vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"&gt; So you are saying down the road the FED might cancel out the amount of T-Bills and MBS they hold with the Treasury?  I'm saying they don't have to, for the US government will never have difficulty servicing its entirely USD-denominated debt. So if you think doing so would confuse/anger foreign nations, fine, don't do it.  I *would* however advise that the government stops issuing 10yr bonds in favour of funding itself off no more than say 28 day T-Bills. The reason being is that the latter's basically just creating a whole unneeded industry of speculators providing an entirely unneeded service of ""locking in"" interest rates for the government 10yrs at a time. Waste of time, waste of resources. The goverment shouldn't be subsidising that kind of activity."
"Whoops, responded to the wrong person. Reposting for you in case you didn't see it.       Here's a source for the $3.7 trillion number.      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/u-s-municipal-bond-market-28-larger-than-estimated-federal-reserve-says.html    It's not 'incorrect data'.        EDIT:  Furthermore, in order to know the ""extent"" of the crime (your own admission) we NEED to know the size of the entire market otherwise you can't have any perspective or determine extent.  So there's no reason it shouldn't be mentioned in the article."
"As I pointed out in my other post to you, the 3.7T is entirely misleading, the actual quote from the article was ""The banks achieved this gigantic rip-off by secretly colluding to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion"", and there is no business on the planet worth that much. He deliberatley attaches the value of an entire asset class to banks and fraud to make it sound much worse than saying they apparently stole x million a year. Instead of reporting the actual numbers that were reported in the numerous other places I already gave you, he chose to exagerate.  The rest of his article makes the same style choices. It's sad you cannot see this by comparing his article to pretty much every other article on the topic."
"Also here's a source for the $3.7 trillion number.      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-08/u-s-municipal-bond-market-28-larger-than-estimated-federal-reserve-says.html    It's not 'incorrect data'.        EDIT:  Furthermore, in order to know the ""extent"" of the crime (your own admission) we NEED to know the size of the entire market otherwise you can't have any perspective or determine extent.  So there's no reason it shouldn't be mentioned in the article."
That's what it means to have ""debt"" in a currency that you are the *issuer* of and why foreign-denominated debt is fundamentally different. &gt;so we can design a system that will keep inflation low while we dump money into the economy We already have that. There's no inflation monster under the bed. If there's an inflation problem it's that we're so paranoid about it we're not putting *enough* money into the economy and so inflicting unnecessary misery on ourselves. &gt; the issue in my mind with dumping money while the debt situation is such a concern, is that speculators could sh*t the bed and devalue our currency There's nothing a speculator can do vs a sovereign currency that the issuing central bank can't offset. So if you are a sovereign and the issuing central bank is within and beneath your authority, you have the last word and there's no such thing as bond vigilantes. In contrast, if you take on sovereign obligations denominated in currencies where the issuing central bank sits outside your authority as is the case when you borrow/peg to foreign currency or enter a monetary union like the euro, you become just another currency user. Here, your government actually is kinda like a household and can go broke *in that foreign currency*. Consider how that perspective sheds light on the ""mystery"" of why some countries actually experience a debt crisis and others don't. Why contrary to all the scaremongering, someplace like Japan for example can have 200% debt:GDP *and* near zero interest rates *and* no sovereign debt crisis. It's because Japan issues the yen, *sets* the interest rate on the yen and can't run out of yen. People who don't understand this are what gave the [widowmaker](http://www.businessinsider.com/hedge-funds-feeling-confident-about-the-widowmaker-trade-in-japan-2012-12) its name. :) Time after time they line up to place bets on japanese government bond crisis, they're always wrong and always will be."
"Interesting question.   How is social security funded? The social security system works by using current payroll taxes as funding to pay benefits to retirees.  Historically there was always more money coming in then what was being paid out in benefits.  This changed at the beginning of March, 2010 when social security started paying out more than it was taking in (this article estimates the exact date to be around March 3 or March 4 - the chart below has the approximate date highlighted with the red circle).  Due to the baby boomer generation it is estimated that social security will now be perpetually in the red unless changes are made.  The recent reduction in payroll taxes will not help social security solvency.  What was done with all the extra money social security collected over the last three decades? The Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) was required to purchase special-issue US government bonds with the excess funds.  The SSTF was essentially purchasing US government debt with the excess funds.  This allowed congress to spend the excess funds.  The special-issue funds are different then normal US treasuries in that the SSTF can redeem special-issue bonds at face value at any time (even before maturity).  The SSTF is currently holding $2.5 Trillion of these special-issue bonds as assets.  What next? Hell if I know.  The SSTF was a major purchaser of US debt over the last few decades (to the tune of $2.5 trillion).  That changed in 2010.  The SSTF is no longer purchasing US debt at the same time the US government is issuing record amounts of debt.  The SSTF could begin redeeming its bonds to meet payment obligations.  When it redeems the bonds the US treasury must cough up the funds.  Where is it the US government going to get the money especially when it is currently borrowing money at record levels? I read many articles that say that we don't have to count SSTF bond holdings as debt since we owe it to ourselves.  That always makes me chuckle.  The US government owes the SSTF $2.5 Trillion.  I'm not the US government so don't count me in the ""we"" part of ""we owe it to ourselves"".  I'm also fairly certain I will never see a dime of social security so don't count me in the ""ourselves"" portion either. Charts were obtained from here."
Either way the govt is going to get to a breaking point and it's going to be shitty and miserable until they get there (and obviously when they get there it will get worse before it gets better). This bond trade just prolongs the shitty/miserableness even longer. Who knows how many more people will die from govt sponsored thugs and hunger because this trade pushed the breaking point out a few months/years?
&gt; A lot more tax is being paid in these periods so government debt is lower because they are getting lots of tax money.  Eh, maybe.  &gt; Also To stimulate the economy into this growth period the government usually sells off large cash bonds (lowering their debt) to release cash into the economy...  You are confusing the Federal Reserve with a government agency.
230 government agencies by law have to buy treasury bonds with their excess cash. Those agencies hold 30% of the debt. The rest is by anyone else who purchased bonds on the open market when the treasury sold them. Are you fucking stupid? You think the government just printed 20 trillion dollars with nothing to back it? No hedge funds bought them. China, Japan, Britain, bought them.
I don't believe I said anything about the stock market going down, which happens regularly.  It's not like municipal bond markets crash very often—once every few generations, maybe. So her being off by a couple years would be insignificant.  Not saying I think it's going to happen. I'm just posing the question. If the municipal bond markets crashed within the next year, she would be vindicated.
I followed Economics by Michael Parkin for my college level course. It does not involve very complicated mathematics (beyond simple arithmetic and interpreting plots/charts). I found it very enjoyable.  Stocks, bonds, and other money market instruments are not covered under this subject usually. They are covered under finance. I normally recommend Hull to people but because you are not interested in mathematics I would recommend Stuart R Veale.
"With options you pay for a premium which relates to the expected (so-called ""implied"" volatility). With futures, there is no assumption about the volatility of an underlying stock. In general, when trading options you trade the direction and future expected volatility of an underlying while futures are directional trades only."
"It's an effective way to achieve market segmentation without having to ask your customers how rich they are, and you get the benefit of finding out additional information like their address, email etc. The principle is similar to coupons on cereal boxes, anybody can get the rebate/discount if they go to the effort, but people who are cash rich/time poor are less likely to do so than those that really need the money. Joel Spolsky wrote about this and various other pricing mechanisms a while back, I like to reference the article every few weeks. It's well worth a read. Now, if you're retired and living off of social security, $7 an hour sounds pretty good, so you do it, but if you're a stock analyst at Merrill Lynch getting paid $12,000,000 a year to say nice things about piece-of-junk Internet companies, working for $7 an hour is a joke, and you're not going to clip coupons. Heck, in one hour you could issue ""buy"" recommendations on ten piece-of-junk Internet companies! So coupons are a way for consumer products companies to charge two different prices and effectively segment their market into two. Mail-in rebates are pretty much the same as coupons, with some other twists like the fact that they reveal your address, so you can be direct marketed to in the future."
Discount Water Heater company offers a wide array of hot water heater solutions. We repair existing gas water heaters and electric water heaters. We install high efficiency gas water heaters and electric water heaters and we can also install a new high efficiency heat pump water heater for your home. We service tank less water heaters by Rinnai Tankless, Noritz Tankless and Takagi Tankless. Discount Water Heater Company offers the best hot water heater prices in Southern California. Discount Water Heaters offers free water heater estimates for residential hot water heater replacement and commercial hot water heater replacement.
Buffet is able to do many things the average investor cannot do.  For example: During the 2008 market crash Buffet purchased 5 Billion on Citi preferred stock (as somewhat of a bail out) that pays 5% Dividend. Then he also received warrants to buy another 700 million shares over the next 10 years where he can buy shares at 5% discount. So right off the bat he is up 5% anytime he buys some of those 700 million shares. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/buffett-to-invest-5-billion-in-bank-of-america/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 This is just one of the Buffet deal makings. With his cash you can move markets.  He buys, people hear about it, they buy, his positions go up.  Put that aside he loans cash, gets interest, buys companies. It is more than just investing in the stock market.
In almost any jurisdiction, the restaurant will pay tax on the amount after the discount. Discounting is just a selective way to reduce prices for particular clients and thus achieve some degree of price discrimination. It's no different in principle to cutting prices for everyone or having a sale or similar. It would be very strange for a tax jurisdiction to work any other way, because businesses would end up being taxed on money they never actually got. While tax systems often have that kind of anomaly in rare cases at the edge of the system, discounting via vouchers is extremely common. For example, here are the rules in the UK.
That lessens the blow felt by the discount retailers as overall consumer spending decreases; the pie shrinks, but the discount retailers get a bigger slice of the mandatory spending on food, clothing, etc (and the higher-level retailers get it in the shorts). When the pie starts to grow again as consumer spending picks back up, the discount retailers retain their percentage for a while, as the fickle middle class can afford to buy more from the discount retailer but can't yet afford to take their business back to the shopping mall stores. This produces a flatter, ""offset"" price graph for discount retailers through the business cycle; they don't lose as early or as much as everyone else in a major downturn, and they turn it around sooner while everyone else may still be on the way down, but as everything gets better for everyone on the upswing it's less great for the discount guys, as they start losing customers and their dollars to competitors with better stuff, even as the ones they keep spend more. This doesn't generally manifest as a true negative correlation, but it can be a good hedge. The number one money-making investment in a tanking economy is gold. When things go down the crapper, everyone wants gold, so if you see the train wreck coming far enough in advance, you can make a big move to gold and really make some money off that investment. For instance, when the first whispers about ARM adjustments and mass defaults reached the public consciousness in mid-2005, gold bullion jumped from about $400 to over $700 in a nine-month period. It cooled off again in 06-07 but only to about $600/oz, and then in late 07 it steadily climbed to peak at $1000/oz; even if you got in late, an investment of $1000 in July '07 in ""bulk"" gold would have netted you $650 in one year; that's a 65% APY. Then the economy hit bottom and a lot of investors ditched gold for investments they thought would pull back out of their holes quickly; For just a little while in '08 gold was down to $700 again. Then came all the government reports; unemployment not budging, home prices still declining, a lot of banks still hiding just how bad their position was.
Buy a share - not a penny stock; rather a well known company like Coca-Cola, Kelloggs, Exxon, etc.  Follow the company.  Understand their business model.  See the share price fall and rise.  You will learn a lot having your own money at risk.
"All discount brokers offer a commission structure that is based on the average kind of order that their target audience will make. Different brokers advertise to different target audiences. They could all have a lot lower commissions than they do. The maximum commission price for the order ticket is set at $99 by the industry securities regulators. When discount brokers came along and started offering $2 - $9.99 trades, it was simply because these new companies could be competitive in a place where incumbents were overcharging. The same exists with Robinhood. The market landscape and costs have changed over the last decade with regulation NMS, and other brokerage firms never needed to update drastically because they could continue making a lot on commissions with nobody questioning it. The conclusion being that other brokers can also charge a lot less, despite their other overhead costs. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms (and anyone else trading directly with the exchanges), are paid by the exchanges for adding liquidity. Not only are many trades placed with no commission for the broker, they actually earn money for placing the trade. If Robinhood was doing you any favors, they would be paying you. But nobody questions free commissions so they don't. Robinhood, like other brokerage firms, sells your trading data to the highest bidder. This is called ""payment for order flow"", these subscribers see your order on the internet in route to the exhange, and before your order gets to the exchange, the subscriber sends a different order to the exchange so they either get filled before you do (analogous to front running, but different enough to not be illegal) or they alter the price of the thing you wanted to buy or sell so that you have to get a worse price. These subscribers have faster computers and faster internet access than other market participants, so are able to do this so quickly. They are also burning a lot of venture capital like all startups. You shouldn't place too much faith in the idea they are making [enough] money. They also have plans to earn interest off of balances in a variety of ways and offer more options at a price (like margin accounts)."
When you start to buy stock, don't buy too little of it! Stocks come at a cost (you pay a commission), and you need to maintain a deposit, you have to take these costs into account when buying to calculate your break even point for selling. Don't buy stock for less than 1.500€ Also, diversify. Buy stock from different sectors and from different geographies. Spread your risks. Start buying 'defensive' stocks (food, pharma, energy), then move to more dynamic sectors (telecom, informatics), lastly buy stock from risky sectors that are not mature markets (Internet businesses). Lastly, look for high dividend. That's always nice at the end of the year.
The store keeps track of what you buy. It is all part of their big data. The knowledge of what you buy helps them project future sales. It allows them to target their marketing. But maybe even more importantly they can sell this knowledge to outside companies. They aren't going to give away that information to another company that would love to have that data, just so they could sell it. Stores use those loyalty cards to be able to link your household to those purchases. Those discounts, or free products, are what they use to entice you to give up your privacy.  The fact that in your town young adults love caramel apples, even more than the town next door, makes them confident that your town will love caramel apple scented shampoo. Thus they send you coupons when it become available. They will also sell this knowledge to the shampoo companies. Do some stores make it possible for you to download the data? Yes they do. Apple stores send all receipts via email. Kohls allows me to see detail information about my transactions on line. There must be others. I don't know if any are grocery stores.
"No, because you didn't lose anything. When you exercise ISO ""at loss"" you're buying stock without a discount, that's it."
The more the stock is worth, the more it needs to rise to make a profit. You can buy some stock from Google or amazon, but that's about all the stock you'd have... Start small with companies you know and trust that have an upward trend.
The whole point of buying puts is cheaper cost and lower downside risk. If you short the box, you are assuming he already holds gold holdings to short against. It's not the same as short selling where you borrow shares.  Either way, you are far more vulnerable to downside risk if you are short the stock (whether you borrowed or shorted already owned shares). If Gold suddenly has a 20% pop over the next year, which could be possible given the volatility and uncertainty in the marketplace, you have big trouble. Whereas, if you buy puts, you only lose your costs for the contracts. The amount that you miss by in your bet isn't going to factor into anything.
"You have actually asked several questions, so I think what I'll do is give you an intuition about risk-neutral pricing to get you started. Then I think the answer to many of your questions will become clear. Physical Probability There is some probability of every event out there actually occurring, including the price of a stock going up. That's what we call the physical probability. It's very intuitive, but not directly useful for finding the price of something because price is not the weighted average of future outcomes. For example, if you have a stock that is highly correlated with the market and has 50% chance of being worth $20 dollars tomorrow and a 50% chance of being worth $10, it's value today is not $15. It will be worth less, because it's a risky stock and must earn a premium. When you are dealing with physical probabilities, if you want to compute value you have to take the probability-weighted average of all the prices it could have tomorrow and then add in some kind of compensation for risk, which may be hard to compute. Risk-Neutral Probability Finance theory has shown that instead of computing values this way, we can embed risk-compensation into our probabilities. That is, we can create a new set up ""probabilities"" by adjusting the probability of good market outcomes downward and increasing the probability of bad market outcomes. This may sound crazy because these probabilities are no longer physical, but it has the desirable property that we then use this set of probabilities to price of every asset out there: all of them (equity, options, bonds, savings accounts, etc.). We call these adjusted probabilities that risk-neutral probabilities. When I say price I mean that you can multiply every outcome by its risk-neutral probability and discount at the risk-free rate to find its correct price. To be clear, we have changed the probability of the market going up and down, not our probability of a particular stock moving independent of the market. Because moves that are independent of the market do not affect prices, we don't have to adjust the probabilities of them happening in order to get risk-neutral probabilities.
Thanks for sharing, interesting piece. I find the best opportunities to buy are watching the downtrends on oversold stocks. For example, recently with Amazon's buyout of Whole Foods, groceries took a big hit. Kroger took the biggest hit of all, falling nearly 30% from its 50 day moving average of $30/share. So I bought some at 21.50 and will just sit on it for a couple months. I find put buying on the upward swings to still be risky in this market, but on the downtrend it easy to spot oversold equities that will trend back up over time because of solid fundamentals.
1) Don't trade individual stocks. You expose yourself to unnecessary risk. 2) Pick a fund with low expenses that pays a dividend. Reinvest the dividend back into the fund.  To quote Einstein: The greatest power on earth is compound interest.  Something is wrong with the software of the site. It will not allow me to answer mark with another comment. So I have to edit this answer to be able to answer him.  @mark No, I am not hoping the price will go up. The price is only relevant in comparison to the dividend. It is the dividend that is important, not the price. The price is irrelevant if you never sell. Dividend paying securities are what you buy and hold. Then you reinvest the dividend and buy more of the security. As I am buying the security with the dividend I am actually pleasantly surprised when the price goes down. When the price goes down, but the dividend remains the same, I am able to buy more shares of the security withwith that dividend. So if the price goes down, and the dividend remains the same, it is a good thing.  Again, the site will not allow me to add another comment. @mark I profit from my investment, without selling, by receiving the dividend. I used to be a speculator, trying to get ahead of the market by 'buy low, sell high' but all that did was make money for the broker. I lost as much as I gained trying to do that. The broker made money on each transaction, regardless if I did or not. It took me decades to learn the lesson that 'buy and hold' of dividend paying securities is the way to go. Don't make my mistake. I now get, at least, 5.5% yeald on my investment (look at PGF, which forms the backbone of my investments). That is almost 0.5% per month. Each month that dividend is reinvested into PGF, with no commission. You can't beat that with a stick.