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546589 | Icelandish and Irish Economies began to fail in 2008, Ireland was bailed out by the IMF and Britain, Iceland by the Germany and the IMF. Greek economy has essentially failed, and is at risk of being kicked out of the Euro currency by the Eurozone members. Spanish and Italian economies are faltering. Worst case scenario, everybody can't pay back money and keep accumulating debt, which would lead to a complete collapse of the European economy, resulting in a global economic meltdown. Germany currently are in control of al lot of countries debts (especially Ireland) which means that they will become the main players in decisions regarding the proliferation/faltering of the european economy in the future. |
546598 | "What about getting the saving account - ""Bausparen"" (~100EUR/month) which you can later use for credit to get better mortgage deal and to buy a flat for renting to others (Anlegerwohnung)?" |
546678 | While you have found a way to possibly gain $1275 in tax free income, you are also risking $1275 if you end up not using the money you contributed. You will have to find a way to have that much in medical expenses by your retirement date or you will leave some money in the Flexible Spending Account. There are risks you take with these accounts (use it or lose it) and risks the company takes (leave with a deficit in the account). Many times we get questions about how to spend all that the employee contributed before the last day of work, or the end of the plan year. You can play it more fair by selecting the maximum amount per check to be taken from your pay check, then waiting until the retirement date to decide how much you will withdraw from the FSA. Your last day of work is your last day to incur a medical expense but you are given a window to submit your claims that extends beyond your last day of work. I have not personally heard of an employer requiring a former employee to pay back the money when there is a deficit in their FSA. Remember people are fired, or laid off with little or no warning trapping their money in a FSA. The fact that you have the ability to plan for this event and considered your options, is a great position to be in. |
547036 | Credit cards are a basic building block of a stable financial plan. By using a credit card for every purchase above, say, the price of a coffee you gain a number of material benefits. You get the free use of the bank's money for about a month. You reduce the amount of cash you require to almost nothing. You get a handy budget tracking tool as many credit cards help you assign categories to expenses. You can typically download your transactions and import them into a budget app for handy record keeping. Many cards offer benefits such as extended warranties on items purchased, travel insurance, reward points and other benefits. There is only one caveat: Pay the entire balance, in full, every month, on or before the due date. Don't even THINK about paying anything less and don't EVER be late. |
547050 | It's tough to borrow fixed and invest risk free. That said, there are still some interesting investment opportunities. A 4% loan will cost you 3% or less after tax, and the DVY (Dow high yielders) is at 3.36% but at a 15% favored rate, you net 2.76% if my math is right. So for .5%, you get the fruits of the potential rise in dividends as well as any cap gains. Is this failsafe? No. But I believe that long term, say 10 years or more, the risk is minimal. |
547127 | Banks don't want to manage property. They despise the fact that they have all of these foreclosures that they can't sell. They just want to loan you the money at X% and collect the fees and interest. The value of a reverse mortgage to the lender is that it's a collateralized loan against a property. When the owner exits the property, it's attached to the property and must be paid back before the property is sold. They carefully consider the age of the recipient, equity in the property, etc. when they decide how much to pay the owner so that the chances of the loan going underwater are minimized. |
547773 | "Generally cashiers checks do not expire, since they are ""like cash"" and fully funded at the time of issue. However, whether they can be cashed after a long period of time (and also what the definition of ""long"" is) depends on the bank. Eventually, if left uncashed it probably would be escheated to the state to wait for someone to claim it. Being that it's been less than a year I expect it could be cashed by the payee written on the check without any issues. If the payee is deceased then the check can be cashed by the estate, as it should be considered the property of the estate the same way it would be if it had already been cashed and was now sitting in a bank account in your mother's name. Under normal circumstances the ""estate"" in this case would go to your mother's spouse first, then to you (and your siblings if you have any), unless there is a will specifying otherwise. The only way your aunt would be able to deposit the check on her own is if she was listed as an ""OR"" on the check, or if she is the executor of OP's mother's estate. It sounds like the second line of the check is indeed referring to your aunt, however, from your description of the check it sounds like the second line is simply a designation of what the check is for rather than an additional payee. I bet a probate attorney in your state could easily tell by simply looking at the check." |
547774 | I've worked at a bank, and even the best prop traders have low Sharpe ratios and large swings. I would advise that the average person without access to flow information does not a chance, and will end up losing eventually. |
547982 | "**Japan Has Entered The Next Phase: Unlimited Money Printing** Investors have been watching Japan for over a decade now, wondering what happens to a country that has a debt-to-GDP ratio of 234%--too big to realistically pay off. We are starting to get the answer. For review, Japan was the first country in the modern central banking era to begin a policy of quantitative easing--an unconventional form of monetary policy that is used when interest rates have already been lowered to the zero bound. Quantitative easing, which involves the purchase of ""printed"" money to buy government bonds, was widely viewed in Japan as a failure, but what most people don't understand about Japan's early QE experiments is that they were very small--less than $20 billion a month. It took Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to ramp up asset purchases significantly in what was called ""Abenomics."" Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg The results of Abenomics have been mixed, but the stock market is certainly higher and the yen is certainly lower, although it's not clear that either of those two developments have really helped. Japan's stock market is mostly foreign-owned, and the weaker yen didn't materially help the balance of trade. Still, there are a lot of people who said that Japan's endless debt deflation would have been worse without Abenomics, so it has remained firmly in place for five years. Abenomics rapidly began to cause distortions, as accelerated asset purchases caused the Bank of Japan to hold a huge percentage of outstanding government bonds, at 40% and rising, as well as being the majority holder of index ETFs. Investors who traffic in JGBs have remarked that the market now functions very poorly, since so much of the market is held by the BOJ. It seems that will get worse, not better. Last year the BOJ implemented a policy of yield curve targeting (ostensibly to help the banks), keeping the overnight rate negative but targeting a 10 year rate at zero percent. The BOJ has been buying longer-dated bonds for years, but this was the first time it ever explicitly capped a rate at longer maturities. Some people wondered how committed the BOJ would be to maintain that cap in the event that JGBs were caught up in a global duration selloff, which we experienced in the last two weeks. As 10-year JGB yields rose above 0.10% last week, the BOJ announced that it was prepared to buy an unlimited amount of bonds to keep yields close to zero percent. As you can imagine, buying an unlimited amount of 10-year JGBs involves printing a theoretically unlimited amount of yen, so the yen weakened significantly on the news. It still remains about ten percent stronger than it was in 2015. We are getting closer to the endgame for Japan. What happens if yields rise further? What happens if the yen depreciates significantly? How much could it depreciate? Could Japan have a currency crisis? What happens if the BOJ ends up owning the entire bond market? These are the questions that investors are asking, and nobody really knows the answers. We are in uncharted territory. I believe that a currency crisis isn't just possible--it's inevitable. And it probably happens at about the time that the BOJ owns all or nearly all of the JGB market, and has to resort to canceling the debt. This sounds like a neat magic trick to make the debt go away, but the laws of economics are not to be conned. Anything is possible--a currency crash, a bond market crash--anything. This is the very definition of debt monetization that resulted in hyperinflation in places like Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe. Is Japan different? We shall see. We will find out soon, as Japan has taken a major step in that direction. Jared Dillian is the author of All the Evil of This World, and the editor of the 10th Man newsletter for Mauldin Economics. Subscribe here. *Forbes articles have 8 tracking cookies and 9 tracking scripts. This comment has none.*(https://www.reddit.com/r/raws/comments/68xk37/about/)" |
548102 | WilliamKF explained it pretty well, but I want to put it in a more simplistic form: |
548291 | Wait. You started a company and contracted it with the company you currently work for? I don’t know why but for some reason this sends up a legal red flag to me. I have no idea, but maybe double check that there isn’t any violations in this arrangement... or just never tell them. |
548299 | "Can I use the foreign earned income exclusion in my situation? Only partially, since the days you spent in the US should be excluded. You'll have to prorate your exclusion limit, and only apply it to the income earned while not in the US. If not, how should I go about this to avoid being doubly taxed for 2014? The amounts you cannot exclude are taxable in the US, and you can use a portion of your Norwegian tax to offset the US tax liability. Use form 1116 for that. Form 1116 with form 2555 on the same return will require some arithmetic exercises, but there are worksheets for that in the instructions. In addition, US-Norwegian treaty may come into play, so check that out. It may help you reduce the tax liability in the US or claim credit on the US taxes in Norway. It seems that Norway has a bilateral tax treaty with the US, that, if I'm reading it correctly, seems to indicate that ""visiting researchers to universities"" (which really seems like I would qualify as) should not be taxed by either country for the duration of their stay. The relevant portion of the treaty is Article 16. Article 16(2)(b) allows you $5000 exemption for up to a year stay in the US for your salary from the Norwegian school. You will still be taxed in Norway. To claim the treaty benefit you need to attach form 8833 to your tax return, and deduct the appropriate amount on line 21 of your form 1040. However, since you're a US citizen, that article doesn't apply to you (See the ""savings clause"" in the Article 22). I didn't even give a thought to state taxes; those should only apply to income sourced from the state I lived in, right (AKA $0)? I don't know what State you were in, so hard to say, but yes - the State you were in is the one to tax you. Note that the tax treaty between Norway and the US is between Norway and the Federal government, and doesn't apply to States. So the income you earned while in the US will be taxable by the State you were at, and you'll need to file a ""non-resident"" return there (if that State has income taxes - not all do)." |
548467 | "1000 (£/$/€) is also not a lot to start with. Assuming you want to buy stocks or ETFs you will be paying fees on both ends. Even with online brokerages you are looking at 7.95 (£/$/€) a trade. That of course translates to a min of .795% x 2 = 1.59% increase in value you would need just to break even already. There is a way around some of this as a lot of the brokerages do not charge fees for their ETFs or their affiliated ones. However, I would try to hold out till at least $5000 before investing in assets such as stocks. In the meantime there are many great books out there to ""invest in knowledge""." |
549009 | "you want more information on what? The general bond market? This article is getting at something different, but the first several pages are general background info on the corporate bond market. http://home.business.utah.edu/hank.bessembinder/publications/transparencyandbondmarket.pdf If you are trying to relate somehow the issue of federal debt ( a la treasuries) to corporate debt you will find that you are jumping to a lot of conclusions. Debt is not exactly currency, only the promise of repayment at a certain date in the future. The only reason that U.S. treasuries ( and those of certain other highly rated countries ) is interchangeable is because they are both very liquid and have very low risk. There is very little similarity to this in the corporate bond market. Companies are no where near to the risk level of a government (for one they can't print their own money) and when a corporation goes bankrupt it's bondholder are usually s.o.l (recovery rates hover at around 50% of the notional debt amount). This is why investors demand a premium to hold corporate debt. Now consider even the best of companies, (take IBM ) the spread between the interest the government must pay on a treasury bond and that which IBM must pay on a similar bond is still relatively large. But beyond that you run into a liquidity issue. Currency only works because it is highly liquid. If you take the article about Greece you posted above, you can see the problem generated by lack of liquidity. People have to both have currency and be willing to accept currency for trade to occur. Corporate bond are notoriously illiquid because people are unwilling to take on the risk involved with holding the debt (there are other reasons, but I'm abstracting from them). This is the other reason treasuries can be used as ""currency"" there is always someone willing to take your treasury in trade (for the most part because there is almost zero risk involved). You would always be much more willing to hold a treasury than an equivalent IBM bond. Now take that idea down to a smaller level. Who would want to buy the bonds issued by the mom and pop down the street? Even if someone did buy them who would in turn take these bonds in trade? Practically speaking: no one would. They have no way to identify the riskiness of the bond and have no assurance that there would be anyone willing to trade for it in the future. If you read the whole post by the redditor from your first link this is precisely why government backed currency came about, and why the scenario that I think you are positing is very unlikely." |
549037 | Notify his bank. They should know where the check was cashed. Assuming it had your name and someone cashed it, they committed fraud and the bank will want to know that. But r/personalfinance is a better place to ask questions like that. |
549040 | "I know some derivative markets work like this, so maybe similar with futures. A futures contract commits two parties to a buy/sell of the underlying securities, but with a futures contract you also create leverage because generally the margin you post on your futures contract is not sufficient to pay for the collateral in the underlying contract. The person buying the future is essentially ""borrowing"" money while the person selling the future is essentially ""lending"" money. The future you enter into is generally a short term contract, so a perfectly hedged lender of funds should expect to receive something that approaches the fed funds rate in the US. Today that would be essentially nothing." |
549223 | Your annual contributions are capped at the maximum of $5500 or your taxable income (wages, salary, tips, self employment income, alimony). You pay taxes by the regular calculations on Form 1040 on your earned income. In this scenario, you earn the income, pay taxes on the amount you earn, and put money in the Roth IRA. The alternative, a Traditional IRA, up to certain income levels, allows you to put the amount you contribute on line 32 of Form 1040, which subtracts the Traditional IRA contribution amount from your Adjusted Gross Income (line 37) before tax is calculated on line 44. In this scenario, you earn the income, put the money in the Traditional IRA, reduce your taxable income, and pay taxes on the reduced amount. |
549254 | "Exposure is the amount of money that you are at risk of losing on a given position (i.e. on a UST 10 year bond), portfolio of positions, strategy (selling covered calls for example), or counterparty, usually represented as a percentage of your total assets. Interbank exposure is the exposure of banks to other banks either through owning debt or stock, or by having open positions with the other banks as counterparties. Leveraging occurs when the value of your position is more than the value of what you are trading in. One example of this is borrowing money (i.e. creating debt for yourself) to buy bonds. The amount of your own funds that you are using to pay for the position is ""leveraged"" by the debt so that you are risking more than 100% of your capital if, for example, the bond became worthless). Another example would be buying futures ""on margin"" where you only put up the margin value of the trade and not the full cost. The problem with these leveraged positions is what happens if a credit event (default etc.) happens. Since a large amount of the leverage is being ""passed on"" as banks are issuing debt to buy other banks' debt who are issuing debt to buy debt there is a risk that a single failure could cause an unravelling of these leveraged positions and, since the prices of the bonds will be falling resulting in these leveraged positions losing money, it will cause a cascade of losses and defaults. If a leveraged position becomes worth less than the amount of real (rather than borrowed or margined) money that was put up to take the position then it is almost inevitable that the firm in that position will default on the requirements for the leverage. When that firm defaults it sparks all of the firms who own that debt to go through the same problems that it did, hence the contagion." |
549272 | The money you will be bringing to the US will be classified as your own money, and will not be taxable. The proceeds from the sale are taxable to you, probably as capital gains. The fact that you kept the proceeds out of the US is irrelevant for that purpose (it is relevant for FBAR/FATCA etc). Since you had no basis in the property, all the proceeds are taxable to you at the time of the sale and should be reported on your tax return. |
549290 | I would not advise this for two reasons: Your point that the investment could be lower at the end of the 3 years is a concern, although with a safe investment, it is less so, but this reduces the potential gain. While your interest is not gaining interest, your interest charged is based on the principal. If you pay off the loans, you reduce the principal and therefore you pay less interest in the long run, even if the interest isn't capitalized. All that this means is that you are basically being charged simple interest as opposed to compounding interest, but reducing the principal helps in either case. You are mistaken about the benefits of the tax deduction. You reduce your tax bill by the marginal rate times the student loan interest you paid for the year. So if you are in the 15% tax bracket and paid $100 in interest, you save $15. This is not a reason to keep the loans (because you have to pay $100 to get $15), but you are mistaken on the benefit, it has nothing to do with shifting the tax brackets. Also, speaking of taxes, don't forget that you pay taxes on investment gains. |
549364 | "As you alluded to in your question, there is not one answer that will be true for all mutual funds. In fact, I would argue the question is not specific to mutual funds but can be applied to almost anyone who must make an investment decision: a mutual fund manager, hedge fund manager, or an individual investor. Even though money going into a company 401(k) retirement savings plan is typically automatically allocated to different funds as we have specified, this is generally not the case for other investment accounts. For example, I also have a Roth IRA in which I have some money from each paycheck direct deposited and it's up to me to decide whether to leave that money in cash or to invest it somewhere else. Every time you invest more money into a mutual fund, the fund manager has the same decision to make. There are two commonly used mutual fund figures that relate to your question: turnover rate, and cash reserves. Turnover rate measures the percent of a fund's portfolio that changes every year. For example, a turnover rate of 100% indicates that a fund replaces every asset it held at the beginning of the year with something else at the end of the year – funds with turnover rates greater than 100% average a holding period for a given asset of less than one year, and funds with turnover rates less than 100% average a holding period for a given asset of more than one year. Cash reserves simply measure the amount of money funds choose to keep as cash instead of investing in other assets. Another important distinction to make is between actively managed funds and passively managed funds. Passively managed funds are often referred to as ""index funds"" and have as their goal only to match the returns of a given index or some other benchmark. Actively managed funds on the other hand try to beat the market by exploiting so-called market inefficiencies; e.g. buying undervalued assets, selling overvalued assets, ""timing"" the market, etc. To answer your question for a specific fund, I would encourage you to look at the fund's prospectus. I take as one example of a passively managed fund the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX), a mutual fund that was created to track the S&P 500. In its prospectus, the fund states that, ""to track its target index as closely as possible, the Fund attempts to remain fully invested in stocks"". Furthermore, the prospectus states that ""the fund's daily cash balance may be invested in one or more Vanguard CMT Funds, which are very low-cost money market funds."" Therefore, we would expect both this fund's turnover rate and cash reserves to be extremely low. When we look at its portfolio composition, we see this is true – it is currently at a 4.8% turnover rate and holds 0.0% in short term reserves. Therefore, we can assume this fund is regularly purchasing shares (similar to a dollar cost averaging strategy) instead of holding on to cash and purchasing shares together at a specific time. For actively managed funds, the picture will tend to look a little different. For example, if we look at the Magellan Fund's portfolio composition, we can see it has a turnover rate of 42%, and holds around .95% in cash/short term reserves. In this case, we can safely guess that trading activity may not be as regular as a passively managed fund, as an active manager attempts to time the market. You may find mutual funds that have much higher cash reserves – perhaps 10% or even more. Granted, it is impossible to know the exact trading strategy of a mutual fund, and for good reason – if we knew for example, that a fund purchases shares every day at 2:30PM in order to realign with the S&P 500, then sellers of S&P components could up the prices at that time to exploit the mutual fund's trade strategy. Large traders are constantly trying to find ways to conceal their actual trading activity in order to avoid these exact problems. Finally, I feel obligated to note that it is important to keep in mind that trade frequency is linked to transactions costs – in general, the more frequently an investment manager (whether it be you or a mutual fund manager) executes trades, the more that manager will lose in transactions costs." |
549601 | I know of no generic formula for determining if an investment property is a good investment, besides the trivial formula. Make sure your income is greater than your expenses, and hope the value of the property doesn't drop. Some people will tell you to expect the monthly rent to be a fixed percentage of the purchase price, but that is a goal not a certainty. It is also impossible to estimate the difficulty renting the property, or how long the roof will last. Taxes can't be predicted, as the value of the house increase, so do the property taxes, but you might not be able to increase the rent. You can't even predict the quality of the tenant. Will they damage the property? Or skip out early? You will need somebody who knows the local market to estimate the local conditions, and help you determine the estimated costs and income based on the actual property involved. |
549620 | "> . A us ceo will pay more in income taxes than a 1000 factory workers. From quick google searches, average auto worker make about $35-40 an hour, meaning they pay about $20,000 a year in taxes. $20,000 * 1,000 = $20million Ford CEO reportedly gets about that in gross compensation, which he probably pays closer to the capital gains tax rate for (~20%). Though I'm not sure why you are trying to start an argument here. You said you were considering ""buying a car from a foreign manufacturer"" and I simply pointed out that the car in question was manufactured here in America." |
549665 | Why would a lender for a down payment want proof of income for a house when a credit card issuer gave me more and doesn't care? The risk profile and rate of interest are different. Could I use this argument as a basis that they have no reasoning to request proof of income, if another lender (credit card company) would give me more without proof of repayment? You could argue anything, but it does not mean the other company will agree with your argument. Should I borrow a home loan from a credit card company then? Or what's the catch here? You can. Check the rate of interest and penal fees; you would realize how much you will end up paying. Depending on the country, the difference could be in the region of 10-15%. |
549736 | This is adequately covered by the differential between lending and receiving interest rates. ...and technically, they pay the central bank an interest rate on the money lent as well, which means that they *are* paying back equity holders (all be it very slowly and very slightly). The equity holders have the ability to will money into existence, so there's no artificial limitation they face with respect to the branch banking system. |
549870 | "You are on the right track, for tax purposes its all ordinary income at the end of 2016. If the free lance ""employer"" will withhold fed,state and local tax, then that takes care of your estimated tax. If they can't or won't, you will need to make those estimates and make payments quarterly for the fed and state tax at your projected tax liability. Or, you can bump up withholding by your day job employer and cover your expected tax liability at year end without making estimated tax payments." |
549895 | Investopedia has a nice article on this here The Key benefit looks like better returns with lower capital. The disadvantage is few brokers offering that can be trusted. Potentially lower return due to margins / spreads. Higher leverage and can become an issue. |
550172 | It is in the bank's interest to sell the property for as much as they can (although it is doubtful they will put as much effort/time into selling it as the owner might). They will certainly not sell it for $1. The main reason for this is that the bank would prefer to own $100k, than a loan to them from a customer for $100k. Banks have to discount the value of loans to take into account the likelihood of the loan not being repaid. They classify certain loans as riskier than others, and these are discounted more heavily. An unsecured home loan to a customer that has already defaulted, has no collateral, and now needs to pay rent AND loan repayments would count as an extremely risky loan. |
550274 | If you've got the money to pay the bill today, do it. They are giving you a 25% discount if you do. You won't find an investment that will beat that. Let's look at the details of your scheme. Instead of paying $1696 today, you decide that you will pay $2261 over 60 months, or $37.68 per month. You also decide to invest $1696 today, and expect to get 6% return each year. Your investment gets you $102 each year, but you have to pay taxes on that. If you are in the 25% tax bracket, you only keep $76 (ignoring state taxes). In addition, the loan is costing you $452 in payments each year. At the end of the 5 years, you will have paid $2261 to the hospital, and your $1696 investment will be worth about $2123 after taxes. Instead, let's say that you paid the hospital $1696 today, and invested the $37.68 per month. At the end of 5 years, assuming the same 6% growth and 25% tax bracket, your investment will be worth $2552. In order for you to come out ahead by investing today and paying off the hospital over time, you would need to get at least a 17% growth on your investment. If you are ignoring taxes, then the number you need to hit is at least 13%. Conclusion: You will come out ahead by paying the hospital today, and investing the monthly payment plan that you avoided. (Note: Bankrate has a very handy investment calculator that makes it easy to calculate returns on a monthly investment.) Now, let's look at the ethics of the situation. Assume that you were able somehow to find an investment with a guaranteed return high enough to come out ahead with your plan. Should you do it? The hospital has provided you a service, and you owe the money. As a public service to people that cannot pay the bill, they allow people to pay off the bill over time at no interest. However, you are not one of these people. You have the money to pay. It is not ethical, in my opinion, to use the hospital's money to invest and try to profit. |
550440 | This is an excellent question; kudos for asking it. How much a person pays over spot with gold can be negotiated in person at a coin shop or in an individual transaction, though many shops will refuse to negotiate. You have to be a clever and tough negotiator to make this work and you won't have any success online. However, in researching your question, I dug for some information on one gold ETF OUNZ - which is physically backed by gold that you can redeem. It appears that you only pay the spot price if you redeem your shares for physical gold: But aren't those fees exorbitant? After all, redeeming for 50 ounces of Gold Eagles would result in a $3,000 fee on a $65,000 transaction. That's 4.6 percent! Actually, the fee simply reflects the convenience premium that gold coins command in the market. Here are the exchange fees compared with the premiums over spot charged by two major online gold retailers: Investors do pay an annual expense ratio, but the trade-off is that as an investor, you don't have to worry about a thief breaking in and stealing your gold. |
550642 | If annualized rate of return is what you are looking for, using a tool would make it a lot easier. In the post I've also explained how to use the spreadsheet. Hope this helps. |
550647 | Not only what you mentioned about the tax deductions, but cutting marketing expenses is potentially dangerous advice. Evaluating your marketing efforts and making adjustments that make sense for your business seems to be a much better bit of advice. |
550783 | I would stay away from the Actively Managed Funds. Index funds or the asset allocation funds are your best bet since they have the lowest fees. What is your risk tolerance? How old are you? I would suggest reading: |
550876 | I think a lot of highly educated people fall victim to keeping up with the joneses. Not everyone that is in their same position comes from the same background. For example, a co-worker with an MBA from Vanderbilt may have no student loan debt because his lawyer/doctor parents paid for it, while another co-worker with an MBA from University of Phoenix may be getting crushed with loan repayments. However, assuming that they both make the same salary, one will look to the other to set an example of what houses/cars/other things people in this salary range buy. Salary and social pressures sometimes outweigh financially sound decisions. |
550939 | "Most folks would loan out money for the purpose of being re-loaned. Depositing money in the bank, is loaning the bank money who will re-loan it. Buying bond based mutual funds is another way that it could be viewed that people are loaning money for the purpose of the money being re-loaned. The reason why banks always have money available for withdrawal, is because of the reserve. Fractional reserve banking in its simplest explanation, is that banks are allowed to take deposits and loan them out so long as they keep a set reserve. If the reserve rate is 10% (it's really much lower), and somebody deposits $100, then the bank is allowed to loan out $90, keeping $10 as a reserve. Now even with a reserve, a bank does run some risk of the deposits being withdrawn faster than the loans are paid back, this is called a run. What protects banks most from this, is that deposits, withdrawals, loans, and loan repayments, all happen at a fairly steady and predictable rate (short term), so banks are able to judge how many loans they should give out. Even when banks do see their reserve depleting, they have options. The first and most common, is simply getting a loan from another bank. The rule with the reserve, is that banks need to meet it at the end of the day, so banks will loan each other money overnight for the purpose of making up for the slight fluctuations that occur in a normal business day. If you have ever heard the Fed talking about the ""overnight rate"" they are talking about the rate banks loan each other money for the night. Another common way for banks to make up for a deficit in deposits, in a longer term solution,is to sell assets. Fairly rare for a bank to sell actual physical assets, but the loans they hold are assets, and they can sell them to other banks. Most banks will also hold some bonds that are available to sell. The major functions that allow a bank to be profitable would still apply to the OP's idea. The only real difference would be that commercial banks have direct access to the central banks, and the OP's idea would need to have a commercial bank to act as the middle man between the central bank." |
551040 | The latter. Simply because having some savings is always better than having no savings. Using a credit card in an emergency will always be an option (as long as you are paying off debt) but using savings earmarked for emergencies is better. |
551099 | "Welcome to Money.SE. I will say upfront, Personal Finance is just that, personal, and you are likely to get multiple, perhaps conflicting, answers. Are you sure the PMI will drop off after 2 years? The rules are specific, and for PMI, when prepayments put you at that 78/80% LTV, your bank can require an appraisal, not automatically drop it. Talk to the banks, get confirmation, and depending what they say, keep hacking away at the mortgage. After this, I suggest jumping on Roth IRAs. You are in the 15% bracket, and the Roth will let you deposit $5500 for each you and your wife. A great way to kickstart a higher level of retirement savings. After this, I'm not comfortable with the emergency savings level. If you lose your job tomorrow (Funny story, my wife and I lost our's on the same day 3 years ago) and don't have enough savings (Our retirement accounts were good to just retire that day) you can easily run out of money and be late on the mortgage. It's great to prepay the mortgage to get rid of that PMI, but once there, I'd do the Roth and then focus on savings. 6 months expenses minimum. We have a great Q&A here titled Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing in which I go in to more detail, as do 4 other members. I am not getting on the ""investments will return more than your mortgage cost"" soapbox. A well-funded emergency fund is a very conservative bit of advice. With no matched 401(k), I suggest a balance of the Roth savings and prepayments. From another great post, Ideal net worth by age X? Need comparison references you should have nearly 1 year's salary (90K) saved toward retirement. Any question on my advice, add a comment and I will edit in more details." |
551145 | None of your options seem mutually exclusive. Ordinarily nothing stops you from participating in your 401(k), opening an IRA, qualifying for your company's pension, and paying off your debts except your ability to pay for all this stuff. Moreover, you can open an IRA anywhere (scottrade, vanguard, etrade, etc.) and freely invest in vanguard mutual funds as well as those of other companies...you aren't normally locked in to the funds of your IRA provider. Consider a traditional IRA. To me your marginal tax rate of 25% doesn't seem that great. If I were in your shoes I would be more likely to contribute to a traditional IRA instead of a Roth. This will save you taxes today and you can put the extra 25% of $5,500 toward your loans. Yes, you will be taxed on that money when you retire, but I think it's likely your rate will be lower than 25%. Moreover, when you are retired you will already own a house and have paid off all your debt, hopefully. You kind of need money now. Between your current tax rate and your need for money now, I'd say a traditional makes good sense. Buy whatever funds you want. If you want a single, cheap, whole-market fund just buy VTSAX. You will need a minimum of $10K to get in, so until then you can buy the ETF version, VTI. Personally I would contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the match and anything else to an IRA (usually they have more and better investment options). If you max that out, go back to the 401(k). Your investment mix isn't that important. Recent research into target date funds puts them in a poor light. Since there isn't a good benchmark for a target date fund, the managers tend to buy whatever they feel like and it may not be what you would prefer if you were choosing. However, the fund you mention has a pretty low expense ratio and the difference between that and your own allocation to an equity index fund or a blend of equity and bond funds is small in expectation. Plus, you can change your allocation whenever you want. You are not locked in. The investment options you mention are reasonable enough that the difference between portfolios is not critical. More important is optimizing your taxes and paying off your debt in the right order. Your interest rates matter more than term does. Paying off debt with more debt will help you if the new debt has a lower interest rate and it won't if it has a higher interest rate. Normally speaking, longer term debt has a higher interest rate. For that reason shorter term debt, if you can afford it, is generally better. Be cold and calculating with your debt. Always pay off highest interest rate debt first and never pay off cheap debt with expensive debt. If the 25 year debt option is lower than all your other interest rates and will allow you to pay off higher interest rate debt faster, it's a good idea. Otherwise it most likely is not. Do not make debt decisions for psychological reasons (e.g., simplicity). Instead, always chose the option that maximizes your ultimate wealth. |
551234 | Surely some borrowers and lenders make decisions about making and taking loans based on the actual interest rates on the actual loans? In which case it doesn't matter so much if the rates are calculated based on a fictional assumption about something. At the end of the day every borrower or lender in the market makes their own decision about which lending contracts they take part in. |
551286 | The person may just want to get out of that position in order to buy a different stock, he or she feels may go up faster. There is really a lot of reasons. |
551398 | On line 21 of Schedule D, you write the smaller of So, in your case, since your Line 16 shows a loss of more than $3000 on Line 21, you write 3000 on Line 21 (the parentheses indicating that is it a negative number are already included on the form). Also, you write (3000) on Form 1040 Line 13. The rest of the loss is a carryover to next year (be sure to fill out the Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet where the carryover to next year is computed). Summary: you cannot write 0 on Line 21 of Schedule D and carry over the entire loss to next year. You must deduct $3000 this year and carry over the rest of the loss to next year. |
551423 | "In my opinion, you should pay off the student loans as soon as possible, before you start saving for the house downpayment. $26k is a big number, but you have a great salary. (Nice!) Up until now, you have been a poor college student, accustomed to a relatively low standard of living. Your $800 per month plan would have you pay off the loan in 3 years, but I would challenge you to pay off this entire student loan in 1 year or less. A monthly loan payment of $2226 will pay off your loan in 12 months. After that is done, if you take the same amount you had been paying toward your student loans and save it for your condo, in less than two years you'll have a 10% down payment saved ($50k). The whole thing will take less than three years. There are three reasons why I recommend paying off the loan first before saving for the condo: one is practical and two are philosophical. Practical: You will save money on interest. Paying off the loan in 1 year vs. 3 years will save you $1343. You won't find a short-term safe investment that will beat 5% in interest. Philosophical: The loan is something current and concrete that you can focus on. Your condo is a dream at this point, and there is lots of time to change your mind. If the $2k+ per month amount is at all a sacrifice for you, then in a few months, you might be tempted to say to yourself, ""This month I really want a vacation, so I'll just skip this month of saving."" For the loan, however, if you establish a concrete goal of 12 months to pay off the loan, it will hopefully help motivate you to allocate this money and stick to your plan. Philosophical: Getting used to borrowing money, making payments to a bank, and paying interest is not a great way to live. It is better, in my opinion, to eliminate your debt as fast as possible and start getting accustomed to saving cash for what you want. Clean up your debt, and resolve not to borrow any more money except for a reasonably-sized mortgage on your home." |
552220 | "Thanks. This is super simplified as I said. It gets much deeper when you start looking at costs of capital, country risk premiums (for projects in emerging markets), ""risk free rate of return"" (putting cash in guaranteed returns such as a us treasury note), mutually exclusive projects, etc. But the basic concept is... what is the minimum required return on a project to justify choosing to pursue it. If you borrow money via loan at 10%, your required rate of return on whatever project you invest it in has to be at least that 10%. Otherwise you're better off just not doing anything." |
552305 | I think the best advice you're going to get on the subject is: If you made $250k in half a year, you definitely have enough to hire an accountant! Get professional help on the subject, and they'll make sure you don't end up getting in any legal trouble. |
552363 | "Things don't just happen, you have to make them happen, you have to do the marketing and sales - link up with your prospective customers. And you have to have a well designed and well operating business. The key to good business management is ""do unto others as you would have them do unto you"" - ie. look at your business from your customers' perspective." |
552533 | |
552756 | This author is conflating a sole proprietorship and a one-man shop. Sole proprietorship is a tax designation as to who *owns* the business; an individual rather than a shareholder(s) or partner. I operate as a sole proprietor, and have always had between four and six employees. |
552792 | "Aside from the calculations of ""how much you save through reducing interest"", you have two different types of loan here. The house that is mortgaged is not a wasting asset. You can reasonably expect that in 2045 it will have retained its worth measured in ""houses"", against the other houses in the same neighbourhood. In money terms, it is likely to be worth more than its current value, if only because of inflation. To judge the real cost or benefit of the mortgage, you need to consider those factors. You didn't say whether the 3.625% is a fixed or variable rate, but you also need to consider how the rate might compare with inflation in the long term. If you have a fixed rate mortgage and inflation rises above 3.625% in future, you are making money from the loan in the long term, not losing what you pay in interest. On the other hand, your car is a wasting asset, and your car loans are just a way of ""paying by installments"" over the life of the car. If there are no penalties for early repayment, the obvious choice there is to pay off the highest interest rates first. You might also want to consider what happens if you need to ""get the $11,000 back"" to use for some other (unplanned, or emergency) purpose. If you pay it into your mortgage now, there is no easy way to get it back before 2045. On the other hand, if you pay down your car loans, most likely you now have a car that is worth more than the loans on it. In an emergency, you could sell the car and recover at least some of the $11,000. Of course you should keep enough cash available to cover ""normal emergencies"" without having to take this sort of action, but ""abnormal emergencies"" do sometimes happen!" |
553031 | Your question seems like you don't understand what a Roth IRA is. A Roth IRA isn't an investment, per se. It is just a type of account that receives special tax treatment. Just like a checking and savings account are different at a bank, a ROTH IRA account is just flagged as such by a brokerage. It isn't an investment type, and there aren't really different ROTH IRA accounts. You can invest in just about anything inside that account so that is what you need to evaluate. One Roth IRA account is as good as any other.As to what to invest your money in inside a ROTH, that is a huge question and off-topic per the rules against specific investing advice. |
553583 | > Greece is the homeless, one-armed drug addict with no prospects that struggles to find a few bucks to spend a night in a hostel. The size of the debt is more or less irrelevant. It's the ability to pay it that really matters. But we're talking about the debt-to-GDP ratio, not the debt as an absolute value. Which means we're quite literally structuring our comparison in terms of the nation's ability to pay it off. |
553605 | Our second to last addition was due to buying out a smaller business. We do call locally owned and small scale businesses often but they surprising have a contract set up with a different company or aren't looking to sell right away. |
553748 | "It sounds like you want a place to park some money that's reasonably safe and liquid, but can sustain light to moderate losses. Consider some bond funds or bond ETFs filled with medium-term corporate bonds. It looks like you can get 3-3.5% or so. (I'd skip the municipal bond market right now, but ""why"" is a matter for its own question). Avoid long-term bonds or CDs if you're worried about inflation; interest rates will rise and the immediate value of the bonds will fall until the final payout value matches those rates." |
553809 | Your argument with elvendude happened because your comment makes it appear that you think that if a business has less cash at the end of a year than at the beginning, the business does not need to pay taxes. elvendude is trying to show you that this isn't true. |
553817 | > “The economy, as measured by gross domestic product, can be expected to grow at an annual rate of about 3 percent over the long term, and inflation of 2 percent would push nominal GDP growth to 5 percent, Buffett said. Stocks will probably rise at about that rate and dividend payments will boost total returns to 6 percent to 7 percent, he said.” [Warren Buffett](https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Simple-Dollar/2013/0506/What-Warren-Buffett-s-stock-market-math-means-for-your-retirement) This isn't the whole picture, but it's a start. |
554018 | "Well I disagree with the economists who claim Bitcoin can't (or wouldn't) be a currency. As far as I'm concerned, Bitcoin is the best-established digital ""unit of account"", and in the event of a Dollar/Euro crisis you are likely to see some entrepreneurs figure out ways to speed its adoption. I don't own any Bitcoin now, and I wouldn't put more than 15% of my total portfolio in it, simply because it's not possible to predict if something like that would catch on. But I own a ton of silver (about 20% of which is physical and the other 80% is via Sprott's ETF). I also don't own physical gold, but I own a lot of Swiss Francs, which in my view are a good proxy for gold and a safe haven given the fact Switzerland owns so much gold-per-capita. You get the benefits of gold AND a captive, skilled tax-livestock. Soros indicated recently he thinks the Euro won't last much longer than a few months. I'm always amazed by how the elite can push things off, though. So I hold about 50% of my savings as cash USD. In the event of market turmoil (you'll know it when you see it, like 2008) you can use this to scoop up some cheap stocks and gold/silver coins. Don't beat yourself up over missing opportunities, though. The main thing is just to steer clear of government bonds and the stock market. If you do that, you're going to come out in the top 20% over the next few years." |
554140 | Sending your money off to do the heavy lifting is a way of saying that compound returns can do the bulk of your retirement investing work. Check out the image below, I swiped this from a quick google search so I cannot claim graphic credit. But as you can see the earning potential of your money as you approach retirement is many times higher than your annual contributions. With the aim of having your money earn interest/returns to pay your annual living expenses, replacing your previous annual income. https://i.stack.imgur.com/fpZPN.jpg I tried to post the image but do not have enough rep. |
554217 | "Here's what Suze Orman has to say about it: Good debt is money you borrow to purchase an asset, such as a home you can afford. History shows that home values generally rise in step with the inflation rate, so a mortgage is good debt. Student loans are, too, because they're an investment in the future. Census data pegs the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate at a million dollars below that of someone with a bachelor's degree. Bad debt is money you borrow to buy a depreciating asset or to finance a ""want"" rather than a ""need."" A car is a depreciating asset; from the day you drive it off the lot, it starts losing value. Credit card balances or a home equity line of credit that's used to pay for indulgences—vacations, shopping, spa days—is bad debt." |
554293 | "You should contact the company and the broker about the ownership. Do you remember ever selling your position? When you look back at your tax returns/1099-B forms - can you identify the sale? It should have been reported to you, and you should have reported it to the IRS. If not - then you're probably still the owner. As to K-1 - the income reported doesn't have to be distributed to you. Partnership is a pass-through entity, and cannot ""accumulate"" earnings for tax purposes, everything is deemed distributed. If, however, it is not actually distributed - you're still taxed on the income, but it is added to your basis in the partnership and you get the tax ""back"" when you sell your position. However, you pay income tax on the income based on the kind of the income, and on the sale - at capital gains rates. So the amounts added to your position will reduce your capital gains tax, but may be taxed at ordinary rates. Get a professional advice on the issue and what to do next, talk to a EA/CPA licensed in New York." |
554465 | If you want to see a more academic version of this look up Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC). It's a formula that tells you how much it costs for a company to raise $1 of capital whether it be through issuing bonds or stocks. One thing you learn is that there are times that if you take on loans (even if you don't need it) you can raise shareholder value and therefore the total company netvalue. The thought process is (as it states in the article above) that a company can issue debt for cheaper than issue shares and it will have extra cash which it can use to get a better return than its net effective interest rate. I tried to give an example but I only ended up rehashing what it says in the article. Anyhow look up WACC and you'll understand the fundamentals. |
554784 | "After much research, the answer is ""a"": recompute the tax return using the installment sales method because (1) the escrow payment was subject to ""substantial restrictions"" by virtue of the escrow being structured to pay buyer's indemnification claims and (2) the taxpayer did not correctly elect out of the installment method by reporting the entire gain including the escrow payments on the return in the year of the transaction." |
554814 | "I don't follow the numbers in your example, but the fundamental question you're asking is, ""If I can borrow money for a low cost, and if I think I can invest it and receive returns greater than that cost, should I do it?"" It doesn't matter where that money comes from, a mortgage that's bigger than it needs to be, a credit card teaser rate, or a margin line from your stock broker. The answer is ""maybe"" - depending on the certainty you have about the returns you'd receive on your investments and your tolerance for risk. Only you can answer that question for yourself. If you make less than your mortgage rates on the investments, you'll wish you hadn't! As an aside, I don't know anything about Belgian tax law, but in US tax law, your deductions can be limited to the actual value of the home. Your law may be similar and thus increase the effective mortgage interest rate." |
555101 | You need to get yourself a credit card, and use it regularly and also repay on time. This will help increase your credit score. Hope you have a regular job which is bringing in money every month, but having just this isnt enough, get a credit card. |
555124 | "Accrued interest generally means ""interest that is earned but not received"" (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/accrued-interest.html). This is the interest that is added on top of the amount that was originally agreed upon. Because your friend missed some months, she will have gained 3% interest on top of the original loan amount for every month that she didn't pay. The interest even applies to the increased loan amount, so it will increase exponentially for every month that she does not make a payment. For example, if the loan amount was for $1,000 and she missed the payment the first month, the 3% accrued interest will raise that loan amount to $1030. If she misses the second month, then the loan amount will become $1060.90 and so on. This means that it will take her more months to pay the loan in its entirety. ""Arrears"" are the overdue payments that she had not made (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arrears.asp). So the sentence ""with susbsequent payments paying the arrears before being applied to the current month's payment"" means that she must pay the overdue debt from the previous months first before she can even make the payment for the current month." |
555276 | I would ask your HR or benefits department to be certain, but here's how I read that without any specific knowledge of the situation: What is right to receive the RSU consideration? Company A was bought by Company B. You had unvested Restricted Stock Units in A, which is now gone. B is saying that you now have the right to receive consideration equivalent to the value of those RSUs in A. Since B is private, there's no publicly traded stock, so it will likely be in cash, but read the rest of the paperwork or talk to HR to be certain. For example, if you had 100 RSUs vesting next year and the price of stock in A was $50 when the company was bought, those RSUs would be worth $5,000. B is give you the right to consideration for those RSUs, hopefully for somewhere around $5,000. That consideration is unvested, meaning you must stay employed until the vesting period in order to claim that right. If you are fired without cause (i.e. laid off), you will receive those unvested claims as compensation. I assume the same will be applicable if employee leaves the company Probably not. In any situation, if you voluntarily leave a company, any unvested stock, RSUs, options, etc. are forfeited. |
555351 | Good! The article says it was some kind of collateral protection insurance that customers were signed up for despite it being unrequired for the loan. The accusations is that WF racketeered about 800,000 loans by bundling in this bunk insurance cost as part of the loan structure. I'm glad you're not caught up in it. |
555414 | You didn't identify the fund but here is the most obvious way: Some of the stocks they owned could had dividends. Therefore they would have had to pass them on to the investors. If the fund sold shares of stocks, they could have capital gains. They would have sold stocks to pay investors who sold shares. They also could have sold shares of stock to lock in gains, or to get out of positions they no longer wanted. Therefore a fund could have dividends, and capital gains, but not have an increase in value for the year. Some investors look at how tax efficient a fund is, before investing. |
555438 | In today's dollars, cost including room and board can total $20K - $60K/yr depending on the school. With college 15 years away, these numbers can double by then. And the annual savings required, adjusted accordingly. If we look at the low end, we're still at $40k/yr or $160k total, and it would be prudent to start saving $10k/yr if possible. It's easy enough to drop the number if 5 years in, you see college costs dropping or rising less quickly. |
555476 | They return capital to investors every year to keep the fund size smaller, since there are a set number of money-making opportunities in the space. In other words, if they will make $1 billion per year regardless of invested capital, why not lever up a few times so you don't have to put as much in? |
555506 | I can't provide a list, but when I took out my Stocks and Shares, I extensively researched for a good, cheap, flexible option and I went with FoolShareDealing. I've found them to be good, and their online trading system works well. I hope that's still the case. |
555559 | Yes there is an inverse relationship but that's how it's meant to work. Debt creates money. Banks do lend out customers savings for return interest as the bank can make a profit rather than the cash just sitting there. The process of Lending pumps money into the economy that wouldn't be there otherwise so it creates money. The banks will either have a cash deficit or surplus at end of each day and either need to borrow from other banks to balance their books or if in surplus lend to other banks to make interest because that's more profitable than holding the cash surplus. The overnight cash rate then determines interest rates we pay. High private debt occurs when lots of people are investing & buying things so there is stimulation and growth in the economy. A lot more tax is being paid in these periods so government debt is lower because they are getting lots of tax money. 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, the more cash available the less banks have to borrow to cover deficits on overnight cash market and the lower interest rates will be. Lower interest rates = more borrowing and higher Private debt. The government can't let growth get out of control as they don't want high inflation so they do the opposite to slow down growth, I.e buy up cash bonds and take money out of economy causing higher interest rates and less borrowing = More debt for government less for private. |
555639 | This image is an advertisement from this week's Barron's. The broker would want to put himself in the best light, correct? This shows you that of their current accounts, 53.5% are not profitable. And these guys have the best track record of the list. Also keep in mind that their client base isn't random. The winners tend to stay, so even if it were 50/50, the 50% of losers might represent many times that number of people who came to the table, lost their money and left. |
555794 | "Two things to consider: When it comes to advice, don't be ""Penny wise and Pound foolish"". It is an ongoing debate whether active management vs passive indexes are a better choice, and I am sure others can give good arguments for both sides. I look at it as you are paying for advice. If your adviser will teach you about investing and serve your interests, having his advise will probably prevent you from making some dumb mistakes. A few mistakes (such as jumping in/out of markets based on fear/speculation) can eliminate any savings in fees. However, if you feel confident that you have the resources and can make good decisions, why pay for advise you don't need? EDIT In this case, my opinion is that you don't need a complex plan at this time. The money you would spend on financial advise would not be the best use of the funds. That said, to your main question, I would delay making any long-term decisions with these funds until you know you are done with your education and on an established career path. This period of your life can be very volatile, and you may find yourself halfway through college and wanting to change majors or start a different path. Give yourself the option to do that by deferring long-term investment decisions until you have more stability. For that reason, I would avoid focusing on retirement savings. As others point out, you are limited in how much you can contribute per year. If you want to start, ROTH is your best bet, but if you put it in don't pull it out. That is a bad habit to get into. Personal finance is as much about developing habits as it is doing math... A low-turnover index fund may be appropriate, but you don't want to end up where you want to buy a house or start a business and your investment has just lost 10%... I would keep at least half in a liquid, safe account until after graduation. Any debt you incur because you tied up this money will eliminate any investment gains (if any). Good Luck! EDITED to clarify retirement savings" |
556353 | "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck This cliche is appropriate for your situation. Every aspect of this endeavor says ""scam."" It's a classic pyramid scheme with a product for sale that you don't even believe in. Too bad it's a friend that brought it to you." |
556545 | "If you're looking for ways to turn $1000 into more, don't just think of ways it can make money -- also consider whether there are any ways you can use it to save money. Among the advantages of this approach is that you're not taxed for reducing your expenditures. The good news is that there are a lot more ways to save a little bit of money on a $1000 budget than there are to make a little money on that budget. The bad news is that most of them will require some additional input: labor. Have you taken an economics course? Capital + Labor => output. I don't know what you spend your money on exactly, but some thoughts: You may find more opportunities for things like this as you move out from college and into your own apartment (/house) and the university isn't taking care of as many of your needs. Just don't confuse yourself about where the line is between actually saving money that you were going to spend anyway, and just consuming more. Consumption is fine in and of itself (and ultimately it's what you have money for) but doesn't make you financially better off. Also, when considering what to do with the money, don't just think ""I can spend $2000 on this bike and it will ultimately save me gas money"" unless you also know how to think ""I could spend $200 on a slightly lesser bike and still save all the gas money, or maybe even spend $20 on a yard sale bike."". Consider borrowing kitchen equipment from the parents, instead of buying new stuff, or buy it at a yard sale. Also, make sure you actually will use the things you buy." |
556688 | I didn't mean to imply that bankruptcy is a magical process. I was using that to clarify my use of conservative vs. aggressive. To be fair, I guess it can vary depending on your perspective. If you're taking the perspective of the debt-laden company, then yes, erring on the side of a higher value could be defined as aggressive. If you're taking the perspective of someone looking to acquire business, I would say erring on the side of a higher value is conservative. if the debt is trading at, say, $0.20 on the dollar, then yes, I can agree that the market value of the debt is likely more representative of the book value. I guess I wasn't thinking of that type of extreme example. A more common scenario I'd encounter would be a) the debt trading at maybe $0.95 on the dollar and b) taking the perspective of someone looking to invest in the equity, which is why I'd say that it's more conservative to use the higher value, which is the book value. So I'm persuaded that using market value of the debt can make sense in some cases, but I would still argue that the book value might make more sense in other cases. |
556913 | Keep in mind that it's a cliche statement used as non-controversial filler in articles, not some universal truth. When you were young, did you mom tell you to eat your vegetables because children are starving in Ethiopia? This is the personal finance article equivalent of that. Generally speaking, the statement as an air of truth about it. If you're living hand to mouth, you probably shouldn't be thinking about the stock market. If you're a typical middle class individual investor, you probably shouldn't be messing around with very speculative investments. That said, be careful about looking for some deeper meaning that just isn't there. If the secret of investment success is hidden in that statement, I have a bridge to sell you that has a great view of Brooklyn. |
557369 | http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/homes/rea08.shtm > lenders cannot: > >discourage you from applying for a mortgage or reject your application because of your race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because you receive public assistance. If the borrower is married the insurance policy is likely already in place and has been for years. |
557758 | Financial advice from good advisers sounds a good idea. Talk to two or three before taking their advice... their services and advice are surprisingly and sometimes alarmingly diverse. Gaining money from renting out property is harder than it seems and 10% sounds very ambitious after all costs. Buying abroad especially is a challenge to make money on.. You need to be lucky, and have a strong flair to do it despite all. Bear in mind santander pay 3% on current accounts by the way. Have you ever thought about living abroad somewhere stable or cheap or downsizing. A part time job or low pressure job might top up a limited pension for long enough to find a long term solution while giving you the feeling of starting retirement. Just some thoughts... think it through carefully .. weigh the risks.. be realistic and good luck. Jonjo |
557852 | My point of view is that monopolies happen because politics (whether that's politicians, trade boards, or oversight committies) allows them to occur. It's a failure of politicians in allowing it to happen, not a failure in business (as they're just pursuing their profits). When business started to interfere in politics to gain market advantages, that's when monopolies started to form. Competitive marketplaces are self-sustaining unless you create the conditions for monopolies to form. Once you legalize what price you sell a good at you're going down a slippery slope of communism. It's a free market and companies should be able to freely sell a good at whatever price they want. If other companies can't compete in the market at that price then they aren't as efficient as the other company and it would hurt the economy in the long run to have them operating at higher costs than similar companies who can do it better. I didn't say that the **only** exit for a startup is acquisition but I digress... The reality is that the tech market is dominated by large businesses who meddle in politics to maintain their position ([such as Google and Apple colluding in hiring practices](http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/). This is bad for everyone and especially for startups and needs to be redesigned so that startups and big companies alike can competitively challenge each other in the tech sectors. I think we're arguing for roughly the same thing but it seems that it's a different between equality vs equity (I might be wrong however). |
557877 | "This answer relies on why you are holding shares of a company in the first place. So let's address that: So does this mean you would like to vote with your shares on the directions the company takes? If so, your reasons for selling would be different from the next speculator who only is interested in share price volatility. Regardless of your participation in potential voting rights associated with your share ownership, a different reason to sell is based on if your fundamental reasons for investing in the company have changed. Enhancements on this topic include: Trade management, how to deal with position sizes. Buying and selling partial positions based on price action while keeping a core long term position, but this is not something ""long term investors"" generally put too much effort in. Price targets, start your long term investment with a price target in mind, derived from a future market cap based on your initial fundamental analysis of the company's prospects. And finally, there are a lot of things you can do with a profitable investment in shares." |
557885 | For reporting purposes, I would treat the purchase and sale of gold like a purchase and sale of a stock. The place to do so is Schedule D. (And if it's the wrong form, but you reported it, there is might not be a penalty, whereas there is a penalty for NOT reporting.) The long term gain would be at capital gains rates. The short term gain would be at ordinary income rates. And if you have two coins bought at two different times, you get to choose which one to report (as long as you report the OTHER one when you sell the second coin). |
557961 | "Firstly, if a stock costs $50 this second, the bid/ask would have to be 49/50. If the bid/ask were 49/51, the stock would cost $51 this second. What you're likely referring to is the last trade, not the cost. The last trading price is history and doesn't apply to future transactions. To make it simple, let's define a simple order book. Say there is a bid to buy 100 at $49, 200 at $48, 500 at $47. If you place a market order to sell 100 shares, it should all get filled at $49. If you had placed a market order to sell 200 shares instead, half should get filled at $49 and half at $48. This is, of course, assuming no one else places an order before you get yours submitted. If someone beats you to the 100 share lot, then your order could get filled at lower than what you thought you'd get. If your internet connection is slow or there is a lot of latency in the data from the exchange, then things like this could happen. Also, there are many ECNs in addition to the exchanges which may have different order books. There are also trades which, for some reason, get delayed and show up later in the ""time and sales"" window. But to answer the question of why someone would want to sell low... the only reason I could think is they desire to drive the price down." |
558057 | yes. you can take out 500,000 form your paid of house. you pay back 500,000 at 3.5. percent. you do get a tax break for not owning your house. it is less then 3.5 you are paying back the back. about one forth of that, BUT you take the 500,000 in invest. Now cd low 1 percent, stock is risky. You can do REIT, with are about 8 to 12 every year. so even at 8 - tax 1.5 is 6.5 - 3.5 bank loan. that 3 percent on your 500,000 thousand, plus tax break, but that only at 8 percent. or 500,000 and buy a apartment building, again about 7 to 10 percent, so that 2 to 3 percent profit, but the building goes up over years. |
558130 | How do (index and active) mutual funds trade? Do they buy stocks as soon as a I buy a share in the mutual fund, or do they have fixed times they trade, such as once every week/month/quarter? Is it theoretical possible for someone to front run mutual funds, if someone holds individual stocks? Let's say an institutional investor creates an order of $100m in a mutual fund, how likely can a broker, which holds a fraction of the fund's portfolio, front run and take advantage of that trade? It is more likely to front run that fund if it's an active small cap fund, but how likely is it to front run trades for index funds? |
558233 | I've been offered a package that includes 100k stock options at 5 dollars a share. They vest over 4 years at 25% a year. Does this mean that at the end of the first year, I'm supposed to pay for 25,000 shares? Wouldn't this cost me 125,000 dollars? I don't have this kind of money. At the end of the first year, you will generally have the option to pay for the shares. Yes, this means you have to use your own money. You generally dont have to buy ANY until the whole option vests, after 4 years in your case, at which point you either buy, or you are considered 'vested' (you have equity in the company without buying) or the option expires worthless, with you losing your window to buy into the company. This gives you plenty of opportunity to evaluate the company's growth prospects and viability over this time. Regarding options expiration the contract can have an arbitrarily long expiration date, like 17 years. You not having the money or not isn't a consideration in this matter. Negotiate a higher salary instead. I've told several companies that I don't want their equity despite my interest in their business model and product. YMMV. Also, options can come with tax consequences, or none at all. its not a raw deal but you need to be able to look at it objectively. |
558542 | One reason this happens is due to dividends. If the dividend amount is greater than the time value left on a call, it can make sense to exercise early to collect the dividend. Deep in the money puts also may get exercised early. There's usually little premium on a deep in the money put and the spread on the bid-ask might erase what little premium there is. If you have stock worth $5,000 but own puts on them that will give you $50,000 upon exercise (and no spread to worry about), the interest you can gain on the $50k might be more than the little to no time value left on the position... even at several weeks to expiration. |
558618 | What taxes will I have to pay to India? Income earned outside of India when your status is Non-Resident Indian, there is no tax applicable. You can repatriate the funds back to India within 7 years without any tax event. Someone else may put an answer about US taxes. |
558742 | Back of the envelope calculation: 30K limit, 5 year draw, 5 year post draw payback. Int 6% a year, 3% minimum payment. Borrow 5K at the start of the draw period, make the minimum payment for the next 5 years. At the end of 5 years still owe approximately $1123, and have paid ~775 in interest. Borrow 5K at the start of the draw period, make the minimum payment for the next 5 years but borrow the money from the line of credit. At the end of 5 years still owe approximately $6711, and have paid ~1711 in interest. The bank loves you. The balance grows instead of decreases. That growing balance become pur profit. Of course you are good for it, because you never came anywhere near the maximum limit of 30K. This is a variation of somebody tapping the line of credit to invest it, then discovering that it is hard to make enough money to make it worthwhile. Detailed scenario: |
558832 | I would say you can file your taxes on your own, but you will probably want the advice of an accountant if you need any supplies or tools for the side business that might be tax deductible. IIRC you don't have to tell your current employer for tax reasons (just check that your contract doesn't state you can't have a side job or business), but I believe you'll have to tell HMRC. At the end of the year you'll have to file a tax return and at that point in time you'll have to pay the tax on the additional earnings. These will be taxed at your highest tax rate and you might end up in a higher tax bracket, too. I'd put about 40% away for tax, that will put you on the safe side in case you end up in the high tax bracket; if not, you'll have a bit of money going spare after paying your taxes. |
558921 | Answers here are correct but I'll offer an extremely (overly) simple explanation that should help you in understanding the more detailed answers. When most people own stock they do so through a broker. Unless you jump through some hoops, the broker keeps the shares in the name of the brokerage. This is called holding the stock in street name. When you sell short through a brokerage, the broker is letting you borrow a certain number of shares owned by someone else and sell them for cash now. At some point, you need to repay this loan with the same number of shares you borrowed. Ideally, you want the stock to drop to $0. The reason you might be forced to purchase the stock is that the actual owner(s) of the stock want to sell. If the broker has too many people wanting to sell, you will need to repay some of all of the loan (in shares) i.e. purchasing shares at the current market price. |
559157 | "Bonds are priced ""very high"" because their price is compared to their yields. With the current interest rates, which are very low, the bond yields will be low. However, bond issuers still need the money, so there still will be high par value, and investors will not sell bonds at a loss unless there's a better investment (=bonds with better yields). Once the rates start going up, you'll see bonds with current rates dropping in value significantly. Once alternatives appear, people holding them will start dumping them to move the money somewhere more profitable. Similarly the stocks - since there's no other investment alternatives (yields on the bonds are low, interests are low), people invest more in the stocks. Once the rates go up, the investors will start rebalancing portfolios and cashing out." |
559168 | "So, there is no truly ""correct"" way to calculate return. Professionals will often calculate many different rates of return depending on what they wish to understand about their portfolio. However, the two most common ways of calculating multi-period return though are time-weighted return and money-weighted return. I'll leave the details to this good Investopeadia article, but the big picture is time-weighted returns help you understand how the stock performed during the period in question independent of how you invested it it. Whereas money-weighted return helps you understand how you performed investing in the stock in question. From your question, it appears both methods would be useful in combination to help you evaluate your portfolio. Both methods should be fairly easy to calculate yourself in a spread sheet, but if you are interested there are plenty of examples of both in google docs on the web." |
559198 | I think your comment sounded a lot more reasonable and aware of how it goes than the writer; and yes it does makes sense that for little investors like retailers, there is not really a point to consider it, as you said. I don't think it redeems the article at all. |
559436 | The ex-dividend date, prevents this, but people are still able to do this and this is an investment strategy. There are some illiquid and immature markets where prices don't adjust. In the options market people are able to find mispriced deep in the money calls to take advantage of the ex-dividend date. It is called dividend capture using covered calls. |
559654 | If your new employer has a Final Salary or defined benefit type pension scheme, join it. DB plans are attractive because they are often less a risk for the employee. If your employer has a defined contribution scheme and contributes to it, join it and contribute at least up to the maximum amount that they will match – otherwise you are leaving free money on the table. You also probably need to sit down with an independent adviser for what to do with your existing pension (is it a DC or DB) and if you want to have a pension outside of your employer. |
559718 | It's generally a bad idea to use low-risk credit (low-risk in sense you're practically guaranteed to be forced to pay it off) to buy high-risk shares. In optimistic scenario, the profit from shares would be higher than your credit percentages. In less optimistic scenario you come with nothing. In worse scenario you have worthless shares and another credit to pay. If your only problem is the non-profitable property, you can always sell it and get rid of negative cash flow. It won't affect your quality of life negatively. In your high-risk scenario you trade the opportunity for a bit better life with for a risk of turning it into disaster for you and your family. |
559768 | "What you are seeking is termed ""Alpha"", the mispricing in the market. Specifically, Alpha is the price error when compared to the market return and beta of the stock. Modern portfolio theory suggests that a portfolio with good Alpha will maximize profits for a given risk tolerance. The efficient market hypotheses suggests that Alpha is always zero. The EMH also suggests that taxes, human effort and information propagation delays don't exist (i.e. it is wrong). For someone who is right, the best specific answer to your question is presented Ben Graham's book ""The Intelligent Investor"" (starting on page 280). And even still, that book is better summarized by Warren Buffet (see Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders). In a great disservice to the geniuses above it can be summarized much further: closely follow the company to estimate its true earnings potential... and ignore the prices the market is quoting. ADDENDUM: And when you have earnings potential, calculate value with: NPV = sum(each income piece/(1+cost of capital)^time) Update: See http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/02/24/warren-buffett-berkshire-letter/ ""When Charlie Munger and I buy stocks..."" for these same ideas right from the horse's mouth" |
559866 | Generally speaking no person or program is really going to be able to help you lower your current tax burden, most tax decisions are done well before you reach the tax time. You either qualify for the deduction/credit or your don't. Where a good accountant will really be able to help you out is in planning that will limit your future tax burden. Particularly if you run a small business or are very wealthy you will probably want to consider using an accountant. I would always avoid the large scale tax prep places like HR Block they provide the same or lower quality service for a higher price than the software. I run a small business and do my own taxes using turbo tax, but my business isn't overly complex Sole prop, no employees, couple 1099's simple expenses (nothing to amortize) etc. |
560087 | "Assuming its in the US: No, it is not, and such things are usually treated as ""red flags"" for audit (and no, golf club memberships are not deductible either). The food expenses are not deductible in their entirety as well, only up to 50% of the actual expense, and only if it is directly business related. From what you've described, it sounds like if you have an audit coming you'll be in trouble. The purposes and activities of a club, not its name, will determine whether or not you can deduct the dues. You cannot deduct dues paid to: Country clubs, Golf and athletic clubs, Airline clubs, Hotel clubs, and Clubs operated to provide meals under circumstances generally considered to be conducive to business discussions." |
560208 | "Often in life we have to choose the lesser of evils. Whole Life as an investment vs. Term Life and invest the difference is one of these times. I assume the following statement is true. ""The commissions on whole life are sick. The selling agent gets upward of 90% of your first year's premium."" But how does that compare to investing in mutual funds (as one alternative)? Well according to Vanguard the average mutual fund keeps 60% of the total returns over the average investors lifetime. And of course income taxes (on withdrawal) consume another 30% (or more) of the dollars you withdraw (from a tax deferred retirement plan like a 401k.) http://www.fool.com/School/MutualFunds/Performance/Record.htm So you have to pick your poison and make the choice that fits your view of the future. Personally I don't believe my cost of living in retirement will be radically lower than my cost of living while working. Additionally I believe income tax rates will be higher in the future than the in the present and so deferring taxes (like a 401k) doesn't make sense to me. (In 1980 a 401k made sense when the average 401k participant was paying over 50% in federal income tax and also got a pension.) So paying 90% of my first year's premium rather than 60% of my gains over my lifetime seems acceptable. And borrowing tax free against my life insurance once retired (with no intention of paying it back) will, I believe, provide greater income than a 401k could." |