vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"If Illinois cannot go bankruptcy This is missing a few, very important words, ""...under current law.""   The United States changed the law so as to allow Puerto Rico to go into a form of bankruptcy.  So you cannot rely on a lack of legal support for bankruptcy to protect any bond investments you might make in Illinois.  It is entirely possible for the federal government to add a law enabling a state to discharge its debts through a bankruptcy process.  That's why the bonds have been downgraded.  They are still fine now, but that could change at any time.   I don't want to dive too deep into the politics on this stack, but I could quite easily see a bargain between US President Donald Trump and Democrats in Congress where he agreed to special privileges for pension debts owed to former employees in exchange for full discharge of all other debts.  That would lead to a complete loss of value for the bonds that you are considering.  There still seem to be other options now, but they seem to be getting closer and closer to that."
"Bob should treat both positions as incomplete, and explore a viewpoint which does a better job of separating value from volatility. So we should start by recognizing that what Bob is really doing is trading pieces of paper (say Stocks from Fund #1 or Bonds from Fund #2, to pick historically volatile and non-volatile instruments.*) for pieces of paper (Greenbacks). In the end, this is a trade, and should always be thought of as such. Does Bob value his stocks more than his bonds? Then he should probably draw from Fund #2. If he values his bonds more, he should probably draw from Fund #1. However, both Bob and his financial adviser demonstrate an assumption: that an instrument, whether stock bond or dollar bill, has some intrinsic value (which may raise over time). The issue is whether its perceived value is a good measure of its actual value or not. From this perspective, we can see the stock (Fund #1) as having an actual value that grows quickly (6.5% - 1.85% = 4.65%), and the bond (Fund #2) as having an actual value that grows slower (4.5% - 1.15$ = 3.35$). Now the perceived value of the stocks is highly volatile. The Chairman of the Fed sneezes and a high velocity trader drives a stock up or down at a rate that would give you whiplash. This perspective aligns with the broker's opinion. If the stocks are low, it means their perceived value is artificially low, and selling it would be a mistake because the market is perceiving those pieces of paper as being worth less than they actually are. In this case, Bob wins by keeping the stocks, and selling bonds, because the stocks are perceived as undervalued, and thus are worth keeping until perceptions change. On the other hand, consider the assumption we carefully slid into the argument without any fanfare: the assumption that the actual value of the stock aligns with its historical value. ""Past performance does not predict future results."" Its entirely possible that the actual value of the stocks is actually much lower than the historical value, and that it was the perceived value that was artificially higher. It may be continuing to do so...
You just explained why I'm boggled that some companies an individuals are willing to utilize such an erratic currency for exchanges. I tried using it as a payment method in my previous services company, but was understanding most people wouldn't and that it could potentially be loss for myself. Which on a smaller scale isn't really a issue, but scale up to some of the larger companies and it could be devastating. It's an entirely speculative market that could depreciate returns quickly.
This seemed very unrealistic, I mean who would do that? But to my immense surprise the market price increased to 5.50$ in the following week! Why is that? This is strange. It seems that people mistakenly [?] believe that the company should be at 5.5 and currently available cheap. This looks like irrational behaviour. Most of the past 6 months the said stock in range bound to 4.5 to 5. The last time it hit around 5.5 was Feb. So this is definitely strange. If the company had set a price of 6.00$ in the rights offering, would the price have increased to 6$? Obviously the company thinks that their shares are worth that much but why did the market suddenly agree? Possibly yes, possible no. It can be answered. More often the rights issue are priced at slight discount to market price. Why did this happen? Obviously management thinks that the company is worth that much, but why did the market simply believe this statement without any additional information? I don't see any other information; if the new shares had some special privileges [in terms of voting rights, dividends, etc] then yes. However the announcements says the rights issues is for common shares.
Sounds like a bad idea. The IRA is built on the power of compounding. Removing contributions will hurt your retirement savings, and you will never be able to make that up. Instead, consider tax-free investments. State bonds, Federal bonds, municipal bonds, etc. For example, I invest in California muni bonds fund which gives me ~3-4% annual dividend income - completely tax free. In addition - there's capital appreciation of your fund holdings. There are risks, of course, for example rate changes will affect yields and capital appreciation, so consult with someone knowledgeable in this area (or ask another question here, for the basics). This will give you the same result as you're expecting from your Roth IRA trick, without damaging your retirement savings potential.
You must not be familiar with relative poverty. Just in case you want to actually read up on the issue. Read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Socities Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Inequality doesnt just affect those who have a less than average income. The more unequal the society, the more health and social problems they tend to have. Those problems, such as depression, drug abuse and violence affect society and the economy as a whole.  So no relatively, the quality of life is not better in the US or across the globe.
* Building out infrastructure is time-consuming and labor-intensive. You also have no guarantee that because you put fiber to every house in a neighborhood, that every person will sign up for your service. * Building out infrastructure requires permits from the municipality and surveying (underground wiring? On new poles? On existing poles? etc). * It requires tying into existing networks (more infrastructure, permitting, and commercial contracts.  * If you want to offer telephone services, that requires more network interfacing and, permitting, and has additional requirements, as phone service has legacy legal requirements. * If you want to offer TV services, you need more infrastructure, and commercial contracts with the TV channels.  In many municipalities, existing providers (IE Comcast, TWC) have exclusive contracts with the city that say no one else can come in and build a network.  **TLDR:** Legal contracts, commercial contracts, and the expense of building out the actual infrastructure make it pretty much impossible to create your own ISP, unless you have regular money bonfires (like Google does).
I hear what you're saying @mgibbons. It's just that how much they're paid shouldn't really be an issue. Poor customer service seems to be why they're about to get replaced by these turnstyles.   Be nice. Save your job. (Even in situations where entitled, snobbish people are arguing and giving you a hard time.) Yes, travelers can be more civil. Yes, gate attendants can be nicer. Yes, we all have to treat each other better.
There many asset allocation strategies to chose from that beat lifestyle funds. For example: Relative Strength Asset Allocation keeps your money in Stocks when stocks perform well, bonds when they outperform stocks, and cash when both bonds and stocks are under-performing.   The re-allocation happens on a monthly basis.
"I don't see why you would need an ""international tax specialist"". You need a tax specialist to give you a consultation and training on your situation, but it doesn't seem too complicated to me. You invoice your client and get paid - you're a 1099 contractor. They should issue you a 1099 at the end of the year on everything they paid you. Once you become full-time employee - you become a W2 employee and will get a W2 at the end of the year on the amounts paid as such. From your perspective there's nothing international here, regular business. You have to pay your own taxes on the 1099 income (including SE taxes), they have to withhold taxes from your W2 income (including FICA). Since they're foreign employers, they might not do that latter part, and you'll have to deal with that on your tax return, any decent EA/CPA will be able to accommodate you with that. For the employer there's an issue of international taxation. They might have to register as a foreign business in your state, they might be liable for some payroll taxes and State taxes, etc etc. They might not be aware of all that. They might also be liable (or exempt) for Federal taxes, depending on the treaty provisions. But that's their problem. Your only concern is whether they're going to issue you a proper W2 and do all the withholdings or not when the time comes."
Since you already have twice your target in that emergency fund, putting that overage to work is a good idea. The impression that I get is that you'd still like to stay on the safe side. What you're looking for is a Balanced Fund.  In a balanced fund the managers invest in both stocks and bonds (and cash). Since you have that diversification between those two asset classes, their returns tend to be much less volatile than other funds. Also, because of their intended audience and the traditions from that class of funds' long history, they tend to invest somewhat more conservatively in both asset classes.  There are two general types of balanced funds: Conservative Allocation funds and Moderate Allocation funds. Conservative allocation funds invest in more fixed income than equity (the classic mix is 60% bonds, 40% stocks). Moderate allocation funds invest in more equity than fixed income (classic mix: 40% bonds, 60% stocks). A good pair of funds that are similar but exemplify the difference between conservative allocation and moderate allocation are Vanguard's Wellesley Income Fund (VWINX) for the former and Vanguard's Wellington Fund (VWELX) for the latter. (Disclaimer: though both funds are broadly considered excellent, this is not a recommendation.) Good luck sorting this out!
"I think your question is the reason why generics are cheaper. Part of what you're paying for in a ""brand"" is consistency.  Depending on what you buy and where you shop, it may be a no-brainer to buy the generic brand of certain products. Buying generic OTC drugs is in that category. It's amazing to me that anyone purchases Tylenol, when the generics deliver superior quality at half the cost. But for other products, subtle differences can be significant. My wife would never purchase generic flour (which seems like it would be a commodity product) for baking, as she's a serious baker and there are qualitative differences and consistency issues between brands. If I were just making gravy, the those differences don't really matter."
Because stock markets don't always go up, sometimes they go down. Sometimes they go way down. Between 2007 and 2009 the S&P 500 lost over half its value. So if in 2007 you thought you had just enough to retire on, in 2009 you'd suddenly find you had only half of what you needed! Of course over the next few years, many of the stocks recovered value, but if you had retired in 2008 and depended on a 401k that consisted entirely of stocks, you'd have been forced to sell a bunch of stocks near the bottom of the market to cover your retirement living expenses. Bonds go up and down too, but usually not to the same extent as stocks, and ideally you aren't selling the bonds for your living expenses, just collecting the interest that's due you for the year. Of course, some companies and cities went bankrupt in the 2008 crisis too, and they stopped making interest payments.  Another risk is that you may be forced to retire before you were actually planning to. As you age you are at increasing risk for medical problems that may force an early retirement. Many businesses coped with the 2008 recession by laying off their older workers who were earning higher salaries. It wasn't an easy environment for older workers to find jobs in, so many folks were forced into early retirement. Nothing is risk free, so you need to make an effort to understand what the risks are, and decide which ones you are comfortable with.
Price-weighting is just an archaic tradition, not something one would use for a new index design today. A fund weighted by ""fundamentals"" or equal-weighted, rather than cap-weighted, is effectively doing a kind of rebalancing, selling what's gone up to buy more of what's gone down. Rather than buying an exotic fund, you could get a similar effect by buying a balanced fund (one that mixes stocks and bonds). Then when stocks go up, your fund would sell them and buy bonds, and the fund would sell the most of the highest-market-cap stocks that make up more of the index. And vice versa of course. But the fundamental-weighted funds are fine, the more important considerations include your stocks vs. bonds percentages (asset allocation) and whether you make irrational trades instead of sticking to a plan."
"An asset allocation formula is useful because it provides a way to manage risk. Rebalancing preserves your asset allocation. The investment risk of a well-diversified portfolio (with a few ETFs or mutual funds in there to get a wide range of stocks, bonds, and international exposure) is mostly proportional to the asset class distribution. If you started out with half-stocks and half-bonds, and stocks surged 100% over the past few years while bonds have stayed flat, then you may be left with (say) 66% stocks and 33% bonds. Your portfolio is now more vulnerable to future stock market drops (the risk associated with stocks). (Most asset allocation recommendations are a little more specific than a stock/bond split, but I'm sure you can get the idea.) Rebalancing can be profitable because it's a formulaic way to enforce you to ""buy low, sell high"". Massive recessions notwithstanding, usually not everything in your portfolio will rise and fall at the same time, and some are actually negatively correlated (that's one idea behind diversification, anyway). If your stocks have surged, chances are that bonds are cheaper. This doesn't always work (repeatedly transferring money from bonds into stocks while the market was falling in 2008-2009 could have lost you even more money). Also, if you rebalance frequently, you might incur expenses from the trading (depending on what sort of financial instrument you're holding). It may be more effective to simply channel new money into the sector that you're light on, and limit the major rebalancing of the portfolio so that it's just an occasional thing. Talk to your financial adviser. :)"
Obviously, there will be individual differences.  However, the difference between groups is greater than the difference within groups.  Gender differences are real because biological, physical, chemical and social differences are real.  Men tend to be problem-solvers.  Most work is about solving problems.  Women tend to be more centered on emotion, and most work is not about emotion.  Most men are just better-suited for most work.  Maybe this is because men invented business and modern commerce.    From my experience and observation, men tend to enjoy work more.  We tend to take fewer sick days.  We tend to arrive earlier and stay later.  We make work a higher priority in our lives.  We take the success or failure of our projects and businesses more personally.  We complain less.    It's human nature to look at what someone else has and wish you had it, too.  But most people who engage in that tend not to want to do what those others did to get what they have.  I'm convinced that any woman of intelligence, ambition and diligence can get at least as far in the corporate world as any man, if she decided to put all her intelligence, ambition and diligence into that.  Most women tend to have other priorities, and those are valid choices on their part.
A stopped clock is right two times a day.   We may get a market crash similar to the financial crisis or the dot com crash or we may not. What if over the next 10 years rates rise very sluggishly, low inflation, and  low growth more or less continues with maybe one brief and shallow recession. In that case I bet US stocks produce 4-5% returns per year and US bonds produce maybe 1-2% per year.  European and emerging market stocks should have higher returns because they are in an earlier part of the cycle.  I think your baseline has to look something like that.  The last two crashes were caused by the tech bubble and the housing bubble - where is the bubble today? US stocks are expensive, but probably not in bubble territory. Bonds worldwide are unattractive with low or negative yields - negative yields maybe a bubble, but central banks will be the most hurt by negative rates and they are in a strong position to take the pain.   There could be a crash I just don't see how we get there yet - maybe china?
In this case, Bob wins by keeping the stocks, and selling bonds, because the stocks are perceived as undervalued, and thus are worth keeping until perceptions change. On the other hand, consider the assumption we carefully slid into the argument without any fanfare: the assumption that the actual value of the stock aligns with its historical value. ""Past performance does not predict future results."" Its entirely possible that the actual value of the stocks is actually much lower than the historical value, and that it was the perceived value that was artificially higher. It may be continuing to do so... who knows how overvalued the perceived value actually was! In this case, Bob wins by keeping the bonds. In this case, the stocks may have ""underperformed"" to drive perceptions towards their actual value, and Bob has a great chance to get out from under this market. The reality is somewhere between them. The actual values are moving, and the perceived values are moving, and the world mixes them up enough to make Scratchers lottery tickets look like a decent investment instrument. So what can we do? Bob's broker has a smart idea, he's just not fully explaining it because it is unprofessional to do so. Historically speaking, Bobs who lost a bunch of money in the stock market are poor judges of where the stock market is going next (arguably, you should be talking to the Joes who made a bunch of money. They might have more of a clue.). Humans are emotional beings, and we have an emotional instinct to cut ties when things start to go south. The market preys on emotional thinkers, happily giving them what they want in exchange for taking some of their money. Bob's broker is quoting a well recognized phrase that is a polite way of saying ""you are being emotional in your judgement, and here is a phrasing to suggest you should temper that judgement."" Of course the broker may also not know what they're doing! (I've seen arguments that they don't!) Plenty of people listened to their brokers all the way to the great crash of 2008. Brokers are human too, they just put their emotions in different places.
Preview of the research paper here:  [Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105816)  These findings are very interesting especially considering the hormonal indicators used and the metabolic production and pathway diversity between each.   Basically looks (to me) like some kind of long term normalisation failure and considering the differences in the indicators involved would imply a large chunk of our knowledge regarding metabolic regulation in mammals is missing.
Yes, the interest rate on a Treasury does change as market rates change, through changes in the price. But once you purchase the instrument, the rate you get is locked in. The cashflows on a treasury are fixed. So if the market rate increase, the present value of those future cashflows decreases, so the price of the treasury decreases. If you buy the bond after this happens, you would pay a lower price for the same fixed cashflows, hence you will receive a higher rate. Note that once you purchase the treasury instrument, your returns are locked in and guaranteed, as others have mentioned. Also note that you should distinguish between Treasury Bills and Treasury Bonds, which you seem to use interchangeably. Straight from the horse's mouth, http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/products.htm: Treasury Bills are short term securities with maturity up to a year, Treasury Notes are medium term securities with maturity between 1 and 10 years, and Treasury Bonds are anything over 10 years.
In times of inflation, the value of money per unit drops as its supply increases and increases The best hedges against inflation are real assets e.g. land, equipment, stocks (ownership of real assets) and convertible bonds which are convertible to stock. It's important to remember that money is, of itself, worthless. It's just a technology that abstracts and smilies trading which at the base, is still a barter system. During inflation the barter value of money plunges owing to increased supply. But the direct barter value between any two real assets remain the same because their supplies have not changed. The value of stocks and convertible bonds is maintained by the economic activity of the company whose ownership they represent. Dividends, stock prices and bond equity, as measured in the inflated currency continue to rise in sync with inflation. Thus they preserve the original value of the money paid for them. Not sure why you expect more inflation. The only institution that can create inflation in the US is the Federal Reserve which Trump has no direct control off. Deregulation of banks won't cause inflation in and of itself as the private banks cannot alter the money supply. If banks fail, owing to deregulation, unlikely I think given the dismal nearly century long record of regulation to date, then the Federal Reserve might fix the problem with another inflation tax, but otherwise not.
I haven't read the manifesto, but it's clear to me that this is a classic case of Heresy. Free speech is a myth, since we are free only so long as we don't express an opinion that disagrees with the state religion. The author of this piece clearly violated one of the core doctrines of our current religion - namely that there are no biologically-caused mental differences between males and females.
"The problem is that every option comes with risk - as you note, if you put money in stocks, you could lose (and many stocks are overpriced).  If you put money in bonds, you could lose (many bonds are overpriced).  If you buy precious metals, they could fall further currently.  If you hold cash, central banks might try to ban cash (we'll hear the typical ""This will never happen"" from financial advisers - and they'll be wrong).  Cryptocurrencies are an option, but boy do they fluctuate, so there's risk here too. Those are options and all come with risks, and here's my preferred approach to handling negative interest rates:"