aggressive/risky it is, not the frequency with which it is traded. This isn't really a site for specific recommendations, but I'll provide a quick idea:  Buy a couple of index funds that cover the whole universe of investments.  Index funds have low expenses and are the cheapest/easiest way to diversify.  Buy a ""total stock market"" fund and a ""total bond fund"" in a ratio that you like.  If you want, also buy an ""international fund.""  If you want specific tickers and ratios, another forum would be better(or just ask your broker or 401(k) provider).  The bogleheads forum is one that I respect where people are very happy to give and debate specific recommendations. At the end of the day, responsibly managing your investment portfolio is not rocket science and shouldn't occupy a lot of time or worry.  Just choose a few funds with low expenses that cover all the assets you are really interested in, put your money in them in a reasonable-ish ratio (no one knows that the best ratio is) and then forget about it."