vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Thank you for this. Very grounding advice. I'm about 30 years from retirement and I am indeed trying to time the market. Your advice was just what I needed. Thanks for telling me what I should have already known (stay calm and bugger on).   Also, a good night sleep and a run helped clear my head. But seriously, thx.
&gt; When that guy says you can go to 30A on a fuse, how do you feel about his opinion as an electrician?  &gt; Still say that non-electrician decisions have zero bearing on how you feel about his abilities as an electrician?  Do you have a friend who's really good at math, but sucks in social situations?  What about a cousin who's really good at interior design but is an awful driver?  If your electrician friend has a long history of giving good electrical advice, both to me and others, then they have a long history of giving good electrical advice.  I wouldn't expect that to change because they gave me bad dinner advice.  Tiel has started multiple multi-billion dollar industries.  He's served on countless boards, and taught business classes at Stanford.  His skills in _business_ have been verified by other entrepreneurs, professors and personal history.  I know people who'd give their left leg to get _business_ advice from him.  He's also known to be a raging asshole.    Not just in voting for Trump, but pretty much everything else.  There's his personal vendetta against Gawker, and how he throws his money around to keep surfers from walking on his beach.  I wouldn't want to grab a beer with the guy, but that doesn't affect his area of expertise.
"If you want to have your wife stay home with kids, you'll have to make a plan to get there. As you point out, your situation right now won't support this. Create a budget that will work for you with a single income -- a ""zero based"" budget, not a budget based on your current expense structure. Figure out what you can afford on just your income for housing, church, food, transport, etc. Or apply the same idea on the assumption that she will keep working -- budget based on a second income plus child care expenses. Then you can decide what you have to change in order for that to work: maybe it means selling your house, renting, relocating, selling a car, finding a better or second job, etc. Then decide what you need to do in order to make these changes."
MattMcA definitely gave you excellent advice and said a lot of what I would say to you. Most databases that are going to give you the most comprehensive information, but in a well formatted way, are going to require subscriptions or a fee. You should try to visit a library, especially one at a university, because they may likely have free access for you. At my alma mater the preferred database among students was LexisNexis Corporate Affiliations. http://www.corporateaffiliations.com/  With this company directory, you get public and private company profiles. You can use Corporate Affiliation’s MergerTrak™ and get full coverage on current and past mergers and acquisitions.  I definitely think this is a business database you should look into. You have nothing to lose seeing as they have a free trial.  Just to add, there’s always a business news feed on the homepage. As I just checked now, this one caught my interest: For Marvel Comics, A Renewed Digital Mission.
"What you are looking for is a pretty terrible deal for you, so I'd say it doesn't exist because there isn't a market for it, or nobody has noticed there is a market for it. In principle I would happily take the deal you offer from as many people as would let me, put the money into treasury bills, and take half the profits while doing pretty much nothing.    If I had more risk tolerance I would be pretty happy to have half the value of my ""fund"" as zero cost investment capital for more aggressive investments.  My business would then be a lot like an insurance company without the hassle of selling insurance to get hold of float to invest.  Also, most insurance companies actually lose money on policies, but come out ahead by investing the float, so an insurance company with zero cost float is quite a good business. Another answer mentions Berkshire Hathaway.  If you read one of the famous Berkshire Hathaway annual letters to shareholders and read the section about insurance you'll see that very low cost float has a large role in that company's success. So, back to your end of the deal: if the deal is that good for me, how good is it for you?  I'd have to double market returns just for you to break even.  If you're smart enough to pick a financial adviser that can beat the market by that much, how come you aren't able to pick an investment strategy that ties the market?"
Enrolled Agents typically specialize only in tax matters.  Their status allows them to represent clients before the IRS (which a CPA can also do) See the IRS site regarding Enrolled Agents Their focus is much narrower than a CPA and you would only hire them for advice or representation with tax related matters.  (e.g. you'd not hire an enrolled agent to do an external audit)  A CPA is a much broader certification, covering accounting in general, of which taxes are only a portion. A CPA may or may not specialize in tax matters, so if you have a tax related issue, especially an audit, review or appeal, you may want to query a prospective CPA as to their experience with tax matters and representing clients, appeals, etc. You would likely be better off with an EA than a CPA who eschews tax work and specializes in other things such as financial auditsOn the other hand if you have need of advice that is more generalized to accounting, audits, etc then you'd want to talk with a CPA as opposed to an EA
R has really good package that lets you calculate the return of rebalanced portfolios. The package is called: PerformanceAnalytics (see: http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/PerformanceAnalytics/docs/Return.portfolio). I quickly wrote a small script for you that lets you do exactly what you want.  Code: By default the portfolio is rebalanced to an equally weighted portfolio. It is also possible to rebalance your portfolio using custom weights. See the documentation on how to do this.  In order for this code to work you need to have your data already in return terms. You can do this easily in Excel. Make sure your data in excel looks like this: Than export your data to a CSV file. Note: before you run the code make sure you have installed the package PerformanceAnalytics. You can do this as follows:  Let me know if you have any questions regarding the above.
"Concerning the general problem of short selling and the need to borrow shares to complete the transaction : Selling short is a cash transaction. Unlike a futures contract, where a short seller is entering into a legal agreement to sell something in the future, in the case of short selling a share the buyer of the share is taking immediate delivery and is therefore entitled to all of the benefits and rights that come with share ownership. In particular, the buyer of the shares is entitled to any dividends payable and, where applicable, to vote on motions at AGMs. If the short seller has not borrowed the shares to sell, then buyer of non-existent shares will have none of the rights associated with ownership. The cash market is based on the idea of matching buyers and sellers. It does not accommodate people making promises. Consider that to allow short sellers to sell shares they have not borrowed opens up the possibility of the aggregate market selling more shares than actually exist. This would lead to all sorts of problematic consequences such as heavily distorting the price of the underlying share. If everyone is selling shares they have not borrowed willy-nilly, then it will drive the price of the share down, much to the disadvantage of existing share holders. In this case, short sellers who have sold shares they have not already borrowed would be paying out more in dividends to the buyers than the total dividends being paid out by the underlying company. There are instruments that allow for short selling of unowned shares on a futures basis. One example is a CFD = Contract for Difference. In the case of CFDs, sellers are obliged to pay dividends to buyers as well as other costs related to financing. EDIT Regarding your comment, note that borrowing shares is not a market transaction. Your account does not show you buying a share and then selling it. It simply shows you selling a share short. The borrowing is the result of an agreement between yourself and the lender and this agreement is off market. You do not actually pay the lender for the shares, but you do pay financing costs for the borrowing so long as you maintain your short position. EDIT I realise that I have not actually read your question correctly. You are not actually talking about ""naked"" short selling.
If you owe a lot of money (more then $500 or $1000) you will get hit with penalties. You will also have to file every quarter the next year. That is very painful. There is a safe harbor if you make sure that you have withheld more money than your taxes from the previous year. The information you provided is not enough for me to give specific advice. But here is a hint: Right after you file this year, use turbo tax to determine what changes you can make to your withholding to minimize any excess withholding.
If you are going to put it into a banking system, just deposit it. Why did breaking it up even cross your mind? Like what would that even have accomplished, so you could pretend like you started moonlighting as a club bouncer if you were ever casually asked by a bank teller or federal agent? If you have to ever account for the source of your money, you will have to account for it regardless. You shouldn't worry about things that may trigger higher scrutiny on you, because it is pretty random. The financial institution may file a suspicious activity report any time they feel like it (which they routinely do without the customer's knowledge, for a wide range of reasons), and actually attempting to break it up into smaller deposits would mean the suspicious activity report would escalate into criminal charges. And regarding the IRS, if they ever audited you then you will still have to account for that $25,000 no matter what you did with it.
Never ever use a giant monster mega bank for home loans.  I am sure you probably didn't and they bought your loan from someone else.  You have no legal options.  What you should do Is look at getting a new loan maybe a 15 year loan.  Your payment might be the same with no PMI. I would check with a relator to see what they think your home is worth.  Also if you have any money you can always pay extra to the principle and get yourself to 20% based on the next appraisal.   You might have a legal option regarding what they say you need in value 350k is what it should appraise to for you to get rid of pmi when you owe 280k Remember Citibank is a publicly traded company and their goal is to make more money. The CEO has a fiduciary relationship with stock holders not customers.  They seriously have board meetings to figure out what charges they can invent to screw their customers and make shitloads of money.  There is no incentive for them to let you get out of your PMI.
I'm very sorry to hear this. Did you ask the professional to put his advice in writing? At the very least, you can get him reprimanded or even have to make good on what his advice cost you.  Professionals like him give bloggers like me a bad rap.  In the end, a loss from sale of your home cannot offset any other gains. The gain from your home sale is often not taxable as up to $250k per person (for a couple) is excluded if you lived in the house for two of prior five years.  By the way, where, exactly, did you read this? 'Everywhere' is pretty broad. I've been around for some time and never saw this particular incorrect assertion before.
"If the OP is saving 33% if his/her current income, he/she doesn't want or need yet more income from investments right now. The advice on ""diversifying"" in the other answers is the standard ""investment advisor"" response to beginner's questions, and has two advantages for the advisor: (1) they won't get sued for giving bad advice and (2) they can make a nice fat commission selling you some very-average-performance products (and note they are selling you ""investment industry products,"" not necessarily ""good investment opportunities"" - advisors get paid commission and bonuses for selling more stuff, not for selling good stuff).  My advice would be to drip-feed some of your excess income into the emerging market sector (maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of the excess), with the intention of leaving it there untouched for up to 20 or 30 years, if need be. At some unknown future time, it is almost certain there will be another EM ""boom,"" if only because people have short memories. When that happens, sell up, take your profits, and do something less risky with them.  You might consider putting another slice of your excess income into the commodities sector. I don't know when the oil price will be back at $150 or $200 a barrel, but I would be happy to bet it will happen sometime in the OP's lifetime... Since you apparently have plenty of income and are relatively young, that is the ideal time to adopt a risky investment strategy. Even if you lose your entire investment over the next 5 years, you still have another 20 years to recover from that disaster. If you were starting to invest at age 56 rather than 26, the risk/reward situation would be very different, of course."
Hey should I be networking? Haha okay thank you very much! I’ll follow this advice to a tee. I just signed up for WSO and going to do more research. What exactly do you mean by technicals? Just the ins and outs of IB?   We have a platform that gets me in touch with the alumni. I’ll get on that and get in contact with everyone. Thank you very much!!
Wait just a second there...  &gt; A sign advertised lots priced from the $300,000s to the $600,000s. Robinson told me that 27 of the Hideaways’ 58 sites have already been purchased, with the completed homes selling for as much as half a million dollars.  So, I have to buy a lot for $600,000 - then spend hundreds of thousands more building a house on that lot - and then you're telling me that the very best I can possibly do, is to then sell it for $500,000???
"If you can't find anyone to lend you the shares, then you can't short. You can attempt to raise the interest rate at which you will borrow at, in order to entice others to lend you their shares. In practice, broadcasting this information is pretty convoluted. If there aren't any stocks for you to buy back, then you have to buy back at a higher price. As in, place a limit buy order higher and higher until someone decides to sell to you. This affects your profit. Regarding the public ledger: This functions different in different markets. United States stock markets have an evolving body of regulations to alleviate the exact concerns you detailed, but Canada's or Dubai's stock markets would have different provisions. You make the assumption that it is an efficient process, but it is not and it is indeed ripe for abuse. In US stocks, the public ledger has a 3 business day delay between showing change of ownership. Many times brokers and clearing firms and other market participants allow a customer to go short with fake shares, with the idea that they will find real shares within the 3 business day time period to cover the position. During the time period that there is no real shares hitting the market, this is called a ""naked short"". The only legal system that attempts to deter this practice is the ""fail to deliver"" (FTD) list. If someone fails to deliver, that means there is a short position active with fake shares for which no real shares have been borrowed against. Too many FTD's allow for a short selling restriction to be placed, meaning nobody else can be short, and existing short sellers may be forced to cover."
The fees for Vanguard and Fidelity IRA housing cannot be lower, because they are zero.  Depending on the fund you invest in, one or the other will have pretty low fees and are often the lowest in the industry. I don't qualify for TIAA-CREF, but my mother does and she loves them.  She can call up and get some advice for free.  I would not qualify it as the best advice in the world, but it certainly isn't horrible.   So it really depends on what you are looking for.  If you want a little investment advice, I would go with TIAA-CREF.  If you are a do it yourself-er go with Vanguard.
Is my financial status OK?  You have money for emergencies in the bank, you spend less than you earn. Yes, your status is okay. You will have a good standard of living if nothing changes from your status quo. How can I improve it? You are probably paying more in taxes than you would if you made a few changes. If you max out tax advantaged retirement accounts that would reduce the up-front taxes you are paying on your savings. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor?  The best time to see a financial advisor is any time that your situation changes. New job? Getting married? Having a child? Got a big promotion or raise? Suddenly thinking about buying a house? Is it worth the money? How would she/he help me? If you pick an advisor who has incentive to help you rather than just pad his/her own pockets with commissions, then the advice is usually worth the money. If there is someone whose time is already paid for, that may be better.  For example, if you get an accountant to help you with your taxes and ask him/her how to best reduce your taxes the next year, the advice is already paid-for in the fee you for the tax help. An advisor should help you minimize the high taxes you are almost certainly paying as a single earner, and minimize the stealth taxes you are paying in inflation (on that $100k sitting in the bank).
Note:  This is not professional tax advice.  If you think you need professional tax advice, find a licensed professional in your local area. What are the expected earnings/year? US$100? US$1,000?  US$100,000?  I would say if this is for US$1,000 or less that registering an EIN, and consulting a CPA to file a Partnership Tax return is not going to be a profitable exercise.... all the earnings, perhaps more, will go to paying someone to do (or help do) the tax filings. The simplest taxes are for a business that you completely own.  Corporations and Partnerships involve additional forms and get more and more and complex, and even more so when it involves foreign participation.  Partnerships are often not formal partnerships but can be more easily thought of as independent businesses that each participants owns, that are simply doing some business with each other. Schedule C is the IRS form you fill out for any businesses that you own. On schedule C you would list the income from advertising.  Also on schedule C there is a place for all of the business expenses, such as ads that you buy, a server that you rent, supplies, employees, and independent contractors.  Amounts paid to an independent contractor certainly need not be based on hours, but could be a fixed fee, or based on profit earned.   Finally, if you pay anyone in the USA over a certain amount, you have to tell the IRS about that with a Form 1099 at the beginning of the next year, so they can fill out their taxes.  BUT.... according to an article in International Tax Blog you might not have to file Form 1099 with the IRS for foreign contractors if they are not US persons (not a US citizen or a resident visa holder).
This depends on the state law. In case of the State of New York - these are the criteria for sourcing the NY income: As a sole proprietor or partnership, your New York source income   includes: Business activities As a nonresident sole proprietor or partnership, you carry on a   business, trade, profession, or occupation within New York State if   you (or your business): As you can see, the qualification depends on the way you do business, and the amount of business transactions you have in New York. If it is not clear to you - talk to a CPA/EA licensed to practice in the State of New York to give you an advice.
You should speak to a good tax adviser. The less documentation you have the more problems IRS are going to cause you. Generally you can deduct business losses (in the year they occurred, which is 2011), but you have to show that that was a valid business, not just a way to reduce your tax bill with personal expenses. Thus lack of documentation reduces your ability to prove that you're entitled to the deduction. The burden of proof is generally on you. You can not deduct it from 2012 taxes, but you can still amend 2011. Keep in mind though that amended returns have higher chance of audit, and a significant business loss on a business that only existed that year is a major red flag which will raise the probability of an audit to very high percentage. Theoretically, if the business was real and just failed - you can definitely deduct this. But practically, lack of documentation may cause too big a problem, and a tax adviser might suggest you giving it up if he doesn't think you have a real chance to convince the IRS. Definitely don't do that without a professional advice. It is worth fighting for, its quite a loss, but don't do it on your own as you will definitely lose.
First of all kudos to you for seeing the value in saving at a young age. There are several different things you can mean by this and I'm not sure which is accurate so I am going to address the first two that I thought of. If you are selling your investments because you need the money (emergency expenses, saved enough for a short term goal, whatever the reason) then this may not be the best solution for your savings.  Investing in mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, 401k, IRA, etc are typically for longer term goals such as a goal that is 10+ years away (maybe buying a home, paying for college for your children, retirement, etc). If you are selling your investments because you believe that another investment is performing better and you want to get in on that one instead what I would suggest is leaving the money you have invested where it is and starting future investments in the new fund/ETF you are interested in.  For example if you have $2000 invested in fund X and now you do some research and fund Q looks more appealing that is great, start investing in fund Q with your next deposit.  Any research you do will be based on past results, there is nothing that guarantees that fund Q will continue doing better than the fund X you already have.  Trying to time the market rarely ends well for the investor. I would encourage you to continue saving money a bit at a time just like you have been doing.  Avoid selling your investments until it is time to sell them for whatever goal you intended them for.  Set aside some cash to cover any unexpected expenses so you won't have to sell your investments to cover the costs, even at 18 unplanned things happen.
What a bunch of idiots, I worked for Lowe's and their entire computer backend is ancient as fuck and a huge mess. I don't know if they still do it but before I left they bought a shit ton of iphones for basically scanning a product's tag so it can show you the product in front of you, only now on an iphone screen. They basically were trying to force you to use these iphones but they didn't really have a purpose, they did what we already did only now with an extra layer of obfuscation. And then once you were done with the phone if you had to do any kind of ordering or lookup you had to get on the computer anyways and enter all your shit into their ancient backend anyways. Product counts were never even reliable, someone always fucked something at some point in time so it might be accurate, it might say you have -2 products, it might say you have 3 products when the store only stocks one at a time. Plus all the crazy stupid shit they make employees do on computers, or take shitty tests to learn about what you are selling, except you have been selling those products you are just now suppose to be learning about for the past 6 months already.